XX: Of heart and minds
1556 – Summer
“Nobushige-sama, Enough brave men and innocent common folk have died thanks to our conflicts. I of the Ikko Ikki have come to seek peace between our people.”
I sat silently at the head of the council while the generals looked on with astonishment and anger in equal parts. As the monk recited his request the old scar on my shoulder twitched, as if to remind me of its source. Yukitaka and several others clasped their weapons, only sitting back when they saw I had no intention of sanctioning an attack. If it were not for the honour of diplomacy no doubt the Ikko dog before us would long have been sent to the dark lonely place we had condemned so many of his brethren.
“Return to your master, and tell him we desire peace, but only on our terms. Too many good Takeda men have met their untimely ends thanks to the violence that your people have provoked, and his hands are stained with the blood of each. Tell him that only the demise of his clan and the death of his person would cleanse his sins and serve to sooth the suffering of our people.”
Otsu castle was a modest, ramshackle affair compared to Kanazawa and Fukui. The walls were short and instead of the binge of overlapping towers we had seen there, here there were but two simple wooden contraptions. Although our enemies were not short of numbers, they were the ones facing long odds now. News from the scouts revealed that at fourteen hundred men the Ikko were merely a hundred short of our number, but the defenders consisted mostly of fresh recruits and conscripted peasantry. I was confident there would be no escape from this, and the last of the Ikko Ikki would fall today. In the short space of two years we had gone from desperately defending Toyama castle to standing over the Ikko’s last meaningful outpost in the Kansai. This would be over quickly, I thought, as long as we did not allow the confidence of victory cloud our judgement.
Taking Fukui castle in the winter had been a boon for us. Takanaga and a few others had objected to marching in the winter, but conditions were good for the most part as we made swift progress across Echizen. The only piece of adverse weather actually served to help us as heavy snow disguised our arrival beneath the castle walls. The Ikko – or what there was of them – were taken by surprise by the army which stood before them as the snow cleared, and the losses we sustained during the assault were minimal. Echizen was almost as fertile as Kaga, and the winter supplies the Ikko had readied for themselves now served us well. Half of it was sent to subsidise Kanazawa, and half was distributed among the troops, much to their delight. A combination of intimidation, indoctrination from Fuyutsugu’s monks as well as tax reductions had helped to keep the Echizen populace under check, meaning we were ready to move on again as spring turned into summer. I had been to Lake Biwa once as a child, but the famous sights did not disappoint as we marched through picturesque surroundings. The mood among the men was more suited to a festive procession than an army on the march, and even Yukitaka and Masakage appeared to be more relaxed than usual. Despite this we maintained good discipline and a healthy pace, arriving at Otsu castle a little over three weeks after our departure from Echizen. I had promised fiefs along the lake to the best performers in battle, and the men were in high spirits as we lined up – no doubt eager to claim their new real estate.
Once the last company of yari were stood in formation I ordered the men forward. The moat was a poor attempt at diverting a nearby river, and by cramming into a bend on the southeast corner we were able to make a landing relatively unscathed. I had been concerned by our lack of numerical advantage, but such worry was short lived as the woefully inaccurate arrows from the castle walls fell far short of our position. Soon our archers were returning fire as blazing trails of smoke and fire homed in on their targets, triggering a sea of savage screams from within the walls.
The initial skirmish continued late into the morning. We had taken some hundred losses, but I was confident the damage done to our enemy was far greater. By noon, the arrow fire from within the castle had weakened, and I waved the nearest company of ashigaru forward. Before long a sea of red cascaded towards the castle walls, and our attack on the castle began in earnest. Our approach had unfolded according to plan, and as the ashigaru began their assault of the east side, the Shinano samurai – whom I had held back until now – cross the moat on the south side and began advancing towards the castle’s southern walls. Seeing the ashigaru reach the walls I urged my mount forward, shouting words of encouragement as they made good progress upwards. Inside the castle I could hear the shouting of the Ikko as our enemy readied themselves for the assault to come.
The first men to launch themselves over the walls invariably faced a jungle of spears, but soon we were able to secure a foothold of sorts. Despite this, the Ikko fought valiantly, and we were pinned against the castle walls for far longer than I had anticipated. Meanwhile the clang of metal rang out from behind the castle walls as the melee rumbled on. It was only when the battle cry of the Shinano samurai rang out from the south side of the castle that our foe were caught in two minds, momentarily paralysed by the dilemma they faced. Still, it was almost a full hour later that we made any tangible progress. In their haste to cover both the eastern and southern walls, the Ikko had neglected to protect the southeastern corner, and it was here that the battle lines first bulged in our favour. Encouraged by the efforts of their comrades and aided by an increasing number of our troops in the castle courtyard, the tide of battle turned in our favour.
As I scaled the walls at the head of my bodyguard, a great cry was heard. In his rush to relieve his men the Ikko general had charged headlong into a crowd of gleefully waiting yari. One of our ashigaru had skewered his horse, causing the beast to rise and throw him from his mount. I vaulted myself over the walls just in time to see the source of our troubles disappear beneath a jumble of blades. Now that their general had fallen surely the inexperience of the Ikko would be quickly exposed, I thought.
* * *
I thought wrong. Any hopes that the Ikko would falter upon the death of their general were misplaced. Peasantry made for poor warriors, but their extreme religious zeal had poisoned their minds. Each man in orange was ready to die rather than surrender to us, and despite our overwhelming advantage it was yet another hour before we could finally claim victory. The courtyard fell silent as the last Ikko was cut down, the only sounds coming from the winds billowing across the courtyard. None of our men spoke a word – both exhausted from the physical exertion and shocked by the extent of the bloodshed. We had taken relatively few casualties during the battle, but the same could not have been said of the Ikko, who were utterly annihilated to the last. Bodies were littered in heaps across the courtyard, discarded where they had fallen and staining the earthen courtyard. We stepped over the jumble of severed limbs and broken weapons as we made our way across to the tenshu, and I watched grimly as the men lined up to bring down the entrance. Would there be a final stand by those who had occupied the tenshu? Would we need to fight floor to floor like at Mishima?
“One...two...charge!!!”
The wooden boards of the entrance collapsed with a loud crash and the men who had acted as battering rams fell in behind it. Standing a short distance behind them we steeled ourselves, weapons at the ready. Neither a word was spoken nor a limb moved as we peered into the dark corridors.
Nothing.
Yukitaka and Masakage had joined me at this point, and we edged forward together with blades in hand. The silence was as unnerving as it was ghostly, broken only by wooden boards creaking under foot. As we entered into what must have been the meeting hall of the castle though, each of us staggered backwards in shock, frozen still by the chilling scenes before us. Strewn across the floor of the room was a tangled, gory mess. Robes of varying hues had been stained dark red by dried blood that had caked in patches. The smell of blood and entrails filled our noses, and several of the men behind us covered their noses, using whatever rag of linen they had to save themselves from nausea.
As we made our way across the hall, the gravitas of the situation dawned upon us. We had marched past several deserted villages upon entering Echizen, and it was now apparent where the occupants of the empty homes had gone. Men, women and children alike now lay at our feet, dead by their own hands. Rather than submit their fate to us they had preferred to meet their end in an orgy of suicide. The mangled corpses told of their final moments - brothers impaling themselves on each other’s swords, fathers cutting their stomachs where they had murdered their families. Most of the womenfolk had died by their loved ones, but others had simply stabbed themselves in the heart. A young mother lay in one corner, blood still oozing from where the blade had pierced her chest. Her lifeless eyes were half open, staring motionlessly at the child in her arms. It too was dead, life squeezed from it perhaps moments before its mother took her own.
This was not how it was supposed to be. We had fought to liberate people like these from the false truths of the Ikko faith, yet all we achieved was to drive them to their deaths...
Yukitaka and Masakage were the only ones who joined me on the second storey of the tenshu while the ashigaru worked to clear the hall below. As we climbed the stench of death was replaced by the fragrance of burning incense, much to our relief. In the throne room we were greeted with the sight we had longed to see since the day hostilities began, yet it gave us little satisfaction now. Shimozuma Yasunobu – father of Shimozuma Jutsurai and head of the Ikko’s vile cult – had chosen to take his own life. He had cut himself open with his tanto, and his entrails spilled forth in a puddle before him. Behind the old corpse a poem was still legible on the wall even as the blood it was written in crept slowly downwards.
The illusion of summer,
My heart bleeds,
My mind lives on
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Re: Takeda - A Shogun 2 AAR (Chapter XVI uploaded - Nov 3)
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Originally Posted by Nordic Hussar
and Assassins Creed Revelations is out tomorrow which won't help either 
