Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 200 I want to go into the sea!

"My Lord, are you still not going to change your name?"

On the boat to Jiuwanjin, Ah Man was bored and while eating prawns she started talking about something that she thought was important, "With our current strength, it's not appropriate for you to call me San Lang anymore, right?
Now even Maeda Toshiie has changed his name to Matazaemon, and you are still using your childhood name. I always feel that you are inferior to him. Why not take this opportunity to go to Kiyosu and ask Oda Nobunaga to help you ask the court for a better official position, such as Chita no Kami, which will sound more impressive. "

Yuanye also peeled shrimps casually, but he didn't eat them himself. After peeling them, he put them in Ah Qing's bowl and said casually, "It's not necessary. The name is just a nickname. You can call it anything. It doesn't matter whether it sounds impressive or not."

"But you still use Sanlang as your nickname, which doesn't look like a county lord at all!" Ah Man had advised him several times before, and he did the same this time, chewing on a large shrimp and mumbling, "It won't cost much anyway. I heard that the old emperor is secretly selling calligraphy and paintings for money. He is very poor. Let Oda Nobunaga speak for you. If you give him a few hundred kan, he will definitely be happy."

"I've already told you it's not necessary. It's too much money to spend on something like this."

Yuanye did not want to serve in the Japanese court, even in name only, and he felt that A-man's presence was an eyesore - he and A-qing were secretly eating prawns with soy sauce, you peeled them for me and I peeled them for you, and the atmosphere was very warm, but then A-man came running over, sat down and started eating, and the little interest between him and A-qing was ruined.

Well, after careful research and analysis by Yuanye, Ah Qing should be almost sixteen years old, she has grown taller and become more beautiful. He feels that he is not far from officially being single, so he takes some time out of his busy schedule to cultivate feelings with her.

He wanted to chase A-Man away and stop her from being a light bulb here, so he said directly: "Alright, alright, if you don't want to change, then don't change. Don't bother yourself with this kind of thing. If you have this kind of idleness, you might as well focus on the business. This time we go to Qingzhou City, be careful not to be surrounded and killed."

This is not a precaution against Oda Nobunaga. Oda Nobunaga is actually a person who cares about the overall situation. Wanjin is the "arms supplier" of the Oda family. Even if the relationship between the two sides is cold now, the possibility of assassination by Oda Nobunaga is very small when he actively invites him to meet.

His main target of defense was the Owari clan. He had previously robbed all the territories of the Chita clan and killed several families who dared to resist. Given the complicated in-law relationships among the Owari clan, it is no exaggeration to say that he has enemies everywhere in Owari. Therefore, during this trip to Kiyosu, he was more on guard against the clan leaders than against Oda Nobunaga.

In short, if he didn't also want to ease relations with Oda Nobunaga, he shouldn't have made this trip at all, so he had to pay special attention to safety issues.

Ah Man didn't want to leave. Riding on the boat was too boring. She just wanted to talk to someone. She sat there without moving at all, and said nonchalantly, "Don't worry about this. I dare not say about other places, but as long as we are in Owari, we will know about any disturbance in the first place. No one can attack you by surprise, so you can rest assured!"

"You should think about it again and discuss it with your subordinates!"

"You still don't trust me? You really don't have to. I have arranged everything along the way and activated all the insiders that should be used. I guarantee it with my life that there will be absolutely no problems."

Yuan Ye was speechless. This unfortunate child didn't care about the atmosphere at all. Even Aqing refused to talk to you while you were here. Moreover, these shrimps were specially prepared for Aqing so that she could grow taller. It was a waste for you to eat so much with your short legs...

But he was too embarrassed to ask Aman to go away, so he picked the shrimps and put the ones that looked good into Aqing's bowl first, so that Aman wouldn't spoil them all. Then he really talked about business, sighing, "Okay, is there any news from Totomi and Suruga? What do they think about the Matsudaira clan turning to the Oda clan? Are there any signs of sending troops?"

He had not completely given up his plan to seize the land of western Mikawa. When he heard that Matsudaira Motoyasu was planning to form an alliance with Oda Nobunaga, he ordered Aman to send people on a speedboat to Suruga to spread the news and spread rumors crazily, hoping that the Imagawa family would be able to deal with Matsudaira Motoyasu, or put pressure on the Matsudaira family in some way to make them give up and turn to the Oda family.

"There's no accurate news yet. Our strength in the Suruga area is still insufficient. You didn't approve much funding for me in the past two years. It's still difficult to get information from within the Imagawa family." Aman first complained that Yuanye had become stingy in the past two years and had diverted a lot of funds for the "Survivors" to disaster relief. It was all wasted.

She finished her complaints before returning to the main topic, "But judging from the messy news that has been sent back so far, the Imagawa family has no intention of mobilizing. I don't think that Imagawa Ujizane (the new head of the Imagawa family, also known as Kamisosuke, but his Kamisosuke is an official position, unlike Oda Nobunaga who is an imposter) is very good. He is good at reciting poems and playing football, but he is far inferior to Imagawa Yoshimoto in doing serious work, and he probably won't punish Matsudaira Motoyasu.

Moreover, the stupid thing he did before has offended all the powerful families in East Mikawa. Now the powerful families in East Mikawa hate him to death. Even if he wants to move against Matsudaira Motoyasu, he will not be able to deal with him for a while because of East Mikawa. "

Yuanye sighed. He was not surprised by the news. Judging from his performance in the past two years, the new head of the Imagawa family, Imagawa Ujizane, was indeed a bit stupid.

Or maybe we shouldn't say he's stupid. As one of the inheritors of "Higashiyama culture", this guy has a deep knowledge of Confucianism, is very good at writing poetry and songs, and has inherited the true teachings of Asukari-ryu. Just from the perspective of Cuju technique, even if this guy doesn't rank in the top three in Japan, he should definitely be in the top five. He can be said to be a "national player" of Japanese football.

It would be an exaggeration to say that such a person is stupid, but he is indeed not a good leader. After Matsudaira Motoyasu established himself in Western Mikawa, he actually thought that Matsudaira Motoyasu's wife, son and daughter (Senahime married Matsudaira Motoyasu at the age of 12, and at this time she had a son and a daughter, namely the legitimate son Takechiyo and the legitimate daughter Kamehime) were all in his hands, and Matsudaira Motoyasu could not escape his control. He did not directly send troops to attack, but only ordered the Eastern Mikawa nobles to offer hostages again in order to control Matsudaira Motoyasu's expansion and strengthen the rule of Eastern Mikawa.

However, many heads of the eastern Mikawa nobles were killed by Imagawa Yoshimoto in the Battle of Okehazama, and the family was in turmoil at the time, so only a few handed over hostages in time. As a result, Imagawa Ujizane was embarrassed and thought that his authority as the new head of the family was challenged. Without notifying any elders or important ministers of the family, he ordered his close retainer Obara Tsunesaki to kill all the more than ten hostages that the eastern Mikawa nobles had sent before.

This was simply an act of political suicide. Their relatives were killed inexplicably, and the powerful families in Higashi Mikawa were filled with new and old grudges. Even though they were afraid of the "Three Kingdoms Alliance" and were afraid of provoking intervention from the Takeda and Hojo families, they did not dare to attack Totomi for revenge. But they could no longer expect them to assist the Imagawa family in suppressing the Matsudaira family.

There were even fierce conflicts between some powerful families and the Udono family, the agent of the Imagawa family in Higashi-Mikawa. In order to cover up for Imagawa Ujirakuji and also to avoid arousing public outrage, the Udono family did not dare to fight back. Now they are hiding in their castle and trying to ease the situation as much as possible. They are also unable to punish Matsudaira Motoyasu.

Yuanye had known all of this before, but just with a slim chance of success, he asked Aman to send someone to Suruga to tip off the situation and spread some rumors about Matsudaira Motoyasu, hoping that the Imagawa clan would really take it seriously. However, it turned out that the Imagawa clan was in a hopeless situation and still did not want to take any action against Matsudaira Motoyasu.

If they missed this period of time, if the Imagawa family wanted to attack Matsudaira Motoyasu again, Oda Nobunaga would definitely help, and there would be basically no chance for the Imagawa family to defeat them.

From this perspective, it should be difficult to prevent the Oda family and the Matsudaira family from forming an alliance. It is inevitable that I will be blocked on the Chita Peninsula, unless I assassinate Matsudaira Motoyasu as well...

But this is very difficult. Matsudaira Motoyasu is not a lone man or an unknown gang like Monkey. He has a large number of loyal hereditary retainers around him, so it is not easy to assassinate him. Moreover, Oda Nobunaga's ninja troops are not easy to deal with. It is impossible to kill Matsudaira Motoyasu in Owari without leaving any trace. It is very likely to completely anger Oda Nobunaga. In case he does not go north to Mino but goes south to Chita instead, the Ōtakagawa defense line will be subjected to severe tests and the cost will be extremely high.

Yuanye frowned and thought about it, feeling that he might have no choice but to go to sea, so many plans would need to be changed, and the next focus of work should be shifted to the construction of the navy.

He had completely lost interest in dating A-Qing. He hesitated for a long time before looking up and asking A-Man, "I asked you to contact Okabe Yiyan before. Have you made any progress?"

Okabe Isko was the designer of the Taho Pagoda at Arakko Kannon Temple, and later the designer and chief engineer of Azuchi Castle. He was also the person in charge of the Shikinen Sengu ceremony at Atsuta Jingu Shrine - a Shinto ritual that is rebuilt every twenty years at Atsuta Jingu Shrine to maintain the sanctity, cleanliness and spiritual power of the shrine.

The Okabe family has always been in charge of the Atsuta Shrine's Shikinen-chan shrine, and this is still the case with Okabe Ikenori's generation. However, this man is not only an architect, he is also proficient in shipbuilding. However, not many people know this at the moment.

It was probably not until Oda Nobunaga reached Lake Biwa and urgently needed to build a fleet on Lake Biwa to assist in the war that Okabe Igen's talent in this area was discovered.

In short, Okabe Iken is the future chief engineer of the Oda family. Harano has always wanted to find a shipbuilding expert to develop the shipbuilding industry of the Chita Peninsula, but at that time shipbuilding experts were extremely difficult to find, and it was even more difficult to find a chief engineer. It was even more difficult to find someone who was not a samurai but could be qualified as a chief engineer. Finally, after much inquiry and hard work to recall historical knowledge, Harano found this guy Okabe Iken - he was not a samurai. Although he was an architect and chief engineer, his official identity in the Oda family at that time was a carpenter head, and his status was between the clerks and senior Lang party of the Oda family, which was not high.

These days, craftsmen are not highly regarded and are considered lower class people. For Okabe Yiyan, this is considered a good career.

Harano had invited him twice last year, with an annual salary increased from 500 kan to 1,000 kan, but Okabe refused both times. He did not want to leave the Oda family unless Harano was willing to give him samurai status and become a believer of Atsuta Shrine.

Yuanye couldn't do either of these two things, so he could only send Aman to contact Okabe Yiyan, hoping that the two sides could establish a friendship and lure him to Xinwanjin with the help of friendship.

Ah Man did go, because she loved making friends. But she immediately spread her hands, full of resentment: "No progress. That guy is very stubborn and won't budge. He insisted on becoming a samurai, otherwise he would never leave the Oda family! I think we should just tie him up!"

"Kidnapping... let's not do that for now." Okabe Yiyan is not without support. Direct kidnapping has serious side effects, and the other party may not work well if they are kidnapped by force. It can only be a last resort. Yuanye sighed, "I'll think of a solution later!"

It is not so easy to go to sea, at least it is difficult to build a big ship.

Yuanye completed the first step of the plan, but felt stuck again at the second step. He began to ponder how to get a big ship. As he was thinking, the ship soon arrived at Jiuwanjin, and someone was already waiting for him at the dock.

(End of this chapter)