Chapter 1625: Troops at the Enemy's Gates

From his resolute attitude, Soga Furuyū finally understood just how firmly the Elder had made up his mind.

"My lord... my lord!" he repeated to himself, and at last burst into tears.

To the shogunate, no matter what, both he and the Elder were sinners; the Elder intended to use his own death to wash away his transgressions, so that he himself could still be of use to the shogunate.

"Enough, say no more. Let us withdraw now while we have the chance. You will slip away midway—do not hesitate." Naitō Tadashige gently patted his shoulder and offered a word of encouragement. "The road will be perilous; you must take the utmost care."

"Lord Elder... why not let me escort the Magistrate?" At that moment, Kuroda Tadayuki, the daimyo of Fukuoka Domain, who had been listening silently all along, suddenly interjected. "I have long been stationed in Kyushu and am more familiar with the terrain."

Naitō Tadashige's earlier words had thoroughly frightened him. He could now see that the shogunate's two senior officials had already abandoned all hope for the war. Continuing to retreat and hole up in Kurume would merely delay the moment of annihilation. Naitō Tadashige had resolved to die a martyr's death for his country and the shogunate, but Kuroda had no desire to follow him to such an end.

"Absolutely not!" His hopes, however, were immediately and flatly rejected by Naitō Tadashige. "Kuroda, as a domain lord, your house has held this fief for generations. You had a sworn duty to defend your land, yet you fled at the sight of the enemy and stood by while your domain fell... For these deeds alone, I should have ordered you to cut your belly open in atonement at once. I spared your life only because there were extenuating circumstances and because we need every man we can get right now. At this moment, your only course is to atone for your crimes through meritorious service and defend Kyushu with your very life—and you still think of running away? If you wish to die, try running now and see what happens!"

Kuroda Tadayuki was utterly cowed by Naitō Tadashige's furious and scathing rebuke, and for a long while he dared not utter another word.

"Listen well. You will now muster your men and follow us to Kurume. There you will hold fast and await the shogunate's great army to come to the rescue. That is your sole path to redeeming yourself through service. Put all thoughts of flight out of your mind." Naitō Tadashige could not even bear to look at him anymore. He turned his head back toward Soga Furuyū.

"Very well, let us be off. Once day breaks, I will write a letter to the Shogun, which you can deliver for me on your way... That way, no one will later accuse you of fleeing without fighting."

Then, allowing no further argument from anyone, he immediately ordered the entire force to move out, setting them on the road to Kurume Castle.

The night was gradually drawing to a close, and a few faint, cold gleams of light began to appear in the east. Yet beneath that light, every officer and soldier wore a look of utter dejection. Most were disheveled, and many still bore traces of blood. Hardly anyone spoke; each man trudged forward in silence, a scene of unrelieved gloom.

They were the broken remnants who had retreated from various battlefields. After two brief but fierce engagements, they had been routed with shocking speed under the onslaught of the Han invaders, and in that short time had lost the courage to face the Han invaders in open battle again. It was precisely because he had observed this that Naitō Tadashige had finally abandoned all hope of further field combat and placed his last expectation on defending the castle.

Yet, in stark contrast to their dejection, as the dawn light slowly descended from the sky to the earth, Ma Tongji and his men finally confirmed that the shogunate army could no longer mount any attack against them. The soldiers' taut nerves abruptly relaxed, and then, almost in unison, they burst into cheers.

"Ten thousand victories!" "Ten thousand victories!"

They waved their weapons and shouted, some even flinging their sabers into the air.

However, compared to the excitement and fervor of his troops, their Regiment Commander Ma Tongji was far more composed. He still held his saber, touring the narrow battlefield with several staff officers. The bloodstains on his blade had already turned a dark red, glinting with a chilling light.

As far as the eye could see, corpses lay thickly packed, stretching from the distance all the way to his feet. Though he could not see them with perfect clarity, the sight was horrifying enough. Yet Ma Tongji, long inured to the battlefield, did not react with the fear of an ordinary man; he simply surveyed the scene with calm detachment.

To his eyes, the dense carpet of dead was easily sorted into two groups. Those in red were few; the vast majority wore greenish-gray uniforms and the half-shaven pates of shogunate soldiers.

From his rough count, the casualty ratio was overwhelmingly in their favor. Several hundred shogunate troops killed and several times that number wounded had cost his own men only a few dozen casualties.

Yet, considering the limited size of this expeditionary force, even such a favorable casualty ratio was not entirely satisfactory.

"These Japanese do have a certain reckless courage after all. To charge so fearlessly and desperately in the dead of night like this... we've never faced opponents this tenacious before. It seems we underestimated them earlier," he said abruptly, apropos of nothing. "We thought we could beat them back easily; we didn't expect them to inflict casualties like this on us."

"But we still beat them, Commander," one of the staff officers replied with a smile. "They paid such a heavy price and now they've fled in utter disarray. They must be thoroughly cowed by now. I doubt they'll dare face us in open battle again... Next, we can take Nagasaki and then smash them to pieces!"

"Nagasaki is already in our grasp. The remaining shogunate troops certainly cannot stop us, and taking Kyushu is only a matter of time." Ma Tongji shook his head. "But... we cannot keep trading blow for blow like this. We have only so many men; we cannot afford this kind of attrition."

When he had first come ashore, he had regarded these Japanese with a measure of contempt, believing that his elite, battle-hardened troops could defeat them with ease and advance wherever they pointed. After last night's battle, he had sobered up considerably. Still, he could not reveal such sentiments in front of his subordinates, so he phrased it very tactfully.

"Before we set out, Marshal Zhao also said we cannot rely on brute force alone to win," the staff officer quickly added. "If Japan were united, with everyone rallying around the shogunate to fight us, with our numbers so few, even if we traded one for ten, or one for twenty, we could never prevail. So we must divide and rule the Japanese, get others to do the fighting for us, and make the shogunate worry about internal troubles so it cannot throw its full strength against us."

"The supreme art of war is to foil the enemy's plans; the next best is to disrupt his alliances; the next after that is to attack his army; the worst is to besiege his cities. Sun Wuzi's words are indeed a timeless maxim!" Ma Tongji exclaimed with feeling. "Marshal Zhao's earlier decision to keep us from marching on Nagasaki Castle truly shows profound foresight."

Having spoken, he continued to pace, roaming across the battlefield. Because of the fierce fighting the night before, the grass beneath his feet was soaked with a thick layer of blood, the congealed gore spreading over the ground like a carpet. His shoes, too, were caked with bloodstains.

The soldiers, exhausted from the previous night's intense combat, were now utterly spent. Most sat on the ground resting; some, heedless of the thick stench of blood, had even fallen asleep leaning against their weapons. Ma Tongji had no wish to disturb them. He merely instructed the officers to let the men rest in shifts, while those who were awake were assigned to stand sentry or clear the corpses from the battlefield.

Under his watchful eye, the bodies of the fallen Great Han soldiers on the battlefield were slowly gathered and then stacked into a pyre.

Ma Tongji and his subordinate officers walked up before this pyre and saluted in silence. Once the salute was complete, the pyre was set alight and cremated directly.

To spare the soldiers the dread of dying in a foreign land and being buried in alien soil, the army had previously made a decision: the bodies of Great Han soldiers killed in battle were to be cremated whenever circumstances permitted. After cremation, the ashes of these officers and men would be specially collected and sent back home for burial. This was also a means of maintaining morale.

As for the remains of the shogunate soldiers, he had no time to worry about those for now. The local laborers could be tasked with burying them when the time came.

Just at that moment, flames suddenly erupted from the remaining inhabited quarters within Nagasaki. This was the work of the shogunate troops still holding out inside the city, who had set the fires after receiving orders from the Elder, Naitō Tadashige. Some among them were diehards who had originally intended to fight the Han invaders to the death and give their lives for their country. Having received the order, they naturally showed no restraint—knowing they were doomed anyway, they cared nothing for leaving themselves a place to live.

Yet there were still many surviving civilians, women, and children within Nagasaki. As their last refuge was consumed by flames, these people, who had already endured unimaginable horrors, began crying out once more. These wails, mingling with the blazing fires, stirred a pang of pity in any heart that heard them.

The piercing, wretched cries soared into the heavens and crossed the sea, reaching the distant fleet.

"Marshal Zhao, the matter of conscripting Japanese laborers must be put on the agenda soon. At the very least, these corpses covering the ground need to be dealt with quickly." Aboard the Great Han fleet off the coast of Nagasaki, a staff officer, his brow furrowed and his face full of worry, looked at Zhao Song. "If this mess here isn't cleaned up promptly, I fear an epidemic will break out, which would seriously hamper our army's movements."

This staff officer had a tall, powerful build, but his features were rather gentle. He wore a distinctive blue uniform and had a pair of spectacles perched on his nose, giving him a somewhat refined, scholarly air. After the Western craftsmen who had come to the Great Han passed on the method for making Western-style spectacles, Great Han artisans had quickly imitated them, and after years of manufacture, the quality was now excellent.

His name was Yan Guang, courtesy name Gaoze, and he was the current Chief Staff Officer of the expeditionary force against Japan.

Like most of the high-ranking officers holding senior positions in the Great Han army, he also hailed from Xuhuai. He was born into a provincial graduate's family, gifted from childhood, and far surpassed his peers in both scholarship and calligraphy. His family had originally intended to focus on cultivating him, hoping he would become the clan's first Presented Scholar, and his father had placed great expectations on him. Yet from a young age, he had no interest whatsoever in the books related to the examinations. Instead, he was drawn to miscellaneous studies, particularly books on military strategy and geography. He also enjoyed practicing with spears and staves, forging a robust physique from his youth.

His father had been deeply worried about him at first, but after repeated admonishments and even beatings proved futile, he had no choice but to abandon the idea of pushing him toward scholarly advancement and let him study whatever interested him, sighing privately that his family was unlucky to have a promising scholar they could not cultivate.

However, just when the clan elders all believed Yan Guang would amount to nothing in this life, the times suddenly underwent a tremendous change. With Zhao Jin's rise, a vast military bloc swiftly emerged in the Xuhuai region. Yan Guang, who had long harbored ambitions of achieving great things, did not hesitate for a moment and threw himself into the army at the earliest opportunity.

He began as a common soldier in the Zhao Battalion, then through courageous fighting in successive great battles rose to become an officer. Later, he accompanied Chen Sheng to the Liaodong campaign. During this period, not only was his bravery recognized by his superiors, but his intelligence and resourcefulness also won their appreciation. In the end, he was summoned to the side of the then Duke of Ji, Grand Marshal Chen Sheng, to serve as a staff officer.

After the founding of the Great Han, because the far-flung Han armies required coordinated command, the Military Council was established. Talented and battle-experienced officers were recruited from the various armies to staff it, assisting His Majesty in controlling the entire military. Yan Guang, who had earned Chen Sheng's deep trust, was thus recommended by him to the Military Council in the capital, where he became one of its very few First-Class Staff Officers, responsible for operational planning.

Although the Military Council's formal rank seemed modest and it was merely an advisory body, because it was responsible for offering counsel and stratagems to His Majesty, it had always been regarded as one of the most important organs in the military. An ordinary officer there was already a person of considerable consequence, let alone a First-Class Staff Officer. Moreover, over these past few years, he had repeatedly assisted His Majesty in planning military affairs and had rendered many meritorious services. After several promotions, his noble rank had reached Viscount, making him a member of the Great Han's titled aristocracy.

When the great army began preparations for the invasion of Japan, he was also dispatched by the Military Council to Zhao Song's side, tasked with planning the entire operational strategy for the Great Han expeditionary force against Japan.

His military rank was lower than Zhao Song's, his post was that of an adjutant to Zhao Song, and even his noble title was inferior. But he was the representative of the Military Council and the man His Majesty had personally sent to assist him. For all these reasons, Zhao Song always treated him with the utmost courtesy. Furthermore, this staff officer lived up to his surname Yan—which meant "strict"—and was truly a very stern man. Ordinarily humorless, he kept a straight face with everyone and was extremely insistent on his own opinions. When a superior made a mistake, he would often point it out without the slightest mercy. In the old days, he had remonstrated bluntly with the Duke of Ji on several occasions. Zhao Song had even heard that while in the Military Council, Yan Guang had several times openly rebutted His Majesty's opinions—a rumor that had profoundly shocked Zhao Song at the time. He had to admit that even he himself would never dare utter half a word of dissent in His Majesty's presence.

With such a record and such a temperament, despite their many years of acquaintance, the two men had not exchanged a single word of reminiscence in over two months. All their dealings were strictly official.

"Of course we must find a way to conscript the Japanese commoners. With our army's current manpower, it is truly too difficult to spread out across the entire island of Kyushu," Zhao Song nodded. "However, conscripting civilians will present quite a few difficulties. Setting aside the issue of our current image, even the language barrier is a problem."

"For the language issue, we can only rely on the translators we've scrounged up from Goryeo who can speak Japanese," Yan Guang replied with his characteristic severity. "As for our image, that is no great obstacle. The Japanese commoners have long suffered under the oppression of their domain lords and the shogunate. Their ordinary lives are already unbearably harsh. What national hatred or family vengeance could they harbor in their hearts? Just getting a few mouthfuls of food and barely surviving is cause enough for gratitude. Look now: the shogunate troops in Nagasaki have gone mad. They've burned Nagasaki to a barren wasteland. These commoners now have no shelter, much less food or clothing. When the time comes, as long as we offer them some food and clothing, do you really think we'll have trouble putting them to use?"

"These shogunate troops are acting with such perversity, and it certainly works to our advantage... But we won't be able to feed all these displaced Japanese commoners when the time comes, will we?" Zhao Song countered. "Nagasaki Port is now a ruin. Our transport ships cannot bring in large quantities of grain, since the army at the front must take priority, and we need to ship munitions, weapons, and reinforcements first."

"Our precious grain was never meant to feed these Japanese commoners in the first place—otherwise, what did we come here for!" Yan Guang replied bluntly. "Once our main army is ashore, we will immediately begin conscripting civilians. Those who are willing must be recruited; those who are unwilling must be seized. Collecting corpses, repairing the port, rebuilding dwellings—which of these does not require massive manpower? When the time comes, for those who can work, we'll issue just enough rations to keep them from starving. Those who cannot work can fend for themselves. Our Great Han did not come all this way to perform charitable deeds."

"Staff Officer Yan... sometimes you are simply too blunt. Some things we can say in private, but must never be spoken aloud," Zhao Song gave a cold chuckle. "You know as well as I do that we came here under the banner of upholding justice. We cannot go to such extremes that we drive everyone into the shogunate's arms. Wouldn't that just be creating trouble for ourselves for no good reason?"

"I naturally understand your deeper meaning, my lord. But in war, we cannot afford to be so fastidious about everything," Yan Guang remained utterly grim. "We cannot give them our own grain, nor can we afford to. If we are to use anything, it must come from the local magnates. These magnates have built up their holdings over generations. They may not necessarily possess great wealth, but their stored grain is more than plentiful. Once we subdue them, feeding some laborers will of course be no problem."

"That is precisely the point!" Zhao Song nodded in agreement. "But the magnates of Kyushu are numerous. We cannot make enemies of them all; we must treat them differently. Pull in one faction to strike at another, root out the hostile faction completely, and use their wealth and lands to buy the hearts of the other magnates and the common people."

"I have naturally considered this as well. It is just... we have only ever fought wars within our own country before and truly do not understand how to deal with these Japanese magnates." Yan Guang shook his head, then let out a soft sigh. "I can only hope that Sir Zhou will manage matters well and win the allegiance of the Kyushu magnates as soon as possible. Otherwise, the troubles ahead of us will be many indeed!"