Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 131 A mouthful of blood sprayed all over his face

Takeda Castle and Arashi Castle are similar, both are earthen castles built on hills, with arrow towers and watchtowers on the city walls, and moats dug, with villages and fields outside. The only difference is that Arashi Castle is unfinished and has not been completed to this day, while Takeda Castle is much more normal, at least everything that should be repaired has been repaired.

After landing, Yuanye headed straight for Takeda Castle and attacked some villages along the way. However, he did not release the troops to search on a large scale. Most of the villagers fled into the wilderness and mountains crying for their parents, and he only kidnapped a few people.

At this time, the Takeda family finally discovered that there was an invasion by foreign enemies. Their village was being attacked, and it was coming from the western sea. Their first judgment was that some ignorant pirates had come ashore and wanted to rob them. They immediately sent out troops from Takeda Castle and gathered more than a hundred people to meet them along the way, intending to directly expel the enemy, or at least not allow the enemy to wreak havoc.

They couldn't wait in the city. Everyone was very poor these days. If they allowed the enemy to roam around freely and destroy the fields in the villages around Takeda Castle, they would not even have bran to eat this year.

When they got closer and investigated, they found that the enemy did not seem to be pirates. They were better equipped and had more people than them. But it was too late. The enemy's outer soldiers also discovered them. At the same time, the enemy did not rush into the village to rob, and did not even need time to regroup. The moment they discovered them, they ran towards them without hesitation, and were eager to fight.

The Takeda family fought a battle with the enemy in such a confused manner, and was defeated at the first blow, leaving behind thirty or forty corpses, and more than thirty people ran away before they barely escaped from the battlefield and returned to the siege of Takeda Castle.

Yuanye tried his hand at it, and after finding a weak target, he did not hold back and continued to press forward, chasing the enemy all the way to Takeda Castle. However, due to the complex terrain in the village and his lack of siege capabilities, he did not go straight to the city to put pressure on the enemy. Instead, he stopped outside the range of bows and arrows and simply blocked his men in the city to prevent them from being attacked when transporting people from the rear.

…………

Takeda Heiemon was a native of Chita County and the head of the Takeda family. He was 52 years old, which was considered an elderly person in that era. His cardiovascular system was not very good. Now he was standing on the top of the city wall with several of his retainers. His heart rate was sometimes slow and sometimes fast, his temples were throbbing, he felt dizzy, and his blood was boiling.

He had to feel dizzy. He was just sitting at home when disaster struck. It was clearly an ordinary day, but suddenly a group of people rushed into his house, grabbed him and started beating him up without thinking. Anyone would have felt a throbbing pain in their temples.

He had even been beaten up, and he didn't even know who the enemy was. Moreover, his eldest son, who led the attack and was famous for his bravery in Chita County, had disappeared and had never escaped back. Now his life or death was unknown, which made the situation even worse for his already poor family.

He was now standing on the top of the city wall carefully observing this group of inexplicable enemies. The more he looked, the more frightened he became. The enemy did look unusual. The front row was all wearing black lacquered iron armor, and each of them looked strong and healthy. They were obviously elite men who had enough food every day. Moreover, the clothes inside the armor seemed to be the same, all made of black cloth, and the tailoring was unique. The clothes were very close-fitting, and the sleeves were very narrow. Even the hakama had been made smaller and narrower, no longer the fat and big style before.

Their hairstyles were also uniform. They were resting at the moment and their iron-studded anti-arrow hats had been taken off. From a distance, they looked like a group of bald men sitting together. No one had a bun, but a closer look revealed that these people still had some hair, but it was very short, so they were probably not monk soldiers.

Takeda Heiemon looked for a while, but hadn't figured out who the enemy was. Suddenly, he noticed that the enemy's gang was lined up in an orderly queue, with their weapons and battle hats at hand, and sitting cross-legged on the ground to rest with their armor on. No one was whispering to each other, no one was looking around, and no one was trying to relax and cool down in the hot weather. Their sitting postures were as if they were printed from the same mold. The monks in meditation were more lively than them, and even obeyed orders to take water from the bamboo tubes they carried with them. They were all in uniform, with a kind of eerie beauty that made people feel creepy.

These Lang Gang members don’t look like humans. They don’t have the little movements and unique personalities that ordinary people have. From a distance, it seems like they don’t even breathe…

Takeda Heiemon felt an inexplicable chill in his heart and dared not look at these strange men any further. His gaze turned to the general behind the enemy formation.

The enemy's general was rather shabby. He didn't use cloth to surround himself with a shogunate, nor did he put up gorgeous horse-printed flags. He didn't have many samurai servants around him. Compared with the resting men, he just had an extra stool under his buttocks and didn't sit directly on the ground. He didn't look majestic at all.

But he did not dare to underestimate the general. He was very big and wore heavy black armor like a giant. Even when he was sitting on a stool, he was not much shorter than him. He was obviously a peerless warrior who could chop and kill from one end of the enemy camp to the other. He did not dare to be underestimated at all - he was more than 1.4 meters tall. As long as Yuanye sat on the stool, he could indeed compete with Yuanye and not be at a disadvantage.

Takeda Heiemon observed the enemy general for a while, then turned around and found that the enemy's men were still sitting motionless and resting, without any change. He felt more and more depressed and dizzy. He felt that the enemy was definitely the elite among the elite, and as soon as they finished their rest, they would rush over and forcefully attack the city. With the dozens of defeated soldiers and common people he had now, he might not be able to stop them. His family might be destroyed today.

He quickly leaned against the wall to let the dizziness pass, then covered his chest and took two deep breaths. He pointed at the flag on the back of an enemy and asked, "This is... you can also take a look. Whose family crest is this?"

The flags on the backs of this group of enemies were also a bit strange. Some of them carried "green gourd flags" and some carried "red gourd flags". The number was also not right. Only a few of them had flags on their backs, and most of them had no identification at all, or their identification was the uniform and strange clothes they wore, so there was no need to rely on flags on their backs to distinguish between friend and foe.

Takeda Hyoemon could not recognize the "Gourd Flag", and his retainers had no impression of it either. They had no idea where this group of people came from, so one of the retainers suggested, "My lord, let's negotiate with them!"

This battle was fought in a confusing manner. We didn't even know who the enemy was, so we could only ask the enemy.

Takeda Heiemon had no other good idea, so he agreed immediately, "Okay, thank you for your hard work!" The retainer was not afraid. In this era, there were unspoken rules in war, or in other words, there were etiquettes. As long as the envoy did not seek death and maintained courtesy, generally no one would kill the envoy, as that would bring bad reputation.

He rappelled down the wall and ran towards the enemy position.

The enemy did not make things difficult for him. After he loudly announced his identity as an envoy, someone came up and took him directly through the enemy line. Takeda Heiemon was surprised to find that when his envoy passed through the enemy line, those men who were sitting on the ground to rest just glanced at him sideways when he passed by. None of them even turned around to look or talk to others. They were still very stiff.

Then the envoy met the enemy's general, who seemed to have a gentle attitude and did not use any tricks to show his power. He sat steadily on a mat and talked with the envoy. Soon after, it was the envoy who became excited first. He suddenly jumped up from his kneeling position, waving his hands and shouting loudly. Then the envoy was kicked to the ground by the enemy general's guards, dragged out of the enemy formation and thrown in front of the formation.

Takeda Heiemon heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed that the enemy general was not a very cruel person. He still followed the most basic etiquette. This was good news. When the retainer who served as the messenger came back in a dusty state, he hurriedly asked, "What happened?"

The retainer said quickly, "The enemy calls themselves the Nohara family of Wanjin. They came to us this time to ask for an explanation. They said we attacked their cargo ship."

This was indeed what Yuanye told him himself. The powerful families in Owari had intermarriages for many years, and their relationships were complicated. He had also taken back so many people, so it would be impossible to hide it. His identity would be found out sooner or later, so there was no need to conceal his origins. It didn't matter if he told it directly. Maybe he could even prevent the Takeda family from asking around frantically and letting the whole Owari know about it.

"We attacked their cargo ship?" Takeda Heiemon was stunned. He turned around and asked the old retainer, "Is that true?"

The elders and retainers looked at each other and shook their heads. The Takeda family didn't even have a ship, so how could they attack the Nohara family's cargo ship? Swimming? Swimming was impossible. They didn't even know where Wanjin was!

The retainer also knew this, and this was simply nonsense, so he quickly said, "I have already explained it, but they insisted that it was us who did it. Let us hand over the murderer, otherwise they will not give up easily."

Takeda Heiemon felt a tightness in his chest again. He couldn't figure out what was going on for a moment, so he asked again, "Where is Wanjin? Where did they come from?"

It was the first time he had heard of this place name. He felt that there was no such place in Owari. The retainer was quite smart and had asked about it long ago. He answered directly: "The other party said it was by the sea south of Furuno Castle."

What about the seaside area south of Furuno Castle? The base of Chita Peninsula? Near Atsuta Port? That was the core area of Oda Danjotada's clan. So, were these people members of Oda Danjotada's clan?
Takeda Heiemon took another look outside the city and suddenly realized that only the Oda Danmasatada family had the financial resources to arm the Lang gang to this extent. Moreover, the enemy also had dozens of cannons, which were probably part of the previously famous "Oda Cannon Team".

But he still couldn't understand why Oda Nobunaga's men would cross the sea to attack him. Even if the Takeda family had betrayed the Oda family, it was because they were forced by the situation. If the Oda family could drive away the Imagawa family, he would not hesitate for a second to turn to the Oda family again. There was no need to deal with him specifically.

As expected of Oda the Great Fool, the rumors are true, he really acts like a psychopath...

But now the two sides are definitely hostile, and there is no room for negotiation. If he surrenders to the Oda family again, it will be the Imagawa family's turn to beat him tomorrow. He can only resist the surging blood in his chest, slap the city wall hard, and say in a deep voice: "In this case, we can only fight to the death. No matter what the Oda family wants, we will break a few of their teeth!"

The elders and retainers of the family responded in unison, ready to fight the enemy to the death. After all, they had no way to retreat, and all they wanted to do was to kill as many enemies as possible, forcing the enemy to give up the idea of ​​annihilating the Takeda family. However, they waited for a long time and did not see the enemy build siege equipment. They were still sitting there resting, and at most they took turns to get up and move their hands and feet.

After waiting for more than an hour, a small team arrived from a distance. After talking with the enemy's general for a while, a series of bamboo whistles were sounded, and the enemy troops collectively stood up and turned around, moving forward one by one in a very rhythmic manner, and returned along the same route.

Takeda Heiemon was confused again. Didn't he say he wouldn't give up easily? Why did he leave? What on earth was he doing here?

It was a long time before he received a report that a small village of the Takeda family closest to the sea had become a ghost village, and all the people inside had disappeared. The strength of the Takeda family had been reduced by 20% - the Takeda family only had four villages and one city in total.

At this moment, he could no longer hold back the blood surging in his chest, and a mouthful of old blood spurted out, directly spraying his own retainer's face. He felt that the whole world was in chaos, as if it was real and unreal.

(End of this chapter)