Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 239 The harder you work, the stronger you become
Igiyama Castle is located not far from the north bank of the Kiso River. The main purpose of building this hilltop castle was to control this easily crossable river location.

Therefore, not long after the Wanjin army began its large-scale river crossing, it had already alerted Ikiyama Castle. However, the Wanjin army moved quickly and crossed the river in an orderly manner, which made Iki Seibei, who had just assembled his troops, quickly lose his idea of ​​"attacking while the enemy is crossing".

Just as Haruno was reluctant to attack the Mino people's castle, Iki Seibei was also reluctant to engage in a large-scale war with the Wanjin people.

The country of Mino is in chaos. The father-in-law and son-in-law Ando Morinari and Takenaka Hanbei have launched a surprise attack and seized Inabayama Castle. They are currently in a standoff with Saito Tatsuoki, the lord of Mino, and neither side can gain the upper hand.

This is not good news for a frontline general.

During this period, he not only failed to receive any support from the rear, but even the aid that was originally intended for him—the small noble families and local samurai of Mino who were ordered to come to his aid—many of them left without saying goodbye and rushed back to the Inabayama Castle area to join forces.

Even some transport teams that should have arrived earlier disappeared along the way, and it is unknown whether they went to Inabayama Castle to seek refuge with a new lord or to serve Saito Tatsuoki.

With the rear unstable and troops and supplies running low, this battle is simply unwinnable. If they can hold the city and not lose it, Iki Seibei will have done right by the Saito family. Asking him to lead his retainers and followers to fight a desperate battle in the wilderness is asking too much of him.

Haruno shared the same thoughts. This operation was more like a live-fire exercise for the Wanjin army. It was impossible for them to fight to the death. He only ordered a few rounds of arquebuses to be fired at the city walls as a threat, and then let Mikuro perform. After all, it was Oda Nobunaga's business, and it was Mikuro who wanted to gain credit. He felt it was a loss if even one more person died here.

Of course, the main reason was that Yimushan City was too small and not a good target for exercises, so he wasn't interested in it.

Nakamura Yakuro had long since disregarded life and death. After Harano displayed his strength, he led Hachisuka Masakatsu and Maeno Nagayasu to the castle, completely unconcerned that a hail of arrows from the enemy would turn him into a pincushion.

Fortunately, people in this era still respected etiquette and generally did not kill envoys. After the three of them shouted for a while on and off the city wall, a basket was lowered down from the wall, and the three of them were pulled up one by one.

Yuan Ye waited for more than two hours, and was wondering if Mikuro's eloquence was not as good as the original and that he had not reached five stars. He had already been beheaded by Iki Seibei when suddenly there was a commotion in Ikiyama Castle and the faint sound of shouts of killing could be heard.

Soon after, the riots subsided, and the first gate of Igiyama Castle was opened. Nakamura Yakuro and his two companions emerged covered in blood, carrying more than twenty severed heads. Igi Seibei followed behind with his son and retainers. He had likely been persuaded by Yakuro and the others to "abandon darkness and embrace light," and had slaughtered all the samurai sent by Saito Tatsuoki. From then on, he severed ties with Saito Tatsuoki and became a foster family of the Oda clan.

However, probably worried that Haruno's guest army might loot Ikiyama Castle, Iki Kiyobei, although he "abandoned the darkness and turned to the light", did not intend to let the Wanjin army into the city. He just came to pay his respects and brought a batch of food and supplies as well as some gold and silver tea sets, as a way of thanking Haruno for his hard work in coming and firing a few shots at him.

Haruno didn't care. He took Iki Seibei and Yakuro along with them, and based on the intelligence from the scouts, he turned west along the river to prepare to confront Osawa Masahide, the lord of Unuma Castle.

Osawa Masahide, known as the "Tiger of Eastern Mino," gives off the impression of a beggar version of the "Tiger of Owari." He is leading more than a thousand people straight to Igiyama Castle, probably having heard of the attack on Igiyama Castle and coming to its rescue, only arriving a little late.

However, he was also quite clever. Even though reinforcements were urgently needed, he didn't act rashly. On the way, he discovered that Ikiyama Castle had already fallen and the main enemy force was heading straight for him. He didn't show any "tiger-like bravery" and try to fight against the tide and wipe out the Wanjin army. Instead, he hurriedly turned back to Ujinuma Castle, closed the gates, and prepared to besiege the castle and fight to the bitter end.

He was truly defiant, completely refusing to communicate. Although he didn't shoot down Mikuro and Iki Seibei's son, who had risked going to the city wall to shout, he also didn't let them into the city and gave no response whatsoever. He had no intention of communicating at all, leaving Mikuro like a mouse trying to pull a turtle, unable to find a way to get to him.

Mikuro returned dejectedly. It was already late. He met with Yuanye briefly before returning to his camp for a meal and rest. He would have to think of another way to persuade him to surrender.

Haruno had no intention of resting and launched an attack on Ujinuma Castle that very night—this was his training objective, and he wanted to accumulate experience for conquering fortified cities in the future.

There are quite a few differences between castles in Japan. A castle is a small "fortress" like Arako Castle, which is surrounded by mud and logs and has an area of ​​more than 3,000 square meters, only about half the size of a football field. A castle is a castle like Unuma Castle, which occupies an entire mountain and has branch castles and rock fortresses built from the foot of the mountain to the top.

The difference is so great that it's like comparing an old man's car to a car with a high-speed ride.

The two types of castles also differ in their form. Arako Castle was essentially a "bandit stronghold," or even worse than a bandit stronghold, while Unuma Castle, as an important foothold for the Saito family to control the north bank of the Kiso River, was a standard large Japanese castle.

Japanese castles are quite distinctive.

Of course, this feature is not the magnificent castle tower that people in later generations generally think of; castle towers were actually rare in this era.

The reason why Japanese castles are considered distinctive is because they differ from both Chinese and Western castles.

Specifically, the defensive focus of a Chinese city is generally on the city walls.

Because Chinese cities often house a large number of people, and even during times of war, people outside the city would desperately try to escape into the city, and according to Chinese tradition, the defending army has an obligation to protect the people, so the defending side would focus most of its strength on the city walls, building additional facilities such as barbicans, ramparts, and sheep walls to improve the defensive capabilities and functionality of the city walls. In fact, to protect the city walls, soldiers would even be sent out of the city to fight with their backs against the walls.

At the same time, if the city walls are breached, the defending soldiers and civilians will generally lose all their fighting spirit, shouting "The city has fallen!" and begin to scatter and flee, thus declaring a complete defeat.

Western-style cities had fewer problems in protecting civilians.

Although some civilians also lived in Western-style cities, their numbers were far fewer than those in Chinese-style cities, which often numbered in the thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. Therefore, Western-style cities typically did not place their main military, manpower, and resources on the city walls, but rather in the various towers and fortresses within the city. Even if the city walls were breached and the attackers went to harm the civilians, the defending troops would not care and would continue to fight.

Similarly, because fewer lives and resources were spent on the city walls, the towers and fortresses would be more sturdy and defensive, allowing the defenders to hold out for longer and have a greater chance of being rescued.

In contrast, proper Japanese castles did not have this problem at all, because they did not keep commoners inside the castle at all. They just left them in the castle town to live or die as they pleased. The entire castle served military purposes and was used to protect the daimyo and samurai. As a result, the focus of defense was different: the focus of defense in Japanese castles was the roads.

Japanese castles are mostly built on mountains, or at least on large hills. Take Komakiyama Castle, which Oda Nobunaga just built, for example. Surrounding the foot of the mountain is a moat and a rough wooden fence. The moat was originally intended to be a moat, but due to time constraints, the water diversion was abandoned and it was changed to a moat.

Two gates, one to the north and one to the south, were set up in the rough wooden palisade for transporting supplies and for launching attacks from the north. Further up the mountain path, more than ten rock fortresses and arrow towers were built, supporting and protecting each other to completely control the ascent. Scattered throughout were samurai residences, foot soldiers' longhouses, stables, and warehouses. Near the summit, another moat and wall led to Oda Nobunaga's residence—a small volcanic ash and concrete fortress—and several watchtowers over five meters high extending along the ridge to control the road to the top.

Aside from "gardens" like those in abandoned villages that gradually expanded from homes during land reclamation, most proper Japanese mountain castles are like this: simply breaching the first wall isn't enough; you have to advance along the road to the summit, facing attacks from the defenders along the way, both overt and covert, using all sorts of haphazard defensive structures, and being repeatedly worn down. The defenders, in turn, will fight and retreat, slowly retreating into the homes on the mountaintop.

Often, at this point, the balance of power shifts. The attacking side suffers heavy losses and reaches the summit in disarray, finding themselves at their limit. They might be caught off guard by a counterattack and collapse completely, tumbling down the mountain in the same way they climbed up.

Oda Nobukiyo's Inuyama Castle had a similar setup. Oda Nobunaga used diplomatic means to almost completely cut off all support for Inuyama Castle, but still kept giving Oda Nobukiyo opportunities and did not launch a strong attack. This was because a strong attack on such a large mountain castle was too troublesome, could easily result in too many casualties, and could easily be turned around and won by the defender.

Alternatively, one could do what Takenaka Hanbei did: sneak into a house, open the door at night, and head straight for the enemy commander in the dark, catching all the defenses along the way off guard. But that's generally impossible; it's hard to find a traitor like that, and the defenders might not be as lax as the Saito family.

Since Yuanye seized the Chita Peninsula three years ago and started his fortune, he has never had any experience attacking large Japanese mountain castles. After all, most of the powerful clans on the Chita Peninsula are not even as strong as the Arako Maeda family. They are all mud and wood strongholds that are easy to defeat. Just find a way to blow up the earthen walls and besiege the houses. With an absolute advantage in military strength, the other side will not even be able to fight back.

Therefore, he and the officers of Wanjin had long wanted to see the defensive capabilities of a proper mountain castle from Japan's Sengoku period, but they had never been able to find an opportunity before. Now that the enemy's will to resist was not strong, it was a good opportunity for the Wanjin army to have a real combat exercise - not to fight, but to see the enemy's reaction and countermeasures, and to see if they really wanted to fight to the death on the Ise Peninsula.

In other words, a small-scale attack should be launched, with the number of casualties kept to around twenty, preferably no more than thirty.

At the same time, a large number of arquebusiers from the Wanjin Army were transferred to the Wanjin Navy. Currently, the new recruits are severely lacking in combat experience, so this is a good opportunity for them to experience the battlefield atmosphere and accumulate some combat experience.

As the saying goes, the harder you work, the stronger you become, and the stronger you become, the freer you are. Yuanye has stumbled and struggled all the way to where she is now, and now she is super free. She doesn't need to consider other people's opinions at all, and she does whatever she thinks is beneficial to herself.

In the dead of night, as required by the exercise, the resting squads of Wanjin soldiers were suddenly awakened, silently assembled, gave a pre-battle briefing, and then quickly took action, entering the attack positions one after another. Thanks to good nutrition and the selection process for veterans, the Wanjin army has completely eradicated night blindness. The darkness is no longer an obstacle for the Wanjin army, but rather a friend.

Of course, there were some minor disturbances during the operation, as is impossible in large-scale operations, but they quickly disappeared thanks to the efforts of the veterans, sergeants, and officers. One by one, the vehicles began to leave the camp and advance to the vicinity of the moat of Pelican City. Whole trucks loaded with mud were forcibly pushed into the moat. More than ten squads of heavily armored flag bearers were divided into two groups to prepare to breach the wall and quickly eliminate the nearby enemies.

Fire support was deployed early on, with numerous iron-clad shields erected on the wagon fortresses. Gunners took their positions and, under the officers' orders, began to fiercely fire at any force attempting to resist behind the enemy fences or on the city walls. At the same time, small torsion-arm catapults were launched directly from the wagon fortresses, hurling large numbers of "incendiary bombs" into Ujinuma Castle.

Well, the Wanjin Army had temporarily discontinued the catapults, mainly because after the field began casting cannons, they considered the catapults to be somewhat outdated as weapons. However, in several internal exercises, they discovered that the catapults were actually more effective than small-caliber cannons in siege warfare during this era. At least until explosive shells were introduced into actual combat, the catapults still had value. Therefore, when producing the "Wheel Fortress", the Wanjin Army reintroduced the small catapults.

Now, dozens of catapults, aided by horse-drawn winches, are loaded with animal power and can launch three to five canisters at a time. In a short time, they will throw the three thousand canisters of mixed oil into the city. Moreover, Yuanye never skimps on training. In his view, spending money on training is more worthwhile than paying pensions. After all, these people can go back to production after they are discharged from the army if they live, but if they die, it is a pure loss.

So he didn't care about the gunpowder. The arquebusiers and breech-loading gunners fired with all their might, allowing the new arquebusiers to fully experience a sense of urgency that they couldn't feel during training.

In an instant, oil tanks trailing delayed fuses streaked across the night sky like shooting stars, flying in neat batches towards their designated locations at varying distances.

The sound of gunfire intensified, forcing the Uminoma Castle defenders, who were barely able to react, to cower behind the battlements and palisades, unable to peek out and retaliate, thus preventing the filling of the moat and the dismantling of defensive structures such as the bamboo walls.

Mikuro and the others were terrified. Mikuro even ran all the way to find Nohara. When he saw her, he was completely flustered and stammered, "Lord Nohara, Your Highness, what...what are you going to do?"

It wasn't fear, it was anger. Yuanye launched an attack without even giving a heads-up, and his men were still in the city!

Well, he didn't give up after failing to persuade Osawa Masahide in the afternoon. He went back and discussed it with Hachisuka Masakatsu and others, and managed to find someone from the "Kawanai group"—Tsubouchi Katsutaro.

This man was the nephew of Osawa Masahide and the brother-in-law of the vice-general Osawa Motoyasu—his sister was Osawa Motoyasu's concubine. So, after some discussion, Mikuro and the others prepared some money and sent Tsubouchi Katsutaro into the city overnight to persuade his brother-in-law to convince Osawa Masahide to surrender. If that didn't work, they should at least find out why Osawa Masahide was so stubborn as to be loyal to the Saito family.

It went smoothly. Mountain castles in Japan at that time had their advantages, but also their disadvantages. The first line of defense was not so tight, and it was not difficult to sneak in and escape. Otherwise, Inuyama Castle would not have become less and less populated as it was defended. Moreover, Tsubasa Katsutaro could bribe the guards under the guise of his brother-in-law, so he could meet them whenever he wanted.

Unexpectedly, just as Katsutaro Tsubosada successfully entered, Harano's side went berserk, unleashing a barrage of gunfire and artillery, deploying unprecedented firepower in a short period of time, as if they were determined to wipe out Masahide Osawa in one battle.

This is really a waste of money. In Mikuro's opinion, if these oil cans and gunpowder were replaced with copper coins and piled up under the city walls, the defenders would probably surrender. Why bother killing them?

Furthermore, if Haruno takes Ujinuma Castle by force, who will get the credit?
He was waiting for this achievement to redeem his past sins and even make a name for himself. What kind of madness has Yuan Ye gone wrong to insist on taking it from him?
Mikuro's eyes were red with anxiety. If it weren't for the huge difference in their status and strength, he would have devoured Yuan Ye raw without even dipping him in soy sauce. But Yuan Ye didn't care and said gently, "Don't worry, Lord Mikuro. They don't want to communicate with us. I'm using this to force a conversation. You'll definitely have a chance to show your skills tomorrow."

"Is it just about applying some pressure?"

Mikuro was slightly relieved. If it was just a demonstration of firepower, it wouldn't affect anything and would even be very helpful for the persuasion operation. It was Yuanye who had taken care of things for him and helped him a lot.

He breathed a sigh of relief, his expression becoming respectful again. He chuckled dryly, about to say a few polite words of thanks, when suddenly he heard a muffled thud and felt the ground beneath his feet tremble slightly. He turned his head in surprise and saw that the wooden and earthen walls at the foot of Ujinuma Castle, as well as some wooden fences, had been blown into the sky, and debris was falling like rain.

Behind the breach, flames raged even more fiercely. Some of the foot soldiers' longhouses, stables, and warehouses were already ablaze, and even the smoke couldn't block the flames. The defending troops couldn't even control the fire, let alone extinguish it.

Yuanye also looked toward the blast site and nodded slightly.

The first line of defense for this mountain fortress was indeed easily breached, not much different from the "city walls" of ordinary noble families—both were at the level of a mountain stronghold. Moreover, the Japanese really liked to use wood in their fortifications, especially large logs. Fire attack was indeed a good choice.

Next, we need to see how it's defended inside, and try to control an area to see how the enemy responds.

With that thought in mind, Yuan Ye abandoned Mikuro and went to the staff officer group, asking them to go to the front line to see firsthand how the enemy was deploying and defending, so as to develop a tactical model for future siege training.

That's the important thing. Whether or not Mikuro gets credit for it is another matter.
(End of this chapter)