In late March of the 21st year of Astronomical (1552), during the busy season of spring planting, heavy rains fell in Kitakyushu and the western part of the country, and hail even fell in some areas.

The army of the Luo family, who had originally planned to enter the southeastern region of Bunzen Province in one go, had to be temporarily stationed at the junction of Tsukijo-gun and Kamimo-gun of Bunzen Province. Be prepared to wait for this special weather to pass before moving forward.

But what the Luo family didn't expect was that due to the continuous heavy rain, a huge natural disaster occurred in the Luo family's territory. The root cause of the disaster was Mt. Goxu, which separated Chikuzen Province from the north-central part of Bunzen Province.

Last year's fire on Mt. Goxu lasted from September to the end of the year, burning continuously for more than three months before finally being extinguished during a spring rain at the beginning of this year. It's just that a large amount of vegetation in the mountains has been burned down, and new saplings don't have time to grow again in a short period of time. As a result, during this continuous rainstorm, a large torrent of flash floods and mudslides were formed in the mountains of Goxu. These flash floods and mudslides continue to flow down the terrain. As a result, the three counties of Enga, Kurade, and Kama in Chikuzen Province, which is located in the west of Goxu Mountain, and the three counties of Toyozen Kunidagawa, Kireo, and Kyoto, which are located in the east of Goxu Mountain, were damaged to varying degrees. A large number of fields and villages were inundated by floods and mudslides.

To make matters worse, as the precipitation continued, the water levels of the Chikugo River and the Oka River in the Luo family's territory began to skyrocket. Although the Chikugo River is unlikely to flood due to previous water conservancy construction, rivers such as the Enga River in the newly occupied territories of Chikuzen and Bunzen provinces have not yet had time for water conservancy construction. As a result, Chikuzen Province and Bunzen Province instantly became the areas most affected by natural disasters in the Luo family's territory.

In such weather. Not only could the military operation not be continued. It is even necessary to quickly devote itself to the rescue of the affected areas. Otherwise, this year's autumn harvest in these areas will definitely be greatly affected, and the food and other materials that the Luo family has managed to accumulate in the past two years will have to consume a lot.

In the midst of the intense disaster relief, the time soon came to May, and the disaster was finally greatly prevented. But just when the Roche family was just taking a breath, the typhoon season came again. This year's typhoon was particularly violent, affecting not only the whole of Kyushu, but also all parts of Wakoku to varying degrees. As a result, in such weather, most of the wealthy daimyo in various places stopped fighting each other. We are starting to deal with the impact of a typhoon.

September, autumn harvest season. Masayo, who had finally taken a break from months of dealing with natural disasters, received news that made him hesitate.

It turned out that there was a famine in the Nagato and Zhou defense areas this year.

The cause of the famine was both natural and man-made. Needless to say, natural disasters naturally need to be said, even the Luo family, which has always attached importance to internal affairs, has been exhausted by the special weather that has arrived continuously this year, not to mention the local wealthy families of Nagato and Zhou Fangguo who do not attach great importance to internal affairs?

The man-made disaster was due to the rebellion of Tao Longfang last year, and the chaos caused in Nagato Province and Zhou Fang Province after the killing of Ouchi Yoshitaka lasted until May and June this year, causing spring planting in many places in the region to be delayed.

In addition, Yoshimi Masari, the wealthy family of Iwami Province, invaded Nagato Province from the end of last year to the beginning of this year under the banner of avenging his brother-in-law Yoshitaka Ouchi. For this reason, Tao Longfang had no choice but to wave his army to meet the battle. Since the western and northern parts of Nagato Province were mountainous terrain, it was too cumbersome to transport grain, so Tao Longfang simply increased the grain tax to the local people. This move, as well as the successive battles with the Yoshimi family, also greatly affected the local internal affairs of Nagato and Zhou Fangguo. The consequences finally broke out after this year's autumn harvest. A large number of people were starved of famine due to lack of food.

In history, the great famine between the Nagato Kingdom and the Zhou Defense Kingdom did occur. It's just that Masahiro has always thought that this famine was caused by man-made disasters, and now he understands that the influence of natural disasters is also indispensable. With such civil strife between the Nagato Kingdom and the Zhou Defense Kingdom, it was a good time for the Luo family to take the opportunity to invade the local area. But Zhengliang also hesitated because of this.

For a long time, among the goals set by Masahiro, completely taking down the Fengqian Kingdom and the Fenggo Kingdom is the first goal that the Luo family will achieve in the future. Other goals can be put on hold.

Now, if the Luo family sends troops to the Nagato Kingdom and the Zhou Defense Kingdom, then after being plagued by such a natural disaster this year, the strategic materials stored in the Luo family's warehouse are not allowed to carry out the strategy in multiple directions at the same time, the Luo family is likely to suspend the strategy of the eastern region of the Bunzen Kingdom and the northeastern part of the Bungo Kingdom controlled by the Otomo family.

Just when Zhengliang was hesitant about this, Tao Longfang of Zhou Fang sent a messenger to Zhengliang. Tao Longfang actually planned to use the land of Fengpu County in the Nagato Kingdom, plus 3,000 people, in exchange for the support of the Luo family's 40,000 stone of grain and an alliance with the Luo family.

Seeing Tao Longfang's conditions, Zhengliang first scolded Tao Longfang's shamelessness. Toyoura-gun in Nagato Province was actually controlled by the Naito family in the southern part of the border with the Luo family. The Taulung House now controls only the western and northern parts of the county, which are mainly forested. Literally, it is said that the county was ceded to the Luo family, but in fact, Tao Longfang only lost the barren western and northern regions, and the southern areas where the land was relatively more flat and fertile still had to be fought for by the Luo family themselves.

But Masato then felt strange again. Looking at this situation, it seems that the Naito family, who has always worn the same pants as the Tao family, fell out with the Tao family. You must know that since Tao Longfang said that he would cede Toyoura-gun to the Luo family, this naturally includes the Naito family's lair, the southern area of Toyoura-gun. In other words, if the Luo family is out of battle in the area, Tao Longfang will not go out to support the Naito family. Tao Longfang is borrowing a knife to kill people again! But why did Tao Longfang borrow a knife to kill people?

Zhengliang also knew that Tao Longfang was in a difficult situation at home and abroad at this time.

Since last year, he negotiated peace with the Luo family and took Ouchi Yoshicho back to the Zhou Fang family. Ouchi Yoshicho (at this time, he was actually called Ouchi Qingying) became the governor of the house under the protection of Tao Longfang, and even Tao Longfang received the word "Qing" from Ouchi Qingying's name and changed his name to Tao Qingxian. But as an outsider, Ouchi Haruying can't reach the wealthy people of the Ouchi family in Zhou Fangguo and Nagato Province at all, and there is still turmoil in various places.

Later, there were rumors that Tao Qingxian and the Luo family had secretly colluded to assassinate the Toyozen guardian Daisugi family. It made Tao Qingxian even more disappointing. It made the family panic and tear apart. And at this time, Naito Kotaka (also known as Naito Takatoki), who happened to be one of Tao Qingxian's irons, suddenly died.

In fact, Naito Xinglong has always been frail and sick (it is estimated that his father Naito Xingsheng planned to let him marry the young and beautiful Aso Nozomi, in addition to strengthening the connection with the Aso family, there is also a plan to rush), in history he actually died earlier than his father Naito Xingsheng. So Naito Xingsheng, who was still alive at the time, after the death of his sister-in-law Naito Xingtaka, set up his grandson Naito Takashi (that is, Naito Xingtaka's son-in-law) as the governor of the Naito family.

Unfortunately, due to the emergence of the Luo family, Naito Xingsheng died several years earlier than recorded in history, and Naito Xinglong, who has only succeeded the family governor for two or three years, died suddenly, and even the heir to the position of family governor was not designated. Although Naito Takayo, Naito's sister-in-law, was traditionally supposed to inherit the family governor, Naito Takayo's uncle Naito Takaharu (Naito Xingsheng's fifth son, Naito Kotaka's own brother) who was very powerful in the family at this time, had the idea of inheriting the family governor. So Takayo Naito and Takaharu Naito had a quarrel.

But both Takayo Naito and Takaharu Naito, after the rumors about Tao Longfang's collusion with the Luo family came out, they were extremely wary of Tao Longfang. There is even the idea of breaking away from the control of Tao Longfang and then dominating the Nagato country. (The emergence of the Luo family greatly changed the history of the Naito family.) In history, because of the help of his still living grandfather Naito Xingsheng, Naito Takayo will smoothly inherit the position of family governor, and even be a hardcore ally of Tao Longfang, and now Naito Takashi not only has to compete with his uncle for the position of family governor, but also has a great conflict with Tao Longfang. ）

After learning that Takayo Naito and Takaharu Naito both planned to be independent through the small writer who was lurking in the Naito family (the fine work was an important minister of the Naito family), Tao Longfang simply decided to take advantage of the discord of the Naito family to do something without stopping, since he had already killed Sugi Shige with the help of the Luo family's knife, then now he simply killed the Naito family, and he could take the opportunity to annex the Naito family's territory in Nagato country.

But now there is still turmoil in various parts of Zhou Fangguo and Nagato Country, and Yoshimi Masayori of Iwami Country comes to Tao Longfang from time to time to fight (Yoshimi family and Tao family have a blood feud, since the beginning of the Onin Rebellion, the two families have been fighting endlessly, and it can be regarded as a battle for decades. During the reign of Yoshitaka Ouchi, in order to win over the Yoshimi family, he married his sister to Yoshimi Masayori, the governor of the Yoshimi family. Yoshimi Masalai is an honest and honest person, after becoming the brother-in-law of Ouchi Yoshitaka, he has always been loyal to the Ouchi family, and now his brother-in-law Ouchi Yoshitaka was killed by the rebellious minister and thief Tao Longfang, coupled with the feud with the Tao family, raising the banner of revenge for Ouchi Yoshitaka, it is naturally incumbent), so that Tao Longfang has no time to divide more forces to deal with the Naito family. So Tao Longfang thought of the Luo family again.

Tao Longfang's idea was very simple, with the help of the Luo family's hand to remove the Naito family, and then cede the Naito family's control of Toyoura County to the Luo family, and he himself was the power to annex the Naito family's other counties in Nagato Province. (To be continued......)