Not long after, the ninja sent by Murakami Yoshikiyo really gained something. I saw that they were escorting a one-eyed warrior tied into a rice dumpling. After entering the interrogation tent, they pushed the warrior to the ground. The latter staggered and fell to the ground, and a dog came to chew the mud. Then he was unambiguous, and immediately struggled and kowtowed like garlic, and kept chanting: "Young man can do anything. I hope His Highness Zhou Fang and several ninja brothers have more, spare my life! I will be on the front and rear, for Zhou Fang Your Highness has done the work of a dog and a horse!"
"Lord, we set up an ambush on the way back to the Takeda camp from the Imagawa family camp and captured this one-eyed blind man. He should be the Takeda family's messenger." The leading jounin looked down upon the begging Yamamoto Kansuke and ignored him at all. Instead, he leaned over to report to Murakami Yoshikiyo. At the same time, he took out a stack of paper from his arms and handed it to Murakami Yoshikiyo, "I also found a letter on my body."
Murakami Yoshikiyo took the letter, opened the envelope and browsed it, then looked at Yamamoto Kansuke and said coldly: "Is this the reply from His Highness Imagawa to Takeda Harunobu?"
Yamamoto Kansuke, who was tied to the ground with disheveled hair, was still begging for mercy, and he couldn't even speak.
"The Takeda family wanted to attack my camp in the middle of the night, but Imagawa Yoshimoto said that the Imagawa family would not send troops, but made up their minds to abide by the agreement with the Northern Shinano coalition. If the Takeda family wanted to send troops, the Imagawa family would just sit on the sidelines?" Murakami Yoshikiyo threw the letter back in Yamamoto Kansuke's face, "Trick me with this little trick, do you think I will believe it? For such an important matter, the Imagawa family would actually leave a reply? And then the messenger would happen to be robbed by our army. Arrive? And the person who sent such a letter is actually a soft-headed scum? If you don’t destroy the letter immediately after being arrested, you are not doing it to yourself? "
"Go back. I originally thought Imagawa Yoshimoto was a gentleman, but I didn't expect that he would join forces with Takeda Harunobu to use these weird tricks to defraud me." Murakami Yoshikiyo sneered twice and kicked Yamamoto Kansuke out. "Go back and tell Takeda Harunobu and Imagawa Yoshimoto to come over if you can. How can the Kitano Shinano righteous be afraid of you?"
·
After driving Kansuke Yamamoto away, the ninjas of the Murakami family were puzzled.
"Lord, it's not easy to get a weak and important person, why don't you interrogate him properly?" the leading Jonin asked.
"You can't ask anything. Do you really think it's just a weakling?" Murakami Yoshikiyo grinned at himself, then shook his head and said, "The person who undertakes such a secret delivery task must be a close family member who is deeply favored by the master. They are all Who would be a weakling who regards death as his own?"
"But he just..." The Jonin wanted to say more.
"That's an act." Murakami Yoshikiyo interrupted impatiently, "He misleads endlessly and doesn't know whether a few words are true. Interrogating him will waste time and energy. This kind of person is the most troublesome. "
"Shouldn't he be killed? If he is such a brave and resourceful messenger?"
"No, I want to let him go back and use him to help me mislead Takeda Harunobu." Murakami Yoshikiyo wiped the messy beard on his rough cheeks, but his thoughts under the rough face were extremely delicate, "Let him mislead me." I think we at Northern Shinano really think that the Imagawa family will also send troops."
"Ah...?" It took the ninjas a long time to figure out what Murakami Yoshikiyo said and understand what he wanted to say. "Does the Lord mean that the Imagawa family will not send troops to cooperate with the Takeda family?"
"That's right." Murakami Yoshikiyo nodded slightly.
"So the Takeda family wants us to mistakenly think that the Imagawa family will send troops?" Another Jonin also suddenly realized.
Murakami Yoshikiyo simply nodded again and did not answer, but several jonin started to discuss among themselves:
"But if the Takeda family really wanted us to mistakenly think that the Imagawa family would send troops, why did they arrange such a clumsy scam? Shouldn't it be more realistic?"
"That's right. If this kind of arrangement can be seen through at a glance, shouldn't the letter say 'The Imagawa family will not send troops'? So that it can mislead us into thinking 'The Imagawa family will send troops'?"
"But if you arrange it like this, we will become suspicious, right?"
"Aren't we suspicious now?"
…
"That's enough, stop talking nonsense." Murakami Yoshikiyo coughed lightly after finishing the long exam, and the ninjas immediately stopped talking.
"It's useless to think about this. Conspiracies are layered one after another. No one knows whether they have fallen into the trap or succeeded." Murakami Yoshikiyo stood up and raised his finger, "But the conspiracy has an unchanging essence. ——”
"Those who can use conspiracy will definitely not use conspiracy."
"Just think about it, if the Imagawa family will really cooperate with the Takeda family in sending troops, why would Takeda Harunobu bother to draw our attention to the direction of the Imagawa family? Isn't it because he wants us to be unprepared? It's because the Imagawa family won't send troops. , which caused the Takeda family to feel that they could not deal with us with their own military strength, so they forced Takeda Harunobu to resort to dubious tactics, hoping to trick us into distracting ourselves and dividing our troops. No matter how the plot is twisted, it will not be able to escape from the false and the true. But if this is the case. If it's real, why bother dressing it up as 'virtual'?"
After saying that, Murakami Yoshikiyo sent the ninjas away and summoned his family elders and governors of the powerful families in Northern Shinano to come.
"The Imagawa family will definitely not send troops. There is a gap in the Kashun alliance." Murakami Yoshikiyo made a decisive judgment and ordered sternly, "The whole army sneaked under the cover of night, left the camp, and went to the Tenryu River to ambush! The Takeda family If you want to attack our camp, you must cross the river. If we attack it halfway across the river at night, we will definitely defeat the enemy in one fell swoop!"
·
Soon after, the disgraced Kansuke Yamamoto also rushed back to the Takeda family's camp.
"Thank you, Kansuke." Takeda Harunobu laughed and welcomed Yamamoto Kansuke's return at the gate of the camp. "As you expected, Namura Shobo really let you back."
"Yes, Master, smart people always like to be smart, and the 'big guys' don't look down on the life of a 'little guy' like me." Yamamoto Kansuke patted the dust on his clothes, then saluted Takeda Harunobu, "Mission accomplished , Murasaki Defense has already taken the bait."
"Okay." Takeda Harunobu sneered, and then ordered in a heroic and deep voice: "The entire army has crossed the Tianryu River and prepared for a night attack!"
·
In the early morning of September 16, the Tenth Year of Astronomy (1541), on the west bank of the Tenryu River in Shinano Province, the Northern Shinano Allied Forces were quietly lurking in the hills and forests behind the river beach, waiting for the arrival of the Takeda Army. On the east bank of Tianlong River, you can faintly see signs of a few torches shaking. On a night when the moonlight is not bright enough, it is obviously unrealistic to expect an army with such a high proportion of night blindness to discredit the advance. But lighting the torches themselves would expose the possible movements of their own troops, causing the other party to notice the night attack. Therefore, the Takeda family chose a compromise plan, allowing a small number of soldiers carrying torches to disguise themselves as normal scouts and scouts. Guiding our own troops while making the other party suspicious——But in the eyes of the Northern Shinano coalition forces who had already noticed it, this was just trying to cover up.
"Don't act rashly." Murakami Yoshikiyo took the trouble to send messengers over and over again to inform various wealthy families, "Wait until the Takeda army is nearly halfway across the river, and then look at my campfire signal to attack."
However, as time passed, the Takeda Army on the other side of the river made no further moves. There were still only sporadic torches doing "simple harmonic motion" back and forth on the other side of the river. Many of the wealthy families in Northern Shinano are a little out of breath, worried about whether something unexpected has happened - is this a conspiracy of the Takeda family? Wave after wave of messengers were sent to Murakami Yoshikiyo, but they were sent back by Murakami Yoshikiyo's exact words - "Don't act rashly."
"Lord..." Qingye Qingxiu prompted with some uneasiness. Murakami Yoshikiyo naturally knew what his elder was thinking. The Murakami family does not have a strict affiliation with these wealthy families in Northern Shinano. They only sent troops in response to the Murakami family's call. Murakami Yoshikiyo does not have the power to command them, it is just that these small wealthy families in Northern Shinano are willing to "give face". If Murakami Yoshikiyo continuously issues orders that confuse the wealthy clans, the wealthy clans may disobey them or even act on their own.
"Lord, do you need to pay attention to the movements of the Imagawa family?" Masakata Rakuganji couldn't help but speak, questioning Murakami Yoshikiyo's previous judgment, "Is it... that the Takeda family is just pretending to be suspicious to contain us to Tianlong?" Riverside, and the real main attack will be undertaken by the Imagawa family, driving directly into our empty camp? Should we withdraw our troops and return to the camp?"
"Impossible." Murakami Yoshikiyo flatly refused, "There is no way the Imagawa family will send troops."
"Lord..." Qingye Qingxiu also looked embarrassed, "Please think twice..."
"Didn't we already make a judgment before? It is impossible for the Imagawa family to send troops." Murakami Yoshikiyo just repeated.
"But that's just our speculation, there is no solid evidence. Now that the Takeda family is acting abnormally, we should still be more subtle." Kiyohide Kiyono carefully considered his words and tactfully advised him again.
"Soldiers are impermanent and water is impermanent. How can there be any 'conclusive evidence' in a war?" Murakami Yoshikiyoshi sneered at his elder's advice and said impassionedly: "If every piece of information must be confirmed to 100%, then You can only stay in the city for the rest of your life, unable to do anything. Fighting means taking risks, both sides must take risks. As a general, you believe in your own experience and military strategy, firmly implement your own judgment, and hand in success or failure. Just give your fate. If you look forward and backward, are timid, and change your orders from day to day, you will only lose and you won't even have the chance to gamble on your fate."
"I judge that the Imagawa family will not send troops, but they will not send troops. Ignore the Imagawa family and continue to ambush the Takeda family here. Follow my orders! Or you can run away immediately!"
"Yes!" Seeing Murakami Yoshikiyo's statement, the retainers of the Murakami family all agreed.
Facts have proved that Murakami Yoshikiyo’s judgment was spot on. Even though the sky was faintly turning white, there was still no sign of any action by the Imagawa army. Tan Ma, who came back from the south, kept repeating this information, which also reassured the retainers of the Murakami family. However, what confused them was the Takeda family's actions - since the Imagawa army had no plans to send troops, why did the Takeda army hesitate to move? What are they waiting for? It's dawn soon, so what's the point of a night raid?
When the sky became brighter, the Murakami family's scouts could already see the situation on the east bank of the Tianryu River on the west bank - many undulating hills, mountains and woods, with many Takeda family flags.
"It's a suspected soldier, otherwise how could it be possible that the flying birds haven't been alarmed until now?" Murakami Yoshikiyo saw through the Takeda family's arrangement at a glance, "The problem is that here are suspected soldiers, and what about the Takeda family? If you want to attack our army camp, you can only attack from the Takeda family. Cross the river here. Could it be that the Takeda army did not intend to take action in the first place, but was instead just trying to exhaust our troops and consume our physical strength?"
The retainers of the Murakami family also looked at each other in confusion. No one knew what Takeda Harunobu was thinking.
After a while, fire and smoke rose on the mountain road to the north - that was the direction of the Northern Shinano Allied Forces Food Road.
