In the early morning of June 20, Yu Qiuping established himself in the shogunate east of Yinma Castle. An envoy sent by Okabe Gennobu was kneeling in front of Yu Qiuping, surrounded by all the people in the Tokiwa Preparation Army.
senior military officer.
"Your Highness Yuqiu, your Majesty." The envoy first lowered his posture and said softly: "I am here under the orders of the family master. I have something to ask of you."
"Are you finally surrendering?" Before Yu Qiuping could say anything, Omaezaki Nakahide beside him scoffed, "Does the traitor Okabe Motonobu think that surrendering will save him from death? No way! He killed the family governor.
It’s not an exaggeration to kill everyone in the main hall!”
"Zhongxiu!" Yu Qiuping reproached, and at the same time turned his gaze to the envoy. What surprised him was that although the envoy looked pale, he did not refute. In this era when the leader humiliates his ministers and dies, what other people do he hear?
When a person scolds his master like this, he should not be so silent no matter what.
Could it be that the Okabe family encountered some huge difficulties that forced them to compromise like this?
As expected, the envoy ignored Omaezaki Nakahide and whispered: "To be honest, the food in the city is almost exhausted."
As soon as this statement came out, everyone's eyes lit up. Although everyone had guessed that Yinma City might be short of food through careful analysis and observation before, they never expected that it had reached an unsustainable point. As for the Okabe family,
By taking the initiative to disclose this information, he undoubtedly pushed himself into a corner during the negotiation and lost a lot of bargaining chips.
Sanada Masayuki and Amano Keitoku looked at each other and nodded. They both felt that the Okabe family must have an ulterior motive for such abnormal behavior.
Yu Qiuping looked at the messenger, waiting for his next words. However, his words stopped abruptly and did not continue for a long time. Yu Qiuping was a little dazed for a moment, and he blurted out: "so what?"
"Your Highness...?" The envoy obviously didn't understand what Yu Qiuping was saying. He looked at him in surprise and muttered the strange pronunciation.
"I mean..." Yu Qiuping scratched his head in embarrassment, "What is the purpose of Your Highness Okabe asking you to come over and say this?"
"That's it..." the messenger spoke with some difficulty. It seemed that his hesitation and pause just now was because the next words were a bit difficult to say, "His Royal Highness Okabe is unwilling to surrender and will persist to the end. It's just that there is not enough food to supply the people of the whole city.
, the people no longer have enough to eat. Therefore, I hope that all the people in the city will be sent out of the city today and His Highness Yuqiu will provide relief. I hope His Highness Yuqiu will agree."
As soon as the words fell, there was an uproar in the shogunate. Nakahide Omaezaki, Katsumasa Yoshioka, and Yachinisuke Kobayakawa were noisily shouting something like "Idiots are talking about dreams"; Yufuyu Ogawa was drinking wine, and all of a sudden he laughed and vomited; even consistent
The serious and serious Fukushima Yasunari, Honda Tadakatsu and Mizuwa Atonsune all looked weird; Charlie seemed to suspect that he had misheard the messenger's words and was asking Naoe Tadahei for a translation. Amano Keitoku still had a gloomy face and seemed to want to
The envoy's evil intentions were guessed. No one noticed the flash of Yu Qiuping's expression, and a hint of unbearability flashed in his eyes.
"You know it's impossible, what's the point of bringing it up?" Sanada Masayuki asked, "Our entire army besieged the city without attacking, just to wait for you to surrender or break out of the siege when you ran out of food. Now we have finally surrounded you and you have no food.
Are we going to let you send the hungry people out and then save food to continue the resistance?"
"That is to say, do you think we are all honest people like my elder brother?" Shui Atom Ping teased. Hearing this, everyone laughed at Shui Atom Sutra and did not take the messenger's words seriously at all.
However, when the envoy saw this situation, he did not show too much panic or embarrassment. Instead, he silently stared at the only person here who could keep his word - Yu Qiuping. The latter was obviously deep in thought.
"If Your Highness Yuqiu rejects my family governor's request, the family governor can only express deep regret." The messenger added in a low voice, "However, the family governor will never surrender, but will take measures to resist to the end."
"Mean? What means?" Yu Qiuping's eyelids twitched and he looked at the messenger nervously. He was now afraid that the messenger would give him that answer - the answer he absolutely did not want to hear.
"If there is really no other way... my family supervisor will not refuse those... things that I don't want to see in peacetime." The messenger said in a low voice with a gloomy face.
"Do you mean people cannibalize people?" Yu Qiuping growled anxiously. The messenger answered his question with silence.
More than 6,000 people... a total of more than 6,000 people. Yu Qiuping had read many cruel historical materials about the soldiers who defended the city and were forced to eat people. Among them, the section about Zhang Xun guarding Suiyang made him unable to calm down for a long time after reading it.
But now, more than 6,000 living lives in front of us are about to suffer the same fate. A family that was originally living happily may have to choose one person every day to be eaten by everyone. The food they eat is bloody.
Human flesh. How desperate and cruel must those people who were executed be before death? Thinking of this, Yu Qiuping's emotions became somewhat uncontrollable.
"Those are innocent people! Your Highness Okabe! Are you really going to kill the traitor Okabe Motonobu?" Yu Qiuping roared a bit rudely, "You will go to hell if you do this!"
"My family governor doesn't want to see that kind of thing, so I would like to ask His Highness Yu Qiu to accept these people." After the envoy saw that Yu Qiuping was a little excited, he gradually gained the upper hand and made the request in a neither humble nor overbearing manner.
After Amano Jingtoku noticed that something was wrong with the situation, he immediately interrupted Yu Qiuping, whose eyes were completely red, before he could speak: "Whether you eat the people or not is your business, what does it have to do with my Highness? This is not something that my Highness should bear.
responsibility."
"Yes! If you don't want to see such a thing, just come out and surrender! Anyway, you won't be able to hold on for long if you don't surrender! Why should my highness accept the people!" Naoe Tadahei added knowingly.
However, the messenger just shook his head silently, "My family master has no intention of forcing His Highness Yuqiu. He just tells His Highness Yuqiu this fact, and has no other intention."
"If you have no other intention, just get out!" Omaezaki Nakahide scolded, "If you have no other intention, why are you here? My Highness does not need to know this!"
"In this case, I take my leave." The envoy actually knelt down and saluted, "I have heard about His Royal Highness Yuqiu's benevolence and righteousness for a long time, but I think it is nothing more than this. He actually refused to save six thousand people in order to besiege the city."
"Wait a minute! I agree!" Yu Qiuping, who had been silent all this time, suddenly shouted, and the messenger turned his head with a proud smile on his lips.
"Don't laugh there!" Yu Qiuping felt very bad and shouted sternly: "I didn't ask you to stop because of your last sentence of provocation! I am different from your traitor who is worse than a beast! I care about that
The lives of more than 6,000 people!"
"Your Highness!" Amano Jingde was shocked. He leaned close to Yu Qiuping and lowered his voice: "You must not be so kind as a woman!"
"Those are more than six thousand innocent people! Can't we just watch them being eaten?" Yu Qiuping deliberately raised his voice and retorted.
"The Okabe family doesn't have much food to begin with. Even if they send the people out, they can only stay there for less than ten days." Yu Qiuping shook his head resolutely, "We are not short of these days!"
"How can it not be bad, Your Highness!" The tone of the usually calm and calm Amano Keitoku also changed slightly, "Asahina and His Highness Sena have gone to Sunfu to request mediation, and the order to stop the private fighting between the two armies may be issued soon.
We are coming down! If Yinma Castle has been captured, the Okabe family will never be able to stand up again! If Yinma Castle has not fallen, it is very likely that they will fight against us in the future!"
"Didn't you listen to those beasts?" Yu Qiuping said loudly: "They plan to eat human flesh and keep going! Even if we don't accept the people, we can't take down Yinma City!"
"Your Highness! That's not the case!" Sanada Masayuki also spoke up, "If Okabe Motonobu starts cannibalism, the people who are already extremely dissatisfied with him will definitely rise up to resist! When the time comes, we will take the opportunity to attack the city, and we will not have to
No matter how many casualties we pay, we will take over the whole city!" As soon as Sanada Masayuki said this, the Okabe family's envoy's face changed drastically. Obviously, this was the reality. Everyone also started to boo and denounce the Okabe family's evil deeds.
"People cannibalize people? Let the common people rise up and fight against the Okabe family?" Yu Qiuping shook his head and said sternly, "How many innocent people will die! They don't have to die! Besides, His Highness Shouguini and the young master will do it anyway.
It was found out that the Okabe family was the traitor who killed His Highness, the family governor! No matter whether they surrender or not, they will not be able to escape punishment in the end! Why are you so anxious!"
"Your Highness hasn't discussed it with the other Highnesses yet! It's too hasty!" Amano Kagetoku was a little anxious for a moment and shouted in a deep voice.
"I will convince them! It will be up to me to accept the refugees when the time comes, and I won't bother them!" Yu Qiuping retorted.
"Most of you have lived a hard life before, right!" Yu Qiuping glanced at the officers who were slaves and the warriors like Honda Tadakatsu and Naoe Tadayei, who were born in hard times. "You don't understand those who are trapped in the city now?"
How pitiful are the people who don’t have enough to eat? Are you pushing them towards death just to win ten days early?”
The shogunate suddenly became quiet, and Yoshioka Katsumasa and Omaezaki Nakahide, who had shouted fiercely just now, also fell silent for a while. Everyone recalled the days when they didn't have enough to eat, and looked at each other, and no one raised any objections. Sanada Masayuki and
Amano Jingde was stunned for a moment. Looking at Yu Qiuping, who had tears flashing in the corners of his eyes, he couldn't help but sigh and said nothing more.
"What your Highness did embodies the knight's style very well." It was Charlie's words that broke the silence, "I very much agree with your approach!" After hearing this, everyone nodded silently.
"You have no objections?" Yu Qiuping quietly wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and whispered, "Go back and report to Okabe Motobu! Just tell him that I agree to his request. Let him send someone out to discuss it.
specific plan."
After the envoy left, Yu Qiuping sent everyone away and kept quiet for a while. Sanada Masayuki and Amano Keitoku walked out of the shogunate side by side and stood next to the gate of the village, both of them silent.
After a while, Sanada Masayuki sighed and said with a smile: "Your Highness's kindness... is extremely admirable."
"It's just that... you can't do anything just by being kind." Amano Keidero shook his head, "His Highness's kindness has been well rewarded in the past few times. But I feel that His Highness will suffer a big loss sooner or later.
"
Chapter completed!