A Time Traveller's Guide To Feudal Japan

"To hell with it!" Morohira said finally, throwing the blanket on the floor in front of him. "You’re all too loud – it’s impossible to get any more sleep."

"The day has been out a fair few hours yet," Gengyo said with a point. The sun was a quarter of the way up the sky.

"I would gladly have slept through all of it," Morohira said grumpily.

"You have to earn your sleep around these parts," Rokkaku put in, enjoying the opportunity to jest with his friend.

"Now that you’re up, you had better armour yourself. There’s no telling when we will need to move," Gengyo had advised. Both he and Akiko were sitting in their full armour, save for the helmet, which they kept on their laps. The others were the same, Jikouji and Rokkaku too, even Rin. In fact, in the entire encampment, likely the only man who was not properly attired was Morohira.

Morohira saw this as he glanced around. He had attempted to block the world out in hopes of sleep and so he had missed the cue in which everyone armoured themselves in lacquered leather. "Fine," he mumbled, going off towards the barracks where he remembered he had left it. "If anyone has stolen my things, there’s going to be trouble."

"They definitely haven’t," Rin called after him. "I saw them in the middle of the floor – everyone else has taken their stuff. You’re the last one, dad!"

"Good!" He shouted back.

"I almost hope that the Uesugi begin their attack on us soon," Jikouji said, "another night in this decrepit old forest is worse than any night out on the field."

"If it comes to that, we’ll know to put our tents up tonight," Gengyo said back, but he was looking towards the gate and towards the watchman and the scouts, searching for any sign of activity. Two men were engaged in a heated conversation, but they did not seem eager to share.

Still with nothing else going on, Gengyo decided to part from the heat of his roaring fire and from the soft company of his wife, so that he might go and investigate, and perhaps sneak a look towards the Uesugi encampment himself.

Jikouji stood up with him. "Catching a look, are we?"

"Aye, my legs are about to go dead," Gengyo said. "Akiko?"

His wife shook her head. "I’ll trust that you will do your job properly. This fire is too pleasant to part from."

"Agreed," Rin seconded. "Go and do your business, Ni-san, we’ll watch over the fire," his little sister said with a shooing motion of her hand.

"Just me and you then, old man," Gengyo stated as he turned his back on the fire.

"It really is a mess, this old fortress," Jikouji said as they glanced at the walls around them. There were holes everywhere and everything seemed to be so rotten. "I wonder why Matsudaira did not see that work was done to it."

Gengyo shrugged at that. In Matsudaira’s position, he might have done the same. "I suppose it’s better to have three fortresses that are as strong as a god’s shield than it is to have four with weaknesses. Especially when you have as few men as us – you can’t afford to waste any on defending the indefensible."

"But that will be our task, won’t it?" Jikouji pointed out. "It’ll be left to us to defend this indefensible pile of rubble. We wouldn’t be much worse off if we merely faced them on the open field."

"We have the numbers to make it possible and the weaponry. We’ll manage somehow," we always do, Gengyo said lightly. He nodded to the two scouts as they drew close. The men bowed deeply back.

"Any news?" Jikouji asked them.

"Nothing that we can truly report... but the camp seems odd somehow," one of them said tentatively.

"That’s right, we haven’t seen anyone move away from camp, but inside it they all seem busy, like they’re working on something," the other said.

"Mm," Gengyo stroked his chin at that, considering it. He decided that he wanted a look for himself and with three light hops, he jumped atop the old walls. Jikouji joined him a moment later.

With the progress of the day, the sky had cleared and they could see unobstructed for miles around. A portion of the Uesugi encampment was hidden behind a small grove of trees, but the rest was clearly visible. Both Jikouji and Gengyo could see it just as the watchman had – the camp was buzzing like a hive of angry bees.

"They’re up to something," Gengyo said with distaste. They could not tell quite what, but he had his ideas.

"Whatever it is, it can’t be good," Jikouji said. "Do you think we’ll be alright? We’re rather exposed here. If they come at us with a solid plan and weaponry to disrupt our order, they can easily overwhelm us."

A horse broke out from the cover of the trees, a barrel either side of it. A soldier hurried in a panic after it and dragged it back into the shadows, but not before Gengyo realized what he saw. "That’s gunpowder," he guessed. "They’re intending to blow us to the heavens." The thought made him shudder. It was a bad way to die.

"Gunpowder?" Jikouji repeated. "We can gun down a few thousand before they have time to lay it, but if they’re sending horses charging in suicide with those barrels on their backs, then there isn’t much we can do about it."

Gengyo very much agreed with that. Matsudaira might be able to hold his walls against that kind of attack, but they certainly couldn’t. They would buckle at the first explosion. "Call the men," he said. "They have changed their plan, so we must change ours. It is time to leave."

Jikouji looked relieved as he said that. "Immediately, my Lord," he said with rare formality. A moment later, he was hurrying across the encampment and shouting as he went.