In the twenty-seventh year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty and the fourth year of Japan's Keicho period, in the first month of the year, Toyotomi Hideyori moved into Osaka as scheduled.
Hokusei, who had been living in the city before, moved to Xiyuan, and Mrs. Yodo moved into the inner courtyard of the city with the seven-year-old Hideyori, becoming a veritable master of Osaka Castle. As the auxiliary minister, Maeda Toshiie naturally moved into the city. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was in charge of government affairs, returned to Fushimi on his own after sending Hideyori to Osaka.
All of this was uneventful and looked very smooth. However, after the relocation, unusual rumors suddenly appeared in the world. It was said that the people who were loyal to Ieyasu and the people who followed the five brothers headed by Sansei had been divided into two groups, and they were frequently moving among themselves.
As if to confirm these rumors, on the 19th day of the first lunar month, as the special envoys of the elders, middle elders and the five ministers, Ikoma Araku Touchimasasa, the tower head of Shokokuji Temple - the head of Toyokoji Temple and others went to Fushimi reprimanded Ieyasu.
Yes, it's a rebuke.
In fact, one afternoon before this, Ieyasu and Iyin Naomasa were chatting and laughing happily in the brightly lit academy.
"You just said that Horio Yoshiharu was here, and now he's back?"
"He's gone back. He said he won't see His Highness today and will go back after talking with you."
"Are the envoys who came to reprimand me coming soon?"
"I heard I'll be here tomorrow."
"Who do you think they're going to send?"
"Ikoma Gaaratou and the monk accept it."
Ieyasu chuckled lightly and said: "Heh, it seems that even Kaga Danagon can't resist 30% of the fanning. He is really as clever as a tongue."
"Your Highness, are we just going to sit back and wait for death?"
"Even if we stop them, they will still come. Is there anything we can do to stop them? No. So, let them come."
"No, what I'm talking about is not about the envoy. I heard that Dayan Yan's army and the young master's soldiers have entered Osaka City."
"There is no need to worry about this matter at all. There is Arima Genfan in Huancheng, and Kanbaru Yasumasa is also coming with his own soldiers. As long as there is no serious imbalance in the strength of the troops, Maeda will not be so confused that he and I will fight with each other.
Moreover, even if an accident does occur... I should tell you this: In the past few months, more than 10,000 of the most elite Ming troops had been secretly stationed in Jiegang. "
Jing Yin Naozheng was shocked: "More than ten thousand? How elite are they?"
From the fact that Jing Yinzhizheng was not surprised by the word "Ming Army", it can be seen that he knows some inside stories, but he is not aware of the recent changes. Judging from his question, he was more concerned about the combat effectiveness of this Ming army.
"Comparing our Tokugawa family, you can understand that this Ming army is equivalent to the 'Hatata Senshou' of His Highness the 'Da Ming Guan Bai'."
Jingyin Naozheng took a deep breath, as if he couldn't believe it: "Are they all the same as the elites in Misaki Castle?"
"As far as I know, it's only better than anything worse." Ieyasu replied seriously.
"Then, we must not let things develop to the point where they have an excuse to take action!" Jing Yinzhengzheng immediately expressed his position: "Otherwise, things will definitely become uncontrollable."
Ieyasu nodded and said: "Of course I know, so isn't Kanbaru Yasumasa coming quickly?"
"But, if something happens before Kang Zheng arrives..."
"I won't allow anything to happen."
"So, how should we deal with tomorrow's messenger?"
"Don't worry, I have already thought of a way to deal with them." Ieyasu said with a loud laugh: "Horio Yoshiharu and Nakamura Kazushi are not the kind of people who never get into trouble. As long as we don't take the initiative to stir up trouble, it's not difficult to deal with them."
Hearing what Ieyasu said, Naozheng Jingyin smiled and said, "I am ashamed of your highness's courage. But I wonder what your highness will say when the envoy comes?"
"Haha, before they come, we'd better not make unnecessary guesses. The more they show their sharpness, the more they appear to have no sense. What I have been really worried about for this period of time is actually the issue of troop withdrawal.
No matter how much it costs, we must let all the famous names withdraw smoothly, otherwise it will be a great shame and humiliation for His Highness Taige, and also a great shame and humiliation for the Five Elders and Five Fengxing, not to mention that it will be extremely detrimental to the development of future events.
Now, although the withdrawal of troops resulted in considerable loss of troops, no major mistakes were made on the side of the daimyo, and it can be considered a successful conclusion. As for Hideyori's mother and son, they also moved into Osaka Castle safely and the matter was over. "
Seeing that Iyin Naomasa was still a little worried, Ieyasu smiled again and said: "Leave Hideyori and his son aside and take the initiative to challenge me, Daisuke of the Ministry of War, do you think there are such stupid people in the world?"
Naomasa also smiled, "Of course not. But what if someone...
"As long as you and Torii and his son are here, Yasumasa will also come. If something unexpected happens, Yuuki Hideyasu will never stand idly by. And..." Ieyasu lowered his voice and said: "If anything happens, Hosokawa Tadayaki will definitely dissuade Maeda. So you don’t have to worry, the Kaimin Ming Army will not find an opportunity to take action.”
"Yes, and His Highness Hosokawa." Naomasa nodded vigorously.
The sixth daughter of the Maeda Toshi family, Chisehime, married Ichiro Tadayaka, the legitimate son of Hosokawa Tadayaki. Chisehime and her eldest brother Toshinaga were born to the same mother. Toshinaga and Hosokawa Tadaki were about the same age and were close friends. With this relationship, the chance of something unexpected happening is almost zero.
Ieyasu suddenly smiled at this time and said: "Actually, I don't feel that I have any kindness to him, but Hosokawa always feels that he owes me a lot of favors for Guan Baixiuji. Although our recent interactions have easily attracted attention, we must not He didn’t take precautions, but he had already promised secretly that if something happened, he would definitely help.”
When Hidetsu was in trouble, he urged Hosokawa to repay the 200 ingots of gold he had borrowed. Hosokawa was financially strapped and found it difficult to repay for a while. At that time, Matsui Saotari, the elder of the Hosokawa family, rushed to Honda Masanobu for help with a pale face.
The trouble with this matter is that once the close friendship between Hosokawa and Sekiba Hideji is revealed, Hosokawa Tadayoshi will be executed as Hideji's accomplice by the already crazy Hideyoshi, so the two hundred gold ingots themselves are not the key, the key is that this is It is a matter of great importance to the fate of the Hosokawa family.
After Honda Masanobu heard the truth told by Matsui Sawatari, he immediately reported it to Ieyasu. At that time, Ieyasu sent everyone away and said with a relaxed expression: "Everyone has times when money is tight. Masanobu, please pick up a heavy box for my armor and carry it over."
After the box was brought up, he opened it in front of Matsui Zuodu. There were exactly two hundred gold ingots under the armor.
"Look at the sealing date."
"Ah, it was twenty-one years ago?" Matsui said in surprise.
"Haha, this is my private money that I hid just in case. I didn't even tell you about the gold and silver at home. Okay, hurry up and get it for emergencies!"
Matsui Zuodu went back with red eyes. It seems that Hosokawa Tadayaki has never forgotten the life-saving grace that day, and he still has close contacts with Ieyasu.
Iyin Naomasa was relieved, but he still reminded Ieyasu that it was best to send a special envoy as soon as possible to urge Kanbaru Yasumasa to enter the capital quickly to avoid long nights and dreams, and then withdrew.
Ieyasu didn't take Naomasa's words to heart very much. In his eyes, he was already in an invincible position, it was nothing more than winning more and winning less. Although 30% is a bit worrying, it does not affect the overall situation. From the moment Gao Jingshi agreed to send Gao Yan to Japan to be his adopted son, Tokugawa Ieyasu already had a chance to win.
Although from Ieyasu's point of view, there are indeed many doubts about the withdrawal of troops from North Korea. For example, how did Takatora Toudo and Anji Wakisaka escape from the Ming army camp?
How did Kuroda Rushui and his son apparently part ways with the main force, disappear inexplicably on the battlefield, and finally find a ship and go straight back to Kyushu?
Shimazu Yoshihiro fought a big battle when he withdrew his troops, but when he finally returned to Japan to take stock, he found that no one in his Shimadzu family headquarters died in that battle. Is this a coincidence or intentional? If it was done on purpose, then why didn't any of his direct descendants think there was something wrong with his command?
Ieyasu always felt that although he couldn't understand the reason for this series of doubts, there was only one answer anyway: Gao Pingming did it deliberately behind the scenes. In other words, there is a pragmatic plan laid out here.
However, Ieyasu also knew that he could not control or stop whatever plot Gao Pragmatic planned. Instead of worrying about these, it was better to think more about Japan's internal troubles.
Once the entanglements left on the battlefield turn the generals against each other and further develop into disputes, the situation will be difficult to deal with, and the Ming army may even be directly introduced into Japan... This is what Ieyasu is most worried about.
Why is this important? Because the Japanese troops who went to fight in Korea were already the most elite in Japan. Almost all the daimyo except Tokugawa Ieyasu had to send their most elite combat forces to fight in Korea. Those Japanese troops in Korea may account for three-quarters of all Japan's elite forces.
However, even so, they were still defeated by more than 100,000 Ming troops, and within a few months they were reduced to only a small area near Busan. The gap in combat effectiveness between the two sides was undoubtedly huge.
The Iron Artillery Corps, which had become the "stunt skill" of the Japanese army due to Nobunaga's rise, was almost unable to fight back when facing the Ming army, and the Ming army's cavalry was even more of a nightmare for the Japanese army.
People who came back from the Korean battlefield said that only after meeting the Ming army cavalry did they realize that the so-called Japanese first cavalry "Takeda Akabi" was basically a child cavalry. In the face of the tens of thousands of uniformed cavalry of the Ming army, what use is the more than a thousand cavalry that can only be obtained by scraping here and there? One charge and it was all gone.
[Note: There is no conclusive conclusion on the total number of Takeda Chibi, but according to the "Koyo Military Review", a history book dedicated to the Takeda family, it should be "Qianqi". It is enough to add the word "yu" to them here. . In the so-called long-term battle, Jingchang of Zhongshan County led 3,000 red soldiers to launch the charge first... The three thousand horse-riding legions do not mean the 3,000 red soldiers. Gao Pragmatic still had many mounted infantry under his command. ]
Ieyasu sighed and thought, fortunately, the troublesome withdrawal of troops ended successfully, and everyone returned to their respective territories. After seven consecutive years of fighting, one can imagine the difficulties of the major names, and they were naturally extremely war-weary.
All the generals became victims of Taige's ambition. The most ridiculous thing is that Taige's goal is not just North Korea, he also wants to invade the Ming Dynasty and plunder the land. How dare he... So his dream finally came to nothing.
Judging from Gao Jingshi's willingness to let Gao Yan be his adopted son, what Ieyasu is now worried about is not that the Ming Dynasty will continue the war and bring the war to Japan, but that the disputes among the daimyo will make Gao Jingshi give up his soft political methods and Use force instead—his own personal force.
Faced with this difficult situation among the famous warrior families, disputes between those who returned from the expedition and those who stayed behind were inevitable. Therefore, after Ieyasu handed over the withdrawal of troops to Mitsunari, he made a special trip to visit the houses of Shimadzu, Arima, Nagasogabu, and Hosokawa Yusai.
The fatigue within the territory and the disputes after the withdrawal of troops will undoubtedly cause chaos and friction with neighboring countries, so we must come up with countermeasures and work hard to prevent conflicts from happening.
After the dream of making a fortune through the war was shattered, the generals must also be extremely depressed, so I must work hard to cheer them up and encourage them to rely on their own efforts to revive their territory. These are the responsibilities of those in power. Of course, if Taige was still alive, he would probably do the same thing.
But in Mitsunari's eyes, Ieyasu had other motives or evil intentions. He believed that Ieyasu regarded Hideyoshi's story as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, took the opportunity to win over various famous people, and launched a challenge to the Toyotomi clan. He was an extremely dangerous generation of traitors.
Of course, Ieyasu is also aware of Mitsunari's dissatisfaction, but Mitsunari sees it too superficially and has no idea where Japan's greatest danger currently lies - the "Da Ming Guan Bai" who has already put his hand into Japan's arms, is the real Someone who can subvert everything.
If you compare yourself with him, your greatness will only subvert Toyotomi Gongyi, and you will never destroy the national system of Japan. But that may not be the case for "Guan Bai". If I don't restrain him through the current methods, will he care about Japan's national system? Obviously not. Guan Bai and generals are probably worthless in his eyes. Even the emperor is nothing more than a plaything that he can stand up and abolish at his will.
For the sake of Japan's national system, he was willing to give up even the Tokugawa clan. The "Tokugawa" that will be truly inherited in the future is just a division of the clan. How could Ishida Mitsunari know about such a huge sacrifice? How could he know how to endure humiliation and bear the burden!
In fact, proposing marriage to the Fukushima and Hachisuka families is not without the intention of testing 30%.
As for wanting to welcome Intatsu Masamune's daughter as Tadayuki's wife, Ieyasu had two considerations: First, of course, he wanted to seek peace and security in Edo; second, he also wanted to test Mitsunari's reaction to this and see how he would react. Look at your contacts with Hideyoshi’s elders.
If Mitsunari can realize that there is no point in being hostile to Ieyasu, then he should be happy, both for himself and the Toyotomi clan; if he does not rein in his rebellious attitude, the battle between the martial arts school and the literary school will become more difficult. Never ending. If he is narrow-minded and stubborn...
Ieyasu wanted to test Sancheng's foolishness. Unexpectedly, Maeda Toshiie was also involved. But despite this, no matter what happens, Ieyasu is ready to deal with it.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "shaoyeu", and "What's Fate" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: My child has a high fever. He has to stay with me in the hospital for most of the day today, and he will have to go with me for injections tomorrow and the next two days. This may affect the update time, but it will not affect the overall progress of one chapter per day. Hereby explain.
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