Yashima Chronicles 22. The Anti-Bandit Army (Patreon)

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I had been considering whether we would need to do a tour of the local countryside and seed bandit fighting forces along the way. Now that the other villagers were coming to us, there was obviously no need for such a thing. They could be trained and then return to their own villages and train up others who might be interested in fighting, just not quite so much that they were willing to travel so far from home for it.

Over the following weeks we started to see the first few refugees make their way to town. I had expected them to be resentful at being forcibly told where to go, but instead they seemed grateful to be provided a stable living environment. With their arrival, I also learned more about the unrest that was the cause of all of these problems.

As expected, it ultimately could be traced back to the ongoing civil war. With the central government completely useless, it wasn't just the local daimyo who felt entitled to act on their own authority. The unrest even stretched down to the level of ordinary peasantry, who were upset at paying taxes without receiving even the bare minimum of government services to show for it. With their local daimyo more interested in building up military power to compete for overall control of Yashima instead of providing basic services, half the villages in the country were powder kegs just waiting for a spark.

In the case of our neighbors, that spark had been provided by a radical Buddhist monk. The first thought that came to mind when I heard that description was somebody who was far too heavily into chanting and meditation, but it seemed my knowledge of Buddhism was sorely lacking. The firebrand of Mino preached on a theme of salvation through works: specifically, that by throwing off the yoke of feudal tyranny and working together as brothers in faith, the peasants would be able to create a paradise on earth.

Presumably, this kind of preaching would be weeded out of the faith with the passage of time. Presently, though, the peasants who had been filled with religious fervor were busy uprooting the ordinary structure of society, confiscating land belonging to those deemed unworthy and expelling-or worse-anybody who refused to get with the program.

I wasn't completely unsympathetic to their cause. Rule by a hereditary class of nobility was a deeply flawed system. No doubt I would be branded a radical if I advocated for a proper system of democratic governance and respect for human rights. The difference, though, was that while I thought it fair for the people to be given a voice in their own government, the rebels largely seemed intent on replacing one dogma with another, kicking out the old ruling class and setting themselves in its place.

Honestly, hypocrisy was probably the best case scenario. At least if they were crooks, they would have to act with an eye towards the long term success of their scam. If they were true believers, the cult-like fervor with which they acted would only become more extreme over time as the problems with their new system became apparent. To the true believer, there could never be an underlying problem with their ideology. Flaws could only exist in the system because the common people weren't fervent enough in their belief, or were actively sabotaging the process. If they kept going down that road it would end in tears and gulags.

That wasn't any of my business, though. In all likelihood, having a neighboring province fall into such a chaotic state was actually a benefit to Lord Ota. It was troublesome for the individual villages along the border that had to deal with chaos spilling over to affect them, but from the perspective of Lord Ota it meant that he didn't have to worry about his neighbor suddenly rising to become a powerful rival.

I made sure to learn as much as I could about what was going on from the refugees, just in case Lord Ota wanted a report. Meanwhile, the militia was shaping up well. A month after the bandit subjugation, the village had a seventy-five man force of spearmen who were capable of fighting together and looking after each other. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't a particularly impressive army, but it should be more than enough to suppress any bandits who had designs on exploiting the villagers.

In addition to the core force of seventy-five fighters, there were another fifty or so who had started later. Both refugees and fellow villagers who had held off on signing up until they saw how things were going. The supplemental force would round into fighting shape soon enough, providing that much more of a protective buffer.

The enterprising fellows who had visited us from the surrounding villages had received a more intense, shorter bout of training, before being sent on their way to make sure that every village had a core of fighters ready to spring into action should they be threatened. Those fighting forces would need another month or two before they'd be able to do anything, but with the bandits having been destroyed, they should have plenty of time to get their act together before any new bandits showed up.

All in all, I was feeling pretty satisfied at Hideyoshi's report. In my area of focus, I had continued to try to whip my students into shape. Now that they had day jobs, though, it was inevitable that progress would slow. Still, they were noticeably improved from where they'd started. I had recently repeated the log-carving test. Each of them had gotten at least halfway through the log, far in excess of what even the best of them had been capable of when I had started teaching them. Hideyoshi even managed to cut all the way through, although the cut was a little rougher than I would have liked, relying on momentum rather than magical sharpness to cut through the last few inches of the log.

I'd also seen remarkable progress in my own magical capabilities. In the numerical readout, my magical strength and control had been increasing at a rate three or four times what I usually saw when training by myself. My overall strength was still measured in fractions of a point, but it was still nice to see my rate of improvement pick up. It seemed that teaching agreed with me.

"And so," Hideyoshi said, concluding his report, "we're ready to launch a raid against the rebels at any time."

I looked at him. It didn't seem like he was joking. "What?"

"Now that you've gathered this army together, in order to supplement our own strength," Hideyoshi said, "we should be capable of stamping out the peasant rebellion, ending the unrest that has plagued the area."

I should have known that my students' thirst for battle wouldn't be sated by a single skirmish against bandits. It exceeded my expectations, though, to find that they were all eager to launch into a battle against a bunch of religious zealots.

On reflection, though, I could see the appeal. I wanted to get some military victories under my belt, just as my students did. My motivation was more mercenary than theirs, but we shared similar goals.

Our first battle had gone astoundingly well, but I couldn't expect that to continue. The professional armies of our opponents wouldn't be caught napping a second time.

The unprofessional armies fielded by a bunch of peasant rebels, on the other hand, shouldn't be anything much. I had studied a little bit of medieval history, and one thing that stood out was that peasant revolts rarely accomplished anything before the advent of widespread firearms. When you put a bunch of people who weren't trained killers up against trained killers in a melee fight, well, the result wasn't hard to predict.

It was sad, yes, but in this case it was my side that had all of the trained killers. It might be a little generous to apply that label to the village militia, but as far as my students went, merely labeling them 'trained" was underselling their interest in battle. With a core of hardened veterans, our ragtag army would have an enormous advantage over the ragtag army on the other side.

Thus, heading over to crush the revolt was a chance to burnish my own bona fides at little actual risk to myself. The logistics would be a hassle. We couldn't just march off at a whim. It would take some time to lay in supplies and make plans. Fortunately, it was nothing that my students couldn't handle. Therefore, it was nothing I couldn't handle, thanks to the power of delegation.

Once we had trampled the peasants underfoot, I could return to Lord Ota with my head held high. Solving the bandit problem at the root would be something that he would appreciate, and taking out the peasant army ought to produce the sort of disproportionate casualties that looked good when they were evaluated by somebody who hadn't been present to see the terrible mismatch in abilities. We might even be able to put the rebellious area under Lord Ota's control. I knew he wouldn't scruple at undermining the power of his neighboring daimyo. It was just a question of whether he wanted to butter them up by solving their rebel problem or just outright suborn control of their territory.

The whole thing would be a resounding success that could propel me right out of the army. Any time somebody questioned my bona fides, they would be pointed to my brilliant solution to the bandits in the mountains. It was probably too much to hope that one battle would be enough to jump me into the senior position that I wanted, but if it could get me into the commander's tent planning battles instead of fighting them, then I'd be happy.

"Are the men ready to march?" I asked.

Hideyoshi hesitated. "Not immediately."

"How much time will they need?" I asked.

"It shouldn't take more than two or three weeks to prepare," he replied.

"Good," I said. "Start getting ready. It's time that we brought peace back to the people suffering under the yoke of those religious zealots."

It was too early in time for most of the propaganda techniques I was familiar with to be particularly useful, but I still intended to do as much as I could to portray our efforts in a positive light. Announcing that we intended to march into a neighboring province and kill everybody who looked at us funny made us sound like tyrants. Marching over to restore order after a bunch of outsiders showed up to cause trouble sounded much more reasonable.

Then, once we were there, we'd probably end up killing everybody who looked at us funny. Well, nobody's perfect.

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