The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 31

The morning dawn slowly arose over the trees while my troops were already up and on the move towards the river still, the sound of their feet and armor heard through the surroundings around us. We had camped roughly halfway from the river and the Yellow Handed and his 20 cavalrymen has soon joined up with us about halfway into setting up camp with one troubling sight they had seen with their own eyes.

"They're crossing the river with a bridge that's being still built! We have maybe another day before they reach the end and begin offloading a considerable army! We suspect easily in the numbers of 500 men in total if not more!" Had said the Yellow Handed when he had come to me in my tent.

110 men versus 500+ men of the Date, likely many of those of the Date being veterans from previous battles with others and that would also mean an experienced general.

The odds were stacked against me once again but I had one advantage that I could use to leverage: the river was long and the bridge still wasn't completed not to mention it was only one bridge and this would funnel them heavily down it till they made more.

But while I marched with my men while the Yellow Handed had went out and secured the other side whilst hopefully staying from sight of the enemy that could very easily bombard his small force with a barrage of arrows.

But then I felt someone bump my shoulder and I glanced over from where I was marching to see the Blue Handed with his yard in hand as he said to me, "What's the plan, sir?"

I gave it only a moment before I told him, "We shall turn the river red with their blood...."

It took only a few more hours before we came to the Yellow Handeds cavalry group as they had their horses tied up to some tree branches while many looked out from near the edge of the tree line to what I could now see with my own eyes going over the river. The engineers were about a little more than halfway to the river as the Date army was camped on the other side, likely waiting for the river bridge to finish construction before they came over and thus no guards were present with the engineers.

I looked back to the others before I then said, "Blue Handed, divide the yari forces between you, the Noble Ronin, and the Green Oni and stay here in the woods, get a camp and some defenses going. Have the Yellow Handed and his men go out and gather supplies around the woods and maybe any nearby village."

"As for the archers we have.... on me.." I said and the 40 archers joined me while we got out daikyus out and began to notch arrows to the bowstrings while we ran towards the edge of the tree line.

The engineers would all look up at the sight if black figures on the other side and while many paused in their work, they soon learned my intent as the arrows we had were fired into the engineers while they were essentially sitting ducks on the bridge. Arrows flew past and into the after but it soon left the front half of the bridge filled with arrows as many of the engineers flew over the edge from taking arrows to their bodies while others were either pushed over or fled as fast as they possibly could when we rained another barrage of arrows onto them.

"Hold fire.... let's see what they do.." I said to my archers as we then retreated into the tree line and waited there.

The engineers would soon returned with a few yari-armed guards and a wooden plank for a shield but when many tried to get back to work, another rain of arrows from the black figures on the other side rained down upon them more arrows that soon saw them and the guards off with a few more dead lying on the bridge.

"And so it begins." Said Joey while his men were cutting down trees to make into fortifications.

It'd be about an hour of waiting with notched bows, crouched down in the bushes with the trees near the rivers edge before the next wave of engineers and Date ashigaru now armed with both yari and daikyu would come and this time it was a bit more of a proper force compared to the last one which had seemed like a lazy reaction.