different warring states of japan

Chapter 2061: The Wu Family Cannot Choose the Public Family

Yoshigin once held the sword given by Ashikaga Yoshiteru and slaughtered people in the conservative and traditional Kanto, forcing all the samurai to bow down for the sake of justice.

Afterwards, Ashikaga Yoshiteru was murdered by the Miyoshi trio in Nijo Castle. Before his death, he asked Takada Yukino to take the gold seal out and give it to Sasaki Yoshikin.

After Sasaki Yoshikane and Oda Nobunaga joined forces to support Ashikaga Yoshiaki to go to Kyoto, he used the imperial sword and gold seal to help Ashikaga Yoshiaki ascend the throne of Ashikaga Shogun and gained great political prestige.

As the absolute spiritual leader of the conservative samurai faction, Yoshigane Sasaki has been a saint for so many years. Even if he was pretending to be a saint, he has now become a true saint.

Even if Hashiba Hideyoshi could conquer Shikoku and Kyushu and force the Mori clan in the west to surrender, his strength would be infinitely close to that of Sasaki Yoshikane.

But in terms of reputation, due to his humble origin as a servant, Hashiba Hideyoshi would never be able to catch up with Sasaki Yoshikane, whose name was known throughout the world.

Now that Kuroda Kotaka has made big news, Hashiba Hideyoshi has seen another possibility.

I am of humble origin, and perhaps I will never be respected by the martial arts families in the world. No matter what I do, I can never catch up with the nobility and holiness of Yoshikin Sasaki.

But thinking on the other hand, he didn't have to go up, he could also throw dirty water on Sasaki Yoshigin and drag him down to be despised by the world's military families together with himself, and the effect would actually be the same.

It would be wonderful if the Sasaki clan really massacred Kyoto, killed the Ashikaga Shogun, and took out the shogun's governor and the prime minister.

The bloody change of dynasties will make the samurai of the world see the cruelty behind the mask of Sasaki Yoshigaki and Jinyi, and be horrified by the cruelty of the new dignitaries. Political trust will be like a cracked mirror, which is difficult to mend.

Hashiba Hideyoshi couldn't help but reveal a hint of excitement on his face, and he pretended to be reserved and said to Kuroda Kotaka.

“Just go ahead and do it, I will have the Koga clan fully cooperate with you.

By the way, before Ashikaga Yoshiaki returns to the capital, I hope she can adopt me as her daughter. Go and do it. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend. I just want a result. "

There was a gleam in Kuroda Kotaka's eyes, and he looked at the flushed Hashiba Hideyoshi, and couldn't help but sneer in his heart.

His master was both arrogant and self-deprecating. Under his indifferent expression, he was actually extremely concerned about his humble origins.

Hideyoshi Hashiba's status was too low, but if she could be adopted by the shogun, she would be climbing up the high branch of the Kawachi Genji clan.

It's like Tokugawa Ieyasu found the ancestor of the famous Nitta clan of the Kawachi Genji from somewhere and used it to gild himself.

Even though everyone knows this is nonsense, they have to follow it. This is reality.

The island nation's society has strict hierarchy and distinctions between the noble and the humble. That's the cultural atmosphere, and one has to bite the bullet and give oneself a high-ranking ancestor in order to rule the territory with legitimacy.

Furthermore, Ashikaga Yoshiaki's return to the capital this time is likely to be dangerous.

This girl still has no children. If she really dies in Kyoto, Hashiba Hideyoshi can take advantage of the situation to elevate himself and inherit the Ashikaga Shogunate.

Regardless of whether others recognize it or not, Hashiba Hideyoshi will definitely shamelessly rely on the Ashikaga family.

But Kuroda Kotaka felt that Hashiba Hideyoshi was dreaming too much and that adopting a daughter was simply impossible.

Ashikaga Yoshiaki himself was not of high status. He transformed himself from a secular nun into the Ashikaga Shogun, which is still criticized today.

Her obsession with her identity is deep-rooted. It is not only her personal stubbornness, but also a political means for her to maintain her identity and status.

Wouldn't it be a joke for the whole world to let Ashikaga Yoshiaki adopt a daughter who was born a servant? Ashikaga Yoshiaki's reputation, which was already shaky, would probably collapse and fall even faster.

So this is not a matter of money. No matter how much Toyotomi Hideyoshi flatters him, the impoverished and embarrassed Shogun would never give in.

Instead of wasting time on Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Hashiba Hideyoshi might as well think of other ways.

In a flash, Kuroda Kotaka only thought for a moment, and the guilty and sensitive Hashiba Hideyoshi coughed with a slightly displeased tone.

"What? No?"

Kuroda Kotaka bowed.

"Hey, I'll try my best."

Kuroda Kotaka knew that the result would definitely disappoint Hashiba Hideyoshi, but she couldn't say it now.

Although Hashiba Hideyoshi imitated Oda Nobunaga's magnanimity, he was wise and decisive in his dealings with others, and was very thoughtful about his allies and subordinates, and was praised by everyone.

But in fact, Hashiba Hideyoshi was a guy with extremely low self-esteem at heart, and Kuroda Kotaka saw it clearly.

With such a person, you must never touch her reverse scale, otherwise she will become furious and kill your entire family.

The most important thing now is to make every effort to promote the cooperation between the shogun and the shogunate retainers and allow Ashikaga Yoshiaki to return to Kyoto.

As for Hashiba Hideyoshi's unrealistic fantasy of adopting a daughter, Kuroda Kotaka could only think of other ways, as the identity issue had to be resolved.

In this impoverished island nation, the social environment is so harsh that small-scale sectarianism, where people stick together for warmth, is a necessary condition for survival. Blood ties, fellow villagers, and family background are naturally existing small-scale sects.

Hashiba Hideyoshi was also a native of Owari, but because of his humble background, he could not be regarded as the leader of the Owari samurai.

The real leaders of the Owari samurai were Oda Nobunaga and Shibata Katsuie. No matter how hard Hashiba Hideyoshi tried, he could not truly convince the Owari samurai.

She could only rely on her husband's relatives and the Omi-Harima samurai who had conquered the territories in recent years to form her own team. Such a ruling base was unstable.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi urgently needed a family of high status to unite the emerging Toyotomi ruling group and consolidate his own regime.

For this reason, Hashiba Hideyoshi was willing to bow his head and become a cheap adopted daughter of the outdated Ashikaga Shogunate, and serve the stupid Ashikaga Yoshiaki.

But Kuroda Kotaka was 100% sure that the olive branch extended by Hashiba Hideyoshi would be rejected by Ashikaga Yoshiaki.

The two generations of military regimes had ruled the country for four hundred years, and the traditional military concepts of family status had been deeply rooted in the ruling class.

The system of adopted daughters was indeed a way for samurai families to improve their family status. It was a pity that Ashikaga Yoshiaki's succession to the Ashikaga Shogun was congenitally deficient, which prevented him from bringing in Hashiba Hideyoshi as external aid.

But on the other hand, the choice of the Ashikaga Shogunate that Hashiba Hideyoshi wanted to improve his family's status was not limited to that of the Ashikaga Shogunate.

Finding a poor family that is weak enough to need help from outsiders to continue the family name may be a better choice than Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who can only cling to the life-saving straw of family status. Tokugawa Ieyasu is very smart. The ancestor of the Nitta family she found once fought with the Ashikaga family for the world. After the defeat, the main family was killed by the Ashikaga family, and the orthodoxy was cut off.

She only needs to randomly identify a missing or runaway legitimate daughter as her ancestor to elevate her own status without interfering with anyone else's interests.

Even the Satomi family, which is known as the main family of the Nitta branch family, would not give a second glance to Tokugawa Ieyasu, a guy who claimed to be his ancestor. The two sides did not interfere with each other and each worshipped their own ancestors.

It was a fact known to all samurai families in the world that Hashiba Hideyoshi was born a servant. She insisted on finding a famous samurai family to marry into, but she would only be laughed at by the samurai family. It turned out that a lowly person was really shameless.

This is the idea of ​​a dog who licks but fails to get what he wants. The closer you get, the less people will take you seriously.

In fact, Hideyoshi Hashiba could completely change his thinking and look at this problem from a different angle.

In the island society, the Kawachi Genji was the highest-ranking samurai family and naturally extremely noble. However, as long as one stepped out of the samurai circle, there were bloodlines and lineages that were more noble than the Kawachi Genji.

For example, the regent family of the court nobles.

The Sekkanke, also known as the Five Sekkanke, are the five direct descendants of the Fujiwara clan, namely the Konoe family, the Ichijo family, the Nijo family, the Kujo family, and the Takasuka family.

The word "摄" comes from "regency", because Fujiwara's ancestors would marry their sons to the emperor and serve as regents as relatives, leading the emperor's court. This was known in history as the Sekkan politics, and thus the family was called the Sekkan family.

Before the rise of the samurai, the core of the island nation's political struggle was the power struggle between the emperor and the Fujiwara clan.

As the family with the highest status among the court nobles, the Five Regents could be promoted to the highest level in the Regent system through official positions such as Dainagon, Uechanin, and Sachanin.

Kanpaku was the highest rank among the nobility, and his status was equivalent to that of the Shogun, who founded the government among the samurai.

In fact, neither the Kanpaku nor the Shogun were originally officials within the system of the Ritsuryo system established by the imperial court, but were temporarily dispatched officials outside the system.

The expansion of power of both was not a result that the emperor wanted to see, but rather a product of the emperor's failure in the power struggle.

The Fujiwara clan served as regent and eventually became regent, ruling the world on behalf of the emperor and becoming the highest-ranking family in the court.

The Kawachi Genji used the Shogun as a springboard to establish the samurai shogunate and became the shogun. Finally, the third shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, overthrew the imperial court and became the pinnacle of the samurai family status.

In Kuroda Kotaka's opinion, Hashiba Hideyoshi should not flatter the samurai, because doing so would only make the samurai look down on Hashiba Hideyoshi's background even more.

The best strategy would be for Hashiba Hideyoshi to step out of the small circle of the samurai and pursue a noble family background.

And now, there is an opportunity right in front of Hideyoshi Hashiba.

When the third shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu destroyed the imperial court and Shintoism, he did not kill all the descendants of the emperor and court officials.

The Minamoto clan of the samurai family were themselves descendants of the emperor, and the Fujiwara clan had ruled the island nation for hundreds of years through the regent system, so naturally, countless descendants flowed into the local area.

These powerful daimyo and kommyo of the Fujiwara clan in the local area had close ties with the newly emerging local samurai and had long been samurai-ized court nobles.

If a political storm really were to be stirred up and the five remaining local regents were to be labeled as black sheep, I'm afraid that the people under the rule of the Ashikaga shogunate would be thrown into panic.

Therefore, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu only massacred the emperor and ministers in the central government of Kyoto, and stopped after uprooting the central government and the foundation of Shintoism.

The emperor still showed leniency to local shrines, provincial governors and other local officials of the imperial court, granting them samurai status and allowing them to change their appearance.

Tokugawa Ieyasu's ancestors may have been priests, while Ii Naomasa's ancestors were the Fujiwara clan.

Therefore, it was not uncommon for priests and court nobles to become samurai. Toyotomi Hideyoshi could easily borrow the family status of court nobles to elevate his own family background.

On the island of Shikoku that Hashiba Hideyoshi was conquering, there existed the remnants of a number of noble court nobles whose families had fallen into decline and who were in urgent need of external assistance.

The Tosa Ichijo family was a branch of the Ichijo family among the Five Regent Families. They were forced to leave Kyoto due to failure in the political struggle and fled to their own estate in Tosa Province to avoid disaster.

This branch of the Fujiwara clan, which was originally destined to be marginalized due to its distance from the central government, unexpectedly avoided the disaster of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu's overthrow of the imperial court and took root in Tosa Province.

When the Chosokabe clan was on the verge of destruction, the Tosa Ichijo clan lent a helping hand and helped Chosokabe Kunichika rebuild his family business, but they did not expect to be repaid with ingratitude.

After the rise of Kunichika's son Chosokabe Motochika, he intended to unify Tosa Province and almost destroyed the Tosa Ichijo family. The head of the Tosa Ichijo family had no choice but to live in seclusion on Toshima Island in the Seto Inland Sea.

If Hashiba Hideyoshi really wanted to come from a respectable family, instead of fawning over Ashikaga Yoshiaki, a fool who valued family status more than anything else, he might as well try the Tosa Ichijo family, which was at the end of its rope.

Kuroda Kotaka glanced at Hashiba Hideyoshi, thinking secretly, and prepared to give advice to the disappointed Hashiba Hideyoshi after Ashikaga Yoshiaki rejected Hashiba Hideyoshi's olive branch.

The Ichijo family was the highest-ranking family among the court nobles, and was the direct line of the Kujo family of the Fujiwara no Kita clan's regent family. Its family status was second only to the Konoe family, one of the five regent families, and was of the same rank as the Kujo family, and higher than the Nijo family and the Takashi family.

Although the Tosa Ichijo family was a illegitimate branch of the Ichijo family, the emperor and nobles had been destroyed for 150 years. Today, the Tosa Ichijo family is the successor of the Ichijo family and it is not wrong for them to call themselves the legitimate branch.

Just like after Minamoto no Yoritomo's lineage died out, the Ashikaga family became the most likely to become the legitimate heir, the Kawachi Minamoto family. However, they were feared by the former Hojo family in power under the Kamakura shogunate and had to marry the Hojo prince.

The ancestor of the Sasaki family was born to a divorced husband, so he was considered to be the closest branch of the Ashikaga clan outside of the Ashikaga family.

Sasaki Yoshikin was of noble birth. Once the Ashikaga family had no successor, he naturally had the right to establish his own government and become the shogun.

Instead of competing with him for the position of the supreme leader of the samurai, Hashiba Hideyoshi might as well try to be the regent, the supreme leader of the court nobles.

If the Tosa Ichijo family was willing to accept Hashiba Hideyoshi's adopted daughter, Hashiba Hideyoshi could try to make the Tosa Ichijo family the legitimate heir again and let the Kanpaku, the highest leader of the court, reappear in the world.

The imperial system had been in decline for two hundred years, and the resistance that Hashiba Hideyoshi faced in picking it up now was far less difficult than struggling in the samurai family circle.

Kuroda Kotaka was confident and smiled slightly, which made Hashiba Hideyoshi's heart beat a little faster.

Looking at the lame-legged military strategist in front of him who was so gloomy that even his smile looked sinister, Hashiba Hideyoshi missed the deceased Takenaka Shigeharu even more.

Hashiba Hideyoshi didn't know what Kuroda Kotaka was thinking, but she really didn't like her subordinates making decisions for her.

She is not a soft-hearted man like Yoshigane Sasaki. She wants to be the woman of the world. How can she be ordered around by her subordinates?

The two people had different thoughts and the atmosphere became cold for a moment. As the saying goes, villains make friends based on profit, and gentlemen make friends based on righteousness. The ancients were right.

This pair of king and minister, who seem to be in harmony but are actually at odds with each other, can still be united for the time being, but it is unknown how long this can last.