They took the men with the deftest hands and set them about embroidering several new banners. They hit upon a mon for their new clan almost immediately. Nothing was more fitting than the sly coils of a grinning snake all embalmed in red. Its tongue was almost as long as itself – a thoroughly despicable image.
They had them completed at speed as they prepared their selection of men to set out for the forest. As they worked, the entire camp slept, a deep and undisturbed sleep. If they could prolong battle until the following day, Gengyo was certain that they would hold an advantage.
Each man took two rifles, both of them fully loaded, so that they might unleash twelve shots without having to pause and reload. It would certainly be enough to cause some havoc. They loaded bamboo packs with a disgusting amount of ammunition, eliminating the problem of running out.
It was Takeshi they had to thank for those supplies. No doubt the little smith was hard at work back in the capital, preparing the defences for the Hojo invasion.
As they prepared, they had the scouts continually sent out, receiving regular updates on the Uesugi position. They managed to take out the Uesugi eyes that had been set on them, granting themselves a short window of action, before the loss of the scouts would be noticed and suspicion would be raised.
By then, Gengyo and his army of a hundred had set out on their horses, pushing the beasts into a furious gallop. The paths they chose were uneven and overgrown with plenty of low hanging branches barring their way, but they could choose no over course else they would risk revealing themselves to the enemy.
The sun was falling in the sky and soon the sky horizon would be lit up in an orange glow. There were still a few hours of daylight left – more than enough time for the Uesugi army to make its assault on the nearest village. Before then though, they would have to pass Gengyo's forest.
They made their arrival with hardly any time to spare. There was a bend in the wide road that the Uesugi army would have to pass and after that, they would have a clear view of the forest.
"Get the banners up!" Gengyo commanded, hurriedly tying his horse to a tree deeper into the forest, hefting one of the bamboo banners off the side of the horse. They had sharpened the end of it into apoint and with a slight jump to lend himself power, he thrust it deep into the ground.
The men ran next to him, heading further down the tree line to plant more banners into the earth. When they were finished, there were fifteen swaying banners all with that mon of the laughing snake, covering the entire length of that tree line.
They finished their preparations just in time and headed near twenty metres deeper into the forest, where the undergrowth was thick enough to hide them. They put their second rifles to the side of them and took aim with the other, all but invisible to those outside of the forest.
"Hold your fire until given the command," Gengyo whispered. The order was quickly whispered down the line as one man turned to the other and then men nodded. He noticed that their barrels were steady, and that they were calm. He was glad of that. They were soldiers of position and leaders of men, through that they had earned the honour of riding a horse at the front.
The clopping of hooves and the stamping of feet sounded in the distance. Banners were held high in the sky, peeking over the tops of the high grass that grew either side of that wide dirt road, with its deep trenches that the carts had left.
The first horse's head made its way past the corner, snorting against the bit in its mouth. The rider held his reigns with a single hand, proudly keeping a bamboo banner held straight with the other as the base rested against a support in the saddle.
Behind him there came another two men, fully armoured with only their helmets removed, stern looks on their faces, maintaining that threateningly slow swagger keeping their horses at a slow walk so as to keep pace with the infantry.
After those two was another five. Then ten. Then twenty, until a whole column of furious cavalry was revealed along with their leader in the centre of it all. Just like Nobunaga had attempted to imitate, the real Uesugi Kenshin kept his head tied in a flowing white cloth that fell down to his shoulders. His personal guard surrounded him in their purple armour, oozing casually violent auras.
The army never seemed to end. That column of cavalry continued until the whole road was filled with thousands of them and then came the marching infantry. Katana wielding samurai followed by spear-wielding peasants.
It did not take them long to notice the snake banners that had been set up along the line of the forest. A man to Kenshin's left pointed towards them and a frown settled on his lips. Seeing that look on his face, even from that distance, it made the veteran warriors of the Miura army grin.
"We've irritated him," Gengyo said with satisfaction.
"This is the best thing we've ever done," Morohira stated without reserve. There were few feelings more powerful than halting a mammoth army of thirty thousand men with a mere hundred.
Kenshin held up his hand and his whole army paused a few hundred metres from the edge of Gengyo's forest. As eager as their fingers were to squeeze the trigger, the optimal timing for their shots still lay in the future.
The Uesugi Daimyo spoke to his men and settled on a course of action. A group of brave scouts brought their horses to the front, volunteering for the dangerous task of investigating the unexplored territory.