On the afternoon of April 9, inside the Kuroda Castle Castle Tower.
"Oh?" Yu Qiuping looked at the 800 guan placed in front of the table instead of the 4,000 guan as imagined, and smiled slightly. He had already asked the envoy to rest on the ground floor, and now he summoned all the senior officials to the third floor of the castle tower.
Have discussions.
"I'm afraid those four wealthy families are angry." Sanada Masayuki saw something fishy at a glance, "They gave each family exactly 200 coins this time, and they also asked to release important people in their families. This must have been discussed in advance.
, we plan to join forces to put pressure on His Highness."
"Are they crazy?" Nakahide Omaezaki mocked in confusion: "They have more than 900 hostages here! Their sons, second bosses, or heads of families are all here with us! Why are they bargaining!"
"They obviously saw that His Highness was running out of energy," Naoe Tadahei said in a low voice, "so they were not willing to pay the money so easily."
"Then let's just execute some of these people first to show them!" Yoshioka Katsumasa said fiercely, "Let's see if they still dare to bargain!"
"No, this is too immoral. I refuse to kill prisoners at any time!" Yu Qiuping immediately shook his head and refused, "First of all, killing them will do us no good. Secondly, killing prisoners will bring endless disasters! And killing prisoners
It’s very sad. Not only will our own Tokiwabei brothers be confused about me, but the people in my territory will also be afraid of me, and no one will be willing to surrender in future wars. How bad!”
"Then what do you want to do, Your Highness?" Yoshioka Shengzheng was also a little annoyed and spread his hands. "It seems that those families have discussed it and are sure that Your Highness will not kill the prisoners because of your good heart. They will not give it to you either.
Money is being wasted like this. Few of us can see it, and it is impossible to release the prisoners to work. It is equivalent to helping them support people in vain! What is this!" Although Yoshioka Shengzheng's words were a bit rough,
But everyone understood the core meaning. The subordinates nodded one after another and turned their attention to Yu Qiuping.
"Don't worry," Yu Qiuping looked at the nervous expressions of his subordinates and said with a relaxed smile: "Your Highness is not very capable, but you still have a lot of evil ideas."
"I want to break up their cooperative relationship and let them fight each other without trusting each other." Yu Qiuping analyzed, "Because only if they are not united can we kidnappers take advantage of it. Just like Nonomura Yukinari and the four of them
, if Kato Koyasu and Haronaga Yori were not too soft and refused to be of the same mind as the other two, we would not be able to extort money."
"Therefore, I want to introduce -" Yu Qiuping looked back proudly, and towards the north bank of the Kiso River, he snapped his fingers: "Competition mechanism!"
·
On the morning of April 10, the Yuan family waited for a long time, and finally received a reply from the Yuqiu family. However, to the surprise of the Yuan family, the Yuqiu family actually sent their own subordinates as envoys. The two previous communications
, the Yuqiu family all released prisoners from their original families as envoys, asking them to bring Yu Qiuping's autographed letters.
This envoy from the Yuqiu family was also very strange. After arriving at the Yuan family, he resolutely refused to meet Hara Yorifang. Instead, he waited outside and refused to come in. This made everyone in the Yuan family angry and panicked, for fear that they would just
The behavior of giving 200 guan angered Yu Qiuping, which led to the envoy's abnormal behavior. If any envoy dared to disrespect him so much on ordinary days, the warriors under his command would have cut him into pieces without even saying anything.
It's over. But right now, hundreds of his subordinates are in Yu Qiuping's hands, and he doesn't dare to do anything to annoy the Yu Qiu family.
Hara Yorifang also sent people to communicate with other families in the morning, but learned that the envoys sent by the Yuqiu family said nothing, which made Hara Yorifang even more panicked.
However, at four quarters of noon, the guard suddenly came to inform the envoy of his request for an audience.
"Is he finally willing to talk?" Hara Yorifu was surprised, "Please invite him in quickly!"
After the messenger entered the house, he didn't say much. After saluting Hara Yorifu, he immediately said: "I would like to ask Your Highness Hara to atone for your sins. The reason why I have been refusing to speak before is because at the request of His Highness, I and my three companions wanted to be together."
At the same time, I will inform the four of your Highnesses of my request. However, due to different journeys, it is impossible for the four of us envoys going to meet your Highnesses to arrive at your territory at the same time. Therefore, we have to inform you of Your Highnesses' request at the same time as agreed upon——
It’s four quarters past noon.”
"Your Excellency, please speak!" Hara Norifu said hurriedly.
"It's like this. Your Highness is very sorry for your failure to pay the compensation as required." The messenger said without being humble or arrogant: "However, in order to show your sincerity, Your Highness is willing to release your eldest son and the important hostage designated by several other families.
"
"That's great! Thank you so much, Your Highness Momiji! It was us who were petty before, so don't blame us, Your Highness!" Hara Yorifusa hurriedly apologized.
"However, because His Highness is very dissatisfied with your behavior," the messenger changed his subject, "therefore, His Highness agrees to release one of these four important hostages."
"One person? What do you mean? Whose family is it? Why?" Hara Yorifusa was stunned for a moment, and his voice could not help but rise a bit.
"Start calculating from this moment," the envoy said solemnly: "We four envoys will report to your highnesses at the same time. Whoever can deliver the remaining 800 to your highness's Kuroda City the fastest will show which one is the most worthy.
If you trust me, Your Highness will release the hostage of whichever family you want. If the money is still not sent before sunset, Your Highness will hand over the important hostages to the Oda Palace in Qingju City."
Hara Yorifang was stunned on the spot, but he immediately reacted after a moment and said loudly: "This! This! This is too much! Then this! Why did His Highness Momiji make such a request!"
"These are not things I can answer." The messenger bowed in a moderate manner, "That's it for now. Your Highness, please hurry up." After that, he resigned and left the castle tower.
As soon as the envoy left, the panicked Hara Yorifu immediately called all the retainers together for discussion.
"What does this rainy autumn and red leaves mean!" Hara Yorifang shouted loudly: "Why are my son suddenly sent to Qingzhou City! What should I do?"
"Your Highness, please calm down!" an elder advised, "I feel that Yu Qiuping just wants to get the money quickly. Once our money is delivered to him, he probably won't let him go. We
We should continue to insist on not giving away money and force him to make concessions!"
"Then can you guarantee it!" Another retainer retorted dissatisfiedly: "What if the other three families have sent money! We are the only ones who have not sent money! Yuqiu Hongye became angry and sent the young master to Oda Nobunaga! Can you be responsible?
What!"
"Impossible, use your own brain and think about it, why Yuqiu Hongye is willing to let the young master go as a hostage! Don't think too much!" the family elder retorted.
"I think you want to kill the young master just because you are close to the second young master!" The other retainer became a little anxious, "Tell me! What are your intentions?"
"What's the use of talking about this now? Don't start a quarrel!" The elder of the family, Bi Tou, stepped forward to take charge of the overall situation. "The key is to discuss it with the other families first! How to deal with it! As long as the four of us work together and don't give money, Yu
Qiu Hongye can't get any benefits, so naturally she doesn't dare to do anything to the young master who is the hostage!"
"But!" the affectionate Hara Yorifu said anxiously: "Nayuqiu Hongye said this time! He will only release one hostage! Only the hostage from the house that sends money the fastest can be released!
We went to notify them and waited for their news! I don’t know how long it took to come back and forth. If someone else ran away with the hostages first, my son would not be able to come back! Even the hundreds of people we were detained there had
Maybe I won’t be able to come back!”
"Your Highness! Don't fall for the trap!" Mr. Bitou said calmly: "There are obviously four hostages, but Yuqiu Hongye deliberately only released one. It is obviously to sow discord and prevent the four of us from uniting to deal with him! He is just afraid of us.
The four families joined together before! If we follow his wishes and pay him one by one, we won’t suffer a loss in the end!"
"I know! I know!" Hara Yorifusa raised his voice and said, "But can you guarantee that everyone thinks the same way as you! I've always been disgusted by the bandits in the Kawami community, and I just pinched my nose this time.
Cooperate with them! Now that we have such a good opportunity, how can they discuss it with us? Maybe they have already sent someone with money to redeem the person!"
"This..." Mr. Bitou was speechless for a moment. Indeed, it was also this time that several wealthy families jointly sent troops when they saw that there was an advantage to be taken advantage of. Normally, the relationship between everyone is not very good, and there are constant small frictions. At this time,
At this moment, how can we believe that other families will communicate with us first before talking. "Yuqiu Hongye has set a requirement for whoever is quick to redeem the hostages. It is obvious that they do not give us time to communicate!"
This is the famous Prisoner's Dilemma in later generations: two people who conspired to commit a crime are imprisoned and cannot communicate with each other. If neither person exposes the other, each person will go to jail for a year due to uncertain evidence; if one person exposes the other,
, and the other person is silent, the whistleblower will be released immediately for meritorious service, and the silent whistleblower will be imprisoned for ten years for non-cooperation; if they expose each other, both will be sentenced to eight years because the evidence is solid. Since the prisoners cannot trust each other, they tend to
To expose each other rather than to remain silent together.
Time passed by minute by minute, and everyone was anxious.
"Your Highness, make a decision quickly!" Another confidant couldn't wait any longer and urged: "While we are discussing here, we may not know which company has sent people over! We can't hesitate any longer!"
Hearing this, Hara Yorifu took a deep breath. "Stop saying anything and prepare the money quickly! Send the money over!" He stood up anxiously and urged, "Nothing can compare with my son's safety! Anyway,
They will probably give you money too! Instead of taking advantage of those bandits in Sichuan, you should think of redeeming my son as soon as possible!"
The Bitou family elder and several retainers knew it was a trick, but had no choice but to jump into the pit. "This Yuqiu Hongye is so vicious at such a young age," the Bitou family elder who already had a beard cursed secretly: "This
Chapter completed!