On plains of wide grass and rare tree plantations, the heavy stone fortress stood out like a sore thumb. Dusk had fallen. It seemed that time of day had an affinity for the Miura men, for nearly everything of importance was done with the promise of dark.
Slanted walls of stone brick, strong enough to withstand an earthquake. It was of a simple square build – it was easier that way – and at at the top of the walls, there were wooden barricades for the archers to hide behind and reign fire down upon their foes.
The gates were torn to shreds. Charred and shattered, their remains had made it a distance away from the walls. The archer's cage was in no good condition either. The Hojo men had wasted a good amount of their resources on capturing it.
It was obvious where gunpowder had played a part too. Walls of such solid stone should not have been easy to break, yet in parts, they were reduced to rubble.
Lazy repairs had been done by the Hojo forces and a meagre amount of men remained inside to keep it captured.
They crossed the fields without bothering to hide, approaching the fortress with all their numbers forecast.
"Who goes there?" A soldier from atop the walls shouted. "State your business or we'll fire upon you!"
The mere fact that he had to confirm whether they were friend or foe was enough to amuse Gengyo. He motioned with his hands and his riflemen went to the front. A pull of a trigger later and the man fell in a collapsed heap.
They marched upon the walls, targeting the poorly barricaded gate. There were a few brave archers that tried to arm their bows with arrows, but they made easy targets for the Miura men, and they would be punctured by several bullets before they could pull the string back.
Gengyo kicked at the mess of wood in front of him. Once, that gate would have been strong enough to hold an army of a thousand, but now it wasn't even strong enough to withstand an army of one. The rotten wood splintered and he threw the debris out of his way. The men moved to help him and their way was quickly opened.
They found three hundred Hojo spearmen waiting for them inside, already in battle formation, holding their weapons tightly together in a spear wall. Against a meele attack, they might have been able to hold for hours, but against rifles, they could not even hold for minutes.
The Miura men formed a line of their own. The tight formation of the enemy made their bullets doubly effective. One volley and most of them were on their knees. A second volley and they had created a pile of corpses. A third volley, and not a single one of those men moved ever again.
"Search it. Make sure there isn't a single man left inside," Gengyo commanded, and his men hurried off to search the fortress and its few remaining buildings.
There was a barracks in the centre of it all, two stories high with a watchtower on top of it that went much higher. It was only enough for a few hundred men – his few thousand would have to make use of their tents.
"Shall I send that message with the scout then?" Jikouji asked.
Gengyo nodded. "Matsudaira will have assumed that we captured it with ease, but it will make his calculations more concrete if he knows for definite that it lies within our hands."
"As you say," the old man said, unbuckling his helmet and disappearing off to find the messenger.
"Are we really going to be trying to hold this?" Morohira asked lazily, filling in on Jikouji's absence. "It's a ruin."
"It is," Gengyo agreed, "but it is enough to make our numbers count for more. It will be a thorn in the Hojo's side, and from here, we can launch further attacks."
"Eh…" Morohira stuck his finger in his ear and turned it around, admiring the fleck of wax that came out when he withdrew it. "Well, you're the boss. If they try to attack us, we'll cut em' up all the same. Just don't much fancy staying in this shithole for long."
"I'd bet that no man does," Gengyo told him. The fortress must have been built a hundred years prior. Even if it were not in complete ruins, it would still be unsatisfactory, for its age had left most of the wood rotten and the roofs holey. It did not seem that it had been used at all in the past century, until Matsudaira occupied it with his own men.
Hoping that it might provide something more than the rest of the ruins, Gengyo headed towards the old barracks, in time to see a man kick through a rotten section of the wall as he ran away screaming. A Miura soldier ran after him and tackled him to the ground, ending his struggling with a dagger to the chest. "Apologies, my Lord," he said when the blood splashed onto Gengyo.
Gengyo made no comment. Inside, there were several other bodies and the floor was fresh with blood. There was movement overhead as a pigeon flew from one rafter to the other, working itself into a panic. There must have been a whole flock of them making nest there, for the common room was coated with bird faeces, the stench near unbearable.
He cautiously stepped his way up the rotten stairs to the next floor. It was no better. Soiled blankets and empty wine bottles, plenty of cobwebs. A sorry state indeed. A ladder on the wall led up the watchtower. The first two rungs had snapped completely off. Out of curiousity, Gengyo tried the next solid rung and tugged on it hard. It held, so he put his foot on and cautiously tried to scale it.
The very next rung came off in his hand, and he shook his head at it. "A shithole indeed."