In the Maori Army, Kobayakawa Takakage's main formation.
Kobayakawa Takakage looked up at the sky. It was already past noon, and the sun was falling down, reaching the end of the day.
Ahead, dust billows and there are bursts of killing sounds.
Kobayakawa Takakage suddenly felt his heart pounding, and subconsciously touched his forehead, his hands were sweating coldly, and he felt uneasy.
In the distance, a warrior Hime was leading a joint charge of cavalry and infantry, beating the Maori family's vanguard formation to pieces.
The small queues that were originally tight were smashed into waves of people and fled in all directions, leaving them in a state of panic.
Kobayakawa Takakage couldn't sit still anymore, stood up from the horse and asked.
"Who is the warrior Ji who leads the troops into the battle?"
The people on the left and right looked at each other in disbelief, and Warrior Ji bowed.
"I don't know."
"Go and find out!"
"Hi!"
The Ji warrior ran out of the formation, rode down the mountain and jumped to the front line, shouting.
"Commanders ahead, please leave your name!"
Just when Kosaka Masanobu was about to attract attention, he was overjoyed when he saw the enemy army's attention focusing on him.
She has only three to four hundred warriors at her side, and her armor is incomplete. Although she is brave, her physical strength and equipment cannot last long.
At this moment, she saw someone jumping out to ask questions. She had just dismissed another group of soldiers and shouted.
"I am Kosaka Masanobu of the Takeda family! The little girl from the West is despicable and shameless! She only knows how to defeat the weak with the crowd! How dare you challenge her with just one ride!"
As soon as this statement came out, he immediately attracted the attention of countless junior warriors from the Maori family. Several people left the team and rode out to kill Kosaka Masanobu.
Although Kosaka Masanobu has been raising children these years, his martial arts skills have not declined. He practices diligently every day and eats enough. At the age of forty, his body is even stronger than before, and he is not afraid of single combat.
"Kanto barbarians, don't be arrogant! Teshima Ronosuke is here to ask for advice!"
"Gui Wu Zuo Niang came to ask for advice!"
"The Demonic Prime Minister of Utsumi comes to ask for advice!"
These Maori junior warriors were eager for merit and went straight to kill Kosaka Masanobu, as if they did not care about bullying the minority and humiliating the reputation of a knight.
However, Kosaka Masanobu was overjoyed. He abandoned his comrades on both sides and ran out of the queue to kill the three of them.
The other party did not expect that she would rush out so quickly. In the blink of an eye, the two horses crossed each other, and one of them was stabbed off the horse.
The other man gritted his teeth and stepped forward, but was hit in the head by Kosaka Masanobu's spear and fell to the ground.
There was another person who bullied him from behind. Kosaka Masanobu seemed to have eyes behind his back, thrust his spear from his armpit, turned around and turned back with his carbine in one go, accurately stabbing his opponent in the throat.
In the blink of an eye, the three Hime warriors fell off their horses and died. The Takeda crowd cheered and the Maori army fell silent.
Yokoyama Keiyoshi, who was supervising the battle in front of the Maori formation, cursed loudly.
"These three idiots! Destroy my morale!"
She was the elder of Kobayakawa Shubao. She led an army of three thousand as the vanguard, but she was blocked by hundreds of exhausted and poorly equipped Takeda warriors.
At this moment, the morale of the army was frustrated and the position was loose. Her face was burning and she suddenly became furious.
"Blow the magic conch, beat the drum, and the whole army will surround her! I don't believe she can change the world!"
But Kosaka Masanobu would not give her this chance and had already launched the attack first.
Kosaka Masanobu knew that his troops were at a disadvantage because they had no armor. The two armies would definitely be at a disadvantage in a confrontation and could not fight forcefully.
She had just dashed left and right, all targeting the opponent's weak points, taking advantage of the huge military formation's inability to react in time, and gaining some small advantages.
However, the huge gap in the number of people between the two sides made Kosaka Masanobu dare not stop at all.
Once the opponent realizes that he is stalling for time, he only needs to surround himself with thousands of troops, and the large army will fill the gap in the encirclement and pursue Takeda Yoshinobu and the others.
Thinking that Takeda Yoshinobu has not gone far, Kosaka Masanobu will have to drag the enemy here even if he dies.
She observed the opponent's command flags and had already seen clearly where the leader of the army in front of her was. At this moment, seeing that the enemy's morale was frustrated, she immediately returned to her own formation, beating her horse and shouting.
"Hime! For the future of the Takeda family, please die here with me!
Chibei! Attack!"
"Attack! Attack!"
With Kosaka Masanobu taking the lead, hundreds of warriors followed her into the enemy formation.
Some of them were on horseback and some were on foot. Their formations were out of sync, but they regarded death as if they were home, and their morale was as high as a rainbow.
As soon as Yokoyama Keiyoshi gave the order and the formation showed a flaw, Kosaka Masanobu seized the opportunity, rushed into the formation, disrupted the formation, and charged straight at her. She was immediately shocked.
"Where are the bows and arrows! Where are the iron cannons! Shoot them to death!"
Ji Ji warrior on the side shouted urgently.
"No, they have already rushed into our queue, and they will accidentally injure one of our own!"
Hengshan Jingyi's face became increasingly ugly, and he waved his hands desperately.
"Trash, they are all trash! Come forward with a spear, hold them against them, and drive them out!"
Yokoyama Keiyoshi said it lightly, but the Hime Samurai and Ashigaru in the front couldn't be as calm and calm as she said.
Kosaka Masanobu rushed to the front, with the knights on horseback on both sides desperately clinging to her sides, using his body to help her block attacks from both sides.
The cavalry team used Kosaka Masanobu as arrows to form a dense arrow formation, plunged into the enemy formation in one breath, and tore open the gap.
The foot warriors behind formed a spear formation and ran and sprinted, further widening the gap created by the cavalry.
Although the group of warriors were unarmored, they relied on their strong martial arts and skillful cooperation to defeat Kobayakawa Hidehiko's vanguard, and they were getting closer and closer to the vanguard general Yokoyama Keiyoshi.
Hengshan Jingyi was so anxious that he jumped to his feet, but he did not dare to retreat at this time.
Behind her was the formation flag. The seven or eight reserve teams under her command had lost their morale due to the failure of the previous cavalry attack.
If she retreated rashly at this moment and moved the flag backward, it would probably cause the formation to collapse. If someone took the opportunity to cover up and retreat, the consequences would be disastrous and she would have to commit suicide.
Yokoyama Keiyoshi gritted his teeth and refused to retreat, and Kosaka Masanobu couldn't get it.
I saw Kosaka Masanobu rushing left and right, constantly approaching Yokoyama Keiyi's formation flag and rushing towards him.
One horse can equal a thousand, and it is unstoppable. Killing the general and seizing the flag is exactly what she wants.
———
Kobayakawa Takakage looked into the distance from the height of the main formation, frowning.
Suddenly, Samurai Yuki walked into the curtain, bowed, and whispered in her ear.
Kobayakawa Takakage frowned even more and muttered in a low voice.
"Why is she here...please come in."
"Hi."
After Princess Ji left for a while, he saw a person walking around the curtain and approaching Kobayakawa Takakage. The person who came was none other than Kuroda Takaka.
The two greeted each other, and Kobayakawa Takakage asked.
"Master Kuroda, why are you here? I remember that according to Guan Bai's arrangement, you should be with your troops and follow Guan Bai's actions."
Faced with Kobayakawa Takakage's question, Kuroda Takataka did not rush to answer, but looked into the distance and smiled.
"It seems that His Highness Kobayakawa is in trouble here. Guan Bai ordered me to come and ask His Highness Kobayakawa if he needs reinforcements?
I heard that Tachibana Muneshige-sama is already eager to try and implore Guan Bai to cross the river to aid the Maori family."
Kobayakawa Takakage twitched the corner of his mouth and said.
"Please tell Guan Bai that everything is under the control of the Maori family and there is no need to send reinforcements."
This time, the Mori family mobilized more than 30,000 Mori, Kobayakawa, and Yoshikawa troops to wait for work and clean up a group of tired remnants of the army crossing the river.
If we still need reinforcements, we will probably be laughed to death by the other legion families after the war.
Speaking of Tachibana Muneshige, Kobayakawa Takakage felt a headache. This guy treated Ichijo Hideyoshi really hard.
Compared with those Western princes who were perfunctory, Tachibana Munesege was conscientious and conscientious in his work. He did this to the Otomo family back then, and he does the same to the Ichijo family today.
But the other princes of the Western Kingdom saw it in their eyes, but felt uncomfortable in their hearts. They always felt that it was a few hundred dollars a month, and they couldn't even understand why Tachibana Muneshige worked so hard.
Kobayakawa Takakage and Kuroda Takataka were talking to each other with ulterior motives, and Samurai Hime, who had just been sent to inquire about the situation, happened to rush back.
"Your Highness, something bad happened. The vanguard general Hengshan Jingyi was killed by the formation, and the First Army was in chaos!"
Kobayakawa Takakage's face was burning. Just now she was telling Kuroda Takaka that everything was under control, but the slap in the face came so quickly, and she turned into anger.
"Who is the enemy general!"
"The general name in front of the battle is said to be Masanobu Kosaka of the Takeda family."
Kuroda Takagao raised his eyebrows.
"Could it be the young master, Masanobu Kosaka, who was entrusted to Luo by Takeda Shingen and has been serving the young master for more than ten years? Since Kosaka Masanobu is here, Takeda Yoshinobu must be nearby too?"
At this moment, another envoy rushed into the formation and kowtowed to the ground.
"Report! A cavalry team broke through two lines of defense of our army and ran northwest."
Kobayakawa Takakage's expression changed drastically, he looked at the map and asked.
"Northwest... how many are there?"
"More than two hundred riders."
Kobayakawa Takakage squinted his eyes and looked at the chaotic battlefield ahead, speechless.
Kuroda Takaka on the side said coldly.
"Kosaka Masanobu is stalling for time. There must be three Shiba sisters among the escaping cavalry.
They were smart enough to know that since there was an ambush here, they would definitely block the northeast direction back to Toba Palace with heavy troops.
That's why they broke out from the northwest, probably to go to the Izumi Hosokawa family's Katsuryuji Castle to temporarily avoid the enemy.
Your Highness Kobayakawa, may I ask how many troops you have deployed in the northwest and how long you can hinder them? If it continues like this, I am afraid that the three sisters of the Shiba family will break through successfully."
Kobayakawa Takakage had a dark face.
If there is no chaos in the vanguard army, she can now order the vanguard army to stop Kosaka Masanobu, and the rest of the troops will immediately turn to the northwest to pursue the three divine sisters.
But now the vanguard army has collapsed, and the rebels and enemy troops are swarming in the belly of our own army. If we turn around and leave, we are afraid that the whole army will be in chaos.
Kobayakawa Takakage said solemnly.
"Order the vanguard army to break away from Kosaka Masanobu's troops, the central army to attack, and the iron artillery and archers to move forward to drive away the enemy.
They have just crossed the river, there is no way they are wearing heavy armor, so keep a distance and shoot them to death!"
Seeing Kobayakawa Takakage's cold face, a retainer next to him said hesitantly.
"But... the rebels of the vanguard army cannot escape quickly... they have been coerced by the enemy and are attacking our front line..."
Kobayakawa Takakage said decisively before she could finish speaking.
"Beat the drums to make them retreat from the left and right. Anyone who dares to attack our lines will be shot to death as an enemy!"
Kuroda Takataka praised.
"Your Highness Kobayakawa is decisive, but it's a pity that Kosaka Masanobu is a loyal person. Don't you consider capturing her alive?"
Kobayakawa Takakage's eyes were almost on fire. Kuroda Takaka didn't want to capture Kosaka Masanobu alive, she was just adding fuel to the fire.
If the three divine sisters escape, the 30,000-strong Maori family will be unable to capture the three little babies, and they will definitely become a laughing stock.
Kosaka Masanobu dispersed the Kobayakawa vanguard with a few hundred remnant troops and shaken the 30,000-strong army, which had already made the Maori family very embarrassed.
It's just that Kuroda Takataka didn't say anything. Her compliment to Kosaka Masanobu was not just a slap in the face.
Kobayakawa Takakage glared at the waiting Shiban and cursed.
"Why don't you hurry up and deliver the order!"
"Hi!"
———
Huhuhu..
Kosaka Masanobu felt that his body was getting heavier and heavier. After crossing the river and charging in the autumn wind for a long time, his body was getting wet and he was almost reaching his limit.
The horse beneath her was also dripping with sweat and was about to lose its hold.
There were fewer and fewer Ji warriors on the left and right, but the enemy became extremely ruthless, shooting the random soldiers in front of the formation indiscriminately, and just put some distance between them in the chaos.
Kosaka Masanobu looked around, and saw that the spear formation had surrounded the remaining dozens of Takeda soldiers, and the dark muzzles of the iron cannons were already aimed at them.
Taking a deep breath, Kosaka Masanobu raised his spear and pointed forward, shouting.
"Akabe! Attack!"
"attack!"
She took the lead and rushed towards the enemy. Dozens of Ji warriors behind her followed her without hesitation, rushing towards the forest of spear formations.
Black smoke erupted from the muzzles of a row of guns, hitting people's bodies with blood and flesh flying everywhere. A hail of arrows were thrown from behind the gun array, piercing the ranks and pinning the unarmored Takeda soldiers to the ground.
Facing the approaching Kosaka Masanobu, the spears in the first row retreated involuntarily, avoiding her sharp edge, allowing her to turn in an arc and return to the formation.
Takasaka Masanobu looked to the left and right, and saw that she was alone. There were two arrows stuck in her body. Fortunately, they missed her vital points, but her left arm was already hanging down and could not be straightened up.
She gently patted her horse with her right hand holding the gun and said softly.
"Thank you for your hard work. Please accompany me to wash it one more time. Just one more time."
She looked at the enemy soldiers, her eyes filled with freedom and relief, raised her spear, and shouted to the people on her left and right.
"Akabe! Attack!"
No one responded, but there seemed to be countless voices responding, surrounding Kosaka Masanobu's lonely figure, rushing towards the enemy's formation.
The iron cannon sounded, and black smoke floated from the muzzle again. Kosaka Masanobu's body seemed to have been hit several times with a heavy hammer, but he still refused to fall off the horse.
Suddenly, another arrow pierced her throat. She looked up at the sky. The spear in her right hand finally fell, but she remained motionless on the horse.
After a while, the spear ashigaru, driven by the Hime warrior, stepped forward to check, only to find that Kosaka Masanobu had expired.