Prologue

It all started when I turned 17 years old born in a farmers' family in Tanba province in a small village..... I mostly kept to myself and my parents at that point as I never really fit in with the other children in the village, I also never had much respect for our daimyo as he never did anything but tax us highly to keep us in poverty and cut down anyone who disagreed.

About almost a year prior to this incident the Takamori clan had expanded south from their reign spreading their influence from Echizen all the way to Bingo and Izumo province crushing every daimyo's forces in their wake, or so the rumors said after they displaced our daimyo and forced him to commit seppuku and took over our province soon after, apparently our province and the ones next to us were the only ones they haven't conquered.... Some rumors also said that the Takamori Daimyo was an honorable and scholarly daimyo who was quite fair to his people but I had yet to see at the time. Shortly after the news of our daimyos death spread to our village Takamori forces came to our village, the village elder gave the message for everyone to hide inside their homes and after hearing it I quickly rushed to my parent's hut!

However, as soon as I came inside I heard some strange noise coming from outside alongside the noise of horses approaching it sounded like "Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff" with the sound increasing in intensity and noise as it got closer along with a metallic clang when it finally stopped. Peeking outside our doorway much against my parent's advice I saw something strange yet incredible, I saw before me a man stepping out of what appeared to be some sort of iron and wood horseless carriage with some sort of strange metallic bamboo shoot coming out of the top of it billowing smoke! He walked out slowly dressed in his crimson samurai armor a fearsome heads length taller than I was or most of the soldiers there, he shouted in a coarse voice; "BRING OUT THE VILLAGE ELDER AT ONCE!"

I could hear the village elder hurriedly walking out of his home slowly coming into view in front of the man in the middle of all his soldiers holding some kind of Tanegashima[1] over their shoulders stopped right in front of the crimson laden man and quickly did a dogeza, "What is your name?" The man said to the elder "I am Fujioji Munesue, my lord might I ask what clan do you hail from and why are you here?" The elder said, which the man replied: "We of the Takamori clan have come to recruit men for our army, how many able men are in your village between the ages of 16 and 23 Fujioji?" Fujioji was visibly sweatdropping at that point "My lord we only have around 16 of such people...." Fujioji said probably in fear if he lied the village would be ransacked "Very well.." to which the man replied and then turned his gaze to inspect the village houses "If you want to come to be a soldier in the Takamori army you will be compensated 15 Ryo to your family and be paid Three Ryo worth of gold every month and as volunteering as an officer you will gain five Ryo worth of gold every month for your service! If you want to join please step forward as I know you can hear me!" As I heard that I thought to myself "My god our family will be rich, we won't even have to farm to live for at least 30 years this money is the highest wage for soldiers I have ever heard! The rumors of him being a generous lord must be true!"

I quickly ran to my parents who were listening with their shocked faces and said this to them "Mother, father your son is going to war, take the money and live the rest of your lives in peace off of that money...I will sacrifice myself so you can escape poverty" My mother wailed in desperation as soon as I ran out of the door while my father stood there shocked "NO ICHIZEN DON'T GO YOUR THE ONLY SON I HAVE!" but she didn't follow me as she knew she could not change my mind slowly sitting there weeping. (In all of my life, I have regretted that moment with my parents as I did not even get to say goodbye as I could not find them as soon as I came home from the war due to their sudden leave to find a better home with the money they had.)

I rushed outside to the man and bowed to him "I am Ichizen Hotoka, my lord, I wish to volunteer as an officer!" he said to me after my reply "raise your head and line up behind me" As I looked behind him I found 8 other boys from the village other than me lined up behind him as I walked up and lined up beside them and waited. The man then gazed around and shouted: "Is that all!?" but as no one showed up in the next 3-5 minutes he turned around and said "Get in the horse carriages we will depart immediately and arrive in one day all supplies will be provided to you there"

The soldiers helped us up into the carriages and we set out, nothing really happened until we arrived

what we found there was shocking as we were going up to the path, a giant fortress made out of seamless white stone towered before us with a gigantic moat and gate, the cost and time it would take to cut each stone and pile it astonishes me, the Takamori clan really is unfathomable...

As we pulled inside through the "checkpoint" as the Taisho called it i saw on the sides of the incline we were going up into the castle through the gate windows with people manning strange multi-barrel machines with the same weird matchlock mechanism the soldiers had on their weird-looking Tanegashima without the actual match cord as we came inside he had us line up with the rest of the men in multiple rows aside from the other men, he told me that was where the officer recruits were going.

As I lined up the man next to me whispered: "My names Satou what's yours?" I whispered back "I am Ichizen Hotoka" To which Satou Replied "Mhm" striking up for small talk until our sensei came i asked Satou "So what is your reason for being an officer?" Satou replied, "To protect my province from the unjust Oda who might attempt to invade and ransack our lands that is why I fight!" He proudly harumphed Then I quickly thought about the sadness of my mother weeping as I left " I have come in order for my family to find better lives free from poverty" I said back to him with a sentimental face as I could not hide my emotion... soon after our teacher came, he told us first is our

physical training in the morning then tactics and weaponry in the afternoon... we were all issued a strange green uniform with the clan symbol on the shoulders and a strange cloth cap with a star on it.....

Every morning they would have us run across the fort and do hand martial arts sparring all while having heavy weighted bracers on our wrists and ankles, every time we would start to be doing well running or doing martial arts in the morning without tiring they would switch the bracers to heavier ones, it was painful and agonizing having them on all day, next we would eat in the middle of the day as much as we could and then do tactics training, there we learned to read and write as well as do simple math as well as do onboard tactics using pieces on a map as well as how the ranking worked a regular ashigaru would have a cap with no star on the front, a regular officer will have one star, a lieutenant officer will have two stars, a commanding officer will have three stars on his cap or on his samurai armor helmet, commanding officers are nobility and are samurai, above that is General Or Taisho who have four stars, and lastly above that is the daimyo and his retainers. We would also be taught their standard system of weights and rulers called the metric system an amazing invention yet again from the daimyo.

I learned many formations as well, and tactics to encircle enemy lines and later in the day we would have weapons training inside the castle and field training directly outside in the forest and fields

I learned many things, the horseless carriages we use are called Steam Cars, they use soy oil to heat something called a boiler to produce steam in order to make the carriage move, I also learned the different weapons we use, we use special matchlocks called flintlock rifles for our main soldiers, soldiers are issued an attachable tanto that can be fixed on the end of the rifle barrel as well as a belt with 40 paper cartridges, along with simple plated armor that would go over our uniform the flintlocks had some kind of special twirl inside the barrel called rifling that would make it shoot farther than a matchlock when we did a comparison, the Tanegashima could shoot around 60 meters away, while our flintlocks would shoot amazingly around 120 meters away once we learned how to account to how far the balls would drop.

We also learned about artillery and volley fire flintlocks, the multiple barrel flintlock I saw at the gate was apparently called a chambers flintlock, it would be ignited and then from the six barrels it would fire one volley every 30 seconds or so devastating anything in front of it as far as out as 100 meters

we also had cannons that had rifling like our flintlock rifles that could shoot at an astonishing kilometer and a half away! Us officers got specially made revolving flintlocks called collier pistols that could hold a shot in each tube and a strange noise-making device called a whistle made out of copper along with a standard tanto knife along with 35 paper cartridges.

Every afternoon we would do drills on charging, formations, tactics on how to break enemy lines and encircle fortifications, volley firing, accuracy tests, commanding, and more.

I learned that we would be separated by company's of 150, each with 5 platoons of 30 men, I was assigned to 1st company 4th platoon, as their designated officer, above me was the lieutenant Officer who commanded the whole company and then above him would be the Commanding officer who commanded 3 companies which would be a regiment, it continued on this constantly training with only getting 5 to 6 hours of sleep every night after dinner with no breakfast for around a month and a half, the whole time I was ecstatic to finally see some action as all the men were once they announced we would be deployed on the battlefield as we were trained to be fearless under the law of bushido even though we were not full-fledged samurai, I was happy a few days prior as I learned that Satou would be switching to become an officer in the same company I was in as the old one requested a transfer, we only saw our daimyo twice during our training, but every time he was very nice and caring unlike what we thought he would be like, we would line up in formation and he would ask us, officers whether or not our men were being fed enough or if we had any reports on our training or whether we thought we were being treated well, a stark contrast to our instructors who seemed to only want to bring as much pain during training as possible.

One time a man in the 3rd platoon started a fight with a platoon in another company and both sides

in the argument got punished with who was involved with super intensive physical training the training was so harsh that both sides shut up always when they were around each other, from what I can tell our daimyo is quite fair since both sides got injured it was fair to punish both sides for infighting as both attacked.

Now we are getting in our carriages and marching to the front line, from what I heard we are fighting against mostly oda and Tokugawa forces along with several allies which have taken fortifications all along the central divide of southern and northern Japan, I still have not heard of my family but I hope they are doing well.

-2 days later

We are now on the border of Mino province.

I can see the enemy forces as far as the eye can see between the tree line, taking up positions along the front with their weapons, it seems only half of them are armed with matchlocks but I know that our weapons are superior, the place is at a standstill you could even hear a pin drop on the floor its so silent, each side is too afraid to make the first move, then I hear in our rear our cannons firing, iron bullets the size of coconuts rain down on the enemy's positions, you can see hundreds of people being torn apart limbs and guts flying everywhere as their shoddy armor could not protect them from the shrapnel from the fragmenting bullets, I hear the first horn marking for all units to engage and start firing volleys, I whistle out commands on my whistle for my platoon to engage from their formation and ready my collier to begin firing with my tanto in my other hand, the enemy lines are already seeming to be partly shattered on the side that took the most direct hits from our artillery, they immediately begin charging at us while the matchlocks attempt to hit us but we are out of range, the gunners positions with the chambers begin firing salvos on the incoming melee samurai, I see never ending waves opon waves of samurai and ashigaru charging us, I whistle out a command to attach bayonet's while reloading during the firing of volleys for my platoon as many others do it as soon as the horn commands. Wave upon wave charge us screaming battle cries getting slaughtered by a rain of bullets and artillery, the stench of gunpowder and burnt flesh and blood fills my nose, the horn sounds again once we almost run out of ammunition across the front, I blow steam out of my nose in a last act of defiance, my time has come, I take my whistle out of my mouth and shout to my men as the cannons in the rear stop firing.... "Daimyō no eikō BANZAIII!!!!" (Glory to our daimyo banzai) "Jūden!!!" (CHARGE!!) We clash into the mass of enemy Ashigaru, midway through the fight I feel a burning hot sensation in my lower abdomen, I look down to see a wakizashi stabbed through my armor into my chest, and look up to see an enemy soldier, a child of no less than 14 to 15 years old looking at me before being shot in the head by flintlock fire, before i blackout I look to see Satou charging over to me killing many in his wake, he comes to me and says "ICHIZEN!!" I look at his face one last time, my only regret was to not be able to see my family again and also spend more time with him.... And then everything goes black....

What seems like ages later in eternal darkness I suddenly see some light, I open my eyes and look around, I see I am back in the sickbay of the base, I look back at the ceiling and silently weep, "I will be able to see my family again... I will be able to see Satou again...Daimyō Banzai..." And then I closed my eyes... I knew we won...