It is difficult to summarize a battlefield in just one or two words.
Because this kind of place has always been a place where all human senses and emotions are concentrated and amplified.
Chaos, cruelty, and bloody scenes filled the field of vision. Bright red arterial blood and dark red venous blood were mixed together, mixing pink internal organs, dark or white skin, colorful clothes of different materials, and white subcutaneous tissue. The fat was stained equally dirty and eye-catching red. Mud, broken reed poles, fragments of armor and clothing were mixed in, like the sugar sprinkled on top of a cake by Parnilla's top pastry chef while it was still hot after baking it.
Hearing was not spared either - those who were slightly injured tried to squeeze out all the air in their lungs and screamed hysterically, while those who were seriously injured and were about to die were furiously trying to express their last wishes or wishes. It's about expressing your unresolved thoughts to the air. At the same time, there were other people loudly singing honors and calling for revenge in various languages—either obscene or exquisitely worded—and arousing all the blood in their chests, hoping to use this to Brings great courage to overcome difficulties.
The smell of sweat, vomit, feces and the strong smell of blood fills the nose and mouth. This disgusting smell is enough to make you feel sick every time you open your mouth to breathe in the middle of a fierce battle.
——It can be said that for ordinary people, just receiving such dense information on a battlefield is enough to cause confusion.
So you need to focus, filter out information that is irrelevant to the current situation as much as possible, and focus on one goal.
Mira tightened her grip on the long Japanese sword in her hand.
The hilt length of Kazuto's sword is about 28 to 30 centimeters in Rigal units, slightly longer than a large half-hand sword, about the same as a Rigal long sword, and shorter than a two-handed sword.
More than 70% of the standard basic Rigal sword skills can be applied when using and making long swords, and the first thing that bears the brunt is the way the hands are held, the footwork and the starting position——
Two-handed weapons, focus on the back hand.
Only the index finger and thumb of her right hand in front of the tandem are firmly grasped, and the remaining fingers are not tightly grasped. The knife is held about one finger behind the tandem and is not close to the guard - the left hand is holding the knife. shank end.
You can always easily tell whether a swordsman has been professionally trained by the way he or she holds the sword - not to mention rookie mistakes such as standing incorrectly or holding a two-handed weapon with the hands close together. The overall posture and footwork are well-organized, but when swinging the sword, his hands are stiff and seem to be one piece. This must be an unqualified novice.
An excellent swordsman has deep control over the range of motion and angles of the shoulders, elbows, and wrists of both hands. The hilt of the sword cannot be held tightly, and can stretch and rotate naturally. With the long sword and long sword with a rear center of gravity, its attacks are not only tricky and changeable, but also extremely fast and fierce.
A swordsman who has reached this level of skill is no longer invincible with spears and axes.
"Ha--" This man is not a bandit. His stance is stable, and his skill in holding a short spear also shows his experience.
He is a ronin of the domain under Saburo, and like our Luoan girl, he only wears a lightweight breastplate.
The 1.8-meter long Japanese-made short gun has a full length advantage against the one-meter-long waist knife. Although the white-haired girl is slightly taller, it is not enough to make up for the advantage of the weapon.
The opponent stabbed over, steadily and fiercely, showing no mercy at all.
But she didn't panic.
She did not try to dodge to the side, because although the opponent's gun was long, it was not so long that it could not move around in time. Kazuto's short spear was more flexible than the two-meter-three-plus long spears commonly seen in Rigar, and coupled with the samurai's complex techniques, if she tried to avoid it with footwork, she would be at a disadvantage.
So she chose to face it head-on.
In a simple neutral stance, while the opponent thrust forward, Mira also turned her heels and stepped out with force.
"Drink!" She deliberately tilted the long knife in her hand, and at the moment of swinging it, she used a fake move to hit the opponent's head from above, deceiving the ronin so that he would not change the attack, and then deflected the blade and knocked it away with the back of the knife. The tip of the short spear.
"Crack——!" The damaged but still sharp blade cut through the lacquer on the surface of the hardwood pole. At this moment, she took a step forward with tiny steps. While drawing the short gun to the right, she moved forward to the left. He took a step forward and pulled back the handle of the knife with his left hand to make a sharp and precise slash——
"Crack!!" The blade tore into half of Ronin's gun-holding hand, cut through the skin, cut tendons, and cut off the bones. The palm fell with blood spurting out, and she clung to the moment when the opponent lost the ability to counterattack and block. This time He took a big step forward and stabbed the blade into the opponent's throat without fail. He swung it sideways to amplify the damage while retracting the knife and taking two steps back.
"Uh-hiss" the cut throat made a "gurgling" sound, and the blood with bubbles overflowed crazily. The middle-aged ronin who rolled his eyes died like this under the sword of the young girl he despised—— Just like several people before me.
Rigar's pole infantry likes to use hand armor, and some high-quality halberds and axes will also have a guard on the pole - the main reason is that even pole weapons have a longer overall length than swords. Advantage, but because the two hands holding it are widely separated, the front hand is often within the attack range of the sword.
Kazuto's warriors mainly fight on horseback, and their infantry fighting techniques are more concerned about the "fairness" of confrontation with the same kind of weapons than the Rigar people - but there is no fairness at all on the battlefield. The reason why people pursue good The purpose of weapons and armor is to gain as much advantage as possible before the battle begins.
Although having said that, Rigar's noble swordsmanship usually only considers the confrontation between sword weapons.
Famous teachers produce great disciples.
With the passage of time and the improvement of her own skills, our Luoan girl has further realized how valuable the knowledge taught by her teacher is.
The fighting techniques taught by Henry are streamlined and efficient, but at the same time flexible and adaptable. Because he has allowed the Luoan girl to master the most fundamental "core" through countless basic trainings, and all she needs is to choose a reasonable combination based on the current situation on this skeleton to deal with it.
Different weapons, different enemies, and different battlefield environments cannot be dealt with in the same way.
But there are some things in common: cutting with edged weapons has the greatest damage to human soft tissue, and it can also chop the wooden handles of some weapons; while enemies wearing armor are best to use stabs to attack gaps or counterattacks. Come and hit with the hilt.
No matter how the techniques change, the enemy is always a humanoid with two hands and two legs. A person's joint range of motion and arm length will not suddenly increase, but will only decrease if they wear armor.
The essence of Rigar's swordsmanship of attacking "while blocking" is extremely unfamiliar to Kazuto, who has to start over every attack. This different and advanced technique is her advantage, and she knows this very well. . love
"Oni, Oni! Run away! Run away!" The well-equipped but sparse ronai finally collapsed in the one-sided battle. They turned around and tried to escape through the water, but Henry and Joshua rushed to the left and right. Killed them out, forced these people to retreat, and completed the double team with Narumi, Yajiro, Ayong and others.
In the bright midday sunshine, the last resistance came to an end.
15 vs. 20, with a similar number of people, they were able to complete the annihilation without anyone on their own being seriously injured, and their opponents were still considered elite ronin of the domain.
"Take inventory, burn the supplies, and then leave quickly." The battle only lasted less than 10 minutes. Mira threw away the scarred knife in her hand, pulled out the dagger, cut the armed belt from the dead ronin in front of her, and took it away. At the time of his sword attack, Henry lit the torch and handed it over to the others. Everyone held a torch and gathered in front of the rogues' camp.
The fire burned quickly under the dry summer sky. After collecting all available weapons and killing all the ronin on the ground, the group quickly boarded the boat and left the place. area.
When the others under Saburo's command nearby turned around and finally received the news, a few hours after the battle ended, they could only look at the mess on the ground but couldn't even see the shadow of the enemy. arrive.
"What's going on? Track it immediately!" Qingshi, who was still full of energy, looked angry, but these people did not act immediately after he gave the order. The ninja leader turned back to look at the group of locally recruited bandits. Some of them scratched their heads and ears indifferently, while others had evasive eyes, obviously thinking about something.
"Hiss-huh-" Qingshi took a deep breath to calm down the anger in his heart: "Go and track down the intruders, and you will be rewarded if you catch them!" He changed his words, these gangsters who smelled of alcohol Then they started to move. They grabbed the sickles and daggers in their hands and made chaotic noises, and then ran out in a swarm towards the landing road.
"Pa—" Qing Shitou slapped his forehead painfully: "These are these profit-seeking villains."
"Sir." A ninja under his command knelt on one knee next to him.
"Is there any news about Group A and Group C?" He immediately changed the wording of the conversation between the ninjas, and used simpler words to communicate with the bandits in order to hide his identity. This was his professional habit and what Saburo meant - although These people have defected to them and can be used, but it does not mean that they should be truly trusted with their heart.
"...No contact for half a day." The ninja's report made Qingshi's irritability rise further. This swamp full of mosquitoes, flies, poisonous insects and evil dragons and giant pythons was already full of all kinds of dangers. Now, There are even vicious men who don't know where they come from, attacking them everywhere. Originally, I wanted to leave it to the rogue bandits to explore, but these people treated it passively and had no choice but to dispatch the confidant troops of Swamp Village and their own ninja troops, but they still had no ability to resist.
"Have we really been attacked by evil spirits? We have entered territory that we should not enter. Lord Saburo, what are you pursuing, will it lead to destruction?" Qingshi murmured to himself, even if he was wringing his hands. In his mind, he still couldn't connect with the foreigner he had met once in the feudal land. He didn't think it was something Ryuzosuke could do at all, because Ryuzosuke was always a Chinese.
Warriors' wars are ritualistic. This ritual is linked to honor and dignity and is sometimes even more important than victory. This is the common understanding of both the enemy and ourselves in the battle.
This is a cultural aspect that Kazuto is proud of and is deeply rooted in, but it is also the "narrow pattern" criticized by Laman scholars.
The rising flames of war originally meant the loss of concealment. But looking at the depths of the swamp with orange fire burning from a distance, Ryunosuke admired the foreigner even more.
"Go this way, look, there's something here!" From the other side of the tall reeds, the noisy sounds of the bandits came. They were being led to a remote place as planned.
"It's over, let's move on." The ronors under Ryunosuke entered the battle lightly. Although they still wore armor, they abandoned some equipment that was too bulky to carry.
They had no intention of attacking the rogues. Although these ragtag groups of more than a hundred people could be completely wiped out with the strength at hand, everyone just squatted in knee-deep water and endured the discomfort under Ryunosuke's order. Wait for these people to pass.
Many ronin clenched their swords tightly, as if they were ready to draw their swords and go into battle at any time, but they did not attack under the pressure of their lord.
This is definitely not the way a samurai fights. It is not dignified at all, has no honor, and is full of humiliation.
Even though the rogues have accepted many menial jobs that are contrary to their status, they never thought that one day they would need to let an enemy who was clearly defeatable leave like this.
The resentment was conveyed to Ryunosuke intact through his impatient rapid breathing - everything was exactly as the man said, exactly.
"You can win." That night, when he put down his pipe and his pride to ask for advice, the tall, devil-like man said.
"You can win, as long as you are willing to give up everything for revenge."
There is absolutely no way they can win in a head-to-head confrontation. The overwhelming disadvantage in terms of military strength makes it impossible for them to win on the frontal battlefield no matter how hard they struggle.
But they never needed to win on a frontal battlefield.
The people Saburo gathered only followed him for money and to fill their stomachs. They did not have the strong morale and cohesion that the one hundred people under Ryunosuke had - so he needed to insert his own confidants among them.
Just like the ninjas in the rogue camp on the island in the middle of the lake, even the 600 people who followed them from the swamp village were not necessarily loyal. The vast majority of them probably just follow him because they are popular and drink spicy food - if the upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked, if Saburo can easily betray Sakura, his partner for many years, then he must not be dissatisfied with most of the people under his command. There will be heartfelt trust.
Henry gave Ryunosuke an analogy that he could best understand: "It's like putting scorpions, centipedes and poisonous snakes in a jar at the same time. They are just afraid of being attacked by the other when they attack one of them, so they achieve a subtle result." balance.”
Always thinking about stabbing the opponent, if he can have this kind of status, then why can't this person be me.
Saburo must have known that these people had duplicitous intentions, so on the one hand he gave them property and a superior life, and on the other hand he inserted more loyal beings such as ninjas and ronin as the backbone.
"So, we want to disrupt that balance."
"The most harmful thing about a venomous snake is the head. Although the body looks huge, it is not as big a threat as you are worried about."
"What we need to use is called decapitation tactics." The sage turned over the short knife in his hand and clicked on the simple map.
"The larger the troops lose their command, the greater the chaos will be."
