Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 70: Mountain Whale Carrying a Cannon

Relying on the advantage of his spear +2, Oda Nobunaga defeated the main force of the Kiyosu army in a field battle, and the subsequent battle became less suspenseful.

After chasing the defeated enemy for a while, he immediately gathered his troops and rushed to Matsuba Castle without even cleaning up the battlefield. He joined up with the detachment sent to destroy Matsuba Fort and immediately launched a fierce attack. Matsuba Castle was just a small city, similar to Arako Castle, and its defensive capabilities were just so-so. It did not take long for it to be breached, and the defending generals Akabayashi Magoshichi and Dozo Yasuke were killed on the spot.

Afterwards, Oda Nobunaga still did not stop, and joined up with the detachment that attacked Sanbongi, and immediately moved to Fukada Castle. However, at this time the troops were already quite tired, so he did not order a strong attack, but sent envoys to persuade them to surrender.

The defending general of the Fukada army was also very sensible. Seeing that he was no match for the enemy, he opened the city gate and surrendered after receiving the promise that his life could be saved.

At this point, the Kiyosu Oda family's "plan to eat the fat meat" was completely shattered. Not only did they fail to get any money from the Danjo Tadashi family, but they also lost all their capital. Many of their retainers and samurai gangs died, and it would probably take them three to five years to recover.

Well, I heard all of the above from Aman.

He was very busy at the moment. After the "Battle of Kaijin", he started to focus on his job, organizing people to send the wounded back to the Inabachi camp for rescue. He didn't even participate in the subsequent mopping-up operations.

He was busy for a whole day and night, and finally he and his men settled the wounded. Only then could he close his eyes and rest for a while. But he didn't sleep for long before he was woken up by Aman - Oda Nobunaga was back. He did not stop after retaking the two castles of Matsuba and Fukada. After resting there for a night, he went to Kiyosu Castle, set fire to the castle town, and robbed some other things.

When Oda Nobunaga returned, his military achievements would definitely be evaluated, and then a celebration party would be held. All the samurai had to participate, and the "fake samurai" Harano was also notified and had to go to show his support.

Yuanye had no choice but to wash his face, change his clothes, and take Aman to the "Shogunate" - an open space surrounded by cloth. There would be no place to hold the celebration meeting.

When Yuanye arrived, he was given a stool and arranged to sit down. In front of him was a small table with a pot of wine and some side dishes. Aman did not come in, but was sent to the side of the field to warm himself by the fire and stay with the followers of other warriors.

Well, Yuanye still wanted A-man to accompany him so that he could remind him when something happened to prevent him from making a fool of himself accidentally. He also didn't expect that he couldn't bring a servant with him. Seeing this, there was nothing he could do, so he let her go back first. But she was quite excited and insisted on waiting for him, so in the end he just let her go.

After Harano sat down, more and more people from the shogunate came. In a blink of an eye, there were more than a hundred people sitting on both sides. They were all in high spirits, talking and laughing loudly with each other. They started drinking without waiting for the arrival of important figures such as Oda Nobunaga, Oda Nobumitsu, and Hayashi Hidetada. Some even came over to try to get close to Harano, saying that someone in their family had been feeling unwell, with pain here and there, and asked if they could give them some medicine or something.

Yuanye was also happy to socialize, and it was easy to ask for medicine and the like. He became acquainted with many middle and lower-level warriors.

The shogunate was as noisy as a vegetable market for a while, but fortunately, Oda Nobunaga and others came out soon, and the scene gradually quieted down. Many people looked at Oda Nobunaga with longing in their eyes, as if he was some peerless beauty.

Oda Nobunaga avenged his previous humiliation, but he did not show too much excitement. Instead, he was a little dignified. He politely invited his uncle Oda Nobumitsu to take a seat before he sat down and bowed deeply, expressing his gratitude: "Everyone, thanks to the blessing of Atsuta Daimyojin and your hard work, we have won this great victory!"

"It's all thanks to our lord (Your Highness) that he has good military fortune!" All the warriors present also sat down with their hands on their knees and bowed their heads, returning the salute in unison. However, Yuanye didn't react. Fortunately, everyone kept their heads down, so no one saw it.

Oda Nobunaga straightened up, looked at everyone and nodded, his expression very satisfied, then turned to Lin Xiuzhen and ordered: "Verify the head!"

Lin Xiuzhen saw that she was the military commander this time, so she immediately took out a document, glanced at it, and slowly read: "Sakamoto Shinsuke"

The news was immediately spread outside the shogunate, and a moment later, a guard brought in a small square table. There was a depression on the table, and in the depression was a human head. The head seemed to have been carefully washed, the hair was re-combed, and the face was powdered, with a rosy complexion, and looked somewhat like a living person.

When the strange head was brought up, a famous samurai in his twenties immediately stepped forward to take the small square table, took a few steps forward, knelt on the ground, and presented it to Oda Nobunaga and Hayashi Hidetada. His voice was a little hoarse with excitement: "Here is the head of the enemy's deputy general Sakamoto Shinsuke!"

The samurai in the shogunate were slightly agitated. They had never thought that someone could catch such a big fish. Some people in the back stood up to watch and said that Itamoto Shinsuke was good-looking and died peacefully, like a samurai. However, Lin Xiuzhen did not look at the head for long. He probably had seen it beforehand. He just introduced it to Oda Nobunaga: "This man is the deputy general of the Kiyosu Army and the elder of the Kiyosu Oda family."

Oda Nobunaga lifted up the head, wiped the powder off its face, looked at its features carefully, and nodded gently: "So it was him..."

He had a vague impression of this, as if he had seen him several times when he was a child, but then he didn't care anymore, threw the head back, leaned over and patted the warrior's shoulder, praising him: "Well done!"

Lin Xiuzhen glanced at the scroll and introduced him, "This is Shibata Gorojiro Katsuhito, who worked together with Nobumitsu's son Akase Seiroku Heiji to obtain Itamoto Shinsuke." Hearing the name Shibata, Oda Nobunaga's eyelids twitched, and he turned to nod to his uncle Oda Nobumitsu to express his gratitude, then looked around and asked, "Where is Akase-sama?"

"Killed in battle."

"Well... you should be given generous compensation and a letter of gratitude for your loyalty, and you should be rewarded for your merits." Oda Nobunaga pondered for a moment, gave an order, picked up the sword on the side and handed it to Shibata Katsuhito, saying in a deep voice, "You are the first to make contributions in this battle, you should keep up the good work, and don't forget the life of one of the samurai families!"

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Shibata Katsuhito took the sword with joy, rubbed it a few times, and then kowtowed to Oda Nobunaga. Then, amid the envious and jealous gazes of many people, he returned to his original seat and began to savor the taste of victory - there were also some other certificates of loyalty, thanks, and merit, as well as promotions, money, and land that came with the first merit, which would be distributed later and did not need to be collected now.

After the first name was assigned, Lin Xiuzhen glanced at the scroll again and continued to read the next name. A moment later, another clean and dressed head was placed on a small square table. Another samurai came out with excitement and took it. He brought it to Oda Nobunaga and Lin Xiuzhen for them to review and praised the merits.

Yuanye had never expected that the evaluation of military merits in medieval Japan was so barbaric and bloody. After watching for a while, he was speechless.

This is somewhat perverted. There is nothing wrong in rewarding merit with heads, and there is nothing wrong in personally inspecting the heads of enemy generals. However, the heads have to be washed, the hair combed, and then powdered. When inspecting the merit, someone will whisper and comment on the appearance of the head. This is a bit... psychologically uncomfortable.

Fortunately, Yuan Ye had seen many dead people like Xiao Qianqian during this period of time, and had almost adapted to this unfortunate and strange era. He could still remain calm. However, when the people around him wanted to discuss with him which head was better taken care of, or wanted to exchange experiences with him on "makeup" for heads, he could only pretend not to hear.

He really couldn't discuss these experiences and didn't want to learn them.

However, it seems that this was the case in Japan's medieval era. He vaguely remembered that Tokugawa Ieyasu had an "elegant affair". It seemed that one of Japan's retainers was named Kimura Shigenari, who was beheaded during the Summer Campaign of Osaka. The head was brought to Tokugawa Ieyasu for inspection. Kimura Shigenari was young at the time, with a beautiful appearance, and his hair was fumigated with fragrance all year round. Even after washing, it still had a faint fragrance, which made Tokugawa Ieyasu like it. He couldn't help but sniff it and exclaimed: It's now May, but there is no trace of stench, and the fragrance is everywhere in his hair. This can be said to be the bravery and elegance of a samurai family.

If you think about it this way, it seems that Oda Nobunaga is a little better than Tokugawa Ieyasu. At least he didn't keep sniffing the human head with a look of intoxication on his face. He could barely be considered a normal person.

Yuanye had all sorts of random thoughts in his mind, trying to divert his attention in various ways, but at least he finished looking at the heads - only the heads chopped off by samurai could be counted as military merits and they could be rewarded generously, while those chopped off by foot soldiers of the Langgang faction would be inspected by the military paymasters and in the end they would be exchanged for some money, or exempted from some land taxes and labor service.

After the heads were checked, the battle merit evaluation meeting was not over yet. The military attaché Hayashi Hidetada proposed the candidates for "Ichiban Spear", "Ichiban Tachi", "Ichiban Head", "Ichiban Ride", "Merit for Group Attack", "Merit for Spear Attack", "Merit for Gundam Attack", "Merit for Defeating the Enemy", and "Merit for Diligence". Oda Nobunaga approved and gave out rewards. "Ichiban Spear" refers to the first one to break the enemy's formation with a spear or a sword, the first to kill the defenders and break into the city, the first to successfully block the enemy's counterattack and stabilize the front line in fierce fighting, the one who used a spear to assist Ichiban in gaining military merit, the one who pursued the enemy to achieve the greatest results, and the one who played a key role in transporting food and supplies or building fortifications in the rear.

Anyway, for various behaviors that contribute to victory, the recipients will also be rewarded with certificates of loyalty, money, positions, etc., but they are also divided into "high reputation" and "low reputation". For example, "merit under the gun" and "merit for diligence" are "lower reputations". The direct benefits obtained are not many, and they are usually recorded and accumulated slowly to become the capital for future promotion.

Of course, Yuanye has nothing to do here. What he did was to treat the wounded and he did not go into battle. However, Lin Xiuzhen's evaluation of merits is the old way. It seems that there is no such merit as "treatment". There is only a "merit of assistance", which refers to rescuing colleagues who were seriously injured and unable to move during the fierce battle to prevent them from being beheaded by the enemy. Yuanye can hardly be linked to it - even if there was "treatment", he probably would not be linked to it. He is not a retainer of Tan Zhengzhong's faction, and he should not have been included in the evaluation of merits.

Yuanye didn't care about this. He didn't like to be in the limelight. Compared with gaining some immediate benefits, he was more afraid of being forced to kowtow to others and having his bottom line of principles broken and then surrendering.

So, when he saw that everyone had achieved their goals and many warriors were excited after receiving their rewards, they started shouting and drinking, and some even started taking off their clothes to entertain themselves with sumo wrestling, so he quickly sneaked away.

If he had known this would happen, he would not have come. It was just that he had thought that Oda Nobunaga had already called him, and what if he got crazy again and suddenly wanted to talk to him, and he received the notice but didn't give him the face and didn't come, it might be very embarrassing, so he made the trip. In the end, Oda Nobunaga didn't pay any attention to him at all, so he came in vain and didn't even have dinner.

I don't know which bastard is so nosy that he has to send him a notification...

He cursed in his heart and prepared to go back to eat his own food. After leaving the shogunate, he went to call Aman, but he was speechless again after walking a few steps.

Ah Man was squeezed in among a group of men gambling, and he was even stuck in the center. He was sweating profusely, throwing Pai Gow on the table, and shouting, "Even if a mountain whale carries a cannon, the emperor must die! Shout seven, not nine, give me eight!"

(End of this chapter)