Hosokawa Fujitaka has never been a person who is easily excited, and at the same time, he is not a courtier who likes to play with power, otherwise he would not recommend Akechi Mitsuhide to become Ashikaga Yoshiteru's retainer, and at the same time, he would not look directly at Wada Yumasa to climb to a high position. Even during his exile, Hosokawa Fujitaka did not feel frightened. But looking at the homeless people in the chaotic camp in front of him, the homeless eyes with green eyes, Hosokawa Fujitaka only felt a chill run down his spine and go straight to his head.

It was nearly noon, and the camp was lit up by the outcasts, and the boiling pot was filled with stinking grass roots and tree bark, and a skinny rat was swollen and tossed up and down in the pot. Seventy or eighty people gathered around the clay pot, these people, dressed in rags and looking blank. There are men and women, and children are rarely seen.

Hearing the sound of horses' hooves, only a few people raised their heads to look at Hosokawa Fujitaka and the others, and then whispered softly: "Yes, it's a horse, a horse that can stew meat!" Whoosh, all of a sudden, the eyes of seventy or eighty people immediately focused on the horses under Hosokawa Fujitaka's crotch. The eyes glowing with green light make people's scalps tingle.

Hosokawa Fujitaka was not afraid of seventy or eighty homeless people, and more than ten samurai in civilian clothes immediately surrounded him, holding swords in hand, as if guarding against a pack of wild dogs, stared at these people coldly, and said to the master: "Something is wrong, leave immediately." ”

Fortunately, these people hesitated, but they still didn't rush up, they knew that the group of people in front of them were all killing warriors, and they knew that only a dozen warriors in front of them could kill them all. Instead, out of it came an older man, about forty or fifty years old.

The man seemed to have seen the world, and he could see the family crest on the chest of the samurai in front of him. It was the family crest of the shogunate. He had seen it from afar. However, he did not kneel, only his eyes shone with blazing fire, and he said, "O lord of the shogunate! Please save your people! ”

Shogunate, yes, Hosokawa Fujitaka's eyes shrank for a moment, and then relaxed, he never thought that the leader of a group of outcasts actually knew about the shogunate, but when someone in this group of outcasts heard the shogunate, he shrunk and said that he was afraid. More showed greater indignation, their eyes filled with fire. He shook his head and sighed, the authority of the shogunate had already been swept away. He looked at them and felt pitiful, struggling in the chaos and despair, but he couldn't see any hope.

The man's heart trembled, and the contemptuous expression of the samurai on the horse in front of him seemed to pierce him in the heart with a dagger. But the swords in their hands could not make him resist, and he knew that if there was any deviant action, he was afraid that the whole group would die.

The man looked up at Hosokawa Fujitaka. He didn't know what the other party's identity was, but he knew that it should be someone from the shogunate. He fell to his knees with a puff and kowtowed, "Please also ask the samurai master to show us a way to live." ”

As the man knelt, the other homeless people also knelt on the ground and kowtowed to him.

Hosokawa Fujitaka didn't know what to do. He couldn't tell them that the shogunate's food had also run out, and that all the food he was barely getting on now was given by the wealthy clans of the eastern country, and that he could only survive the rest of his days by eating a hungry meal, and he didn't know if he would run out of food in the future. Again, he didn't want to deceive them. He took a deep breath, then pointed to the west with his horsewhip and said, "Go west, yes, Date Dazai Daiji of the western country has food." ”

As he spoke, Hosokawa Fujitaka grabbed the horse's bridle, turned the horse's head, and waved the whip in his hand. As the horses galloped forward, the cool mountain breeze swept through his ears, and he couldn't help but sigh that as a shogunate of the shogunate, he had to watch the authority of the shogunate be swept away.

Hosokawa Fujitaka couldn't remember exactly the paths he had run, and by the time he regained his senses, he had already reached the front of a level. The banner hanging on the level clearly tells the visitor that the level in front of him is the territory of the Date family.

Hosokawa Fujitaka adjusted his rapid breathing while looking at the level in front of him, and there was a long line of people lined up in front of the level, most of them barefoot, wearing messy clothes, skinny, and slowly moving like dead bodies.

Yes, the team is moving slowly, at the front, someone is sitting at a table writing and drawing, and then handing a bamboo chopstick to the other party, moving forward repeatedly, it's not that someone doesn't want to cut the line, but the more than 20 corpses hanging in front of the checkpoint tell them that the Date family is also not merciful.

When Hosokawa Fujitaka was about to order someone to go and make a report, a team of more than 300 people suddenly appeared behind his side, and these people came over with sticks in their hands, such a large crowd is rarely seen.

A sharp whistle suddenly sounded on the level, and then more than 100 ashigaru people dressed in foot gear poured out from the camp at the back of the level, holding knives and guns in front of the level, and the original queue suddenly dispersed, mixed with the crying of children.

A ronin with a single knife shook his head and said: "It's a ronin who wants to forcibly break through again, and he really doesn't want to live or die." ”

Hosokawa Fujitaka also left the avenue far away, looking at the more than three hundred rabble with sticks, the front of the level suddenly became nervous, and the sharp whistle sounded for a while and then stopped sounding, but there were more than ten iron cannons stretched out at the back of the level.

The level that was supposed to break out didn't break out, no one is a fool, even if they pass the level and enter the Date Territory, will there be a way to live, you must know that the soldiers in these levels are all soldiers of the Date family, and this level is the level of the Date family.

Breaking through the checkpoint of the Date family, killing the people of the Date family, and wanting to live in the territory of the Date family, is simply a dream. Three hundred men armed with sticks stood at a distance of more than 150 paces outside the checkpoint and stopped, and one person came out of it.

He walked to the center of the two armies, then knelt on the ground, took out a dagger from his bosom, and shouted: "The shogunate has no way, it is filthy and cruel to the world; Wolves are unkind, and sins are accumulated! Please also ask Date Dazai Daiji-sama, Xingyi Shi, vent public anger, and save the people! ”

After shouting three times, the man stabbed the knife into his abdomen, blood flowing from his abdomen, and his face was hideous. shouted: "The shogunate has no way. Save the people. Please also ask Xingyi to save the people. As he spoke, he drew a cross on his abdomen.

The bleeding did not stop.

Uproar, who did not expect such a thing to happen? Hosokawa Fujitaka and his guards had gloomy faces, and they retreated even further, trying to hide their presence from the crowd, apparently martyrs sent by Honganji.

With the first person committing suicide, then again a person was launched. The same shouting, the same struggle, the same way of dying, ten people in a row, fell to the front of the level, and then the group of people began to leave, and no one had the intention of stopping them.

The leader of the level looked at the dead who had fallen in front of the level, and when he saw the first person commit suicide, a chill rushed down his spine and his head, and when the crowd dispersed and the ranks of displaced people began to line up again. He was covered in sweat.

After calming down his emotions, the leader of the checkpoint said to his deputy, "Quickly report today's incident to the adults stationed in Akashi Castle." This matter is not trivial, and there are more and more displaced people, and the number of guards is seriously insufficient. ”

The deputy answered, glanced left and right, as if seeing that the mood of the homeless was not quite right, and said in a low voice: "Let's hurry up and give porridge!" Dissipate their emotions, otherwise once there is a commotion, the consequences will be unimaginable, and we will not be able to eat and walk around! ”

The leader nodded, but still frowned, and said, "There is not enough surplus food in the checkpoint, and the displaced people are gathering more and more. Today's porridge has been cut in half. ”

The deputy rode the only horse in the checkpoint to report in the direction of Akashi Castle, and the leader went to prepare porridge, and after a long time, a gong sounded. Then I heard several people shouting, "Give porridge!" Soup kitchen! "Listening to the sound of porridge, these people went in different directions.

Hosokawa Fujitaka took advantage of the soup kitchen, squeezed around in the crowd, and finally entered the checkpoint, the leader had already gone to Zhang Luo Shi Porridge to do the specific thing, but there were still forty or fifty guards in the checkpoint, and as soon as these people saw their arrival, they surrounded them again.

Hosokawa Fujitaka revealed his identity, and the leader rushed back, this leader was once one of Date Masahiro's personal guards, he had met Hosokawa Fujitaka, but he still wrote a note to the visitor according to the procedure, and then sent a guide to lead them to Himeji Castle.

In Himeji Castle, Date Masahiro checks the returns of the checkpoints set up on the border of Harima and Tajima, and since there are mostly mountains between Tajima and Tanba, setting up these checkpoints is just a routine gesture to show that these places already belong to the Date family. And the report that was uploaded back from the checkpoint set up on the border between Harima Province and Settsu Province made him feel worried. More and more displaced people appeared on the border, both on the eastern and western side of the army, driving the old and weak women and children who could not become their soldiers to the border, and they also spread rumors that Date had food on the border, prompting more homeless people to flock to the border of Harima Province and putting a heavier workload on Date and his family.

It is difficult to leave the homeland, and the people have not reached the point where they have no choice at all, and they will never choose to leave their homeland. You must know that the Japanese people themselves are very persistent about the land, a small piece of land often has a family that has lasted for hundreds of years, the family farms on this land, and builds a large number of fortresses on the land in order to protect this land from being taken away, which is the origin of thousands of castles in the Japanese country, and there are only more than 100 castles that have survived in future generations, and there are tens of thousands of castles that have disappeared in the world. Most of these castles were built by families that had been going on for hundreds of years to guard their land, from small to large and then perfected their functions, and some of them were destroyed before they were completed.

At present, the continuous wars, massacres, and other events in Kinai have made it impossible for countless small families to survive in their homeland. When even the samurai families could not survive, the peasants they protected became even more destitute and had no other way but to join the Eastern and Western armies.

But how many people can join the Eastern and Western Army, and how many can abandon their families and children, you must know that even if you can stop starving and starve after joining the Eastern and Western Army, should your parents, wives and children starve to death at home? However, if you do not join the Eastern and Western armies, the fields will already be barren, and you must always endure the ravages of the army and bandits, and there is only one way to escape. This is the number of displaced people who have fled, although the old and weak women and children account for seventy percent, but there are still thirty percent of the strong men.

The movement of these displaced people tends to spread from the hardest-hit areas to the weaker-affected areas, eventually forming a great wave. This time, the disaster was first and foremost man-made, and the outbreak of the peasants was always prompted to be unwilling to cultivate the land, and at the same time, it was also unable to protect the grain in the cultivated land. The five provinces of Izumi, Kawachi, Yamashiro, Yamato, and Settsu were the hardest hit areas, while Kii and Omi provinces were also affected, but they were able to survive the disaster.

At the same time, Kinai was the most densely populated area of the Wa Kingdom, with a population of less than a million people in the western part of the country under the rule of the Date family, and the five most prosperous countries in Kinai were also the most serious in the world, with a population of between 1.5 million and 2 million before the war.

Fortunately, Settsu Province is now the main battlefield between the Eastern and Western armies, making it difficult for the displaced people of the Five Kingdoms of Kinai to overcome the fortress between the two armies, especially Honda Masanobu desperately building a fortress in order to resist the possible chance of the Date family stabbing him in the back.

In this way, the number of displaced people who enter Harima Province from Setzu Province is not beyond the reach of the Date family, but once the war in Setzu Province is over, no matter who wins the final victory, the Date family will face an influx of hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Fortunately, due to the rebellion of Miki Castle in Harima, more than 40,000 troops have gathered in Harima, which is enough to deal with ten times the number of displaced people, but the problem of food is still difficult to solve, and you must know that the western country under the rule of the Date family is not a plain rich in food.

The Ita Territory seems to be vast, but the grain produced by each country is only about 100,000 or 200,000 koku, and according to the taxes of the four princes and six peasants, at most about one million koku is obtained every year, and it is necessary to maintain a huge army, repair a large number of castles, and a huge bureaucratic system, and the expenditure of grain is also huge, and at the end of the year there is very little food left. Once hundreds of thousands of displaced people poured into Italand, it would be possible to increase the population, but without food, even if it had a large population, it would not be able to do so.

You must know that these homeless people are not local farmers, for them, the purpose of going to Itdaling is to find food, to survive, and people to survive, that is to do everything.

Land, the land of the western country is barren, but fortunately, the mountainous land of the western country is still huge, as long as it is reclaimed, you can still get a lot of food, but to reclaim the mountainous land, you need a lot of food and farm tools, which are difficult for the Date family to maintain. (To be continued.) )