The tenth day of October in the seventeenth year of astronomy.

This day is a big day for Dazaifu in Chikuzen Province, as a significant tea party will be held here today.

As soon as the maid A-Ning got up, she opened the window and looked at the sky outside. A day ago, she and a few maids were temporarily placed in this somewhat dilapidated Dazaifu. Although she and several sisters didn't know why she was arranged to come here, from the way everyone was busy preparing in the past two days, she knew that there must be a big man coming here. Later, she inquired from a few young novices who had also been temporarily transferred here that there would be a tea party here.

When A-Ning saw Master Chan Rong presiding over this conference, he was immediately convinced. Master Chan Rong is the most famous monk in the vicinity, and has been admired by many adults for his superb tea art and virtue.

Master Chan Rong's "As long as you have a heart for the tea ceremony, no matter the merchant or the people, you can bring a container, a kettle pot, and a rough embryo pot is fine." Sweep the seat and wait for the driver. If you still don't want to come, you will be treated with a rough embryo pot in the future, and it will be useless and ......" This sentence, even A-Ning, who is a maid, has heard rumors.

When everything was ready for the tea party, it was already noon. As one of the services of today's tea party, Anin saw several nearby temples and even several monks from temples in the Hakata area arrive at the tea party. But these monks seemed to be waiting for some big man, and when they arrived at Dazaifu, they all waited quietly after only a little salute.

"Here, pay attention." While waiting, a small novice hurriedly walked in from outside and whispered a reminder. A-Ning and the others hurriedly knelt on the ground.

The person who came was Masahiro and others.

After personally leading the army to monitor the Autumn Moon Bungen, he led his command to leave Yesu Castle through the ancient mountain castle. On the one hand, Masaro ordered Kamiya Susei to send the Akizuki family to follow Akizuki to the eastern region of Chikuzen Province (in fact, according to the previous agreement. In disguise, he became a hostage to ensure the safe relocation of the Akizuki family's clansmen from the western part of Chikuzen Province). On the other hand, Masara left Kinoshita Masanao to lead part of the army to monitor the evacuation of the remaining members of the Akizuki family and gradually take over Yosu-gun.

After settling these matters, Masarashi led his army to Yamana Castle to join Yoshida Shigemasa and others, who were resting there and taking over Chikugo Province's Mihara Prefecture. After a short pause, he led the army non-stop to Shibata Castle, the home city of the Tsukushi family.

As for the last letter that Tsukushi Yumen entrusted to the samurai of his family to hand to Masarashi before his death, Masarashi has already read it. After watching it, Zhengliang couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. At the beginning, the enemies that the Luo family faced when they rose to Hizen were Chikushi Weimen and Ryuzoji Takanobu, and now Chikushi Weimen has committed suicide. And Ryuzoji Takanobu has also disappeared. In less than ten years, these generations of wealthy families have disappeared into the tide of history. Zhengliang couldn't help but feel a sense of crisis, just like these families, as long as they were not careful, the Luo family was likely to follow in the footsteps of these families. This also alerted Zhengliang not to be complacent about the achievements of the Luo family.

After arriving at Shibata Castle, Masarashi did not immediately order the siege of the castle, but let the samurai, who had been guarding the head of the Tsukushi Method, enter the castle with the last letter of the Tsukushi Gate and the head. Masayo decided to give the people in the city a chance to choose, whether to die or live, and it was up to them to choose.

Luckily. The retainers of the Tsukushi family in the city finally wisely chose Kaejo to surrender when faced with the army of the Luo family, which was more than 10,000 people outside the city. So the soldiers of the Luo family took over Shibata Castle without succession.

For the Tsukushi clan, Masarashi also abided by the agreement in Tsukushi's last words about the voluntary surrender of his clansmen. They were not slaughtered, but relocated from the area. They will be dispersed and relocated to various parts of the Hizen, Higo, and Chikugo countries. Since then, although the Tsukushi clan has retained its bloodline, it is almost equivalent to extinction.

After leaving Akaxue Morikiyo and the others in charge of taking over the territory of the Tsukushi clan from the Cabinet of Internal Affairs, the next day, Masarashi officially set off to attend the tea party in Dazaifu.

It was Master Chan Rong who invited Zhengliang to participate in this tea party. For Master Chan Rong, Zhengliang can be said to be extremely familiar. When the Luo family was just rising and went to Hakata for the first time to seek funds to develop the family, the place where Masara and others settled was the Shofukuji Temple presided over by Master Zenei. Later, with the help of Master Zenei, Masaro was able to escape from the Harada family's siege and return to his own territory safely.

A few days ago, Masara, who was resting in the castle of Toyozen Province, suddenly received a letter from two masters, Genji and Saki Kuagawa, who were in Hizen Province. It turned out that Master Zenei officially invited Masarashi to Dazaifu for a tea party through these two people. And he also directly stated that the participants in this conference were all monks from temples in the Hakata area.

As one of the many temples in the Hakata region that cannot be underestimated, after learning through their own intelligence network that the Luo family had defeated the combined forces of Otomo and Ouchi, and had taken advantage of the victory to enter Chikuzen Province, they decisively chose to take the initiative to contact the Luo family. In fact, it also proved the foresight of these monks, just when they were preparing for this tea party, the Luo family had completely occupied Chikugo Province, and suppressed the Qiuyue family to force the Chikushi family to surrender, and the army was directly aimed at the Dazaifu area controlled by them. After learning that Masato was in Shibata Castle, these monks hurriedly asked Master Chan Rong to come forward and set the date of the tea party today.

Shibata Castle (later known as the Tsukushino City area), where the Tsukushi clan was located, was actually less than a mile away from the Dazaifu area, and under the escort of a large army, Masarashi quickly approached his destination.

Half a mile from Dazaifu, Masarashi left most of his entourage behind and continued with a force of only two hundred men. According to the agreement, both sides could only bring 200 people into the area within half a mile of Dazaifu. In order to ensure the safety of Masahiro, on the day he received the invitation of Master Chan Rong, a large number of black eagles and detectives entered the local area. And Masarashi also set off here after several groups of black hawks were sure that there was no danger near Dazaifu.

Approaching Dazaifu, I saw a plum forest growing luxuriantly. And the buildings of Dazaifu are hidden in this plum forest. Along the way, you can see many buildings that have gradually become dilapidated.

Dazaifu was established in 663 A.D. as the military and administrative center of Kyushu at that time, and was the department that governed the Kyushu region, and was responsible for all government affairs in Kyushu, including defense and foreign affairs. The prince is appointed as an honorary commander, and the eldest is the substantive chief. Since the right minister Sugawara Michizane, the Dazaifu Marshal has been the post of exile and left transfer as a minister. Chikuzen guards the Muto clan since Kamakura, and has been working with the Shoji clan for generations to serve as Dazai Shoji. Unfortunately, with the decline of the imperial court and the shogunate, and the rise of the Hakata region's economy, Dazaifu was now in vain, and eventually lost its position as the economic and political center of Kyushu, and is now occupied by the power of local temples, and has become a place where temples are enshrined. Although Yoshitaka Ouchi, who had just become the guardian of Chikuzen Province, applied to the Imperial Court for the official position of Dazai Daiji in order to justifiably dominate the Kitakyushu region, he did not want to compete with the local temples, so he never actually occupied the place.

At this time, Master Zenei and others had already set up a tea ceremony in a pavilion in Dazaifu. Accompanied by Master Chan Rong, Masashi greeted the monks of the temple who greeted him one by one, and then walked into the tea ceremony surrounded by reed mats.

Then the tea party officially began, and the tea party was suddenly full of pots and kettles colliding, as if everyone was showing off their proud famous utensils, and these monks actually took out their own tea vessels at the bottom of the box. And Masayo, as the lord of the three kingdoms of Hizen, Higo, and Chikugo, naturally couldn't be rude, so he also took out the only tea vessel that he could hold at home for the time being.

The tea party at this time was not the tea party when drinking tea in the teahouse in later generations, but had a certain process and rules. Therefore, throughout the tea party, everyone discussed the topic of tea. For this topic, Masahiro from later generations will naturally not be too bad, so he was originally the protagonist of this tea party, and he suddenly won the favor of many tea ceremony lovers.

In fact, Masato also knows very well that as long as Masara is willing to come this time, it will be enough goodwill to release the power of these temples. In Master Chan Rong's previous letter to Masahiro, Master Chan Rong also clearly told Masato that the temples in the Hakata area were willing to make friends with the Luo family, and were even willing to assist the Luo family in the Hakata area. And in return, these temples also hope that the Luo family can give appropriate concessions, after all, they have more or less heard of the temple system in the Luo family's territory. The policy of confiscating the fields of the temples alone touched the fundamental interests of these temples, and with the Luo family's unstoppable entry into the western part of Chikuzen Province, they were naturally worried about the Luo family's next temple policy. And this is also the place where the two sides will directly confront each other after the tea party.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, the tea ceremony ended. At this time, a light rain began to fall in the sky.

Looking at the rain drifting in the breeze outside the pavilion, Master Chan Rong, as the host, smiled and said to Zhengliang:

"Lord Dazai, Shoji, is really related to the wind and rain!"

Master Chan Rong's sentence is a joke on the surface, but it expresses two meanings. The first is to take the opportunity to touch on the incident of Masayo's escape from Hakata with his assistance, after all, it was also a stormy day at that time. Secondly, he also secretly recognized the official position of Masara Dazai Shaoji.

Zheng Conscience also smiled slightly after hearing this. It's really a stormy day. (To be continued......)