Don't go back, leave quickly. The attacker may be trying to scare the tiger away from the mountain, or he may be sitting back and waiting. "Ginkgo reacted immediately and pulled Imagawa Yoshimoto to avoid the hills beside the field.
"Alert!" Hayasaka Nao immediately shouted loudly. She personally drew the sword in her hand and directed the ninjas and guards to protect Imagawa Yoshimoto. At the same time, she said to Tsuchikawa Sutra in the distance: "Mr. Tsuchihara, please bring a few people with you. Go back to the village to investigate the identity and size of the attackers!"
"Yes!" Tu Atomjing took the order after hearing the words, and quickly headed towards the way he came from with a few elite ninjas around him.
"You don't have to worry this time." Imagawa Yoshimoto was quite relaxed at this time - with the experience of several previous dangers, he no longer dared to do anything like this, and he was surrounded by enough guards and ninjas. Without a hundred people, it would be impossible to pose a threat to him. But if there were really a hundred armed men moving within the Imagawa family territory - they would have been discovered long ago.
After waiting for a while, no more attackers appeared around, and everyone gradually felt relieved. Not long after, Tsuchizune also hurried back. The few ninjas around him were not injured. It seemed that no battle broke out, but they did not bring back the horses of Imagawa Yoshimoto and others - but the horses didn't matter, Imagawa The family is not short of this little money.
"How is it? What's going on?" Imagawa Yoshimoto asked.
"Looking at the footprints and traces of fighting, they must be a few bandits." Tsuchi Atsune leaned in front of Imagawa Yoshimoto and apologized: "I'm sorry, I was late and couldn't save the horses."
"The horses don't matter." Imagawa Yoshimoto motioned for Tsuchihara to stand up without hesitation, and then suddenly realized something: "Wait... The traces of struggle you mentioned are..."
"The housewife seemed to be trying to stop the bandits from taking the horses, so she left traces of a struggle and was killed." Tu Atomjing stated without changing his expression, "So were the two children."
·
By the time Imagawa Yoshimoto rushed back to the scene, the bodies of the old lady and her two grandchildren had been hastily buried by his men. After all, the old lady didn't wait for her sons and daughters-in-law to return, and the children didn't wait for their parents to return - of course it was possible. Those two couples would never have come back.
Imagawa Yoshimoto did not wait for the opportunity to chat with this old lady.
"This old woman's house is full of poverty. The robbers probably know that, and they would never come to rob her house on weekdays." Yutaka Furuno looked at the bloodstains at the scene of the incident that had not yet been cleaned, and said the words of Imagawa Yoshimoto's best What you don’t want to hear: “It was our good horses that attracted the robbers to her house and robbed her, causing death to her family of three.”
Imagawa Yoshimoto tried his best to calm his breathing, but even his inhaling voice was full of anger.
"Why do you do such a stupid thing?" Ginkgo walked out of the house, looked back at the simple meal that the kitchen had just prepared before it was served, bit her lip and whispered softly: "It's just a matter of stealing a few horses. Well, there is no need to risk your own life. We are strangers to her, we just gave her a helping hand... Why should we risk our lives against the vicious bandits for our property?"
Hayasaka Nao was stunned when he heard this, and was silent for a while, and finally decided to speak: "Madam, you may not understand the mood of us grasshoppers who are digging in the soil... Some favors that are easy in your eyes are nothing to us. It’s the kindness of Sansheng. How can you tolerate the horses that your benefactor left in your own home to be snatched away like this? Maybe you were in a hurry and rushed to stop him, which led to tragedy..."
"Even children..." Imagawa Yoshimoto clenched his fists, with a rare murderous look in his eyes.
A good family, a family that had gone through so many hardships but still lived tenaciously with hope, just disappeared.
"Chase." Imagawa Yoshimoto spat out one word fiercely and looked at the horse's hoof prints as they left. "Prepare your horses and mobilize your troops. Follow me to pursue and catch the murderer. Can you still let these little kids escape from my eyes?"
·
"It's bad..."
At the same time, the group of people who stole Imagawa Yoshimoto's horse gradually began to realize that something was wrong.
"This seems to be a horse from the Wu family, and judging from its quality, it must be something that only the great name Wan Shi can afford, right?" The more a bandit looked at the horse sitting down, the more he felt something was wrong. He kept looking at his leader, "Still there. I wonder where that tall horse came from in that poor old woman's house. Maybe it was tied there by a passing samurai? So what if we are tracked down after we robbed someone else's horse? Should we keep the horse? Run quickly?"
"What are you afraid of? What can a samurai do?" The leading bandit leader didn't care. "I have been hanging out in Mikawa for so many years. I have many connections. I just hide away for a few days to avoid the limelight. Even if it's Matsudaira Hirotada." Now, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
·
Early the next morning, Imagawa Yoshimoto and others followed the horse's hoof prints all night long, and the final destination pointed to an unexpected place - Mikawa Province's Jogunguji Temple.
This temple was built as far back as the sixth year of Emperor Suiko (598), and its founder was the famous Prince Shotoku. At that time, Prince Shotoku traveled around the country in order to revitalize Buddhism. When passing through the Three Rivers Kingdom, he found a spiritual tree and used it to make his own image. From then on, this place became a place where Buddhism flourished. After several evolutions, the Jodo Shinshu sect built a temple on the former site - this is the origin of Sanggong Temple. Therefore, Sanguji Temple is also the most important Jodo Shinshu temple in the entire Mikawa area, and is even famous throughout Tokaido.
The temple is also one of the most troublesome forces within the territory of all samurai daimyo. The reason is the long-standing privilege of "the guardian envoy cannot enter". It had already taken shape during the Yuan government period and was formally established during the Kamakura shogunate period. In order to limit the penetration of local guardians into the shogunate's public estates, the shogunate prohibited local guards from entering the public estates in the name of collecting taxes, hunting down criminals, etc. And it is clearly stipulated in the "Go Success and Failure Shime" that it is "the guardian envoy cannot enter". This privilege was also inherited and further developed during the Muromachi Shogunate period.
The temple power in Japan had already achieved de facto semi-independent status long before the samurai family came to power. Each of the large temples was armed and refused to pay taxes to the guardians, so the privilege of "not allowing the guardians to enter" was naturally extended from the public estates directly controlled by the shogunate to the temple territory. Some shoguns and guardian daimyo will also grant them the power of "guardian envoys cannot enter" in order to build a good relationship with the temple forces - in fact, this is just a post-mortem recognition.
The Jogunguji Temple in front of you is one of the representatives of semi-independent temples. Hundreds of years ago, it had been in harmony with the samurai family in the Mikawa area. It refused all interference from the samurai family and was recognized by the Muromachi Shogunate as a "guardian who cannot enter." privilege. The year before last, Matsudaira Hirotada also granted Jodo Shinshu temples in the Mikawa area, such as Huairou Kamigongji Temple, the privilege of "protecting envoys from entering" in terms of their status.
·
Out of respect for the gods and Buddhas, and in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts with the unruly temple forces, Imagawa Yoshimoto took the initiative to dismount in front of the door, handed the horse to Hayasaka Nao, walked to the temple gate, and walked to the gate of the temple. The monk soldier of the guard said: "Master, has he ever seen a group of bandits break into the temple?"
That's right, a monk soldier with long hair and a chicken bone in his mouth - it can also be regarded as a specialty of Honganji Temple.
"I've never heard of it." The monk soldier took a look at Imagawa Yoshimoto's clothes and realized that he was probably not a small person, so he patiently excused himself: "I'm afraid the donor is in the wrong place."
"That group of bandits robbed our horses. We followed the horse's hoof prints all the way, and we must be here. They may have sneaked in from some secret place. Could you please help us search for something?" Imagawa Yoshimoto gave the monk soldier opposite a Steps, continued to plead nicely.
"No, there is no. This is the pure land of Buddhism. Where can there be bandits?" However, the monk soldier had no intention of answering. Instead, he was dissatisfied with Imagawa Yoshimoto's continued questioning, and his tone became less polite, " Please come back."
At this point, Imagawa Yoshimoto finally understood. Judging from the tracks of the horse's hoofprints, this group of bandits entered through the main entrance. However, the monk soldier refused to recognize him alive and had no intention of even asking or looking for it - which meant that he was not just prevaricating because he was not clear about the situation. But they knew that a group of bandits had entered the temple, but they planned to conceal their protection - did that group of bandits give them any benefits?
"To be honest, those people not only stole horses, but also killed innocent people. We are tracking down the murderers." Imagawa Yoshimoto then no longer covered up, but directly showed his cards and said: "Please trouble your temple to search the temple, otherwise For such a group of extremely vicious people to break into Buddhism is both dangerous and insulting to the gods."
"It's all said and done, why are you so crazy here?" The monk soldier was already impatient. He lowered his face and cursed at Imagawa Yoshimoto: "Who do you think you are?"
"Please ask your abbot to come out, and I will talk to him." Imagawa Yoshimoto responded without any explanation.
"You've already told me who you are? Why do you want to see our abbot?" The monk raised his voice and shouted to Imagawa Yoshimoto, but his shout alerted the people not far away.
"What happened at the door?" A rather majestic call came. Several monks and soldiers guarding the door turned to look, and then hurriedly saluted: "Master Shanru!"
The person who came was a monk who was wearing a serious cassock and had also shaved his head. He looked a little older and his eyebrows were already gray - finally someone who looked like a monk came... Imagawa Yoshimoto secretly complained in his heart.
"Master Shanru, this benefactor is so rude." The monk soldier who had been arguing with Imagawa Yoshimoto immediately complained: "He insisted that a group of bandits entered our temple, and he also said that he would call you out."
"Oh?" The host frowned when he heard this, then slowly walked to Imagawa Yoshimoto, clasped his hands together and performed a Buddhist salute and said, "The poor monk is Shanru, the abbot of Shanggong Temple. This donor is unknown. Why do you say that?"
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Chapter 247 Table of Contents (7) Free reading.
