Chapter 185 - 127: Start by Robbing His Uncle!

"At most only three ken?" Harano, using the spear-handling technique he’d studied during his last "training," held a spear three and a half ken long. First he tried the mid-level upright stance, then shifted to a bow stance and raised the spear from the rear. Sure enough, he felt his weight pitch forward uncomfortably, his footing unsteady. Apparently, Oda Nobunaga wasn’t just making stuff up. Once a spear gets past three ken in length, it’s really awkward to use. No wonder Nobunaga didn’t keep lengthening his spears. This matter was in Ah Qing’s hands; she took the experimental long spear from Harano, nodded slightly, and said, "Best to set the length at three ken. Three-and-a-half is too much for some people—they’ve not performed well these past few days." Harano glanced over at the sweating spearmen laboring under the blazing sun. There really were too many short guys among them. For now he couldn’t afford to be picky about height when recruiting. He could only sigh and nod. "Standardize it, then. Let’s go with three ken for now!" That’s just how people in Japan are—average height about 1.45 meters around here. Not much he could do about it. If he wanted his spears even longer than Nobunaga’s, it wouldn’t work. Everyone had to use the same one. Maybe, once the recruitment range expands, and he can raise the height and weight standards, he could add another foot or two. For now, this was the best he could do. Ah Qing gave a soft assent and turned to resume commanding the five-spear thrust drill and the Four-direction Blade Technique training. Those were all battle formations and techniques that Harano had copied over and had Ah Qing help improve. Simple and practical—like the "Iron Rod Three Techniques" he’d spent so long practicing. The goal was simple: "Before the enemy can stab or hack me to death, I stab or hack them to death first." All about rapid and forceful strikes. Technical finesse wasn’t really part of it. Harano stood in place, watching the ten squads, marked with their little flags, practicing sidestep thrusts in rhythm to the shrill piping of the bamboo whistle. After a while he realized he couldn’t really help any further, so he turned toward the shooting range. After a month of getting the crap beat out of them, his first batch of soldiers had a deep, "practical" understanding of what discipline meant. After that, he’d begun drills in formations, marching, woodwork, and individual skills and tactics—plus daily physical training every night on top of it all. They’d spent more than a month on that. All told, things went fairly smoothly. After all, all these guys had already worked at the workshop for at least half a year—pre-selected—so everyone could tell left from right, and could more or less line up before joining the camp. Plus they were all from hard backgrounds, not afraid of hard work. Only a few had especially troublesome habits. Given the times, if you could round up a gang of commoners who knew left from right, had a sense of time, could queue up, and didn’t swarm into a ball at any task, you were already doing well. Watching the training as he walked, he arrived at the firing range and observed a while as the Iron Cannon crews drilled. The situation here was rather a mess. Back in these days, firing an iron cannon required more than a dozen steps—much trickier than just stabbing someone with a long spear. And Ah Man, much more ill-tempered than Ah Qing, would drag out and thrash anyone who screwed up so that their screams pierced the air, then boot them back into line to keep drilling, until the drill became muscle memory. As for archery training... He’d temporarily cancelled that unit. For now, he didn’t have enough recruits, and Japanese bows lacked power—the battlefield was notorious for that bizarre phenomenon where someone got shot until they looked like a porcupine, but kept hacking away all the while, not dropping dead until every drop of blood was spent. That said a lot about the killing power of bows and arrows in Japan’s Middle Ages. So, he planned to focus on long spears and heavy iron cannon, keeping just the Military Police in archery training—just in case. Regular archers? Forget it, for now. Harano watched a while at the firing range, but there wasn’t much he could help with. Screams erupted regularly, but overall, training was on track; he didn’t want to butt in and waste time by interfering. What he was actually in charge of was the "Camp School"—the place where Yuan Datou picked and trained junior and mid-level officers. Based on their performance so far, he’d filled all the junior officer slots, and picked over a dozen sergeants as reserve junior officers. From here on, he’d keep evaluating performance in training and real battles—the capable would rise, the useless would get demoted. The one thing he really wanted—officer candidates with staff potential—not a single one. He had yet to spot anyone with real military talent, or strong organizational ability, or sharp instinct for strategy. All he could do was wait till they’d seen action, and hope a few "military talents" would be forged by fire. Couldn’t be helped. Everyone in this camp—including himself—was, strictly speaking, a complete greenhorn. All he could do was sigh about how hard it is to get anything started, and forget about getting it all right in one move. He stood where he was for a while and, once Ah Man was free for a moment, quickly beckoned her over. Ah Man gave a few instructions to some Military Police, telling them to keep a close eye on the idiots; if everyone didn’t meet standards by the end of the day, she’d work them until they dropped of heat stroke. Then she jogged over, wiped the sweat from her head, and scowled. "What’s up? I’m busy as hell here—it’s all a bunch of idiots. Even a dung beetle could’ve figured things out by now, but they’re still making mistakes!" Harano acted like he hadn’t heard her griping and led her into the shade, asking as they walked, "How’s the thing I asked you to look into—found anything out over there yet?" "You mean about Chita County?" Ah Man, recalling her role as East Factory Director, quickly fished a booklet from her robe and flipped through it. "About half the people aren’t back yet. It’ll take a few more days." "No rush." Harano led her under a tree, poured her a cup of lightly salted water, and handed it over. "How much do you know so far? Brief me, so I have a sense." He’d been building this new army for over three months. Started out with a hundred and thirty men (after chopping down a dozen or so), added newcomers in dribs and drabs, now was up to over a hundred and seventy (a few more had been axed for discipline, but not as many as at the beginning). That was a third of the population of his territory—pretty much "militarism gone mad." Even though he was good at making money, keeping so many full-time soldiers put a serious strain on finances, and left a grievous lack of labor power. Endo Chiyoda over there had been grumbling in all sorts of ways about not being able to take it anymore. The budget was about to go in the red. So he had to get out and "replenish his blood"—grab some population to bring back as "workers." As for enemies, they were easy to find—just lying around, ready-made. Chita County—that is, all the local gentry on the Chita Peninsula—had already thrown their lot in with the Imagawa family. The Imagawa and Owari had been fighting on and off for over forty years, loads of blood debt between them. Attacking Imagawa-aligned forces was always solid politics in Owari, so even Oda Nobunaga could hardly object. Plus, these guys were all soft targets. Their strength was always middling—not high, not low. Just right for some low-level war games to let his soldiers get a feel for the battlefield, so as to avoid disasters like Oda Nobunaga’s last year—where, for the first fight, he picked an opponent of equal strength, failed to break through, and his troops crumbled at once. Of course, aside from getting some "blood" back, the more important goal was laying the foundation for a real domain in the future. He was still stuck in Wanjin, not free. Don’t be fooled by the "all’s well for now." As soon as his power actually grew, there was a 99% chance Oda Nobunaga would crack down on him—or at least force him to behave and halt his expansion. Hell, maybe Nobunaga would go crazy one day and demand the saltpeter trade handed over. So, staying in Owari long-term was a dead end. He needed to leave—get himself a piece of land somewhere outside of Oda Nobunaga’s reach. Only then would he have the capital to survive. There was no better place than the Chita Peninsula. It was very close to Wanjin, yet safe from Oda’s reach. By sea, the two places could be joined, making both offense and defense possible—not so easy for anyone to wipe him out completely. Of course, that meant a run-in with the Imagawa family. But fighting the Imagawa was better than tangling with Oda Nobunaga—the Imagawa’s heartland was in Jumogawa, and their power, projecting across Sanhe, was limited. Whereas, if it ever came to blows with Nobunaga, the entire Lower Four Provinces of Owari would probably be on his ass. He’d never hold out. Besides, as long as he didn’t have a total falling-out with Oda Nobunaga, if he couldn’t hold his ground on the peninsula, he could always pull back to Wanjin, fortify for a month, then try again. Do that three or five times and the Imagawa would go nuts—probably just use the Rock Fortress to lock him in and stop worrying about retaking lost ground. And the new lands would be his. This was the plan he’d made back when Lin Xiuzhen beat him senseless at Takeshige Manor and broke his ribs. He wanted a piece of land of his own, but could never execute the plan until now. Now, with the new army taking shape, he finally had a shot. The first step, naturally, was to go grab some population and fatten himself up a bit. Ah Man had been making the preparations for some time. Seeing his impatience, she handed over the half-finished map, and said, "It’s really not ready yet. According to your orders, the focus was on the west coastal area of Chita County. So far I’ve only mapped out the Takeda Family, Ebina Family, and Oya Family. Haven’t gotten to the rest." Harano didn’t care. He took the map and studied it carefully, then asked about the power of those three families. He discovered they weren’t even as strong as the Hosokawa Family—each was basically five or six Samurai with seventy or eighty Lang Faction fighters, at best maybe three to five hundred men if they roped in all the peasants as Ashigaru. Fist for fist, not much to offer. Really soft targets, no doubt. He’d been weighing things against the Hosokawa Family’s fighting capacity, but on closer look, the Hosokawa Family was actually upper-middle tier for Owari. He studied the still-crude map several times, pondering the terrain. Then he asked, "Do any of those three have marriage ties with the Lin Family?" Ah Man was quite interested in the Lin Family too—still holding a grudge against Lin Xiuzhen—so she flipped through her notes and said, "More or less. The Lin Family is the biggest clan on the Owari-Sanhe border, and many Chita families have married in. The closest tie this generation is between the Takeda Family and the Lin Family. The head of the Takeda, Takeda Hyoeimon, is Lin Xiuzhen’s uncle—her mother’s brother!" Harano nodded slowly. He’d actually hoped the Ebina Family had strong Lin ties, since their land looked better—lots of tidal marsh for potential salt-making. But since this would only be a quick labor raid, he couldn’t hope to get greedy with limited strength. So, raiding the Takeda Family first was fine—if you were going to rob someone, better to rob the folks you hated. If the Takeda got shafted, blame Lin Xiuzhen for being so greedy and always dragging her relatives into disaster. After all, he’d never provoked Lin Xiuzhen—she’d come after him, broke his ribs, shot Ah Man full of arrows, and still secretly held a grudge against him. So raiding her uncle’s place was only fair. That’s just how this world worked—there’s no future in being a turtle hiding in its shell. You had to get moving! This was a lesson Lin Xiuzhen herself had taught him. Now he’d start paying back that "favor"—starting with her uncle.