Chapter 181 - 123: Come on, let’s fight a medieval war!

Harano’s hatred for Lin Xiuzhen had always been sky-high. After all, he used to huddle in Takeshige Manor, hiding in the direct domain of the "Sixth Celestial Demon King" Oda Nobunaga, hoping to wait out the mountain fog and make it back to the modern day. But Lin Xiuzhen gave him a reality check, showing him that trying to coast by on historical knowledge alone, hiding in what you think is a safe spot, is useless. If you really want to survive, you have to rely on hard power. He’d never forgotten this "favor," and even though Ah Man had dragged herself back from the jaws of death, his malice toward Lin Xiuzhen hadn’t lessened much. At most, he no longer had to think about Ah Man’s "final wishes," or hunt down every chicken the Lin Family owned—he could at least save a bit of time. Just like the old saying goes: if Lin Xiuzhen doesn’t want him to live, then Lin Xiuzhen shouldn’t expect to live either. Even if it’s just about setting a shining example to warn other great clans not to mess with him, he has to settle this old score and break all the Lin eggs. Of course, now’s not the time. He still isn’t strong enough. He doesn’t have the capability to settle old debts—not yet. He has to wait a while longer, and besides, the timing’s off. Oda Nobunaga absolutely wouldn’t let him go attack Lin Xiuzhen right now. Likewise, Lin Xiuzhen couldn’t do anything to him for now, either. Lin Xiuzhen had just gotten done failing in her coup. Even though, because of Owari’s terrible external situation, Oda Nobunaga didn’t want a whole batch of great Owari clans—led by her—defecting to the Imagawa family or the Matsudaira family, and hadn’t "wiped out her whole clan," and even let her stay on as a family elder of the Dan Zhengzhong House, that was just a compromise forced by external pressure. Deep down, Nobunaga still despised her. So, as long as Lin Xiuzhen hasn’t lost her mind lately, there’s no way she’d cross major sensitive areas like Nagano Castle or Atsuta Port to attack Oda Nobunaga’s "Saltpeter Factory" at Wanjin—especially since Nobunaga had posted Yoriki Warriors and elite Lang Faction guards to protect it. That’d basically be staging another rebellion. It’d be like spitting in Oda Nobunaga’s face. Even if other clans begged for her, Nobunaga would have no choice but to kill her for real this time. And as for Lin Xiuzhen losing her mind over her nephew’s death, so much so that she’d ignore her family’s future and really run over to Wanjin to murder him... He wasn’t worried about that either! The newly-minted "East Factory Director," Ah Man, had trained up a crew whose main job right now was keeping eyes on just two families: the Oda Danjo Chonosuke family and the Lin Family. If Lin Xiuzhen actually lost her mind and tried to kill him, worst case scenario, he could just take his core people and bolt. Even if Wanjin got wrecked, it didn’t matter; he’d just lose a couple of months. He could always start over again from scratch. As long as he had advanced technology, he could do it over and over, rebuild his lands wherever—it didn’t matter a bit. But if Lin Xiuzhen actually tried something like that, she’d never get a second chance. He wouldn’t even need to risk his life to get rid of a headache like her. Harano didn’t care at all about Lin Xiuzhen holding a grudge. He’s not new around here anymore, and regular drama doesn’t scare him. He said goodbye to Maeda Toshie as usual and went to attend the magistrates’ meeting, where Niwa Nagahide and the other higher-ups were babbling about minor stuff. Most of these little things had nothing to do with him anyway, so he just sat there with nothing better to do, mulling over military matters. Right now, Lin Xiuzhen couldn’t do anything to him. Even sending an assassin wouldn’t work—not unless she was willing to risk her whole family for it, and she definitely wouldn’t dare go for him under Oda Nobunaga’s nose. But still, he had plans. Seeing an enemy makes you want revenge even more, so every time he crossed paths with Lin Xiuzhen, he just wanted to set his revenge plan in motion as soon as possible. This battle would last at least a month or two, and after that the workers in his workshop would have enough experience—by then, their discipline and fitness for soldiering would be clear. Almost time for the next phase. Just having them brew soy sauce or synthesize dye, that he could handle—after all, that’s his professional field, he’s in his element there, full of confidence. But when it comes to military matters, he’s totally clueless. All those years in school and nobody ever told him how to fight a war; at most, he’d read some battle reports in NovelFires—which, assuming those authors weren’t just making shit up, was the sum total of his "military experience." Honestly, he’d probably even be worse than Zhao Kuo at "armchair warring." Yeah, actually, Zhao Kuo wasn’t so bad—just got really unlucky and ended up as a joke for the ages. Dude was a little hard done by, to be fair. If he really was at Zhao Kuo’s level, he wouldn’t be stressing so hard right now. As for that one skirmish he’d already fought at Takeshige Manor—that was a street brawl with maybe a couple hundred people. He only survived thanks to being tall and having a whole set of steel armor. He didn’t come out of it with any real command experience—it felt more like a turf war out of a gangster movie, all the way from one end of the street to the other. Building up a real army from scratch was just a whole different ballgame. He genuinely had no confidence in this department—but at least now he was sitting right in a real-life feudal army. He could learn. And learning had always been his strong suit! He got out of the magistrate meeting without paying much attention to whatever logistics were dumped on him, leaving all that crap for two Yoriki Warriors to handle. Using his position as an excuse, he started roaming around to observe and study the details he’d missed in previous battles. Like—how exactly do you train and command spear Ashigaru, and why on top of regular long spears did the Kohada Magistrate also carry around two kinds of spearheads? When was it right to swap to the Sasago Spearhead, and when should you use the Ginkgo Leaf Gunhead? Oh, and then there’s alley fighting and siege warfare to think about... Or like—how do you train and command bow Ashigaru, how do you distribute the three standard arrowheads, how do you make sure soldiers don’t lose their spare strings on a daily basis? Out of the篈, quiver, and arrow box, which was best for carrying arrows? And then, how do you organize a march, how do you set up camp, how do you build bamboo fences, how do you organize a siege? There are so many tiny details you have to keep track of... Bottom line: getting a bunch of people together, getting them to fight a whole battle without screwing it up, and even winning? Nowhere near as easy as most people think. It’s a super complicated job—even in ancient times, pulling that off was a seriously complex project, with all kinds of sneaky tricks all over the place. Back in Nagano Castle, Harano had started asking everyone he knew for tips. After the campaign started, he’d run all over the place and observe everything whenever he got the chance. If he really wanted his own army—one truly under his control—he couldn’t rely entirely on others to train it. At the very least, he needed to understand the minutiae, so that nobody could fool him easily and he wouldn’t embarrass himself later. He’d even be heading to the battlefield himself someday. As the first head of the Nozawa family, there was no way he could just sit on his ass and wait for his enemies to surrender out of fear. Reputation gets earned battle by battle—if huge names like Emperor Taizong of Tang or Ming Taizu led from the front lines, who was he to do any less? No way he’d get out of it. He was mentally prepared for all this, and actually willing to take the risk. At least in the early stages, when there’s fighting, he’d be up front, never just hiding in the rear and entrusting everything to others. And as for why he couldn’t just pull off some dimensionality-reduction attack, like whipping up flintlocks, grenades, or cannons and steamrolling everything... Yeah, forget it. In this crappy era, even if he tried his best to improve things and eat as healthily as possible, he couldn’t even be sure he wouldn’t drop dead of food poisoning tomorrow or get cancer from heavy metals next year. If he made those things, and then Japan couldn’t be stopped from invading Korea, and they steamrolled right through Shanhai Pass... He couldn’t take that kind of blame. Didn’t want to go down as a legendary sinner—the kind your ancestors crawl out of their coffins to beat you up for. So, in training his troops, he’d just introduce limited innovations; for the most part, he’d stick with the weapons already in use in this era. This was just the principle involved, nothing he could do about it. Blame bad luck for getting isekai’d to this hopeless place. But hey, whatever. Using medieval weapons isn’t the end of the world. It’s not like a medieval army has to act like a bunch of medieval idiots—plenty of places for him to work his magic and exploit his advantages. He was treating this campaign as advanced study, basically. Rather than hiding in the rear sticking to his old job, he actually pushed himself to the front lines, grabbing every chance to learn. His luck wasn’t bad—the fact that Oda Nobunaga’s attack was going badly and dragging on gave him lots of time to study up. Nobunaga truly was having a rough time of it. First, he used "righteousness" to pressure the great families of the Lower Four Provinces of Owari and bullied them into sending troops, then seized several key rock fortresses on the way to Qingzhou City with ease, pressing down on Qingzhou—then everything went sideways. The Qingzhou forces knew Nobunaga’s not someone to mess with—not to mention they’d just killed Shiba Yoshinori, crushing themselves on the "righteousness" front. Few dared openly support them, and they were even weaker than before. So, they’d decided early on to hole up in the city. But it wasn’t just sticking to a desperate last stand—they also stationed a force at Anshi Zhenyuan Temple, using the temple’s sturdy fortifications and water on two sides, to echo Qingzhou City from afar and constantly send boatloads of soldiers to raid Nobunaga’s supply lines—always targeting the Kohada unit, meaning the old and weak Ashigaru. This move seemed to have caught Oda Nobunaga off guard. He couldn’t just focus on the siege. But he didn’t hesitate for long—left a few men to keep an eye on Qingzhou City, then turned around and surrounded Anshi Zhenyuan Temple, going for a two-pronged attack. The samurai leaders in Qingzhou knew it was do-or-die. If Nobunaga really took Qingzhou City, there’d be no happy endings for them. Even if he spared their lives, they’d become wandering samurai—so the resistance was fierce. And in this era, once the defenders got tough, battles could drag on forever. With things going badly, Nobunaga was furious, chewing out several people every day. Even Harano wasn’t spared—since gunpowder supplies were running low, Nobunaga was annoyed Harano had only been able to make a few hundred pounds of saltpeter after months of work—even less than he’d managed to buy on his own! Nobunaga even summoned him just to scold him, probably because he’d realized Harano was turning into an Owari local noble and couldn’t just run for it anymore, so there was no need to coddle him. Harano didn’t care. He just endured it for now. Thanks to his close friendship with Maeda Toshie—who now worked conveniently in the "Military Police" and could take him all over—he’d show up with gifts, drag Maeda along as his introduction, and go visit grizzled veterans like the spear Ashigaru General or the bow Ashigaru Infantry General to grill them for details. Then he’d go back and write up his own "Training Manual." By the time Oda Nobunaga finally took Anshi Zhenyuan Temple and slaughtered over thirty Qingzhou samurai who had dared to resist, Harano had gained a ton—his "Training Manual" was almost complete, just waiting to try it out in action to see how it worked.