Chapter 227 1. A Bad Fight Is Nothing but a Bad One
Will it be easier to change from the general agent of five counties in the half country of Totomi to the clerk of the hatamoto who only manages about 1,600 people?
Of course not!
More than a thousand people on the battlefield can only be regarded as a half-staffed regiment commander at best, and half of the country of Totomi can at least be regarded as half a mayor. The amount of tasks seems to be quite different.
In fact, it is all an illusion, because this era is an era of military and political integration. In the future, the audit, logistics, personnel, equipment, training, and replenishment of the army are divided into dozens of departments. But now Xiao Pingtai is the clerk, that is, from top to bottom, from beginning to end, you Xiao Pingtai alone have to do it.
And everyone should know what kind of urine the Warring States daimyo is. All the good things are collected in their own direct hatamoto, without considering anything else. This is just like the troops of Crown Prince William during World War I, from airships to Prussian lancers, from armored trains to mobile machine gun groups. Whenever Germany has a few good soldiers, they will collect them all in their own corps.
Among the hatamoto of Yamanouchi Yoshiharu, there are those who use guns, sticks, swords, cannons, bows, boats, horses, and even those who use abacus and write novels!
The salaries range from the top 1,000 kanwen to the bottom 50 kanwen, and there are all kinds of soldiers. Including the most common ones, such as long spears, naginata, Japanese bows, cannons, and katana, as well as iron rods, Kinzai gangs, wild swords, slingshots, and catapults. We won't talk about them. There is also a heroic samurai who claims to be able to fight ten people, and he uses a wooden stick! You are really useful! His big wooden stick over three feet long swoops down, and it doesn't matter if he wears a helmet, he will hit you with yellow, white, and red.
You samurai, can you not think of doing something fancy?
Of course, apart from the more than 100 hatamoto samurai who belonged to Yamauchi Yoshiharu, the remaining foot soldiers were much more unified, basically spear foot soldiers and bow and arrow foot soldiers, and a small number of iron cannon foot soldiers. But do you think everything is fine? Impossible.
Among the more than 1,500 foot soldiers, 800 are standing foot soldiers that Yamauchi Yoshiharu paid for himself. The rest are actually more than 100 samurai. This is all because of the nobles' military expansion obligations, and then the hatamoto samurai gathered them according to the amount of salary. In other words, they are obviously standing foot soldiers, but there is no way to gather them for training.
These are all superficial problems, and there are many more subtle ones. For example, Kobayata, because he has money, the more than 50 people he pulled up according to the nobles' military expansion obligations are all iron cannon foot soldiers, three lower-level samurai, and several flag bearers and attendants. In normal times, the maintenance, training, equipment, and supplies of these soldiers are completely maintained by Kobayata alone.
And can each samurai have such abundant financial resources as Kobayata? There are rich samurai, and there are poor samurai. Even a samurai like Uncle Tsunara, who has a good income, only has 30 archery foot soldiers, 10 teppo foot soldiers, and 20 long spear foot soldiers.
Both of them have more than 1,000 kan, and not only are their arms different, but also their armors are different. Regardless of whether Kobayata's foot soldiers are good or bad, at least they have the basic equipment such as cheap domaru, jinkasa, and kusagi. But Uncle Tsunara's archery foot soldiers and teppo foot soldiers are not armored! That's right, the old man is reluctant to armor the ranged soldiers! He only armors the long spear foot soldiers who participate in melee.
Then when the war really breaks out, the 1,600 hatamoto of Yamanouchi, who seem to be so powerful and famous, will have flags flying and long spears like a forest. In fact, it was just good-looking on the surface. Many of the expanded foot soldiers were usually tenant farmers and servants in the village of the hatamoto samurai. Except for the battle hat on their heads, the armor ranged from good to bad.
This is the real state of the standing soldiers. As for the mobilized soldiers? Everyone can speak based on their own abilities.
At the beginning, Uncle Tsunayoshi had more than 50 kan of land on paper, so he could live a decent life. He had a horse and a set of armor. This was considered a good one among the servants. The worse servants all participated in the war on foot and became poor infantrymen.
In the final analysis, there is one word: poor!
The intensity and severity of the war are constantly increasing. Nowadays, sometimes there are even five months of fighting in a year. The strongest men in the country are all outside, so agriculture will inevitably be affected. Even if the war is won, the other side has fought with you for five months, and the agriculture in his territory is also in trouble. So even if there is a rob, it may not be able to make up for the loss of your own family.
The final result is that the Yamanouchi family fought wars year after year, and the territory expanded day by day, but in fact the soldiers were gradually falling into poverty. The best example in history is Takeda Shingen, who fought for more than 20 years from a mere 50,000 kan in Kai Province, and finally became a world-class tyrant with nearly 500,000 kan. But as his territory expanded, he became poorer and poorer.
Even if the gold mountain had output, this income could not make up for the "destruction" of the war to his territory. The pillar of a feudal state is always agriculture. If agriculture is affected, no matter how many victories are won, it will only fall into a vicious cycle of fighting to support war.
However, agricultural technology is also being innovated and improved today. Secondary cropping and green manure have been greatly promoted. Unless modern technology is used to mass-produce fertilizers and cultivate good varieties, the improvement of agriculture is actually very limited.
Especially when everyone works hard to grow a little food, they must first feed the people in the entire territory, and then the best rice must be sold to supplement military funds. In the end, even if the daimyo with a territory of 100,000 kan can save how much food to fight? They still want to rob.
Then the more they fight and rob, the greater the "destruction" of agriculture in the territory, until all the surrounding enemy countries' agriculture is destroyed by war. In order to find new places to rob, the Takeda clan will have to go the road of no return to fight the Oda clan head-on.
Another reason is the lack of manpower. There are only 10 million people in Japan at present. (For the record, Japan is larger than Germany.) Although there are many mountains, there are also many coastal and riverside plains, and people have already developed terraced fields. At present, there is still a situation of more land and fewer people. Even if new fields are developed, there may not be enough manpower to cultivate.
Although Shinano Province also has a certain amount of horse farming, horses cannot tolerate rough feed. The cost is too high, and the country as a whole is very poor. Many people are not full and cannot afford to promote it.
On the first day of taking office, Xiao Pingtai, the pen chief, inspected the books and the entire army of the hatamoto, and knew that this task was definitely not easy. If you stick to the old ways and just maintain the status quo, then it is very simple to learn from the predecessor Konishihara Saemon. Pay salaries on time and have enough food during the war. The soldiers will be able to feel satisfied and feel that they can make a living.
However, if we want to strengthen the training of these standing soldiers, improve their equipment, and change their concepts. To turn them into soldiers who can endure hard and long battles, we need to spend a lot of time and effort.
Koheita immediately decided to have a good talk with Yamanouchi Yoshiharu.