Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 103 - 64: Not Many Chances to Save Oda Nobunaga’s Life

Chapter 103: Chapter 64: Not Many Chances to Save Oda Nobunaga’s Life

Harano has always been unlucky since he was a child, which made his childhood personality rather dark and irritable. Even though, as a teenager, thanks to Meng Ziqi’s father’s teaching and influence, he managed to reshape himself and changed a lot, the unlucky childhood still left some residual effects. As a result, his thinking was still complicated—he always tended to expect the worst, was always suspicious that someone wanted to harm him, and constantly worried something unexpected would happen.

All of this was beaten into him when he was little. Even though he tried hard to restrain himself, it was useless—he was just a naturally suspicious person.

So, even if Ah Man herself wasn’t sure whether her intuition was right, Harano still put a lot of stock in it and murmured, "You mean... we should head back first?"

If Ah Man wanted to go back, then he would probably "listen to advice and eat his fill"—he’d just go back with her right away. Even if nothing ended up happening, he wouldn’t blame her. In fact, he was already considering retreating early—there would always be chances to watch the excitement again next time. It’s always right to play it safe this time.

So what if people call him a coward? There’s never any need to take pointless risks. That’s just who he is!

While he was thinking about whether to slip away right now, Ah Man waved her hand dismissively. "No need for that. I just think that the big fool is in trouble this time. Anyway, even if he loses, he’ll be the scapegoat. We can definitely run faster than him; there’s no real danger."

Yeah, whether Oda Nobunaga lived or died had nothing to do with her, as long as Harano survived. And since Harano wasn’t on the battlefield, there was no need to run away early. With her and A Qing around, even if Harano was dead weight, they could drag him and rush back to the camp first, then grab the whole family and make a mad dash back to Takeshige Manor.

As for what to do once they got back to Takeshige Manor—well, that would be up to Harano to decide. They’d just follow him at that point.

Since even an expert like Ah Man didn’t think there was a problem, Harano finally relaxed for now, turned his gaze back to the battlefield, and muttered, "Then let’s wait a bit longer. Though, looking at it, Oda Nobunaga doesn’t seem like he’s about to lose..."

"I don’t know either." Ah Man was also looking at the battlefield, starting to frown again, muttering, "But there’s definitely something wrong—I just haven’t figured it out yet."

After mumbling that line, she didn’t say anything else. After all, both sides on the battlefield were already preparing to engage.

Oda Nobunaga was the first to attack. Three ranks of long spear Ashigaru maintained tidy lines under the shouts of lower-ranking Samurai, steadily pressing toward the Matsudaira family. The Matsudaira family didn’t want to just wait around either, since that would lower morale. Similarly, the drums beat furiously; three ranks of long spear Ashigaru moved up to meet them head-on.

Both sides entered each other’s range almost at the same time, and Ashigaru archers started firing. At first, they lobbed light arrows; when the distance closed, they switched to heavy arrows. Even the long spear Ashigaru on the flanks had archers break off to start heavy arrow duels, suppressing each other.

In the arrow duel, Oda Nobunaga’s side clearly had the advantage. His Lang Faction Ashigaru were better protected—for example, some long spear Ashigaru, even with several shaking feathered arrows stuck in their armor, didn’t fall a single step behind and kept advancing in formation.

The Matsudaira family suffered more, especially the unarmored archers. In the heavy arrow duels, quite a few of them went down. If they weren’t dead right away, they lay on the ground groaning in pain—but Japanese bows were too soft, and the bow strength too weak, so overall the losses weren’t too great, and it didn’t affect the big picture.

Looks like, at this point, the war was still going to be decided through hand-to-hand combat!

Harano watched as arrows were exchanged in several waves, with both sides’ formations leaving a scattering of bodies behind them. His adrenaline was rising uncontrollably, and tension crept into his mood—he’d lived twenty years and had never seen arrows flying everywhere before, never seen so many dead people!

While he waited for the two sides’ long spear Ashigaru to begin close combat, he asked Ah Man, "Is there some trick to these long spear formations?"

Ah Man was also closely observing the fighting, still mulling over her inexplicable sense of unease. Casually, she replied, "Of course there are tricks. What they’re doing now is called a ’spear hedge’—usually three to eight ranks, all holding their spears straight and crashing into the enemy, used for launching an attack;

There’s also the ’high-low spears’—the front row of spear Ashigaru kneel, the middle row rests their spears on the shoulders of the row in front, the back row raises theirs over their heads, usually to withstand mass cavalry charges;

And then there’s the ’crossed spears’—the rear rows squeeze forward sideways, interleaving their spears with the front row to form a sort of fork. This lets them suddenly stab at enemies diagonally across—mostly used in breaking formations during chaotic melee.

Anyway, there are all sorts of messy techniques. They’re all commanded by the Spear Generals or the spear Ashigaru commanders mixed into the long spear Ashigaru, who use them as the situation requires."

Harano nodded. He thought—even if Japan was isolated on an island, unable to exchange military tech much with the outside world, after so many years of war and so many people dying, it’s really not just a country brawl anymore. When the fighting started there was real system to it—not just mindless stabbing and killing.

While he was lost in wild thoughts, the spear Ashigaru formations on both sides finally drew closer. He thought the next thing would be a wild yell and both sides charging, ramming those four-meter long spears into enemy bodies, people and horses flying everywhere. But both sides suddenly slowed their drums, their advancing footsteps faltered, and the archers who’d been shooting off to the sides also started falling back. The rear ranks stopped firing too.

"Why aren’t they charging?" Harano was surprised—this was exactly the right distance for a charge.

"You can’t just charge whenever you want. If you get ’spear-smacked,’ you fall behind and get into real trouble. But actually, that big fool really isn’t such an idiot—it seems I underestimated him before. He’s running things by the book and hasn’t messed up at all." Ah Man replied offhandedly, though her eyes never left the battlefield.