"This mountain road is such a bad place!"

Looking at the stream next to the Rainback Mountain Road, the broken branches and trees hanging from the mountains were constantly mixed with the broken branches and trees hanging from the mountains. The head of the Shimazu family, who was riding on a horse on the mountain road north of Hinata, whispered. Such a difficult mountain road did add a lot of trouble to the joint reinforcements of the Shimazu family and Ito family to support the Sakai family.

Looking closely, there are peaks on both sides of the mountain road that are as high as swords. Occasionally, there are several steep broken walls. Then you can hear the sound of a roaring waterfall. This is obviously a temporary waterfall that has nowhere to be excreted by mountain torrents.

Shimazu Takahisa rode a pony unique to the Kyushu Mountains, one high and one low on the mountain road. It had just left the Ito family's Matsuo Castle, which is three miles away. From Matsuo Castle to the north, the army entered the dense forests of the northern part of Hinata. There was only a mountain road connected to Toyogo Kingdom further north. The first stop to enter Toyogo Kingdom from the northern part of Hinata is the territory of the Sahiro family.

Thinking of the Sahiro family, Shimazu Takaha couldn't help but remember the secret talk with Ito Yoshiyuki in Matsuo City last night. In Shimazu Takaha's view, the southern part of Toyogoku Kingdom controls the remaining half of the Hibe County (in fact, with the capture of Umemuri Castle by the Luo family, the Sahiro family only controlled about one-quarter of the Hibe County territory. Due to the obstruction of the road, the information Shimazu Takaha had already lagged behind). For the Ito family, the Sahiro family was really useless to eat, and it was a pity to abandon it.

That's why Ito Yoyosuke has never annexed the Sahiro family. After all, since the Sahiro family is so useless, it would be better to keep it as a barrier for Ito family to resist the threat from the north of the Luo family. Wouldn't this be better? This is also the main reason why Ito Yoyosuke so actively supported the Sahiro family after the Sahiro family was invaded by the Luo family and also invited the family to join forces to fight against the Luo family.

Even in the secret talk last night, Ito Yosuke revealed that once the joint resistance failed and the Sahiro family lost the territory of the Haibu County in the Toyogo Kingdom, he planned to give Matsuo Castle in the northern Hinata area to the Sahiro family as a territory. This made the Sahiro family once again a barrier to resist the threat from the north of the Luo family.

Thinking of this, Shimazu Takahisa remembered Matsuo Castle, which was the only way out for retreat this time.

Why is Matsuo Castle the only way to retreat? From a geographical point of view, the northern part of Hinaga and southern parts of Toyogo Castle are almost all high-mountain dense forests. Starting from Matsuo Castle to the north (to the south of Matsuo Castle is a plain area in Hinaga, which is impacted by several rivers such as Kitagawa, Gose River, and Ose River). The mountain road used by the Sahiro family in Toyogo Castle is actually the only road on land in this area. As for the coastal areas from the Sahiro family to the Matsuo Castle, they are all steep coasts and forest areas, which are completely inaccessible on land. The only way is to use ships to navigate along the sea route.

However, at this time, the Shimazu family's naval army was on high alert on the coast of Satsuma State, guarding against the attacks of the Luo Family Navy from the Amankata direction at any time. After defeating the Luo Family Navy several times, the Iton family's naval army could only hide in the bay where Matsuo Castle is located. It is guarded against threats from the sea and guarding Matsuo Castle. Therefore, the supporting road of sea road is simply unpassable.

When there is only one retreat route in the rear, Matsuo Castle, which is the base camp in the rear and controls the import and export of the mountain road in the direction of Hinata, is particularly important. This is the only retreat route to escape from Hinata and return to the Mitsukishu area once the coalition forces are repelled by the Luo family.

Although the Shimazu family, Ito family, and Sahiro family are allies in the joint battle against the Ro family, in order to ensure absolute safety, even if Matsuo Castle is a castle controlled by its allies, the Shimazu family and the Sahiro family have left some military force to garrison in the city, which is called assisting in defense, but in fact they cannot fully trust each other. They have left a guarantee to ensure the safety of the rear route in the city.

Even so, the Shimazu family and Ito family still feel that they are not safe enough. In the following days, both the Shimazu family and Ito family will continue to send some troops to this city to ensure the safety of this city. At the same time, in order to ensure that the Saki family uses it to resist the invasion of the Ro family in the city, a large amount of supplies will be transported here as a logistics location to support the front line of resistance.

Of course, if the territory and troops and materials are drawn on such a large scale to come to Matsuo Castle, aren’t the Shimazu family and Ito family worried that the territory will be affected? After all, in addition to the Sabuki family being invaded by the Luo family, both the Shimazu family and the Ito family have a longer border with the Luo family. Are the two companies not worried that the Luo family will launch an invasion attack on the two borders at the same time?

Both the Ito family and the Shimazu family had expected this. In terms of the Ito family, the Ito family had completely defeated the Kitago family, which had formed an alliance with the Luo family in the Mitsui direction, and forced the Kitago family to the southernmost point of the South Hinaga (the Kitago family had only two castles left at this time, and the rest of the territory was occupied by the Ito family, and the remaining places were also separated by the mountains and forests, so they were not quickly captured by the Ito family). Therefore, after no internal threats, the Ito family was not able to strongly support the Sakai family this time, in addition to strong support to the Sakai family, it also extracted many strong men from the territory to several border towns bordering the Hinaga and the Roh Family's Hoh Country, to prevent the Roh Family from taking the opportunity to invade at the same time from these directions.

As for the Shimazu family, since the last time they repelled the army of the Luo family in the North Satsuma region, the Shimazu family has successively destroyed the Kuidayuan family and the Rikika family in the North Satsuma region. Until the end of last year, the Shimazu family not only completely controlled the Satsuma country, but also gained a lot of territory in the West Osumi and South Hinaga. More importantly, the Shimazu family was directly connected to the Iton family's territory, which greatly facilitated the two families to jointly resist the Luo family.

As for the threat from the Osumi Kanfu family, due to the previous defeat of the Shimazu family's army several times in the Nishio Osumi area, resulting in the loss of a large amount of military power and a large amount of territory, the Ganfu family had completely lost the ability to actively attack the Shimazu family. Therefore, without other threats, Shimazu Takaha extracted a large number of peasant soldiers from the territory to protect the territory and to provide troops to support the Sakai family.
Chapter completed!