Owari Yumeki Golden Day.

Good grief, I thought you guys were fighting all night and there would be thirty or fifty dead.

The next day, Shichibei woke up with huge dark circles under his eyes and was at a loss for words when he heard about this "victory." He only saw Sakuma Nobumori pacing anxiously back and forth along the riverbank.

Upon further questioning, Sakuma Nobumori admitted that he had overlooked a major problem: Saito's army could leverage its manpower advantage to harass Sunomata day and night.

It wouldn't be difficult for Saito's four or five thousand soldiers to select two or three hundred samurai without night blindness. They could be divided into two shifts and take turns launching nighttime raids. Sakuma's army, on the other hand, numbered only about four hundred, and only a few dozen of Sakuma Nobumori's trusted men were not night-blind.

They dared not launch an ambush in the middle of the night, nor were they able to deal with Saito's army's continuous night attacks.

A person will most likely suffer a mental breakdown if they don't sleep for three days. After three days of night raids by Saito's army, followed by a normal daytime attack on Sunomata, Nobumori was certain of his defeat, and a crushing one at that.

What can we do then?

Shichibei, upon hearing this, realized it was indeed true; almost no one could withstand three consecutive days without sleep. Last night, everyone hadn't slept well, and if they didn't get rest tonight, some might not be able to take it.

After a moment's thought, Sakuma Nobumori immediately decided to wrap up work early today and send the three thousand farmers who had come to participate in the pilgrimage back to the post station one ri (four kilometers) away.

The post station was built under the supervision of Shichibei, and it could provide shelter and rest for two or three hundred people from the rain. It was unlikely to accommodate three thousand people, but at least it had a wall, where people could light fires for warmth, set up tents, and there was a well and food.

The next day, he ordered the farmers to walk a mile to Sunomata to dig trenches and build a fortified city.

Each day, about an hour or so of daylight was sacrificed to ensure the well-being of the farmers who were being forced into labor. However, this meant that the originally planned seven-day task of digging the trenches might be delayed to nine days.

There's no other way but to do it this way.

The Sakuma clan's soldiers were divided into two groups: one group went back to rest with the farmers, and the other group stayed behind to guard Sunomata. Sufficient bonfires were lit at night to keep watch on Saito's army, just in case.

In that case, the soldiers won't be able to endure it. During the day, Saito's army will launch a "fierce" attack on the city, and all four hundred of you will have to go into battle. Some will fire guns, some will shoot arrows, and those without ranged weapons will have to throw stones.

Sakuma Nobumori was well aware of this concern. However, after observing the Saito army's situation on the first day, he discovered that the Saito army did not have many brave warriors, or rather, not many were willing to fight to the death.

Even with a reduction of one-third of their firepower, Saito's army would most likely still be unable to break through.

If we can stall until the trenches are completely dug and a circular defensive position is formed, and then summon Nobunaga's two thousand regular troops, we will win the battle.

That's a pretty high-risk, high-reward gamble!

Of course, Shichibei didn't say this directly, but silently listened to Sakuma Nobumori's arrangements. However, Nobumori's younger brother, Sakuma Nobutatsu, expressed a different opinion, arguing that such actions were too risky. The soldiers wouldn't be able to rest properly, and it would be a loss for the Sakuma family.

When Sakuma Nobutatsu spoke, Nobumori simply raised his hand to signal his younger brother to stop trying to persuade him. There was nothing to persuade him of; if they wanted to achieve great success in the Mino campaign, this risk was worth taking.

Seeing that Nobunaga is a powerful lord, and may one day become the regent of the shogunate, the "one-sixth lord" of the land, or the "governor of Yin and Yang," our Sakuma family cannot fall behind. Only by following in Nobunaga's footsteps now can we secure a place in the future's upheavals.

Perhaps in the future, when Nobunaga becomes a Kanrei (a high-ranking official in the imperial court), our Sakuma family, as the chief retainer of the Oda clan, will become the Kanrei-dai (a deputy Kanrei) or Naikkanrei (an inner Kanrei).

The Nagasaki clan, a powerful figure within the Kamakura Shogunate, disciplined Ashikaga Takauji as if he were a dog, publicly humiliating him. The Miyoshi clan, the deputy Kanrei (regent) of the Muromachi Shogunate, was also powerful, controlling nine provinces and possessing a staggering one million kan (including commercial towns), and deposed and installed shoguns.

What's the difference between a person without ideals and a salted fish?

At least for now, Sakuma Nobumori still has ideals. He still wants to work hard and carve out a place for the Sakuma family, a small local tycoon in Owari.

Alright, Shichibei is just an observer anyway, so of course he won't express any explicit objections. Nobumori is using the old Sa family's resources to fight, while Shichibei's resources have long since returned to Komakiyama Castle, so he's not in a hurry at all.

If we lose, we can just ride away.

As dawn broke, Saito's soldiers arrived at the Nagara River to fetch water. Both sides, in perfect unison, refrained from attacking each other. They were just risking their lives; don't take it so seriously. Who knows, in a few years, they might all be colleagues.

After the troops got up, boiled water, ate, and began to move around, Saito's army, under the command of Nagai Michitoshi, advanced to the north bank of the Nagara River to confront Oda's army.

let's hit.

As before, three teams were dispatched, one from the left, one from the center, and one from the right. The reward for killing Sakuma Nobumori was still 500 kan.

However, today's reward has been increased to 500 kan (a unit of currency), no longer just 500 kan of cash. If he can kill Sakuma Nobumori, he can be promoted to a high-ranking hatamoto (a high-ranking official) of the Saito family, riding a large horse, having foot soldiers (foot soldiers) by his side, living in a mansion, and having beautiful concubines.

Even in the Edo period, a salary of one or two thousand koku was only attained by Ōmi Hatamoto (a high-ranking official in the Edo period). With this salary, one could even serve as a magistrate in the north and south of Edo, or go out to serve as a magistrate in Nagasaki.

Clearly, Saito Tatsuoki had also invested heavily. After all, defeating Sakuma Nobumori wouldn't have yielded any territory, and the bounty would have come from his own direct domain, which was quite substantial.

The reward greatly excited Saito's army. A samurai named Suzuki Shin'emon charged forward with a large spear, followed by his henchmen wielding shields. With a loud shriek, they destroyed two sections of the horse guardrail in an instant.

Suzuki's offensive continued unabated. He dropped his rifle, picked up his back flag, and charged forward, shouting and yelling. His three-cornered straw hat, illuminated by the sunlight, shone with an extremely bright brilliance.

The Oda army's arquebusiers on either side immediately fired. The lead bullets struck the shields, instantly hitting one of the soldiers. Undeterred, Suzuki picked up the shield and rammed it against the second layer of horse guards. The impact, with man and armor, was as heavy as a mountain; the horse guards were pushed back more than half a meter with the force of the ram.

As soon as a gap appeared, Suzuki was overjoyed. Like a raging bear, he dropped the shield, picked up the horse guardrail, and hurled it, breaching the second layer of guardrail.

Seeing such a fierce general, Sakuma Nobumori drew his bow and arrow, and he and his brother Sakuma Nobutatsu fired simultaneously. Suzuki, who was picking up shields, felt his hair stand on end and rolled away without thinking. Nobumori's arrow hit Suzuki's buttocks, and Nobutatsu's arrow hit Suzuki's skirt armor.

With their commander struck by an arrow, the previously fierce offensive came to an abrupt halt. Suzuki's followers immediately raised shields to cover their wounds, while the samurai on either side dragged Suzuki away, their coordination remarkably skillful.

Great, a bad war is good.

After another day of mutual torment, by evening Sakuma Nobumori had sent half of his soldiers to escort the farmers to the post station to rest. He himself remained in place, still fully armored, and began to light bonfires and erect watchtowers.

He was nervous, and so was Saito Tatsuoki. After all, four days had passed, and the Oda army had already dug at least forty percent of their trenches. In another four or five days at most, the entire trench project in Sunomata would be completed. By then, taking Sunomata would be much more difficult.

Yoshitatsu naturally asked what to do next. Hiroshi Hineno had previously proposed a plan to harass the exhausted Oda army day and night, but just this evening, they saw Sakuma Nobumori split off half of his troops and all the civilians to retreat. Everyone guessed that Nobumori's plan was to have half of his men rest and the other half on guard.

Everyone present acknowledged the strength of Saito's attack; it would be difficult to breach Oda's six-layered cavalry defenses. Even if only half of Oda's army was fighting, there were still nearly a hundred archer foot soldiers and forty or fifty arquebusier foot soldiers. They could easily withstand an attack of several hundred men without leaving any major openings.

While everyone was racking their brains, Hibino Shimono no Mamoru suddenly suggested that it might be possible to launch a water attack.

What do you mean?

It's the dry season now, so theoretically, a water attack shouldn't be possible. But if we build a dam upstream of the Nagara River, it would be quite simple: mobilize one or two thousand people to temporarily fill the riverbed with rice bags filled with soil. We wouldn't need to actually build a dam; we just need to be able to store the water coming from upstream.

Once the water level rises by several tens of centimeters, the dam is immediately opened and the water is released, rushing straight towards Sunomata. In this way, even if the Oda army cannot be defeated, it can greatly extend the time for the Oda army to build trenches.

If the water level were high enough, it wouldn't be impossible to use water as an army and directly overwhelm Oda's army. Of course, the probability of this is relatively small, since there is currently little water coming from upstream.

"Will it work?" Long Xing thought to himself, "There are only four or five days left. Maybe we won't make it in time." Hibino Shimotsuke no Kami is also a bachelor. "I'll give you my opinion. If you believe me, we'll go for it. If you don't, we'll continue our night raids to harass Oda's army."

The Saito family, the descendant of the Mino governor, had long since declined, with hardly any decent retainers. The new three generations of the Saito family, in total, hadn't even ruled Mino for forty years. That's barely enough time for one generation to grow up and the next to be born. Despite Tatsuoki being the lord of Mino, his hereditary retainers numbered less than Nobunaga's.

Without a large group of hereditary retainers united by shared interests, the core leadership of the entire nation would certainly be insufficient.

Of course, if a large number of hereditary retainers become too powerful and deeply entrenched, and then begin to turn against their master, that's a different story altogether.

After thinking it over, he couldn't come up with a better solution. Relying on his superior numbers, Ryūgen ordered Hineno Morishige (Hiroshige's younger brother) to take 300 soldiers back and conscript a few hundred more to build a dam on the upper reaches of the Chōra River and await further orders.

The next two days were nothing short of a disastrous battle. Unable to break through Oda's six-layered palisade, Saito's soldiers gradually began to falter. In war, the principle is simple: the first attack is powerful, the second exhausts, and the third weakens – that's the gist of it all.

At first, everyone was full of vigor, and with the high reward, they naturally charged forward fiercely. But when a few of the toughest guys went up to try and found they couldn't take it down, they became increasingly complacent.

At this time, more than two-thirds of the crooked moat surrounding the city of Moyu had been completed. With just two more days of effort, at most two more days, the entire moat could be dug through.

Sakuma Nobumori, who had been under a lot of stress for days, even managed to snore and sleep soundly during the night raid.

It wasn't until after 4 a.m., when the sky was just beginning to lighten and there was still about an hour and a half until full daylight, that the Oda army soldiers on guard were half-asleep and none of them noticed that the sound of water was getting louder.

As people got up one after another, they realized something was wrong; the water had already risen. It was also because they had been on continuous night raids for several days, and were exhausted, with almost no free time.

Sleeping too soundly!

Shichibei had just stood on the riverbank, preparing to get up early to urinate, when he sensed something was wrong. It wasn't Shichibei who was perceptive; it was the horse. For the past few days, the horse had been grazing along the riverbank, feeding on the grass shoots growing near the water source.

The horse didn't manage to nibble on a single sprout today; it's currently digging in the ground.

Why did the water level suddenly rise?

In a mere ten minutes, the upstream water had completely submerged Sunomata Island. Although it only reached ankle-deep, at most fifteen centimeters, it was still about one-ninth of Shichibei's height that was submerged.

Does that make it much more serious? Sakuma Nobumori was also jolted awake and immediately cried out in alarm. Could the spring floods have arrived so early? That shouldn't be the case.

Before he could finish complaining about his predicament, the drums of Saito's army on the opposite bank began to thunder. The front ranks carried shields and bamboo bundles, while the rear ranks carried bows and arrows and arquebuses. Clearly, Saito's army had known about the rising waters and was here to create more trouble for Oda's army.

With the island's trenches completely filled, if Shichibei still couldn't guess the water attack by this point, he would truly be a fool.

There was hardly any time for Sakuma Nobumori to hesitate. The water quickly reached halfway up his calves, and Sakuma Nobutatsu grabbed his brother and headed towards the south bank. If they didn't leave now, they would definitely not escape.

Nobumori still refused, because there were several mounds of earth on the land enclosed by the moat. These were dug up in preparation for raising the foundation of the castle and building arrow towers and guardhouses.

Those mounds of earth certainly won't be submerged; we can easily evacuate to the mound platforms. As long as we hold firm, there's always a way.

Huh? Nozomi didn't care about his brother's wailing. He called two samurai, grabbed Nozomi, and ran towards the south bank. Seeing Nozomi running, Shichibei quickly called two of his men over. "Let's get out of here too!"

He urged his horse into the water, and Shichibei clung tightly to its tail, not daring to let go for a moment. The water in the middle of the river had suddenly become more than a meter deep. For Shichibei, who was only 1.4 meters tall, this was almost an insurmountable chasm.

Fortunately, I had brought two horses. The Nagara River wasn't very wide, only about thirty or forty meters long. When I finally got ashore, completely soaked, I found that Nobumori had already reached the shore by clinging to the horses' necks.

Some of the Sakuma family's soldiers swam across the river by virtue of their strong swimming skills, some clung to two planks to propel themselves across, and some crossed hand in hand. The smaller soldiers were not so lucky; they slipped in the water, made a few bubbles, and then disappeared without even being able to call for help.

48. Fujikichiro pays the bill for the whole event.

Nobunaga wasn't angry about the defeat. After understanding the cause and effect, he simply nodded slightly to indicate that he understood.

Since Shichibei was also present, he was summoned to the palace at Komakiyama Castle to be questioned by Nobunaga as a "witness." Of course, Nobunaga mainly questioned Sakuma Nobumori and Sakuma Nobutatsu, as they were the main people in charge.

Who could have imagined that, with more than two-thirds of the mission accomplished, we would be attacked by Saito's army with water? Moreover, we couldn't prevent such a water attack, as the upper reaches of the Nagara River were under the control of Saito's army.

The "Sakuma Plan," which initially seemed very feasible, deviated significantly from its intended purpose during implementation and failed to achieve the expected results.

The point is that even if we bring tens of thousands of troops and thousands of peasants to meet the enemy in the front and build the city in the back, it is unlikely. After all, water attacks can be launched continuously, and the construction period will be so long anyway.

The construction site is only so big; two or three thousand farmers are already the limit. You can't cram 100,000 or 200,000 farmers in there. Everything has its limits; there's always a marginal effect to consider.

One hundred thousand people? There's not even enough room for them to stand.

Unless we first conquer Ōgaki Castle and gain a foothold in Nishi-Mino, which would allow us to cut off the road from Inabayama Castle to Sunomata, it would be impossible to build a castle in Sunomata and succeed.

But I've already conquered Ōgaki Castle, why would I need to build Sumimata Castle? Not only can I safely cultivate and develop the land on the south bank of the Nagara River, but I can also safely cultivate the land on the north bank, all thanks to the protection provided by Ōgaki Castle.

I'm at a loss for what to do...

Thinking that his personal intervention wouldn't change anything, Nobunaga simply offered a few words of comfort to Nobumori and told him to go back and rest. More than twenty members of the Sakuma army, unable to escape, ultimately died at Sunomata.

This was enough to make Sakuma Nobumori heartbroken for two weeks. His samurai retainers had suffered heavy losses when Sakuma Morishige defended Marune Fortress to the death. It had only been six or seven years ago, a time too short for children to even grow up. Now, more than twenty had died. Returning home that night, Sakuma Nobumori wept.

After Nobumori left, Nobunaga questioned Shichibei about certain points, and the answers were largely the same. Nobumori had truly worked hard this time, beyond reproach. Shichibei had also answered truthfully; since there were over three thousand people present, it was entirely possible to verify each person's account.

"Shichibei, sigh, never mind, you can go too."

Nobunaga raised his hand, as if to ask Shichibei something, but after thinking about it, he immediately gave up.

Of course we have to give up. What's the point of asking Shichibei about fighting? Shichibei can lead dozens of horses, but he might not be able to lead dozens of men. If you can't even lead dozens of men, what's the point of fighting a war?

After all, horses are easier to deal with, because if they don't obey, Shichibei can whip them with a big whip without any scruples. Of course, you can whip people, but you can't be sure they'll come and stab you in the middle of the night. A horse tied up in the middle of the night can't come and kill you.

The horse is good, but the person is bad.

Shichibei bowed to Nobunaga and then stood up to leave. He glanced around discreetly, but couldn't find Fujikichiro. Where was Fujikichiro now?

He had just fled back to the city from Sunamata for his life, and the one guarding the city gate was not Fujiyoshiro. That was to say, it was not his turn to be on duty in the past ten days or this month. Naturally, he could not immediately know the situation and report his plan to Nobunaga.

Fortunately, Kawamura-ya's main store was in Tsushima, and the branch near Komakiyama Castle only had Aji and Kinoshita Koichiro, who had come to help temporarily. The two had just heard that Sakuma Nobumori had returned from his defeat and, unable to find Shichibei anywhere, were anxiously planning to go to the Sakuma residence to inquire about him. Seeing Shichibei return now put their minds at ease.