There was some noise inside the camp.

It's as if the rogues are back, with the clashing of bottles and glasses, laughter, and the aroma of food cooked over a bright campfire. People mostly relax and eat and drink. It is only when you see that those who patrol and stand guard on watchtowers are still determined and sober, and that even those who drink and have fun still have their weapons at their sides, and their armor has not been removed, that you realize that they are not the same as the people before them.

After the results of the interrogation, Ryunosuke had his ronin begin the celebration.

The 11-year hunt is finally coming to an end, and he can finally wash away the stain on his samurai reputation and regain his honor.

Many of the ronins who accompanied him were sincerely happy for Ryunosuke, and many of them wept bitterly. This complex man's tears contain a variety of emotions, not only for his own lord but also for himself.

For this long time was also full of suffering for these ronins - the samurai's creed required them to be loyal, but this loyalty was not without sacrifice. After 11 years of eating and sleeping in the open, many samurai who were still white boys have become uncles with stubble, messy hair and dark skin, and many of them have left their hometowns until now, and they have not been able to settle down until now, and they are unable to fulfill their filial piety to their parents and elders.

Time can make the brave man who is in charge of a man who is unable to stand up without relying on crutches, and it can also make the most determined and loyal man bend down and bow to the object of his past spitt.

There have been countless cases in the world of Rigal: tribes that once fought to the death against the invaders have suffered a crushing defeat and have been nurtured by a successful culture and education to become loyal to their current rulers within two or three generations. The older generation still remembers the hatred of wartime and often has a high sense of hostility and rejection towards the former aggressor clans. But this is not the case with the new generation born after the war.

Educated by the victors and enjoying the life given by the victors of the ruling class, they cannot help but think that they are nobler and superior beings that they should learn to imitate.

This kind of divisiveness and antagonism among the tribes they rule, and the cultivation of new people who are inclined to their own positions is the standard colonizer practice, and the past Lamanite Empire knew it well - we are far away.

All in all.

No matter how strong the stance and determination once were, we should not doubt how immovable they were when they were set down, they will eventually become vulnerable to time.

- Looking at the various emotions displayed by his followers, Ryunosuke fell silent.

In 11 years, from the initial huge team of hundreds of people to now only a little more than a hundred.

Most of the people who fled were ashigaru, while most of the remaining people were samurai. It took him 11 years to understand the reason, because the ashigaru were more realistic, and they didn't care so much about the ethereal and unfillable thing of honor.

Only those who could eat and drink enough cared about their spirituality and manners, and the samurai were able to give up the opportunity to start a family and give up a normal life because their education taught them that loyalty was more important than that—but also because they had never experienced a life of not taking the next meal.

A samurai who becomes a ronin is not the same as ashigaru. Although the samurai ronin were despised in samurai society, they still had the status and privileges of nobility, and they could ride horses and wear armor. Privileges and connections still exist, they are just not beautiful for a while, and they are still human beings and highly feared existences.

But the difference is that their status is already delicate, and once they are like this, they will almost be equated with rogue robbers.

Do the same thing, but people with different identities will only usher in different endings. The huge gap in perception between Ashigaru and the samurai class created an insurmountable chasm between them - those who fled regarded the samurai who swore to follow Ryunosuke to the death as idiots who did not see reality but only dreamed, while the samurai who remained often cursed these lowly infantry for not knowing anything about honor, and many even swore that after the crusade against Saburo, they would go after the deserters and kill them to wash away their shame.

And even such voices have gradually decreased over the course of 11 years, and now they are almost non-existent.

Because of the departure of the ashigaru, the samurai had to abandon most of their horses. Because their remaining manpower alone could not sustain a whole cavalry force. The only remaining 30 cavalrymen were the best at horse warfare in the army, and they still needed mobile troops, and the cavalry had extremely high combat efficiency in the face of the irregular but numerically superior infantry that remained in various parts of Zhangzhou after Saburo set off the riot.

Most of the samurai became more engaged in foot combat, and little by little learned to cook and make their own fortifications during this time. Those who stayed down put down their bodies and picked up the work that was originally all undertaken by Ashigaru, while those who couldn't let go of their bodies left as a matter of course.

Ironically, these people who couldn't let go of their bodies were often the same samurai who condemned the ashigaru people's evasion the most, even claiming to kill them.

For the same reason – the noble dignity of the samurai – they could spit on the deserters and even intend to kill them, or they could make themselves deserters.

And they don't feel like they're at fault. Some of those who left even swore before they left that they were going to kill deserters and wash away their honors, righteously planting the name of righteousness on their actions, and portraying them as a heroic and lonely penance.

How it is.

How.

It's so small that it's a pitiful pattern. Ryunosuke recalled the evaluation of the Wato samurai by the Lamo people, and he felt more and more that all this was so pathetic. But he won't say it, because that's the few things left to unite the team. Knock knock

No status, no reasonable income – the concept of a mercenary soldier from the lips of the Rigaris is at least rich and prestigious – but what about them?

They are excluded by the mainstream society, and even the common people are afraid and hated of them. Although some villages will trade supplies with them, this is limited to that, and they will not recognize people without money.

There is no status, no belonging, no income other than plundering the rogue. But it was against the samurai spirit to plunder the rogue, no matter how much fancy rhetoric was used to glorify it, so most of his men refused to do it. Their noble temperament made Ryunosuke very proud, but his temperament was not enough to fill his stomach, and 11 years was enough to almost exhaust the wealth he had accumulated at the beginning.

So this team of 100 people is already the last and last strength he has.

So when he asked Henry about them, he knocked on the side and didn't confess, except for the ambiguous and subtle expressions created by human culture.

Perhaps it was also expected that the tall foreigner, the outsider who was sure that he was not implicated, would tell himself a negative answer.

He smoked puff after cigarette and looked at his men celebrating in the camp with a furrowed brow.

Saburo has 600 men, and that's just counting his core troops.

In the 11 years that he has consumed his financial and human resources little by little, the man has built up his own huge power with his cunning and intelligence. When something happened to the domain, he fled south with an entire fleet of sailing ships. He took away his own belongings and those of his partners and those who were willing to follow him, and in the process of such a huge force going south, many people became vassals and planned to pull the banner and do things well.

The annihilated 80-man rogue army was one of them, and according to the ninja, after arriving in Zhangzhou, Saburo also recruited some of the stragglers who had been implicated in the past into his command - and it was from these people that he learned that Ryunosuke was still chasing him. It's just that the staffing of this part of the vassals is chaotic, so there is no specific number either.

But it is conservatively estimated that Saburo's troops in the depths of the swamp are probably also a thousand people.

10 times more than them.

This number greatly exceeded Ryunosuke's imagination. Even if the composition of the team was all untrained ragtag infantry, a thousand men would be enough to make him frown. According to the information learned from various communications, there should be at least 200 or so feudal ronin troops and dozens of ninjas under Saburo's command.

Although the training and equipment of these ronins from the domain are slightly weaker than those in the Xinjing Prefecture, most of them have done some dirty work for Saburo, so it is not easy to fight on the battlefield. And with these veterans as the backbone of the suppression, the morale of the entire army can also be greatly improved.

A ragtag army of 300 men, he is confident that he can defeat it head-on with his well-trained and well-equipped ronin. Melee fighters are on the front line, archers play ranged attacks on the flanks, and elite heavy ronin cavalry with a mix of half-bows and large guns with both ranged strike and melee impact can charge from behind, which can be easily taken away.

With a size of 500 people, they must switch from offense to defense. Find favorable terrain and use fortifications and traps to weaken the enemy's forces, and try to reduce the opponent's numbers with pre-built fortifications, traps, and ranged strikes before engaging head-to-head battles. Strive for divide and conquer, and break them one by one.

In such a head-on conflict, although excellent training and equipment can play a role, the absolute disadvantage of troops will be negligible. Therefore, it is necessary to rely on external forces as much as possible.

The scale of 1,000 people, even considering the efficiency of mobilization and the fact that some of the personnel were temporary and were not loyal to Saburo, this is a terrible number. And—judging from the performance of this rogue camp that has been knocked out, Saburo clearly understands how to use this kind of cannon fodder personnel.

Arrows are not infinite, and the samurai who draws the bow also consumes physical energy, even if they shoot in a relatively safe place. Fortifications can be torn down, even if trenches are dug and filled with spikes, but they can be filled with corpses if there are enough people and a cold heart.

The promise of enough alcohol paralysis and reward – perhaps with some armed intimidation – can be good cannon fodder.

The samurai ran out of arrows, and their fortifications were destroyed or filled with corpses. They would become slightly tired and lose their long-range strike capabilities, but Saburo's own real main force was still intact, and his 600-strong force was still enough to win in a frontal battle. Even if Ryunosuke had a cavalry unit, they wouldn't be able to get the best performance in the swampy terrain.

Horses could not rush up in the mud, and the reeds obscured the view so that the low infantry could easily surround the cavalry. The advantage of mobility and impact is only present in the first battle in which you ambush the opponent, and given the number of archers and the number of vassals that will be thrown out as cannon fodder, it is likely that the cavalry will also need to join the battle early on, unable to retain their arrows and combat stamina.

It's a dead end.

Saburo's overwhelming superiority in forces made the conservative battle plan that remained here lifeless.

Although they still have the advantage of unequal intelligence between the enemy and the enemy, and through interrogation and torture, they already know the approximate staffing and strength of Saburo, but Saburo has no idea that they have arrived - thinking of this, Ryunosuke buckled the pipe in his hand and extinguished the tobacco.

The man who fought for himself this advantage may have the answer.

He quietly left his camp and walked towards the island in the middle of the lake.