At eight o'clock in the afternoon, the door finally opened slowly. Kotaro could not squeeze to the front of the queue, so he could only stand on a low wall at the back, watching with envy as the villagers poured out of the door. The crowd began to push and shove each other, slowly.
Slowly squirming towards the east gate. Kotaro held his wife with his left hand and his youngest son with his right hand. He looked at his nephew and younger brother who were following him, feeling indescribable sadness in his heart. They each carried several small baggage.
It was all that their family had left.
The closer you get to the east gate, the more crowded it becomes. The streets on both sides of the east gate, which are close to the city wall, are filled with Ashigaru members of the Okabe family who maintain order. They are all neatly dressed, holding weapons in their hands, staring eagerly in front of them.
The common people passing by. Kotaro felt that if a conflict broke out between the common people and the Ashigaru, they would definitely be suppressed immediately. Kotaro squeezed into the crowd with all his strength and moved towards the doorway bit by bit. It was the hottest time in summer now.
During those days, even in the evening, the weather was still sultry. A large number of people squeezed in the airtight crowd, and soon they were covered in stinky sweat. The hot weather made the crowded people even more irritable, and from time to time
Shouting and altercations broke out in the crowd.
Kotaro and his family finally squeezed out of the city gate, and were immediately shocked by the scene in front of them. Although they were crowded in the city just now, they were not as spectacular as here. The castle town to the east of Hikima Castle goes all the way to Tokiwabei's position.
, densely packed with ordinary people. In the crowds of people, Kotaro could not see the road clearly at all, and could only vaguely see the maple bird flag fluttering in the distance. Kotaro could only lead the way based on his feelings and the vague memory of having been to the east castle town before.
Families move along the main road. However, most of the time, they are crowded by the crowd, like a small boat in a rough sea, unable to resist the tide.
It was getting dark, and fear and uneasiness enveloped the entire crowd. Dozens of foresighted villagers took out the prepared torches and lit them for lighting. However, this small amount of firelight was obviously not enough to illuminate the entire area, so Kotaro turned around
Their relatives guarded them closely, for fear that everyone would get separated in the dark night. In this era, if we really get separated in the crowd, we may never be able to find each other again for the rest of our lives. The darkness also made the crowd more panicked, and from time to time someone would
If you lose your footing and fall, the crowd will immediately become a mess, and there will be bursts of screams. Some people are successfully rescued by relatives and friends around them, and some people become dead souls under their feet - Kotaro just stepped on a body that has been killed.
A trampled corpse.
Soon, both Tokiwabei in the distance and Okabe Motobubu in the city seemed to realize this problem. More than a dozen large fire piles were lit one after another at the head of Hima Castle, and nearby Tokiwabei's position was also lit.
Hundreds of torches and five large fire piles provided lighting for the people.
Kotaro could barely distinguish his location through the light - he was probably in the middle of the castle town, that is, they had walked nearly half the distance. The crowd at the city gate seemed to be a little thinner, and all the people should have left the city. He
Standing on tiptoes again, he turned his head and looked towards the east - a large number of people were trying to climb over the ditch and walk from the gap between Jobanbei's defense lines to the resettlement point behind. A large number of people were gathered there.
"Should we take a detour? If we queue from the front, wouldn't we have to queue until midnight?" Just as Kotaro was thinking about it privately, a scream suddenly came from behind him.
"Did someone fall down again?" Kotaro muttered with some pity. He did not look back, but continued to look forward. However, this time the scream seemed different. In the past, it usually only happened when someone fell.
Where he fell, there would be continuous screams. However, this time, in less than half a cup of tea, the entire crowd behind seemed to start screaming. Following this, there were also people from behind who kept screaming.
The ground is crowded forward.
Kotaro frowned, realizing that something seemed a little strange. He turned around hastily, and immediately, like the dozens of people around him who turned their heads, froze in place.
I saw only dots of fire at the top of Yinma City.
Others may not know, but Kotaro, who went on an expedition with the Iio family, would not fail to understand what those dots of fire are - they are rockets, arrows with ignited arrows! Under the light of the fire, the bow is bent.
The ashigaru of the arrow!
The next moment, the sound of loose strings and the sound of sharp arrows cutting through the air were heard one after another. Kotaro instinctively grabbed the necks of his wife and child, almost full screen, and pulled them hard behind him, pulling them to the ground.
Before the eyes of the wife and child could figure out what was going on, a loud scream suddenly came from the crowd. There must have been hundreds of archers at the top of the city, facing such a dense and unprepared crowd.
Archery almost always failed. In a short while, nearly a lot of people had their skin torn apart by the hot and sharp arrows, which were inserted into their bodies. Many people died immediately, and many more screamed and touched themselves when they were hit by the arrows.
He looked at the place where blood was trickling out with some disbelief. However, Kotaro understood that these people did not immediately break the arrow shafts. In the crowd, the people who kept coming were squeezing and twisting the arrows inserted into their bodies.
The arrow shaft and the arrow stirred in the muscles, and the severe pain caused almost made them faint. They howled and struggled wildly, and the whole crowd became a mess.
Just when Kotaro felt sympathy for those among them, the sight in front of him made him almost faint. Just a few centimeters beside him, next to his son's body lying on the ground, his body was lying upside down.
The third brother - his forehead was hit directly by a brown-black feathered arrow, blood and brain matter spattered out, and he was dying. He had just instinctively protected his children and wife, but he had forgotten his third brother.
younger brother.
Before he could cry out in pain, the crowd suddenly surged again. When they realized that the Okabe family was shooting at them, the crowd completely panicked. Everyone seemed to be chased by the God of Death and fled eastward with all their might.
They pulled down and pushed everyone in front of them regardless, just to be one step closer to the safety of Tokiwa Bei's position than these people. The cries, screams, and curses mixed together, and everyone was already
He lost the ability to think and just ran away desperately! The panic of the crowd spread rapidly, from the people at the back to the middle where Kotaro was. There were many people here who didn't even know what was going on, and they were swept away by the turbulence.
The incoming crowd overwhelmed everyone. The Okabe family's archers did not stop shooting, and their arrows continued to fall into the crowd, claiming the lives of innocent people.
Kotaro looked at the swarming crowd and immediately realized the danger of being trampled while lying on the ground. He subconsciously twisted his waist, quickly got up from the ground, and reached out to pull his wife and son. However, his wife
Just as he was pulling up, his son slipped and fell to the ground again.
The flow of people did not give Kotaro a chance to work hard again. He saw with his own eyes four or five farmers running towards him, howling, and trampling down his son who was trying to get up. What followed was a crowd that could not be seen beyond.
The cries of the crowd even covered up his son's screams. He tried like crazy to rush against the crowd, but was unable to do so. He was immediately swept away by the crowd towards the east, and his son was also drowned in it.
In a sea of ​​people.
When he came to his senses, his wife beside him had already been swept away by the crowd and was missing. Only his second brother's son was holding on to his arm and crying bitterly, but he never let go and followed him.
Being squeezed by the crowd, he ran forward. Vaguely, Kotaro saw rows of Okabe troops with torches under Hima Castle, rushing towards the crowd!
Muji is also an ordinary farmer in Yinma City and a good neighbor of Kotaro. Before, when Kotaro's family really couldn't survive, he even shared the few remaining rations at home to help them. When he left the city today, he was able to squeeze in
Compared to the front position, he was now almost in front of Tsukiwabei's position. The fire pile and the light from the torches on Tsukiwabei's position were already in front of him, and he became more and more at ease. However, he was still thinking about Tokiwaki for most of the day.
There was no trace of Kotaro—I hope he will be fine.
However, just now, constant screams suddenly came from far behind. Then, the screams became louder, closer, and denser. The crowd also continued to scream along with the screams.
Rushing forward, Muji's family was almost scattered by the flow of people. Before Muji could figure out what was happening, he saw a dozen young men running away from the front of the crowd without hesitation!
"What's going on behind the scenes!" another fellow villager shouted.
However, the dozen young men continued to push forward without looking back, crying and shouting: "The Okabe family has killed someone! Run! The Okabe family has killed someone!"
The whole crowd exploded in an instant. The news that "the Okabe family has killed someone" spread among the crowd at once, and chaos spread like a plague. This heart-wrenching wailing sound coupled with the continuous flow of people, it was even more...
This increased the power of these words. All the people fell into unprecedented chaos, and everyone fled towards the safe area on the Tokiwabei side!
"The Okabe family has killed someone! The samurai masters from all directions are coming to kill them!"
"There's blood all over the ground in the back! They kill everyone they see! Thousands of people are dead!"
The chaos and darkness of the crowd made it difficult for everyone to see where the Okabe family's ashigaru rushed to. It seemed as if there were Okabe family's ashigaru everywhere, as if the people pouring out of every darkness were Okabe family's ashigaru!
The wailing sound kept coming from behind, and Muji was frightened when he heard it. He held his wife with his left hand, held the child in his right hand, and his wife held the little girl at home with her left hand. The family squeezed in the crowd and trudged forward, all looking at Muji—
—The mainstay of the family. However, his mouth was constantly trembling, and he just kept repeating two words: "Run! Run!"
Unknowingly, Muji had followed the screaming crowd to the edge of the ditch. He was so anxious that he saw that the child might not be able to cross the ditch, so he actually pushed the few people in front of him.
The man suddenly fell into the ditch. He pulled his children and wife with all his strength and stepped over these people. Having been honest and honest all his life, he never imagined that he had done such a thing.
After crossing the trench, we reached Tokiwabei's front line. The few gaps and gaps reserved were already crowded with people. Before Muyoshi could breathe a sigh of relief because he successfully crossed the trench, "The Okabe family killed someone!" This was like a reminder.
The howls followed! The people, including Muyoshi, who were in front of Jobanbei's defense line, saw that the gap was really blocked, and actually began to try to squeeze into Jobanbei's armored ashigaru formation to break through the defense line. Jobanbei's ashigaru
In order to block these people and maintain their formation, they were forced to hold their spears in front of them, turning them into a human fence and struggling to block them.
And the surging flow of people has actually filled up the trench, and the panicked and out-of-control crowds keep rushing in!
Chapter completed!