The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 41

Shiramamoto may have been relieved of one siege but in the end another siege was placed upon it by what remained of the Oda forces. I looked up from the edges of the moat from behind a wooden barricade as the defenders attempted a futile defense at anything they saw around them but most kept their heads down as myself and the Winged Ronins Warbands held down a defensive siege around the walls while Yoshiharu, Spear Donkey, and the Spear Slayer all simply set up camp at the edges of the siege where they couldn't have stray lead shot and arrows fly into them in the middle of the night.

I looked up at the walls of the city as it sat on its hill surrounded by its most as I then wondered who was even defending the city at this point. The Tokugawa? They were shattered and I hadn't heard any army of their moving around as of recent. Bandits? Must've been a lot of bandits who took this place to warrant a siege on it. One of the other clans? Date were the only ones close enough, the Uesugi were on the other side of the world practically from this city.

So I looked up at what few defenders dared to try and poke their heads up to take a shot to be only answered by massed tanegashima and yumi fire that time and time again forced them back. As I looked up as well, Joey and Noble walked over as the Green Oni asked, "What's the plan?"

"We May have no choice but to siege them down completely." I told them as I looked up towards the walls and could only wonder myself how we would be getting up there. And with roughly 300 men left from the battle, we didn't have much numbers to launch a full scale assault like last time. And I was distinctly not wishing to pull another Naragata if I had any say in the matter.

"Agreed. We should also prepare some defenses in case the Takeda come back with another general." Said the Green Oni.

I looked over to General Yoshiharu walking over and as myself and my officers gave a bow to him, he then asked, "We'll be sieging them out. We may have the time and the numbers to allow us to force the defenders to surrender fully."

"General Yoshiharu, if I may, what happened to the Takeda general that we faced?" I asked him with a bow.

"Oh... he didn't make it from the gates." Said Yoshiharu and I glanced towards the mountain of bodies still by the gates.

I simply nodded my head. I shouldn't care much about those I've met previously as after all he had been part of the Takeda, an enemy of the Oda and almost a mortal enemy to them in fact, and thus we wouldn't likely have been able to speak on good terms for that reason alone. So I dropped such a thought and said, "How shall we spread out forces out for the siege?"

"We'll have you and the Winged Ronin on this side of the city and my men will stay on the other side where the Takeda may come from." said General Yoshiharu as he then brought out a map and some blocks as he began to illustrate physically the plan as he spoke. "Right now, we have a limited time window to look at. The Takeda may have been stopped here but they will be back and they will be back in force as this city is a good staging ground into the Date lands from the West... But if we successfully capture and hold onto this city, we will be able to throw more forces at the Date cities and spread them even thinner than they are now. And taking the rest of the territory around this city for that matter."

As we all watched this, suddenly the Blue Handed appeared at the edge of the tent entrance and as I glanced at him, I nodded my head as I motioned for him to stay until after Yoshiharu had explained his plan of how the siege was going to go. Once this little meeting was done and everyone left to deal with various other things, I walked over to the Blue Handed as I asked him, "What is it?"

"We managed to salvage somethings from the Takeda and it involves some rather curious items you should see." The Blue Handed brought out a somewhat pristine Matchlock, the Tanegashima, as he then gave it to me for me to look over. Unlike traditional European muskets and matchlocks of the era, the Japanese tanegashima variant was improved model off what the Portuguese had given them but it didn't have some features the European ones had, like a shoulder stock or a shooting stick. Instead the Japanese gunners relied on a simple handle attached with the trigger and oftentimes some sort of shield or fence to fire them from.