Wanyoshi knew that the Maori family had never occupied Harima in history, so Wanyoshi was still relieved in the short term. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info plus Mao Li Yuan after his death asked the Mao Li family to strictly guard their own territory, not allowed to expand outward, this is Wan Ji rest assured, at the same time Wan Ji also hopes that Mao Li Yuan will die soon, he does not want to meet such an opponent.

The biggest event for the Kuroda family in recent years was the three repulsions of Akamatsu Masahide's army, which attempted to recapture the land occupied by the Kuroda family when the Kuroda family's foothold in the new territory was unstable. However, after several reinforcements and expansions, Koguchi Castle has become very different from before. In the three attacks, Akamatsu Masahide launched an army of about 3,000 people, but each time he faced Koguchi Castle, which was only defended by two or three hundred people, he was like biting a hedgehog and couldn't swallow it. Coupled with the ninja army of the Kuroda family's Hattori security chief, all kinds of ninja tactics that make people uneasy. Every time, Akamatsu Masahide's army was determined to win, leaving behind hundreds of corpses and leaving in disgrace.

Since he became the elder of the family, Kobei has been conscientiously managing Oguchi Castle, and Kuroda has placed 200 of the standing reserves in Oguchi Castle. But Musato Kobei was still not at ease, and he pondered every day how to feed more people and more soldiers through the territory of a thousand stones, until Wanji introduced the planting method of terraces and the method of two harvests a year to Kuroda's family.

Musato Kobei is a good person, he has been following the example of his own family, some of the children of retainers who died in battle, as well as the orphans in the collar to adopt as adopted sons, cultivating their martial arts and knowledge, Musato Kobei has promoted several children with martial arts or strategic success from these orphans, to become his own retainers. And among the newly recruited orphans, there is a child of a relative of the mother's Kobei, who is just two years old, and if you tell Wanji, this child is called Taibei, Wanji will definitely call up, this is the fierce general of the Kuroda family, the mother's Taibei Yushin. Of course, as I just said, he is only six years old, and he has at least ten years to go out of the Kuroda family.

Speaking of Koguchi Castle, we can't fail to mention the ninjas in the east of Koguchi Castle, originally at the end of the Battle of Koguchi Castle, the Kuroda family only had a ninja army of only seventy people, and under the persuasion of Hattori Baochang several times, he persuaded another Fujibayashi Hoho in the three ninjas of Iga Province, and more than a dozen small ninja families were also willing to come together, plus the Hattori family who moved as a whole, and finally the number of ninja troops reached 400 people, and there were more than 1,000 ninja families, this number even Kuroda was very surprised. At the same time, at the behest of Manyoshi, the ninja army was renamed Iga Tongxin.

It's just a pity that the last three-person three-person three-man is unwilling to leave his homeland, no matter how Hattori Baochang persuades and promises benefits, he just can't shake his heart. In the end, Hattori had no choice but to give up. Because many of the small ninja families in Iga Country are only headed by a hundred places, otherwise Hattori Baochang will be able to recruit more ninjas.

Kuroda promoted Fujibayashi Hoho to the general of the Kuroda family, gave him two hundred stone of land, and appointed him as the deputy commander of the Iga congenera, as for some other upper ninja and middle ninja positions, according to the agreement, all of them were handed over to the Hattori chief to appoint, the Kuroda family did not interfere, and the Hattori chief was very familiar with these four hundred ninjas, and finally based on the consideration of strength and family interests, four ashigaru generals and forty group leaders were assigned, barely balancing the relationship between the ninja families, and at the same time meeting the wishes of the family, since each family has a samurai, in the future, it can be promoted through the military industry, and the ninjas also have a goal to strive for. The safety of Koguchi Castle is also inseparable from these highly motivated Iga concentrators.

Because the territory area reached 10,000 koku, which is not counting the 3,000 koku of Himeji Castle in Kotera Takahisa, the Kuroda family expanded the 300 standing army to 500, and at the same time, Kotera Takahisa also recruited 100 standing troops in Himeji Castle as a reserve for the Kuroda family. At the same time, the number of peasants and soldiers in the territory also increased from the previous 400 to 700, and Himeji Castle also had 200 and a half standing peasants.

As the number of troops increased, weapons and equipment became a place to be improved, and the Kuroda family was lucky, and when they were trading in Sakai Town, they ransomed a slave, and it turned out that this person was a native of the Ming Kingdom, and once when Wanyoshi returned home, he occasionally found this person.

I talked to this person about the Ming language, and knew that this person was a person from Baoding, Hebei, who was originally a blacksmith, and would also build some weapons, because the family had a few acres of thin fields, and was favored by the landlord, so he was wrongfully imprisoned, and he took the opportunity to be escorted, fled to the sea, and was caught by pirates under Wang Zhi's command, and sent to the island country as a slave, which happened to be bought by the Kuroda family.

This slave named Li Sanbao turned out to be a blacksmith and could also build weapons, at that time Wanji felt that he had picked up a treasure, and the short-range weapons Kuroda family could make them by themselves, and the knife making technology of the island country was still very good, so Wanji thought of long-range weapons, and the long-range weapons of the island country, whether it was a longbow or a maruki bow, compared with the so-called bow and arrow of the Ming Kingdom, it was simply a master. If the dozens of arrows are not dead, and they are placed on the battlefield of the Ming Kingdom, it is estimated that both sides of the exhibition will be scared out of the urine.

Long-range weapons, the first thing that comes to Wanji's mind is the iron cannon, or even the rain iron cannon. But the moment the word appeared in Wanji's head, Wanji denied his opinion. When the iron cannon of the island country first appeared, it had a short range, little power, and could not be used in rainy days, and the biggest problem was that it was expensive to build. Even in the later stage, there was a rain iron cannon, but the problem of short range was still not solved. As long as the person in the iron cannon is not killed on the spot, he will be infected by the wound caused by the iron cannon, and he will endure painful torture and finally die.

Wanji then thought of the crossbow, the crossbow has been used in the Ming Kingdom for tens of thousands of years, in a Stone Age cemetery, a girl died because of the **** attack on the crossbow. Crossbows are easy to aim and simple to use, but they also have a short range, and these disadvantages are basically the same as iron cannons, but crossbows have strong penetration, and crossbows are cheap to build, as long as they can start production, they can be equipped in a large area. So Wan Ji decided to ask Li Sanbao to make a crossbow, and coincidentally, Li Sanbao once made a crossbow for a travelogue general, so as long as the manpower and raw materials are sufficient, he can start making crossbows immediately.

Wanji immediately told Kuroda Zhitaka his thoughts, Kuroda Zhitaka knew about the iron cannon, but I heard that it was very expensive, and the entire Kuroda family couldn't afford to buy a few, since now Wanji said that there is a Ming weapon that can replace the iron cannon, and the cost is cheap, Kuroda Zhitaka has no bushido belief and immediately agreed. And immediately appointed Li Sanbao as the smelting director of the family, the head of the ashigaru group, and the annual five stones, full-time to make weapons for the Kuroda family.

Several generals of the Kuroda family, including the Iate Tomoji, came to the Kuroda occupation for a day to sit quietly outside the Kuroda occupation, after knowing that the family was going to produce crossbows, and strongly demanded that the Kuroda family not use such weapons that deviated from the norm and did not conform to the spirit of bushido.

In the end, this incident alarmed Kuroda Shigetaka, who lived in seclusion outside Himeji Castle, and the old man ordered someone to bring a message to the Iate Tomoji, as long as it is in the interests of the Kuroda family, even if it does not conform to the spirit of bushido, it doesn't matter, the Himeji Kuroda family turned out to be selling eye medicine, not from a samurai family! If you really want to adhere to the spirit of bushido, you can collectively seppuku, you have four sons, one dead and three, the Kuroda family has a lot less for you, and you don't have much more.

In this way, the samurai including the Imate Yushi closed their mouths, and the Imate Yushi was actually just expressing his dissatisfaction, and if he really made him seppuku, he immediately coaxed. Kuroda can not listen to the words, although Ide respects his brother very much, but the old man has spoken, and the matter can only be decided, is it really a seppuku! It hurts to say.