Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1574 Taking Chestnuts from the Fire ([-])
The Hojo family had no garrison on the island of Misaki Castle, but Misaki Castle was on the other side of the city island, and Misaki Castle had a garrison, just because the Hojo family believed that Misaki Castle would not be defeated before the failure of its own Izu navy and Sagami navy. There is no danger, so the number of troops stationed is very limited, only about 600 people in total.

The envoy sent by Luo Yuan stated that the Maritime Trade Alliance had established the "Japanese Kanto Squadron" and appointed him to lead the Kanto Squadron to set up a base in the Kanto region, accompanied by "more than [-] giant ships and more than [-] troops."He asked to negotiate with Hojo Ujimasa, Hojo Ujizhi and his son, and made it clear that the Maritime Trade Alliance was willing to finance and lease Misaki City as a business base.

The distance between Misaki Castle and the island of the city is only seven or eight miles. The defenders sent people to look out, and they saw more than 8000 giant ships.However, regarding the "more than [-] troops", the defenders think that there seems to be some moisture. They believe that the Japanese Kanto Squadron of the Sea Trade Alliance will bring about [-] troops.

In fact, this estimate is relatively accurate in terms of the total number of people, because although the accompanying regular troops, that is, the marines, are only about 800 people, there are many naval personnel, the most important of which are the accompanying personnel of the [-] armed transport ships. .

According to the establishment of the Jinghua armed transport ship, each armed transport ship has a capacity of 180 people, and 5400 ships are 300 people. In addition, the flagship of the Kanto Squadron "Left Wing Light Cavalry" has a capacity of about 6000 people, which is close to [-].

In addition, due to long-awaited predictions, Luo Yuan believed that he would either need to rebuild Misaki Castle or deploy defenses directly on the island of the city, so he also transferred more than 1000 Jinghua infrastructure design craftsmen and strong labor with the approval of Gao Yushi. In fact the entire fleet brought about 9000 men.It's just that the defenders of Misaki Castle don't know the actual number of crew members on each ship, so the estimate is a little bit lower, but it doesn't hurt too much.

Nine thousand against six hundred, and the opponent has strong ships and guns. If there is a fight, the Misaki Castle built by the sea will definitely be unstoppable. Therefore, the defenders of Misaki Castle immediately expressed their willingness to negotiate—of course it is not theirs. Immediately send a letter to Odawara Castle, and let the Hojo Ujimasa and Ujinao father and son decide.

Luo Yuan agreed to this, because he also planned to take this opportunity to build temporary fortifications, so as to prevent the Hojo family from having a brain twitch and want to take back the city island by force-this possibility is actually very low, but prevention is still necessary.In addition, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army is in place, it is difficult to say whether the Lord Kanbai will seize the island. After all, the strength of the navy in his hand is only relatively weak compared to the Maritime Trade Alliance, and only compared to the Kanto Squadron. Said it is not weak.

Of course, Misaki Castle couldn't hide the construction of the castle island, but the defenders of Misaki Castle pretended not to know about it.They only have 600 people, of which there are only about [-] samurai, and only a few small boats, so they have nothing to do with the city island on the other side.

The Hojo family was not slow to receive the news, and received the report the next morning. At this time, the Hojo family was under the "Odawara assessment".The so-called "Odawara assessment", I mentioned a sentence before, and it was explained in the later "Japanese National Dictionary": it originated from the 18th year of Tensho, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi attacked the Hojo clan of Odawara Castle, the city had different opinions on the war, To waste time in vain refers to meetings and discussions that never come to fruition.Also known as "Odawara Tanhe", "Odawara Du", "Odawara Shodan".

Specifically, the current Hojo family is facing the attack of Hideyoshi's army. The opinions of the family cannot reach an agreement, and the decision is delayed. Such fruitless negotiations are called Odawara's assessment.

This evaluation has lasted for more than a month. From the first month to the beginning of February, the Hojo family hardly reached any decisions.At this time, Kenhide Matsuda was the core member who advocated the defense, and Jomune Ise advocated the attack.However, the initiator of the attack theory was actually Hojo Ujikun, the lord of the Hachigata Castle, but he was farther away, so in Odawara Castle, Ise Jomune was the core.

However, no matter whether it is the Ise Jomune or the Hojo Clan, it is impossible to clearly judge whether it is right or wrong to do so.It is not wrong for Hojo Ujimasa and Hojo Ujinao and his sons to hold such a big discussion at this time to decide whether to adopt a policy of standing firm or attacking the enemy.

What they don't know is that while they were still struggling with whether to defend or attack, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's strategic plan had already been completed. On Hideyoshi's side, after entering Tensho for 18 years, intense preparations have already begun.Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had long been appointed as the pioneer of the Odawara Raiders, convened a military meeting on the 21st of the first month; Mori Terumoto, who was ordered to dispatch the navy, also ordered his retainers to start preparations on the 28th.

According to the situation in the original history, on March 3st, Hideyoshi would personally lead [-] troops directly under him and set off from Juledi in Kyoto.However, before that, the pioneer Tokugawa Ieyasu had already set off.

On March 25th or 24th, the Tokugawa Ieyasu army, as the vanguard, and the Hojo clan's vanguard, the army guarding the Izu castles, began to engage in hand-to-hand combat.Hideyoshi Fang has already done a detailed investigation of the various branches of the Hojo Clan, and he knows exactly how many troops there are in any city.

The Hojo family is also aware of the fact that their own strength is controlled by the opponent. The army that the opponent can dispatch is at least several times that of their own. .

The first is to judge the purpose of this force. The Hojo family has two views:
A conspiracy to believe that the Sea Trade Alliance is actually Hideyoshi here.This point of view is mainly supported by the estimation of Hideyoshi's economic strength, because during the more than ten years of operating Japanese trade in the Sea Trade Alliance, the style of the Sea Trade Alliance can basically be summed up in one sentence: "Money is not life."

Don't get me wrong, this is not to say that the Maritime Trade Alliance will rob by force, and will not even kill themselves for money.This sentence is from the standpoint of the Japanese, referring to the Maritime Trade Alliance who only wants to make money, not kill people.

Because of this inherent impression, some members of the Hojo family believe that the Sea Trade Alliance must have received a large amount of compensation from Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and helped Toyotomi Hideyoshi stab the heart of the Hojo family first—because the Sea Trade Alliance itself is very rich, it must be Only Toyotomi Hideyoshi has enough financial resources to "buy" them.

But more people still disagree with this point of view. The reason is that the Maritime Trade Alliance proposed a "lease" to the Hojo family as soon as it arrived, and made it clear that they were willing to pay the rent.Since they are willing to give money and say that the rent is negotiable, it is unreasonable to accuse them of taking Toyotomi Hideyoshi's money to be mercenaries.

This time, the Hojo clan finally judged relatively quickly, thinking that no matter what, we can talk first.So the Hojo family set a price that they thought was high: the Maritime Trade Union invested [-] guan (Yongle Tongbao) per year to lease Misaki City and its affiliated areas, or pay with rice at the current price.

At this time, Japan's economic level was very low, and Misaki Castle was underdeveloped. The annual tax revenue was only more than 2000 kan. Calculated at [-] kan per year, the Hojo family made a lot of money.Not only that, but the fact that you can pay with rice is even more pitfalls, because a war is about to happen, and the prices of all kinds of food are one price per day—no, it is several prices per day, and it is rising every day.And rice, as the staple food of the samurai class, has risen so much that people are stunned.

After the decision was made, it was sent to Luo Yuan early the next morning.An unexpected thing happened. Luo Yuan accepted it on the spot and expressed his willingness to pay five years' rent in advance, of which [-]% will be paid with Yongle Tongbao and [-]% will be paid with rice.And "to show sincerity", he is willing to lead a ship to the seaside of Odawara Castle, and make a deal with the Hojo family face to face.

The only request made by Luo Yuan was also "wonderful", because he asked for the lease of Misaki City for 50 years, with payments made every five years.

The Hojo family was in turmoil, and the Sea Trade Alliance actually wanted to reach such a long-term lease. The Hojo family was ecstatic when they received the news.You must know that even with this transaction, the Hojo family can directly obtain [-] Yongle Tongbao and a large amount of rice, which is of great significance for stabilizing Odawara Castle in the "cage battle".

You must know that the yield of rice per mu in Japan is very low at this time, and the yield per mu of single-season rice is only about 200 catties per mu.

Of course, it is very troublesome to estimate the value of ancient rice, and all cases must be converted to ancient standards.As I said before, it's not that the common people in Japan don't eat rice at this time, they just don't want to sell white rice, because the price of rice, soybeans and other crops is the highest, and they are also the daimyo's favorite collection.

It is most cost-effective for farmers to save valuable crops and eat some crops such as red rice, black rice, brown rice, and even rice bran and miscellaneous grains to satisfy their hunger.Due to incomplete data, scholars of later generations can only "idealize" the data at hand.

It is difficult to calculate the proportion of rice in food during the Warring States Period, but there is a data from the seventh year of Meiji, which shows that agriculture accounted for about 6% of the national output value in that year, and rice accounted for about 4% of the total output value, accounting for 62.8% of agriculture. Then According to this ratio, excluding cash crops such as tobacco and exotic crops such as sweet potatoes, rice production accounts for 76% of the total output of rice, wheat, beans, miscellaneous grains, fruits and other crops.

If at the end of the 16th century, paddy fields were 100 million shi, each yielded an average of 1.4 shi, and dry fields were 50 cho, each yielded an average of 1.2 shi, adding up to almost 2000 million shi, which is about the same as the height of stones.If this is the case, rice production will account for 7% of all crops, which is a little less than that in the Meiji period.

Uh, it’s far away. In short, in the Kanto area at this moment, that is, on the territory of the Hojo family, the original price of rice was 0.86 guan per shi. However, shortly after Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued the Odawara Conquest Order, the price of rice is now basically at a shi Rice sold at a high price of 2 pennies, more than doubled.

In other words, Luo Yuan is willing to pay the rent of Misaki City in the next five years with rice, which is equivalent to giving the Hojo family [-] shi of rice at once.

How many people can these rice feed for how long?According to the supporting rice in the Edo period, men are 5 times a day, women are 3 times a day, and the average is 4 times. 1000 is combined into one stone, that is, one stone of rice can feed 250 people for a day.

Although Odawara Castle is known as the strongest castle in Japan, in fact the Sagami Country to which Odawara Castle belongs is less than 20 stone high, and the population is far less than that of Musashi Country, another key country controlled by the Hojo family. Therefore, no "cage" was carried out in Odawara Castle. At the time of the "City", the population in the city was no more than [-]. Even if the cage city was implemented, it is estimated that the population would not exceed [-] at most.

In other words, 2 shi of rice can at least feed Odawara Castle for more than 71 days during the cage city stage.A windfall from the sky, do you think the Hojo family was surprised?

Therefore, as soon as the Hojo Clan changed his procrastinating style, he immediately instructed his son, the leader of the Hojo family, Hojo Ujinao, to sign a contract with the envoy of the Kanto Squadron. The more important agreements between the two parties are as follows:
The Hojo family leased Misaki Castle to the Maritime Trade Alliance on behalf of "Sagami Mori of Japan" for a period of 50 years; the annual rent is [-] guan of Yongle Tongbao, or the equivalent gold, silver, and rice at that time, and the Maritime Trade Union can choose to pay , paid every five years; "Japanese Sagami Shou" ensures the legality of the lease, and the Maritime Trade Alliance can set up a "City Representative" management in Misaki City by itself and station troops and fleets to protect the safety of Misaki City.

In addition, Nao Hojo proposed a secret agreement temporarily, hoping that "when our side needs it, the Maritime Trade Alliance can provide certain support, including military support, and the Hojo family will repay the corresponding support."

After Luo Yuan's envoy added the sentence "The return you said needs to be negotiated and reached an agreement with our side", he decisively expressed his agreement, and signed it at the beginning, and the two parties exchanged the contract and kept it.Afterwards, Hojo Ujinao ordered Misaki Castle to withdraw the garrison to Odawara Castle on the spot.

Then Luo Yuan's envoy returned to the island of Misaki Castle with the contract contentedly, and Hojo Shizhi also rushed back to the city excitedly, intending to discuss with his father and the elders of the family how to use this secret contract.

When Luo Yuan received the news, he immediately sent Gao Yunping, the commander of the Marine Corps, to lead the headquarters to take over Misaki Castle. The transfer of Misaki Castle was completed on the same day.

People from Jinghua Infrastructure immediately followed up and entered Misaki City to start the bastion transformation of the city defense system. Luo Yuan himself was responsible for the planning of the port facilities. The previous rent rations were originally planned to be part of the military rations they were going to stockpile.

The food problem is not big. In the past few years, southern Xinjiang has not only recovered the grain production before the war, but also under the planning and guidance of Jinghua, coupled with the development of the three major plains, the grain production in southern Xinjiang has increased year after year. export surplus.Twenty thousand shi of rice is a windfall for a Japanese daimyo, but it is almost a drop in the bucket for Nanjiang.

Time flies, time flies.As for Hideyoshi, it is considered that if the Yamanaka Castle that controls the Tokaido is not captured, the next step will not be possible.Therefore, Hideyoshi appointed his nephew Toyotomi Hideji as the general on March 29 to attack Yamanaka Castle.

Toyotomi Hideji personally led an army of 500 people, plus members such as Nakamura Kazushi, Yamauchi Kazutoyo, Tanaka Yoshimasa, Horio Yoshiharu, and Ichiyanagi Naosue, the total number was 800.

Although this number is somewhat exaggerated, compared with the [-] or at most [-] defenders in the mountain city, the attacker is at least ten times the defender.

After the Odawara expedition order was issued, the first battle between the Toyotomi Army and the Hojo Army was about to begin.
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(End of this chapter)