Historically, in the third year of Eiroku, a year before the Battle of Kawanakajima, after the Imagawa family was defeated by the Oda family in the Battle of Barrel Sama, the family governor Imagawa Yoshimoto died and was succeeded by his son Imagawa Clan. Due to the death of many important generals in the Imagawa family during the Battle of Tsukasama, and dissatisfaction with their rule in Mikawa, the people of the country rioted.

For example, Matsudaira Ieyasu (later Tokugawa Ieyasu) of Nishimikawa was the first to occupy the old head of the family, Okazaki Castle, and then this wave of rebellion spread from the Nishi-Mikawa region to the Higashi-Mikawa region and even the Enoe region. In this rebellion, known as the Sanshu War, the wealthy clans of the Imagawa family rose up against the Imagawa family's rule.

Of course, in history, this turmoil was originally mainly concentrated in the Mikawa Province area, because the scope of the rebellion was not too large and the power of the rioting nobles was limited and disconnected, so under the suppression of the Imagawa family's army, except for the Matsudaira family, the other wealthy clans such as the lord of Noda Castle, Suganuma Dingying, were finally suppressed.

And in this life, due to the appearance of the Imagawa funeral that the Luo family secretly controlled to fight for the governor, and the Luo family's many layouts in the local area, the scope of the riot instantly spread to the entire Mikawa country and most of the Yuanjiang area, as for the remaining eastern Yuanjiang area and the Suruga country area where the Imagawa family city is located, many local wealthy families have watched and watched.

In the face of the increasingly fierce situation in the territory, the Imagawa clan sent Okabe Motonobu to continue the battle to the Enoe Province region to conquer the Imagawa burial on the one hand, and on the other hand, under the help of the retainers, he also sent people to ask for help from the Hojo family in the Sagami Province region.

When Hojo received a letter from his son-in-law asking for help, he really couldn't laugh or cry. At this time, the Hojo family was still counting on the Imagawa family to send troops to support. Now, on the contrary, it was the Imagawa family who asked for reinforcement first.

Speaking of which. Under the construction of generations of the Hojo family, the Hojo family, an outsider in the Kanto region, has also become the overlord of the Kanto region.

As we all know, the Hojo family's internal affairs ability is very outstanding, and in the Warring States period, for the major names, the military was politics and the economy, and the three were not separated. In the big picture. The system of Hojo clanyasu's rule of the domain was divided into two main areas: central and local rule.

Locally, the Hojo family was similar to the Takeda family in Kai Province, and the so-called "people" were used to divide the administrative areas of the territory in the form of "people", that is, the core castle of a certain area was used as a base, and the retainers were the "city representatives", who were responsible for commanding the local tyrants and local servants, which was called "people".

After the "public" under the Hojo family, there are Odawara people in Nishisagami. There are the Jade Rope Crowd of East Sagami and the Miura Crowd, and the Small Machine Crowd of Minami Musashi. Izu's Shimoda people, Kitamusashi's Kawagoshi people, Matsuyama people, etc.

The "public" is divided into three layers, the top layer is called "City Generation", "First-hand Service", and "Great Guide", the lower layer is called "Sending Family" and "Guide", and the most basic level is called "Sending Son" and "Being Guided".

The "first-hand service" is all the chief ministers of the Later Hojo family, such as the first-hand service of the Jade Rope Crowd is Hojo Tsunari, the Kawagoe Crowd is Daido Temple Masashi, and the Shimoda Crowd is Shimizu Yasuei, and their names are all registered in the "Odawara Single-hand Servant Accounts".

For example, there are a total of 28 relatives under the small machine group, namely Zeng Yawaiji, Kanda Jiro Saemon, Ichino Sukero, Masuda Mitsuei, Ninomiya Yoshitada, Iwamoto Izumizu, etc., The names of these 28 relatives, together with the "first-hand service" Kasahara Nobuwei (the elder of the Hojo family), are also registered in the account books of Odawara Castle.

As for the lower part of the relatives, there are only dozens or even a dozen or even ten of land properties, and the rich peasant layer can afford weapons, armor and horses, called "Jiko", which is the mainstream of the Go-Hojo army. One hand commanded the relatives, and then the relatives commanded the children, three layers upwards, and finally gathered around the Hojo clan Yasu, fighting under his military flag.

In the center, these castle generations and first-hand servants, because they were all important ministers of the Hojo family, so whenever the family encountered a heavy dà change and decided to declare war or make peace, they would gather under Odawara Castle to form a joint meeting and discuss the resolution with the family governor Hojo Shiyasu, which was called "branch of the city".

However, the administrative core of the Go-Hojo clan was not in the hands of the branch city people, and the Hojo clan did not want these castle generations to enjoy both local and central power, as this would weaken the autocratic power of the Go-Hojo family governor. Therefore, Hojo Shiyasu selected a group of ministers who were in Baiguan, with the old family members Matsuda Kenhide and Ando Ryosei (Matsuda engaged in diplomacy, Ando engaged in internal affairs) as the chief, and Ota Toyogomori, Sekibu Cheng, and Matsuda Chikuzen Mamoru as the "three commissions", forming a capable staff group (these middle and lower-level retainers also formed the Imperial Horse Hui of the Gongwei Hojo Shiyasu), responsible for the planning and implementation of Hojo's political affairs, which is called "assessing the public".

If the local samurai, such as when there is a lawsuit between relatives, the attitude of the first-hand servant does not determine the outcome of the lawsuit, but Hojo Shiyasu sent a famous judge from Odawara, called the "prosecutor", and the prosecutor is fully responsible for arbitration, if it can't be resolved, then it will be handed over to Hojo Shiyasu to decide in person, until he gets the document stamped with the word "tiger", so that it can effectively prevent the local branch city people from separating the dictatorship - in general, the branch city is similar to the local Taishou and the CPPCC meeting, The assessors are central officials and the State Council.

In addition, in order to subdue the country, Hojo Shiyasu also had a strong army directly under himself, which was divided into two groups, namely "Odawara Zhong" and "Goma Hui", the Odawara people were mainly composed of local tyrants under the castle, and the Goma Hui was selected by Hojo Shiyasu himself in the evaluation of the army, the former Yulu together 9287 kan, the latter 8426 kan, a total of 18,000 kan, according to the military service standard of ten kan in the Edo period, a total of 1,800 samurai, four or five times as many as the jade rope people, It is enough to be proud of the local branches, so that they will not dare to act rashly against the lord's house.

The most important thing is that the Imperial Horse Hui not only has military functions, but also the main force of the evaluation of the public, but also serves as an administrative work for the Hojo clan, which is quite a bit of a professional bureaucracy, which is also the advanced concept of the Later Hojo family at that time leading the Warring States Nation - the branch city has land but no rights, and the Imperial Horse Hui has the right to have no land. The central government has a firm grip on the localities.

This concept is full of righteousness. Downwards directly influenced the later Tokugawa shogunate (many of the policies of the Tokugawa shogunate were inherited from Later Hojo. In the Tokugawa period, the branch lords were the feudal lords, and the Goma Hui were the old middle and the banner, the former had land but no rights, and the latter had rights but no land).

At the beginning of the night battle of Kawagoe, Hojo clan Yasu first relied on Kawagoe Castle to stubbornly drag the Kwantung coalition army, and then used negotiation and other means to paralyze the enemy's fighting spirit. During the battle, he was able to concentrate the main force, boldly choose the breakthrough point, and adopt the tactics of identifying the attack in night battles and covering the attack in alternating detachments, which indeed deserved the reputation of "the lion of Sagami". However, the military mobilization mechanism of Houhojo's exclusive step to Kanto can be regarded as the biggest contributor behind the victory of the Hojo family.

The military service system of the Later Hojo family was called the "Kantaka System", and Ise Sakumo and the Hojo clan conducted a very thorough land survey of the old and new territories of Izu, Sagami, and Musashi, with the aim of accurately and completely detecting the fields of the countrymen and Somura, and converting the amount of land into a continuous to determine the burden of military service. This is called "sub-limiting".

For example, there is a samurai named Hachiro Saemon Okamoto, who is a "Goma Huizhong" under the Hojo clan. The territory is in Yoshioka Township, Higashi County.,It's the son-in-law and adopted son of Hachiro Okamoto.。 In the 24th year of Astronomy (1555), the result of Go-Hojo's land inspection of Okamoto Hachiro's field property was that there were a total of 59 kan 800 bun, and then Okamoto Hachiro died without children. After receiving the approval of the governor of the Go-Hojo family, his son-in-law Okamoto Hachiro Saemon inherited the Okamoto family's Naeji and fields, but the property was divided into fine details: Okamoto Hachiro Saemon owned 29 kan 800 bun, and the remaining 30 kan was taken over as the "Gozo Land" directly under Go-Hojo.

After the division was completed, Hojo Shiyasu also made provisions for the military service of Okamoto Hachiro Saemon - thirty "Imperial Hidden Lands" were assigned to the three "yokos" under Okamoto Hachiro Saemon, who needed to carry bamboo and wood, two spears, and neat armor, and together with Okamoto, served as the garrison of Odawara Castle Kowaku, and served as the standing force of Hojo Shiyasu.

As for the remaining 29 Kan 800 Bun's military service, it was required that in the event of a war, Okamoto should also mobilize an additional ten sons, as well as the corresponding bows, long knives, military flags, etc., to join Go-Hojo's army and fight against the enemy, which was a temporary requisition.

In this case, Okamoto Hachiro Saemon's military service, plus his own total of fourteen people, one horse, two or four guns, and two military flags, but these fourteen people were also divided into two according to the requirements: four people stood guard at Odawara Castle, and the remaining ten people carried weapons and equipment to report to the nearest castle when the war broke out.

The mobilization order of the Hou Hojo family is that the first hand of the general mobilizes his subordinate relatives, and then the relatives go to mobilize the lower level of the mailers, and the number of people and weapons are clearly and in detail in the "sub-limit account", according to the records of the sub-limit account, there are more than ten "people" in the heyday of the Hojo family, 506 relatives, and more than 50,000 senders, who can quickly form a huge army that sweeps the enemy, which is the magic weapon of the Hojo family to dominate the Kanto region.

Ogiya perished, Yamauchi fell, Furukawa was recognized, and the old authority of Kanto and a bunch of stinky chess baskets were all swept away by Hojo Shiyasu. The Sagami lion of Hojo Shiyasu glanced around, the enemies of Kanto, except for the "Kanto Vice Marshal" Satomi family, and the Satake family, which had recently risen in Hitachi, the rest were not a big problem, so he accelerated the progress of the invasion of Kanto in the past few years.

But what Hojo Shiyasu didn't expect at this time was that the most difficult and difficult opponent in his life was born after the victory of the beautiful Kawagoe, and it was even more unexpected that yes, it would also attract the raptors of Echigo Country because of this.

The first difficult opponent is Ota Shimasa of Iwatsuki Castle, this Ota Shimasa is the great-grandson of the famous Kanto general Ota Michigan, and also the son-in-law of Namba Tian Yoshigin, the genes of the Ota family have some intergenerational inheritance: the great-grandson of Ota Michikan, Ota Shimasa of Iwatsuki Ota, and Ota Yasushi of Edo Ota, the former has both wisdom and bravery, and the latter is extremely powerful.

Iwatsuki Castle, located on the main road from Odawara Castle to Matsuyama Castle, is also a proud work built by the Ota family, the head of the Ogiya family, and is on a par with Kawagoe Castle and Edo Castle. Originally, the lord of Iwatsuki Castle was Ota's father, Ota Shiyori, and after Ota's death, the Iwatsuki Ota clan cracked. The elder brother advocated pro-Hojo family. And his younger brother Ota Shimasa has to fight against Hojo.

At the time of the night battle of Heyue. Ota Shitoki not only sacrificed Iwatsuki Castle to Hojo Shiyasu, but also led the army to join Hojo Shiyasu's army, while Ota Shimasa appeared in the lineup of the Kwantung coalition army and fought for Nagao Kenmasa. Nagao Kenmasa was defeated in Sakubo, and everyone else was busy escaping, only Ota Shimasa was in danger, and led his subordinates to fight with the Go-Hojo Army for twenty-four rounds (this Nagao Kenmasa wrote a letter of appreciation. I have to write it for Zizheng), and in the end, there were only nine horsemen left, and I returned to Songshan Castle of the Fan Valley family.

The following year, the lord of Iwatsuki Castle, Ota Shimasa's brother Ota Shitoki died suddenly, and Ota Shimasa, who had a glimpse of the good time, attacked Iwatsuki Castle with a light horse, and after entering the city, he announced that he would replace his brother's lineage: My Shimasa is now the governor of the genuine Iwatsuki Ota.

It's just that although Ota Shimasa recaptured Iwatsuki Castle, some of the retainers who were originally attached to Ota Shishi were extremely unconvinced. Huhula ran away and went to surrender the Hojo family. So. The Go-Hojo family of Odawara Castle had many Miao characters for Ota's retainers. In addition, Hojo Shiyasu played another hand of Yin, and after Ota Shimasa recaptured Iwatsuki Castle, he entrusted Matsuyama Castle, which originally belonged to his father-in-law, to Ueda Asanao, a wealthy Musashi clan, and as a result, this Asano was a two-five boy, and took Matsuyama Castle to Hojo Shiyasu. Ota Shimasa, who was surrounded by the front and back, had to temporarily submit to the Odawara Hojo family.

Legend has it that he was the first to use military dogs on the battlefield during the Warring States period: Ota Shimasa raised fifty hunting dogs in Iwatsuki and Matsuyama, and trained secretly day and night.

Later, when the Hojo Army attacked Matsuyama Castle in a big way, the Ota dog trainer of Matsuyama Castle selected ten hounds, stuffed the battle report into a bamboo tube, hung it on the hounds' necks, untied the collars of the hounds, and ten hounds rushed out of the Hojo Army's encirclement like lightning. The Hojo army was shocked and hurriedly ordered the wind demons to chase after them, but it should not be said that people were far less flexible than dogs, and even if they caught two or three of them, several of them eventually rushed into Ota's Iwatsuki Castle. Knowing that Matsuyama Castle was in danger, Ota Shimasa immediately commanded his troops and relieved the siege of Matsuyama Castle.

Hojo Shiyasu, who learned that Ota Shimasa had a secret weapon such as a military dog, and saw that Ota Shimasa was extremely prestigious in the area of Iwatsuki Castle and was a famous samurai, so he was not ready to take tough measures, and began to soften, and treated Ota Shimasa, who was superficially obedient to Odawara.

Hojo clan Yasu first announced that Ota Shimasa was still the lord of Iwatsuki Castle, and his autonomous power remained unchanged, and said to the outside world that Ota Shikomasa was not a subordinate of my clan Yasu, but a subordinate of the Furukawa Gongfang Ashikaga Harushi clan, who was responsible for attacking the Tokichi Satake family, so that Ota Shimasa got rid of the embarrassment of Hojo after the surrender and gave him enough capital.

In the end, Ota Shikang also sacrificed his daughter Nagabayashi Temple, married her to the eldest son of Ota Zimasa, and even made an exception to give the Houhojo family's common character "clan" to Zifang, which was for the Ota family (even Hojo Tsunashi Chengdu did not enjoy such treatment), which shows that Hojo Shiyasu simply regarded the Ota family as a family.

However, this qiē did not save Ota's heart, and he took the opportunity of Hojo Yasuyasu's leniency to expand his power in Iwatsuki Castle. According to the record of "Odawara Public Service Account", Ota Shimasa's Hojo family's Yulu is 770 yuan, which is not much from the number, but Zimasa's can't wait for it: I am more than 700 yuan in the sub-limit account, then I only provide so many military services for your Hojo family, as for how I expand the team in private, you can't care.

Iwatsuki Castle, between Iruma River and Arakawa, has a large granary of abundance, at this time it was all swallowed by Ota Zimasa, he privately has an army of 1,000 horsemen, and practices riding and archery at the shooting range of Iwatsuki Castle every day, not to mention 700 kans, not even 7,000 kans.

At this time, Nagao Kendai, who lost Hirai Castle, invited Nagao Keitora (later Uesugi Kenshin), the most difficult opponent in Hojo Shiyasu's life, from Hokuriku Echigo Province, and once again organized a huge Kwantung coalition army, and directly entered Kanto to march towards the Hojo family, and Ota Shimasa did not say a word, and immediately turned into a pioneer of Nagao Keiho's attack on the Hojo family.

Hojo Shiyasu also had no choice at this time, he had been beaten by Nagawei Jinghu and couldn't raise his head. Since the third year of Eiroku (1560), the evil star of Hokuriku (that is, the second opponent of the Hojo clan's difficult opponent), crossed the mountains and conquered the Kanto region, the territory of Musashi and Ueno, which the Hojo family painstakingly conquered after the night battle of Kawagoshi, has been lost, except for a few strongholds that are still struggling to support. The people of these places also played to the glorious nature of the grass on the wall, and they all fell to the Nagao Army, acting as the vanguard of the attack on Hojo.

Although the two families were temporarily facing off at this time, with the gradual response of daimyo such as the Tokiji Satake family, the offensive of the Kwantung coalition army at the end of this year and next year will naturally be even greater.

This situation naturally made it difficult for the lion of Sagami, the Hojo clan, to sleep and eat, and he also wanted to go out of the city to surprise the long-tailed Jinghu who came from afar like the night battle of Kawagoe, but the people of all the countries who could be mobilized, except for the base area of Sagami Izu, were all two or five boys. Even the Chiba family, the head of the most hardcore "satellite country" of Hojo in the original succession, is no exception - this damn guy, in line with the principle that Nagao Hou Hojo is not offended, under the arrangement of the real power retainer Yuan Yinzhen, sent a part of the army to reinforce the Furukawa Imperial Palace, showing his loyalty to Hou Hojo, and sent a messenger to flatter Nagao Jinghu, saying that when you are the leader of the Kanto region, my family will definitely come to worship, I was forced to be in Cao Ying's heart in Han because of the Houhou Hojo prostitution - the Kanto lord's "wall grass" nature, at a glance.

Almost all of the Kanto nationals who originally served in the military for Odawara changed their positions, leaving Hojo Shiyasu with only one battle plan: cage castle, completely cage castle, and at the same time ask for reinforcements from the ally Takeda family to relieve the siege. Takeda Shingen, on the other hand, was a treacherous in-law, and he was vague about sending reinforcements on the grounds that he wanted to build a castle in Haijin, and he never responded.

In desperation, Hojo Shiyasu originally planned to ask for help from the Imagawa family, which was still unstable due to the death of the family governor, but now it was good, his son-in-law actually asked him for help first, and looked at the Imagawa family's real letter of help in his hand with a wry smile, Hojo Shiyasu had to say to himself:

"Son-in-law, I can only be sorry this time......" (to be continued...... to be continued)