When Yanagi heard the sound of iron cannon fire coming from the rear of the line and the wails of the soldiers, he felt like his heart was about to freeze.

Although he had been very careful along the way, how could a team that was focused on escaping make a detailed survey of the surrounding area, and when the spies were still observing the surrounding environment, the team had already whizzed past them.

With the experience of being abandoned to their colleagues on the other side of the Kotsugawa River, the remaining 2,000 shogunate troops quickly understood that those who fell at the bottom of the line were likely to be used by the adults as outcasts to delay the enemy's attack.

Therefore, everyone in this fugitive shogunate army rushed to the front, for fear of being left behind by the adults. As for the spies who went out to explore the way, they also greatly simplified the investigation methods and narrowed the scope of the investigation, so naturally they could not find the Suruga soldiers hidden in the depths of the woods.

Yanagi Zongju finally felt a little discouraged, although his physical strength was better than ordinary people after practicing kendo all the year round, but as an old man who was already sixty years old, after running for nearly a day, his physical strength was about to run out.

If he was ambushed by the Suruga soldiers here, Yagyu felt that it would be difficult for him to survive, even if he escaped back, he felt that he would not be able to bear the charge of the annihilation of the entire army of 6,000 people.

After being cornered, this swordsman, who had been in charge of the shogunate's work to monitor the daimyo in various places, finally regained his true nature as a warrior. Yanagi Soju grabbed the collar of Itakura Shigemasa, whose face was pale and no longer knew what he should do, shook him awake, and said to him in a solemn tone.

"Wake up, Banchang Palace, now is not the time to be in a daze. We can't both fall here, you take the front team and continue to run forward, and I'll go to the rear team to command and stop you for you. When I went back, I told the Shogun that Yanagi Danma Mamori could no longer serve him, and asked the Shogun to forgive him..."

Itakura Shigemasa's hands and feet were a little weak and he wanted to grab Yagyu Muneju who turned to leave, but he finally put down his hand weakly, turned around and gathered his subordinates and continued to run towards the avenue north of the Satri Ridge. In order to be able to stay away from the Suruga soldiers, Itakura Shigemasa didn't even want Satrai Ridge.

When Yanagi Zongju was retrograde towards the back of the group, the four or five disciples who had been following him also turned around and followed. The small group, with Yagyu Muneki as the core, constantly hit the soldiers who wanted to flee with the back of their knives, driving them back to the battlefield in the rear.

With the prestige of Yagyu Sotsuki, the order in the middle of the shogunate army began to improve. It's just that Yagyu Muneki hadn't taken a breath yet, and in the small fishing village on the south side of the road, a team of Suruga soldiers suddenly ran out.

Compared to the thousands of shogunate soldiers who stopped on the road, this group of Suruga soldiers who rushed out from the south was less than sixty people, and if they were not afraid on a normal day, even if they were armed with iron cannons, they would only shoot 60 bullets.

But in this chaotic moment of attack, no one wanted to come out and learn how well these gunners were shooting. It's not an army of 2,000 against sixty cannons, it's a few or a dozen volunteers against an army of sixty.

Seeing that the originally somewhat orderly team began to chaos again, Yanagi Zongju had to grab one of the disciples beside him and let him take some of the soldiers who had stopped him to resist the small group of Suruga soldiers who rushed out from the south.

Yanagi himself led people to continue to rush to the rear team, hoping to stabilize the situation before the rear team collapsed.

When Matsuura Nobumoto replaced his subordinates who had just rushed out of the woods with two squadrons assembled, the already crumbling rear defense line on the opposite side was divided into several sections, and many Shogunate soldiers broke away from the defense line out of fear.

When the previous team of Suruga soldiers rushed out, because there were only a few dozen people, they had not yet lined up in formation, and the deterrent power was not strong enough. Therefore, the rear team of the shogunate army gritted their teeth and took a round of fire, and after twenty or thirty people fell, they were still under the command of some samurai, or under the coercion of Taidao, they barely formed a circle of several hundred people.

Nobumoto Matsuura divided the two squadrons into four horizontal formations and stopped at a distance of 30 paces from the circle of the shogunate army. He drew his command knife, pointed diagonally at the sky and shouted: "The first horizontal team raises its guns and aims, shoots from right to left, prepares, releases." ”

The second shot is a shot after shot, and although it is not as shocking as a salvo, it is a continuous burst of fire, which is more stressful for the enemy. Because no one knows whether the next bullet will fly to him.

Another advantage of the second shot is that there is less smoke after the shot, when the white smoke is spewed out at the muzzle of the gun, and then slowly dispersed, it turned the battlefield into an illusory world for a while.

The gunners who shot could see the enemy on the opposite side, but they could not see the blood hidden under the faint smoke, and the roar of the iron cannon also masked the wails of the enemy soldiers who were shot.

All they could hear was the hoarse orders of the commanders around them, the habits imprinted on their bodies in hundreds, if not thousands, of trainings, forcing them to mechanically pass through their colleagues in the front row like puppets, then raise their guns to shoot, and then stop charging.

The shogunate gunners, who dared to stand in front and shoot at the Suruga soldiers, could no longer hold the iron guns in their hands after dozens of people fell in the two rounds of fire from the Suruga soldiers, and turned around and fled to the rear.

The shogunate forces huddled together provided the best target for the third round of Suruga shooting, and the casualties caused by this round of shooting were equal to the first two rounds combined. Looking at another horizontal column of iron gunners coming out of the smoke, fear finally overwhelmed the rear soldiers of the shogunate army.

The rear of the shogunate army was not filled with a gap in the circle, and the soldiers began to disperse to the sides. Tomitaro from Sagami-Sakura Village in the circle looked at them in horror, these Suruga soldiers who kept advancing from the smoke, but shot at his side with expressionless faces, listening to the screams and falls of his companions around him, he felt that there might be a man-eating ghost hidden in the smoke on the other side, and he was exerting mana on these Suruga soldiers.

After seeing the other party raise the iron cannon in his hand again and aim at his side, the fear from the other side finally overwhelmed the swords of the samurai behind him, and he turned around and fled to the rear, wanting to stay away from the iron cannon on the other side.

The escape of Tomitaro, who was in the center of the formation, finally led to the collapse of the last line of defense, and after seeing this scene, a samurai who was supervising the battle in the rear immediately brandished a sword and walked up, shouting at Tomitaro and the others, wanting to drive them back and plug the loopholes in the defense line.

Looking at the smurai who was approaching with great momentum, Tomitaro subconsciously slowed down, and when he was about to defend himself a few words, Taisuke, a fellow villager who was recruited with him, suddenly shouted a few words, and then raised his spear and rushed towards the samurai who stopped them.

"Anyway, it's all death, rather than being killed by iron cannons, it's better to fight with these samurai masters who forced us to die."

Although Taisuke shouted fiercely, how could he, who had never practiced martial arts, poke at the samurai who practiced martial arts all year round. Tomitaro watched, and the samurai on the opposite side easily avoided Taisuke's stab with all his might, and then held the knife in both hands and prepared to cut Taisuke who dared to offend him from top to bottom.

I don't know if it's the strength that came out there.,Tomitaro, who was originally stiff and couldn't move.,In order to save Taisuke's life.,Subconsciously held the spear in his hand.,The samurai who raised the knife on the opposite side was just like this.,Impartially stabbed into the throat of the other party's unprotected throat.。

With Tomitaro and Taisuke in the lead, the peasants and soldiers who had been stopped by the samurai before suddenly had red eyes and stabbed at the samurai who prevented them from escaping. The last bit of order in the rear of the shogunate army collapsed in such infighting.

Yagyu Zongju, who was able to walk past two-thirds of the line, heard an exclamation like a landslide and a sea crack, and then saw the entire rear team retreat like a tide. Countless soldiers and samurai fled from them without hesitation.

Along the way, the hundreds of soldiers who were finally gathered together by Yanagi were also scattered in this crowd, and many soldiers left behind their weapons, armor, and everything that hindered their escape.

Yanagi Zongju actually had time to say to the disciples around him at this time: "Okada, you come to make a mistake for me, it seems that my journey can only end here." ”

Seeing that Yanagi Zongju was about to sit down on the spot and cut his stomach, suddenly two disciples came up and grabbed his arms and ran towards the back, persuading him as they ran: "Teacher, it's not the time to despair yet, the shogunate hasn't even called on its own direct troops, this is just a small setback."

If the teacher is defeated by the unknown person like this, what face will my Shin-Yin Ryu Dokan have in Edo in the future? I would also like to ask the teacher to return to Edo and ask His Highness the Shogun for a chance to wash away his shame and protect the reputation of the dokan..."

Yanagi Zongju, who was still struggling, finally gave up struggling when he heard the honor of the gym mentioned by his disciple, and when he reached his status, even death was not something he could easily decide.

Okada, the disciple who was asked by Yanagi Zongju to make a mistake, did not flee with him, but shouted at the teacher and his classmates with a knife: "Teacher, please allow me Kenichi Okada to die here as a disciple of the New Yin Stream, so it will not fall the courage of my New Yin Stream Sect..."

Yanagi Zongju opened his mouth, but finally shouted nothing in shame, and let his disciples support him and stumble forward with the flow of people. At the same time, Yagyu Muneki and the others, who were in the flow of people, could clearly hear the sound of Suruga soldiers firing iron cannons in the front and back of the team. Obviously, there was more than one ambush of the Suruga soldiers, and Yanagi Sect thought like a knife, these 6,000 troops were really going to be wiped out.

Unlike the panic of Yagyu Muneki and Itakura Shigemasa, Matsuura Nobumoto and Numata Kenichi were at the time of complacency. With the ambush cooperation of the two of them, they finally broke the shogunate army again, which was like a lost dog.

At this point, the first wave of shogunate attacks led by Itakura Shigemasa and Yagyu Soki was broken by Sunfu with less than half of the troops, and less than 1,000 people finally escaped from Satri.

Numata Kenichi personally rushed to the Satiri Ridge with a squadron in order to take advantage of the situation to recapture this point east of Sunpu Castle. It was also on this mountain path that he met a certain samurai who wanted to ride a thousand horses, and almost killed him.

However, looking at this samurai who knelt on the ground and refused to fall, Numata Kanichi couldn't help but feel a little admiration. He bowed to the corpse of the warrior and said, "Find a place to bury him alive, and don't strip him of his clothes." Leave his saber behind, and if you find his descendants, you may return the saber to him..."