With the death of the abbot of Xianfeng Temple and a large number of insect-possessed monks, the Luanbo people tamed by Xianfeng Temple lost their masters and temporarily fell into civil strife and confusion.
Some Luanbo people advocated adapting to the situation and completely surrendering to the inner government.
The other part hopes to admit their mistakes and surrender to Ashina Country and continue to protect their hometown.
The two factions each had followers to support them, and finally came to blows due to incompatibility.
Wolf woke up from the pain of a broken arm and immediately took action. He searched Ashina Castle Town and the dungeon, and finally found Kuro in the castle tower overnight.
After Isshin fell ill, most of the Ashina Kingdom's affairs were backlogged on Genichiro. Coupled with the aggressive military power of the inner government and the heavy task of finding the source of the source of water, Genichiro could not always guard Kuro.
When the wolf arrived at the castle tower, Genichiro had just left Ashina Castle for the Valley of the Fall, and the two men, who had just experienced a life-and-death battle not long ago, happened to miss each other.
After some consideration, Kuro finally decided to take out the treasures of Senboji Temple and give them to Genichiro as military expenses for the Ashina Kingdom.
After receiving the order, the wolf didn't rest for a moment and rushed to Xianfeng Temple to search for the place where Lu Xiao buried the treasure.
The treasure buried by Lu Xiao is actually located in the cave on the west side of the main hall. In the process of searching for the treasure, the wolf unexpectedly received the call of Yuzi.
The two parties did not meet directly. Bianruo Yuzi sent a message through the Buddha's portrait and entrusted the wolf to send a message to Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao had a rough guess about Bianruo Yuzi's intention, and it should be related to the Eternal Travel Scripture he had given to him before.
"Da~da~"
Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps from the lower level of the Tianshou Pavilion. In Lu Xiao's eagle-eyed vision, the color of this person's logo turned out to be blue and red.
'What weird color is this?'
A familiar young man's voice sounded from outside the door: "Sir Kuro, Heiroku Shimoyamachi, Sir Genichiro asked me to express my gratitude to you for donating military expenses."
'Uh...I see.'
Lu Xiao smiled bitterly and rubbed his eyebrows, "No wonder it's such a strange color."
Yamauchi Heiroku was tricked by Lu Xiao before, so he would definitely be dissatisfied with him, but now that there is no direct conflict between Genichiro and Lu Xiao, Yamauchi Heiroku, who is in a complicated mood, can only bury his dissatisfaction in his heart.
Kuro signaled the wolf to invite Heiroku Yamauchi into the room. The moment Yamauchi raised his head, he saw Lu Xiao standing beside him.
"You! Why are you here?"
Lu Xiao spread his hands helplessly: "Don't get excited, I am Jiulang's guest, and I am helping him deal with some secret matters. Genichiro is very clear about this, and I have no conflict of interest with you."
"snort!"
Yamauchi's attitude towards Lu Xiao was very bad, but Lu Xiao didn't care about it. After all, everything happened for a reason.
Judging from age, Yamauchi is not much older than Kuro, 12-13 years old at most.
Lu Xiao looked thoughtfully at Shanuchi, who was still angry, and an idea suddenly came to his mind.
Just at this time, the system also stepped in: "According to the choice made by the host in this world, the side mission is triggered."
"Side mission: Guard Ashina."
"Ensure that Ashina Kingdom blocks the invasion of the inner government before the completion of the world task. This task has a floating reward mechanism. The number of areas that Ashina Kingdom is captured will affect the final evaluation of the task and the quality of rewards given."
The side tasks released by the system further strengthened Lu Xiao's idea. Since he had already helped, he might as well help him to the end, as there was a task reward to be obtained in the end.
The gap between the Ashina Kingdom and the Inner Palace is all-round, from the training level of the soldiers, the number of people, morale, to the quality of weapons and equipment, food and material reserves, etc., both sides are not on the same level.
Morale, supplies and food can be compensated with the treasures seized from Xianfeng Temple. Once the insect possessor's experiment is successful, the training of the soldiers will no longer be a problem, but the disadvantage in numbers cannot be made up so easily.
For the time being, we can still rely on Ashina Country's natural and dangerous terrain that is easy to defend and difficult to attack to barely block the Inner Palace's attack, but this is before the Inner Palace launches a full-scale attack.
The Lone Shadows who sneaked into the central area of Ashina Castle forced Isshin, who was seriously ill, to go into battle and kill the enemy himself. This shows how dangerous Ashina is secretly, who is barely stable on the surface.
After a temporary consensus was reached, the hawks under Genichiro and Isshin's respective control were reintegrated, which made up for the lack of ninja power in Ashina Country to a certain extent, but this was obviously not enough.
"Yamauchi, how many people with a well-born family name like you are there? Do you want to contribute to guarding Ashina?"
Yamauchi snorted displeasedly: "It's a meaningless question. We are willing to dedicate everything to our motherland, but the family heads think that it is not yet time for us to go into battle."
Yongzhen, who had been listening silently, explained: "The head of Ashina's famous family hopes to rely on his own sacrifice to preserve the hope of the next generation. Even if the inner government wins, according to the practice of the Warring States Period, as long as the samurai family takes the initiative to express surrender to the inner government, usually
It won’t harm my family.”
This situation is actually very common and is not limited to Japan's Warring States Period.
Conquering a place always requires people to govern it, and local wealthy families who are familiar with the local conditions are naturally the most suitable candidates. The conquerors will usually promise benefits to make them give up their old masters and become loyal to themselves.
The only family that really needs to worry about being exterminated is the family of the head of a country, which Japan calls the daimyo family.
In order to preserve the family's survival, this approach is understandable. Lu Xiao does not intend to force Ashina's wealthy family to give up everything and join Genichiro's side, but...
"Yamauchi, judging from your name, you are not the eldest son of the family, right?"
Yamauchi: "Yes, I am my father's sixth child, that's why I was sent to Genichiro-sama as a nickname."
The eldest son of a big family needs to learn all kinds of knowledge needed to inherit the family from an early age. Except for a few cases, most minor surnames are held by the concubine or the second son of the family.
Yongzhen, who was ice and smart, guessed his purpose through Lu Xiao's pointed questions, and asked with a look of surprise: "Do you want to gather the non-eldest sons of the big Weiming family to form a team?"
A youth army?"
"Not exactly correct."
Lu Xiao looked at the confused Yamauchi and said: "Now Ashina is at a critical moment of life and death. Even the strong men of the farmers are almost exhausted. It is obviously impossible to recruit soldiers from the private sector."
"In this case, the only sources of troops that can be considered are teenagers, some of whom are not limited to big families."
"Of course, I don't plan to let these children who have not yet grown up go to the battlefield to kill the enemy. That would be to push them into the fire pit of the battlefield and die. I just hope to train them to be Ashina's spies and reduce the pain faced by the hawks.
Intelligence Pressure.”
This is not what ninjas do, but the code of conduct of assassins.
To put it simply, these rich young men are used as a trigger to call on the numb people of Ashina Kingdom to stand up and do their part for one minute, thereby increasing the people's centripetal force and cohesion towards the country, and working together to resist the invasion of the inner government.
.
As a pharmacist who takes care of Xin every day, Yongzhen is very familiar with the undercurrents faced by the Eagles.
She knew that Isshin had disguised herself as a tengu and went out to kill enemies many times, but for the sake of Ashina's safety, she could not stop him explicitly.
"Is it okay to rely on a young man as an informant...?"
Lu Xiao smiled and said: "It all depends on man-made efforts. It has reached this point anyway. If we don't show some consciousness, we can't stop the continuous army of the inner government."
"I just happened to get a windfall from Xianfeng Temple not long ago. It is said that there must be a brave man under a heavy reward. Let's give it a try."