Divine Punishment from the Heavens

"My Lord, do you realize what time it is?!"

His half-donned light armor hung loosely from his body, his hair was a mess, and he clutched a drawn sword.

Looking utterly disheveled, Takeda Nobushige rushed to Takeda Shingen's side with several attendant samurai around him, while Shingen was still busy marveling at the sight.

Seeing his elder brother still admiring the "beautiful scenery" with such enthusiasm filled him with anger.

The whole camp is in chaos, and instead of organizing the troops to defend it...

Even if we can't turn defeat into victory, we can't let this become a rout!

"Oh, it's you, Nobushige."

Hearing his younger brother's anxious voice, Takeda Shingen proved that he truly deserved the title Tiger of Kai: he could keep his composure.

Just how dire was their situation?

Above them, Fire Meteors rained down from the Hojo Army's surprise-attack force, while a terrifying camp panic raged within their own encampment.

In circumstances like these, any commander with slightly less resolve would probably have fallen apart.

He might already have been weeping and contemplating slitting his own throat.

"Brother, it's a camp panic!"

Seeing Takeda Shingen remain so unruffled, Takeda Nobushige was truly on the verge of tears.

A camp panic was also known as a "camp eruption" or a "camp scare."

It was an unusual and rare mass phenomenon in ancient armies.

It described a state that erupted when soldiers under extreme nervous strain were suddenly subjected to an outside stimulus.

Once it began, the soldiers became like maddened bulls, unable to distinguish friend from foe, indiscriminately attacking everyone around them.

Commanders had different methods for calming soldiers caught in a camp panic; there was no single established solution.

Some succeeded, but plenty failed.

Historical examples ranged from Wang Mang's Battle of Kunyang during Tōdai's Xin dynasty to the more recent case of the 16th Corps, whose tens of thousands of troops dwindled overnight to a force of four hundred.

The Takeda allied army in Musashino was now in just such a state.

First, the heavenly fire, beyond anything they understood, had terrified them out of their wits. The ignorant soldiers believed it was divine punishment sent down from above.

Then the chaos of their comrades around them pushed them over the edge, snapping the thread of reason in their minds.

It truly was a matter of timing and fate...

"Calm down, Nobushige."

A perfect example of the servant fretting while his master remained unconcerned, Takeda Shingen calmly let his attendants help him into his armor, even with disaster upon him.

With Nobushige still visibly anxious at his side, he headed toward the raised platform in the center of the camp.

As they walked, Shingen continued soothing his younger brother.

"I've heard that toward the end of the Western Han in Tōdai, Liu Xiu restored the Han dynasty."

"In a decisive battle, Fire Meteors fell from the sky and helped him miraculously defeat Wang Mang's army of several hundred thousand."

"That moment was much like this one. I never imagined I would one day receive the same treatment as an outstanding figure like Wang Mang."

"My Lord..."

His elder brother's absurd remarks practically brought Nobushige to tears of frustration. He wanted to grab him and shout.

Is this really something to be happy about?

That battle made the world regard Liu Xiu as the chosen son of heaven. Do you want this battle to make everyone regard Hojo Akitoshi as the Ruler of the Realm?

"Now that I think about it, Liu Xiu back then and Hojo Akitoshi today..."

"Perhaps they both used Tōdai's Divine Fire Crows, or its Water-Spouting Fire Dragons."

Ignoring Nobushige, Takeda Shingen continued explaining as he mounted the command platform.

Then his fierce eyes swept over the horrific scenes throughout the camp, where soldiers were slaughtering one another everywhere. He drew a deep breath, filling his lungs.

"I am the Tiger of Kai-Takeda Shingen! Samurai of my Takeda allied army, quiet down!"

"Otherwise, the tiger's fangs will teach you how sharp a blade can be!"

Even now, he remained confident that his authority could quell the turmoil in the camp.

Once the turmoil subsided, his army, supposedly a hundred thousand strong, would surely ensure that the Hojo Army's raiding force never returned alive.

After all, as he understood it, Tōdai's Divine Fire Crows and Water-Spouting Fire Dragons...

Though incredibly spectacular to behold, their actual destructive power was limited!

Well versed in military strategy and broadly knowledgeable, Takeda Shingen was certain of this.

Indeed, the conclusion he had drawn from the information available to him was theoretically correct.

The Divine Fire Crows and Water-Spouting Fire Dragons that had appeared in Tōdai's history really did have pitiful destructive power.

Even their inventors were not particularly fond of using them, and once cannons arrived as a more convenient and more destructive weapon...

These two weapons, with their imposing names and spectacular displays, were quickly consigned to obscurity.

But could the Fire Meteors Hojo Akitoshi had made really be compared to those flashy pretenders?

The Divine Fire Crows and Water-Spouting Fire Dragons lacked destructive power because the gunpowder of their era was insufficiently pure, and their technology was limited.

But one must not forget that Hojo Akitoshi had received a complete higher education in Tōdai.

Everyone knew about the Katyusha, right?

To put it bluntly, it was essentially a bank of oversized bottle rockets. Skilled people on Tōdai's internet could even build one by hand.

Of course, theirs might not shoot as far, and their destructive power paled beside the real thing.

Hojo Akitoshi's current approach was much the same.

He had not insisted on great power or long range. They only needed to reach the Takeda allied army's camp from the ambush site.

That was not difficult for Hojo Akitoshi, and to make up for the lack of destructive power...

He had kindly added white phosphorus and sugar inside the oversized bottle rockets he had built using traditional techniques.

He had also added a little flammable oil, determined to recreate the spectacular burning of Yiling as closely as possible!

And so, when Takeda Shingen used his authority to bring a small portion of the panicking soldiers back to their senses...

Then organized those soldiers to rouse the others who were still deranged, while asking them to put out some fires along the way...

Tragedy struck...

Among the soldiers whose emotions had finally stabilized, those trying to restrain their maddened comrades were still all right.

The soldiers sent to fight the fires instantly broke down again!

"It's heavenly fire! Heavenly fire that can't be extinguished!"

It was not just one soldier shouting this. Many, many soldiers were crying out the same words.

They wailed in despair, their cries heart-rending.

They had thought water would put out the flames. If there was no water, they could smother them with dirt or beat them out with thick clothing.

Surely there had to be some way to extinguish a fire.

But what happened?

Some unlucky soldiers happened to encounter

Flames containing white phosphorus, and those flames not only refused to go out...

But, by chance, splashed onto their bodies as they moved frantically.

Seeing fire spread onto their bodies, their natural reaction was still to put it out.

But then the nightmare began!

Whether they rolled on the ground or received help from those around them...

The fire never went out. Instead, it burned ever more fiercely.

It burned through their flesh, straight toward the bone.

Meanwhile, flames sprang up wherever the soldiers rolled, and any soldier helping a comrade who was splashed with the flames became another torch.

The breakdown became unstoppable.

Few soldiers could remain calm after witnessing flames this unnatural.

Moreover, burning white phosphorus produced poisonous gases. Unaware of this property, the soldiers watched their comrades suddenly collapse beside the flames!

"Sorcery! The Hojo Army has sorcery!"

The Takeda allied army, which had only just begun to settle down, plunged back into chaos.

And this chaos was even worse than before.

Beside them were burning, blackened bodies shrieking in agony; beside them were flashing blades and slaughter.

Takeda Shingen's original plan had now utterly collapsed.

But that was not the only thing making him frown. He stared at the sky, where the Fire Meteor barrage had already ceased.

A veteran of countless battles, Takeda Shingen knew that the Hojo Army's next wave of attacks was about to begin.

Sure enough, just as that thought arose, tremors came from the pitch-black ground outside the camp.

A rumbling roar accompanied the heavy pounding of hooves against the earth.

They pounded against Takeda Shingen's heart as he stood on the central command platform, too.

"Hojo Akitoshi! Hojo Akitoshi!"

Keeping his expression under control through sheer restraint, Shingen gritted his teeth and swiftly issued his orders.

"Gather as many samurai from our Takeda main camp as you can. Have them all assemble here with me."

"Prepare to break out. We'll head toward the Dragon of Echigo."

"As for the men here, they're Uesugi Norimasa's troops anyway."