$ Chapter 704 16. A Thousand-Stone Ship Serves as a Gunboat
After listening to the situation, Nobunaga Oda knew the original plan.
Shibata Katsuie and other generals surrounded the Nagashima Ikki, who were numerous, high-spirited but relatively weak in combat effectiveness, while he personally took action against the Asakura family, which was more combat-effective and threatening.
The plan was good. Even now, the general perception of the world is that the Ikki is just a minor issue, and the Asakura family and the Miyoshi Three are the main force against Oda.
Oda Nobunaga dealt with it in this way, and now he would definitely be surprised to find that the combat effectiveness of the Ikki suddenly skyrocketed!
Riding a tiger is difficult to get off!
Now they have entered Echizen, and the fire in the backyard has not been blocked, so they can't leave. Even if he wants to leave, Asakura Yoshikage will not let him go easily.
"It seems that Gifu Dan is going to attack Echizen fiercely and seek a complete victory." Xiao Pingtai pondered.
"It's hard to say. With the accumulation of five generations of Echizen Asakura, it's not so easy to decide the outcome of Gifu Dansho!" Uncle Tsunayoshi thought that the Asakura family was a big family and it was not so easy to kill them.
"Is Kasugayama Kanrei not going to fight this year?" Uncle Kobayata and his nephew were discussing the affairs of the Asakura family, and Hosokawa Saimie suddenly asked Murakami Yoshimitsu.
"There is no news from here."
"Your Highness Kanrei is keeping his troops on hold..." Hosokawa Saimie seemed to have thought of something.
"Sai, what do you mean? Kasugayama Kanrei is also in harmony with Kanazawa in Hezhou and rushing to help Echizen?" Yamauchi Shukei naturally thought of it.
"It's possible!" Kobayata felt that his elder brother-in-law was not overthinking.
Let alone Asakura Yoshikage, who changed the strategy of the previous generations of Asakura family heads to suppress the Ikko clan, and made peace with the Hokuriku Ikko clan, and even donated a large sum of money to the Ikko clan, becoming the "great donor" of the Ikko clan! The attack direction was changed to Wakasa Province, and a phased victory was achieved, taking Obama, a major trading town in the north, into his hands.
In the middle of last summer, Kenshin Uesugi also received a secret letter from Yoshiaki Ashikaga, asking him to temporarily make peace with the Ikko clan and remove the siege of Kaga Kanazawa Gobo.
In fact, it was Yoshiaki Ashikaga who came forward to mediate the Ikko clan and Kenshin Uesugi, who had always suppressed the Ikko clan, to the path of peace and even alliance.
"When did the Kanrei-don send a message recently?"
"There was a letter in April, saying that he would send Yangbei Kurokawa and others to attack Sado." Imagawa Yoshichika thought for a while.
"Sado?" All the ministers, including Yoshiaki Ashikaga, were stunned.
Why would Kenshin Uesugi care about that remote place. Don't mention the Mikawa Sand Gold Mine and the Tsuruko Silver Mine, which are now invisible. They were all mines mined by the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo period. At present, Sado only produces a small amount of gold and silver. It is poor and has bad waters. It is not worth Kenshin Uesugi's efforts.
"Why didn't I hear Suruga-dono mention it before?" Kobayata was a little confused.
"Because the letter from His Highness Kanrei said that only 800 soldiers and 20 warships would be mobilized. It is really not worth mentioning. The letter should still be there." [Note 1]
"..."
It is indeed not worth mentioning! After all, when Kenshin Uesugi was doing well, he commanded an army of 110,000. Sending 800 people to fight a battle is a negligible matter in anyone's eyes.
Kobayata only knew that during Kenshin Uesugi's time, the Uesugi clan's rule over Sado Island was very weak, and it was basically maintained by several pro-Uesugi clans such as the Sawane clan and the Katagami clan.
It was not until Uesugi Kagekatsu attacked Shimokawaharada Castle and killed Hamo Mikawa-no-kami (Hamo Homma clan) that Sado Province could be considered to have completely become the territory of the Uesugi clan.
Murakami Yoshimitsu also took out the letter from Uesugi Kenshin and showed it to everyone.
As expected, it just said that the Yumo Mikawa clan was in turmoil in Mizubata Castle and was expanding. So Uesugi Kenshin asked Kurokawa Sane and other Yangbei people to bring some of their troops, and appointed Hirata Zenjiro as the navy general, to quell the turmoil in Sado.
"So that means that His Highness Kanrei has indeed not moved his troops." He folded the letter and handed it to Murakami Yoshimitsu to put away, and Yamauchi Shukei did not comment.
"Let uncle Dansho write a letter to my uncle and send two baskets of plums to Kasugayama to say hello." Ashikaga Yoshiaki thought about it.
"Okay."
At an impromptu meeting, everyone had different thoughts. Kobayata and Hosokawa Saejo no longer had the mood to continue to survey the school base, and followed uncle Tsunayoshi, and the three of them walked back silently.
Uncle Tsunayoshi was old and walked slowly, so Kobayata and Hosokawa Saejo also accommodated him.
"How long do you think it will take, Kobayata?"
"It depends on how long Asakura and Miyoshi can hold out."
Kobayata knew that these two were just trash, and Nobunaga would be completely overturned like cutting melons and vegetables if he exerted a little force. The Ikko clan, which had good combat effectiveness, could be regarded as "self-defensive thieves" due to their own problems. They guarded the temples of the religious orders, and their combat effectiveness was amazing, and they could defeat the invading enemies again and again. But if they were asked to leave the temples to dominate the world, they would be a little incapable.
The only ones who could fight Oda Nobunaga head-on in the wild and compete with him were Asakura and Miyoshi, who each had tens of thousands of soldiers. Once these two families were finished, Nobunaga would really dominate Kinai alone, and there would be no rivals.
"Kobayata, you mean, once those two families were defeated, the next target of Gifu Dansho would be Yamauchi?" Even if Hosokawa Saijo had no wisdom, she could understand.
"The world's military is no joke!"
"Then we should prepare early. The more prepared we are, the easier it will be to deal with in the future."
"Don't worry! In addition to the military rations, I have ordered people to build gunboats in Hamamatsu." Xiao Pingtai knew that if he wanted to participate in the war in Kinai, the navy was necessary.
"Gunboat?"
"Yes, after the thousand-stone ship is modified, each ship will be equipped with eight large Portuguese guns and a bronze cannon on the bow."
Last year, Shimizu Yoshitsuna, Omura Masuji and Kobayashi Motoharu in Hamamatsu received an order from Kobayata that it was impractical to build European-style sailing ships and they were not suitable for the sea conditions near the coast of Japan.
Especially in the sea conditions like the Seto Inland Sea, where there are dense reefs and dangerous shoals, and swells and whirlpools everywhere, Japanese-style paddle sloops are more suitable.
After modifying the existing thousand-stone ship, strengthen its hull so that it can withstand the recoil generated by the cannon. In this way, no matter whether you are a Kanbune, Ataka, or an ironclad ship, you can take a Portuguese gun from me.
If you can't sink it, I will take another smoothbore rapid-fire cannon from me!
"Is it Kobayashi Motoharu who was originally from the Kawachi Hatakeyama clan and worked in the Kii navy?" Hosokawa Saijo had some impression.
"Yes! Masujiro was born in Mikawa and has a clean family background. As for Shimizu, he was appointed as the general of the ship when the former prime minister was still alive."
"What about Ataka Shintaro?"
"I will let him return to Awaji for the time being. He can assist when necessary!"
[Note 1]: From "Etsusa Shiryo" and "Northern Vietnam Guntan", but the two books have many different contents except for the same time of Genki 4.