Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 203 - 140: Building Fortifications Under the Enemy’s Nose_2

Chapter 203: Chapter 140: Building Fortifications Under the Enemy’s Nose_2

Isn’t the other side mistaking these construction teams for the Lang Faction? These workers, promoted from the labor squads into the workshops, had long since developed the habit of marching in formation. From a distance, they didn’t look much different from the Lang Faction who both farmed and drilled in this era, except they didn’t have equipment like armor or array hats.

But after glancing over a few times, he didn’t dwell on this issue. The enemy couldn’t be mistaken forever, and in reality, he only had that many soldiers—he couldn’t magically pull more out of thin air. In the end, it all came down to hard strength.

Anyway, as long as the enemy didn’t attack, he’d just keep working on the fortifications—let’s start with that!

......

Harano had started building fortifications under the enemy’s very nose again.

Now, he wasn’t short on manpower. In fact, because he’d dragged back so many people before, he’d ended up with surplus labor to the point where he had to drive soldiers out of the camp to feast just to reduce the strain of quartering them. As for things like volcanic ash cement, he wasn’t short on those either: digging dirt cost nothing, lime was free, and you could cut as much firewood as you pleased for burning lime. All this cement basically counted as a windfall; the only cost was feeding the big labor battalion—and those new immigrants would need to be fed anyway, even if they weren’t out digging ash and firing lime. He couldn’t very well watch them starve to death! So, all in all, the basic cost was close to nothing.

Since his materials were virtually free, he’d of course hoarded a huge stockpile over the winter, storing up several hundred boatloads. As long as Oda Nobunaga didn’t overrun his home base, he could keep shipping cement here without end, using it as liberally as he pleased.

With plenty of labor and materials, he wasn’t trying to build an aqueduct tens of kilometers long or a massive Roman Colosseum—he just wanted to build a castle about half the size of a football pitch (with the conditions in Japan, that already counted as a castle; after all, Hosokawa Castle was only just over 700 square meters). All that plus a sheep wall connecting north and south—that’s a connector wall between castles, a bit lower and narrower than main castle walls—nothing technically difficult, so the speed of construction soared for a while.

Such brazen behavior naturally made Asahina Taisuke quite unhappy, but at the same time, even more cautious. He was now sure Harano was truly strong—otherwise, he couldn’t possibly be so fearless.

He didn’t rush to harass them for the time being. He wanted to see what exactly Harano was aiming for. He didn’t believe any crazy talk about "walls rising a foot or two in a day," but by the next day, he found himself half persuaded. The other side had worked just over half a day and then through the night with firelight; the strange castle’s two wings really did sprout a stretch of short wall, dozens of rooms long and two feet high. They appeared to be wooden and soaking wet, as if someone had been pouring water on them all night without stopping.

Meanwhile, the rear and flanks of the enemy castle had also sprouted some scattered short walls. Judging by their shape, it seemed the enemy was planning to patch in a couple of small rock fortresses there.

Asahina Taisuke didn’t dare keep watching—if he did, he’d wind up the laughingstock of the century. He hurriedly ordered the samurai and Lang Faction to eat and get ready to launch a harassing assault. But even during the time he spent preparing the attack, the enemy kept building, with some of their people already dismantling the outer wooden boards of the short walls right beside the castle, exposing a bluish-black, extremely smooth wall surface inside. The removed boards were immediately moved upward, ready to raise the wall even higher.

This was the incremental layering technique: just keep the surface moist for about 18 hours, and when the first layer of concrete had finished hydrating and curing, the forms could be removed without causing the surface to crack, turning it into a "brick." Then a new layer could be cast on top. The binder and reinforcing bars in the center were simply cement and thin bamboo. Harano didn’t care how durable the thing was—after all, he only had seven months’ worth of rations. If the Imagawa family hadn’t retreated after seven months, he’d leave on his own. So as long as these walls stayed up for seven months, they were good enough!

Asahina Taisuke was utterly dumbfounded—he’d never imagined such a magical way to build a castle. The wall really did grow a foot or two each day. If Harano kept this up for three to five days, he could completely seal off the main road, and in seven or eight days, even if the sheep wall were broken through, there’d probably be a bunch of rock fortresses behind it for defense.

He didn’t dare wait any longer. Urging his men relentlessly and supervising the line himself, he was forced to launch an assault, ordering the Lang Faction samurai to keep the Takeda and Oya family ashigaru in line, and push forward the wooden and bamboo shields built in the past couple days, shouting "oh-oh hey" as they advanced. These wood and bamboo shields were a Japanese form of large shield: shikime-gaki, kumiko-gaki, and hashiri-gaki were all types. In castle defense, they blocked arrows; in field battles, they could stop cavalry. Here, they were meant to cut down the Wanjin Army’s iron cannon casualties.

Asahina Taisuke didn’t even expect to take the enemy’s castle at this point. He just wanted to scatter their construction teams. But to his surprise, the construction teams, confronted with this massive assault, only fell into confusion for a moment before quickly regaining order. They just kept doing what they were supposed to do, actually moving even faster than before—construction speed even picked up.

At the same time, atop the enemy’s castle, a huge, gleaming Gourd Horse Seal banner was raised high. A shrill chorus of bamboo and metal whistles suddenly rang out, and in an instant, over a hundred dark gun barrels appeared from the parapets on the wall.

On the northern mountains, the enemy seemed to have received a signal as well—a small squad left the rock fortress and began moving toward the halfway point up the slope. Asahina Taisuke had to send some men over to contain them, lest they bombard his side from the flank.

The enemy by the southern riverside also began to move, forcing Asahina Taisuke to split off more men to hold them back. At this point, the Imagawa army at the front finally advanced into maximum bow range, and immediately loosed a shower of arrows, trying to scatter the "Lang Faction" crews working at the front. But the distance was too great, and with the enemy moving quickly at a signal, the arrows did little; barely anyone got hit.

At this moment, the Wanjin Army’s iron cannon atop the wall opened up—instantly, more than a hundred plumes of gray-white gun smoke burst forth. With the Wanjin troops firing from above, their range and angles were vastly superior, and the volley smashed the wood and bamboo shields to splinters. Over a dozen Imagawa soldiers dropped, screaming in pain.

Next came a wave of arrows arcing high from the ramparts, plunging down and knocking down another dozen or so.

The Imagawa family was forced to deploy large numbers of archers to return fire on the wall, trying to suppress the enemy’s ranged firepower. But with parapets, arrow shelters, and the high ground, not to mention the superb iron cannon—though both sides were firing at maximum range with poor accuracy—the Imagawa still took a beating. Each volley left another dozen men down.

Harano was also holding an iron cannon, firing steadily, utterly unfazed by the workers getting hit—in his mind, this was war. If the Imagawa family wanted to trade large numbers of samurai and Lang Faction for some of his construction workers, he was more than willing!

For this new domain, he’d already prepared himself to lose half his men. He hoped the Imagawa family had the same resolve!

If not, then this land ought to be his!