The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 35

The morning saw the rousing up of the 1600-man army, which was almost liking trying to move a full herd of cattle but eventually the armies got organized, grouped up, and then quickly began marching forth once again.

From what my second in commands had said, they had managed to make the men do some exercises for climbing but as I glanced over them, I knew it was going to take quite a lot for us to actually get the men into any shape to begin climbing some walls and what not. I mean, I was expecting some flip off mountain-goat bull crap from my men right away but as I glanced at them as many were doing exercises to get their upper body strength better by holding weights able their heads, it made me wonder if I should bother at all.

Our surroundings were getting rather interesting, though, as we went by lots and lots of different farmland with little to no woods or even hills around us. The farmland was mainly rice paddies with some cow pastures but what I noticed were how the locals viewed us.

We were barely into Date territory and with all these pastures and yet it's the people we noticed as many were working while we walked by the roads going by them. Many immediately got up and ran to a safer distance as we marched along and as many of us watched them move away from us as best as they can, it was though not surprising still a bit shocking more so when many began to hurl objects at us. It were mainly occasional rocks and plants but the column did its best not to immediately fire on them with bows and tanegashima as either wouldn't really do our reputation very well. But as some rocks came sailing in my direction and one even bouncing off my kabuto helmet, it was very difficult for me not to immediately grab one of the daikyu we brought with us and fire an arrow between this farmers eyes.

But thankfully, we soon had bigger fish to fry than the farmers as it looked like the Date had come prepared for a fight it seemed.

The winding road had soon turned into another large open plain that was not being used for farmland and as the column marched along the road, I was wondering if we would ever meet the Date in open combat along the road or if by chance they would simply decide to come and meet us when we got to their first cities of Furukita and Naragata. It would make partial sense they would keep to their cities that were likely more defensible than to come at us in open battle but with them being in their home territory, it was just as likely they would stop us here rather than let us get so far into their territory.

But as we approached the first hill we had seen in a long time, actually ever since we had left the mountain pass, I glanced over it's long shape that spread across the plains as, I then suddenly heard a blow from a jinkai as the whole army froze before rushing to the sides to spread out as the Date came running over the hill towards us, right off from the get go.

I had my men form up with the spears in the front and archers behind them while I had the Yellow Handed put his 40 horses on the left flank as our line was quite interesting but at the moment it was the basic formation of rifles in front of spears, archers behind the spears, and cavalry either on our flanks or in the small gaps of our army that divided up the army by its commanders.

With the Date charging us, it let us also get a bit more crafty with our fomations as I was with the Winged Robin was on the left flank and as the Date dame charging for us, I then ran over to him as I said to him, "Angle your forces in to force the enemy that comes at us, we have a bit of a V-look! It'll allow us to maybe encircle them!"

He nodded as he got the idea real quickly and we immediately began to angle our forces as the Date came charging at us and as I watched them, it wasn't long before I took up my bow as my commanders had split the yari ashigaru amongst themselves, my archers followed my suit as I then hollered out, "Fire!" as our arrows went flying into the air with hundreds of other arrows from the rest of the army.