Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 152 Hello, My Territory

One of the fundamental purposes of negotiations is to establish a foundation of trust between the two parties. This is something that Yuanye has never been able to do. He cannot prove that he will sincerely keep his promise, and the Imagawa family does not dare to believe that he will really keep his promise.

Toba Hiromichi was silent for a while, then sighed, "Lord Nohara, please reconsider! If you are not at ease, I have a daughter named Adong, who is my fourth legitimate daughter. I can marry her to you. You don't have to worry about the future placement, nor do you have to worry about being excluded in the Imagawa family."

After a pause, his brows turned serious, "This is my greatest sincerity."

Asahina Yasunaga and Sakai Tadamamoto were stunned. Fuyuhime was the cousin of Imagawa Yoshimoto and could be called a princess in the Imagawa family. They didn't expect that Toba Hiromichi was willing to spend so much money to marry his daughter to an unknown country noble. But they were stunned for only a moment before their faces returned to normal. With the bravery shown by Yuanye, it was quite a good deal to exchange a daughter for her. Even if one only looked at his physique, it would not be a loss to use him to improve the height of the family.

Yuan Ye found that the other party still didn't believe it, and sighed, but he didn't lose his grace and smiled: "Thank you for your love, Lord Toba, but I really can't become a retainer of the Imagawa family."

"Have you really thought it through?" Toba Hiromichi shook his head. "Then we can only continue to fight. I will write a letter to Master Xuezhai when I get back. With my reputation, it won't be a problem to get a few thousand more people."

Yuanye nodded, stood up and said, "Then come on, but please be prepared for me to take away thousands of people!"

After saying this, he turned around and left, ready to go back and think carefully about what kind of powerful weapon he could come up with under the current conditions, and then fight the Imagawa family to the death. Maybe it's time to consider taking action now. Before the enemy's large reinforcements arrive, he should take a risk and launch a life-or-death sneak attack to see if he can rush into the enemy camp and kill these three people directly.

The negotiations seemed to have broken down. Toba Hiromichi silently watched Nohara leave. He waited until he had walked seven or eight steps before glancing at Asahina Yasunaga and Sakai Tadashi's bitter faces. He sighed again and said loudly, "Nohara-sama, please stay. Now we can discuss the details of the oath!"

If his side, which had more people and more power, couldn't hold out, then Yuanye would be even less likely to hold out. Moreover, from his face-to-face observation, he knew that although the maidservant beside Yuanye, who was pretending to be a retainer of a small family, had a rude attitude, there was a hint of cowardice in her words. It was estimated that Yuanye's men were also afraid and the morale of the army was in turmoil, so he tricked Yuanye to psychologically accept the favorable conditions he offered and make decent concessions. As a result, Yuanye looked gentle and polite on the surface, but he was extremely stubborn. It turned out that he was not pretending or cheating before, but was really not afraid of death and was not afraid of continuing to fight.

It's not impossible to continue fighting. He could indeed transfer more troops from Suruga to Chita, or fill the gaps in the Shirakawaguchi line, but this is not necessary. After two strong attacks, too many people died...

If Yuanye was just a minor trouble, he would be beaten to death, but since Yuanye cannot be killed no matter how hard you beat him, we should try to maintain peace.

This world is so realistic.

Toba Hiromichi's blackmail failed, but Yuanye didn't care. He sat back down after a moment of hesitation. He really couldn't defeat the Imagawa family now. If he could defeat the Imagawa family, why would he care about Oda Nobunaga's restrictions? So he had to continue the talks.

A new round of negotiations began. This time, both sides did not want to cause any trouble and went straight to the point.

Toba Hiromichi said directly: "At this point, we are willing to believe in Lord Nohara's promise, but please swear an oath before the gods! Although the oath before the gods may not be useful for the people of the Oda family, it is better than nothing."

Nohara didn't care about being ridiculed, and just reminded: "Your Highness, I have said it many times, I am not a noble family or a close retainer of the Oda family, I will abide by the agreement."

"Well, I hope so." Toba Hiromichi waved and asked Asahina Yasunaga to take out a map, pointed at it and said, "Now let's discuss the details. Lord Nohara can stay in the land south of this mountain, north of this river, and west of the camp. No soldiers are allowed to cross the border, and they are not allowed to attack the neighboring Chita clan. Is there a problem?"

Yuanye glanced at the map and immediately said, "It's not appropriate, Your Highness. The place is too small and I can't support so many people. The east side can be bounded by the camp, but the north and south sides need to be expanded. I hope Your Highness can hand over the Goya family, the Takeda family, the Ebina family, the Osha family, and the Hokage family to me."

He was asking for too much, and the entire coastline in the middle of the west side of the Chita Peninsula was included. Toba Hiromichi's face immediately turned dark, "Lord Nohara, it's not us who lost the battle!"

"I haven't lost the battle either!" Yuanye asked for a sky-high price, but he didn't know how to count. He changed his words and said, "If it doesn't work, the four families of Yuya, Takeda, Taisha, and Baoguan will also be fine."

"You're dreaming!" Asahina Taishinaga could no longer bear it and slammed the table again, "You promised before that you would never attack the vassal clans of the Imagawa family. Now you want to break your promise and enrich yourself?"

Toba Hiromichi was not angry at all. Bargaining was very common in negotiations. He shook his head and said, "Lord Nohara, please don't force us to resort to violence again. No one wants to see that outcome."

Yuanye also began to explain his actual difficulties, and explained by the way: "I did not attack them, but I have several thousand people to eat and need a piece of land to farm. I hope that the Imagawa family can meet my small request."

"This is not a small request..."

The two sides had a fierce bargaining, discussing how much territory Harano should occupy on the Chita Peninsula, but Harano insisted on having a piece of land to farm, otherwise he would not be able to survive. This was in line with the common sense of the time, and Toba Hiromichi had no intention of pushing him into a desperate situation. In the end, he agreed that Harano could expand his territory a little to the south, that is, he could build a few villages on the land of the Goya family, but the scope was limited, and Harano's people were not allowed to cross the current boundaries in the future.

He even said that if he crossed the line, the Imagawa family would do whatever it took to get rid of him. The next time they came, they might be a well-prepared army of 10,000 people, and they would pile up dirt to kill him. As for the opinions of the Goya family, it was not important. No one present cared. After all, the Goya family had not proved that they could fight ten people alone and withstand the day and night attacks of six or seven thousand people without fleeing. So they were naturally a dish that could be served on the table.

Harano achieved his most basic goal, and he knew when to stop. He promised as required that he would only stay within his territory. Even if he was attacked by local powerful families, he would first notify the Imagawa family and then launch a counterattack. He would not make up excuses to cause trouble, nor would he allow people from Oda Danjotada's family to pass through him.

Once the most important point was agreed upon, the rest of the matters were also easy to discuss. The two sides even established economic and trade exchanges. Harano's soy sauce and printed and dyed cloth sold quite well at "Kasaojun" and could be considered luxury goods. Harano was willing to sell them to the Imagawa family at the same price as he sold them to Atsuta Port. If the purchase volume was large, they could enjoy discounts and could customize the patterns.

Toba Hiromichi, Asahina Yasunaga, and Sakai Tadashi were all somewhat interested in this and said that they would send people to buy some later, but what they were most concerned about was Yuanye's magical method of "turning mud into stone".

Yuanye was not stingy in this regard and said that this thing could be sold. After all, volcanic ash cement was a technology before the Christ and did not involve any issues of principle. It could be sold at a low price - a shovel of volcanic ash and lime weighed several kilograms, and wood could be cut down at will. It was a completely cost-free business.

Even if the Imagawa family was willing to pay, he could send a construction team to help renovate the camp on the opposite side and build it into a "stone city" to facilitate monitoring him, which would fully demonstrate that he really had no intention of causing trouble on the Chita Peninsula - after Oda Nobunaga killed Imagawa Yoshimoto, he would naturally be able to take over the Chita Peninsula. There was no need to rush. There was no need to work hard and fight bloody battles for territory, which would lead to the Imagawa family fighting him to the death.

As for the formula of volcanic ash cement, the three Imagawa family members were very feudal and did not ask for it. The main reason was that the only way to force Yuanye to reveal the secret of this "family secret" was to strip him naked and hang him upside down, and ask him while burning him with a branding iron. This would give him a certain chance of finding out the answer. But now they couldn't do anything to Yuanye. Even if they attacked with the whole country's strength, Yuanye's stubbornness might not be enough to capture him alive, so forget it!

As for gunpowder, these three people were also somewhat interested, but they were far less eager than Oda Nobunaga. After all, the iron cannon of that era was a very primitive and rough smoothbore gun, which had no overwhelming advantage over bows and arrows, and even performed worse than bows and arrows in some aspects. The Imagawa family had no idea of forming a large-scale iron cannon unit, but only wanted to buy some to take back for the navy to make "Bailao" (a large black powder ammunition, which had little explosive power due to the gunpowder formula and was mostly used to set fire to ships). However, after listening to Yuanye's explanation of the price of saltpeter, they felt that it was not much cheaper than other places, so they gave up.

The main reason was that Yuanye didn't want to sell it cheaply. Saltpeter was his biggest source of finance now. Without this huge sum of money, he couldn't afford to support four or five thousand people, so this thing could never be sold cheaply. What's more, the enemy might use it to bomb him, so he couldn't sell it even more.

After a whole day of discussion, the two sides agreed on the scope of the oath and swore in public to their respective patron saints that they would fulfill their oaths, otherwise they would be abandoned by both gods and humans, their families would perish, and their descendants would suffer. Only then was the battle considered over.

The Imagawa family trapped Harano, making it impossible for him to act recklessly on the Chita Peninsula, and making it even more impossible for him to become a bridgehead for the Oda Danjotada family to launch a surprise attack on Chita County. This was barely the expected result - the best expectation was of course to kill Harano here, but the cost of killing him was too great, so trapping him was acceptable.

Yuanye also achieved his goal. He finally had a territory where he could rule completely on his own. He was finally no longer restricted by others. The only thing was that the territory he got was too small. According to the original plan, the best result would of course be to swallow up all the neighbors on both sides. But if the Imagawa family really went crazy and wanted to kill him, he would not be able to resist. Being able to get more than half of the Goya family was already a good result, and he was very content.

This is a bit funny. The two sides fought twice and didn't get the result they wanted. It would be better to sit down and negotiate from the beginning! But then again, if they didn't fight twice and one or two thousand people died, it would be impossible for the two sides to sit down and talk calmly.

I can only say that the rules of this world are sometimes so nonsensical!

…………

The next day, the Imagawa family began to withdraw their troops as agreed - they did not evacuate completely, the camp still belonged to the Imagawa family, and a small group of people were left to watch the wilderness, but at least they did not build a bunch of rock forts to surround them. This was the effect of the oath, and both sides could save some costs of defending against each other.

Yuanye stood on the top of the city wall and watched them slowly leave, then he sighed and began to think about Oda Nobunaga's reaction after he was not killed by the Imagawa family. He wondered whether Oda Nobunaga would come to trouble him or completely cut off all ties with him - he still had to rely on Atsuta Port to sell his goods, and on the trade route of Furuno Castle, and he really didn't want to completely fall out with Oda Nobunaga.

But no matter how hard Oda Nobunaga thought, he couldn't make a decision. He could only deal with the enemy with his troops and flood with earth. He had to adapt to the situation in the future. He put these worries behind him for the time being and began to look at his territory carefully.

This was the place he had dreamed of after his ribs were broken and his life was nearly lost in the battle of Takeuchi-sho. At that time, he hugged A-qing for warmth and secretly vowed to never hide or escape again, and to get to a place where he had the final say.

Now he had gone through so much hardship, he had lost his face and conscience, he had robbed people and chopped off heads, even lost a lot of hair, and finally got such a piece of land. He should have laughed out loud with tears in his eyes, but looking at the devastation after the war and thinking about the large number of young and strong people who died, he really couldn't laugh.

He was beaten half-crippled again, and it was not convenient for him to rob the people of the Chido noble families at will. He didn't know how long it would take for him to recover and develop again.

So, he just stood under the morning sun, bathed in the glow of the sunset, smiled wryly, and softly greeted his new territory.

Hello, my territory.

And then nothing happened. He still needed to keep struggling and find a way to survive in this unfortunate era.

…………

<Volume 3. Hello, My Territory. End>
<Volume 4: Battle of Okehazama: To be continued>
(End of this chapter)