In the dilapidated camp of the Otomo family and the Ouchi family coalition on the north bank of the Chikugo River in Kyushu Chikugo Province, Masarashi quickly arranged the next strategy of each team.

Due to the varying degrees of soldier damage in each team in the first battle last night, Masara directly assigned the peasants and standing ashigaru soldiers in his squadron to the other three armies, and some of the lieutenant generals were also sent out to help.

At this time, Masato encountered a difficult problem, that is, the problem of disposing of those prisoners. Judging from the size of the captives alone, the number of captives captured this time was twice the strength of the Luo family's army at this time, that is, at least 10,000 people. What to do with these captives suddenly became a difficult problem that Masato had to solve immediately.

Kill them, right? This is definitely impossible, even if those captives kneel on the ground and let you cut them, I don't know how long the road will be cut, and then send troops, then those routed soldiers who have escaped will have enough time to run back to the nearby fortress to become the force of resistance, and the purpose of Masarashi now is to fight for the greatest warring state before these defeated troops regroup after dawn to become the strength of resistance. So time has to race against time. Besides, these captives are not fools, if they find out that something is wrong, they will definitely resist desperately, and it will take a lot of time to calm down.

Let them go, right? It's even more impossible. Although there were nearly 10,000 captives in front of him, and there were many corpses of the enemy soldiers piled up together, Masashi could basically be sure that at least thousands of routs were scattered in the field at this time, and unlike the captured captives, these routs still had weapons on them. If these released captives and these routs gather again, God knows what will happen to the Dao. Therefore, these captives cannot be let go either.

Kill and not. If you don't kill, it's not. What to do with these captives became a difficult problem.

In the end, Masato gritted his teeth. He resolutely decided to take the risk of breaking up these captives and dividing them into three ways and merging them into the Luo family's three-way army. Of course. The captives were unarmed, and they were not given even a bite to eat. In peacetime, they will pretend to be the troops of the Luo family in order to confuse the enemy army. If necessary, they will become cannon fodder for sieges.

Of course, in order to settle them down, Masato also drew a big pie for them. That is, after the end of this war, the Luo family will accept them as local lords and allow them to live and work here in peace and contentment. If necessary, they will also assist them in bringing their family members who are not with them to settle together. As for those who don't cooperate, they will be directly slashed and killed. In order to demonstrate the determination of the Luo family, Masara even immediately slashed and killed several former Otomo and Ouchi family alliance leaders who deliberately made trouble during the period.

After a lot of carrots and sticks, it was not easy to appease these captives, and at this time, the close attendant Taketori Snake Lanmaru walked over quickly and reported:

"My lord, the soldiers in charge of pursuing the rout army in front have found a large number of enemy troops fleeing in full force. In the enemy formation, it seems that there is the family governor of the Otomo family, Otomo Yoshikan. "In the previous ambush battle, Tatao Mitsuryaka, a friend of Taketori Snake Ranmaru, went into hiding in order to cover Masara's safety and was eventually killed. Therefore, Taketori Snake Ranmaru is extremely hated for the Otomo family and the Ouchi family. Now that he heard about the whereabouts of the governor of the Otomo family, he naturally rushed to Masarashi to report it regardless of whether it was true or not, hoping that Masarashi would immediately pursue him.

"What?" Suddenly hearing that the whereabouts of Otomo Yoshikan were discovered, Masato was also surprised. In fact, before this, Masato had been unaware of the Dao, and the head of the Otomo family this time would be Otomo Yoshikan. I don't know that the Dao Otomo Yijian is in the camp here.

On the contrary, according to the intelligence of Black Hawk. However, he knew that the head of the Ouchi family of the Ōuchi clan would be Sugi Xingyun, and the Toji Kenren (i.e., Tachibana Michiyuki) of the Otomo family was also in the camp, and at the time of the previous arrangement, Masarashi had already specially arranged for people to search for these people. Maybe there are big fish hiding among the captives at this time.

Of course, in fact, Masashi doesn't have much hope that he will be able to catch these big fish. Because in such a situation, those wealthy generals who were protected by their relatives generally fled first. What is left behind is often some cannon fodder. Now he suddenly heard that he had found the big fish of Otomo Yoshikan, and Masarashi didn't care whether the news was true or not, so he immediately lit the accompanying cloaks and the samurai of the samurai team to find the trace of Ashigaru and chased after him.

At this time, Otomo Duty Jian didn't know that there was a fierce eagle chasing behind him. In tonight's battle, Otomo Yoshikan can be described as quite embarrassed. He thought that he had made sufficient preparations for the night attack of the Luo family, but he did not expect that the Luo family would use such an unstoppable night attack plan as the Fire Ox Array. Yes, just as they were fleeing for their lives, they found a burned ploughing ox in the bushes, and only then did they know what the monster that attacked their camp last night was.

What made Otomo Yoshikan even more devastated was that last night's temporary decision to organize a rout in an attempt to reverse the disadvantage was instead caused by a key attack by the Luo family's army. In order to protect him from escaping, the samurai, who are the most elite of the Otomo family, have been diverted several times to leave the queen behind. By now, there are less than sixty people left around Otomo Yoshikan. This time, not only did they lose an army of more than 10,000 people, but even the samurai of the kinship clan, who were the foundation of the Otomo family based on Bungo Province, were also severely damaged. Even if they were lucky enough to escape back to Bungo Province, the power of the Otomo family could not effectively suppress several powerful wealthy clans. It can be said that Otomo Yoshikan really returned to the pre-liberation period overnight.

"My lord, I'm going to pass through the Bamboo City of the Kusano family in front of me, do you want to enter the city to rest?" At this time, a relative samurai came to report.

"No, keep going, don't pause, and don't alarm the Kusano family." Otomo Yoshikan immediately said. As for the news of last night's defeat, the Kusano family, which is near the battlefield, will definitely get it soon. With the Otomo family's power in Chikugo Province gone, and the lack of guards around them at this time, I really don't know if the Kusano family will replace the flag on the city wall again and join the arms of the Luo family. He didn't want to be the name of the Kusano family to the Luo family.

Not only the Kusano family, but even the Hoshino family and the Kansho family later, he didn't plan to stay, his goal was to return to Higashi Castle at the junction of Bungo and Chikugo countries as quickly as possible. There, the military advisor Usuki Jiansu was in charge of commanding the rear. As soon as you get there, everything is safe.

After running like this for half an hour, the crowd was almost exhausted, so they had to stop and rest by a stream that flows into the Chikugo River.

"Lord, water!" As soon as he untied his armor, a bloodstained warrior brought some water from the stream with some wide leaves to give Otomo Yoshikan a drink.

"Find out if there's anything to eat nearby." Taking the water contained in the leaves, Otomo Yoshikan didn't care whether it was hygienic or not, raised his neck and drank the water, then threw the leaves away, exhaled fiercely and said to the attendant beside him.

After a night of fierce fighting, and another morning of running, almost everyone was hungry, and there was no village nearby, so Otomo Yoshikan had to order people to look for anything in the nearby fields to find anything to satisfy hunger. However, since it was autumn at this time, and the Otomo family's army had trampled on the fields here when they passed through this place, the farmers who cultivated here had already harvested all the crops here, so there was nothing but weeds and dirt at a glance.

Although Otomo Yoshikan was also worried that there would be pursuers chasing after him, without physical strength, even if they continued to run, they would not be able to go further. Now we should at least give everyone a little rest and replenish some physical energy. So in desperation, Otomo Yoshikan had no choice but to order everyone to take off their armor and run to the creek to catch fish to satisfy their hunger. It was obviously impossible to make a fire to grill fish, because they didn't have fire in their hands, so they were even more afraid of attracting the attention of the Luo family's army. So they are ready to eat fish raw.

However, there are not many fish in the stream, and some of the larger fish have been caught by the farmers who work here to improve their food, and some have run along the current to the Chikugo River. Small fish are not only difficult to satisfy hunger, but also difficult to catch with bare hands. So after tossing for more than half an hour, they caught dozens of small fish, and when they were evenly distributed to everyone, it was really pitiful, and even Otomo Yoshikan, who was the governor of the family, only got two small fish.

Because he was so hungry that he panicked, Otomo Yoshikan picked up the fish and stuffed it directly into his mouth without caring about anything, and swallowed the small fish directly with its head and tail in an instant.

"Oh no, lord, there is a large group of chasing soldiers chasing after you." At this moment, the kinship samurai who was in charge of keeping guard on the periphery hurriedly ran back to report.

"What? How far are the pursuers from here? After forcibly calming the instantaneously accelerated heartbeat, Otomo Yoshikan immediately asked.

"It's less than half a mile away."

"Run, run!" Knowing that the pursuers were already less than half a mile away, Otomo Yoshikan immediately ordered. In a trance, he had the feeling of a lost dog. (To be continued......)