Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 199 - 137: Basically Died in Vain!_2

Chapter 199: Chapter 137: Basically Died in Vain!_2

He personally led the team ashore at the first possible moment, and after confirming that this temporary landing spot hadn’t been discovered, he immediately ordered Ah Qing to personally lead people out to establish a forward guard post. Any civilians who wandered in were to be captured, and any Lang Faction patrols from the local aristocrats were to be taken out on sight.

In short, do everything possible to delay being discovered; even if we end up making a big racket here with construction, as long as the local aristocrats aren’t blind, sooner or later we’ll be found, but every extra moment we can keep it secret is worth it.

The same goes at Wanjin—they’ve already started strict controls, trying to keep people from noticing anything unusual at Wanjin before all personnel and supplies are transferred, and to avoid interference from Nagano Castle. This time he’s putting everything on the line—if he doesn’t succeed, he’s finished. Anyone at Wanjin who can still breathe, regardless of gender, age, or whether they’ve got all their limbs, must come over to speed up fortification, even the workshops have been temporarily shut down.

No more making money—if you don’t have a piece of land of your own, always fenced in by others, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, you could end up as a juicy prize, devoured and consumed at any time.

He doesn’t want to be somebody’s supplement again. With iron resolve, while personally leading the troops in vigilance, he also encouraged them with kind words and strict orders for everyone to pitch in. In less than two days, he expanded the unloading area, set up a rudimentary small harbor, built storage areas, and even threw up some simple defensive works near the port, successfully finishing the first phase of the landing operation.

After that, the fleet began constantly shipping personnel and supplies here—vast amounts of volcanic ash cement, concrete, molds, timber, bamboo, and food were ferried in.

He led the troops to expand outward at the same time, establishing defense lines beyond the planned construction site. Thanks to thorough preparation and detailed planning, actual construction wasn’t a problem; all the work crews had already started laying simple roads and excavating foundations. But it was almost impossible to fully shield from local prying eyes—he’d only just left the little bay area for a day when the local aristocrats discovered them. Ah Qing had done her best, but the area was just too big to plug all the gaps. If the enemy climbed high for a lookout, at a distance they’d spot people suddenly busy here, take one look, and immediately turn and run; she had no way to stop that.

The first to discover the Wanjin Army was his old rival, the Oya Family, who’d previously had more than 50% of their people snatched by Harano. The spot Harano chose was just south of the Oya Family territory. Going north in order, there were his three old foes: the Oya Family, Takeda Family, and Ebina Family. To the south, the new neighbors were the Taisha Family and the Baoguan Family, whose strength was about the same as the first three old enemies. Except for the Root of the Chita Peninsula, there’d been little war in recent years; these local aristocrats were generally not that strong.

The Oya Family found that he’d turned up again and immediately freaked out. Last year, even three against one, they’d lost. This time, from a distance, Harano brought even more people. They had no intention of fighting at all, and immediately began gathering their people, moving everyone into Oya Castle, hoping Harano would circle around, see nothing worth stealing, and just go rob someone else.

Anyway, they’ve conceded; as long as he doesn’t rob them, it’s all fine.

But after hiding in the castle for two days, they realized something was off. Before, Harano would always loot and leave the same day, only rarely camping overnight on the shore due to lack of transport. But now, this time Harano showed up with so many people and hadn’t left, just squatting out in the wilds. That was really odd.

They’re not idiots, and knew the surrounding terrain better than Harano. Using various methods, they soon figured out the truth: over a thousand people were digging away madly behind Harano, with large amounts of supplies and people constantly being shipped in by sea. This shameless bastard looked like he was planning to build a fort here and stay for good.

The Oya Family patriarch was furious on the spot. Harano was turning into an epic-level terrible neighbor. If he managed to establish a foothold here, it wasn’t just a matter of population raids—chances are, even the land would end up renamed Harano, with no chance left for anyone else to survive.

So he hurriedly sent people to notify his kin and allies—the Takeda, Ebina, Taisha, and Baoguan families. But last time, the three families tried to kill Harano for good but ended up failing badly, suffering heavy losses. They haven’t recovered yet. Even adding in the Taisha and Baoguan families now, they could only scrape together about as much fighting force as last time, and didn’t dare go looking for trouble with Harano. If they lost another pitched battle and another few hundred men, they wouldn’t even have enough left to defend their castle. Whether Harano settled here for good wasn’t the point—they’d be finished regardless.

But this kind of rotten neighbor had to be dealt with. So the patriarchs came forward themselves, hurrying to the Bai Chuan Pass to meet key figures of the Imagawa family, Yamaguchi Family, and Matsudaira family, delivering this dire news:

It’s over, we’re finished! The big idiot Oda has dispatched his strongest retainer, the Nozawa family, bringing the elite Oda Iron Cannon Team, and launched a naval surprise attack on Chita County—it’s almost certainly an attempt to attack the Bai Chuan Pass from both sides, destroy the Yamaguchi Family, drive back the Imagawa and Matsudaira, and reestablish their evil rule over Chita County. Lords, please send your troops at once and wipe them out—or at least drive them back into the sea!

They themselves didn’t dare fight Harano, so they just went straight to the big bosses. Harano wasn’t surprised by this at all, so he simply put up a lighthouse, shuttling people and supplies day and night, and kept pressing Endo Chiyoda and the others—no matter how, even if they had to drink poison to quench their thirst and force things ahead, the plan had to be completed on time, so they’d have at least a basic defensive stronghold before the enemy arrived.

This was already the "second-worst" scenario—discovered by the enemy early, without achieving his best hope of being hidden for ten days or so while getting ahead with construction. But he always makes plans with the worst in mind, so he could accept this outcome—hey, it’s not bad at all. At least it’s not the worst case: being discovered the moment they came ashore, with the enemy smart and fearless, both calling for help and making reckless attacks so you can’t even focus on building.

If it’s not the worst case, you call that lucky!

He could accept reality, but soon Ah Man brought him another "second-worst" piece of news: Oda Nobunaga has taken Qingzhou City. The Oda head of the Qingzhou main family, Oda Nobuyoshi, seeing the situation was hopeless, had committed seppuku at home. Most of his household and retainers had scattered, only a few forces in the vicinity of Qingzhou City were still resisting, a desperate struggle for their family’s survival—Nobunaga would wipe them out soon enough.

Harano listened to the news and was speechless for a while. Oda Nobuyoshi was the head of the Lower Four Provinces Oda main family in Owari. How was he so useless? After holding Qingzhou City for all these years, he just died so easily? Couldn’t he at least defend the city for a few more months?

He really didn’t buy them a single day—not even close to dying a worthwhile death!