A tour of Japan's Warring States Period

Although Japan is surrounded by the sea, it is not a maritime nation. It is basically an agricultural nation.

He is completely different from the British. Although the British are in the British Isles, except for the world-class navy of the Empire that later became stronger, the sun never sets. The United Kingdom or the English region is actually a region rich in cavalry.

In the late Roman Empire, England was already an imperial border province rich in heavy cavalry. Although this cavalry tradition had a period of decline, after the Norman Conquest, William I, the Grand Duke of Normandy, enfeoffed the entire resulting group of Norman feudal nobles to various parts of England. As a result, the military tradition of feudal heavy cavalry charging with lances spread widely in England by feudal lords of all sizes.

This also allowed England to have a cavalry team capable of fighting for the next 800 years. The British cavalry shined on various battlefields (except for one time when Crimea charged the Russian army like a fool. position, and finally thousands of cavalry were finished together).

As a farming people, it is very difficult for the Japanese to recruit a cavalry. Firstly, although there are some good horses (the southern horses are tall and strong, the tallest one is more than 1.6 meters, which fully meets the requirements of military horses), the number is insufficient. Armed with a massive army. Secondly, due to long-term farming work, ordinary citizens are hunched over, and there are many people who are 1.34 meters tall. There is no possibility of training these people to become cavalry.

Although all modern horse racing riders are required to be short and small, ancient cavalry still required strong soldiers with strong backs and strong and well-developed upper limbs.

Although the tradition of cavalry is not unknown in Japan, tens of thousands of large-scale horse archers were also seen in the history books during the Homoto Heiji Rebellion (personally doubtful), and a large number of bow-wielding horseback warriors also appeared in the Mongol attack poems. But this tradition is not universal, it only exists in the samurai group or the samurai class.

So at the moment, there are only tens of thousands of samurai in Japan, yes, the few tens of thousands of samurai in the whole of Japan (after all, in the Edo period, even ashigaru were not counted as samurai), plus a slightly larger number of rich peasants and landowners who are regarded as the body. The conditions are passable and there is a tradition of cavalry.

Before that, Xiao Ping Tai had learned about the number of people in the feudal military class of the Yamauchi family. As the top-level warriors in feudal military duties, among the two hundred people (referring to the two hundred adult men who can go into battle at any time, excluding their relatives), there may be three adult men in their family, but only one is serving the public. (the same below), there are about 600 or 700 wealthy Fenggong people whose equipment and combat power are only slightly worse than those of the samurai (that is, the village chiefs of each village, the property-owning farmers who occupy more real estate riverbanks, and the wealthy mine owners and miners). , powerful craftsmen).

In other words, the Yamauchi clan's cavalry combat troops were less than a thousand at most among the most powerful and powerful daimyo in Togoku. Of course, compared with the old and famous Shimazu clan in the Western Kingdom, it is already very good, because according to the circulated Shimazu documents, the Shimazu clan can only mobilize 292 cavalry for the same 10,000 people. This is the reason why he occupies the Hyuga Osumi horse breeding area. If there are no horses, I don’t know what the scene will be like.

The scarcity of samurai is only a superficial problem. In fact, most of the thousand members of the Yamauchi family often need to command the army, manage local areas, and collect taxes, and they all have corresponding duties. We can't take away all the village chiefs in the mountains. Who can organize the mobilization of the lowest-level military service members? Who will collect the annual tribute? Who will keep the census? Who will launch the general labor service?

This is the biggest shortcoming of organizing the revolving cavalry. The number of soldiers is extremely insufficient. After the Battle of Kamirukawa and the death of dozens of named samurai who led the Uesugi family, the rule collapsed and declined. During the Battle of Bamien Mountain, thirty-six families under the command of the Mikawa Kira clan were cut off in half, and the Kira clan was directly destroyed. In some ways, there are really too few samurai.

On the contrary, an expensive horse-stealing cylinder with twelve crowns and three or five pieces of contemporary jewelry are all dead objects, and can be purchased as long as you have money. For the wealthy Yamauchi Yoshikatsu, it didn't matter at all, and he didn't even bother to worry about such minor details.

In order to solve the problem of soldiers, Koheita and Yamauchi Yoshikatsu had only one way. They once again looked for those old men who were from samurai families or feudal families, but were not the eldest sons, and at the same time had well-developed limbs and simple minds.

These people actually sorted through quite a few of these people when Xiaopingtai recruited Tongxin last time. Xiaopingtai basically knew the capable people among them. Now that he is recruiting people with Yamauchi Yoshikatsu's card, the occasion is even more unprecedented.

Why? It's very simple. Yamauchi Yoshikatsu is the young master of the Yamauchi family. Yamauchi Yoshiharu has allowed him to lead the army independently and began to train him to take over. At this time, people are arranged to work under him, and from now on they will be Conglong's meritorious team.

And because Koheita had sorted out hundreds of warrior families in the Yamauchi Territory before, which family had many unwanted sons (ordinary warrior families really didn’t want the sons who had many sons, so they gave them away everywhere). He had a clear family.

So when Yamauchi Yoshikatsu personally inspected the manpower, rumors began to spread throughout the mountain that as long as Koheita came to the house, he would be selected by Yamauchi Yoshikatsu to be Yamauchi Yoshikatsu's guard iron cannon horse.

Although Xiaopingta explained it several times, it didn't work at all. Because the son of whomever Koheita takes Yamauchi Yoshikatsu to will basically be chosen. There was no test of appearance or talent at all, and only Yamauchi Yoshikatsu and their sons fought on horseback. The more fun you play with Yamauchi Yoshikatsu, the more Yamauchi Yoshikatsu will like him, and he will be selected immediately.

Moreover, no one wants their second son to come to this opportunity. Many people even send their eldest son over just to get the credit for a potential residence.

In this way, one by one, Yamauchi Yoshikatsu spent more than a month selecting more than 40 martial arts disciples.

These people all came from relatively wealthy families, and the last one owned a Kiso horse, and they were all well-equipped with swords, carbines, and spears. Moreover, there were military servants assigned to them by their father. The richer ones even had one person and two horses, each wearing iron armor and a horse with a curtain.

Some of them had not yet entered the Yuan Dynasty, so their parents naturally turned to Yamauchi Yoshikatsu and Kohira Tai. So before the army was formed, Yamauchi Yoshikatsu was the bride's bride and Kohira Tai was the hairdresser. Helping all of them to get started, Xiao Pingtai shaved more than a dozen heads in one day, and his shaving skills were very good.

As the autumn harvest ends, the weather becomes colder. Yamauchi Yoshikatsu's forty-plus Japanese-style slewing cavalry were finally in full force and fully equipped. Training began.

Amidst the roar of iron cannons, a cavalry envoy flew from Kanto with frost hanging on his face.

(A new chapter is about to begin)