While the Teutonic camp was preparing for war for the past two days, in the forest on the northeastern edge of Gensokyo, a Japanese samurai dressed in a full set of pitch-black Shishizu and wearing a pitch-black horned helmet with a visor was working in his big tent, his black eyes staring at the newly released map on the table in front of him, which had not been released for a few hours, and depicted some simple and easy-to-understand terrain and landforms, showing the current situation.

As a daimyo who is not high or low, Shionzukigawa is not to mention expanding its territory, and even maintaining its territory is a bit reluctant - everywhere is the inferior and the weak, the daimyo not only need to lead troops against foreign enemies, but also have to be careful of their subordinates, who knows when there will be seemingly loyal subordinates who actually have two hearts to rebel against their own troops and replace them, or because of some particularly common "accidents" that will not make people suspicious And sudden death, this is too common and too common in the world you live in.

Of course, it's the world I've been in before, not the world I'm in now, with my subordinates and the army.

Even though almost three days have passed, Shiozukigawa still remembers very clearly that his original territory was facing the attack of another daimyo nearby, and not long after inheriting his father's position as a daimyo he gathered the samurai who could be summoned in the entire territory in order to repel the enemy's attack and make a name for himself. Ashigaru and a large number of civilian workers who accompanied the army formed an army of almost 8,000 men, almost half the enemy's total strength, and were ready to repel the enemy in one fell swoop, and if possible, attack the enemy's territory and expand their territory, and victory on the battlefield would also eliminate some of the gossip of the new daimyo when he first ascended to power, and stabilize the people in the territory.

At the beginning, everything went well, and in the mutual attack and defense of the small forces sent several times with the enemy, his own troops won more and lost less, and he relied on his military division and adjutant generals to gradually force the enemy attacking him to the border of the territory of the two sides, preparing for an absolute victory in the next decisive battle, but things changed greatly at this time, which caught everyone off guard.

Shiongetsu remembers that it was dark that night, especially dark.

At that time, in order to be able to arrive at the decisive battlefield in advance and make preparations and arrangements for the battle as soon as possible, Shionzukikawa discussed with his military division and lieutenant generals and ordered the whole army to start a rapid march at night, so that he could arrive at the decisive battlefield in advance in the second half of the night, and when the enemy swayed slowly, his army was already ready to defend or attack- In order to carry out this marching plan, the whole army rested a day in advance while ensuring the safety of the surroundings and no danger, so as not to seriously affect the overall combat effectiveness on the day of the decisive battle due to the lack of sleep due to the rapid march at night.

There was no problem with the plan, and there were no mistakes with the march, but the fault was the weather that night: the weather had been clear and cloudless for the first few days, and not long after the night march began, a large dark cloud covered the night sky, obscuring the bright moon behind it, and greatly restricting the view.

Faced with this situation of not being able to see his fingers without putting on a torch, Yan Yuechuan did not feel anything bad, but continued to urge his army to hurry forward: in this kind of night that was as dark as the moon disappeared, the enemy would never have imagined that his army would try to march in such a bad situation, so a rapid march at night was so necessary that it could completely catch the enemy by surprise.

In line with this idea, Shiontsukikawa ordered the whole army to speed up the march and arrive at the predetermined battlefield as soon as possible; of course, since it is necessary to march in a hurry, then torches are also indispensable, otherwise the march will be completely discredited, and it is unknown how many people can successfully reach the predetermined battlefield when the time comes, and the non-combat attrition of the night march is always not low, if not prepared.

It can be said that everything went smoothly from the beginning, but during the march, a strange situation arose - At the beginning, neither the lieutenant generals of the Great Generals and Divisions such as Shiogetsu River, nor the samurai under them, or the ashigaru and migrant workers, felt that there was anything wrong with the wooded environment around them: the edge of the two sides where their territories met was originally a large forest, and the road they marched on was also carved out in the edge of the forest, so they naturally did not suspect anything; ？

After discovering that the surrounding environment was obviously wrong, the young Shiotsukikawa, who had gradually begun to mature in the previous battles and commands, ordered to camp on the spot and exclude several teams of horsemen and clothed men to reconnoiter the surrounding environment to ensure the current situation.

Soon, several teams of horsemen who had been sent out quickly returned, bringing back a large number of reconnaissance results and reports.

The first thing that Shiongetsu River can confirm is that this is no longer in any part of his territory, nor is it in the territory of the other daimyo around his territory, but a completely unfamiliar place: although it is true that this place is also in the forest, it is enough to make the horse-riding people who have several years of reconnaissance experience not be able to distinguish the many trees and flowers that generally grow here; secondly, some of these horse-riding people who went too far into the forest during the reconnaissance process were attacked by monsters that resembled monsters, causing them to lose some manpowerHowever, they also managed to hunt down a monster that attacked them at the cost of the sacrifices of several of their companions, and brought the body back to their own daimyo.

For this reason, Shionyuechuan also took a special look at the monster hunted by the horsemen, and found that it was a wild wolf that was stronger than a ploughing ox in size, with scarlet eyes, sharp claws, and very sharp fangs in its mouth, and even a strong bite - according to these horse-riding people who had fought with this giant wolf, some of them had long knives or spears in their hands that would be directly bitten off by this giant wolf! However, the giant wolf was covered in blood after biting off two long knives, and was soon stabbed to death with a dense stream of spears by the crowd of horsemen who swarmed up. But in this way, three of its companions were also killed by the horsemen in order to hunt the giant wolf, and seven of their companions were missing and not seen alive or dead.

Although he had heard a lot of stories about demons and monsters since he was a child, in the face of a giant wolf that was drenched in blood and obviously not a normal creature now, Shiozukigawa found that everything around him suddenly became unfamiliar, as if those legends that were either passed down orally or recorded in books were becoming a reality, and he and the others had just caught up, and it had evolved into the strange situation where he and the others were completely unknown.

Shionzukikawa, who stabilized his mind as much as possible, let the people on horseback continue to expand the reconnaissance area after a short rest, and began to let the whole army count the number of military rations: weapons and equipment are easy to do, this time he led all the troops out to fight a decisive battle, and all military supplies such as arrows, The positions and so on are all very well prepared, but the problem is that the military rations carried are not particularly large, at most only about a week's number, and in this completely unfamiliar environment, having more military rations means that the army's military spirit can be more stable, otherwise once the military rations are exhausted, the army will be in turmoil in this environment where God knows what is around, which means a catastrophe - Not to mention anything else, as long as the kind of giant wild wolf you see here is also about the life and hunting of the group, any group of them will be a huge disaster, and only if all the armies stabilize the hearts of the army and obey the unified order will it be safe.

When the horse-riding people returned for the second time, Shionzukigawa received even worse news: the strange environment here did not seem to be very friendly to humans, and although the horse-riding people who had reconnoitred from a distance found a road to the outside of the forest in a long distance, they also found scattered human skulls on the grass or tree branches along the way, and they were still braving ghost fires, which made people shudder, as if the owners of these skulls had encountered something very terrible before their deaths, otherwise they would not have found only skulls in the bones, and they were extremely frightened to think about it。

Not only that, but the horse-riding cloaks had spotted the occasional humanoid creature flying through the sky during their reconnaissance, and it seemed that not only were there gigantic animals here, but even suspected gods or monster-like beings were not uncommon, which made them feel uneasy about this.

Fortunately, although the horsemen brought back a lot of bad news, they also brought good news - there are some strange and powerful gigantic animals in the forest here, but there are also a lot of ordinary animals, and there are some safe and non-toxic edible fruit trees and wild vegetables, which means that the whole army can use them to replenish the loss of military rations, at least no matter what, it can last a little longer, instead of going hungry after a week.

Therefore, Shiogetsu River immediately made a decision, and ordered all the samurai and ashigaru archers who carried the bow in the whole army, except for the necessary guards and alternate resters, to hunt any animals that could be found in the vicinity, and other ashigaru troops who did not have much work to do, and the other ashigaru troops who did not have much work to do must also pick wild fruits and vegetables under the guidance of some horsemen and clothed people to replenish the military rations as much as possible; Who knows if anyone will be attacked by the beasts here after the night and live or die.

While the whole army was busy supplying military rations or building camps, the horsemen continued to expand their reconnaissance area under the orders of their daimyo Shiogetsu River to see if there were any human beings outside the forest: according to their discoveries, beyond the forest was an endless plain, and there seemed to be a lake at the distance between the earth and the sky, and of course, the most favorable evidence that there must be human beings here is the sporadic human skulls found in the forest, if there were no humans here, then where did the human skulls come from

If there are people here, Yanyuechuan can rest assured - he has an army of more than 8,000 people in his hands, and there are plenty of military supplies and enough military food to consume for a few days, so he can completely occupy a certain territory here, at least he and his army's material consumption has a place to replenish, and he should not have to worry about whether any enemies are peeping at him;

But if there were no people, looking at the map on the table in front of him, Shionzukigawa couldn't help but shudder.

According to the map drawn by the horsemen, there are dense forests around their camp, even if you want to get out of the forest to reach the plains outside, it takes half a day's march, and the plains outside are even more vast, and the specific situation is not known at all; , but fortunately, he only lost his horse, and the giant wolf paid more attention to the wild deer that the samurai had just hunted with a bow, otherwise no matter how strong the samurai was, fighting alone with the giant wolf would only become the dinner of the giant wolf.

It can be seen that the environment here is quite treacherous, even if you have a large army with you, you can't ensure 100% safety, but it seems that it was the same in the past, no matter how well the army is well defended, sometimes it will be mixed in by spies or ninjas, in short, if there are no people or villages and towns here, you and your army will be in danger, especially if there are obviously a lot of huge animals and monsters that are difficult to deal with.

Looking at the terrain depicted on the map, Yan Yuechuan was thinking about what to do next, when a voice came from outside the tent door: "Report to the lord!

"Let him in. Shiozukigawa said casually, and at the same time put away the map, restoring the originally somewhat loose sitting posture to a sitting posture - always maintaining the best condition in the face of subordinates, this is the most basic etiquette of a samurai and nobleman.

Gently opening the tent door, a lightly dressed ashigaru walked in and knelt down on one knee to Shioyuechuan: "Report to my lord, we have found a town in the plains beyond the forest! It looks relatively prosperous! And there are large areas of farmland!"

"Oh?" Yan Yuechuan raised his eyebrows, which could be said to be joyful, "Inform the whole army of this good news, and double the food supply of the whole army today, and set off for that town after breakfast tomorrow and leave this damn forest!"

"Yes!" (To be continued.) )