Astronomy 23 (1554), February. The cold winter is about to leave, and the rare sun is finally coming out today.

As if tempted by the warm sunshine, Masara also walked to the courtyard of the mansion of the city lord of Luming Yuecheng.

"I want to take a walk in the yard, you don't have to come along." Masarashi left the guards with swords behind him in front of the porch, and alone he crawled through the budding plum bushes to a sunny place to the south.

Since the end of last year, the Luo family has made great progress in the strategy of the northeastern part of Bungo Province and the southeastern part of Bunzen Province.

On the side of Toyozen Province, the First Route Army, where Kansuke Yamamoto and Shigemasa Yoshida were located, used cooking directly in front of Hachiya Castle in Yamada's house in Kamimo County as bait, completely shaking the determination of the defenders of Hachiya Castle to defend the castle. Most of the defenders of the castle were local refugees who had been temporarily recruited by the Yamada family, and although they had survived the famine by receiving a little food from the Yamada family. However, the food that the Yamada family was able to provide was so limited that it was impossible to ensure that the entire family of these displaced people would be able to feed their families. Now the army of the Luo family is not only eating in a big food field outside the city, but even shouting for them to surrender, claiming that the Luo family will give their family enough food to survive this winter.

Although the displaced people defending the city did not surrender because of this, they deliberately avoided the battle when they attacked the city with the Luo family's all-out strength, and even when the Luo family had an advantage, they directly rebelled and joined the ranks of the Luo family's army. As a result, the Battle of Hachiya Castle, which had been fiercely fought for more than a month, finally ended with the deepening of winter. Not only did they capture Hachiya Castle. Moreover, the First Route Army, which temporarily recruited more than 2,000 temporary peasant soldiers. Immediately, a large army was dispatched to surround Yamada Castle, the home of the Yamada family. On the one hand, a part of the army began to march towards Tatorizaki Castle in the neighboring Shimo-gun.

Soon after, the Third Route Army, which had also recruited more than 3,000 displaced people as temporary peasant soldiers through food relief, also sent a part of its troops to the outside of Tatorizaki Castle.

The Third Route Army was the first to launch an offensive against the Bunzen Kingdom, and after taking the Nonaka family's Ichinoto Castle, Kinoshita Masanao and others immediately took control of the thousands of displaced people concentrated in the area on the condition of food relief. Then the third army divided into two routes, one way surrounded Changyan Castle, the home city of the Ye Zhong family, and the other way launched a fierce attack on Bai Mi City, another city of the Ye Zhong family. After several rounds of fierce fighting. The Third Route Army finally took Baimi City, and the general who defended Baimi City, Notori Kaneyuki, and others also died in the fierce battle. Immediately, this part of the army pointed the spearhead at the nearby Tatorizaki Castle.

As the main general of the castle defense of Tatorizaki Castle, Akao Kenzhong was immediately frightened into retreating in the city when facing the army of the Luo family on the two roads. Later, he received the news that the main city of his family, Dragon King City, was captured by the Luo family, and the family governor Anxin Yuan was killed fairly. So he carried out the strategy of shrinking and defending the city to the end.

At this time, after successively conquering Dragon King Castle, Aoyama Castle and Sunrise Castle, the Second Road and Fourth Route armies were divided into two, and the Second Route Army where Murakami was located was responsible for staying behind Sunrise Castle, and cooperating with Oishi Tomohisa's Fifth Route Army on the other side to continue to exert pressure on Otomo's Jiaowei Castle in the east. And the Fourth Route Army, where Kakukuma Ishizong and Akuda were located, was killing all the way to Shizhi Castle along Aoyama Castle and Myoki Yue Castle.

It was also in line with the bad luck of Tokieda Takashi at that time, and after receiving a request for help from the neighboring Bunzen Kuni Otomo's family, he was lured by the food provided by the Otomo family. Tokieda Takashi actually led a part of the defenders of Tokieda Castle to prepare to support the Otomo family's Jiaowei Castle. As a result, when I was halfway through the march, I received the news that the Dragon King Castle had been captured. The frightened Shizhi Takashi immediately led the army back and back.

As a result, due to the rapid march in the mountain road, he was unprepared. was assassinated by Kato Duanzo and others. Since the last failed assassination of Otomo Yoshijin, Kanzo Kato and others have been hiding in the nearby mountains and forests, waiting for new assassination opportunities. It's a pity that Otomo Yoshijin is indeed well prepared, so that Kato Duanzo and others have never been able to find a new opportunity to assassinate. At this moment, Shizhi Takashi appeared. After learning the relevant information about Tokieda Takarei, Kato Duanzo immediately launched an assassination operation against Tokieda Takarei. After a sudden fierce battle, poor Tokieda Takarei was shot by a Black Hawk's iron cannon and died a tragic death.

Due to the tragic death of the main general, Tokieda Takashi, the defenders of Tokieda Castle, who could not hunt down the murderer, had to return to Tokieda Castle in a hurry. And at this time, the Fourth Route Army where Kakukuma Shizong and Akuda were located also happened to be killed. After several fierce battles, due to the lack of guards in the city, Shizhi City was finally captured by the Luo family.

With the fall of Tokie Castle, Ta Tosaki Castle faced enemies on three sides, and at this time, the Usa Omiya Si family of the clan was wiped out again, so after some weighing, the defender of Ta Tozaki Castle, Akao Kentan, simply opened the castle and surrendered to the Luo family.

As a result, after the time came to February of the 23rd year of Astronomical, in the entire southeastern region of Bunzen Province, only the Yamada Castle of the Yamada family of Kamimo County and the Nagaganwa Castle of the Nonaka family of Shimomo County were still stubbornly resisting, and the rest of the area was all included in the territory of the Luo family.

After the surrender of Tatozaki Castle, the First and Third Route Armies immediately returned to Yamada Castle of the Yamada family in Kamimo Prefecture and Nagaiwa Castle of the Nonaka family in Shimo-gun, and joined up with the other part of the troops surrounding these two castles, each attacking these two castles with all their might, while the Fourth Route Army assisted the second-line peasant army of the Luo family and the retainers of the Interior Cabinet who arrived later to take over the local territory, and on the other hand, began to march towards Takada Castle of the Yoshixian family on the border of Toyozen Province.

On the Bungo side, since the end of last year after the capture of the Otomo Tianbei family's Hidate Castle and the Otomo family's temporary residence Luming Etsu Castle, Masato immediately led the army to kill the Otomo family's other city, Jiaowei Castle. It's just that the defenders of Jiaowei City are also very tenacious, and they have resisted several rounds of attacks by the Luo family in a row. Subsequently, Otomo Yoshijin also led reinforcements from the Yoshixian family and the Takeda Tsu family to arrive.

Seeing that Jiaowei City had become a hard bone like the original Luming Yue City, in order to avoid major damage caused by it again, Masato decisively changed the active siege strategy to a siege strategy. For a time, Jiaowei City, which was besieged, was embattled.

After the Second Route Army of the United Sunrise Castle surrounded Jiaowei Castle, Masarashi immediately sent a large army to attack the nearby Kifu family and Naga family, who were still resisting.

Previously, it was the Sixth Route Army where Murakami Takeyoshi was in charge of attacking the Kifu family and the Nai family, but because this army was mainly based on the standing of the water army, these standing forces were more suitable for water warfare, and they were not good at frontal siege warfare, so after attacking the Tahara family and the Fulai family, this road army was more responsible for making a posture of attacking the Kifu family and the Nai family, containing the military strength of the two families in the local area, so as to prevent them from coming out to rescue the Luming Yuecheng when the Luo family attacked Luming Yuecheng. Now after the army of Masayo has freed up his hands, it's time to deal with them. (To be continued......)