On July 29th, at three o'clock in the morning, Zhili arrived.
"Ancheng, why is there no one guarding the city wall? Where is everyone?" After completing the task of delivering the message, Yu Qiuping breathed a sigh of relief and asked Fukushima Anchor, "I was almost killed just now.
How unfair it is to catch up with Tianjia at the gate of the city."
As he spoke, he opened a cabinet in the castle tower. There was a stack of papers recording the number of weapons and armors in Chiri Castle, and another stack of sales contracts for these slaves. Yu Qiuping put the two stacks of papers into the package and finished his work.
Only then did he realize that Fukushima Yasunari had not replied. Yu Qiuping looked at the always honest and loyal Fukushima Yasunari with some weirdness.
Fukushima Yasunari smiled bitterly and said, "Please come with me, sir."
Fukushima Yasunari led Yu Qiuping from the castle tower and followed a path to the barracks of Chiryu Castle.
Opening the gate of the barracks, Yu Qiuping was surprised by the scene inside.
The garrison troops who should have been fully prepared for war and stationed on the city wall were now sitting on the ground in twos and threes, leaning on haystacks, or simply wandering around without a care in the world. The entire military camp was in a state of decadence.
"What are you doing! Get up and prepare to fight!" Yu Qiuping, who had come all the way, couldn't help shouting angrily when he saw that these people were so decadent.
The loud shouts attracted the attention of the slaves. When they saw Yu Qiuping coming, their eyes were full of joy and gratitude, but in an instant, they turned into helplessness and decadence.
"Everything is fine at home! You are all settled in! Your family is waiting for you to go back! How can you do this!" Yu Qiu angrily took out the family letter from the package and placed it on the table nearby.
."My family is still waiting for you to go back!"
"Sir, why are you here to die?" Yoshioka Katsumasa, who has always been known as a tough guy, is also listless at this moment. "Sir, why are you such a good person here to die?"
"Why are you going to die!" Yu Qiuping spread his hands, trying to boost their fighting spirit, but with little success.
"Sir, little people, we can never go back." Fukushima Yasunari smiled bitterly, "Sir, haven't you seen the more than a hundred cavalry outside? With them here, the little people will be chased as soon as they leave the city.
No one can even hope to leave alive."
"Then work hard to defend the city! Wouldn't it be better if we defended it?" Yu Qiuping asked in confusion.
"How to defend, sir," Omaezaki Nakahide took over, "I heard from the retreating army that a total of 6,000 people from the Oda family came this time! What can we do with more than two hundred people?"
"There are more than two hundred of us who want to defend the city, but we can't even stand on the city wall! Our armors are all different, some are captured, some are rotten and no one uses them, some are made by ourselves, and there is no flag to rely on.
, you can't even identify your identity during the fight, and you can't recognize who is one of your own! How to fight!" Omaezaki Nakahide said with a bitter smile, "Half of the North City wall has collapsed, if just 200 people from the Oda family come here, we will be dead.
It will take them a quarter of an hour to determine whether we are committing an empty-city plan, and then another quarter of an hour to kill us all."
"Where are the supervisors? Where are the supervisors!" Yu Qiuping angrily changed the subject.
"Run away, they all ran away," Omaezaki Nakahide chuckled, "The day before yesterday, when I heard that the Oda Army was coming, I ran to the east mountains without saying a word. The people in the castle town basically went wherever they could.
Ran away in the mountains."
"Then why don't you retreat?" Yu Qiuping asked.
"How are we going to withdraw, sir! Are you kidding me!" Omaezaki Nakahide stared at Yu Qiuping in shock, "As soon as we withdraw, everyone in the Sunfu Castle family, old and young, will die!"
"It's good to know." Amano Keide suddenly said coldly.
"Master Amano, don't do this." Yu Qiuping glared at Amano Jingde, but the latter ignored him disapprovingly.
"Hehe, there are more than two hundred of us, we are bound to die, there is no way to survive. As soon as the Oda family comes, our doom will come," Ogawa Yutong's face turned red from drinking, "What else is there to say."
"Since you know there is no way to survive, why don't you stand up and resist!" Yu Qiuping asked angrily, "Go and fight bravely! Go and defend the city! What's the point of staying here and waiting to die! Even if you don't do anything here,
If you don’t do it, you will still die!”
More than two hundred slave soldiers gradually gathered around Yu Qiuping, but they all had a decadent and helpless expression.
"Sir, let's protect you to break out. Your Excellency, run directly to the mountainous area to the east. If there is a chance, you can escape!"
"Yes, sir, please leave quickly! We will risk our lives to send you away!"
"But I came here to take you to defend the city!" Yu Qiuping shouted to them, "Sena-sama said that as long as we defend Chili Castle for three days, you can be exempted from your status as slaves!" I originally thought that
Yu Qiuping, who could boost morale with these words, was surprised to find that everyone still had an expression of no confidence or hope.
"It's impossible, sir," Fukushima Yasunari said helplessly, "If we can't hold on for three days, we will have to die here."
"You have to fight bravely even if you can't hold out for three days! Haven't you fought bandits before?"
"Keep it for three days! Then you don't have to be a slave anymore! Don't you want to be a free person? Don't you want to fight for it!" Yu Qiuping raised his arms and shouted.
However, there was no response from anyone.
Yu Qiuping suddenly felt confused.
"That is to say, since you are going to die," Nakahide Omaezaki laughed angrily, "do you want to stand up and fight bravely and die?"
"That's right." Yu Qiuping, who was in anger, replied coldly.
"So...since death is inevitable, isn't it pointless for us to wait for death or to die heroically? If we die, we will lose everything." Nakahide Omaezaki said quickly, wanting to see how Yu Qiuping was doing.
explain.
"That's right." Yu Qiuping still replied calmly, but his heart was already turbulent, and there was an indescribable power that lay in the struggle of fear.
Yes, everyone is going to die. So, what is it that supports our continuous efforts?
What is it? What makes people work hard to walk through life.
Omaezaki Nakahide scratched his head in pain and buried his head deeply into his knees, "I should have understood this a long time ago!" He whispered, as if repenting or complaining, "From the day we became slaves
From the beginning, we were destined to suffer in dire straits for the rest of our lives, never getting ahead, never having freedom, and being enslaved. I still imagined that we would be different from other slaves and that one day we would live a good life.
." He shed tears and looked at Yu Qiuping, "Your Excellency once gave us hope and made us feel that there is still hope and light in life!" The slaves around him looked at him with gratitude after hearing this sentence.
Yu Qiuping finally sighed.
"But in the end, it's not a meaningless death. After death, you don't know anything." Omaezaki Nakahide looked helplessly at the sky. Thick dark clouds gradually filled the sky, blocking the sun.
"Yeah, it's all meaningless," Yu Qiuping suddenly laughed crazily, surprising the slaves. "No matter what kind of family we are born into, no matter how we grow up, no matter what life we have lived
What a joyful and happy life, no matter what dreams we have.”
"People are bound to die after all. Whether they are killed, die of illness, die of old age, or starve, they are all going to die." As Yu Qiuping spoke, his thoughts became clearer, but his emotions became excited.
. He suddenly understood that in the subconscious, in the depths of human nature that had never been awakened, what supported the continuous efforts of human beings who were bound to die for thousands of years.
"Then our lives are meaningless! Are we born into this world meaningless from the beginning?" The young man's roar seemed to awaken nature, and the sky suddenly turned gloomy.
Not only the slaves, but also the guards behind him, Charlie, and Amano Keitoku, were also attracted by the boy's extraordinary appeal.
"Or! Our ancestors! The ancestors who opened up this land, the ancestors who raised generations to grow, the ancestors who shed their lives and blood for the continuation and glory of the family, and the parents who raised us, if they
Is death meaningless?" Yu Qiuping yelled at the top of his lungs. The people around him listened with naked eyes.
The sound paused briefly, and the world seemed to be silently listening to the young man's roar. The sky became darker and darker, as if the curtain was slowly lowering before the opening, and the courtyard was dark, just waiting for the protagonist to appear.
"No! It's not like that!" The angry-eyed young man shook the whole city with a roar that was heard clearly even by the Oda family outside the city.
"Only us living people! Can give meaning to the dead!" Yu Qiuping shouted out the answer to the question, the memory buried deep in human reproduction and inheritance. "Only the living people! Can think of the ancestors
If we are great, we will have the ambition to make great achievements! If we can think of those respectable people, we will also cultivate our moral character and achieve success! If we can think of our parents who love us, we will also love and nurture our children! If we can think of those who sacrificed
Martyrs, we will fight for our family without fear of sacrifice! We can remember their precious will! Inherit their will!" The strong roar pierced everyone's heart, as if a treasure box that had been hidden for a long time was suddenly opened.
, making them realize the meaning of life.
"And we! We fought bravely today! We even sacrificed our lives! We want to entrust our will to those who come after us! This is the human race that we are destined to die! The only way to fight against the cruel reality!" Everyone was stunned.
, and then, the fire in my chest burned blazingly.
Yu Qiuping pulled out the slaves' contracts of sale from his arms, angrily tore them into pieces and threw them into the air, "From now on! You are all free people! Even if we are destined to die,
At the last moment of your life, you must get rid of your status as a slave and fight for freedom!" The slaves, no, now the Ashigaru, looked at the flying fragments with tears in their eyes.
Dark clouds surged in the sky, striking each other violently.
"Entrust our will! to the people who are still alive! Entrust it to your children, your younger brothers and sisters, and all the living people in your family! Let future generations be proud to think of their ancestors who worked hard for
Be free and fight hard!" Yu Qiuping raised his arms and shouted again. What he got this time was the roar from the heart of more than two hundred men! Roaring at the sky and at this cruel reality!
Yu Qiuping suddenly ran out of words and didn't know what words to use to end this speech. No words seemed powerful enough.
Finally, those words flashed through my mind.
"Get up! People who don't want to be slaves!"
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky and tore the curtain of darkness. For a moment, the stars in the sky and the earth were eclipsed. This young man named Yu Qiuping, following this shout, stepped onto the stage of the Warring States Period.