He changed Tiwat

It would be unwise to venture deep into Thor's stronghold, the castle tower. Putting aside the castle tower's guards and the possibility of barriers or traps, even without any interference, it would be best to choose terrain that is advantageous to oneself and disadvantageous to the enemy in a one-on-one duel.

In the swordsman stories of Inazuma, there are examples of characters deliberately standing in the shadows to fight their opponents, using the sunlight to disrupt their vision and thus achieving victory. In military strategy, gaining the advantage of terrain is also a fundamental tactic.

Han Fulai smiled enigmatically and said, "It can't be said that I found the advantage of terrain. Rather, it's more accurate to say that I made General Lei Dian voluntarily give up the advantage of terrain... If I can't become stronger myself, then at least I should weaken the enemy first."

If Xingqiu were nearby, he would probably complain: "This is the 'Han Family Ancient Hua School Heart Method'—'Give the enemy a laxative before the duel'."

Xin Hai naturally didn't know anything about the "Han Family Ancient Hua Sect Mind Technique," but as a strategist, she certainly understood the basic tactical principles. However, no matter how she imagined it, she couldn't figure out how to "weaken General Thunder."

Seeing Xin Hai deep in thought, Han Fulai smiled again and said, "I've heard from the rebel soldiers that you have a nickname, 'Sleeping Dragon'?"

"It's just a compliment..." Xin Hai lowered his head a little embarrassed.

This is a saying passed down from the White Night Kingdom: "Dragons and snakes are one." The great snake is a dragon. The soldiers call her the "Sleeping Dragon," representing the successor to the Snake God, and also hoping that she will soon "awaken" and lead the people of Haiqi Island to "soar to the heavens." There are even rumors that she is the "reincarnation of the Water Dragon King"...

Ultimately, it's all about boosting morale. Xin Hai didn't refute the rumors because he wanted to use these legends to unite people's hearts.

Han Fulai laughed again: "We also have a legend about 'Wolong' in Liyue, right? There's a 'Wolong Master' in the story, who was also a very powerful strategist. It is said that if you get his assistance, you can get the world. At that time, there was a righteous man named Liu Xuande who was determined to seize the world. He took his two sworn brothers, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, to visit Wolong Master and ask him to come out of seclusion and help him."

"But Master Wolong was very arrogant. Liu Bei visited him twice, but was turned away both times. The third time, he brought his two brothers to visit Master Wolong. This time, Master Wolong was taking a nap in his thatched hut and refused to get up to see him. So Zhang Fei, the most resourceful of the three brothers, came up with a clever plan and successfully invited Master Wolong out. Xin Hai, can you guess what this clever plan was?"

Xin Hai shook his head.

Han Fulai laughed and said, "'Let me set a fire behind the house and see if he can get up!'"

Xin Hai laughed along with him.

This was, of course, a joke, but the fact that Han Fulai could still joke before a major battle only proved his confidence, just as Xin Hai had once told his rebel generals: "'In good times, do not be overjoyed; in bad times, do not be discouraged; in times of peace, do not be extravagant; in times of danger, do not be afraid; have thunder in your heart but a calm face—this is the way of a general.'"

“Mr. Han, please accept this.” Xin Hai bowed his head and took out an exquisite brocade pouch embroidered with “wave and moon patterns” from his chest.

"Ha, is the strategist going to bestow upon me a brilliant plan?" Han Fulai smiled as he accepted the brocade pouch, which still retained the warmth of the girl's body.

Xin Hai's face flushed slightly: "Mr. Han's wisdom and strategy surpass Xin Hai's by a hundred times. How could Xin Hai dare to play tricks on Mr. Han... This is a tradition of my Haiqi Island, a blessing for the soldiers going to war. Inside are 'coral pearls' that I retrieved from the sea myself, and 'divine talismans' that I prayed to the Great God of the Sea, which can protect them and ensure their safety."

Umijima Island does indeed have a tradition of giving "coral pearls," but those are not gifts for ordinary soldiers... These pearls, which are personally retrieved, are tokens given by Umijima Island girls to their lovers who are going to war; the pearls represent "true love."

Furthermore, this brocade pouch was not an ordinary silk artifact, but rather cut from the "Yi Lai Feather Robe" she was wearing. Although it contained only a small amount of it, it did indeed contain the divine power of the "Undying Moonlight," a divine artifact left behind by the Great God, making it an extremely precious item.

Of course, Han Fulai was unaware of this.

He was quite interested in the "divine divination slips" inside—he had known Xinhai for some time, and apart from the time she healed the soldiers, he had never seen this "human god priestess" perform those rituals that resembled those of a "priestess".

After all, Umijima is different from Narukami Island. The shrine maidens of Coral Palace all come from families that once served Umijima Omikami. To put it bluntly, they are the "elders" of Umijima, and their status is very high. I don't think I've ever heard of them offering any fortune-telling or divination services.

In fact, the Coral Shrine is not the kind of "shrine" that can be visited at will. Just like ordinary people cannot go to the castle tower to see the Thunder General, the Coral Shrine is actually the "castle tower" of Umijima Island.

Therefore, the "divine divination slip" in the heart sea is what Han Fulai is most curious about.

"Thank you, may I open it and take a look?" Han Fulai asked Xinhai for his opinion.

"Mm." Xin Hai nodded gently.

Han Fulai untied the ribbon from the brocade pouch, took out a paper slip, and slowly read the inscription: "A fine sword drawn from its sheath is invincible. The light from its sheath can also illuminate others."

Below the "divine fortune slip" is a line of smaller print: "Today's lucky item is: 'Ponytail'."

"A very good omen, it's a very auspicious sign. Thank you, I will cherish it."

Xin Hai's face turned even redder... This "human-god shrine maiden" knew absolutely nothing about divination and fortune-telling. This auspicious fortune slip was copied from a book of divination texts published by "Yaedo," and she chose the one she thought was the most auspicious.

The "Ponytail" lucky charm is a specialty of Liyue. It grows alongside large patches of reeds, but stands even taller, perfectly matching Mr. Han, who stands proudly in this world in her heart.

After all, she was a "living human goddess priestess," so her handwritten fortune slips must have some protective power, right? ... Probably.

Just then, Xingqiu's voice rang out from the deck: "Brother Han, it's time to set off!"

Han Fulai waved to Xingqiu, put away the brocade pouch given to him by Xinhai, bid her farewell, and boarded the "Tianheng".

Xin Hai stood silently on the beach, watching the "Tianheng" ship gradually disappear into the distance until it was no longer visible.

When he returns victorious, invite him to visit Haiqi Island together. After he experiences the local customs and culture, he might realize the meaning of the pearl and the little scheme she left in this brocade pouch...

Yes, this is the ambush of the strategist, Miss Xin Hai.

In the bridge of the "Tianheng", Han Fulai suddenly reached out and touched the small ponytail at the back of Xingqiu's head.

"?" Xingqiu looked at Han Fulai, who had suddenly taken over, in surprise.

Han Fulai spread his hands innocently: "Miss Xinhai told my fortune, and she said that my ponytail is my lucky charm."

Chapter 186 New Dynasty's Elegant Governance, Traveling by Boat on Land [5k5]

In the historical records of Inazuma's descendants, September 3rd was described with six characters: "On the ninth day of the month, the world was in great chaos."

The ninth day of the month is Monday morning at 9:00 AM, which is usually the time when Inatsume people start their workday.

Unlike countries like Mondstadt, which had a "Sunday," and Fontaine, which implemented a two-day weekend system, Inazuma, under the rule of the shogunate, basically did not have the concept of a "day of rest."

The officials and samurai of the shogunate followed the ancient "one-six-day" system, with six days off on the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st and 26th of each month. This was the system in peacetime, but now that it was wartime, the rest time depended entirely on the military orders carried out by the shogunate.

As for ordinary people, farmers still have the opportunity to rest according to the farming season, while industrialists and businessmen may not even earn enough to eat after a hard day's work, let alone have such a luxury as a "rest day".

Even foreign businessmen from outlying islands have to adapt to local customs.

So the merchants of Fontainebleau, who live on the outlying island, once composed a folk song about the miserable situation of Inazuma, where there is no rest all year round. It is called "Mon-Mon-Fire-Water-Wood-Gold-Gold", which means that every day is Monday to Friday and there are no weekends at all.

For the people of Inatsuma, the only time that could be considered a "public holiday" was when the Shaman Magistrate held various religious festivals. In a sense, the Shaman Magistrate was more popular among the three magistrates, mainly because it granted holidays to all the people of Inatsuma…

But on September 3, a day that was neither "January 9th" nor "celebration day," almost all the business owners in Inazuma City chose to close their businesses, bringing out their sturdiest cabinets, tables and chairs to block the doors and windows, and trembling as they waited for the chaos to end.

In fact, the chaos in Inazuma Castle began much earlier than recorded in historical texts. Starting from the early morning of September 3, the entire castle was already in complete disarray.

First, thousands of displaced people from the castle town suddenly rioted.

According to records, the total number of people who actually followed Kyonosuke Kurosawa in the uprising was about 1,500.

However, compared to the mere two hundred town magistrates in Inazuma Castle, this power disparity was already enormous.

Under Kurosawa's command, the refugees attacked the town magistrate's offices in the lower city, including Hanamizaka, and stole the weapons from the offices. These weapons were only enough to arm about a hundred people, but with a hundred or so refugees armed with real weapons as the "vanguard," the town magistrate's security forces were powerless to suppress them.

Furthermore, with Kurosawa raising the banner of "Heaven Punishes the Fiends," the refugee group gained support from the lower classes of the city, and its numbers rapidly expanded. By the time the group reached the town, it had grown to nearly three thousand men.

These people, mostly armed with kitchen knives and wooden sticks, were nothing more than a mob, yet they formed a massive torrent. Moreover, most of these refugees harbored resentment towards the upper-class nobles of Inazuma; if they were allowed to storm into the upper city, one could only imagine the fate that awaited the noble lords.

In order to protect the residences of nobles in the upper city, the guards of the Tenryo Magistrate's Office and the retainers of each family were mobilized urgently. In a short period of time, more than 300 samurai were gathered nearby and built barricades in front of the town to defend against the onslaught of refugees.

The refugees were numerous and powerful, but the narrow terrain of the town prevented them from making use of their numbers. Lacking the ability to attack, the refugees were also unable to break through the defenses of the Magistrate's Guard.

Faced with this situation, the best tactic is "fire attack".

The buildings in Inazuma Castle are almost all made of wood, and as long as a fire is lit, it will surely be able to drive away the Tenryo Enforcer's Guard.

But Kurosawa didn't do that, because if he set fire to the town, the entire town could be burned to the ground.

He fought for "benevolence and righteousness," and most of the merchants in the town were also people oppressed by the Tenryo magistrate.

—In Inazuma's history, peasant uprisings are usually associated with "murder and arson," but this time, history has only described them as "righteous armies."

Under the pressure of barricades and arrows, the refugees' advance was finally halted.

These people were, after all, just starving refugees who had not received any military training. They relied solely on their righteous indignation to maintain their fighting spirit, and in terms of actual combat effectiveness, they were not even as good as the comrades-in-arms of the town magistrate. After the casualties, quite a few lost their fighting spirit and deserted in the face of battle.

Kurosawa decisively halted his advance and confronted the Tenryo Magistrate's Guard across the town barricades, demanding that they hand over Kujo Takayuki.

This demand could not be met, but it at least gave the refugees a common goal and a reason to maintain their fighting spirit.

In the short term, the standoff between the towns and cities will continue.

In fact, the guards of the Tenryo Magistrate's Office were also looking for Kujo Takayuki.

These guards, along with the samurai sent to assist from various mansions, numbered only about three hundred men. It was already difficult enough for them to hold the barricades; suppressing a riot was out of the question.

The only way to suppress this uprising was through the well-equipped Shogunate army.

At this point, an awkward problem arose. The remaining shogunate army was mostly deployed along the coast of Narukami Island to prepare to block the rebels' landing operation, and the main force was not in the castle.

The bigger problem was that, as a regular army, the shogunate army needed Kujo Takayuki, the commander-in-chief, to issue the order to mobilize. Without Kujo Takayuki, no one could mobilize the shogunate army.

Then, there is one major problem—

Kujo Takayuki has disappeared!

Kujo Takayuki was certainly not kidnapped by anyone. In fact, when the refugees in the castle town rioted, the head of the Kujo family was waiting to meet the shogun in the "waiting seat" of the castle tower.

The "waiting seats" in the castle tower are private rooms specially provided for the "people in the palace" so that they can rest while waiting for the general to come to pay his respects.

The private room was large and ornately decorated. The cushions and tatami mats were very comfortable, and the tea and snacks were the most expensive in Inazuma. The tea was personally served to him by Naoe Hisamasa, the leader of the Okuzawa clan.

All of this pleased Kujo Takayuki, and he was in a very good mood at that moment.

Last night, Kujo Takayuki went to the Fuyu Embassy to secretly meet with his ally, the "Ms.", the executive officer of the Fools.

His collusion with the Fools couldn't be made public, so apart from a few close followers, no one else knew his whereabouts.

After ceding more benefits, Kujo Takayuki received a promise from the "Lady"—that the "Lady" would help him quell the "invasion" of Liyue and the "rebellion" of Haigi Island.

On the surface, "Lady" will ask General Thunder to protect the interests of the Kingdom of Winter in Daozhi in the name of the Winter Queen, and persuade General Thunder to take action to quell the rebellion again. In secret, "Lady" will also lead her Fools to assassinate the leader of the resistance army, Coral Palace Heart Sea, as well as the Fools' nemesis, Han Fulai.

Kujo Takayuki, on the other hand, is preparing to join forces with "Lady" to fiercely participate in the Society's proclamation.

Kujo Takayuki has already written a memorial regarding the matter of the Shabu-gyō (military magistrate) sending men to collude with traitors to break into the Tenryō-gyō (military magistrate's office).

Aside from omitting the fact that Sara betrayed the Kujo family, he wrote everything else based on the facts. The most he embellished was that the magistrate was plotting a rebellion.

These things shouldn't have been known to the general.

The fact that a few traitors could come and go so freely from the prestigious Tenryo Magistrate's Office, the headquarters of the Inazuma Shogunate's army, would certainly lower the Shogun's opinion of the Kujo family if it were revealed. However, Sara didn't expose the matter to the castle tower that day, leaving a sliver of room for maneuver. Kujo Takayuki had been trying to control the situation and restore the Kujo family's prestige in the days that followed through with a curfew and conscription.

However, with the economy in Inazuma Castle in decline and more and more people beginning to openly or secretly leave the Kujo family, it served as a wake-up call for Kujo Takayuki.

He realized that if he dragged it out any longer, the situation of the Kujo family would inevitably get worse and worse, and the Shabu-Bureau Chief and the Masatoko faction, who had always been at odds with the Tenryo magistrate, would probably not do nothing.

Therefore, Kujo Takayuki finally decided to strike first and impeach the Society for colluding with the Liyue invaders and plotting treason!

On the day of the Battle of Kaminarizuka, Han Fulai named the Sky Commander and the Surveying Commander among the "Three Commissioners" in his manifesto, but notably omitted the Shaman Commissioner—undoubtedly, this is irrefutable evidence of the Shaman Commissioner's secret collusion with the Liyue invaders!

Although this "ironclad evidence" is only his side of the story, and he also has no witnesses or physical evidence regarding the "final chapter" invading the Heavenly Territory Magistrate's Office... the Shogun is not an ally of the Town Magistrate, and he doesn't need evidence to kill people.

If the general is willing to trust him, and with the "lady" assisting him, "a single, unexpected stab" might just fall on Ayato Kamisato's head...

Of course, he was unaware that while he was patiently waiting for the general to receive him, another commander of the Okuzawa clan, Shima Masaoki, had already led a group of government officials to the palace to pay their respects to the general.

His close followers have already been secretly controlled by Ottomans.

In other words, at least until the impeachment of the Tenryo magistrate by the government ended, Kujo Takayuki's contact with the outside world was completely severed by Okuzawa and his associates.

Kujo Takayuki has "disappeared".

The guards of the Tenryo magistrate failed to find their patriarch, but Kurosawa received unexpected reinforcements.

The magistrate's prison near the town suddenly exploded... A bunch of fireworks of all kinds shot into the sky, making the prison more lively than a festival.

After the explosion, a group of very brave samurai rushed out of the Shikiji prison. Among them were Anzai, the master of the "Meijō-Shisui-ryū" school, and his disciples; the lively signboard girl from the Naganohara fireworks shop; and a big guy carrying a Tsuchimaki on his back—none other than Ōkawara Goemon, one of the "Kujō Ryōemon".

The guards of the Tianling Fengxingfu happened to be blocking their escape route.

Anzai and the others were not prepared for this sudden obstacle, but for Yomiya, none of this was a problem. Yomiya shouted "tamaya" and then threw out a bunch of spherical objects, all of which were thrown into the ranks of the Tenryo Magistrate's Guard.

Some of these small balls are fireworks made by Yoomiya herself, while others are ninja tools given to her by "Final Chapter". They all have one thing in common: they can produce smoke and explode.

The sudden smoke and explosion immediately threw the Sky Territory Guard into disarray.

Amidst this chaos, a new force from Konta Village joined the rebel army.

Despite being called a "new force," the "Ikkyu" of Konta Village is actually mostly composed of elderly people, with an average age of over fifty. However, they have two advantages.

First, most of them come from samurai families. They not only have military training, but also have equipment passed down from their ancestors. In terms of combat power, they are really no less than the guards of the Heavenly Territory.

Secondly, they had a brilliant plan given to them by the "Sleeping Dragon" of Haiqi Island—the Coral Palace Heart Sea.

Midorikawa, the captain of the rebel "Sailfish First Squad," was the true commander of the "Konta Iskyu," and he naturally carried a thick pouch with him.

The rebels' mission for this operation was to create chaos in Inazuma Castle.

To achieve this goal, as early as last month during the "Hunting Eye Ceremony," several small resistance squads, with the help of the "Final Chapter," infiltrated Inazuma Castle.

When Midorikawa led the people of Konta Village to Inazuma Castle, Shinkai's "ambush" in Inazuma Castle was also activated.

Almost at the same time that Midorikawa appeared on the battlefield, thick smoke billowed from the upper town where the nobles lived, and many mansions of wealthy families were inexplicably on fire—this was due to the efforts of the resistance infiltrator squads, as well as the help of the "Final Fan".

The retainers and samurai of each household were tasked with defending the barricades for the sake of protecting the home. If the master's house were burned down, they would definitely be punished for their failure to protect it. If anything happened to the master, they might even have to commit seppuku...

Now that they saw their own home on fire, where was the will to fight? They rushed back as if their backsides were on fire.

This time, the Heavenly Territory Guard was thrown into disarray by their own men, and the situation instantly spiraled out of control.

Seeing that the opportunity was too good to pass up, Kurosawa led the refugees in a swarm and broke through the barricades of the Magistrate's Guard in one fell swoop.