Chapter 844: Nobunaga's Ambition

Twenty li west of the Yodo River, Osaka in the Naniwa capital was already in sight.

But after marching more than seventy li without a single rest, the pent-up resentment of the Japanese army finally erupted completely.

They clamored and shouted; even with the Naniwa capital right before their eyes, they refused to take another half-step.

The bitter fruit of the court's usual oppression of the warrior class was now on full display.

Before this long march, the Japanese court could still wave the banner of loyalty to the sovereign and love of country to feed the warriors empty promises and drug them with sweet talk.

But after this three-hundred-li forced march, which in the eyes of many warriors was caused by the sheer incompetence of the upper court nobles, every shred of loyalty had been utterly spent. In its place, discontent over their lowly status was spreading rapidly.

Never mind this being a Heian-era Japanese army — even the People's Liberation Army during the War of Liberation would have grumbled at such an exhausting march, and it would have taken large numbers of political officers to soothe them before it could be resolved.

That was when the saying arose: "Old Chen's telegrams go rat-a-tat-tat, the little soldier's feet go thud-thud-thud."

One could say that if even the PLA, the pinnacle of light infantry, could not stand such back-and-forth marching, then these Japanese of the present day were beyond hope. One man rose in protest, and before long the whole army was in an uproar.

Moreover, the discontent quickly spread from the marching to all the various blunders of the court in this conscription, and from there extended once more to the everyday oppression of the warriors.

Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Saneyori keenly sensed the danger of mutiny. Besides, it was already approaching the end of the shen hour (five in the afternoon), and Fujiwara no Hidesato, who had gone out to scout, had sent back no warning. So letting these warriors eat a good meal outside the city and handing out a little reward before returning to the city would not be a problem.

And as things stood now, Fujiwara no Saneyori did not dare let them enter the city as they were. If so many grumbling warriors all poured into the Naniwa capital, they might well start looting.

So the Japanese army of more than fifty thousand, strung out over ten-odd li, came to a halt just over twenty li from Osaka in the Naniwa capital, and only ten-odd li from the great bridge over the Yodo River.

Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Saneyori ordered the officials of the Ministry of Popular Affairs in charge of provisions to bring out large quantities of white rice, small dried salted fish, and Tang natto, and to begin serving an extra meal on the spot.

At the same time he announced that after the Yan bandits were defeated, everyone would be rewarded, and he published the exact military merits to be gained from taking enemy heads.

At last, soothed by the fragrant white rice, the dried salted fish, and the Tang natto, and by the promise of killing the enemy, winning merit, and raising their status — a painted cake to stave off thirst — the restless warriors began to calm down.

In Japan of this era, pork, beef, mutton, horse, and fowl were all forbidden to eat. The only sources of protein were fish and Tang natto, and ordinary people normally could not get them at all.

Delicious and nutritious food is an eternal pursuit of mankind, and it truly can do a great deal to soothe the hearts of an army.

Take Kogoro, for example. His stomach was burning with hunger, but now that he smelled the aroma of cooking food, his surging resentment immediately began to subside.

Without any regard for appearances, he flopped straight down onto the ground and chatted intermittently with the comrades around him, as if all his strength had drained away.

The only thing he could still hold out waiting for was the moment the white rice finished cooking. Even a bowl of rice water to drink right now would do!

Suddenly, as he lay on the ground, Kogoro felt the earth begin to tremble. Alarm bells ringing in his mind, he scrambled to his feet at once.

Living in this earthquake-prone country, even a retainer like Kogoro was extremely alert.

But very quickly they realized that this trembling of the earth was not an earthquake — it was coming from not far away.

In an instant, every face changed color. Someone began to shout, and within a few breaths, cries of "The Yan bandits are here! The Yan bandits are here!" rang out all around.

Kogoro felt as if his heart had stopped for a moment, and even the hunger burning in his belly was suppressed by a few degrees.

Countless lower-ranking officers roared about with their household warriors, ordering their retainers and attendants to get up quickly and form ranks.

Because of his earlier service in composing a response to a waka poem, Kogoro had been rewarded with exemption from forming ranks at the very front; instead he was assigned as an attendant to a fat, burly warrior monk.

In the chaos of war, Kogoro clutched the warrior monk's hanging armor and frantically helped him put it on.

The tension of the coming battle made the atmosphere extremely oppressive. Kogoro even saw a look of fear appear on the face of this warrior monk who usually boasted that his divine strength was matchless and that he alone could slay a hundred Yan bandits.

Heavy panting came from beside him. Kogoro turned his head and saw the manor lord Taira no Sadasada, his hands trembling violently, beads of sweat the size of beans rolling down his face.

Noticing that Kogoro was looking at him, this official who had always held himself aloft actually put on an awkward, ingratiating smile that Kogoro had never seen before.

Kogoro was taken aback. In that instant he suddenly felt that these officials were nothing more than ordinary people capable of fear.

Just as everyone was trembling with terror but still barely managing to hold formation, cheers suddenly broke out from somewhere unknown.

Kogoro looked around in bewilderment, completely at a loss as to what had happened.

Fortunately, it was not long before someone came to pass word that the ones coming were not Yan bandit cavalry, but Lord Fujiwara no Hidesato, Governor of Shimotsuke, who had gone out ahead to screen the main army — for they were flying the great banner of the Fujiwara house granted by the Minister of the Left.

Some even swore that they had seen the Governor of Shimotsuke clad in red great armor, majestic as a god or Buddha, and that he had slain the Yan bandits' vanguard and was now coming to boast of his deeds before the Minister of the Left.

The taut nerves of the crowd instantly relaxed, though some still wore displeased expressions. Boasting of deeds was fine, but why did they have to make it so frightening!

The fat warrior monk's face went from deathly pale back to ruddy in an instant, and he turned to boast to Kogoro once more, as if trying to recover a little of the face he had just lost.

The lower-ranking officer Taira no Sadasada resumed his usual lofty official bearing, as if that awkward smile had never appeared.

Kogoro began swiftly removing the fat warrior monk's hanging armor, for his mind was still on the evening meal that was about to finish cooking. Now that the tension had passed, his stomach began to growl with hunger again.

But he had just taken off the hanging armor and had not yet had time to roll it up when he felt the earth, which had paused a moment before, begin to tremble again.

What was the meaning of this? Everyone was starting to get angry!

Even if you won a battle, boasting of your deeds was one thing — but how could you go galloping around again and again to frighten people?

Taira no Sadasada had been secretly regretting that awkward smile he had shown Kogoro. He felt he had lost an official's face and broken his own authority.

And now, when the earth began to tremble again and the returning cavalry once more began galloping about without regard for discipline, this was the perfect chance to recover a little face.

So Taira no Sadasada let out a great shout and leaped onto the supply wagon behind him. His original intention was to shout a few orders at the soldiers below and tell them not to panic.

But the moment he jumped up, Taira no Sadasada was struck dumb with terror, and even felt the urge to urinate rising.

Who the hell said it was the Governor of Shimotsuke and his men coming back?

An expression of extreme terror appeared on Taira no Sadasada's face, for what appeared before his eyes was a terrifying host charging in from three directions, gleaming with waves of golden light under the setting sun.

They pressed forward like clouds of fire from the edge of the sky, boundless and endless, impossible to count.

Kogoro looked at Taira no Sadasada on the wagon. He thought his manor lord was about to deliver some heroic speech, but after waiting a long while, all he saw was the man's lips trembling, his face even uglier than the fat warrior monk's had been a moment before.

Kogoro was just about to speak when he suddenly heard a thunk. On Taira no Sadasada's chest, an arrow seemed to have sprouted out of thin air.

Then this petty manor lord swayed twice and toppled off the wagon.

And at the very instant Taira no Sadasada fell, arrows blotted out the sky and fell like rain. Horrific wailing rose from all around as men were struck one after another, then collapsed to the ground in violent convulsions.

Kogoro even saw quite a few men with four or five arrows stuck in their bodies who could still run at full speed — only to pitch forward onto the ground mid-stride.

The rain of arrows grew denser and denser, and the wounded grew more and more numerous. The camp that had been calm moments before seemed in an instant to have become hell.

Men kept falling, kept wailing. Some cried out the names of their mothers or lovers as they fled in all directions, spreading still more panic.

Kogoro was shoved and jostled about by the surging crowd. He did not know where was safe, did not know where to go, and still less did he know what to do.

All around his ears was wailing. Terror robbed him of the ability to think. They had not even seen the enemy, and already they were defeated.

In the distance, Murong Xinzhang was coldly issuing order after order. If you looked out from where he stood, you would see that the horse archers and elite steppe bow cavalry who had loosed the sky-darkening arrow storm had cut the chaotic Japanese army into several pieces.

Each piece was six or seven thousand to as many as ten thousand men. The horse archers and bow cavalry did not charge the formations directly, but cut back and forth, creating as much chaos as possible, driving the terrified Japanese troops along their chosen routes toward the designated areas.

And whenever he saw that one area had fallen into such chaos that no defense could possibly form, Murong Xinzhang would immediately sweep his great banner, and fifteen hundred Zhaoyi gentlemen in heavy armor on white-robed, silver-saddled horses would pounce.

Moreover, these Zhaoyi gentlemen did not charge in the manner of armored cavalry with long lances, but used the wall-charge method.

The first two ranks of cavalry carried long spears that broke easily, while the last three ranks carried fine steel sabers. Once the front ranks had scattered the enemy, the rear ranks began slashing and killing on a grand scale to multiply the casualties.

This wall-charge method of heavy cavalry sprinting was inspired by Sage Zhang, who had drawn the idea from cuirassier cavalry.

It was not very effective in clashes between evenly matched forces, because this method lacked the cuirassiers' key weapon, the long and short firearms.

So in a clash of equals, it seemed somewhat lacking in firepower.

But for dealing with chaotic crowds like this, for fighting routs, nothing could be more suitable.

The armored cavalry that swept through in a wall charge was like an iron brush. The moment it "brushed" across a crowd, the dead and wounded fell in swathes.

The Minister of the Left, Fujiwara no Saneyori, protected by a cluster of Fujiwara house armored warriors, was also fleeing for his life. Even at this moment, when the great army had collapsed, his mind had still not recovered from its panic.

This time, the mistakes he had made were simply too great!

First, he had let the three-hundred-li round-trip forced march wear away the army's morale.

Then he had failed to give Fujiwara no Hidesato enough troops to secure the army's safety.

Finally, he had too readily trusted the banner signals, believing Fujiwara no Hidesato had returned, with the result that the army was easily taken by surprise.

More importantly, he should not have agreed to light cooking fires in this open wilderness. Even if they lit fires to cook, they should have fortified a camp — yet they had not even set up a camp, which in the end allowed the whole army to be cut apart and scattered so easily.

After running aimlessly for nearly a shichen, it seemed the wailing and shouting could barely be heard anymore, and of course, those iron cavalry that had broken them seemed to be nowhere in sight.

The sky had gone completely dark. Fujiwara no Saneyori truly could not run any farther, and he had no idea where he had fled to, when suddenly the scouts from the Upper East Gate Left Guards ahead brought good news.

Okura no Haruzane, famed as a great general, holder of the Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade, Governor of Tsushima, and Senior Inspector of the Dazaifu, had already seized a hill ahead and established a defense.

Only then did the Minister of the Left, Fujiwara no Saneyori, let out a long breath, his body nearly collapsing to the ground.

The Fujiwara house armored warriors around him hurriedly propped up this de facto ruler of the Japanese court and ran toward the hill where Okura no Haruzane was positioned.

There were still too few men. Murong Xinzhang sighed with regret. The attrition from the climate and from the men being unaccustomed to the water and soil had been too severe.

This attrition showed not only in the men, but also in the warhorses. The more than ten thousand horses used in this surprise attack by five thousand elite cavalry were almost all the horses Murong Xinzhang could muster.

And because the surprise attack had taken place in the evening, although it was a complete victory, Murong Xinzhang could not be entirely certain how great the results actually were.

That night was a hard night both for the victorious raiders and for the utterly defeated.

For both sides had to wait until dawn — only then would the victors know how great their victory was, and only then could the defeated roughly know how catastrophic their losses were.

At last dawn came, and Murong Xinzhang received the battle report at his main camp by the Yodo River.

His fine eldest son leaped up in excitement and strode out of the commander's great tent laughing. Looking at the staff officers and guard attendants crowded outside, he shouted, "The enemy is broken — I have won a great victory!"

At once, cheers shook the heavens.

It turned out that in last night's chaos, roughly ten thousand men of the Japanese Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Saneyori's force had been trapped on a hill by the sea west of Osaka — approximately in the area of what would later be the city of Nishinomiya in Japan.

They could be identified as the Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Saneyori's force because they had raised the Minister of the Left's great banner and begun gathering nearby scattered soldiers to rally to it.

Another four thousand or so men were trapped on Mount Takarazuka northwest of Osaka, led by a member of the Japanese imperial house, the so-called Prince of the Sixth Grandson, Governor of Musashi Tsunemoto, and his son Mitsunaka.

Prince of the Sixth Grandson Tsunemoto was Minamoto no Tsunemoto. At this time he was still obscure, but historically, ten years later he would be granted the surname Minamoto and demoted to subject status, after which he founded the Seiwa Genji — that family so illustrious in Japanese history.

As for the rest of the Japanese army, yesterday evening's great surprise attack had triggered a total collapse. More than three thousand were cut down in formation, and over ten thousand were killed or wounded trampling one another.

More than ten thousand more had scattered in every direction. The only forces still intact as organized units were these two groups at Nishinomiya and Takarazuka.

Helian Hailong happened to have returned to guard Murong Xinzhang. When he heard that the Japanese were still raising their great banner at Nishinomiya to gather routed soldiers, he immediately asked for orders to go break them.

Murong Xinzhang thought for a brief moment, then waved his hand in refusal. "No hurry. Let them gather the men together — it saves us the trouble of hunting for them."

At Nishinomiya, it was only at this moment that Fujiwara no Saneyori felt the situation had become truly dire. Yesterday's charge by the Yan bandit cavalry had left a deep shadow on him.

And now, this Minister of the Left finally put aside all unrealistic illusions and handed over full military authority to the Governor of Tsushima, Okura no Haruzane.

He also issued a decree proclaiming that samurai who distinguished themselves could, like those honored in the Johei and Tengyo campaigns — that is, like Okura no Haruzane and the already fallen Fujiwara no Hidesato — rise to the high office of provincial governor.

But all of this seemed to have come a little too late. Military preparations neglected for nearly three hundred years since the Battle of Baekgang could not be revived on the spot by a few edicts.

At noon, Okura no Haruzane had finally gathered sixteen or seventeen thousand men at Nishinomiya, and had found part of the grain stores that the Yan bandit cavalry had not burned. He cooked a meal for them on the spot.

A trace of joy appeared on Fujiwara no Saneyori's face. That is how people ignorant of military affairs are — seeing more people around them, and having eaten their fill so they no longer looked so wretched, they thought their safety was assured.

Only Okura no Haruzane and the other officers with real combat experience kept grim faces. These Japanese samurai conferred for a while and reached a conclusion.

It was that since the Yan bandit cavalry could carry out such an efficient surprise attack, they would not be so careless as to let them stabilize their position at Nishinomiya.

The only explanation was that the Yan bandits were deliberately letting them gather together, so as to surround and annihilate them in one stroke.

At this time, the Japanese force at Nishinomiya still included one thousand Fujiwara house samurai, two hundred of Okura no Haruzane's personal samurai retainers, and more than two thousand samurai and warriors from other regions.

They were equipped with over four hundred sets of hanging armor, about one thousand sets of bamboo-strip armor, more than a thousand kenukigata tachi, over two thousand bows, over two thousand iron spears, and countless wooden spears and bamboo bows — barely enough to put up a fight.

So under Okura no Haruzane's direction, the Japanese army began digging pit traps on the small hill where they were positioned and building chevaux-de-frise, intending to wear down the Yan bandit cavalry's advantage.

At the same time, they kept sending messengers out in all directions, hoping to gather more troops — especially to notify Ono no Yoshifuru in Kobe and Tachibana no Tohoyasu in Osaka Castle, those twenty thousand men.

And Murong Xinzhang's assessment of this was — "Too weak!"

His fine eldest son shook his head and said to the officers and men around him, "Japan's military preparations have fallen into such neglect. A great country of three million people, yet its soldiers and generals cannot compare even to the rabble of the Jing and Wei rivers at Hechuan in former years, or to the Li family of the Dingnan Army. When we govern this land in the future, we must take this as a warning."

At weizheng (two in the afternoon), Xiang Xun sent word that Tachibana no Tohoyasu in Osaka Castle had organized more than ten thousand infantry and cavalry and was preparing to march out of the city westward to relieve them.

Xiang Xun personally led four thousand elite troops to block them outside the city. After about half a shichen of fighting, Tachibana no Tohoyasu's entire force collapsed, with several thousand dead and wounded, and retreated into Osaka Castle to hold out, not daring to come out again.

From this point on, Murong Xinzhang no longer had to worry about being attacked from front and rear, so he ordered the great army to form linked battle arrays and advance toward the Nishinomiya area where the Japanese were holding out.

Okura no Haruzane watched the Yan army in the distance, arrayed in red and white, with heavy infantry as the center and light cavalry on both wings, advancing slowly. His heart felt as though it had sunk to the depths of the sea.

From their marching ability alone, it was clear that the elite troops across from them far exceeded their imagination.

And compared to Okura no Haruzane, who was somewhat farther back, the pressure facing Kogoro and the others pushed to the front ranks was even more terrifying.

The Yan army was still several hundred paces away, but the orderly sound of marching feet, the stirring drums and music, and the gleaming fine weapons created an immense psychological pressure on them.

Though separated by several hundred paces, some of the soldiers in the front ranks of the Japanese army had already begun to weep, and countless men in the front ranks wished they could get to the rear.

Though none of them dared to turn and run — that would surely mean being cut down with a single blade — every one of them kept sticking their rear ends out and inching backward. It was standard procedure.

Before the enemy even arrived, the Japanese troops were already heaving up and down like waves, and no one knew when this taut string would snap.

Kogoro had thicker nerves than most. He looked at the chevaux-de-frise in front of him and the pit traps farther out, and kept reassuring himself that at least he would not have to face that terrifying cavalry from yesterday.

But one could only say he was too naive. When the Yan army reached a hundred and fifty paces from the Japanese troops, they simply stopped.

Just as the Japanese were growing bewildered, more than two thousand crossbows were raised by the Yan army.

You think that just because you're holed up behind a trench, I can't do anything to you?

You haven't even built a stockade. And even if you had, I'd just shoot from a hundred paces, or even eighty. With those broken six- or seven-dou bows in your hands, can you trade shots with crossbow bolts?

In an instant, the clatter of triggers and the whistle of fine steel crossbow bolts filled the sky.

The front ranks of the Japanese troops kept screaming and collapsing. Even at a hundred and fifty paces, the killing power of the crossbow bolts was still astonishing — especially since the Japanese had formed dense ranks, which magnified the carnage even further.

The fat warrior monk finally died. A crossbow bolt pierced through his hanging armor and easily passed through his chest and belly.

Kogoro clutched a battered hair-plucking tachi and miraculously was not hit, but the comrades all around him fell in swathes amid waves of shrill, miserable screaming.

No one could endure the horror of standing there being slaughtered, and Oshu Harumi naturally knew it too. He could only wave his hand in despair and order his men to beat the few war drums they had, sending his soldiers out to attack.

And these attacking soldiers first had to clamber over the trench they themselves had dug. After laboriously crawling across, they were immediately struck by a double blow of flat-trajectory crossbow bolts and arcing arrows, suffering terrible casualties at once.

As for fleeing — impossible. Could you outrun the Yan army's cavalry across from you?

"Invincible! Invincible! Eat a thousand gallbladders and you truly become invincible!"

In the midst of the battle formation, a burly man six chi two cun tall (one meter ninety-one), holding a thick-backed greatsword in his left hand and a fine iron bone mace in his right, wearing two layers of heavy armor, was shouting and killing his way through the crowd like a mad demon.

He charged violently into the Japanese troops, whose average height was only five chi one or two cun (one meter fifty-five). Facing these little dwarfs who only reached his chest, he needed no technique at all. Every sword stroke or mace blow — whether the target was a samurai or a peasant — killed instantly.

These Japanese men rarely even had bamboo-slat armor, and could not defend against fine steel weapons from the Central Plains at all. At the same time, their broken scrap-iron swords could not pierce even a single layer of lamellar armor, let alone two layers of heavy armor.

Zhao Siwan seemed to have fallen into a state of extreme madness. All his life, what he had sought was to be invincible under heaven.

But in the Central Plains, although he was a brave general, compared to Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, Zhang Cheng, Gao Xingzhou, Gao Huaide, Fu Yanqing, Huangfu Yu, Murong Yanchao, and the rest — what the hell did he count for?

The Central Plains could field dozens or even a hundred great generals fiercer than him. He could not even beat his own master, the Commandant of Consorts Zhao Kuangzan.

So this lunatic, having believed the crackpot theories of some occultist or other, became convinced that eating human gallbladders could increase his martial prowess. As a result, he was exiled to serve under Murong Xinzhang, becoming a creature loathed by pigs and shunned by dogs.

But now, at this moment, having come to Japan, Zhao Siwan finally experienced the feeling of the Hegemon-King of Chu, the man who could fight ten thousand.

There was no need to think about defense — there was not a single opponent who could last one exchange. He only needed to let loose and slaughter, chop chop chop.

Driven by Zhao Siwan, the fighting power of the thousand-odd Begging-Life Lads soared to a level that even Murong Yanchao found chilling to behold.

This assembly of madmen, schizophrenics, and anti-human maniacs — if the demons in their hearts were fully unleashed on some suitable occasion, the combat power they would erupt with would be truly terrifying.

However, while Zhao Siwan was savoring the ecstasy of finally becoming a man who could fight ten thousand, Hai Erxie and Hai Sanxia were about to cry.

Especially Hai Sanxia, who had given up the title of Patrol Commissioner to gamble on an even greater fortune. He simply could not believe that such a feeble Japanese army was worth a grand reward from Great King Murong.

'Clang!' Someone knocked the hengdao saber from Hai Sanxia's hand, and it made him freeze for a moment.

Across from him stood a man in an unorthodox stance, wearing hanging armor and holding a hair-plucking tachi raised before his chest. He looked like a brave Japanese general — at least his swordsmanship far surpassed that of this foolish boy who had come ashore from the boat-dwelling Bai Shui Lang.

But Hai Sanxia felt even more like crying, because he knew that in a moment this idiot Japanese general would stab his chest with that rotten sword of his, and then be hammered to death by the bone mace in his own left hand.

So this was the caliber of a Japanese brave general. With fighting power like this, how many merits could it possibly be worth?

Sure enough, there was another clear ring, and the so-called hundred-forged hair-plucking tachi stabbed hard into Hai Sanxia's chest.

But Hai Sanxia only swayed. The steel plate of his cloth-faced iron armor easily blocked the blade. Then came another clear ring, and the hair-plucking tachi snapped in response.

Kamihigashimon Saemon was stupefied. This was his family's heirloom treasure sword! It had won him countless head-takings and accumulated so much fame for valor — yet it could not even pierce the armor on a lowly officer of the Yan bandits.

The whistling bone mace no longer mattered. Kamihigashimon Saemon's heart was dead as ashes. This army was finished. Japan, too, was finished.

Murong Xinzhang was very calm. He had not paid much attention to the battlefield at all, because there was no way this could be lost.

His eyes were growing slightly moist. So Father did love him after all.

Korea and Japan here east of the sea were truly just as his lord had said — remote, but not barren. There were plenty of people, and their resistance was weak. It was far better than going to Dali or to Hezhong.

The good son's tears streamed down. What a wonderful father!

He had sent his own son into the poor mountains and harsh waters of Dali and the complicated situation in Hezhong, while letting an adopted son like him keep such a fine place all to himself.

Murong Xinzhang thought to himself, and swore that he would certainly fulfill the charge of his father, Sage Zhang, and transform this Japan — this Goguryeo — into a land even more devoted to China than the Andong territory.

(End of Chapter)

Related