Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1573 Taking Chestnuts from the Fire ([-])
These adjustments in the capital were not completed within three to five days. In fact, it took more than a month.After the dust settled, Huang Zhiting even proposed to return to Dingnan first, but was rejected by Gao Wushi.Gao Yushi hoped that she would stay for a while longer.

Huang Zhiting was worried that staying in the capital for a long time would make Portugal peacefully hand over Malacca, but Gao Wushi believed that it was precisely because of this time that she should stay for a longer period of time, which would make Portugal feel more psychological pressure——Jinghua is not in a hurry, that is Because Jinghua believes that even taking Malacca by force is only a trivial matter.

Huang Zhiting was finally persuaded, and of course she didn't want to go back to southern Xinjiang so soon from the bottom of her heart.At this moment, Luo Yuan, who was in charge of attacking Kanto, Japan, had already received his marines from Taiwan, took advantage of the wind and rushed to Japan, and landed in Misaki on the seventh day of February, to be precise, Misaki's city island.

At this time, it was the 18th year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty, that is, 1590 A.D., which happened to be the 18th year of Tensho, Emperor Yangcheng of Japan. This year, the Hojo clan—to be exact, the "Hou Hojo clan" was in a dark cloud over the city. [Note: Updating is more complicated, so I won’t explain it in detail. For convenience, I will describe it as the Hojo clan in the future], and the head of the Hojo family is the Hojo clan. However, because of certain Japanese traditions, Hojo The actual power holder of the family is actually the Hojo clan government.

At the end of the Warring States period, there was talk about the three masters of the East, namely, "Dragon of Echigo" Uesugi Kenshin, "Tiger of Kai" Takeda Shingen, and "Lion of Sagami" Hojo Ujiyasu.At this time, the people of the past have gone, and the three heroes have passed away one after another, and their successors, future generations also have some comments.

Although Uesugi Kenshin's successor Uesugi Jingsheng fell in the Sekihara War and was greatly reduced, but at least he still preserved the Uesugi family's centuries-old family name.

In comparison, Takeda Katsuyori, the successor of Takeda Shingen, and Hojo Ujimasa, the successor of Hojo Ujiyasu—not to mention that the actual family governor at the time of the demise of the Hojo clan was Hojo Uji Nao—were not so lucky, because the family names died in the They have hands, so the evaluation of these two people for hundreds of years in later generations cannot be said to be high, and even somewhat negative.Although some scholars in Japan and China have re-recognized the two of them a lot in recent years, on the whole, it is not so easy to remove the scapegoat once it has been buckled.

When it comes to Takeda Katsuyori, many people feel that compared with his father who has a brilliant record, his overall performance is very bleak. Although he is also a brave player, his wrists are too far apart.Of course, some people say that the Takeda family perished at the hands of Katsuyori because Shingen didn't leave him any good things.

This is probably just one aspect. Before Luo Yuan left, when Gao Wushi gave him a brief history of that period, he said that the biggest scapegoat that Takeda Shingen left for Takeda Katsuyori was the sudden stabbing of Oda Nobunaga. Confrontation is a matter of time.

From October to November of the first year of Motoki, after Oda Nobunaga learned of Shingen's surprise attack on Enjiang, in his letter to Uesugi Kenshin, he scolded Takeda Shingen as an unprecedentedly immoral and ignorant person. Completely disregarding the ridicule of the world, I (Nobunaga) will fight against him forever, and will never communicate with him even after suffering catastrophe (from "Ancient Cases of the Past Dynasties");

After the Battle of Nagashino broke the Takeda family, Oda Nobunaga wrote a letter to Hosokawa Fujitaka and recalled the past, scolding Takeda Shingen as an ungrateful person who should have been punished long ago (from "Hosokawa Family Documents").

It can be seen from this that Oda Nobunaga gritted his teeth at the behavior of Takeda Shingen at that time, and it has not changed after Takeda Katsuyori succeeded.Therefore, even if Takeda Katsuyori wanted to return Nobunaga's son Oda Nobubo and Satake Yoshinori intervened to mediate the harmony between Takeda and Oda, Nobunaga refused; When the city proposed to surrender, Nobunaga refused, which caused the Takeda family to lose face in the world, and finally the Takeda family was uprooted.

In this way, the account of the demise of the Takeda family should be shared by Takeda Shingen and Katsuyori father and son, instead of just saying that Takeda Katsuyori's methods are too poor.

And when Gao Wushi talked about the Hojo clan, who is actually in power in the Hojo family at the moment, his evaluation was relatively fair.Ordinarily, after the Hojo clan inherited the family governor and before the Odawara conquest, the overall performance was reasonable: to bear the pressure of Uesugi and Takeda, and to devote themselves to sweeping away the psoriasis people in Kanto.

Although, he was once taken advantage of by Takeda Katsuyori and Tokugawa Ieyasu, but later it was considered to be able to regain the situation.It is a pity that before the Odawara conquest, he hesitated about Shangluo, which not only led to the demise of the Hojo family, but also was criticized by later generations, and left behind the allusive Japanese word "Odawara evaluation".

However, Gao Yushi himself was not only to evaluate the Hojo Clan’s administration, but also to explain the history to Luo Yuan in order to let Luo Yuan understand the situation in Kanto. So what kind of situation was the Hojo Clan’s administration facing before the Odawara conquest?
In fact, as early as the beginning of Tensho's 16th year, there had been news that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was going to conquer Odawara, so the Hojo side was also actively preparing for the war.

But in the same year, it was the critical time for Emperor Goyosei to gather together, and Higo Ichikui broke out in Kyushu. Considering it according to normal thinking, he thought it was reasonable for Toyotomi Hideyoshi to ignore the conquest of soldiers for the time being.

Normally, Toyotomi Hideyoshi mainly persuaded the Hojo family to be soft through Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had an in-law relationship with the Hojo family, and under Tokugawa Ieyasu's hard and soft actions, it did play a role. , it can be regarded as an explanation to Hideyoshi for the time being.

At this time, Toyotomi Hideyoshi really bought it, and announced to the Kanto generals that he planned to pardon the Hojo family, and at the same time delineated the boundaries between the Hojo family and the daimyo, especially the decision on the Numata issue.

However, just as the matter of Numata was resolved, when everything seemed to be calming down, the famous walnut city seizure incident broke out.Regardless of whether this is a bitter trick by Sanada Masayuki, or Toyotomi Hideyoshi's fairy dance, or the risky decision-making of the Hojo party's top group, or the personal behavior of Inomata Kuniken, in short, this incident made Toyotomi, Hojo, Tokugawa's multi-faceted efforts came to naught, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was extremely furious when the Hojo family blatantly violated the general peace order.

And more importantly, at this moment, although the Hojo clan's regulation of Shangluo was used as a foreshadowing in the early stage, the Hojo clan's government has not yet gone to Luo, after all, and the officials of the Hojo family have never been able to fall into the real hammer.In addition, Hojo's reply was that he knew nothing about the capture of the famous Walnut City, and continued to delay the time limit for Shangluo, which was really unconvincing, and finally led to his own family being conquered.

In this way, apart from the historical evaluation of the Hojo clan government, that is, the inability to correctly estimate the situation of both sides, indecision and other stupid behaviors that led to the demise of the Hojo family, it seems that there is no direct historical data to clearly prove the real reason why the clan government did not go to Luo. However, high-level pragmatic analysis It is believed that the factors that may have affected the Hojo Clan’s failure to go to Luo and his ministers in time are roughly as follows:
The first is the economic situation in the Hojo Territory.From the beginning of the first month of the 15th year of Tianzheng, the Hojo family began to enlist Odawara Castle (from "Sangzhou Documents") in the rural areas of Sagami and Musashi, and then successively invited Ueno Matsuida Castle, Jinshan Castle, Musashi Iwafu Castle, Shimoso Kuribashi Castle and Izu Yamanaka Castle, etc.

In addition, the Hojo family also carried out large-scale military mobilization in the territory (from the "Documents Collected by Ozawa Takashi"), arresting men aged 15 to 70, and even pulling out the Buddhist bells in the temple to ring Craft weapons.

All of the above actions do not require a lot of money.And because of frequent expropriation, many problems have been caused. For example, there is a surplus of land in the state-owned villages of Sagami but no one is cultivating it (from "Yongshima Document"), and Hiroshi Umyama, the retainer of Odawara Castle, is in Kamakura. The mansion was sold in exchange for 33 pieces of military rations.

Later, when it was decided that the Hojo clan would go to Luoyang first, the Hojo clan's third elder brother Hojo clan mentioned in a document to his retainers that he had spent [-] yuan of Yongle money and [-] yuan of military rations in the process of Odawara's general invitation, and even asked his retainers to bear the burden. part of it.

When the Hojo Clan ruled Shangluo, the Hojo Territory had to raise [-] guan, and the territory of the Hojo Clan was allocated [-] to [-] guan, and it was necessary to try its best to raise such expenses (from "Wuzhou Documents").

It can be seen from this that while developing armaments, the economic pressure and production and living pressure brought by Shangluo expenses can also be seen. It can also be seen that the agricultural decline in the Hojo Territory and how exhausted the retainers and people are.What's more, this is just the Hojo Clan's rule to go to Luo, if the Hojo Clan goes to Luo in person, the expenditure may be even greater.

Therefore, it can be seen that in the short term, it is conceivable that the Hojo family will be under a lot of pressure to raise a larger amount of funds for the Shizheng Shangluo. Maybe someone in the collar will make a fuss before they start their journey.

The second is the expectation of Ieyasu Tokugawa and the great role he played.The Hojo and Tokugawa families are actually not acquainted with each other. Since the Tianzheng Renwu Rebellion formed an alliance and marriage, the two parties have maintained a relatively close relationship. Ujimasa and Ieyasu have met many times and exchanged gifts.

In this way, when Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was already an important town in the Toyotomi regime, learned of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's decision to conquer Odawara, he immediately tried his best to dissuade him, hoping to put forward some conditions to avoid the crusade against the Hojo clan (from "Sanada Document").

At the same time, Tokugawa Ieyasu also actively mediated, and through the status of allies and in-laws, he asked the Hojo family to go to Luo as soon as possible, otherwise the Hojo family would send his daughter back (from "Crocogenji Documents"), no matter how you look at it. It was a very obvious reminder to the Hojo family.

Later, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent a letter to his old acquaintance Hojo Ujiki, asking him to go to Luo as soon as possible while he was in Kyoto (from "Book of Ancient Documents"). This is probably because he thought he could help the Hojo family to talk and smooth things over. .

It can be seen that Tokugawa Ieyasu really did his best to mediate the relationship between the Hojo family and Hideyoshi.But the Hojo clan may still want to be more secure or even more profitable. For example, they hope that Hideyoshi will send his mother to him like Yasuomi did when he was with Hideyoshi. This is nonsense, Hideyoshi’s father is long gone Can my wife conjure up another one?
Finally, Gao Yushi believes that the out-of-control development of the situation may also be somewhat related to the chaos and asymmetry of information.Because at that time, everyone was unclear about whether Toyotomi Hideyoshi was really going to crusade against the Hojo family, and the news changed after a while.

For example, during the mobilization at Odawara Castle, it is said that the Hojo family was actively preparing because they received news that Toyotomi Hideyoshi planned to send troops (from "Daoji Temple Documents");

But on March 16th, Tensho [-], Date Masamune mentioned in a letter that "Master Guanbai will not attack Odawara" (from "Endo Documents");

In the "Jiazhong Diary" article on May [-]th of the same year, it was also stated that "I heard that the negotiations between the Hojo family and Hideyoshi Fang broke down";
Most importantly, Hideyoshi issued a document to the generals in the Kanto region after the Hojo clan went to Luo in September of the 16th year of Tianzheng. Hojo Shizheng breathed a sigh of relief.

In this way, the situation of conquering for a while and easing up for a while is obviously not conducive to the Hojo family's correct judgment.Even after the famous walnut city was seized, Toyotomi's actions were very strange. While coercing, he actively urged the Hojo clan to go to Luo, and still did not block the road to Shangluo. This may make it even more difficult for the Hojo family to judge the situation.

In addition to these reasons, Gao Wushi believes that there are some other factors: for example, the Hojo family seems to have failed to accurately predict the balance of power between the two sides, which may have something to do with the Hojo clan’s overestimation of their family’s wealth.

In view of the previous battles between the ministers and the Toyotomi regime's Shimadzu and Nagamune's troops, especially the Shimadzu family defeated the powerful enemy with a few soldiers and defeated the first batch of troops from the Toyotomi family to land, Hojo Everyone may think that the combat effectiveness of Toyotomi's army is average.

According to this line of thinking, the Hojo family, which is obviously stronger than the Shimadzu family, should be able to fight if they occupy a favorable location. What's more, there are two so-called "allies" Tokugawa Ieyasu and Date Masamune who are not weak. Of course it was a misjudgment, Date Masamune hesitated, and Tokugawa Ieyasu did not intend to join forces with the Hojo family to fight Toyotomi.

Moreover, although Uesugi and Mori directly subordinated to Hideyoshi, they also fought head-on with the Oda regime, the predecessor of the Toyotomi regime, so the Hojo clan’s thinking may be too optimistic. Split—well, in Gao Yushi's view, this misjudgment is mainly because the Hojo family has never confronted the Toyotomi army, which is somewhat taken for granted.

Furthermore, since Dongguo was the birthplace of samurai society since Minamoto Yoritomo, the antagonism between the Kanto region and the central government may have had a certain impact on the decision-making of the Hojo clan.

After all, the confrontation between the Kanto regime and the center has not been once or twice, and not all of them ended in failure.For example, during the Xiangde Rebellion in Kanto, the confrontation between Kanto and the central government lasted for decades before it was resolved.

In addition, Gao Yushi believes that the opinions of Hojo's family are not unified, which may also be the reason for the delay in decision-making.In hindsight, it can be seen that Hojo Utero and Shigetomi Daidoji Masashige are all main fighters; the Hojo rule is biased towards Zhuhe because of Ieyasu’s relationship and has not met Hideyoshi; while the current leader Hojo Uji Nao seems to be inclined to both sides , or indecisive.

Therefore, as the final decision-maker, the Hojo Clan’s administration is really difficult to accurately judge the reasoning of both sides. After all, the weight of both sides is similar, and this matter is related to the life and death of the family. Be cautious—too cautious will delay the opportunity.

In the end, Gao Yushi believes that the Hojo family may be worried about their status after surrender. You must know that Tokugawa, Mori, Uesugi and other daimyos have surrendered to Toyotomi Hideyoshi for many years. The last and strongest traditional Warring States daimyo is the Hojo family .If I follow, I don't know whether it will be ranked lower than the above-mentioned daimyo. Will the Hojo family, who consider themselves the overlord of the Kanto, accept this result?
What's more, in the Toyotomi regime, there was already an old enemy of his own, Uesugi Kekatsu.Therefore, I am afraid that the Hojo clan's politics will have to weigh clearly how Toyotomi Hideyoshi will deal with it, whether it will be detained or changed.

Not only is it a question of strength, but also a question of name level. In order to force the Tokugawa family Yasuomi to follow, Hideyoshi not only gave away his younger sister, but also his wife, but he did not express such a high level to the Hojo family.If Toyotomi Hideyoshi cannot be allowed to copy the previous practice for the Hojo family, how can the Hojo family, as the overlord of the Kanto, lower their noble heads so easily?
To put it bluntly, it was still a game between the Hojo family and the Toyotomi regime, but the Hojo family overestimated the chips in their hands.

It was under such circumstances that the Kanto Squadron of the Jinghua Beiyang Fleet landed on Jonoshima and immediately sent envoys to the Hojo family.
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Thank you book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your support, thank you!
Thanks for the support of book friends "Yun Fuyueyu", "Cao Mianzi", "Xinka's little fan", thank you!
PS: At this time, there is a Ninja Castle in Kanto, and there is a legendary figure in the Ninja Castle...

(End of this chapter)