Volume 2: Gathering Storms Chapter 59: Ueno Cavalry

  When the Takeda army re-entered Kōzuke Province, they suppressed several disobedient local clans in Kanra District and Tōtōmi District. With one stroke, they pacified nearly half of the rebellions in both districts, which greatly pleased Takeda Yoshinobu who had insisted on taking this route through Kōzuke Province, convinced that his choice was correct.

  After the rebellion was put down, Takeda Katsuyori and Obata Masamori felt that they had to march quickly. Once they passed through the Hakone mountain road, they could enter Shinano Province. However, Takeda Yoshinobu thought it was not necessary to be in such a hurry at this time because Uesugi Kenshin's Echigo army was besieging Kōzan Castle and did not have time to worry about the Takeda side. Even if the Echigo army came now, there would be enough time to withdraw.

  Takeda Yoshinobu insisted on waiting for the submission documents from these powerful families, and some hostages were sent over, so it took a few more days.

  After entering the fourth year of Eiroku in February, Uesugi Kenshin returned to Kōzuke Province and suddenly surrounded Kanayama Castle with his army. Two days later, Kanayama Castle was captured by the Echigo army, and the lord of Kanayama Castle, Akai clan's Akai Terukage fled and escaped to seek refuge from the Utsunomiya clan in Shimotsuke Province.

  As the Akai family, a powerful local clan from the Fujiwara Hokke in Kōzuke Province, was destroyed in this way, Uesugi Kenshin's thunderous methods shocked Kōzuke once again.

  The local clans of Kōzuke Province and Tōtōmi Province, who had just been suppressed, again harbored rebellious thoughts. They not only refused the requests made by the Takeda family, such as offering oaths and hostages, but some bold clans had already begun to organize their forces and attack the Takeda army one after another.

  Recently, when passing through the countryside of Kanle County on the way to the main camp of the Takeda army, he was suddenly attacked by a large-scale attack by several local powerful families. In this attack, the powerful families even gathered more than a dozen iron cannons and fired at the position of General-in-Chief Takeda Nobuyoshi.

  Although Takeda Nobuyuki himself was unharmed, the Takeda forces successfully repelled this attack and killed dozens of men. However, all this portended that the Takeda army would now find it difficult to advance in Kōzuke Province.

  What's worse, it is said that the ninja reported that the Nagano family of Kawanakajima Castle finally sent troops. This time, the Nagano family gathered 2,000 soldiers, and the new head of the Nagano family, who was only 15 years old and had just come of age, personally went to battle, led by Nagano Nariyuki himself.

  In the army, there were not only Nagano Ichizō, Nagano Ishū, and Nagano Iwao, the brave generals of the Nagano family, but also the sixteen guns of Nagano, known as the "Nagano Sixteen Guns", who were said to be able to defeat a hundred enemies. Among them, the most famous one was called "Nagano's Number One Gun" - Uesugi Shigekazu.

  In addition, after the Later Zhou army captured Kuaiji City, they did not stop to catch their breath and directly attacked the Western Tōgō Army of the Uda clan in Kanzaki District.

  According to the news, the Takeda family must speed up towards Shirane Mountain, otherwise they will really be surrounded by the Nagano and Uesugi families.

  However, the Takeda army on this route was subjected to repeated obstruction and harassment by the Ueno Kuni's powerful clans who had long been prepared. They destroyed bridges along the way, ambushed messengers of the Takeda family, attacked lone soldiers, and raided the Takeda army at night when they were camping.

  All this delayed the advance of the Takeda army, and just at that time, the 2,000 troops of the Nagano family caught up with the rear guard of the Takeda army led by Takeda Katsuyori.

  At noon, the sun shines on the mountains, with mountains everywhere, and winding rugged roads in between. The sunlight filters through the dense leaves and sprinkles among the trees.

  On a vacant lot in the mountains, a series of horse hooves came, and more than 30 riders appeared at the mountain pass with flags inserted on their backs. The flags were painted with the crest of Nagano's family, hinoki-ba. These cavalrymen of Nagano's family looked at the rear team of Takeda Shingen who was going far away, hesitating whether to advance and attack.

  The cavalry of Kōzuke Province was also a well-known cavalry corps during the Sengoku period, and at one time it was on par with the Takeda family's Kai cavalry corps. In the Battle of Nagashino, when the Takeda family, which had already taken control of western Kōzuke, sent the Kōzuke cavalry corps led by Obata Nobusada as the third wave of attack, they broke through several layers of defensive barriers set up by the Oda clan and launched a fierce attack on the main camp of the Oda army where Oda Nobunaga was stationed.

  Oda Nobunaga himself was deeply shocked by the impact of the 'Kobata Red' formed by the cavalry of Kozuke.

  In front of them was the vanguard cavalry of the Nagano family, who had raided Takeda Katsuyori's troops several times today, causing some damage to the ashigaru. However, their main goal was still to slow down Takeda Katsuyori's march speed, in order to gain time for the main force of the Nagano army and the Echigo army to rush back from behind.

  Due to Takeda Yoshinobu's foolish persistence, the Western Expeditionary Force of the Takeda family was in a very dangerous situation. However, at the emergency military meeting in the morning, Takeda Yoshinobu still refused to admit his mistake and even proposed to turn back and fight against the Nagano army.

  This point really made the other generals of the Takeda family very collapse, but Takeda Nobuyoshi also knew that now was not the time to pursue responsibility, and it was necessary to pass through the Hakumyōsan mountain range as soon as possible, which was currently the best route. At this time, except for the main camp, the strongest forces in the Western Kōzuke Conquest Army, Takeda Katsuyori's unit and Obata Masamori's unit took turns serving as the rear guard, while the other units rushed to Hakumyōsan at full speed.

  At this time, Takeda Shingen's troops were preparing to depart, and a group of pack horses carrying grain and baggage had just passed by on the narrow road, which was a piece of tender meat for the Uesugi cavalry.

  The Takeda army's small baggage train was making its way laboriously along the mountain road, with pack horses occasionally getting stuck in the mud and at one point becoming separated from the main force. The baggage train consisted mainly of ordinary ashigaru foot soldiers and groomsmen, as well as a single samurai responsible for commanding them. Additionally, the Takeda army was naturally aware of the importance of the baggage train and had assigned a group of over thirty gun-bearing ashigaru to guard it, along with a contingent of arquebusiers.

  Seeing the weakness of Takeda's army, Ueno's cavalry could no longer hold back and dozens of riders split into two groups to encircle and charge at the small group.

  Facing the charging Ueno cavalry, Takeda's soldiers shouted loudly to alert their respective units that they were under attack from behind.

  Under the command of Tetsuzō, more than 20 members of the Iron Cannon Corps stood in two rows, kneeling and standing, and hastily fired a volley at the cavalrymen on the hill. They immediately dispersed, carrying their guns and running away with their feet, while the effect of this volley was that only one mounted warrior was killed.

  After the Tetsuhou group retreated, more than 20 people from the Takeda family formed a tight gun array with their guns at the ready. They knew that their troops had already received news of the attack on the Kogetsu group and were rushing to reinforce them, so they only needed to withstand the first wave of Ueno's cavalry charge.

  The Ueno cavalry accelerated their speed, and at the same time, they strung their bows and shot arrows on horseback. In one round of shooting, seven or eight ashigaru were shot down, and the ashigaru corps was suddenly thrown into chaos. The ashigaru ignored the orders of their commander and abandoned their long spears, fleeing in all directions.

  The gun was lightly retreated, and the groom responsible for guarding the pack horse and the weak foot soldiers also fled in all directions, and the scene was once very chaotic.

  The Ueno cavalry saw that the Takeda army was so vulnerable to a single blow, and they couldn't help but burst out laughing on their horses, but they didn't bother to chase after these fleeing soldiers.

  A cavalryman poked at a sack on the back of a pack horse with his lance, and instead of white rice spilling out of the opening, it was black mud.

  "It's bad! We've been tricked!" The leader of the cavalry shouted loudly.