After seeing Hijikata, the trouble-loving demon king coming, some of the old people in the dojo suddenly showed strange expressions.

"Hijikata-kun, good morning." Aomori was the first to greet Hijikata.

"Oh, Tachibana-kun, good morning." After responding to Qingto's greetings, Hijikata smiled slightly, "Tachibana-kun, I thought of a new boxing technique yesterday. Do you want to come and have a few moves with me later?"

After saying that, Hijikata danced his right fist.

"Okay." Qingdeng grinned and agreed without hesitation, "I want to see what new tricks you practice."

After getting along with each other for a period of time, Qingden got to know a lot more about Hijikata Toshizo, the demon king who had countless crushes.

When he first met Hijikata, Hijikata gave Ayoto a "cynical" feeling, but after getting to know him in detail, Ayoto gradually discovered that Hijikata also had a serious side.

He was extremely devoted to the practice of swordsmanship. He would come to the Trial Guard Hall early in the morning to practice swordsmanship almost every day, and would not return home until after dark.

Hijikata's focused look when he was practicing his sword...compared with the frivolous look when he was chatting with his friends, they were completely different.

Hijikata is one of the few people in the trial defense hall who has a strong interest in unarmed martial arts and actively practices his boxing and kicking skills.

Therefore, he often looks for Qing Deng, who is proficient in grappling, free fighting and other skills, to be his sparring partner.

Aoden was already very interested in unarmed combat, otherwise he wouldn't have been proficient in so many unarmed fighting techniques in his previous life, so he always accepted Hijikata's "sparring invitation".

Because they had frequently sparred with Hijikata, Aoto and Hijikata quickly became familiar with each other.

There are not many apprentices coming to the hall to practice swordsmanship today.

He was exercising lively with the brothers in the sword hall. Before he knew it, the sun had almost reached the highest point in the sky.

Early this morning, Zhou Zhu and A Bi went out again. They went somewhere unknown, and they have not been seen back until now.

Just when Okita had to gather around the "Kappo" again and prepare to prepare today's lunch, an unexpected guest suddenly arrived at the test hall——

"Yong! Yong! Are you there?"

In the dojo, Kondo, who was teaching a certain apprentice, was startled when he heard the loud shout coming from the gate of the sword hall: "Jutaro?"

…

…

In the hall of the imperial examination hall, Chiba Jutaro sat cross-legged in front of Aoto, Kondo, Hijikata, and Okita.

"Hijikata-kun, long time no see! I heard you were injured before. Have you recovered from your injuries now?"

"Thank you for your concern." Hijikata smiled lightly, "That little injury has been healed long ago."

After briefly greeting Hijikata, Chiba Jutaro turned his attention to Aoto.

"Tachibana-kun, congratulations!" Chiba Jutaro showed a more enthusiastic smile to Aotobo, "I have heard about it in detail! You have made great achievements recently and increased your salary by 400 koku!"

"Thank you." Aonto smiled modestly at Chiba Jutaro, whom he had not seen since the "Red and White Battle" at the Plum Blossom Festival, "I'm just lucky."

After the two parties exchanged greetings for a while, Kondo, who was sitting directly opposite Chiba Jutaro, cleared his throat abruptly, and then asked in a curious tone:

"Okay, Jutaro, come and tell us what 'important thing' happened again."

Just now, after hearing Jutaro's voice, Kondo immediately rushed outside the sword hall.

As soon as he arrived at the gate, he saw Chiba Jutaro standing alone under the bright sun.

Kondo felt quite surprised and confused about Chiba Jutaro's sudden visit.

Chiba Jutaro is also a person who works vigorously and resolutely.

When he saw Kondo coming out to greet him, and after saying hello to Kondo, he said bluntly: Yong! I'm here to tell you something important!

Although he wanted to immediately ask Chiba Jutaro "What's the 'important matter'?", after all, outside the gate was not a good place to talk, and it was also rude to let the guests stay outside, so Kondo suppressed his curiosity for the time being.

, first welcomed Chiba Jutaro into the hall and brought him to the living room.

"Yong, Jun Tachibana is here too? That's great! What I'm about to say has something to do with Jun Tachibana. Please call Jun Tachibana over to listen!" - After being led into the trial guard.

After learning that Aoto happened to be practicing swordsmanship in the sword hall today, Chiba Jutaro immediately suggested this to Kondo with great interest.

So - Qingdeng was so ignorant that he was called to the living room in a daze.

Also running over to listen were Okita and Hijikata.

After these two people heard about Chiba Jutaro's purpose, they were also very curious and expressed their desire to listen in and hear what Chiba Jutaro wanted to say.

Kondo has gone straight to the point, and Chiba Jutaro is no longer vague.

After hearing Chiba Jutaro laugh a few times, he said quickly:

"Yong, I got a very accurate piece of gossip this morning."

"Aizu Hou, who is currently staying in Edo for a 'god visit', plans to hold a two-day swordsmanship competition in Asakusa in half a month...that is, on April 16th!"

"Aizuhou is going to hold a swordsmanship competition?" Okita was the first to exclaim in surprise.

Aizu Hou——The current feudal lord of Aizu Domain: Matsudaira Yoshiho.

Kondo and others...including Aonto, after hearing the term "swordsmanship competition", uniformly focused their surprised eyes on Chiba Jutaro.

"Joining the Imperial Court" - simply put, it is a system implemented by the Edo shogunate with the purpose of weakening the power of daimyo in various places.

The Edo shogunate stipulated that the lords of each vassal country should go to Edo once a year to assist the shogunate in handling government affairs for a period of time before they could return to their own vassals. They had to pay for the round-trip travel expenses themselves.

In a nutshell - it was the center of power and rule that tormented the daimyo from various places and forced them to come to the shogunate frequently: Edo.

In name, they were allowed to help the shogun handle the government affairs of the shogunate, but in reality they only consumed their financial resources and time and made it easier to monitor them.

Different daimyo have different time intervals to go to Edo.

Most of the feudal states came to Edo once a year.

For some vassal states that were very close to Edo, their lords were required to stay in Edo for a long time. These were called "Shofu".

As for those feudal lords located far away from Edo - for example, the Tsushima Domain whose territory is Tsushima Island located in the Korea Strait, the shogunate allowed its lord to visit Edo once every three years.

On average, the daimyo across the country generally spend only one-third of their time in their own territories throughout the year, and the other two-thirds of their time are either in Edo or on the way to Edo.

Or on the way back to the territory.

In order to pass the boring days of being "imprisoned" in Edo in disguise, many daimyo thought of various entertainment activities to pass the time.

For example: sponsor or hold martial arts competitions.

Some daimyo who like martial arts often sponsor or hold martial arts competitions when they live in Edo for pilgrimage, and invite martial arts masters from Edo to come and compete in the ring.

So in Edo, you could hear from time to time that another feudal lord was preparing to hold a martial arts competition.

"The swordsmanship competition that Aizu Hou is going to hold this time will be quite large."

Chiba Jutaro then continued.

"According to reliable information - the swordsmanship competition held by Lord Aizu is only open to sword halls in Edo."

"Only novices who have practiced swordsmanship for less than 3 years are eligible to participate in this competition."

"so--"

Chiba Jutaro smiled and cast his gaze on Qingto.

"Tachibana-kun, are you interested in participating in this competition?"

"I heard that Lord Aizu is very proud this time. If he wins, he will get a full 20 taels of gold as bonus!"

**********

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In the past few days, the most discussed characters in our book club are Miss Sanako and Tianzhangin. Everyone has a strong discussion on the attributes of Miss Sanako's Big Bear and Tianzhangin's "perfect young widow"

Enthusiastic, you are worthy of being my reader.

There are real historical photos of Miss Sanako, but I haven't shown them to you before. The author will make up for them now. Please see the comment on the right.

Everyone should have heard about the virtues of cameras in the 19th century. The people photographed basically did not have a clear human appearance... To be able to have such a level of appearance under the lens of a camera in the 19th century, Sanako is great.

The lady really deserves the name of "Chiba's ghost beauty".

The author has opened a book club on Penguin! Anyone who is interested can come in and chat about Big Bear together.

Group number: 1162513690. You can join the book club by answering a question to which you will definitely know the answer if you read the book carefully.
Chapter completed!