Chapter 653 59. Now that Things Have Come to This, the Bitter Stone
It is a coincidence that you plant flowers with care but fail to get them, but you plant willows by accident and they grow into shade trees?
Is it really such a coincidence?
When arranging the outer defense line of the Edo General Encirclement, Koyata did think of sending Konishihara Saemon to Koki Castle as the first line of defense against the enemy, and the main purpose was to warn the reinforcements from Odawara Castle in Sagami Province.
Even if the Hojo clan fell into trouble again, his Fujita Ujikuni Corps and Imagawa Ujiki Corps were well preserved and still had the strength to fight, so they had to be defended.
And the location of Koki Castle happened to be at the intersection between Tama Hills and Miura Peninsula, and further south was Edo Bay. It was definitely impossible to cross the sea, and there was also Okamoto Zuiensai of the Satomi clan commanding the Boso navy to cruise, and no one would be naive enough to cross Edo Bay by swimming.
Blocking Koki Castle was equivalent to blocking the only passage that could launch a large army from Sagami Province to enter Musashi! (Small troops don’t matter)
Due to the dangerous terrain of this place, the Hojo clan also set up the "Koki People" here. There are 28 relatives under the Koki clan, including Soya Geki, Kanda Jirozaemon, Ichino Suketaro, Masuda Mitsue, Ninomiya Yoshitada, Iwamoto Izumi, etc. These are the names of these 28 relatives. Together with the Koki clan's "one-handed servant" Koki Castle Lord Kasahara Nobuyuki (Hojo clan elder), they were also registered in the military service account of Odawara Castle.
But unfortunately, so many relatives were either surrounded in Edo Castle with Oishi Ujiteru, or desperately guarded the Hojo clan and ran straight to Odawara Castle. Koki Castle, including the castle lord Kasahara, was not there. The castle garrisoned by several old, weak and disabled people was quickly destroyed under the thunderbolt of Konishihara Zaemon!
Odawara was in a mess and was unable to clean up the situation on the Musashi side. Now they are still arguing about whether to stick to Odawara Castle or lead an army of 20,000 to launch a strong attack on the coalition forces to save the situation.
Then it was even more impossible for Oishi Ujiteru in Edo Castle to know that Koki Castle had changed its owner long ago!
Enemies were everywhere. If he didn't run to Odawara, he couldn't really jump into the sea, right?
What a coincidence! He ran into Konishihara Saemon who was blocking the road to Koki Castle! Before he could react, the wolf-like Yamauchi Army rushed forward. After fighting for more than two hours, and then running for three hours, the Hojo Army threw away their armor and armor. How could they have the strength to resist? Some people collapsed directly when they ran to Koki Castle!
What greeted them was not the warm embrace of Sagami Province, but the cold swords and guns of the Yamauchi Army.
Konishihara Saemon was also strange. He saw half of the sky in the direction of Edo burning red in the second half of the night, and he knew that the battle in Edo was in full swing. No matter whether this battle was won or lost, there would always be defeated soldiers of the Hojo Army running out.
Fujiwara Danzheng really loves me!
He didn't do anything, and he gave me the credit for the heads of several defeated soldiers.
No wonder Fujiwara Danzheng said to me before he left, "Especially at night, be careful!"
It turned out that he was going to give me his head in the middle of the night!
What else can I say? Pull out all the troops and tell them that if there are defeated soldiers coming from Edo, each samurai will be rewarded with 10 stones of rice, and they will be issued tickets when they see them!
Originally, there were not many heads to be cut in Koki Castle. If you want these soldiers to attack Odawara, they probably won't be happy. But when they heard that they were going to intercept the defeated soldiers and beat the fallen dogs, they were not tired.
Leaving 200 to 300 people to defend Koki Castle, the remaining 3,000 people were like a tiger coming down the mountain. If there were only 100 to 200 defeated soldiers, there would not be enough for everyone to share.
As a result, they caught the defeated soldiers led by Oishi Ujisho to Sagami. All of them were big fish, and there were not many small shrimps. This is a samurai, and that is also a samurai.
It's a fortune!
When Oishi Ujiteru was "invited" to Konishihara Saemon, even he himself could not believe it. There were a circle of famous samurai of the Hojo family tied up under his horse, and their clean and dejected heads were shining with greasy white light.
After saying sorry, Konishihara Saemon invited Oishi Ujiteru to have a drink, and then tied him up again and sent him to Edo on a bullock cart. There were more than 30 famous samurai of the Hojo family and eight heads that had been chopped off unfortunately.
…………
After reading Konishihara Saemon's report, none of the coalition generals in Hongo Terrace wanted to leave. They all waited here, waiting to see the "grand occasion" of Oishi Ujiteru being tied up!
When it was almost evening, the team escorting the prisoners finally arrived in Edo. The camps of the coalition were in an uproar. The soldiers crowded on the roadside, pointing and talking, watching the row of Hojo samurai with their hands tied and kneeling on the bullock cart like watching a monkey show.
When Oishi Ujiteru was sent to the shogunate, Kobayata "welcomed" him in front of the tent on behalf of Yamauchi Taro.
"Untie Mutsu-no-kami!" Kobayata finally had the opportunity to take a close look at Oishi Ujiteru.
"Thank you, Fujiwara Dansho!" Oishi Ujiteru also secretly looked at Kobayata. He never thought that he would survive and make an epic breakout, but before he could get happy, he drank Kobayata's foot washing water.
"Please come into the tent quickly, my prince invites you!"
The untied Oishi Ujiteru was not too tall, about 1.58 meters, which was of course higher than Kobayata. He was in his thirties, but he looked like he was in his forties. There was a lot of spirit between his eyebrows, but his appearance was unexpectedly not very stern, more like the warm old Wang next door.
"Set up a seat for Mutsu-no-kami!" Yamauchi Taro ordered as soon as he entered the tent.
"Thank you, Your Highness!" Oishi Ujizhao sat down calmly. Dozens or even hundreds of eyes from the entire shogunate were focused on him. Even though so many people were staring at him, he did not change at all.
Almost everyone here has fought against Oishi Shiteru, and many of them have been beaten up. But at this time, everyone showed the attitude of a winner and was quite friendly to Oishi Teru.
"Greetings to His Highness Mataro and His Highness Gongfang!"
"No gift!" The two bosses sitting on the upper hand jointly asked Oishi Shizhao to raise his head.
"Mutsu Mamoru! You haven't thought of this situation, have you?" Hosokawa Minami has dealt with Oishi Shiteru several times. She drank Oishi Shiteru's foot-washing water and treated Oishi Shiteru to suffer a brain collapse.
"It's because I'm not as skilled as others, it's just a pity for the soldiers under my command!" He was very calm, without arguing or shirk.
"Then what are you going to do with Mutsu Mamoru? Are you going to use courtesy?"
"This matter cannot be decided by me, which disappoints Tanzheng."
"Including Mutsu Shou, there are more than three thousand generals!" The implication of Koheta's words was very clear.
If the Hojo family bows their heads now, then everyone can still talk. As for the outcome of the talks, we will talk about it at that time. If you stick to it, don't talk about anything. Then more than 30 famous samurai including Oishi Teru, hundreds of lower-level Hojo samurai and foster relatives, as well as a large number of remaining Ashigaru, would all have a dead end!
"Oh... well, I'll fix the book and go to Odawara."