A hidden courtyard near Atsuta. The floor of the garden full of cherry blossoms is now covered with a layer of fallen cherry blossoms. This garden was used by Takechiyo (later Tokugawa Ieyasu), the sons of the Matsudaira family, who were captured in Mikawa Province, and Oda Nobunaga, where they often gathered to play. Later, after Takechiyo was sent back to the Imagawa family's Sunfu Province, it was abandoned.

In the past two days, several people suddenly lived here. In the evening, two men braved the darkness to come out of the courtyard and whispered a conversation with the guards when they pushed open the wooden door of the courtyard and walked through the courtyard full of cherry blossom petals to a wooden house.

Through the oil light emitted by the open wooden door, you can see a wolf all over his body, and a young man with a blank face is leaning on an old tatami mat in a daze.

"Congratulations, Your Highness." When the two of them entered the hut and closed the door, one of them said to the young man who was still leaning on the tatami mat in a daze.

It was only after hearing the sudden words of the comer that the young man moved, and his eyes rolled to look at the comer. The visitor didn't pay attention to the young man's rudeness, but continued to analyze: "Your Highness Kanjuro, the lord has just announced that he has pardoned your guilt. Shibata Gonrokukatsu and Hayashi Satoshi Mamoru Tsukatsu have both been forgiven by the lord, and at this time they are assisting the lord in expelling the mob that is still causing trouble in His Highness's domain. ”

"Really...... Are you sure? The haggard Oda Nobuyuki finally responded, and immediately reconfirmed.

Yes, the young man in this wooden house is none other than Oda Nobuyuki, who everyone has been looking for. The reason why he is under house arrest here is entirely because of his bad luck.

On the same day, after his own army was defeated by his own brother. Oda Nobuyuki also hurriedly ran in the direction of his home castle, Suemori Castle. Because of being in the midst of a chaotic army. He was soon separated from his many guards, and he fled like a headless fly in the direction of the city he remembered. As a result, he crashed headlong into a group of seven or eight people led by Hidetaka Kawajiri, who was chasing deserters, so Nobuyuki Oda became a prisoner of Hidetaka Kawajiri.

After Oda Nobuyuki was captured, Hidetaka Kawajiri immediately sent someone to report to Oda Nobunaga, so Oda Nobunaga temporarily ordered Oda Nobuyuki to be escorted to the current courtyard and placed under house arrest. Until tonight, Oda Nobuyuki finally got the result of his brother's disposition of him.

"Yes. Your Highness, you have been pardoned by the Lord. Get up, and we'll give you a ride. The visitor confirmed to Oda Nobuyuki again. This person is none other than Oda Nobunaga's confidant Ikeda Tsuneko. And accompanying Ikeda Tsuneko into the house was none other than Hidetaka Kawajiri, who had captured Oda Nobuyuki in the first place.

"Good, good!" At this time, Oda Nobuyuki, who was completely surprised by the news he had just received, immediately got up numbly, and then began to walk towards the wooden door of the wooden house with the help of Ikeda Hengxing. Now Oda Nobuyuki has fantasized about returning to Suemori Castle to continue his life as a castle lord.

When he was about to walk to the wooden door of the wooden house, Hidetaka Kawajiri, who was already behind Oda Nobuyuki and Ikeda Tsuneko at this time, suddenly leaned over from the rear quickly, and at the same time took out a strong straw rope from his arms and strangled it directly on Oda Nobuyuki's neck, and Oda Nobuyuki, who was suddenly attacked, immediately tried to resist. However, Ikeda Hengxing, who was originally supporting him, tightly controlled his hands and body.

Under the sudden force of Hidetaka Kawajiri behind him, Oda Nobunaga immediately felt his neck being strangled tighter and tighter. It was so tight that he could barely breathe, and in order to resist the feeling of suffocation, and to fight for a chance to breathe, he writhed all over his body, and kicked his legs on the mud floor of the wooden house. But all his efforts were in vain, and as Kawajiri Hidetaka continued to exert himself and Ikeda Tsuneko firmly controlled, his strength to resist became less and less, and finally his head twisted, his entire upper body weakened, and he died. But at this time, his appearance was very scary, I saw that his eyes were round, and he seemed to be very unwilling, and his legs were also straightened, and the mud floor under his feet was directly climbed out of two mud puddles.

"Okay, pack it up, and hurry up and send it to the place that the lord asks." After reconfirming that Nobuyuki Oda was dead, Ikeda said with a sigh. Hidetaka Kawajiri, who was also panting on the side, nodded. So the two of them found a straw mat, wrapped Oda Nobuyuki's body, blew out the oil lamp in the wooden house, and carried the body into the darkness......

The next day, a group of Oda soldiers who were searching for Oda Nobuyuki finally found Oda Nobuyuki who had hanged himself in the woods in a Oda Nobuyuki territory. With the discovery of Oda Nobuyuki's body, two rumors began to circulate in the territory of the Oda family, one is that Oda Nobuyuki hanged himself in fear of sin, and the poor fellow, even before the temporary time, because he had no knives on his body, he could not even commit suicide with the most dignified seppuku of the samurai, so he had to hang himself; Another rumor is that the killers of Oda Nobuyuki were the Ichijo mobs who had just been expelled from the Oda family's territory, because at the scene where Oda Nobuyuki's body was found, a torn rag of monk's robe was also found.

The governor of the Oda family, Oda Nobunaga, was very angry about this, and he directly announced to the public that the Oda family would fight to the death with the Isekuni Temple. The death of Oda Nobuyuki had a great impact on the Oda family, and the retainers of the Oda family became more loyal to Oda Nobunaga from then on, and even Hayashi Sado Mamoru Tsukatsu, Shibata Gonrokukatsu and others who had participated in the rebellion before also seemed obedient.

Among so many people, only Oda Nobuyuki's mother Tsuchida Gozen is the saddest, although Oda Nobunaga and Oda Nobuyuki are her biological sons, but she has obviously always favored the second son Oda Nobuyuki, and even once supported the second son to inherit the position of family governor. Now watching his beloved son suddenly die inexplicably, it is naturally sad. In addition to being sad, she also personally pleaded with Oda Nobunaga, hoping that Oda Nobunaga would treat Oda Nobuyuki's family and son well.

In this regard, Oda Nobunaga naturally agreed, but he made it clear that because Oda Nobuyuki conspired to rebel, his descendants would no longer be allowed to use the word "Oda" Miao, and since then Tsuda has been used as the Miao character. At the same time, his younger brother's son was handed over to Shibata Quan Rokukatsu to raise. Since then, a civil strife in the Oda family has ended.

When the news reached the ears of Yoshimoto Imagawa, who was in Suruga. Imagawa Yoshimoto sneered and sighed: "What a cunning little guy! ”

Yes. Just from these scattered information about the civil strife in the Oda family. The vicious-eyed Imagawa Yoshimoto knew that Oda Nobuyuki's death must be a secret, and even Imagawa Yoshimoto could already be sure that Oda Nobuyuki's death was inseparable from his brother Oda Nobunaga. Why did Imagawa Yoshimoto make such an inference? Actually, you just need to think about it for a while, and you understand.

At this time, there were also hostile forces such as the Iwakura Oda family in Kamishikoku, and externally, there was its own Imagawa family in the east, Ichimune and Kitabatake in the west of Ise Province, and the Saito family in Mino Province in the north. If the internal strength of the director is weakened, it is likely to be invaded by various hostile forces, so Oda Nobunaga, as the governor of the family, naturally preserves the strength of the family as much as possible. And the killing of Oda Nobuyuki this time naturally preserved the retainers and military strength of the Oda family very well, and the family took the opportunity to unite the strength of the family. Owari Fool did a great job this time.

In fact, Imagawa Yoshimoto was not wrong at all. Historically, during the Oda family civil strife, Oda Nobunaga did pardon the crimes of Oda Nobuyuki and others while the enemy was looking around (Oda Nobuyuki fled back to Suemori Castle at that time). But the following year, Oda Nobuyuki still had plans to rebel. As a result, he was denounced by Shibata Katsuie, so Oda Nobunaga used the excuse of illness. lured Oda Nobuyuki to visit the patient, and then killed Oda Nobuyuki. Only then, while ensuring that the strength of his own retainers was not damaged, he completely quelled the rebellion in his family and began to unify the internal strength of the Oda family. Of course, Oda Nobunaga is also a person who must be repaid, this time in order to preserve the strength of the family, Oda Nobunaga gritted his teeth and endured it, but after the development and expansion of the Oda family in the future, Oda Nobunaga found an excuse to exile Lin Xiuzhen's family.

As for this time, since Oda Nobuyuki was inadvertently captured, Oda Nobunaga did not need to worry about attacking Oda Nobuyuki hiding in the castle and triggering a family rebellion that lasted longer and longer, as he did in history. Moreover, this time Oda Nobuyuki violated Oda Nobunaga's taboo, which brought foreign enemies into the family's internal strife. Oda Nobunaga was willing to decide the position of governor of the family by fighting his younger brother Oda Nobuyuki with his strength, but he would never allow the intervention of foreign enemies, which would bring disaster to the Oda family. So, after some consideration, Oda Nobunaga decided to secretly kill his younger brother Oda Nobuyuki and blame the foreign enemy. What I didn't expect was that Oda Nobunaga's qiē arrangement was seen by Imagawa Yoshimoto at this time.

"I wish I could fight this big fool right away!" Seeing that even the Oda family in Owari is starting to get stronger, Imagawa Yoshimoto is really starting to get a little anxious. With the strengthening of the Oda family, it will naturally affect the Imagawa family's Joraku (Owari Province is located to the west of the Imagawa family's control, and it is the only way for Imagawa Yoshimoto to go to Rakuro from land). As for some of the expressions of the daimyo from all over the country, it made him even more anxious.

In March of this year, Miyoshi Chokei captured the two castles of Akashi and Sanshu in Harima, so far, the power of the local Hosokawa Jingzhao family has been almost uprooted, and since this time, the Miyoshi family has obviously accelerated the pace of annexing the Hosokawa family's forces, as long as the Miyoshi family completely annexes the Miyoshi family, and then suppresses the Hatakeyama family in Hanoi (the Hatakeyama family in Hanoi in history, stunned to drag down the Miyoshi family who has mastered several countries), then the Gyeonggi region is completely controlled by the Miyoshi family, which proves that the Miyoshi family Shangluo succeeded; Echigo's Nagao Keitora and Kai's Takeda Harunobu fought again on Kawanakajima, not only showing Echigo's power to be reckoned with, but even threatening to take advantage of the situation to attack Kanto, the territory of the Hojo clan's Yasu. These events have attracted the attention of the Imagawa clan, but a shocking news that followed, so that he directly missed and broke the Ming tea bowl that he had always loved very much, that is: Kyushu's Luo clan Zhengliang has destroyed Tao Qingxian, defeated Maori Motoshi, and occupied Nagato, Zhou Fang, which originally belonged to the Ouchi family, and even occupied the Maori family's An Yi, such strength, it is natural to become a well-deserved new overlord of the Western Kingdom, and it is even rumored that Luo Shizheng intends to enter Beijing in the near future. Imagawa Yoshimoto, who is about to enter the year of undoubtedness, must act quickly.

The heroes are all vying to enter Beijing. Hojo, Nagao, Takeda, Miyoshi, Roche...... Now that they are all standing at the starting point of entering Beijing, the next step is to see who can reach the end first. If he could not bring the Oda family under his command diplomatically, he would have to destroy them, or he would lose the opportunity to enter the capital.

And Shangluo, one person will also play a great role. Thinking of this, the figure of a young man named Jiro Saburo came to Imagawa Yoshimoto's mind. (To be continued......)