Japan's Warring States Period: The Rise of the Wakasa Tiger

Chapter 55 Confrontation
On the morning of the 21st day of the first lunar month, everything was still silent in the cold breath, the sky was clear and the clouds were thin. After a night of heavy snow, this small plain called "Li Ye" was now covered in silver, white and pure and peaceful.

After a night of rest, the Takeda army, with high morale from successive victories, was in high spirits and full of vigor. Led by Takeda's important officials or generals such as Yamamoto Shigeyuki, Yamagata Morinobu, Kumagaya Takanao, and the Kuriya brothers, the 1,600-strong army, with flags flying and in neat formation, were ready to launch an attack on the Asakura army stationed not far away at any time.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

"Boom, boom, boom!"

Yamamoto Shigeyuki ordered his men to beat the drums, and what followed was the high and sharp sound of the conch shell that resounded throughout the entire plain, waking up the flocks of birds nesting in the forest and also waking up the Asakura army that was sleeping.

"What's going on? Where did the conch horn sound from?" The sleepy-eyed Asakura Kageren sat up from the couch alertly. He never took off his armor when sleeping, and he strode directly out of the formation.

As soon as he walked out, a messenger came galloping from a distance, dismounted in panic and knelt down, saying: "Your Excellency, it is the Takeda army. They have formed a battle array outside the 109th cho (one cho is about meters), and it seems that they want to fight against our army."

"Takeda Army?" Asakura Kageyama was unable to react for a moment: "With only two or three hundred people from Jinshan Castle, how dare they fight against our army?!"

"Sir, I went to investigate. There are definitely more than two or three hundred people, at least fifteen hundred, and there are quite a few cavalry among them!" the envoy replied respectfully.

"One thousand five hundred people, and cavalry?" Asakura Jinglian shuddered suddenly: "How is it possible? How could so many people appear overnight... Could it be..."

Asakura Keiren didn't dare to think too deeply about it. He didn't want those pessimistic speculations to become reality.

"Send someone to find out where Tsuruga Gunshi and Asakura Ueuewei's troops are." Asakura Kageren arranged for Ma Kai beside him to go and investigate quickly. At the same time, he began to make battle deployments, requiring all troops to immediately form a fish scale formation and prepare to use their troop advantage to launch a defensive counterattack against the Takeda army.

The so-called fish scale formation is an offensive formation with the core idea of ​​"central breakthrough". It concentrates the strongest force in the front and middle to break through the center of the enemy formation. The general is located in the middle and back of the formation, and the weakness is at the tail. In terms of specific form, it is divided into several small square formations in the shape of fish scales, similar to "△", just like fish scales, connected in echelons, and mainly used when you have an advantage.

Asakura Kageren had no idea where this Takeda army came from. Under the current circumstances, he could only take advantage of his military strength and use a more fierce fish-scale formation to inflict heavy damage on the invading enemy.

"This Takeda army must have marched in the snow all night, so they must be exhausted. Our army has at least rested and their morale has recovered. If we take the initiative to attack, winning should not be a problem," Asakura Kageren analyzed.

At about 7 o'clock in the morning, the Asakura army deployed their troops west of Kurihara. Their general Sakurai Keitaka came to the front to challenge them. The Takeda army sent Kuriya Katsuie, who walked to the front of the battle line with the heads of Asakura Kagetaka and Yamazaki Yoshiie in his hands. He raised his hands high and said to the Asakura army in front of him:
"Your Asakura clan's Yamazaki Shinzaemon-no-Kichiie and Asakura Ubei-no-Kagetaka have been captured by our Takeda army, and Tsuruga County Magistrate Asakura Kageki has also been captured by our army. You should stop resisting in vain, disarm and surrender. Our Takeda clan will definitely treat you well."

After that, Kuriya Katsuie threw the heads of the two men in front of the battle. Seeing this, Sakurai Keitaka subconsciously took two steps back and turned around to look at Asakura Keiren in horror. "What, Master Yoshiie and Master Jinglong were killed?!"

"The Tsuruga-gunshi he's talking about is His Highness Keiki. How did he get captured?"

"Yes, they each have 3,000 soldiers. Could it be that those soldiers have already..."

As the two heads rolled down in front of the battle line, the Asakura army, which had been relatively quiet just a moment ago, suddenly became chaotic, with all kinds of rumors spreading. Some said that the Takeda army defending Tango came to support, some said that the Takeda army received support from the Hosokawa and Rokkaku armies and reversed the situation, and some said that God could not stand the Asakura army bullying its neighboring country, and suddenly sent heavy snow to help the Takeda army win.

In short, all kinds of rumors spread like wildfire in the Asakura army for a while. Asakura Kageren was sitting in the rear, and although he could not see clearly whether the two heads in front of the battlefield were real or fake, through the surprised and terrified expression of Sakurai Keitaka, he could probably conclude that what Kuriya Katsuie said was true.

He knew that the Takeda army did this in order to deal the greatest possible blow to the morale of the Asakura army before the war began, and to stimulate cowardice in the hearts of those soldiers who were already demoralized and had no desire to fight. In this way, even if they did not collapse immediately, they would quickly disintegrate under the fierce attack of the Takeda army.

Asakura Kageren had followed Asakura Soteki in battles for many years, from Kaga to Mino, from the Kuzuryu River to Lake Tokuyama, but he had never encountered such a situation: a dozen days ago, there were more than 13,000 troops so mighty and ambitious, but now there were only 3,000 of his own people left, and the ones who defeated them were none other than the Wakasa Takeda clan, whom they had always looked down upon and bullied for many years.

"Don't panic! This is just a treacherous plot of the enemy. Just fight well and I will take you home!" Asakura Kageren thought that this was no way to go on, so he ignored the advice of the generals and rode his horse from the end of the formation to the center, hoping to calm the morale of the army.

"Lord Genbansuke, do you think that your army can defeat my Takeda army with its current condition?" At this time, Yamagata Morinobu rode his horse to Kuriya Katsuie's side. As a member of the Wakasa Takeda clan, he naturally became the general-in-chief of this battle.

"It's Yamagata Gennai. It's been a long time since we last met. The last time we met, you were representing the Takeda clan to come to Ichijodani to pay New Year's greetings. I didn't expect that in the blink of an eye, we would be fighting on the battlefield." Asakura Kageren smiled and responded, "You can't know if you can win or not unless you try."

"In that case, let's not waste time, Goroemon, I leave this place to you." After saying that, Yamagata Morinobu tightened the reins, the horse snorted, and turned back to the main camp.

The battle between Kuriya Katsuie and Sakurai Keitaka then began. The two samurai, who both used katana, fought for dozens of rounds under the watchful eyes of the crowd. Sakurai Keitaka, who had killed more than 30 soldiers of the Kaga Ikki Army at Kuzuryu River, made up for his age disadvantage with his superb swordsmanship, and the battle with the young and energetic Kuriya Katsuie was difficult to determine.

Just when everyone thought that both sides would stop fighting after they had exhausted their strength, an accident happened. The katana swung by Sakurai Keitaka was blocked by Kuriya Katsuie's arm. As luck would have it, the blade got stuck in Katsuie's cage hand.

Seeing this, Kuriya Katsuie seized the opportunity, slashed with his backhand, and directly cut off Sakurai Keisuke's forearm. Then he drew his knife and stabbed again, piercing Sakurai Keisuke's chest. This veteran who had followed Asakura Soteki in battle for many years eventually died in Kuriya.

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(End of this chapter)