June 13, the 10th year of Tensho. Afternoon.

  What enveloped the land of Yamazaki was the sticky, cloying humidity of the rainy season and an eerie silence that premonished death.

  At the very front of the main camp, Kanbe’e sat deep on a camp stool wet with mud, his gaze fixed on the enemy lines. Then, without a sound, he stood. His slender finger pointed silently toward the heavens.

  That was the "signal" for the entire army to commence the battle.

  In that instant, Hideyoshi, receiving it, let out a beast-like roar from the depths of his lungs.

  "Fire!"

  With a thunderous boom, lines of fire spat from countless muzzles, tearing through the gloom.

  In this battle, the units placed at the absolute front were not Hashiba’s direct vassals. The main body of the Hashiba army, exhausted from the forced march of the "Great Chugoku Return," was held back in the rear under Kanbe’e’s instructions, well-rested and preserved.

  Those forced into the brunt of the attack were the lords of Settsu, including Ukon Takayama and Kiyohide Nakagawa. For them, failing to achieve military merit here meant being suspected as "accomplices of the traitor." Pushed from behind by the "silent pressure" of the massive Hashiba army waiting in the rear, they had no choice but to plunge frantically into the quagmire.

  The forces led by Ukon Takayama, taking the vanguard, collided with the elites of the Akechi side—Toshimitsu Saito and Yasuie Namikawa—in the center of the Saigoku Kaido road. Thousands of men were crammed into the narrow highway, and the dull sound of flesh striking flesh echoed through the mountains alongside their roars.

  "Push! Do not retreat a single step! Forward and forward only!"

  Ukon’s exceptionally loud roar resounded. But this was no battlefield for competing in samurai honor. What Kanbe’e had designed was a "cage" meant for nothing but the relentless grinding down of the enemy, leaving them no escape.

  The narrow highway, squeezed like the eye of a needle between Mt. Tenno and the Yodo River, instantly turned into a bottomless swamp of blood and mud.

  Soldiers clad in heavy iron armor used the corpses of their fallen comrades as stepping stones, only to fall and pile up on top of them. The mud beneath their feet was stained crimson by the overflowing fresh blood, and a strange heat—a mixture of the smell of iron and the stench of decaying entrails—hung in the air.

  From the main camp, Kanbe’e looked down upon this hellscape with his "mind's eye."

  (War is nothing more than the task of driving men into a place with no exit and inflicting an irrational death upon them...)

  The board moved decisively the moment a single torchlight flared up on the ridgeline of Mt. Tenno, which had been submerged in darkness.

  "My Lord! Yoshiharu Horio has secured the summit!"

  At the aide's report, Kanbe’e’s lips curved slightly. It was a cold certainty—the moment his calculations bore fruit. Kanbe’e whispered into Hideyoshi’s ear.

  "My Lord, now is the time. Have the arquebusiers fire from Mt. Tenno and gouge out Akechi's flank."

  Hideyoshi nodded instantly and issued the command to the entire army.

  "Fire down from Mt. Tenno! Pierce through Akechi’s side!"

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  From the slopes of Mt. Tenno, Hashiba’s hidden troops surged down like an avalanche. The snipers, having seized the high ground, rained fire upon the Akechi army trapped on the highway with no escape. It was no mere rain. It was "leaden death" pouring from the heavens.

  The Akechi soldiers, not even knowing where they were being shot from, had their helmets shattered and their throats pierced. Before they could even scream, they buried their faces in the mud and were trampled by their own following comrades. Kanbe’e’s command had already forgotten the word "mercy."

  "Wha—impossible! For Mt. Tenno to fall so quickly! What is Toshimitsu doing!?"

  At the Akechi main camp, Mitsuhide was struck with terror. The "Crane Wing Formation" he had deployed had its wings torn off from the roots on both sides; not a trace of it remained. Mitsuhide, known as a brilliant strategist, was exposing his agitation for the first time before the "unpredictable speed" and "violent height advantage" unleashed by Kanbe’e.

  The classical military tactics and elegant refinement that Mitsuhide had built up were nothing more than child's play before Kanbe’e’s mud-stained, rational slaughter mechanism. Kanbe’e had crushed the very "logic" Mitsuhide prided himself on with overwhelming "physics."

  The Enmyoji River flowing through the battlefield was instantly dyed crimson.

  Kanbe’e further committed his reserve forces without hesitation, driving the enemy into the marshlands of the Yodo River.

  "Do not retreat! Hold your ground!"

  The Akechi generals screamed desperately, but behind them was the deep Yodo River, and before them was the wall of Hashiba spears. And from above, the sniping from Mt. Tenno.

  The soldiers, having lost all escape routes, were enveloped in a terror bordering on madness. A soldier buried up to his knees in the mire, just before his head was taken, saw only the orderly violence of the Hashiba army "processing" them expressionlessly.

  Spears snapped, swords chipped, and the lives of men were discarded like trash. Kanbe’e measured the carnage with the ruler of "efficiency."

  Kanbe’e barked instructions to his aides.

  "Tell the Ikeda unit along the Yodo River! Do not pursue those who flee! Gather them in one place, then fire all at once!"

  Hearing that cold-blooded instruction, Hideyoshi shouted to the entire army.

  "There is no need to spare the ammunition! Crush the very soul of the Akechi!"

  Though Hideyoshi gave the order, his face stiffened at Kanbe’e’s thorough ruthlessness.

  "Kanbe’e... I thought my shackles were removed when the Great Lord died, but you... you are a truly terrifying man."

  Kanbe’e did not answer. He merely sat in the main camp—where not a drop of blood reached him—accepting the screams of the death throes coming from the mud several kilometers away with a serene expression, as if listening to music. For him, this battlefield was no longer a fight, but a ritual of "purification" to remove impurities.

  "Is this... the end?"

  Mitsuhide watched the final moments of his army collapsing before his eyes.

  Where had the elation he felt just a few days ago, when he struck down his lord at Honno-ji, vanished to? Inside the "cage" designed by Kanbe’e, Mitsuhide’s ambition was being cruelly, logically, and administratively dismantled.

  What was reflected in Mitsuhide’s eyes was no longer a battle of samurai. It was the sight of a massive mass of 40,000 grinding down 16,000 fragile individuals like a cold machine.

  "My Lord! The army is already in ruins!"

  Responding to his vassal's scream that was almost a shriek, Mitsuhide turned his horse. But on his back, there was no longer the dignity of a brilliant strategist; only the helplessness of a man trembling in the shadow of death lingered. Mitsuhide’s pride was completely buried in the quagmire of Yamazaki.

  "Retreat! To Shoryuji Castle—no, to Sakamoto... We must reach Sakamoto!"

  Mitsuhide fled to Shoryuji Castle with a small band of followers. But even that was no place of peace. Kanbe’e’s web had already been spun across every road leading to Kyoto, far beyond Yamazaki.

  Kanbe’e had also gathered his assassination unit, the "Senryu".

  Here, he had them disguised as local peasants, staking out the paths to target Mitsuhide and Toshimitsu Saito, prepared to ensure their breaths were stopped to "seal their lips" for good.

  Evening.

  On the battlefield of Yamazaki, only countless corpses and the roars of the victors remained.

  The continuous rain had stopped, and the setting sun peeking through the clouds illuminated the corpse-filled Yodo River in a dark reddish hue. The crimson foam covering the river's surface quietly announced that life had once been there.

  In the main camp, where the scent of blood drifted on the wind, Kanbe’e slowly set down his brush.

  "This is not the end... It is the beginning."

  Just as he said, history began to turn with a decisive sound around the two monsters: Hideyoshi and Kanbe’e. Beyond Kanbe’e’s gaze, the outline of the new world he was to build was vividly drawn.

  Beyond the thicket of Ogurusu, where Mitsuhide vanished into the darkness, even darker clouds were beginning to rise. Kanbe’e’s cold intellect was already looking toward the next board: the world of "post-war."

  Produced and written by a Japanese author, rooted in authentic Japanese history. Translated with the assistance of Gemini (AI).