The dark clouds wrapped around the leaves, pressing over the only land passage between Kyushu Fenghou Kingdom and Hinata Kingdom. The trees on the high mountains on both sides of the mountain road, which were relatively low due to the lack of soil, whimpering in the west wind.

"It seems that it will rain again!" Shimazu Takahiko, who had a few white hairs on his head recently due to excessive worries, was sitting in the military tent garrisoned by the Shimazu family army. Looking at the black world outside, he couldn't help but sigh.

"Not good, lord!" At this moment, a retainer ran in.

"What's the matter?"

"Lord, those pirates in the Ming Kingdom have started to make trouble again." The retainers immediately reported.

"hateful!"

After hearing this, Shimazu Takahiro immediately slapped the marching Maza beside him and said angry. These Ming pirates were hired from Wang Zhi when they decided to go out to support the Sabuki family. The purpose was naturally to hope that the more superb iron cannon skills of these Ming pirates could help the Shimazu family's military force to cause greater damage to the Luo family's military force.

Unfortunately, after the war with the Luo family in the Sabuki family territory of Fenghou Kingdom, he was disappointed by the performance of these Ming pirates. Yes, their iron cannon shooting accuracy was indeed good, but they were too afraid of death. After being shot to death by the Luo family army at the beginning of the war, they simply hid behind the Shimazu family and only shot without rushing to the front. Because of the pirates' stolen tricks, until the coalition forces were besieged here, they suffered more than ten casualties, and the remaining more than two hundred were unscathed.

Now, due to the siege in the valley for several days, the supplies were getting less and less. These Ming pirates could not bear such a predicament. They even incited the soldiers around them to ask for more food and other supplies. However, the supplies in the coalition camp had been almost exhausted, and even the last food would probably have to be completely eaten in these few days. By that time, they would have no chance to drink porridge.

What's even more annoying is that in the coalition camp, the camps between the Ito family and the Shimazu family had been completely divided into two parts. The reason for this situation mainly starts with the box given to Ito Yoshiyuki half a month ago.

Originally, after learning that Masara Luo had given it to Yiyu Ito, Takahisa Shimazu had already concluded that this was Masara Luo's plan to alienate him. But what puzzled Takahisa Shimazu was that on the night when Yoshima Ito received the box mentioned by Masara Luo, several screams came from Ito's camp (because the two families joined forces to set up camp, so at such a close distance, it is naturally easy to know the movements in the other party's camp).

After inquiring the next day, Takahisa Shimazu learned that it was Ito Yoshiyuki suddenly got angry last night, and a few unlucky people happened to be in trouble, so they were brutally killed by Ito Yoshiyuki. After learning the reason, Takahisa Shimazu ignored it. He simply thought that Masara Luo's gift to Ito Yoshiyuki had previously angered. So Ito Yoshiyuki just asked his subordinates to vent his anger.

But things did not continue as he expected. A few days later, there seemed to be a strange atmosphere in the Ito family's camp. In this atmosphere, Ito Yoshiyuki suddenly sent someone to invite Shimazu Takaki to his military tent to discuss the important matters of breaking through the siege of the Luo family.

If it were in the past, Shimazu Takaha would have agreed to go, but due to the strange atmosphere in the Ito family camp, the retainers of the Shimazu family immediately advised Shimazu Takaha not to go. What made the Shimazu family even more unusual was that according to the results of the previous negotiations between the two companies, if there was a major issue, they would set up a military account at the junction of the two camps, and the two sides would discuss it together. Now Ito Yoshiyu directly invited Shimazu Takaha to go to Ito family camp. Is Ito Yoshiyu forgetting this agreement? Or did it deliberately not act according to the agreement for other reasons?

So after some discussions between the Shimazu family, the ministers decided to test whether there was any other conspiracy in Ito Yoshiyuki. They politely rejected the invitation from the Ito family, and even invited Ito Yoshiyuki to go to the Shimazu family's military camp to discuss matters. As a result, Ito Yoshiyuki not only rejected the invitation from the Shimazu family, but also immediately strengthened the surveillance and vigilance of the Shimazu family camp.

Ito Yoshiyuki's actions immediately caused the Shimazu family to be in a storm. Some retainers were even so angry that they wanted to take people to the Ito family camp to directly question Ito Yoshiyuki in person, but they were still stopped by Shimazu Takaha. Although Ito Yoshiyuki's previous invitation must have been a conspiracy, because the two families were besieged by the Luo family at this time, the two families could not completely break the relationship, otherwise they would really fall into the counter-espionage plan of the Luo family. As for the conspiracy design of the Ito family this time, at least they had to settle the accounts after breaking through the siege of the Luo family.

So Shimazu Takahisa decided to send someone to understand what happened to the Ito family. It actually made Ito Yoshiyuki do such a strange move when he was besieged by the Luo family and could only unite with the Shimazu family to have the opportunity to break through the siege.

After sending people to infiltrate the Ito family's army and constantly investigate, Shimazu Takaha finally found out why. It turned out that the box given to Ito Yoshiyuki was previously stored in the box where Ito Yoshiyuki was in the capital of the Hinata Kingdom. In addition, it also contained a stack of letters from many local wealthy families in the Hinata Kingdom and even the Ito family's retainers surrendered to the Luo family.

After learning the news, Shimazu Takaha instantly understood two points. First, the news that the Luo family has been promoting to them for this period that the Rak family is being invaded by the Rak family and other places, as well as the large-scale surrender of the rich families in various places, is very likely true. Moreover, the situation of the Iton family is the most serious, and it is even in the stage of life and death.

As for the second point I understood, it was that Ito Yoshiyuki was really desperate. When he could not break through the siege of the Luo family, Ito Yoshiyuki actually had the idea of ​​the Shimazu family, trying to use his heads and other Shimazu family as a gift in exchange for the liberation of the Luo family.

Let’s not mention whether the cunning Masara Luo’s request would agree to Ito Yoshiyuki’s request, but with the relationship between the Ito family and the Shimazu family before forming an alliance, in this current predicament, Ito Yoshiyuki is really likely to do this. After all, Ito Yoshiyuki has a grudge against the Shimazu family. At the beginning, Ito Yoshiyuki’s grandfather Ito Yoshiko died in the war with the Shimazu family, so Ito Yoshiyuki had a hatred for the Shimazu family, which was inevitable.

Before the two families formed an alliance, Shimazu Takahisa also planned to attack the increasingly powerful Ito family, especially when Ito Yoshiyuki broke into the Shimazu family in the southern part of the country, Toyosu Shimazu family, Shimazu Takahisa had the plan to go out (in history, the two families did start a continuous battle that lasted for ten years).

If it hadn't been that it suddenly appeared and could annex the overlords of the Shimazu family and Ito family at any time, the Luo family became stronger and stronger. Shimazu Takaha would not have seen the territory of the Toyoshu Shimazu family, which was a division, almost been annexed by the Ito family and was unmoved. He even took the initiative to propose to the Ito family to form an alliance to resist the Luo family.

As for the Ito family, it had conflicts with the Luo family because it had been invited by its ally Oto family, and the ally Oto family was even destroyed by the Luo family. Seeing that the next target of the Luo family is likely to be the Hinata region, although Ito Yoshiyuki hated the Shimazu family in his heart, he also endured the hatred and agreed to form an alliance with the Shimazu family.

In order to unite with the Shimazu family to resist the Luo family, they deliberately strengthened the attacks of wealthy families in the southwestern part of the Hinata country, such as the Kitahara family, and joined forces with the Shimazu family to pacify the Satsuma country, Osumi country, and the Hinata country at the border area of ​​Mikushu. They sent heavy troops to garrison the local area, and joined forces with the Shimazu family to monitor the Luo family army in the Mitsuho area separated by a mountain.

However, the alliance that was originally bound to resist the Luo family was now facing the survival of the family, the hatred of Ito Yoshiyuki's heart against the Shimazu family naturally rekindled. Although the sudden internal strife with the Shimazu family might have hit the trick of the Luo family Masaro, it was always like today and was surrounded by the Luo family and waited for death day after day! So, there were naturally some strange actions of Ito's family.

After thinking through Yiyu Ito's thoughts, Shimazu Takaha also found that there were the same problems as Yiyu Ito. Since the previous plot to be discovered by the Shimazu Takaha, it is impossible for the two families to unite again. The reason why they still maintain basic peace is that it is because Ito Yoshiyu was concerned about the Luo family outside and did not think about completely breaking up with the Shimazu family. However, as time delays, Yiyu Ito will be unable to bear it one day.

Similarly, the same is true for Shimazu Takaha. Since he already knows Ito Yoyo’s thoughts, Shimazu Takaha would not stick out his head like a fool and let someone chop it. But even so, what should Shimazu family do?

Just as Shimazu Takaha was thinking about it, as if he had learned Shimazu Takaha's mind, Masara Luo actually gave him some gifts. It also contained tokens from some forts in Satsuma State or letters of surrender from some local wealthy families.

"Damn it!" After seeing these things, Shimazu Takaha finally realized what Ito Yoshiyuki felt. What's even more annoying is that while Shimazu Takaha was thinking about what the Shimazu family should do, the Ming pirates actually started to cause trouble. It was difficult for them to comfort these pirates for a while before, but today they actually started to cause trouble again.

"If I hadn't considered that I might have to rely on Wang Zhi's maritime power in the future, I really hoped to cut all these guys." These Ming pirates were said to have been in the Ming Dynasty, some local coastal tyrants or bandits. Although the iron cannon shooting accuracy is good, once they leave the iron cannon, they will not be brave enough. With the strength of the Shimazu family's elite, they can completely destroy these people with very few casualties.

"Hmph, it's just a group of guys who only dare to be arrogant in front of ordinary people." Shimazu Takahisa decided not to care about these guys for the time being. Instead, he shouted, "Come, call the generals to me."

"It's time to decide the future of the Shimazu family, and you can't delay any more..." Shimazu Takahisa murmured to himself as he looked at the still black sky.

Just when Shimazu Takahisa summoned all the retainers to decide the future of the Shimazu family, Masara had just received a group of coalition deserters who fled to the Luo family's camp last night.

Due to the continuous persuasion of the Luo family and the continuous decline in coalition supplies and morale decline, coalition soldiers have come to surrender one after another during this period.

Of course, both the Shimazu family and the Itong family are not allowed to defect. Moreover, they strictly control the levels in the mountain road. Naturally, even many coalition soldiers have the idea of ​​surrendering, but they are unable to take the initiative to surrender to the Luo family.

But even so, some brave soldiers would look for opportunities to escape. Almost most of these people would be caught and executed publicly. Some of the lucky ones were not caught, mainly because they almost all sneaked into the Beichuan next to them while no one was paying attention at night. Then they drifted to the positions on the south and north sides of the Luo family, and were rescued by the patrol soldiers of the Luo family.

Of course, some of these guys who were lucky enough to jump into Beichuan are also unfortunate. This is mainly because the water sources in Beichuan are mainly composed of the Yongquan exit at the bottom of the Beichuan River and the accumulated water in some high mountains and dense forests along the Beichuan coast. Such water sources naturally cause different water sources to form different water currents after entering Beichuan, thus colliding with each other in Beichuan, forming a large number of underwater vortexes (this is also the reason why no one uses ships to navigate in Beichuan, such hydrological conditions can easily lead to capsizing). Those deserters who jump into Beichuan and escape from the coalition camp will be drowned because of the vortex in the water if they are unfortunate.

Because people kept running through Beichuan, corpses floated in Beichuan from time to time. In addition, in the coalition camp, the bodies of soldiers who were injured in fierce battles with the Luo family's army and died due to no medicine were thrown into Beichuan by the coalition army. This caused corpses to float in Beichuan from time to time in Beichuan to the river channel next to the two camps of the Luo family's north and south camps.

In order to avoid the occurrence of plague, Zhengliang had to order that on the one hand, he was not allowed to obtain water from Beichuan (anyway, there are many springs and accumulated water in the nearby mountains, which can be used as edible water sources). On the other hand, he had to set up a salvage team in the north and south camps to search and rescue the coalition deserters who escaped along the water flow, and at the same time he was also responsible for salvageing the bodies in the water flow.

After all, the water flows in Kitakawa flow to the plains of the Hinata Kinabalu Matsuo Castle in the south, and the north will eventually flow into Kurusu River in the south of Fenghou Kingdom. These areas are now all the territory of the Luo family, and Masayora does not want to cause plague in these areas because of these corpses.

After appeased the dozens of newly surrendered coalition deserters, and arranged these people to enter the propaganda troop specially set up by the Luo family (specially used to surrender to the coalition camp through loud propaganda in demonstration), Zhengliang returned to the military tent to continue to deal with some government affairs brought by Hai Dongqing today.

Until evening, when Masaru had just finished his dinner, Asakura Sonidi, who was responsible for the vigilance in the middle of the night tonight, hurriedly walked in, "Lord, the Shimazu family sent an envoy to ask for a visit." After Masaru finished his salute, Asakura Sonidi said with a little flushed face. For the Luo family, the arrival of the Shimazu family's envoy was definitely good news, which shows that the other party had obviously given in a bit of surrender.

"Oh?" Masayoro seemed to have expected that the Shimazu family would send someone to come after hearing this. He just nodded simply and signaled to know.

"Master, is this...will you meet the other party?" Seeing that the lord Masayoro had no excitement, Asakura Son was stunned. He really didn't know what the lord had planned, so he had to ask hesitantly.

"Well, let the other party come in." Zhengliang nodded again.

"The foreign minister Ijiyuan Genshiro Tachiro pays homage to Masarara." Not long after, the lame Ijiyuan Tachiro walked into Masarara's military tent accompanied by Asakura Sodi.

"Well, sit down." Zhengliang had returned to the desk at this time and was dealing with a plan for the resettlement of Ming refugees from hundreds of people sent by Ming Dynasty merchant Wang Hai. After putting down the plan from his legitimate son Huiliang, Zhengliang signaled Zhonglang of Yijiyuan to sit down.

Masara did not expect that Shimazu Takahiro actually sent this important official from the Shimazu family. Masara also admired Tadaro Ijien, and his internal affairs ability was indeed comparable to that of Togo Heiji, Arima Haruku and others in the family. However, after seeing that Tadaro Ijien was injured in his thigh, Masara smiled in his heart.

Shimazu Takahisa is still quite smart! When the coalition forces had no herbs at this time (Masara knew these situations from the deserters who escaped), Ijiyuan Tadaro's thigh injury would sooner or later. Now Ijiyuan Tadaro was sent to Masara as a negotiator. On the one hand, Ijiyuan Tadaro's identity was to express to Masara Masara's attention to this negotiation. On the other hand, Ijiyuan Tadaro's family attaches great importance to this negotiation. On the other hand, I hope that the Luo family can uphold the righteousness and can help treat Ijiyuan Tadaro's injured leg.

Thinking of this, Zhengliang asked with a smile: "Sir, I'm so nice."

"Very good! Thank you Masaru for your concern. Before the foreign minister came, my lord told me to express my gratitude to Masaru for the gift he gave to my lord. But I think that the Shimazu family will definitely not have those situations, and Masaru may have been deceived." Tadaro Ijiyuan replied with a serious face.

"Haha!" Masara only smiled and didn't care. After all, the Shimazu family was very clear about whether those submissions were true. Masarara did not intend to argue with the other party at all. Anyway, this was just a response made by the other party in an attempt to strive for some favorable conditions in the negotiations. Thinking of this, Masarara simply pretended not to know why the other party came and asked in confusion: "Since Lord Takaku is safe, that's fine. But I don't know what you are doing this time?"

Regarding Masaru's sudden question, Tadaro Ijiyuan felt very frustrated at this time. He didn't remember how long the Shimazu family had been in such a weak situation. The Kyushu eagle in front of him knew the purpose of his visit this time, but he pretended not to know. This was really a great humiliation to the Shimazu family! But even so, after all, the Shimazu family was in a weak position at this time, so Tadaro Ijiyuan could only pretend to be very sincere: "This time, the foreign minister is the representative of the Shimazu family. I hope to reach an agreement with you. As long as you can let your family leave, I am willing to surrender to you. From then on, Masaru will use Masaru as a subject and obey the command of Masaru's master."

After saying that, Tadaro Ijiyuan seemed to have a constant expression, but he looked at Masara Luo, who was above the main position with great nervousness, hoping that the other party could agree to the Shimazu family's submission agreement.

But what disappointed Yijiyuan Tadaro, Masayoshi's face did not change at all after hearing his words, and he still kept a smile and said, "Hehe! It seems that your leg injury is very serious. Since that's the case, then go down and treat it first. Zongdi, take good care of our guests."

"Yes!" Asakura Sondi, who had been with him, immediately took the order.

"This, Master Zhengliang, my family..." On this side, Tadaro Yijiyuan did not expect that Masara Luo would respond to the submission agreement he proposed in this way, and immediately became a little anxious.

"Please!" But before he could finish his words, Asakura Sondi beside him had already stood up and called on the two Luo family warriors at the entrance of the military tent to come in, and directly pulled Tadaro Ijiyuan half-pulled and half-mugged out of the military tent.

"Hey, I think so beautiful!" After Tadaro Ijiyuan was taken away, Masarara sneered and said to himself.

All the manifestations of Tadaro Ijiyuan's previous arrival and the agreement he just proposed, the so-called surrender expressed is nothing more than an alliance between the Situji family and the Luo family.

After surrendering to the Luo family, the Shimazu family was like the Nishituji family, which was equivalent to becoming an alien alliance of the Luo family. As long as Masaru summoned him, the Shimazu family immediately acted as Masaru's younger brother and charged for the Luo family. Usually, the Shimazu family maintained its independence, had its own territory, and its own military power. It only needed to pay some material income to the Luo family at designated times every year.

It seems that this seems to be very good for the Luo family. At least in name, the Luo family has already subdued the Shimazu family. But at this time, the Luo family suffered a loss when Shimazu Kiku and Shimazu family were treated like this.

After all, as long as the Luo family continues to hold their troops and continues to siege the Shimazu family and Ito family coalition forces in the valley, they come to attack and hide in the fortifications to fight back. When they don’t attack, they keep holding their troops and waiting for their internal strife, soldiers’ defection, and materials to be consumed... Anyway, in the end, when they are so hungry that they have no strength to resist, they will not become the fish of the Luo family? Why bother talking nonsense to them?
Chapter completed!