Chapter 4 4. This Battle Puts Me in Danger

A discerning person sees the doorway, while an amateur sees the excitement. The march of this army is actually full of tests for the commander.

An army of more than 6,000 people is not too many, but not too few either. The vanguard is Koheita's team. The general, Hosokawa Saime Masami, is a very young samurai, but his 1.5-meter-tall and strong physique proves that he must have eaten well, drunk well, and exercised enough.

But he must be inexperienced, as it is said that this is his first battle. The real commander of these more than 300 people must be the gray-haired old samurai beside him. That samurai is indeed constantly issuing orders and is also the military commissioner of this small team.

The old samurai looks quite difficult to mess with, and usually has a serious face. Although there are no scars on his face to scare the soldiers, that kind of momentum is already very intimidating.

Every day before dawn, the old samurai gets up and instructs everyone to boil water and make tea, and eat breakfast with fried rice and tea. At dawn, everything is packed up and set off, preparing the streets along the way and leveling and paving. Every few miles, a long-legged warrior was left as a messenger, and horse-riding warriors were arranged to go back and forth to explore the road. After noon, a large flat area was chosen to set up camp, and the wood cut before was set up as a horse fence, the camp was divided, the water source was marked, and firewood was picked up.

Fortunately, Xiao Pingtai's team was equipped with vehicles and pack horses because they were the vanguards. Otherwise, so many camping things were carried by more than 300 people, which would drag people to death.

Therefore, in ancient times, being a vanguard in marching required soldiers to be brave and daring, and at the same time, they had to be able to endure hardships and work. For no other reason, because the vanguard might fight first and work along the way, it was a hard job, and it would be very uncomfortable unless you could make great contributions in the front.

Moreover, these things are extremely trivial. If you are not experienced in the army and have been a veteran for many years, you don’t understand many things at all. This kind of thing is more about teaching by words and deeds from father to son, and those who have survived three rolls in the sea of ​​blood and corpses can probably learn it all.

After the vanguard camp was set up, the soldiers of the rear camp entered the camp in turn according to the division arrangement. At four or five o'clock in the afternoon, the sun had already set, and the daimyo's main camp arrived, followed by the rear camp. In fact, it was not that they walked slowly, but the road was so wide that the daimyo did not start until noon, so in fact the entire army only marched for half a day.

At this time, Xiao Pingtai understood why there were only two or three thousand people around Imagawa Yoshimoto when he died. Imagawa's vanguard Matsudaira Motoyasu was attacking Minghai Castle, and the rest of the troops attacked the forts in order. The army marched along the streets in order, and the front and back were connected, but it was raining heavily and was attacked by surprise, and the front and back teams were too late to rescue.

In short, watching the old samurai marching in a methodical manner and well prepared, he was the kind of talent who had fought more than thirty years of bad battles. Xiao Pingtai felt that his life was guaranteed one more point.

Three days later, the whole army arrived at Shirakawa-go Shimoyama Castle on the border. As a branch castle on the border, they had already heard the news and called on nearby farmers to enter the city for defense, but it seemed that they did not want to besiege the city at the beginning. The general of the city sent a letter and agreed to fight under the city the next day. The army was not in a hurry to attack the city, so they began to make bamboo bundles, build watchtowers, and send troops on the spot to collect life-saving money from each village, while inciting the people.

The next morning, the conch shells sounded loudly in the city. About a thousand people came out of the city and formed a battle array under the city.

The news also came from the main camp of the Yamanouchi side. Hosokawa Caime was on the left wing, Isshiki Miyauchi was the first mover, Konishihara Saemon was on the right wing, and Oishi Saburo was the rear guard, with a total of more than 1,600 people facing each other.

Kohei Taichi saw that he was in a position of restraining the left wing, and looked at the special two-lead two-horse flag he was holding, and decided to be a quiet little flag bearer and stay behind the crowd to fish.

The horse seal on the opposite side had Hachiman Bodhisattva written on one side and a round fan on the other side. Due to his status, Xiao Pingtai didn't know who the opponent was. And it was obvious that only the middle of the opponent was in good shape, and the two wings were ordinary peasants who were slightly armed, with only a few foot soldiers.

Xiao Pingtai sighed and said that it was nothing special, and then he moved forward with the large group of people.

As for the battle process, the three-stage joint attack, the spear and quilt connection, the dragon cavalry flying shot, etc. did not happen. It's not that they don't exist, but that both sides don't have the equipment, training and level.

Only the front row of foot soldiers took a two-room gun and stabbed a few times. They couldn't afford the iron cannon, and there were not even a few pretend popping sounds. Only bows and arrows were fired from time to time, but arrows cost money! It didn't take a few shots to test the contact. After fighting for about ten minutes without any passion, Xiao Pingtai found that he seemed to run a little fast. The two armies that were originally parallel had become a U shape, and the opponent had been compressed in the middle of the U, and there was a three-sided lack of one.

But Xiao Pingtai found that he was already close to the Hachiman Daimyojin flag, holding two-hikiryo and carrying a small white flag, and there were only a few foot soldiers of the main family fishing around, while more than a dozen warriors under the Daimyojin flag were obviously surrounding a middle-aged warrior and looking at him. Or rather, they were looking at the two-hikiryo and the small white flag of the Genji in his hand.