A Time Traveller's Guide To Feudal Japan

The Miura army did not slow for even a moment. They were unwilling to let their prey escape for a second time.

Seeing them on the horizon as he lifted the flap of his tent, Kenshin was stunned. "Did they march throughout the night just to get here? Even then, the pace needed to maintain that march... It’s too much. They will be exhausted."

He ran his fingers across his jaw as he stroked his chin in thought. Pushing his men to such limits was foolish, that much was obvious. His own men had rested through the entire night, whereas the Miura army had all but jogged for near sixteen hours. Logic dictated that he draw his sword and crush them for their foolishness, but he was hesitant to give that order. Something wasn’t right.

The Uesugi camp was buzzing to life around him. Men stumbled out of their tents in their kimonos and dunked their heads into water basins, shocking themselves free of the last of their sleepiness, and then they would stumble back inside and buckle on their armour and sheath their swords at their hip.

"My Lord," one his generals kneeled in front of him. "Your orders?"

Reluctantly, Kenshin gave the command, still unconvinced that it was the right thing to do. Everything about it stank of a trap, but where did that trap lie? "Form up. We will meet them."

The general nodded and stood up, holding his helmet by his side. He quickly caught sight of his lieutenants and began to bombard them with a series of orders, preparing them for battle.

Kenshin’s horse was led in front of him. The peasant soldiers saddled the black beast and armoured it in the same deep purple armour that he wore. He mounted it absentmindedly, still thoroughly distracted, trying to solve the riddle of this reckless assault.

With the plains ahead, the Miura army allowed themselves a cheer. Their morale was unusually high for an army that had just spent the entire night marching. They seemed to be even more alert than the Uesugi men who boasted their night of sleep.

"There’s no escape for the bastards now!" Morohira shouted to the delight of the men around him. They raised their rifles and stamped their feet, clamouring for Uesugi blood. "We will trample them!"

"Begin battle orientation!" Jikouji shouted next, as they grew nearer the short grass of the rolling plains that the Uesugi men had lined themselves up on. With his order, the Miura men found their step and they marched with robotic precision, all eight thousand of them landing a foot at the same time.

When they stepped onto the battlefield, they did so as a single entity. The plains of the field were surrounded by mountains, making a valley of its own. It caused Gengyo’s heart to pause as he interpreted his own profundity in the setting. "And so we enter the valley of the shadow of death," he muttered, hoping that such an omen did not link his fate to the poem that he had recalled.

"What was that, Tadakata?" Akiko asked, overhearing him.

Gengyo shook his head. It would be impossible to explain. "Nothing, my dear. Your soldiers are waiting for you. Keep yourself safe."

She looked ahead, seeing that Rin had already ridden away to take command of their units. "You take care of yourself too, Tadakata," she said to him, as she gently laid a kiss on his cheek. When her heels pressed to the sides of her horse, it lurched forward, and she disappeared in her black armour, her beauty hidden underneath a heavy helmet.

The Uesugi army stood a kilometer away across that field, soldiers still running into formation, their helmets and their armour disorganised. It might have been prudent for Gengyo to give the order for them to charge right there and then, but he patiently waited, allowing his own men to adopt the formation that they were so used to.

They had formed their soldiers into a flat line and each general took command of several units. In the centre, only Gengyo and the Takeda strategist Yamagata remained.

"Five thousand cavalry in reserve. He wields them like they are the last arrow of his bow, only sending them in when the kill is certain," Yamagata began to explain the formation they were seeing before them. Behind the main line of infantry, there was thd block of five thousand cavalry that the strategist mentioned. "Seven thousand bow samurai and three thousand bow ashigaru. His understanding of their range and their speed is exceptional. His sense of timing is not something that can be easily mastered." The bowmen stood in front of the infantry with quivers across their backs, ready to deter any attackers that were to come their way.

"And the infantry? Anything noteworthy?" Gengyo asked.

"They reflect his approach to warfare. He favours the positional battle. He slowly works his men into better positions, never adhering to a preordained formation for long – he works the position as the battle commands. He moves like a snake and makes his battles slow. You might sink your teeth into his wing and think that you have the victory, but then you feel that he has coiled around you and the battle is over." As Yamagata spoke, he did so with a certain amount of respect that was tempered by hatred. He had fought a fair share of battles against the Uesugi warlord.

"Troublesome," Gengyo stated. "I favour the tactical battle. A single strong attack with everything behind."

"As did Lord Shingen. Kenshin is too cautious to allow an attack like that to succeed, we must be patient my Lord and try to keep our cards hidden until there is a weakness that we can exploit. If it please you, my Lord, this is the sort of battle that I am used to. I have spent the past decade training myself to deal with this snake," Yamagata said.

Gengyo looked him hard in the eye. "I will allow you to take the lead then."