Yokoyama Kiyotake and the others knelt down and bowed, and after looking at each other, they all said in unison, "Although we dare not believe what Takeda Daizen and Nagao Echigo said, and have the intention to die, but they are burdened by their wives and children at home, and their brothers live separately on both sides of the Rhino River, each subject to the constraints of the two armies, if they boldly fall to one of them, the relatives and friends on the other side will be in turmoil, and I beg the two Zen masters to have mercy and promise the villain to wait for a reluctant request!" ”

"I beg the mercy of the two Zen masters and promise the villain to wait for a reluctant request!" The rest of the water thieves also followed and begged together, and under the leadership of Yokoyama Qingyue, they kowtowed again and again, and within two blows, their foreheads were broken, and their faces were covered with blood.

Huixin of Zenko Temple, the chief of Linquan Temple, the second monk, this kind of true feelings moved his heart of compassion, sighed, and said, "The leader of Hengshan quickly invites to get up, as long as the two of us can do it, I will definitely agree to you and wait!" ”

Hengshan Qingyue and other water thief leaders, hearing the words, Hengshan Qingyue immediately turned over, looked back and said, "The two Zen masters are merciful and willing to testify for us, I hereby officially announce that the sixteen groups of the Xichuan River will be disbanded in the future, and you will return to your home, and you will be at ease for the people in the future, and you can no longer secretly form a party in private, and the other fifteen families will no longer have anything to do with the belonging, and you can no longer be active on both sides of the Xichuan River as the Xichuan people!" ”

"No! We must keep in mind the teachings of Lord Yokoyama, and from now on, we will never swagger as a member of the Xichuan people, and throw ourselves into the personal actions of all our subordinates, and do not implicate the old relatives and the right! Without waiting for the reaction of the two prison guards, the rest of the water thieves preemptively agreed, and Hengshan Qingyue directly took out the 'umbrella signature' deed drawn by the water thieves from his arms, tore it up in public, and let the confetti fall down the city with the cold winter wind.

Since then, the water thieves who have been rampant in the Xichuan Baizai have been officially disbanded under the witness of the two great temple supervisors, at least on the surface.

The implication is that I still want to bet on both sides, with the Xichuan River as the boundary, the north to Nagao, and the south from Takeda. This is the only means for the people to survive, and the two prisons are not overly persecuted, after all, they still have to rely on this gang of water thieves to maintain their luck.

The most important thing is that there are too many people in this kind of vacillating country, and it is even said that almost all the wealthy families are so virtuous that it is impossible to slaughter them all, and when the time comes, it is impossible to rely on who will collect tribute and organize military service, and it is impossible to appoint all the deputies to govern, and the new deputies will not be able to suppress the people at all.

The water thieves quickly formed their formations, each standing behind the two prisons. It's also funny, Yokoyama Kiyotake, who has a heart for Takeda, stands behind the chief of the Rinsen Temple, while the two families of Matsubara and Kanamaru, who are interested in the long tail, are close to Zenko-in Huizhen, and the other thirteen families are not bound by the past subordinate status, and quickly and consciously find a new master according to the location of the village.

Hurriedly saying goodbye, the nine water thieves including Matsubara and Kanamaru hurriedly rushed down to the castle with Zenkoin Hui Zhen and crossed the river by boat from the water gate connected to the Rhinogawa River, while Yokoyama Kiyogaku respectfully asked the chief of the Ryashisen Temple to send someone out of the city to negotiate on his behalf and convey the surrender request of the seven water thieves led by the Yokoyama family.

For the two Zen masters, what they said before, there is not a single credulous thief who is relying on robbing houses and robbing houses, forcibly buying and selling his life, although they are thieves, but they still talk about some benevolence, righteousness and morality, and there are seven do not rob, eight do not take the principle.

Seven do not rob, that is, do not rob the nearby villages, do not rob the flying feet of the messenger, do not rob the poor who ask for medical treatment, do not rob the funeral team, do not rob the pregnant women, do not rob the lone child, and do not rob the marriage.

The eight non-seizures are, not to rob women indiscriminately, not to take the rations of poor families, not to take away the monks' personal instruments, not to take the money and goods of prostitutes, not to seize the cattle and horses of cultivated land, not to take the property of their brothers and relatives, not to dig graves and take away the burial goods of people's houses, and not to take away the pharmacies.

Although the Xichuan water thieves dare not guarantee that everyone can act according to the order, at least they will ensure that the morality of the face is not lost, especially compared with the actions of the Takeda and Nagao armies, it can be said that they put down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot.

On many occasions, the Nagao and Takeda armies used the villages that should have been protected by the payment system as a battlefield, and fought for them repeatedly until the entire village was completely in ruins. Houses were burned, farmland was trampled, grain was looted, and the people were treated as slaves, sold to traffickers and merchants accompanying the army in exchange for military funds according to different standards and prices for men, women, the old and the weak.

Ten years ago, Shinano Country, it was still a peaceful and pure land far away from the troubled times of the Warring States, and there were occasional disputes among the wealthy clans in the country, but they never let the people suffer such a war of arms, and when Takeda Shingen expelled the old lord Murakami Yoshikiyo, he saw that he was going to live a life of food and clothing from now on, but due to the intervention of the Nagao family, the melee broke out again, so that everything disappeared suddenly.

Farmland can be replanted if it is trampled, houses can be rebuilt if it is burned, and even if the food is looted, they can starve and wait for next year's harvest. However, the people of Qianshou who were plundered and killed by the soldiers will never come back from the dead, and it is even more difficult for the separated relatives and friends to look forward to the day of return.

There are several subordinate villages of the Xichuan Water Bandits, which are close to the place where the war is most intense. When the leaders of Hengshan Qingyue and other leaders got the news and led people to rush to the rescue to stop it, only the dead bodies were left everywhere, and the villages that collapsed in the raging fires, and most of the dead people were young and strong, armed with sticks, knives and guns, and they were killed in the process of protecting the village.

Judging from the fallen flags, the Takeda and Nagao armies participated in the looting, but there was no sign of fighting between the two sides, at least in terms of looting the people, the two sides really achieved a truce and colluded.

Seeing such a tragedy, Yokoyama Kiyotake and other leaders did not have the courage at all, caught up with the two armies that had just left, and recaptured the captured villagers and even relatives and friends, and even could only comfort themselves in their hearts. The same encounter is not their family, where the soldiers killed, the whole village is often killed, all of them are ruined, their wives are separated, at least the Xichuan water thieves still have a chance to raise money to help the abducted people redeem themselves, right?

This kind of 'man-taking' behavior in a non-joint war situation can almost be said to be carried out openly.

Whether during or after the battle, the soldiers of the two armies were scrambling to plunder the people of the neighboring villages, and because the selling prices of young men and women and school-age children were particularly high, as the first choice for 'human taking', it has always been the focus of the soldiers' looting.

The miserable situation of the 'Rentori' spread throughout the three provinces of Hokuriku, Higashiyama, and the Tokai through the caravans that were 'fully loaded', and even alarmed, so that the world was appalled by the brutality of the two daimyo of the Kanto region.

The Kyoto Imperial Commander solemnly recorded the actions of the Takeda and Nagao families in Shinano Kunibei - "Raw and robbed, regardless of gender; The neighboring township and the village were burned; Rich mansions, looted; materials and miscellaneous equipment, all indiscriminate; 'Tiger and Dragon', its sin is great! ”

Although the Takeda and Nagao armies repeatedly explicitly prohibited acts of military discipline such as plundering and 'human taking', in fact, due to the poverty of the soldiers and the arrears of money to the merchants.

Even as the commander-in-chief of the whole army, Takeda Shingen and Nagao Keitora were helpless in the face of the soldiers' various violations of military discipline inside and outside the battlefield.

In this way, military discipline is gone, and acts such as looting and 'taking people' have almost become the best way for the two sergeants to obtain the spoils of war and make up for the deficit in the battle.

At the same time, thieves, floating waves and other roosters and dog thieves also flocked to the battlefield like a hundred ghosts walking at night, stripping off the armor and weapons left on the dead bodies on the battlefield, using them to arm their own groups, and then attacking the people who fled to the mountains and forests to take refuge, joining the ranks of looting.

The most active place for slave trading was in the border areas of Mutsu, Hokuriku, Sanin, Kyushu and other places, and most of the young and strong subordinates were reduced to 'filthy and non-human' and engaged in farming. animal husbandry, firewood, mining and other coolie chores; Young women, on the other hand, were sold to the Yangya Pavilion for the rich to play with, and the most unfortunate of all may be sold to the Nanban by the Kyushu daimyo and taken to unknown and terrible Nanban places without Buddha, such as Luzon.

According to the custom, before the slaves were sold, they would send people to release news to the surrounding villages, so that the people of various families, villages, and ordinary people would come and redeem their relatives and friends.

But for those peasants whose homes have been destroyed and their fields are destitute, even if they work hard all their lives, they may not be able to make up the huge ransom used to redeem their plundered families. At this time, it is necessary to stand up and shoulder the responsibility of the people who are supported and supported by the people on weekdays, and spend huge amounts of money and food to redeem their own people, which can be regarded as a kind of tough blackmail by the daimyo to the people of the country.

Among them, there are many wealthy families who are stingy and refuse to pay the ransom money, but it is difficult for the samurai family who has lost their prestige and honor and the support of the people to survive in this troubled era of the Warring States, so even if there is really such a fool who regards wealth as his life, his family will soon be shattered, and the second is the wealthy family who redeems the people, and gathers the people to mobilize the people to fight against the brutality of the daimyo.

The Takeda Army's wealthy clans had defected, not because they were very interested in Murakami's Yoshikiyo, but because the Takeda Army had plundered the villages under their rule, whether for the sake of family name or practical interests, these nobles had to do something to prove to the common people and other countrymen that they would use force to reasonably defend the shogunate's recognized right of 'no loss, no invasion'.

The Takeda Army secretly wanted to capture and transport all the people, both men and women, back to Koshu alive and sell them at prices ranging from 2 to 10 kan.

At that time, Yokoyama Kiyoyue, who got the news, hurriedly rushed to the Takeda Army's baggage camp with the ransom money, and after some bargaining and begging, he paid a large sum of money and food in exchange for the relatives who were taken captive.

It is said that the number of men and women who were going to be sold at that time was even more than 5,000, and the number of the defenders was not necessarily 500.

On the other hand, the Nagao Army was led by the Matsubara clan, and if the Takeda Shingen Army was just an unorganized and undisciplined operation, then the troops under Nagao Keihu were purposefully carrying out large-scale 'human takes'.

First of all, the soldiers would sell the captured people to the soldiers at a low price of less than 30 yuan, and then the soldiers would sell them to the soldiers at a higher price, and the soldiers would double the price and sell them to Nagao Keitor, the general who oversaw all the sales work, and finally the 'Echigo Yoshisho' would sell them to the traveling merchants at a high price.

It has truly turned the unseemly behavior of 'taking from the people' into a collectivized military behavior, so that the whole army can profit from the 'people take' and subsidize their families.

In some respects, it is indeed a bit of a rhetoric to talk about the Asahina Shinji who wanted to use plundering to force the Nagao army in Sakujo, and of course, it can also be said that the degree of 'human taking' of the Takeda and Nagao families is too thorough, and before the arrival of the Enshu miscellaneous soldiers, they ignore it and burn this fertile land that may become their own territory in the future.

With this kind of unbenevolent and frenzied behavior, who would dare to believe any promises from the Takeda and Nagao families, the Xichuan water thieves bet on both ends, although it is difficult to please the daimyo, but in the end, they will not take a wrong step, and they will be all wiped out, even if they are thieves, they must struggle in this troubled world, and it is difficult to live.

was gearing up, preparing to enter the city, in the plundering of the Echigo military horses, suddenly saw more than 20 fishing boats released from the water gate of Hengshan City, a group of water thieves rowed to the opposite bank, but look at the city There are still many defenders, it does not look like they abandoned the city and fled.

At the same time, a hanging basket containing a monk was placed on the city wall. Shimazaki Keinobu, who led the 'Sample Elite Cavalry' to circle the castle for a long time, was confused, but he was also cautious, since the last time he was under Yatong Castle, he was almost killed by the iron artillery team ambushed by the Takeda Army, and he rarely approached the enemy line at will.

With a wave of the horsewhip, two horsemen immediately galloped away from the horse, and after a short time, they turned around and said, "It is the disciple of the Changzhi Prison, and the people of Xichuan are willing to surrender!" ”

Shimazaki Keishin regretted that he couldn't go into the city to wantonly 'take people', but as a straight floating prison man who was hired straight, he charged into battle, and he always had the job of sending him to death first, but this kind of war is a major event, but it is not his turn to be a ronin to call the shots, so he can only smack his tongue again and again, and wave his horsewhip, so that people can take the monk to the back to announce the news.

After a while, a military order came from Honda Youjinyun, accepting the surrender of Yokoyama Castle and accepting the oath handed in by the other party, and the military horses could not enter the castle for the time being. This military order aroused the dissatisfaction of the soldiers who were already accustomed to plundering, but the military law of the Long Tail Army was used to be strict during the war, and no one dared to incite the ashigaru to oppose this order.

Yokoyama Kiyotake is also knowledgeable, and he took the initiative to lead people to the Nagao Army to ask for surrender, and opened the side door of Wainomaru. drove ox carts and brought a large amount of money and grain to the army, while the chief of Linquan Temple was left in the city to preach Buddhism to the water thieves, or as a hostage, which is more appropriate.

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