Chapter 186 - 128: Starting from Zero, Learning to Be an Officer!

Words : 1912 Updated : Sep 27th, 2025

Harano had determined his objective but wasn’t in a rush to act—he only had so much at stake. If he lost it all, he’d probably have to cosplay as Xiang Yu and stage a Wanjin suicide. He’d never felt that way before, but now, just picturing it—if he lost his carefully trained army in a single battle—he finally understood why Xiang Yu didn’t want to go on living. It’d hurt so much he might actually want to die. This was the new army’s very first battle, and even if the enemy was a pushover, everything had to be fully prepared before going in. First, he told Ah Man to send more people out for further intelligence gathering and map making. Then he sent an urgent letter to Nagano Castle, reporting that the local lords of Chita County were lawless and inhumane, even attacking passing ships, and asked Nagano Castle what he should do about it. A few days later, Oda Nobunaga replied in person and absolutely tore him a new one in the letter, telling him to handle such bean-sized bullshit himself, and to quit bothering him with that crap. This was exactly what Harano wanted. He’d informed the authorities, now he had legitimacy, so he gathered all his officers and held a war council, preparing for a punitive operation—a proper lesson for those reckless Chita Peninsula lords. These guys had only become officers thanks to good performance during training—they’d never expected anything like a "war council." Staring blankly at the materials and operation maps handed to them, listening to Harano gravely explain operational intent, preparations, and plans, they were utterly lost. When Harano asked everyone to offer suggestions and speak up, they just looked at each other, and couldn’t even manage a single fart between them. The scene was plenty awkward, but Harano wasn’t disappointed—first steps are always hard. Eventually, someone would get the hang of it and rise to a senior officer. Once the meeting ended, he ordered the forty-some small-banner officers, deputy banners, and NCOs back to their units to brief the soldiers, make sure everyone understood the mission, then organized a few rounds of specialized training to simulate forced landings and emergency withdrawals, leading everyone through the attack plan. He even forced the junior officers to make their own operational intent maps for their assigned missions. Didn’t matter if the maps were good or bad, even if they looked like kids’ scribbles—what mattered was they had to do it. This left the just barely literate, green-as-grass junior officers who could only read maps with Harano’s guidance running around like their heads were on fire, miserable to the core. But even then, Harano kept pushing them to try and keep learning. He was an engineering nerd by background and took diagram work seriously—now forced to do military stuff, he figured maps were still essential. Every officer had to be clear about operational intent, troop deployment, attack direction, main combat actions, all that, and be able to express it on a map, a chart, or a doodle. If you can’t express it, you don’t actually understand it; and if, in battle, you’re unclear on your core task, that’s a crime against your soldiers—officers like that are better off as regular grunts! As for those who can’t do it... Lots of modern-era generals started out not knowing how to read, but learned on the job, didn’t they? They still turned out great. People only know their potential when you push them—how else would you find out? Anyway, you have to learn. Start from zero. Everyone’s learning how to be an officer! Harano himself was a rookie commander, and with the pressure of his first battle, he fussed over every detail. Finally, once he’d worn everyone out, he chose a good day and packed his 180-man new army, plus a dozen Inner Guards doubling as Military Police, all onto ships. They set out sailing along the west coast of the Chita Peninsula toward its central region, to find Uncle Lin—and get their battle training through real fighting. ...... The ships bobbed at sea, and the "Four Siblings of Pots, Bowls, Ladles and Buckets"—banner men of the Ninth Small Banner—were still together. Only Tong Wulang, who’d proven quick-witted and nimble in training, had been reassigned to the Iron Cannon Banner, replaced by a squat, clumsy, thick-headed kid named Stone Bodhisattva. Weird name, but apparently he once almost died of a fever as a kid, and his mother set him to sleep in front of a Bodhisattva statue—he made a miracle recovery, so she changed his name because of that. This guy got dragged into the Wanjin Army against his will. Used to be a beggar and petty thief at Atsuta Port. Got caught red-handed stealing Maeshima Shichiro’s caravan’s food, and since Wanjin needed more men, they tied him up and brought him back. But after getting to Wanjin, he suddenly had enough to eat, so he actually settled down, quit stealing, and threw himself into factory work. After six months of hard work, they took him as a new recruit and slotted him into the Ninth Small Banner. After joining up, he didn’t really get beaten by the Military Police, or more like, they couldn’t catch him—because the old hands stole their jobs. If you’d been in camp two or three months, you counted as a veteran, even just one day ahead. By now, the Wanjin Army atmosphere was taking shape. Strict discipline had become a habit, and the old hands weren’t about to let their suffering go to waste. Every new guy had to go through the same hell they did—rolled in the dirt, beaten till you howl, everything you say and do had to be up to snuff. That’s the only way you were considered a real Wanjin soldier. So, Stone Bodhisattva kept getting smacked around by Pots, Bowls, and Ladle, so much that the MPs never even got a shot at him. Now the PBL + Stone team formed their own combat group, with Guotai Lang as deputy banner in charge. It wasn’t even his first battle—he’d ended up at Wanjin as a captured ashigaru, fought in a few messy scraps, but this was his first time commanding others. Nerves kicked in as usual: sweat ran down his head as if he’d just washed his hair, and he kept nagging the others, "Stick close to me later! Lay that road fast, and don’t go getting stuck in the mud like last time and holding everybody up—seriously, remember it, remember it!" Piao Sanlang looked down in shame—it was him who’d gotten stuck in the mud during the last drill, dragging the whole team down and earning a punishment. He didn’t dare show his face lately. The other three didn’t reply—Wan Cilang sat on a straw pile, cleaning his tachi with great care, while Pan Silang stared blankly into space, lips moving, probably muttering "we’re finally gonna die" or some other hopeless crap. He’d been beaten so often that he’d mastered silent complaining—nobody could catch him at it anymore. The new guy, Stone Bodhisattva, just kept rubbing his soldier’s rations bag around his waist. It was packed with dried seaweed and rice, and just smelled amazing. He really wanted to open it for a bite. He’d lived fifteen years before coming to Wanjin and getting his first proper meal—the feeling of a full stomach stayed with him forever, and ever since, he loved that feeling, wanting to keep his belly full all the time. Basically, he might’ve developed a bit of a food obsession—always thinking about eating. But he wasn’t stupid, just a bit slow, and repeated beatings had taught him: if he dared open that "rations bag" and eat some rice, the others would immediately jump up and kick his ass. All he could do was keep touching the bag, hoping noon would come quickly. Wanjin was paradise to him—the factory had three meals a day, plenty of food, but the army, you could totally pig out every meal, and sometimes there was fish, beans, seaweed, sauce, all kinds of dishes. Heaven within heaven. He’d never leave—not even if they killed him. He didn’t want to end up like his mother, starving to death and shriveling away to a tiny, skin-and-bones bundle. This little combat group was all lost in their own thoughts, in no mood to chat. After four swaying hours on the customs ship, a sharp bamboo whistle finally sounded from the deck above. This was the prep whistle—they’d all gotten thrashed for missing commands often enough that muscle memory took over: time to prep for combat. Guotai Lang checked everyone, terrified someone hadn’t tied their leg wraps properly and might trip and get him beaten for it. Soon after, the boat lurched violently, the main hold door swung open, a sharp bamboo whistle shrieked several times, with the flag officer bellowing orders on deck. Guotai Lang shouted and led the charge up, stealing a glance: their little customs boat had forced its way to shore, but this area was never meant as an anchorage—no docks or jetties, nothing to make unloading easy. It was all mud flats exposed by the low tide, almost impossible to cross by foot. The bamboo whistle got even sharper, the deck was a mess of random orders, Guotai Lang’s mind went blank, but in that blankness he knew exactly what he had to do. He jumped down first, grabbed a rope to slide off the ship, followed by Wan, Piao, Pan, Stone, and huge bundles of straw mats and bamboo slats tossed from above. None of them wore armor, just a helmet-in-array with iron plates for arrows and their tachi for defense. Their sole job was to pave a path for those behind them across the mucky flats. Feet hit the mud—without a word, they started laying straw and bamboo mats, jumping ahead to keep building, working as though someone was behind them with a whip—totally focused on the task. They weren’t alone—a few other teams were out doing the same job. Another squad followed along to widen the path, but they had zero time to look. Like in drills, they just kept laying more and more of those straw and bamboo bundles, slipping and falling till they were caked head to toe in mud. Soon, a shout rang out from behind—they instinctively jumped aside, diving into the muck as a fully-armored long spear banner stormed past, using their makeshift road to reach the shore, followed by a leather-armored Iron Cannon Banner dashing by, both groups quickly forming up, raising their cannons and standing watch. Only then did Guotai Lang notice they’d finished paving the worst of the muddy flats, the kind where one step traps your foot for good. Glancing sideways and behind, he saw several more straw paths, and two medium customs ships plus another small one docking in the back. Over there, the "landing points" built of straw and bamboo had gotten even bigger—masses of iron-armored spearmen and leather-armored cannon soldiers were leaving the ships and moving up in formation. Seeing this well-drilled scene, then glancing down at his own mud-splattered self, Guotai Lang suddenly realized war wasn’t so bad—way easier than the drills. The flats weren’t nearly as long or as hard as they’d practiced, nobody had suddenly jumped out with a few hundred men to turn them into pin cushions—just like that, they’d somehow managed to get ashore.

Chapter 186 - 128: Starting from Zero, Learning to Be an Officer!

Comments (0)