I formed the strongest swordsman group

Edo, somewhere——

A young man with red lips and white teeth, carrying a bowl of hot buckwheat noodles that was still steaming, walked to Nishino's cell at a leisurely pace.

In the cell, in a corner where the light cannot reach, Nishino leaned against the corner behind his back with his hands folded, his eyes closed, and his breathing was steady, as if he was sleeping or resting with his eyes closed.

"Master Nishino, Master Nishino?"

The young man called Nishino repeatedly, but the other party was indifferent.

As a last resort, the young man could only increase the volume:

"Master Nishino!"

This time, Nishino finally responded.

"...It's so noisy."

Nishino slowly raised his eyelids, and cast an impatient gaze at the young man standing outside the prison.

The young man bowed his head in apology:

"terribly sorry……"

Luo Sha, who has a "collection of talents", values ​​​​Nishino, who is proficient in criminal investigation techniques, and wants to recruit him under his command.

In order to show his love of talent, Luo Sha specially ordered: Nishino Sejiro is my honored guest! No matter who it is, you must treat him with courtesy!

Because of this, the young man was so respectful to Nishino.

Even though he was the one standing outside the cell, he behaved more like a prisoner than Nishino.

Nishino scanned the young man from head to toe several times.

"I haven't seen you before, are you new here?"

"Yes! Toru Shimokibe! Starting today, I will be in charge of your daily diet! This is your dinner today!"

After finishing speaking, the young man passed the buckwheat noodles in his hand forward.

Nishino glanced at the buckwheat noodles in the young man's hands, then turned his eyes away, and pouted at the small window next to the prison door.

"Put it there."

"yes!"

The young man bent down, took out a small key from his waist, inserted it into an inconspicuous hole on the edge of the prison door, turned it to the right twice, and then heard a "crack" key from inside the door. With a sound, a section of the door frame at the bottom of the prison door popped open, revealing a small window.

This window is specially used to pass food, drinking water and other items into the prison.

"Master Nishino, please eat as soon as possible."

As the young man said, he stuffed the soba noodles in his hand into the window and handed them into the cell.

Nishino didn't say much, just stood up and took the noodles silently, without even saying "I'm starting", he just started eating.

Seeing this, the young man couldn't help but heaved a sigh of relief, and thought to himself:

——Senior Tanaka said it well... Nishino is quite easy to deal with.

Tanaka was the last person in charge of taking care of Nishino's daily diet.

According to Senior Tanaka, although Nishino often puts on a bad face, he is generally obedient and has not engaged in hunger strikes, suicides, and other such "non-violent non-cooperation movements."

Every meal time, he would eat on time, and every meal delivered, he ate cleanly, without any leftovers.

The young man is not just a low-level cadre in the Qingshui clan.

Whether Nishino surrendered or not, he didn't care at all.

He only cares about his own job, and whether his tasks can be completed perfectly.

As long as Nishino is willing to cooperate with him, is willing to eat on time without fuss, does not adversely affect his mission, and does not cause him trouble, he will not bother to care about Nishino's future fate.

"Master Nishino, I will take my leave first, and I will come back to clean up the dishes in half an hour."

"..."

Nishino, who did not change his indifferent expression, continued to smack his face, ignoring young people.

Such an indifferent attitude naturally made the young man feel a little unhappy.

But he didn't dare to say too much, he bent down and bowed before leaving straight away.

——Ahh...so busy...sweeping the floor, boiling water, cooking, laundry...all I do are boring jobs every day, when will I be promoted...

The young man complained indignantly about the recent events.

Just when he put all his thoughts on self-pity and self-pity... between the ups and downs of the rabbit! A big hand holding a cloth handkerchief stretched out from the slant, and covered the young man's mouth and nose!

"Ugh...!"

The sudden change made the young man unexpected. With his mouth and nose completely covered by cloth handkerchief, he subconsciously took a deep breath because of his fright.

All of a sudden, a very strong pungent smell of medicine penetrated into his mouth and nose.

--Oops!

Knowing that the matter was serious, he quickly held his breath.

However...it was too late.

"Sorry~ Please sleep for a while~~"

A familiar young male voice sounded like it came from afar.

It was dark, and nothing was reflected in the field of vision.

——This voice is...? !

The moment this idea came into being, the young man's consciousness was completely interrupted.

...

Nishino eats very fast.

As soon as the young man left, he ate up a large bowl of soba noodles, leaving not even a drop of soup.

Nishino, who was full of food and drink, sat back to his original position, that is, the corner where the light could not reach, folded his hands on his chest, closed his eyes and meditated.

However, at this moment, he is no longer as immovable as a mountain just now.

From time to time, he raised his eyelids and glanced outside the prison, his mind was not peaceful, as if he was waiting for something.

However, every time he opened his eyes, all he saw was a quiet corridor with no one there.

Gradually, Nishino's brows were stained with impatience and disappointment.

The frequency of his eyes opening also decreased immediately.

Suddenly, just when the disappointment on Nishino's face was about to accumulate to the limit, footsteps came from far and near outside the prison.

"!"

The moment this string of footsteps reached Nishino's ears, he pulled himself together and looked up—a familiar figure came into his eyes.

"Nishino-kun~ good evening~~"

My grandson smiled and waved to Nishino through the gap in the fence.

"...My grandson, you are really here."

Nishino's two thick eyebrows shrugged at the corners of his raised eyes, his expression was stiff and complicated.

"Of course I will come~ Have I already said it? I will never lie to you this time~~"

After all, my grandson bent down and took out the key to the cell door from his pocket...

"The key to the cell, and your saber, I brought them all~"

...

...

A while ago——

"...Mr."

A voice came from afar.

"... Yejun."

The sound gradually approached.

"... Nishino-kun."

familiar voice.

"Nishino-kun!"

The dark world shines into white light.

"……Um?"

As Nishino regained consciousness, he slowly opened his eyes.

"Nishino-kun, you finally woke up~ You slept so deeply~~"

Sleepy Nishino followed the sound and looked out of the prison in a daze.

After seeing the face of the visitor clearly, his drowsiness disappeared immediately.

"My grandson...!"

There was a tense atmosphere in an instant, and there was no room for jokes.

Nishino, who created this atmosphere with his own hands, turned pale, and a distorted shadow appeared on his handsome face.

While casting a disgusted gaze at my grandson standing outside the prison, he blurted out like a bank bursting:

"What are you doing here? Get out of here!"

Facing Nishino's disgust and insults, my grandson remained as usual, neither angry nor dissatisfied.

"Oh~ Nishino-kun, don't be so angry, calm down~ Calm down~~"

"I don't want to meet the treacherous traitors who are treasonous and collaborating with the enemy, let alone listen to their voices."

Nishino interrupted him before he could finish. His voice was powerful, and when it came to the phrase "treasonous and collaborating villain," it expressed the kind of boredom it had never seen before or since.

However, even though he was scolded bloody by Nishino, my grandson still acted like he didn't hear anything.

"Heh heh heh... Are you treasonous and collaborating with the enemy..."

My grandson, with a weird smile on his cheek, slowly squatted down.

"Nishino-kun, I can't stay here for too long, so I'll make a long story short~~"

"As Rakshasa said earlier, I am indeed a spy placed inside the shogunate by the Fazhu Party~~"

"However... this is not all my 'true body'~~"

As soon as my grandson finished speaking, Nishino was taken aback.

"...Huh? What did you say?"

Facing the astonished gaze cast by Nishino, my grandson smiled slightly, then half-closed his eyes, and in a slow and sacred tone, he recited a Chinese poem unhurriedly:

"The rice in the fields, pools, and ditches is rotten, and the villages just mourn in vain. Even though the lotus is a gentleman, it is very heartless, and the beauty who comes out of the water smiles."

After my grandson finished reading the poem... NO! As soon as my grandson read the beginning, Nishino's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinholes.

This poem... Nishino is too familiar.

To be precise, everyone who has a little understanding of the far-reaching shocking change 24 years ago will be familiar with this poem.

Swish, swish... The hakama skirt rubbed against the ground.

Due to his anxiety, Nishino didn't even bother to get up, and rubbed his knees all the way to the prison door, gripping the railing with both hands, pressing his face to the gap between the railings, while staring straight at my grandson's smiling face, with incredible The emotional voice said word by word:

"You, you are from the Great Salt Party?!"

The poem that my grandson sang just now comes from the great leader who created an immortal career as a scholar—Oshio Heihachiro!

Since he was young, Oshio Heihachiro, who is open-minded, has been determined to learn Confucianism, eradicate his own ills, and improve his cultural literacy.

By chance, he discovered the "Moaning Language" written by Lu Xinwu, a Confucian of the Ming Dynasty, through which he learned about Yangmingism for the first time.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, he began to study Yangming's philosophy of mind, and gradually cultivated a very profound knowledge of Sinology.

Although Yangming School is highly idealistic, it flaunts a pragmatism that puts virtue first—the so-called "unity of knowledge and action" philosophy.

Dayan develops on this basis, closely combines it with reality, and becomes a kind of knowledge useful to society.

Therefore, in front of his eyes, the ills of the decadent vassal system were exposed in an irreparable ugliness everywhere in the city and the countryside, and he had to care about politics.

He has great respect and sympathy for the peasants who are helpless in the face of natural disasters and are forced to breathe by feudal tribute and rent.

Dayan knew deeply that the excessive feudal tribute and rent made the peasants exhausted and led to the waste of farmland.

At the same time, they also understand that the existence of privileged merchants commercializes the rural economy and leads to the bankruptcy of the rural natural economy.

It is difficult for farmers to maintain the ability of reproduction under double exploitation.

Therefore, Oshio Heihachiro opposed corrupt officials while opposed officials and businessmen, and hated those "gentlemen" who did not know the sufferings of farmers.

So, he wrote this famous anti-poem, which is the poem my grandson just sang--the rice in the fields and ponds is rotten, and the villages and villages just mourn in vain. Although Lian is a ruthless gentleman, she smiles when she comes out of the water.

The implication of this poem is: the long-term rain in the field caused the rice to rot, and the villages got nothing but sighed in vain. Although Lian is an innocent gentleman, she is too ruthless. She doesn't care about the suffering of farmers at all, and just blooms beautiful flowers.

Oshio Heihachiro hated the corrupt politics at that time very much. He said, "Standing up and advancing into pills (money), the big bag is a hundred taels of gold, the middle bag is fifty taels of gold, and the small bag is ten taels of gold", which satirizes the corruption of officialdom.

Privileged businessmen are also objects of opposition from Oshio Heihachiro.

Whether they are townspeople or farmers, all ordinary people living in the middle and lower classes of society have more or less suffered from them.

Oshio Heihachiro, who hated privileged businessmen, never spared pen and ink when cursing them.

He scolded the privileged merchants as "people's thieves" and "vagrants", and they were the same as officials. Collect rare treasures, dress up your wife, and entrust your sales to the assistants."

24 years ago (the eighth year of Tianbao, 1837), Oshio Heihachiro, who couldn't bear the corruption of the shogunate, brought his students and officials, townspeople, and farmers who were willing to follow them, and launched the famous "Oshio Heihachiro Uprising".

Japan in the Edo period adopted a strict national policy of "separation of soldiers and peasants".

A soldier is a soldier, and a farmer is a farmer, and they are never confused.

Military service is entirely undertaken by warriors, while farmers concentrate on farming.

A major consequence of this is that the combat literacy of the peasants is extremely low. After all, they have never received military training-and this is what the rulers want to see.

The soldiers are basically town people and farmers.

The only weapons are ordinary knives and guns and homemade firearms

Apart from morale, the Great Salt Army, which had no advantages in terms of manpower or equipment, naturally lacked combat effectiveness.

However, even so, the Great Salt Army still defeated the decadent shogunate army, forcing the shogunate to ask for help from the nearby feudal clans. Amagasaki, Kishiwada, Koriyama and other feudal clans immediately sent troops to reinforce Osaka.

Under the joint suppression of the shogunate and the feudal lords of Gyeonggi, the outnumbered Great Salt Army was defeated, and the townspeople and peasants could not withstand the blow and fled completely.

The shogunate cast a net all over the country and strictly searched for Oshio Heihachiro and others.

Oshio Heihachiro and his adopted son are hiding in a detached house in Osaka City.

When the officials of the shogunate came to the door, Oshio Heihachiro, who knew he had nowhere to escape, ignited the explosives prepared in advance, blasted the house and set himself on fire.

Afterwards, officials of the shogunate found two charred bodies whose faces were unrecognizable from the ruins.

In all fairness, although Oshio Heihachiro's uprising did not cause great material damage to the shogunate, it still makes the shogunate and the carnivores of the various feudal lords still have lingering fears.

There is no other reason-the ideas promoted by Oshio Heihachiro really touched the hearts of middle and lower-level samurai and ordinary civilians.

There will be no species! Whether it is a high-level samurai or a privileged businessman, why do these guys ride on our heads?

These advanced ideas of Oshio Heihachiro are a great threat to the feudal rulers!

It can be said that if the advanced thoughts of Oshio Heihachiro are widely spread, it will be enough to shake the foundation of the rule of the Edo shogunate and various vassals!

Although Oshio Heihachiro is dead, his thoughts have not died, and the followers who worshiped him have not been silent!

After the failure of the uprising, the surviving believers of "Oshio Thought" united together and continued to run around to realize Oshio Heihachiro's ideal of governing the world.

They are like grass in the cracks of rocks, tenaciously survive and grow.

They did not announce their official name to the public, so people in the world used to call them the "Great Salt Party".

The shogunate, who is deeply afraid of the "Great Salt Thought", will use cruel means to deal with the Great Salt Party... It is not difficult to imagine.

For more than two decades, the shogunate has been frantically pursuing the Great Salt Party.

As far as Nishino knows, under the crazy suppression of the shogunate, the Great Salt Party was once driven to a dead end.

However... With the outbreak of the "Black Ship Incident" 8 years ago, the Great Salt Party is turning around.

Admitting to warships, signing unequal treaties, and being unable to stop the economic invasion and political penetration of Western powers...

Since the outbreak of the "Black Ship Incident", the various performances of the shogunate can be described as "how big the face is, how big the eyes are", so that more and more people began to question the authority of the shogunate.

The worse the shogunate was, the worse the social environment was, and the more people worshiped Oshio Heihachiro.

The shogunate, who was fighting fires everywhere, also paid no attention to the Great Salt Party.

Riding on this shareholder wind, the Great Salt Party grew rapidly.

With Gyeonggi as the center, they bloom everywhere.

The number of members, military power, and sphere of influence are increasing day by day.

The "Great Salt Thought" also spread more and more widely.

Some people of insight who have been influenced by Western democratic ideas even began to praise Oshio Heihachiro as "the founder of civil rights"

The name of Oshio Heihachiro has become a spiritual symbol with amazing appeal, and he has become a major spiritual pillar for liberal and civil rights advocates to attack the autocratic government.

After years of development, the Great Salt Party is no longer the bereaved dog it once was—Nishino knows this well.

However, until now, the Great Salt Party was no different to him than a tiger or a lion—he knew it existed, but he had never seen it.

"My grandson, you, are you really a member of the Great Salt Party?"

"Of course~ the real thing~~"

My grandson spread his hands and put on a harmless smile.

He is not only a spy placed by the Falun Party inside the shogunate, but also a spy placed by the Great Salt Party in the Fajue Party... My grandson's complex identity of being a spy, a spy, and a trap makes Nishino's brain uncontrollably I couldn't believe it and stopped for a moment.

Just when Nishino hadn't recovered, my grandson suddenly put away the smile on his face, and said with a serious face:

"Nishino-kun, I need your help now, please listen to me carefully."

"I need you to help me sneak into Rakshasa's room and find evidence that they produced and destroyed the phantom deposit!"

*****

*****

My grandson is a member of the Great Salt Party—you didn't expect this kind of plot, did you?

This is not a plot that Leopard Leopard slapped his head and made up temporarily. This setting has a hidden foreshadowing early in the morning.

See "Writer's Words" below for more details.

First of all, when my grandson made his debut, he was flipping through the books introducing Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind.

Secondly, every member of the Great Salt Party who has appeared so far has a surname of three characters: Akutsu, Ichinose, and Ebina.

Except for Qingdeng, the surnames of all the captains of Huofu Thief Kai have a natural element, such as: Mizushima, Huozaka, and Kanazawa.

Only my grandson's surname has no natural elements, and it is still three characters.

Again, it has been mentioned countless times in the previous article: my grandson never corrects unjust, false or wrong cases. He pays attention to collecting evidence when handling cases and is not sensitive to torture to extract confessions. Acting in a serious manner is out of tune with other colleagues.

Finally, the most important foreshadowing - why didn't my grandson ask other people for help, but just focus on Nishino? This is not a table for the time being.