Six days after we set off, we finally came marching out of the wilderness. The first sign that the invasion wasn't going to go the way that I had hoped was when we were greeted upon our arrival at a small farming village with empty roads and abandoned buildings.

It wasn't something ridiculous like villagers running in terror as soon as we appeared. No, a closer look revealed that the place had been abandoned for days. What's more, the people hadn't just left. They'd also taken just about everything of value with them on the road.

They hadn't gone full scorched earth. The wells were still good, and the fields would be productive if they were farmed in the future. But anything that could be moved was gone.

I frowned at the sight of the empty storage rooms. I hadn't expected our enemy to be so well informed. Or so organized.

I'd been harboring the hope that at least some of the people who opposed us would respond to our invasion with a stupid and futile gesture of some sort. A small army of rag tag volunteers rallying to defend this border village would have been just the thing to let my troops get some experience stomping easy targets into the dirt.

Instead, we were faced with the eerie quiet of an abandoned town, while the enemy worked to concentrate his forces together into a worthwhile army. I didn't like this feeling of being matched up against a competent opponent.

Of course, I wasn't going to let on that I was upset. My voice was level as I addressed Hideyoshi. "See if there's anything worthwhile left behind. We'll resume our march once you're done."

He ought to be able to scrounge something up. Obviously the massive quantities of rice that I'd been hoping would ease our logistical situation were long gone, but they couldn't have taken everything. I disliked carrying out theft on such a grand scale, but I comforted myself with the thought that it was the other side who had started it.

As far as I could understand the beliefs of our opponents, it was a sort of primitive communism merged together with religious fanaticism. Fusing together two forces that had each been responsible for tens of millions of deaths created a force to be reckoned with. In the long run, it would all end in tears, recriminations, and gulags. For the short run, though, it had lent this peasant revolt the sort of energy needed to carry out surprisingly sophisticated military operations on a surprisingly large scale.

The next village we visited was much the same. As was the village after that. I admired our opponent's zeal. I also bumped up my estimation of their scouting abilities. This sort of tactic was expensive to implement. It wasn't the kind of thing you could do based on the rumor that an enemy army was approaching. On the other hand, if you waited until the enemy army was in sight, it would be too late to shift mountains of useful goods in time to get away. The fact that they had pulled this off indicated that they were keeping closer track of us than I was comfortable with.

Fortunately, our army was relatively small and we had carried with us a relatively hefty amount of food to begin with. I had also made an effort to run down wild game while we were up in the mountains, adding some meat to supplement the ubiquitous rice. We weren't well enough supplied to even think of laying in a siege, but I would be able to keep everybody fed long enough to reach the enemy stronghold and fight a decisive battle.

If they intended to follow this Fabian strategy to the hilt, withdrawing into their fortifications and denying me that decisive battle, then I would have some tough decisions to make. I didn't expect that it would come down to that, though. While our opponent's organization was impressive, I didn't think they would be able to avoid a fight. That same fanaticism that kept their followers motivated would also leave them champing at the bit for a fight.

Religious zealots might make good fighters, but they were only mediocre soldiers at best. It was good for soldiers to be enthusiastic, of course, but there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. However wise it might be for our opponents to pull back and wait for us to get hungry and leave, it wasn't a strategy that would impress the rank and file.

Of course, I had my own fanatics to worry about. Lord Ota had inculcated a culture of aggressive risk taking, helped along by his personal example. After we had experienced such a crushing victory against a numerically superior force, I anticipated that it would be hard to keep my own troops from charging off at the first sight of enemy forces.

To be fair, my troops did understand the difference between a fortified position and a surprised and undefended camp. At least, I thought they did. Really, anybody who wasn't deterred from charging forward by the sight of high walls and prepared defenses would be doing me a favor by getting themselves killed as soon as possible. Just so long as they didn't drag anybody else along with them on their doomed charge.

Still, that meant that it was my responsibility to make sure that I came away from the battle safely. Some might call my preparations paranoid. After all, my own magical fighting ability was not bad, and my army was far better trained than the peasant rabble we were up against. However, when it came to my own personal well-being, I didn't believe in such concepts as "too much safety."

My fighting ability, for example, cut both ways. It meant that I had a better chance than anybody else on my side of cutting myself free from a dire situation. That much was all to the good. However, it also meant that I was much more likely to find myself in a dire situation to begin with. I was the closest thing our army had to a fully trained sword saint. Even if I didn't measure up to Shibadai Katsuie, I didn't feel it was bragging to say that I was head and shoulders above the delinquent students who had been assigned to me.

When the enemy saw that I was the only real sword saint on our side, naturally it would prompt a reaction. Ideally, that reaction would be to run away. The boost in morale would be good for our army, the harm to enemy morale would be considerable, and of course I wouldn't be in any danger of suffering a lucky strike from an opponent who was busy running in the opposite direction.

A canny enemy commander, though, would be far more likely to focus all their efforts on taking me down. As the most able sword saint on my side of the battlefield, killing me would not just be a disaster for me personally, it would also ripple out through the battlefield and do incalculable damage to the morale of my army. Each individual attack on me might be unlikely to succeed, but if you bought enough lottery tickets you'd hit a winner eventually.

We probably wouldn't be put up against such sophisticated thinking. A bunch of peasants, even if they were fired up by religious zeal, couldn't be expected to perform intricate military maneuvers. And a bunch of monks, well, they might be well educated, but if you're out recruiting great generals you wouldn't go searching through a bunch of monasteries to find your man.

Still, it was good to develop good habits early. And, even more so, stomp out bad habits. Better to do too much preparation and not need it than to need it after having skipped out on it. Thus, I was determined to make sure I always had a secure line of retreat, at the very least.

The monastery that served as our enemy's home base came into sight while we were still at least a day's march away. It was a massive structure, built halfway up a mountain. If they hadn't known we were coming, they could certainly see us by now.

On the first night after the monastery came into view, I insisted that we camp on top of a hill. Not only that, but I had the men build walls and dig ditches to turn our camp into a temporary fort. If things should go badly, we would need to have a nearby refuge for our retreat.

The next day, I cut our march short as soon as we reached good defensive terrain, and repeated my order. I expected some grumbling, but to my surprise the men went to work with a will. It seemed the chilling example of Lord Ota's destruction of an unwary army was enough to illustrate the danger of sleeping in an unsecured camp.

The next day, we only had to march for two hours. This time, it wasn't because I had cut the march short. No, it was because we had met the enemy.