Their foreheads were wrinkled in concentration. A single slither of sunlight slipped in to light their dark tent. It felt like it was already mid-evening. It was a difficult problem they were presented with and the time they were given to solve it felt largely insufficient.
Men like Morohira who thought with their swords struggled more than the rest. It was rare that he and Rokkaku sat for so long in one place, attempting to come up with answers. They were the quickest to voice ideas, but their solutions were simple because of it.
"We attack them," Morohira said with confidence, slamming his fist down on the table. "Even if it’s just the few of us, we can unsettle them a bit, get them scared and shivering. They would have to pause their march then."
"They might pause their march to deal with us," Gengyo agreed a thoughtful look on his face, "but that would not take long. We would have to hold off a whole army for an entire day. I can not see that happening. We could halt their march for an hour at most. It simply isn’t long enough."
"Not to mention how reckless it is," Yamagata said, digging his fingernails into his palm. He had more to lose than many of them, but even he could see no merit in a pointless death.
"Then we kill someone that matters," Rokkaku put in, supporting his friend, having been convinced by the idea already. "We assassinate a general or we cut off that Kenshin’s head. Shouldn’t be too hard, should it?"
"You mean infiltrating the ranks of a moving army and getting close enough to a man that matters so that we could take his life, and then – assuming that we manage it – we escape as an army of twenty five thousand men closes in on us," Gengyo asked with a raised eyebrow.
"...When you put it like that, maybe not. Do we not have any sake? This thinking is making me thirsty," Rokkaku said, looking around for a servant or for a jug, but he could find nothing.
"Aye! A nice cup of sake, that will get the gears oiled enough to start turning. You’ll see the ideas start coming then," Morohira seconded.
Jikouji shook his head in exasperation. "No sake," he said firmly, raising his hand with an idea of his own. "Fire is the only idea that keeps running its way through my mind. Fire or explosives, they’re the only thing that such a massive army will have to bow to and respect."
"A wall of flame, is it?" Yamagata murmured, stroking his chin. "We would need a wall so long that they cannot get around it and a flame that burned for so long that they would not dare to pass it. I can’t see Kenshin merely looking at that and deciding to set up camp. Any sane man would sense danger and aim to pierce through it, not wishing to risk encirclement."
"I didn’t say anything about a wall," Jikouji retorted, "only something to attract their attention." He turned to Gengyo then, an exasperated look on his face. "Do you not have any ideas, Miura?"
"Ideas? Plenty," Gengyo assured him. "But a plan has yet to form."
"Well, share with us your ideas," Jikouji begged, "it doesn’t seem like we are getting anywhere on our own. This is your area of expertise, is it not?"
Yamagata and Yamamoto looked towards their new Daimyo curiously. They had not known him to be a man of novel ideas, though they had of course heard the stories. They judged him to be a warrior above all else.
"That’s right, Nii-san, what are we doing here?" Rin asked. "When we need an idea or a plan, it’s always you that comes up with it. We’ve never been good at that. Have we, Akiko?"
"Well, I’m not sure. We’ve never had to be particularly good at it, because Tadakata solves problems that we do not even know exist. You’re giving us a chance, is that not so, Tadakata?" Akiko asked, turning her head towards him, her large brown eyes almost hypnotic as they rested on him.
"We can assume that the Uesugi scouts already know where our army is," Gengyo said, choosing to ignore their questions and instead restating the facts that they already knew, hoping that they would present themselves in a new shape and pattern. "There is a respectable woodland here," he placed his finger on the map, "and if I judge rightly, the Uesugi army should at least be passing it even if they do not dare to risk ambush by passing through it."
"Large enough to hide a whole army, that’s for sure," Yamagata said absent-mindedly, his voice tired.
Gengyo stared at him in a hard silence as the dots began to connect in his head. "That, Yamagata, is brilliant."
"Sorry...?" The man looked back at him in a daze.
"We are a force that thrust ourselves on the scene suddenly. From Uesugi’s perspective, we might have appeared out of nowhere. If there were to be the potential for a new army – one that he had not yet heard of – his newfound experience would force him to respect it," Gengyo said enthusiastically, his voice running faster than it normally might.
"You would have us pretend to be this new army?" Yamagata asked, squinting his left eye, beginning to understand the strategy that was being unveiled.
"We have a hundred men that we can use. Horse owning men, that rode here. Put one of our rifles in the hands of those men and they would create enough noise to answer for thousands," Gengyo said, grinning wildly.
"We put those men in the forest, have them fire at the Uesugi when they approach. They won’t be able to march on and ignore us, else they would be risking an attack to their rear. They would be forced to deal with us. Perfect!" Jikouji finished, slamming his fist on the table and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
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