The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 30

Minokonai was as busy as ever when it slowly came into view while the fortress of the Anno clan, its nobori flags of their clan symbols still proudly fluttering over the parapets, sat silently on its spot while we were quick to enter the city.

I decided to keep all of the gear and simply send the money with the Blue Handed and his group back to the Anno clan with a note explaining what had happened while then also going to a nearby falcon owner to get myself something to send a message to.

The Falcery was a small building on the edge of the city with several cages of Falcon and a rather decently built man in his 40's in charge. I slowly approached as the sqwuaks and calls of the many falcons around me pierced my ears but I managed to block it out as the man then bowed to me in respect before asking, "What may I do for you, samurai?"

"I wish to send a message to the Oda capital." I told him.

The man bowed and gave me a small parchment and brush with ink as he then said, "I shall fetch a falcon for you."

I was quick about it, easily whipping through the letter and finding a way to attach the Date note with it just before the man came with a hooded falcon as its eyes were blinded to make sure it didn't fly away when it shouldn't.

I handed him the parchment and he attached it to the bird before I paid him and then left him to send the bird off, knowing that attending to my men was likely going to take priorities over anything else.

I quickly made my way back to the outskirts of Minokonai where my band of warriors were setting up a small camp and when I approached, the ashigaru were either all training or all setting up camp and some defenses around it, with no one amongst the 90 men being lazy in the slightest. It was a good thing as it would probably not be long before we were asked to do another task.

I entered the camp and the first to greet me was the Yellow handed as he held the reigns to his horse, telling me, "Bloody Handed... was the message sent out?"

"Of course. How goes training?" I asked him.

"It goes well.. the men are getting better at their bladesmanship while the archers are progressively getting better with their aim... my horsemen have managed to get a tad better on horseback but their lancing still needs some work." He told me as I walked towards where my small tent would be.

Once inside, I then sat down at my table while I told him, "Keep the training up as much as you can... I want them as best prepared for combat as possible."

He nodded before he then left and as I sat there before my table, I then took a map out of the Oda territory as I began to plot out the possible invasion of the Date.

The Date, from what I could tell, seemed to be in either the middle of everyone or opposite side of the Tokugawa, but since I didn't know for sure where they were it was a simple guess. I then put a block where we found the note at and began to look around the terrain.

The surroundings around Minokonai was epithet hilly, heavily forested, or both of the two terrains combined with some mountains. There were a few rivers around to cross over via bridges but none really connected to the Dates territory, leaving me to suspect they were going to likely go through one of the other terrains. I looked for anything like a choke point and lo and behold there were two connected to the Dates from here.

One was near a river, with two mountains forcing the army to it which would force them to go over it or make a bridge. That was the farthest one from Minokonai and the closets to where the ambush took place.

I looked to the other and there was a slight dilemma. Though the pass between the hills was certainly choked full of forest that likely would slow any interlopers down, it was the most direct route to Minokonai between the two chokepoints and was the smoothest way to Oda territory without crossing a river.