The one kneeling on the ground secretly cast an anxious look towards Sheng Tianmu.
He was eager to tell his uncle as soon as possible the good news that he had successfully completed the task, and hoped to hear his uncle's praise for him as soon as possible.
Mogami has always regarded Sheng Tianmu, who treated him almost as his own son, as half his father.
Sheng Tianmu was always very strict with him on weekdays, and the number of times he showed a stern face to Zui Shang was far more than the number of times he praised Zui Shang.
For Motogami, who respects Shengtianmu very much, one of the happiest things in his daily life is to receive praise from Shengtianmu.
Fortunately, Sheng Tianmu didn’t make Zuigami wait too long.
After Matsudaira Sadanobu praised Mogami with a bit of courtesy, and Shōtenmokuren said a few humble words, he lowered his voice and asked Mogami seriously:
"Mogami, how is the village?"
Seeing that Sheng Tianmu finally asked about how his mission was completed, Mogami, with a look of joy on his face, took a few deep breaths and tried to put on a serious face.
Mogami was no fool. He knew that with the presence of an important figure like Matsudaira Sadanobu, he had to avoid putting on a playful look as much as possible.
"I have fulfilled my mission." Mogami made sure his answer sounded like a "serious samurai" as much as possible. "We only lost 9 lives and 21 injuries, but we took the village! We took 39 heads in total, please have a look, sir!"
Sheng Tianmu nodded, pulled the corners of his mouth, and revealed a faint smile: "Well done."
Finally, he received praise from his uncle. Zuishang suppressed his joy and said humble words like "I don't deserve it".
Sheng Tianmu waved his hand at Zuigami and said, "You can go down and rest first. As for the heads you brought back, put them away first. I will inspect them later."
Head inspection: In ancient Japan, an ancient ritual in which samurai inspected the heads of enemy chiefs.
In ancient Japan, as in ancient China, an important way to gain military merit on the battlefield was to obtain the enemy's head, and the size of the military merit was evaluated according to the identity and fame of the owner of the head.
Therefore, it is necessary to identify the heads to determine whether they are those of famous generals, ordinary soldiers, women or children. This process is called "head inspection" or "head level inspection."
"My fellow countryman, I am suffering a lot. I would like to borrow your head so that I can get military merit" - this kind of thing was not uncommon in ancient Japan.
Many people not only used the heads of civilian men to make up the numbers, but even used the heads of women, children, and the elderly to claim military merits.
The soldiers even developed a unique way of using the heads of women, children, and the elderly to claim military merit - chop the face as badly as possible so that it would be difficult to tell whether it was a woman, a child, or an elderly person.
Because too many people use the heads of civilians to make up the numbers, the "first inspection" is now one of the indispensable rituals on the battlefield.
If there were heads of women, children, and the elderly mixed in with the heads, he might be scolded by his uncle, so before leaving Takta Village, Mogami conducted a "head inspection" by himself and only took away the heads that could be seen at a glance to be young men. Therefore, Mogami did not bring back the heads that were difficult to distinguish in terms of gender and age.
"Yes!" Zuishang saluted and responded loudly, then slowly walked out of the tent.
Matsudaira Sadanobu, who had been silent since Mogami left, said softly:
"This battle of Mogami-kun should be considered the first battle of this campaign, right? Although the opponent was not someone from the Red Moon Fortress."
"That village has a close relationship with Red Moon Fortress." Sheng Tianmu added, "Eliminating that village is equivalent to reducing the number of potential allies of Red Moon Fortress, which will have a disguised deterrent effect on Red Moon Fortress and other villages that have a good relationship with Red Moon Fortress. This battle is a win-win situation."
"...I hope that when we come into direct combat with the Red Moon Fortress, it will be as smooth as today when we conquered that village." Matsudaira Sadanobu smiled.
…
…
Earlier on Choujima, Ogata had tried the trick of "disguised soldiers" with Mamiya.
In order to conveniently gather together the soldiers who were now scattered throughout the village, Ogata decided to repeat this old trick.
He put on the armor of the scarred warrior, hid Daishakuten, Daijizai, as well as Umengi and Kasumi, who could no longer be held in his arms after putting on the armor, and put on the scarred warrior's ordinary-looking sword. He smeared blood on his face and armor, and transformed himself into a "bloodstained soldier" who claimed to have seen the Ainu reinforcements.
The scenes that happened in front of Ogata afterwards perfectly met Ogata's expectations.
After receiving Ogata's false information, Izawa, without any doubt, quickly gathered the soldiers who were now scattered in the village.
After Izawa gathered the soldiers, Ogata saw that there was no need to act anymore, so he tore off his disguise and transformed from the "Bloody Samurai" back into "Ogata Yoshisei".
Ogata's first target was naturally Izawa, who looked like a commander and was the closest to him.
Because he still had some questions to ask Izawa, the commander, Ogata did not hit Izawa directly in the vital points, but instead aimed at the back knee, which would not be fatal but could directly destroy Izawa's combat effectiveness.
Leaning forward, stepping forward, and thrusting straight, Ogata thrust the wakizashi into Izawa's right back knee, piercing Izawa's entire right leg. Afterwards, Ogata left the wakizashi on Izawa's leg and drew out the katana from his waist.
bump!
Ogata let the handle of the katana come into close contact with the side of Izawa who was still screaming. Although Izawa was wearing armor, facing Ogata's current extremely high strength, Izawa's armor did not provide very effective protection.
Yize felt as if a wild boar had hit his side, and the internal organs in his abdominal cavity seemed to be twisted together. After flying sideways for several steps, Yize fell heavily to the ground.
After completely depriving Izawa of his combat effectiveness, Ogata turned the blade and pointed the sharp blade at the soldiers who were still confused and had no idea what was happening.
Ogata first swung the blade, sweeping across the face of "Soldier 1" who was closest to him, then slightly raised the tip of the blade and stabbed at another guy behind him. When he retracted the blade, it also swept across the body of "Soldier 3" - he used three sword skills in succession, climbing the building, bird stab, and dragon tail, and killed three enemies in one breath.
What Ogata is using now is not his Daishakuten, but a very ordinary katana that he just took from the scarred warrior.
Although the ideal response when fighting an enemy wearing armor is to attack the parts of the opponent that are not protected by the armor, these parts are quite difficult to hit.
Just now, when he was using the dragon's tail to kill "Soldier 3", he couldn't find a suitable angle to attack "Soldier 3's" face and throat, so Ogata could only chop at his chest and directly rely on brute force to cut through "Soldier 3's" breastplate.
Although he successfully killed "Soldier 3", the blade of the ordinary katana in Ogata's hand was bent due to the head-on collision with the armor.
The soldiers, who finally realized what had happened, began to riot.
Some people started screaming.
Some of them looked gloomy and drew their weapons to fight back against Ogata.
They were soldiers who were left behind to clean up the battlefield, so naturally they did not carry any powerful weapons such as bows and arrows, muskets, etc. The only weapons they had were spears and swords.
There were nearly 30 of them, and if they formed a dense gun formation, even Ogata would find it difficult to deal with them.
But unfortunately - they are now too close to Ogata.
They simply didn't have enough time and distance to slowly form a gun formation.
Ogata misstepped his steps and used a step to dodge to a place where he would not be attacked from the front and back. He aimed at the throat of "Soldier 4" and pierced the soldier's throat with another bird thorn.
The feeling of piercing a person's throat is completely different from the feeling of piercing ordinary flesh.
When the unique feeling of piercing a person's throat reached Ogata's palm, he decisively threw away the sword in his hand, which had a bent blade and was almost scrapped, and raised his left hand to take away the katana of the soldier in front of him whose throat he had pierced, along with the sword and sheath.
After taking the sword, Ogata used his right foot as the axis and rotated half a circle on the spot. While rotating, he placed his right hand on the handle of the newly seized katana, and then used centrifugal force to draw the sword and slash at "Soldier 5" on his right.
Muga's Two Swords Style: Raikiri!
With the help of centrifugal force, Ogata's Raikiri was heavy and fierce, cutting deeply into the belly of "Soldier 5".
From a while ago, the system sound prompting the gaining of experience points has been ringing non-stop.
But at this moment, a voice that he hadn't heard for a long time appeared in Ogata's mind:
[Ding! Because I have mastered the use of the Muga Two-Sword Martial Art, Raikiri, the Muga Two-Sword Martial Art, Raikiri, has been upgraded to an "intermediate" skill! ]
The system sound that increases the level of martial arts due to increased proficiency - Ogata couldn't remember the last time he heard it.
Because Raikiri is not very practical in actual combat, Ogata has never spent skill points to upgrade the level of Raikiri since he learned this sword skill.
After years of hard training, Raikiri was finally upgraded to an " intermediate " sword skill.
After calming down his mind which was slightly disturbed by this unexpected surprise, Ogata continued to concentrate on fighting the enemy.
After giving up the knife he had just snatched, Ogata used the tiptoe to quickly escape from where he had just stood.
The soldiers who had regained their senses were now launching counterattacks one by one.
But their level... is just like a rabbit trying to attack a tiger with its claws.
As soon as he broke away from "Soldier 5", a soldier shouted and stabbed at Ogata with the spear in his hand raised high.
After noticing the location of "Soldier 6" and the attack he launched from the corner of his eye, Ogata did not run away directly, but went straight towards "Soldier 6".
Ogata first ducked his body to avoid the soldier's stab, and then approached Soldier 6 in one breath. Then he stretched out his hands, grabbed Soldier 6's right shoulder with his left hand, grabbed Soldier 6's left waist with his right hand, and used Shiranui-ryu Jutsu to knock Soldier 6 directly to the ground.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
The sounds of two swords being drawn were heard - after knocking "Soldier 6" down, Ogata snatched the two swords from "Soldier 6's" waist, and then swung his wakizashi and pierced "Soldier 6's" throat.
With two swords in hand, Ogata's efficiency in killing enemies went up to a higher level.
"Muga Nito-ryu" is a sword technique that excels at one-on-many combat. In the current situation, its power is fully exerted.
Ogata's katana drew an arc in the air, and the sharp blade cut off the heads of two soldiers of similar height at once. At the same time, Ogata used his wakizashi to pierce the throat of a soldier beside him who was about to launch a sneak attack on him.
As the katana and wakizashi swung again, three more people had their faces or throats cut.
Then, relying on his brute force, Ogata pierced a soldier's body with his katana. In the blink of an eye, a wakizashi flew out from Ogata's hand and pierced a soldier's face.
Ogata's main attack area was the throats of these soldiers, which happened to be the place where the bleeding was quite heavy, so the blood had not stopped spurting since just now.
Handful after handful of blood spurted out from Ogata's blade and fell onto the snow-covered ground.
There was no trace of white on the surrounding land. Everywhere you looked, it was all "red snow" dyed red by blood.
In such a fierce battle of one against many, Ogata did not have enough spare time to dodge the splattering blood. From the very beginning, Ogata turned into a bloody man.
Ogata kept repeating the steps of grabbing the sword, beheading the person, and grabbing the sword again...
Since Ogata was the only enemy, the soldiers had the illusion that they could defeat him with their numerical advantage.
It was not until Ogata killed "Soldier 19" that the remaining people finally realized how wrong their illusion was.
The survivors began to flee in all directions, and in order to run faster, most of them threw away their weapons.
If the armor wasn't so inconvenient to take off, they might have just thrown it away.
After all, Ogata only has one pair of hands and one pair of feet, and it is impossible for him to catch up with and kill all the soldiers fleeing in all directions.
Because the pistol could not fit into the gap between the armor and the cloth, in order to wear the camouflage armor on his body, Ogata left his Umezen and Kasumi in the house with Daishakuten and Daijizai, so there was no way to snipe the fleeing soldiers with a pistol.
After catching up with a few people and killing them, the remaining soldiers completely disappeared and it was impossible to catch up with them.
Seeing that there were no more enemies standing in his field of vision, Ogata threw away the knife in his hand, scooped up a handful of snow that was not stained by blood and smeared it on his face. After wiping off the blood on his face, he took off his armor and slowly walked towards Izawa who was still struggling to get up.
"You, who are you?" Izawa endured the pain and tried to get up, but because his leg injury was too severe and he was still in pain from the heavy blow to his side by Ogata, Izawa could not do anything except rolling and struggling on the ground like a maggot.
"Just a ronin passing by." Ogata responded in a calm tone.
…
…
"...How tragic..." Looking at the mountain of corpses in front of him, Ating couldn't help but reveal an expression of pity and murmured.
"We're a step too late..." Ogata, who was standing next to Atachi, whispered, "We couldn't save anyone..."
After getting rid of the soldiers who remained in the village and leaving only Izawa alive, Obe took back the Daishakuten and Daijizai, as well as his two pistols that he had placed in the house, and allowed Atachi and others who had been hiding on the outskirts of the village to show up.
When Ogata and his companions arrived at the village, the soldiers had almost finished cleaning up the battlefield.
The soldiers piled up corpses one after another in a corner of the village, and many of the corpses were missing their heads.
Ogata and Atachi both knew that the army followed the system of "valuing military merit based on the number of heads taken", so they naturally knew that most of the heads of these corpses had been cut off as military merit.
Ogata and others are now standing in front of this mountain of corpses, staring blankly at it with heavy expressions.
As for Lilata, she was speechless and choked up. She sat on the ground, staring blankly at the two male corpses and one female corpse in front of her.
These three bodies were the bodies of Lilata's grandfather, father, and mother. They were found out for Lilata by Ogata and his team from the pile of corpses.
The three bodies all looked miserable.
My grandfather's body was almost broken in two due to severe injuries to the abdomen.
My father's body was headless.
The clothes on the mother's body were in disarray... Although she had not been violated, she had probably been subjected to many rude actions...
Perhaps because she had cried so much that all her tears had dried up, Lilata stopped crying. She just stared blankly at the body of her loved one with red eyes.
"Huh?" At this moment, Ating suddenly looked at the ground not far away, "This person is actually dead..."
Ogata followed Atachi's gaze and saw that Izawa, who had just been captured by him, was already dead.
Just now, Ogata interrogated Ize severely.
As a general, Yize holds a relatively high position in the army, so he naturally knows a lot of information.
After some interrogation, Oobian got a lot of information out of Izawa.
For example - their large force that attacked the village has returned to the barracks.
For example - their army is now divided into three armies. The one to which Yize belongs, and which is responsible for pacifying the village, is the First Army with 3,000 troops.
For example, the one who decided to attack the village was their commander-in-chief, Inamori.
Another example - knowing that the shogunate attacked this village was simply because they thought that this village was very likely to become an ally of the Red Moon Fortress...
Just now, after hearing the name "Inamori" from Izawa, Ogata couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. Feeling that the name sounded familiar, Ogata asked Izawa the full name of "Inamori".
After learning that the full name of this "Inamori" was "Inamori Masaya", Ogata suddenly remembered who this person was.
Ogata was no stranger to the name Inamori Masaya.
He vaguely remembered that he had met that Inamori when he was first brought to Chou Island. It was this Inamori who was in charge of the Kii front.
When interrogating Izawa just now, Ogata had noticed that Izawa spoke very weakly. It was probably because Ogata had previously hit Izawa's side hard, causing Izawa to suffer internal injuries. After a struggle, he finally died just now.
When Ogata withdrew his gaze from Ize, Ayizan happened to walk towards Ogata and the others.
"Mr. Majima, Ms. A-Machi." Ayizan said in a deep voice, "Let's find some fish oil together and burn these bodies."
"Yeah." Ogata nodded gently, "Let's go."
"What about the child?" Ating nodded his chin at Lilata who was still sitting on the ground.
"...Let's deal with the bodies in this village first." Ogata sighed.