Chapter 169: The Father-in-Law Couldn’t Be Saved
Yuan Ye left a small detachment of troops in the Mokomata area and set up camp, while also sending a message back to his base, preparing to use the Kiso River system to transport people, then the main force would cross the Kiso River and continue to advance, officially entering Mino territory.
Meanwhile, the attention within Mino was entirely focused on the conflict between the Saito father and son. Local lords along the way, upon seeing Yuan Ye’s army of unknown origin, hastily closed their gates and stood on high alert, yet none dared to attack or obstruct them, allowing them to advance unimpeded.
A day later, the Wanjin Army reached the Nagara River line and, under the cover of night, forcibly entered a village called Uohira-tsu, securing this river crossing.
At this point, Yuan Ye’s vanguard mission was more than half complete, ensuring the basic passage of this marching route. However, the remaining half of the mission, which was to attempt to support Saito Dosan, could not be accomplished for the time being—he could not determine Saito Dosan’s location. Saito Dosan was being pursued fiercely by his son and was constantly on the move.
A Man was already extremely anxious, worried sick about her grandfather. She immediately led her men personally deep into Mino to gather information, searching for both Saito Dosan and her grandfather without neglecting either.
Without accurate intelligence, Yuan Ye temporarily lay low at the ferry crossing, and also packed up the villagers of Uohira-tsu to be transported to the Mokomata area—this was not an act of evil. This village was similar to Hibitsu Village; the commoners were all emaciated and lived difficult lives. Going to Xin Wanjin would at least allow them to eat their fill. At most, the villagers of Uohira-tsu would not understand and would cry and wail for a while, but time would prove everything.
He carried out another operation in Mino. Besides some local lords and followers who were eliminated, he captured over five hundred more people, men, women, and children. However, the next day, he received two pieces of bad news successively:
The first piece of bad news was an urgent military dispatch sent back by A Man. Mino was in complete turmoil. Saito Dosan had been unpopular before, and now everyone was kicking him while he was down. Everyone, regardless of who they were, wanted to give him a kick. Led by Saito Yoshitatsu, the entire Mino had completely united, determined to eliminate this scourge. A massive force of over seventeen thousand men had gathered, claiming to be fifty thousand strong, and was encircling him from all directions.
The second piece of bad news was that the Wanjin Army seemed to have been discovered by Saito Yoshitatsu and was considered the vanguard of the Oda Family. Furthermore, Saito Yoshitatsu’s reaction was swift; he had ordered nearby local lords to attempt to retake Uohira-tsu, at least to regain the ferry crossing. However, the local lord who arrived was not very strong, with only over three hundred men. They were routed by the matchlock guns of the hundred or so men of the Wanjin Army stationed at the ferry crossing on the opposite bank. Their will to fight was not strong.
Yuan Ye did not take the second piece of bad news too seriously. His current territory and population were limited. He could not contend with Shugo Daimyo like the Imagawa Family or the Oda Family, but among local lords, he was top-tier. As long as Saito Yoshitatsu did not bring a large army, the nearby local lords alone could not drive him away. But the first piece of bad news…
The enemy had at least seventeen thousand men. He and Oda Nobunaga combined did not even make up a fraction of the enemy’s numbers. He now only had over four hundred men. How could he possibly support Saito Dosan?
The situation was more than twice as dire as initially anticipated. He no longer dared to cross the river.
Of course, in a fantasy novel, four hundred against seventeen thousand might be possible, and in a web novel, it would be even more commonplace. But he had truly transmigrated, and he only had one life. The capital he had painstakingly accumulated was not easy to come by, and he had suffered many setbacks for it. Therefore…
This matter should be left to Oda Nobunaga to handle. If he couldn’t handle it!
It was enough for the brother-in-law to charge forward for his elder brother-in-law’s affairs. If he truly wanted to take the brunt of the attack, the elder brother-in-law should come himself!
Yuan Ye immediately sent Maeda Toshiie to personally urge Oda Nobunaga to accelerate his march. If Oda Nobunaga was willing to use his force of over five thousand men to directly confront Saito Yoshitatsu’s seventeen thousand, then he could bring his over four hundred men to help him on the sidelines, sharing about a thousand men for him. But any more than that was not possible. The current Wanjin Army were mostly seeds, and he did not want to deplete too much of his strength.
For a time, he became doubly cautious, scattering a large number of scouts and sentries far and wide to prevent surprise attacks by large armies, and constantly sending people to urge Oda Nobunaga to hurry. However, he did not forget his personal mission for participating in the war in Mino. He allocated more than half of his men to actively attack the nearby Mino local lords, not only to prevent them from attacking him but also to help them lighten their population burden.
His target this time was to transport back at least two thousand people. This matter was far more important than Saito Dosan’s life.
…………
Yuan Ye was waiting for Oda Nobunaga to quickly bring his main force. Such a large-scale battle involving over twenty thousand participants was too demanding for his current developmental stage; he couldn’t handle it. But after waiting for two more days, Oda Nobunaga still hadn’t arrived. Saito Dosan, however, had run out of options and was caught by his unfilial son, Saito Yoshitatsu, in the Tsuruyama area.
“Saito Dosan is dead…” A Man wiped the bloodstains from her small face, took the water handed to her by A Qing, and drank two cups. She grabbed a rice ball and stuffed it into her mouth, mumbling as she chewed vigorously, “He died miserably. His nose was cut off, and his head was also chopped off. Two people took them separately to claim credit. He truly couldn’t have died more miserably, without any dignity!”
“Eat slower!” Yuan Ye advised, then couldn’t help but sigh softly, “He’s already dead!”
He had a premonition before. The Wanjin Army had seen corpses floating down the Nagara River yesterday, suggesting a fierce battle had occurred upstream. At that time, he guessed that Saito Dosan could no longer escape, or was surrounded and unable to flee, and was forced to turn back to fight his son. He estimated the outcome would not be good, and it turned out to be so.
He felt a surge of emotion. It was said that he rose from the status of a son-in-law adopted by an oil merchant, starting as a follower and subordinate official, rising to samurai, local lord, and even expelling his own lord, becoming the first “Sengoku Daimyo” in the true sense in Japanese history. He was nicknamed the “Viper of Mino.” His end was to be killed by his son, something he had never expected before.
After a few moments of emotion, Yuan Ye asked A Man, “How was the battle? Did Saito Yoshitatsu suffer heavy casualties?”
“Not small. Saito Dosan still had some skills!” A Man, who had been hungry for two days, finished one rice ball and picked up another, swallowing it hard. Her voice was still muffled as she roughly recounted the battle to Yuan Ye and A Qing. She had been lying near the battlefield pretending to be a corpse and personally witnessed Saito Dosan walk to his doom.
As for the battle process…
Saito Yoshitatsu was indeed the son of a viper, his resolve to kill his own father was firm. He sent his Senior Retainer, Takekoshi Michikatsu, to directly attack Saito Dosan’s main camp. Although Saito Dosan had only over two thousand men, they were his direct vassals and followers who had followed him for many years. Fighting against a larger force, they almost turned the tide. After beheading Takekoshi Michikatsu, he even charged towards his son’s main camp, attempting to replicate the Battle of Kanōguchi, capturing the leader to defeat the enemy, and crushing them in one fell swoop.
However, the difference in troop numbers was simply too great, an almost eight-fold disparity. Even a divine dragon, let alone a viper, would find it difficult to defy fate. In the end, Saito Dosan was beheaded on the spot in the melee. There was even a farce of competing for credit on the battlefield at the time.
Nagai Chūzaemon, a Mino local lord, and Maki Gen’ta, a Saito Family vassal, both claimed the enemy commander-in-chief died by their hand. They almost drew their swords to fight over who would cut off the head first. Finally, after persuasion from those around them, one cut off the nose, and the other cut off the head, presenting them separately to Saito Yoshitatsu for his appraisal, thus barely dividing the credit.
It was unknown what Saito Yoshitatsu thought when he saw his own father’s body dismembered and his face unrecognizable, and after praising the “father-killer” and granting him letters of loyalty and gratitude.
It was probably a very peculiar feeling, as most people would never have the chance to experience such a feeling.
A Man’s account of Saito Dosan’s death was brief. She didn’t care about Saito Dosan’s life or death, and Yuan Ye also didn’t care much. As long as he could roughly understand what happened, that was enough. After listening to her, he asked with concern, “Have you found any trace of your grandfather…?”
A Man had previously suspected her grandfather was with Saito Dosan. After the two armies clashed, she had even risked infiltrating the battlefield to search carefully. She had also captured some of Saito Yoshitatsu’s followers and interrogated them, which was how she got covered in blood. But she found nothing. The risky interrogation yielded no useful information. Her grandfather was still missing.
Now, hearing Yuan Ye ask, she stopped eating her rice ball and said irritably, “No! This old man is a scoundrel. I told him to come find me. He’s old enough to enjoy some peace and quiet, but he insisted on following that stingy bear Saito Dosan. Now look, even if he dies… he can only blame himself for dying!”
Although she said this, her Dou Dou eyebrows drooped, clearly still worried, but speaking out of anger. A Qing also looked worried, her head bowed, lost in thought.
Yuan Ye had no good solution for this. If A Man couldn’t find him, he certainly couldn’t. But after thinking about it, he comforted her, “Not finding him might be a good thing. It means your grandfather wasn’t traveling with Saito Dosan. He might just be pursued by Saito Yoshitatsu’s men and forced to hide somewhere, currently very safe.”
A Man thought about it and felt what he said made some sense. Her Dou Dou eyebrows slightly lifted a notch, but she was still very displeased, muttering, “Anyway, I did my best. I was lying by the battlefield ready to snatch him out. He can’t blame me for being unfilial. Let him hide wherever he wants now!”
After she finished speaking, she paused, hesitated for a moment, then looked at A Qing and said in a low voice, “Forget about the old man, he’s always causing trouble. I’m out of energy now. You go for me, and leave secret messages at the nearby ferry crossings to find those two little beasts.”
A Qing nodded gently, knowing that she was just being stubborn out of excessive worry and actually still wanted to find her grandfather. She got up and left.
A Man sighed again, feeling extremely annoyed. She had a bad feeling about her grandfather’s situation but couldn’t find him. Annoyed to the extreme, she simply stopped thinking about it and fell asleep directly at Yuan Ye’s place, soon snoring—she had been traveling for days and was exhausted.
Yuan Ye took off his jacket and covered her with it. Seeing her frowning uncomfortably, he gently rubbed her eyebrows to smooth them out.
Alright, Oda Nobunaga’s father-in-law couldn’t be saved, and A Man’s grandfather wasn’t found. The first battle in Mino wasn’t too smooth!
