Since the entire Kyushu has fallen into the hands of the Shimazu clan, Shuangxie does not have to worry too much about encountering a battle between the two armies before leaving Kyushu Island.
Along the way, the two of them walked relatively safely under the cover of civilian attire (black hats covering their hair, simple-sleeved cloth clothes, and straw sandals).
But when the two of them passed Fukuoka and took the boat to Shimonoseki, the atmosphere was not right... because from here on, it was the territory of the Mori clan.
One more thing to mention here is that in this parallel universe, many of the Japanese Warring States figures that everyone is familiar with or have heard of, as well as some iconic events, have had their birth and death dates and time points changed, so what you will read in the subsequent documents
It is possible to see many Japanese Warring States figures or events that should not appear in the same era.
Let’s talk about the Maori family. Their head of the family at this time was Maori Yuanjiu, who was known as “the most wise general in the Western Kingdom” and was regarded by later generations as “the god of planning in the Warring States Period”.
After the Battle of Itsukushima, Gen Mouri swallowed up all the territory that originally belonged to Tao in the westernmost part of Honshu Island, and then turned back to the east and began to confront Nizi Harujiu; in this "Yuanwa 2nd Year", the Maori army and Nizi
The army was fighting fiercely.
The last thing Moton wants to see right now is that before he and Nizi Harujiu decide the winner, the Shimadzu family takes the opportunity to stab him in the back (in the history we know, when Mouri and Nizi fought, Kyushu Island
There are at least four or five forces that exist, not Shimadzu alone.)
Shimadzu's thoughts are also obvious. They dominate Kyushu with the sea at their back and have almost no worries. The only obstacle that stops them from expanding to Honshu Island is Maori. If Maori Yuan really annexes the Nizi clan's territory,
, which is definitely not a good thing for them.
Therefore, while the battle between Mori and Nizi was in full swing, stabbing him in the back was almost the next move Shimazu had to make. The only question was when to take action.
In such an atmosphere, the exchanges between civilians between the "two countries" will definitely be greatly affected.
No, as soon as Sun and Huang and a group of travelers on the boat set foot on the land of Shimonoseki, they encountered a group of Maori Army ashigaru coming for a "routine inspection."
Although this group of ashigaru can be considered a regular army, they are basically a group of local lower-level samurai. In those days, Japan had many low-income local servants and the boundaries between the civilian class were very blurred. During the war, they
Serving as soldiers, they farm in their spare time, are poorly trained, and have inferior equipment... Some of them have bad conduct and will take advantage of the chaos of war to do some profit-making activities for themselves.
Take the dozens of ashigaru in front of them, for example. Because the superiors issued an order to strictly investigate spies in the area near Kyushu and be on guard against the movements of Shimadzu troops, this group of people used this as an excuse to conduct surveillance on people coming and going at the local small port.
Civilians conduct so-called "routine inspections" and reap benefits in the process.
If you don't want to be punished by them, then take the initiative to pay some benefits. If you have money, pay, but if you don't have money, hand over goods. If you are stubborn, they won't give you any benefits, and they will smash your luggage and goods, or give you a beating.
, or more importantly, if you don’t cooperate with the inspection, you will be labeled a spy and you will be killed at any time.
And they are not afraid of taking any responsibility at all...
We all know that samurai in the Edo period would find an excuse to "test their swords" when they killed civilians on the street for no reason, but in this Warring States period, there was no need for an excuse to kill people.
The poverty and famine brought about by successive wars, as well as the various banditry behaviors that followed, have made human life the most worthless thing in this era.
Because the Shimazu family is located in a corner, surrounded by the sea on three sides, and with ports for foreign trade, their territory has a relatively stable economy and public security. However, once they set foot on Honshu Island, it is completely different.
Already.
"Hey, what do you two do? Where are you going?" Finally, an ashigaru came to Sun and Huang.
But at this time, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai, although they were dressed as civilians, were still clean and decent, and did not give people a very poor feeling; they did not carry much luggage, and they did not look like traveling merchants.
There is no samurai sword on their waist, which means they are not samurai either...
Of course, these are not the main point. The main point is that their demeanor... is obviously different from the obedient civilians around them. Not only do they not have any timidity on their faces, but their backs are straight when they stand there, which makes them stand up straight.
One couldn't help but suspect that their identities were unusual, so the ashigaru who asked them was more polite.
"We are both blacksmiths, and we went to Kyoto to join relatives." Sun Yixie quickly answered in his Kansai dialect.
This set of rhetoric was obviously discussed beforehand by Shuangxi.
First of all, the profession of blacksmith is difficult to verify on the spot. If you pretend to be a traveling entertainer or something, they may ask you to perform for a while, but a blacksmith cannot let you forge an iron on the spot.
Secondly, this profession can well explain the calluses on their palms caused by long-term use of weapons, as well as their stronger bodies compared to ordinary people.
Thirdly, Huang Donglai's "village sword" is still hidden in his luggage. If someone discovers such a weapon that only belongs to Dazu, it will be troublesome to explain. But if they are blacksmiths and possess
This "imported weapons" thing not only makes sense, it can even prove their identity.
"Blacksmith?" The ashigaru looked the two of them up and down, as if thinking about something.
"Yes, we are both good citizens, please take care of us." At this time, Huang Donglai also spoke at the right time, and handed over the copper coins of Guan Dazao without hesitation.
Some people may ask, why did Shuangxue still use Dashu's money when he arrived in Japan?
Harmful, even in the history of our universe, the coins minted by the Ming Dynasty were still hard currency during the Warring States Period in Japan. After all, the latter could not have a particularly stable currency system amid years of war.
"Huh?" When the Ashigaru took the money, his eyes immediately lit up when he saw the amount and style.
The next second, he quickly put the money into his arms, looked around, and then said: "Oh... I see, then let's go."
His efficiency is also high enough. Once he has collected enough money, he will not perform any more performances. He does not even need to search his body or luggage, and he will be released directly.
When Sun Huang saw this, he just looked at each other, shrugged, and left.
They were about to leave, but unexpectedly, just ten meters away, they heard a woman's scream from behind, followed by a burst of noise.
It turned out that while the couple was passing through the test, there was a couple with a child on the other side. When they were being examined, the wife was quite pretty, which made several of the ashigaru who were examining become malicious, so that
Several soldiers gathered around her without saying a word. One of them picked up the woman and turned around and walked towards a nearby thatched hut.
The woman was arrested and screamed, but her struggle and resistance had no effect. After a brief period of shock, her husband and children stepped forward and reasoned: "Soldiers, what is going on? Why did you arrest me?"
His wife..."
As a result, before the husband could finish his sentence, another ashigaru kicked him in the abdomen and he fell to his knees.
"We now suspect that she is a spy. We need to investigate her carefully. If you don't want to be regarded as an accomplice, shut up!" Judging from the speed of the response, it is obvious that this is not the first time the other party has said this.
"Dad...Mom..." The two children, who were less than ten years old, broke down in tears under the shock and knelt beside their father, crying.
Although some people in the surrounding crowd showed angry looks, most of them just looked sad or lowered their heads indifferently. No one dared to speak out, let alone stand up.
In the blink of an eye, the woman was dragged into a thatched house less than 20 meters away from the harbor by several ashigaru. After entering the house, the ashigaru who was carrying her threw her heavily to the ground, and then said nothing.
He kicked her in the ribs.
"Bitch! It hurts me to death to catch you." He said, and touched several small wounds on his back that had just been scratched by the woman.
"It seems that you are very energetic, so come and have some fun with us." The other Ashiki next to him said with a smile.
At the same time, outside the house.
"What the hell..." Huang Donglai stopped and whispered to Brother Sun, "It seems that even if we want to keep a low profile, we can no longer do it."
The implication of his words is also very clear, they have to take care of this noisy matter.
"Stop talking, I'll go rescue that woman, and you can deal with the things outside the house." Sun Yixie continued, "Oh, by the way, don't forget to get the money back."
"Huh?" Huang Donglai thought for a while. There were only four or five people in the room now, and there were more than thirty outside. He couldn't stand it at that time. "Brother Sun, your trident is more suitable for fighting outside the house.
Bar?"
"No, why do I have to use the trident? I have so many ways to deal with these bastards... right?" Sun Yixie said with twinkling eyes.
Just as they were chewing on these few sentences, suddenly!
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" Three more shouts suddenly sounded from high above.
As soon as the shouting started, everyone present heard the sound and went out, and saw a strong young man appearing on a steep slope of seven or eight meters high adjacent to the harbor.
This man has a bun that towers into the sky, wears a cassock, black armor boots, and holds a straight vermilion spear in his hand.
"You villains committed such atrocities in broad daylight, I Keijiro can't pretend not to see it!" After the strange man who called himself Keijiro said this loudly, he jumped up, jumped down the steep slope, and followed closely.
Then he rushed towards the group of ashigaru.
In less than five seconds, he approached several of them, and the latter didn't say anything. He yelled the standard lines of a bastard: "Where are you from? Are you looking for death, you bastard!" while launching a siege on Keijiro.
There is a natural difference between these ashigaru soldiers here and the main force of the regular army fighting on the main battlefield in the east. They basically do not have common weapons on the battlefield such as spears, matchlock guns and bows and arrows... Most of what they have is
Long sticks and hoes and sickles, and only a few Ashigaru possess inferior quality katana swords.
It's okay to use these weapons to bully civilians, but it's difficult to deal with people like Keijiro.
But when I saw Keijiro, he spread his legs, stretched out his arms, turned sideways and raised the red spear above his head, and instantly assumed a wide-open and wide-open posture.
It seemed that he was alone and surrounded by five or six people, but in fact, these five or six people were trapped in his own gun formation.
After a breath, one of the Ashigaru Zaiyu roared and stepped forward with his sword raised. Keijiro immediately released his left hand and exerted force with his right hand, letting the vermilion spear in his hand flick out like a loosened bowstring.
The spear point danced, followed by blood.
This bright red vermilion spear in Keijiro's hands was like a snake coming out of its hole, like a dragon playing in the water. As his steps changed, his wrists repeated, and with a light lift, the tip of the spear had harvested all the miscellaneous people around him.
Soldier's life.
Seeing this, the remaining Ashigaru people immediately rushed over, trying to work together to chop this thorny head that appeared out of nowhere to death.
Some people may be surprised to see this. Generally speaking, as soon as a "chivalrous" character in a movie appears and easily defeats five or six villains, the remaining villains will be frightened and panic.
yes?
Then I have to say that the trash fish in the movie went up to die one by one in an orderly manner. Before the person in front died, everyone else stayed behind and jumped left and right as a backdrop.
Although the Ashigaru gang has lost five or six people now, there are still more than twenty people left, so it is not the time to run away.
Let's talk about the ashigaru who surrounded him later. They all undoubtedly saw how powerful Keijiro was, so they didn't rush in. They just surrounded but didn't attack, consuming Keijiro's energy.
And when Keijiro relaxed a little, someone swung a flying rope made of two stones and a rope toward his legs from the blind spot behind him.
Just once or twice, Keijiro could jump away or shoot it away with a gun before the zip rope hit, but there were more than twenty people on the other side, and there were quite a few people with zip ropes on them. After a dozen times, Keijiro
After all, his legs were entangled.
Although he tried his best to spread his legs so that he was not entangled and unable to move at all, his movement was still greatly restricted. At this time, those among the ashigaru group holding long sticks started to fight him.
They poked or swept, keeping a distance, hurting and consuming Keijiro bit by bit...
And Keijiro's expression gradually became nervous. It seemed that this sudden turn of events was not what he expected.
It was at this moment that a man without a neck entered the killing array.
Soon enough, there was a continuous sound of "puff, puff, puff", and four of the twenty-odd ashigaru who surrounded Keijiro fell down in an instant.
Each one of them was hit on the head by a stone flying from nowhere, killing them with one blow.
For Huang Donglai, using hidden weapon kung fu to deal with these Japanese soldiers was simply a dimension-reducing attack. These people couldn't even react, let alone block and dodge.
"It's him! It was the stone thrown by that person over there!" Finally, after knocking down seven or eight people, a sharp-eyed ashigaru finally discovered that the hidden weapon was thrown by Huang Donglai.
Keijiro noticed this earlier than these soldiers, but because he was afraid of exposing Huang Donglai's location, he didn't take the lead to speak.
Seeing that Brother Huang had been discovered at this moment, Keijiro shouted to him: "Friend over there, thank you for your help! I'm not good at learning, so I'm sorry to ask you to help me!"
"It's okay, it's okay. I originally wanted to take action." Huang Donglai felt very relaxed anyway and didn't mind saying a few polite words to the other party.
…………
The words are divided into two parts.
Let's say that a few minutes ago, in the thatched house...
As early as when Keijiro made a high-profile appearance outside and started fighting with the five or six ashigaru, Sun Yixie, who was acting separately from Huang Donglai, had already arrived at the thatched house and kicked open the door.
Brother Sun was about to yell when he saw an injustice on the road, but the scene that caught his eye made him swallow his words back.
At this moment, it was less than a minute before the woman was caught.
But there was no one alive in the room.
In the dim thatched house, the five Ashigaru who came in with the woman just now were all dead. Since their bodies had been torn into pieces, Sun Yixie observed them for more than twenty seconds. After finding all five heads, he
This is confirmed.
However, there was no trace of that woman in the whole house.
"What's the situation? Could she still be invisible?" Sun Yixie was very sure that apart from a small window that could not pass an adult at all, the only exit in this room was the door, and no one had come out of this exit before he entered.
, so I said this to myself.
Unexpectedly, before he finished speaking, he heard a strange noise coming from above his head, and then, a figure emerged from the shadows as if a curtain had been lifted, and launched a surprise attack on him.