Warring States Survival Guide-Chapter 213 - 148 Psychological Battle

Today, the Imagawa family’s offensive reached a new level as they launched a fierce attack along the entire front. Intense fighting broke out at several critical points—North Mountain, the rock fortresses by the river, the rammed earth wall, and "Stone City." Harano judged that the enemy was about to deliver a decisive blow, so he made full preparations, committing all available front-line forces onto the city walls.

At the same time, he also drafted contingency plans in case the rammed earth wall was breached and their rear lost its shield—preparing for a contraction of the defense. Should the wall fall, he was ready to abandon the North Mountain Rock Fortress, withdrawing the more than one hundred Wanjin Army soldiers left there back to the port rock fortress for defense.

Among the soldiers and support troops stationed on the rammed earth wall, some would enter "Stone City" to bolster its defenses, while others would fall back to several smaller rock fortifications between the port and "Stone City," strengthening the second line of resistance.

The rock fortresses by the river would be handled in the same way, though only a few dozen Wanjin Army soldiers held that position, enough to move them all into "Stone City."

The old, frail, and noncombatant civilians within the camp had also been organized and would withdraw to the port area as much as possible. If the port couldn’t hold them all, they’d be split up between "Stone City" and the various small rock fortresses on the second defense line.

If that still wasn’t enough... there was nothing else to be done...

In short, after the first line was breached, he intended to keep fighting, though he’d likely be surrounded on all sides and would lose the good supply conditions he had.

He didn’t have much choice. There were too many noncombatant civilians and a stockpile of supplies behind him, forcing his front line to stretch dangerously thin. The Wanjin Army was spread out, unable to cope with the enemy’s full-scale assault. The rammed earth wall likely couldn’t be held, but being forced to concentrate the Wanjin Army wasn’t entirely a bad thing. If necessary, he could even seize an opportunity for a counterattack and fight the enemy in the open, maybe go for the "capture the king first" strategy.

But the outcome there was impossible to predict—a few hundred against a few thousand in the field. Regardless of winning or losing, he would almost certainly be spent after such a battle, and if Oda Nobunaga decided to "take over" in the aftermath, all he could do then was stare helplessly.

It was always this hard to start from scratch—trying to develop under Oda Nobunaga’s nose meant he could never reach his optimal strength. Coming to the Chita Peninsula was a gamble, hoping to force the Imagawa family to make concessions without suffering heavy losses, but now it was clear—he’d lost the gamble. Surrounded by wolves and tigers, the situation was complicated, and hoping to become a "small Daimyo" out of nothing was anything but easy.

All day, he snatched moments between the chaos to organize personnel and transport supplies, making preparations for the likely fall of the rammed earth wall and his own impending entrapment in the city. Then he stood atop the city walls, gazing at the enemy’s positions and camps.

By now, dusk had fallen. The enemy was taking advantage of the last good light to rotate frontline units, bringing up fresh troops. They needed to eat as well—thin streams of smoke rose behind their positions and within their camps as they broke for dispersed meals.

Only when the sun had sunk completely below the horizon and darkness began to spread did flames rise once more from the enemy’s lines for illumination. At first, there were only a few, but the farther from the city walls—the "kill zone"—they got, the more lights flickered on. By the time one looked to the enemy encampments, they had become scattered points of fire, like a sky crowded with stars.

The enemy’s numbers continued to swell; virtually all the Chita Peninsula’s noble families had been summoned...

Harano stood quietly for a long time, staring at the wavering, distorted scene blurred by smoke and firelight, a momentary feeling of unreality gripping him. He genuinely doubted whether he could make it through the night—would he die trapped inside the city? If he did, he’d probably end up competing for a place among the top ten most disgraceful transmigrators in history.

He even wanted to cup his hands and shout to the enemy from afar: "You’ve lost so many people already, why don’t you leave? Is this place that important? Why must you fight me to the death here?"

"So many have died, I’m barely hanging on—so how are you all still holding out?"

But he knew there was no point asking. The enemy didn’t believe he simply wanted to move to the Chita Peninsula; they feared his strength, dreaded he’d ruin the entire peninsula for them, cost them the whole southern wing of the Bai Chuan Pass defense line. Maybe there were reasons beyond that he couldn’t even guess, relating to further Imagawa family plans regarding Chita, but none of it mattered anymore.

From the enemy camp, the sounds of Dharma Conches rose one after another—evidently, the rotations were over. Harano’s wandering mind snapped back to focus. He took one more look at the lantern lights in the enemy camp, glanced up at the night sky ablaze with stars, then turned to pull out his iron whistle and blew it with all his strength.

Soon, sharp whistles rose one after another from the city walls and the rammed earth wall, echoing his own. Yet another round of attack and defense was about to begin.

That night, the enemy showed no mercy, launching an assault far fiercer than before. Several points along the rammed earth wall suffered attacks as intense as the earlier "North Mountain Rock Fortress Battle." Large numbers of heavily armored warriors from the Imagawa and Matsudaira families poured into the fight; the main assaults were carried out exclusively by the Imagawa and Matsudaira Lang Faction, with no more padding of ranks by Chita Peninsula’s locally levied Samurai and Lang Faction.

Harano personally led a "Fire Rescue Team" rushing back and forth atop the rammed earth wall—blades and spears drawn, matchlock guns blazing—constantly driving the enemy back down. Still, one watchtower was seized by a sudden burst of enemy troops; during the struggle, a powder barrel inside the tower, somehow ignited, blew up spectacularly and nearly killed him in the explosion.

Some enemy troops, during the chaos of night, inexplicably slipped past the rammed earth wall, infiltrated the defense’s rear, and began fighting a small rock fortress on the second defensive line in pitch darkness, causing serious panic among the frontline support soldiers.

By near dawn, chaos reigned along the entire rammed earth wall. In many spots, the enemy leveraged sheer numbers and an even greater mass of Ashigaru to pile up a Tushan, scaling the rammed earth wall quickly. Hand-to-hand fighting increased rapidly, and casualties among the Wanjin Army’s combat troops began to skyrocket. The situation was getting worse by the minute.

He could wait no longer. Harano calmly accepted reality, ordered a contraction of the defense, and directed the Military Police to fill the reserve holes left in the inner wall of the rammed earth with barrels of gunpowder—in case he had to blow up parts of the rammed earth wall and collapse the nearest towers to prevent the enemy from turning them against him. Volcanic ash concrete could be blasted apart, but to get good results you needed to hollow out the wall and ignite from within. A pound of black gunpowder could destroy a cubic meter of volcanic ash concrete—he’d tested this before, in case knowledge of the volcanic ash cement ever leaked out and one day even he couldn’t defend against it.

Of course, there was no rush. He’d wait for the enemy to occupy the wall before blowing it up; all the fuses had been prepared in advance.

The contracted defense proceeded smoothly. Subordinate officers performed well, and the vast majority followed the contingency plans and settled into new defensive positions. Mainly, the enemy was also in disarray after fighting all night; although they captured the rammed earth wall, they had no strength left to pursue. Everyone in the Wanjin Army, including the support troops, knew the small bay was blocked by sunken ships—there was no way out. They had no choice but to hole up in the rock fortresses.

By this point, strict military discipline no longer had much effect. Harano found it almost impossible to control the scattered small rock fortresses. Most men now had to fight for their lives under the leadership of subordinate officers. In this wretched era and nation, there was no such thing as good treatment for prisoners of war. If they fell into the Imagawa family’s hands, their fate would surely be grim.

At least, until they were too exhausted to go on, they probably wouldn’t surrender.

Probably!

......

Harano could no longer concern himself with the fate of the small rock fortresses. There was a well in the city; he planned to hold out relying on his stronghold for a month or two. Meanwhile, the Imagawa army, having paid a heavy price, finally secured a hard-won victory and were elated. After a round of raucous "Oh oh hey!" in the morning light they saw, across the wilderness, several brand new rock fortresses had sprung up. Farther away, two large rock fortresses barred the entrance to a tiny bay—one to the left, one to the right—and in the middle stood a shorter but higher and thicker new rammed earth wall.

Witnessing all this, the jubilant cries of "Oh oh hey!" from the Imagawa family atop the city walls faltered, then died away entirely.

It was only then they finally realized that the enemy hadn’t routed—they had simply withdrawn into new defensive positions. For all their efforts, they had only taken a single rammed earth wall.

How long would it take to drive this enemy out?

Even the densest among the Imagawa Lang Faction now began to ponder the question.

The war has become a battle of wills—neither side truly knows why the other is determined to go on, both wracked with anxiety and dread that the enemy might hold out to the last. Each feels immense pressure, each fears they themselves might not make it through. Now, it all depends on who can push themselves even further.