Chapter 9 third quarter

As soon as Niu arrived in Tianman to live in seclusion, due to unexpected reasons, he began to engage in unscheduled things and wrote "Master Taige's Military Records" again.This is just to complete the last favor, so he didn't write seriously. After about two months, the work was completed.Niu Yi always delivered the manuscript very late, but this time it was unprecedentedly fast. After the manuscript was completed, he went to Fushimi Castle to discuss with a fellow with a good relationship, and told the whole story.In the end, it was impossible to publish it under the name of Yuki Omura, so it had to be regarded as the work of the two of them.In the name of a veritable co-author, he gave the full amount of the manuscript fee to Youji's widow.That was an unexpectedly large sum of money.

(In this way, your family can live comfortably.) When everything was settled, it was October, but he could not yet calmly write.Before winter comes, he will go to some places in secret - there are several places, and he needs to confirm again before he can start writing "Nobunaga Ji". During this year, he decided to divide the biography of Nobunaga in his mind into three parts. "The Story of Nobunaga" (the eleventh year of Yonglu to the tenth year of Tianzheng), mainly tells about the period when he served Nobunaga as a close minister; postscript".The main "Nobunaga Ji" was created without major difficulties. He kept a detailed diary and records of his colleagues at that time.However, in terms of creation, these alone are not enough - there is no imagination to describe in the article.

During this year, a desire swelled in Niu Yi's heart, he hoped to add things before and after that period.This is why he told Yuji's widow that it would be a masterpiece. In the era described in "Nobunaga Preface", Niu Yishang was a warrior with a bow and archery, so there is no relevant record.Because of this, he went to Qingzhou several times and stayed at Chengyuan Temple to listen to the stories of the elders, and gradually got some unofficial history on hand.Later, he visited the local historical materials collectors in Qingzhou and continued to collect historical materials at that time.Niu Yi intends to rely on these, combined with the image in his mind, to portray Nobunaga's unknown heroic appearance when he was young.

Although it costs money, Niu is quite confident in describing this part.On the contrary, the problem is "Nobunaga Postscript"-after the "Honnoji Change", the affairs of the Oda family have not yet been settled.There are a lot of unknowns about the death of Lord Nobunaga, and the five wooden boxes entrusted by Lord Nobunaga are even more important.While Lord Taige was alive, although he could not publish this biography, he must personally uncover the relevant mysteries when he was alive.After winter came, Niu Yi wanted to create in Tianman's hermitage. Before that, he wanted to decipher.

He hurriedly made preparations for the journey, and this time he was going to go out for two days. On October 9th, Niuyi left Tianman, wearing a black turban, wearing a thick coat, carrying minimal travel materials, brushes and inkstone boxes, and holding a crutch with a hidden sharp blade in his hand for self-defense .Niu Yi went to Beijing by boat, and when the sun was shining, he lived in a hotel in the city under his name and stayed overnight.He didn't know if anyone saw him, and anyway he didn't want the purpose of the trip to be known. The next morning, when the sky was full of stars, he quietly left the hotel.He didn't light up the lantern, so he hurried to the ruins of the Honnoji Temple near the gate of Sijofang.In the 19th year of Tianzheng, Hideyoshi forced the relocation of Honnoji Temple, making this area completely a residential area without any traces of the past.However, Niu Yi has accompanied Lord Nobunaga here many times, and has stayed overnight, so the memories of the past are clearly imprinted in his mind. As long as he closes his eyes, the buildings of Honnoji Temple will emerge before his eyes.

The scale of Honnoji Temple is known as four towns, but in fact it is only one town from east to west, and two towns from north to south.It was just a small temple in Kyoto, where there were many giant temples at that time.The temple was founded in the 22nd year of Yingyong (1415), and moved to the place between Xidongyuan and Xiaochuan in the 5th year of Tianwen (1536).Since the ninth year of Tianzheng (1581), Lord Nobunaga went to Beijing and stayed here for a long time. Counting the history, it is only forty-five years, and it was burned down twice due to disputes during that period. It can be described as a temple with many disasters. .

"Why did my lord choose such a poor temple?" People around Mr. Nobunaga, including Niu Yi and others who were in charge of pursuing and recording, all had the same doubts. The Oda family acquired Honno-ji Temple through the Azuchi Zongron (May, the seventh year of Tensho).Although it was not Nobunaga who made the debate between the Fahuazong and the Pure Land Sect, but taking this as an opportunity, for the purpose of teaching the Fahuazong, Nobunaga used a strategy to make the Fahuazong completely defeated in the debate. Which played a role. After the debate, Lord Nobunaga insisted that the Hokage Sect had lost, and sent people to exile nearly a thousand monks from various temples of the Hokage Sect in the Kyoto area. , including Miaojue Temple and Miaoxian Temple where Lord Nobunaga stayed several times.From the list of these temples, Nobunaga chose Honnoji Temple.

It was an unexpected choice. Nobunaga, as usual, did not explain why.Hasegawa Hideichi, the leader of the temple, once asked Nobunaga why he chose Honnoji Temple on behalf of everyone. "You people don't need to know, just think it's God's will." Nobunaga laughed and ignored these orders at all. However, he once secretly told the reason to Niu Yi, who made the collection of expected questions of the Pure Land sect.That's what Niu Yi forced Nobunaga to say on the grounds of recording historical facts. "Idiot! The temple must be small. Okay, okay, you can write like this——Nobunaga disciplined himself and chose the smallest temple from the list submitted by his servants."

Nobunaga put it on with a smile: "Asshole, the temple should be small." A year later, Niu Yi really understood the meaning of this sentence.Mr. Nobunaga sent people to bring in a large amount of earth and rocks. The outer wall of Honnoji Temple seemed to be more than three times as high. A platform was built on the inside, and the ditch along the inner wall was dug to a depth of more than six meters. Honnoji Fortress!Niu Yi was not allowed to see the situation in the main hall, but he only knew that a large-scale renovation had also been carried out there.In short, Niu Yi admired Lord Nobunaga's foresight—to transform the Honnoji Temple into a fortress.

(However, why was Nobunaga's remains not recovered from that Honnoji fortress?) After the Honneng Temple was burned down, Niu Yi, who had fled, disappeared for nearly a year.However, after living in Osaka, he desperately searched around to find out what happened when the Honnoji Temple was burned. Mitsuhide's son-in-law, Zuo Masuke, is a well-known consultant, and he will never take it lightly and make mistakes.They spread out an impenetrable encirclement, and after the Inneng Temple was completely burned, they checked the heads of dozens of corpses recovered from the ruins one by one.However, the remains of Lord Nobunaga and his followers Mori Ranmaru and others were not found!

(It's incredible. No matter how hard you think about it, you can't figure it out.) Now, standing here, Niu Yi began to think about the question he had been pondering for a long time, but the result was the same again. (Think about it again, just wait until the sky is bright.) Dongshan began to take off Zhaoxia's coat. Here, one more important thing must be considered, and must be deduced before daylight.Luckily no one was around except a dog.Even so, Niu Yi remained vigilant, looked around, and quietly took out a few sketches from his bosom. The map depicts Mitsuhide's marching route when he attacked Honno-ji Temple at dawn on June 2nd in the tenth year of Tensho.While in Fushimi Castle, Niu Yi secretly found the surviving junior warriors of the Zhizhi Army, and gave them some money to tell them the route and make a sketch map.In the twilight of dawn, Niu Yi looked at the constellations in the sky from time to time, comparing them back and forth.Although the area around Honnoji Temple has become a civilian area, the horizontal and vertical roads in Kyoto have not changed, and the route and direction of Mitsuhide's surprise attack can still be seen today. Mitsuhide's army was divided into three, and he led the main force to go north along Qianben Road, turn right at Sanjo Road, and go south from Liujiaotang. detour.Although the seasons are slightly different, Mitsuhide must have been riding a horse at that time.Niu Yi decides to treat himself as Guangxiu and follow the route, maybe there will be some clues. He walked back and forth two or three times as shown in the sketch.The sky gradually brightened, and Niu Yi felt restless. When turning to the fifth time, he felt a cat running past his feet, turned his head to look, and suddenly, the cold light of the Big Dipper came into his eyes, and a thought flashed into his mind—— (The seventh star of the Big Dipper is the "Star of Pojun"!) Could it be for this reason?There is the seventh star of the Big Dipper shining behind him, so it is the best route to victory.Niu Yi felt that this idea was correct.Of course, the premise is that Guangxiu really thought of these things when he chose the marching route. (In this case, Mitsuhide is not a sudden whim in the middle of the road as the streets and alleys say, but a premeditated plan. He knew in advance that the Honnoji Temple did not have enough troops!) Niu Yi took time to go around a few laps, combined with reasoning about the seventh star of the Big Dipper, and came to this conclusion. Although only such a conclusion can be drawn, it is also a harvest.Niu Yi frowned slightly.Just figure this out.He had no interest in what was going on when Mitsuhide was on the march.Even if you don't know, those things can be described by imagination. (It’s good to have a harvest, but the second question still needs to be solved. Well, let’s go to Mount Atago to enjoy the moon by the way.) Mount Atago stands in the northwest of the site of Honno-ji Temple, opposite to Mount Hiei in the northeast of Kyoto. It is a famous mountain representing the patron saint of the northwest.Both Mount Hiei and Mount Atago are famous sacred mountains that symbolize Kyoto. If you go north along the Guichuan River, pass the clear waterfall, and climb the mountain in one breath, with Niu Yi's foot strength, even in autumn, you can reach the top of the mountain before the sun goes down.Go there tonight and stay overnight, and slowly deliberate on that question.That's what Niu Yi planned. At one o'clock in the afternoon, Niu Yi arrived at the top of Mount Atago, quite ahead of schedule.He went to the residence on the west side first.There are many people who come to Mount Atago to enjoy the moon in ten days, but he is alone and can live in an unoccupied tea room.It's the best place to read there.When the people in the temple asked the lodger's name and occupation, Niu Yi said that he was a hermit medicine merchant in Tenjin Town, Osaka, named Jifeng. As soon as Niu wanted to go to worship at dawn, he washed his feet, put on new straw sandals, and left the residence. You can reach the shrine by climbing about one town.It is said that in the Nara period, Waki ​​Seimaro began to enshrine it as a shrine to protect the royal castle, and it was rebuilt many times after that due to lightning strikes.Niu Yi kowtowed to the temple, and after paying respects solemnly, he looked inside the temple.The priest with a white belt was looking at the ancient book, and tilted his head from time to time, and as soon as he tilted his head, he quickly looked around. Niu Yi saw the timing right, and said softly, "If it's convenient, I'd like to have a few words with you." "Alright alright." The priest sat down again without putting on airs.He was in his early forties, and his speech was confusing. After the symbolic greeting, Niu Yi chatted for a while, and then led the topic to poetry. "Recently, not only samurai families, but even ordinary people are popular in poetry..." In Atago Mountain, people are also popular to write poems——Niu Yi brings up the topic.From here, he intends to induce the priest to tell the story of Guangxiu's poetry writing conference in the past. "Yes. In the past, Mount Atago was inseparable from poetry, but now..." The priest suddenly showed a sad look. "Listen to you, is there any inconvenience now?" "No, I can't talk too much. Anyway, it won't affect you and the common people, so don't worry." The other party tightened his mouth and his expression became serious.Niu Yi felt that there was something in his words, but he didn't press on.With years of experience, he knows that others cannot be forced to speak. "Then let's find an opportunity to hold a poetry meeting here. However, the poems made by our group are not very interesting. We often get stuck in the middle of writing, and we always talk nonsense in the end, so they are not very delicate. Perhaps this has something to do with the level of the poet." Niu Yi deliberately belittled himself, leaving nothing for tomorrow. (Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up this thread and get you to tell the truth.) Niu Yi pondered secretly, then stopped the topic. "It suddenly became cold. Is it cold at night this season?" "Compared to the city, this area is very cold in the early morning, so be careful. We have a stove in your residence. By the way, you can't drink alcohol in temples, but if it's not shochu, sake and the like are fine. Go to bed after warming up your body. I think the maple leaves in this area will be more red tomorrow." A smile finally appeared on the priest's face, Niu Yi felt that it was not a forced smile, he seemed to have a certain kind of affection for him.Niu Yi breathed a sigh of relief.