The Imperial Guards Fleet arrived in Sakai a day in advance and took over the defense of Sakai like last time. In view of the current tense situation in Japan, Zhu Jue, commander of the Eastern Theater, personally led the theater's direct fleet to station troops in Osaka Bay to prevent the Japanese from getting too excited.
When Zhao Hao stepped onto the Sakai City Pier again, the gray-haired Tokugawa Ieyasu rushed over to him, kneeling in front of him and bursting into tears.
"Wow, I finally see my father again. I thought I would never see him again in this lifetime."
That kind of sincere and heartfelt admiration is enough to make anyone who hears it change color!
Zhao Hao patted his back emotionally and said softly, "Don't cry, don't cry. Dad misses you too. Why are your hair so white?"
When I recognized him as my father eight years ago, Ieyasu was only thirty-seven, without a single gray hair, and his hair volume was also considerable. Now he is only forty-five, but most of his hair is already gray, and it is so sparse that it can hardly cover his scalp.
Sure enough, a man’s aging always starts from the beginning.
"Wow, I've had such a hard time these years..." Ieyasu burst into tears again, as if he wanted to vent all the fears and grievances he had experienced over the years.
"Yeah, that's true." Zhao Hao nodded in understanding. The speed with which the situation in the Warring States Period in Japan had changed in recent years was completely beyond the expectations of everyone except him.
In April of the seventh year of the Wanli reign, after the group signed the "Perpetual Peace Treaty" with Oda Nobunaga, they focused their energy on Southeast Asia. Oda Nobunaga, on the other hand, focused all his attention on unifying the main island.
At that time, Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin died one after another, and Honganji Hōnyō also withdrew from the fight for supremacy. There was no one in Japan who could challenge the Oda army.
In the summer of that year, with Hatano Hideharu being beheaded after surrendering to Nobunaga, the so-called Nobunaga encirclement completely ceased to exist.
Soon, Nobunaga's army defeated the Uesugi army, captured Noto and Kaga, and even attacked Echizen. At the same time, the Mori army surrendered to Nobunaga at Ukita Naoie in Bizen, and the battle situation between the Oda army and the Mori army was completely reversed.
In the following three years, Nobunaga entered his heyday, conquering all of Japan. His army was invincible. Everyone believed that Nobunaga's pace to unify Japan was unstoppable.
Nobunaga himself also thought so, and he became arrogant when he was proud. Not only did he behave frivolously and recklessly, he also wantonly humiliated his subordinates. This eventually aroused the devil in Akechi Mitsuhide's heart, and as a result, the Honnoji Incident occurred as expected in the summer of the tenth year of the Wanli reign.
Why did Mitsuhide, Nobunaga's most capable subordinate, suddenly rebel? Japanese historians have different opinions. Some say it was because Nobunaga refused to be the shogun and was ready to force the emperor to abdicate so that he could become the legitimate ruler of the world. So the royal family used the title of shogun to force Mitsuhide to kill his master.
Some people say that it was because Nobunaga had already made a long-term plan after he gained control of the world... He planned to divide the Japanese mainland among his own clans and let retainers like Mitsuhide go on expeditions to Ming and Korea to obtain fiefs. Of course, Mitsuhide could not accept this, so he decided to strike first.
Others say that it was because Nobunaga was too reckless and came to Mitsuhide's territory with only more than 100 people. Mitsuhide couldn't help but cut him with a knife and replaced him with **.
And Nobunaga spanked him at the banquet, and Mitsuhide got so excited that he grilled his lord...
However, no one has sufficient evidence to convince the public, and it remains an unsolved case.
But this did not affect Mitsuhide's famous shout on the night of June 1:
"Forward, the enemy is at Honnoji!"
Then he led a large army to kill his lord, as well as Nobunaga's eldest son, Nobutada, the head of the Oda family.
With the death of two generations of Oda family heads in the fire at Honnoji Temple, Japanese history was completely rewritten...
~~
After the Honnoji Incident, Akechi Mitsuhide blocked the news of Nobunaga's death and occupied Azuchi Castle without a fight. The imperial court then sent an envoy to honor him as the Shogun and express its full support for him.
However, because Mitsuhide had betrayed his master and killed his lord, daimyos from all over the country were cold to his recruitment and instead began to mourn for Nobunaga... The Oda retainers even vowed to take his head and avenge their lord!
Among them, Hashiba Hideyoshi's reaction was the fastest. At that time, the monkey was ordered to attack the western border, but fortunately, he learned about Nobunaga's death earlier than anyone else. It makes people believe that luck really exists in this world...
Originally, the two of them served as Nobunaga's right-hand men. Although Monkey was slightly inferior to Mitsuhide in everything, he was always his strongest competitor.
So after the incident at Honnoji Temple, the first person Akechi Mitsuhide wanted to deal with was Hideyoshi. On the night when he barbecued his lord, Mitsuhide wrote a confidential document and sent it to the Mori army overnight, asking them not to surrender. After he stabilized the situation in Azuchi Castle, he immediately led his troops to attack Hideyoshi together with the Mori army.
Unexpectedly, the secret envoy did not understand the situation on the front line and mistakenly entered Hideyoshi's camp and was arrested.
At around 10 o'clock in the evening on June 3, Hideyoshi learned about the Honnoji Incident from a secret letter found on him!
At that time, Mitsuhide was still on his way to Azuchi Castle, trying his best to cover up the news of Nobunaga's death.
Hideyoshi took advantage of this precious time difference and decided to conceal the bad news and immediately make peace with the Mori army. At that time, the Mori army was already in a very bad situation and was worried that Oda Nobunaga would bring reinforcements, so they had already sent envoys to ask for peace with the monkey. So the two sides hit it off and immediately stopped fighting.
On the 6th, Hideyoshi was able to lead his troops back east, raising the banner of revenge for his lord!
As he was on his way, other Oda retainers gradually received the news. They either lost their opinions or were overwhelmed by hatred. With no leader, Hideyoshi became the natural leader.
Oda's retainers led their troops to join Hideyoshi, and his army quickly expanded to 40,000. On the thirteenth day after Nobunaga's death, he defeated Mitsuhide, who had only 13,000 soldiers, in the Battle of Tennozan, and took the opportunity to control the Kyoto area.
Mitsuhide was defeated and died after serving as the general for only three days, and ended up making wedding clothes for monkeys...
After the Battle of Tennozan, Hideyoshi gained the support of most of Oda's old retainers by suppressing the rebellion and became the leader of Oda's retainers. He also appointed Nobutada's infant son as the head of the family and cleverly took control of the Oda regime.
It took Hideyoshi more than a year to basically pacify the forces within the Oda clan that opposed him.
Afterwards, he continued Nobunaga's unfinished unification work, and in the 13th year of the Wanli reign, he crossed the sea to conquer Shikoku and conquered the Chosokabe clan. In the same year, he became the regent and was given the surname "Toyotomi" by the emperor, finally completing the ultimate evolution from Kinoshita Tokichiro to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
This year, he was appointed as the 'Prime Minister', and his steps to unify Japan are unstoppable!
~~
Compared with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu was too miserable.
Before the Honnoji Incident, Ieyasu went to Kyoto to attend Nobunaga's elder brother's banquet... It was at that banquet that Mitsuhide was spanked.
After the banquet, Nobunaga told Ieyasu and Odoudou not to rush to leave, but to visit the beautiful scenery of Kinai before returning. As mentioned before, Ieyasu no longer had the ambition to compete with Nobunaga.
In fact, after recognizing Zhao Hao as his father, he became a little more active, and wanted to see if he could rely on the father's love. But Zhao Hao never came back, and even the Coast Guard fleet that used to cruise in the Seto Inland Sea disappeared.
That's because Zhao Hao had to concentrate his forces to fight a decisive battle with Spain, and also to prevent the Spanish fleet from intruding into the coast of Fujian and Guangdong, so he had to shrink his forces in the Japanese waters and transfer as many troops as possible to the south of the Taiwan Strait.
After recovering the South Seas, Zhao Hao sent a powerful volunteer fleet to Europe under the banner of helping Sebastian restore his country, and took over Portugal's sphere of influence. So in recent years, the main force of the Coast Guard has been in the South Seas, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, so how can they take care of Japan?
Although the Eastern Theater was later established, the troops were still stretched to the limit. In addition, they had to patrol the waters of the two former garrison areas of Tamra and Taiwan, so Zhu Jue had no choice but to make some sacrifices.
The waters east of Japan have undoubtedly become the abandoned part. Even the Takashima Police Station that originally guarded the Bungo Channel has been disbanded, not to mention the Seto Inland Sea.
This made Ieyasu feel like an outcast, and he completely lost the desire to achieve great things. In order to show his absolute obedience and trust in Nobunaga, he did not bring his guards with him when he came, but only brought a few trusted retainers to the banquet.
After the banquet, he followed Nobunaga's instructions and wandered around the capital for a long time. One reason was to relax, and the other was to find a place where he could see Mount Fuji and build a garden to enjoy his old age.
Who would have thought that Mitsuhide would barbecue his lord in an instant?
After learning of Nobunaga's death, the panicked Ieyasu was in Sakai City. Now that he was Zhao Hao's son, he naturally didn't need to perform the dangerous "God of Iga Travel" again. Under Sen no Rikyu's arrangement, he took a boat from Sakai Port back to Mikawa.
After returning to his territory, Ieyasu wanted to attack Mitsuhide in the name of revenge for Nobunaga. However, he was unlucky and Hideyoshi got there first. While he was marching westward, he received a letter from Hideyoshi, informing him that the traitor had been captured and asking him to withdraw his troops immediately. Ieyasu could only return to Mikawa in dismay.
After Nobunaga's death, Japan, which was on the verge of unification, fell into chaos again. The daimyos who were defeated by Nobunaga rose up in rebellion, and even Ieyasu became active.
However, he was not a member of the Oda clan, so he could only stay out of the fight for control of the Oda clan by Hideyoshi. However, he did not just sit there and watch, and took the opportunity to annex the Takeda clan's territory, becoming a daimyo with a million koku of power.
At the same time, he took advantage of his good relationship with Sakai City to vigorously develop industry and commerce in the territory and enhance his own economic strength.
This made Ieyasu feel that he was doing well again. In the 12th year of the Wanli reign, Nobunaga's second son Nobuo broke with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, so Tokugawa Ieyasu maintained an alliance with Nobuo to fight against Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the name of protecting Nobunaga's son.
As a result, Nobuo surrendered quickly in the face of Hideyoshi's overwhelming strength, leaving Ieyasu in the dilemma of fighting a powerful enemy alone. In order to protect himself, Ieyasu could only send his 12-year-old second son Tokugawa Hideyasu to Hideyoshi as a hostage, but he still maintained a relationship with Hideyoshi that was neither an enemy nor a vassal - as Nobunaga's younger brother, Ieyasu could submit to Nobunaga, but it was really difficult for him to bow down to the foot soldiers who used to carry Nobunaga's sandals.
But as Hideyoshi's position became increasingly consolidated, he could no longer hold on, and the trend of unifying Japan was obvious to everyone.
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