Mirror!"【4400】

"Well..."

After listening to Inoue Genzaburo's explanation, Harada Sanosuke pondered.

After a while, he muttered:

"Something weird..."

At the same time, Nagakura Shinpachi was also murmuring:

"I guess... no, I'm sure! The Souji must know something!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned to look at Genzaburo Inoue.

"Uncle Yuan, have you ever asked the director what's in the porcelain pot he gave to Mr. Tachibana?"

Genzaburo Inoue smiled bitterly:

"How dare I ask! The way the Souji looked at that time made it clear that he didn't want anyone to know about this 'secret transaction' between him and Qingteng! If she knew that I had witnessed the whole transaction between her and Qingteng,

She might get angry during the process!"

Nagakura Shinpachi sighed with regret:

"That's right...that's right. It's really not easy to ask people this kind of question directly face to face..."

At this time, Harada Sanosuke waved his hand quickly.

"Forget it! Let's not worry so much!"

"Don't we know what kind of people Mr. Tachibana and Souji are?"

"Mr. Orange is both civil and military, and never does anything useless!"

"Since he locked himself in the room and didn't want us to know what he was doing, he must have a reason!"

"Let's eat well, sleep well, work well as always, and then wait quietly!"

"I have a hunch - Mr. Tachibana is doing something great now!"

Nagakura Shinpachi fell silent after hearing this, and then nodded gently:

"Yeah...that's true."

Genzaburo Inoue also nodded in agreement.

After the brief chat ended, the three people, who could not find a new topic for the time being, moved forward silently and carried out their patrol tasks step by step.

However, it didn't take long for them to hear rapid footsteps coming from far and near - two soldiers from the Second Squadron, one on the left and one on the right, controlled a young samurai in shabby clothes, and moved three steps at a time.

He ran towards them quickly in two steps.

"Captain Nagakura! We found a sneaky suspicious person near Nijo Castle! We have brought him here!"

As they spoke, the two soldiers used a fierce force to force the young warrior they had controlled to kneel to the ground.

This man was about 30 years old, with a plain appearance, dirty hair, a dark face, and even his clothes were covered in dust and dirt.

As soon as his knees touched the ground, he shouted in a panic:

"Wait a minute! Please listen to my explanation! I am definitely not a suspicious person! There is a very reasonable reason why I am wandering around Nijo Castle!"

His accent is very strong, and some of his pronunciations don't even sound like Japanese at first glance.

It took a lot of effort for Nagakura Shinpachi and Inoue Genzaburo to finally understand what this person was talking about.

Harada Sanosuke, on the other hand, did not show any confusion at this person's accent. Instead, he looked surprised as if he had discovered something surprising.

"Huh? Judging from your accent...are you from Tosa?"

Harada Sanosuke said this question in the dialect of his hometown (Iyo Matsuyama Domain).

The young samurai was stunned for a moment, then nodded like a fool:

"Yes, yes! I'm from Tosa!"

Tosa - Tosa Domain, officially called Kochi Domain, the lord is the Yamauchi clan, with a stone height of 240,000, and is one of the most powerful feudal states in Western Japan.

Harada Sanosuke grinned

"Aha! Then we are half fellow villagers! I am from the Iyo Matsuyama clan!"

Both Tosa Domain and Iyo Matsuyama Domain are located on the large island of Shikoku.

The former is located on the south side of Shikoku Island and borders the Pacific Ocean to the east; the latter is located on the north side of Shikoku Island and borders the Seto Inland Sea to the west. The two sides are neighbors.

Harada Sanosuke swept his eyes and looked at the opponent roughly several times.

"Judging from your dress, you are a country scholar, right?"

The young warrior smiled coquettishly:

"No...it's not...I'm worse than a country scholar...I'm an underground rogue..."

Nagakura Shinpachi turned his head and cast a doubtful look at Harada Sanosuke.

"Sanosuke, what is a country scholar? What is an underground ronin?"

Harada Sanosuke laughed a few times:

"Ahaha...well...it's a long story. To put it simply, countrymen and underground ronin are special classes of the Tosa Domain."

After thinking for a moment, he cleared his throat and spoke:

The Tosa Domain area used to be ruled by the Chosogabe clan at the end of the Warring States Period.

In the 5th year of Keicho (1600), the battle of Sekigahara decided whether the world would have the surname Toyotomi or the surname Tokugawa. Choso Gabu Moriuchika participated in the battle as the Western Army.

After the disastrous defeat of the Western Army, Chosonggabu Morishika was demoted and removed from his status as a lord, and his territory was replaced by Yamauchi Kazuhiro.

Speaking of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, he can be called "the king of horizontal jumps in the Warring States Period" and "the master of 'standing in line'".

He was originally a lowly ronin, with neither extraordinary literary skills nor extraordinary military skills.

No matter how you look at it, he is just a mediocre person with mediocre abilities.

However, he just relied on his superb "Horizontal Jump Kung Fu" and an unparalleled good wife to serve in the Makimura clan, Yamaoka clan, Oda clan, Toyotomi clan, and Tokugawa clan in the five dynasties, completing a great leap in class.

, soared into the sky and became a great lord with 240,000 stone of land.

On the eve of the Sekigahara War, the keen Yamauchi Kazutoyo predicted that the world was about to change hands again, and began to look for a strong man worthy of his attachment.

At that time, he was already entrusted to Kakegawa Castle in the Toe Kingdom, and he had a daimyo with a territory of 60,000 koku.

He foresaw that in today's world, only Tokugawa Ieyasu possessed the "three virtues of wisdom, benevolence, and courage", so he resolutely abandoned his old master, the Toyotomi clan, and defected to the Tokugawa clan.

At that time, his wife - Chiyo, "one of the most powerful wives in Japanese history" - was being held as a hostage in Kyoto.

The Western Army sent people to threaten Chiyo and forced her to write a letter to Yi Feng, urging him to defect to the Western Army.

For the sake of her husband's future, Chiyo risked her life and death, pretended to agree, and wrote a letter of persuasion. At the same time, she took the risk of attaching a letter from her own family. The content was roughly persuading Itoyo to rely on Ieyasu, and kept it in the string of the bamboo hat.

This is the famous "笠の丝の文".

After Yamauchi Kazutoyo received the letter, he handed it over to Tokugawa Ieyasu intact, along with all of his territory.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was greatly moved when he saw this, and praised Yamauchi Kazutoyo's loyalty as "like the heart of a tree", while the others were "just branches and leaves".

In this way, with his bold and well-timed "licking", Yamauchi Kazutoyo won the favor of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

After that, Yamauchi Kazuo did not perform outstandingly in the Sekigahara battle, and it can be said that he failed to achieve any success.

But because of Chiyo's letter and Yamauchi Kazutyo's actions of handing over the letter and territory to Tokugawa Ieyasu, Tokugawa Ieyasu still gave him the highest reward - moving the title from Kakegawa in Toe River to Tosa in Shikoku.

The stone height of the territory has quadrupled, from 60,000 stones to 240,000 stones!

In the second year after the Battle of Sekigahara, Yamauchi Kazutoyo officially came to Tosa to enter the country.

When he first arrived in a strange land, he was a lord with no prestige.

The old retainers of the old lord Chosomega in the Tosa area are still attached to their old lord.

In addition, Yamauchi Kazuhiro did not have outstanding personal charm, and only relied on "standing in line" and "licking" to gain fame, which made the remaining ministers of Chosonggabu unconvinced by him.

They are only pretending to be submissive to Yi Fengyang.

Long before Yifeng entered the country, they instigated Yikui to resist Yifeng's entry into the country.

Later, Ippo sent his brother Yamauchi Yasutoyo to launch a brutal suppression, and more than 270 people were beheaded.

After Ichiku was suppressed, Ichito began to artificially create class conflicts in order to establish his absolute authority in Tosa.

He designated the "Sanuchi sect samurai" who entered the country with him as "sergeants" and the remaining ministers of Chozongga's tribe as "countrymen".

There is also a transitional class between the two called "Baizha Xiangshi", which is similar to "quasi-sergeant".

The status of a rural scholar could be bought and sold, but there were strict barriers between sergeants and other classes.

Under the careful design of Yamauchi Kazuo, the sergeants enjoyed a lofty status and many privileges, while the rural scholars suffered crazy suppression.

The discriminatory treatment suffered by the villagers includes but is not limited to: they cannot wear clogs; they cannot hold an umbrella in rainy days; they must give way and salute when encountering a sergeant; they cannot wear good clothes... etc.

As for "underground wanderers", they refer to people who have sold their status as countrymen.
To be continued...