I was a swordsman in ancient Japan

With a sullen face, Konnosuke walked around the first floor of the mansion, counting the number of villagers who managed to escape into the mansion.

Only 71 people managed to escape into the mansion.

Among them, 22 were young and middle-aged, and the rest were old and weak women and children...

The 71 people who fled into the mansion are basically staying in every corner of the first floor.

As a result, the first floor of the mansion became extremely noisy.

The sound of "boom", "boom", and "boom" knocking on the door continued to reach everyone's ears with a specific rhythm.

The younger children were crying incessantly.

Some more determined people also wept silently.

Fiery men were yelling, hurling all the foul words they could think of at the shogunate who had suddenly and without reason massacred them.

At the same time, there are also people who are silent and don't know what they are thinking.

However—no matter how they reacted, the expressions on their faces are the same at this time: with a color of despair.

Konnosuke can understand the people who are looking forward to despair. Even if there is no mirror in hand, Konnosuke can roughly guess what his expression is now-it must be similar to these people.

"Hey! Why are you crying?!"

Kinnosuke heard a loud roar.

Following the sound, it was an older young man who was yelling at a young man.

Konnosuke recognized these two people—a pair of brothers.

The elder brother was full of anger, while the younger brother squatted on the ground crying.

"What's there to cry about?" The younger brother asked his elder brother in a crying voice, "Aren't we going to die, why don't I cry?"

"Be a man, don't cry like a woman!"

"Anyway, everyone is about to die! Why do you care so much!"

The conversation between the brothers made the surrounding atmosphere even more serious.

Even the elder brother who scolded his younger brother just now had a frozen expression on his face. He wanted to say something to refute his younger brother, but he couldn't think of any suitable words...

Anyone with a little sense has already recognized the fact that they are finished.

They are unarmed, and it is impossible for them to be opponents of well-equipped shogunate soldiers.

Although the soldiers of the shogunate army are now blocked by the solid wooden door, the wooden door can only protect them for a while, but not forever. It will only be a matter of time before the wooden door is broken and the shogunate army rushes in.

Faced with the current situation, even Konnosuke, who has seen many storms and waves, feels helpless.

Listening to the conversation between the two brothers, and thinking that his own life will end soon, a sense of sadness and exhaustion surged from the heart of Jinzhisuke, and then spread throughout his body.

Feeling extremely exhausted, Konnosuke let out a long sigh, leaned his back against the wall of the corridor next to him, and then slowly sat down on the floor.

The long sigh of Konnosuke dissipated in the air, and then merged into the atmosphere called "despair" that was simmering above everyone's heads...

At this moment——beside Jinnosuke, a young male voice with some jokes in his tone suddenly sounded:

"Konnosuke... If you sit by the corridor like this, it will affect the passage of people."

In the current situation where the atmosphere called "despair" is everywhere, this kind of joking words seem very special.

Konnosuke looked at the owner of the male voice in surprise - Ogata who was holding a lot of knives and showing him a faint smile.

Konnosuke looked at Ogata in astonishment, and then at Mamiya, Makimura, and Atachi behind Ogata.

These three people are also like Ogata, holding a lot of knives in their arms.

At the moment when everyone is not crying or roaring or silent, Ogata and his party holding a bunch of knives look very different.

Therefore, after Ogata and his party came down from the building holding a lot of knives, they immediately attracted the eyes and attention of almost all the villagers on the first floor.

Konnosuke stood up and gave way to the passage of the corridor, and asked Ogata and his party:

"You... what are you going to do?!"

"What are you doing?" Ogata tilted his head as if he had heard some strange question, "Of course I went to meet the enemy."

Ogata's words, like a stone thrown into a pond, immediately caused an uproar.

The surrounding villagers all exclaimed:

"Fight against the shogunate army?!"

"Is there something wrong with your brains?!"

"What can just a few of you do?"

"You horses will be killed by the shogunate!"

……

Not only the surrounding villagers criticized Ogata and his party, but Konnosuke also cast strange glances at Ogata and his party.

"Master Ogata...are you crazy...?"

Konnosuke said in a low voice.

"There are nearly 100 soldiers of the shogunate army outside the mansion!"

"How could the four of you be their opponents!"

Chapter 240

As soon as Konnosuke's words fell, there were echoes one after another:

"Konnosuke-sama is right! You guys calm down!"

"There are so many soldiers of the shogunate outside, even if you guys have three heads and six arms, you are not their opponents!"

"What do you want to do? Don't you want to open the gate and fight with the soldiers of the shogunate?"

"Don't go looking for death!"

Ogata quietly listened to the criticisms of the people around him.

After their criticisms subsided a little, he softly repeated what Kinnosuke had just said to him:

"How could it be their opponent?"

After repeating what Konnosuke said to him just now, Ogata smiled slightly at Konnosuke:

"You are right."

"The opponent is nearly a hundred well-armed and strictly trained shogunate soldiers."

"Even with the help of two people who don't know the actual strength of Mamiya and Mucun, I'm not sure I can defeat them."

"But ah"

Ogata suddenly changed the subject.

"Master Konnosuke, do you know when a person is finished?"

"Eh?" Hearing Ogata's question, Konnosuke showed a dazed expression.

"There is only one situation in which a person is finished. That is when he has completely given up fighting."

Ogata's tone and expression gradually became serious.

"As long as you continue to fight, there is still hope of victory, and it is not considered a loss."

"Even if the odds are slim, I will never put down the sword in my hand."

"After all:" When he said this, a faint smile returned to Ogata's face, "I am a ronin who lives by the sword and dies by the sword."

After all, Ogata seemed too lazy to talk to Konnosuke and the others, hugged the bundle of swords in his arms, and walked away.

Before they walked two steps away, a girl standing not far behind Ogata looked at their backs with a puzzled face and asked:

"Is there any point in this mortal battle?"

"After the soldiers of the shogunate rushed in, you might not be able to kill even one of you, and then you were stabbed to death by random guns!"

"Being stabbed to death by the soldiers of the shogunate, maybe."

As soon as the girl's voice fell, Xu Fang replied without looking back.

"It's just that there are two kinds of courage at the highest level in human beings."

"One is to face the unknown ahead with courage."

"The other is to keep moving forward in the face of what is doomed to be a tragedy."

"When the sky collapses, there should always be a few brave people like this who stand up."

"If no one comes forward, then I will be the vanguard!"

"Konnosuke-sama, take the villagers up to the second or third floor."

"You stay on the first floor, but it will affect our battle."

At Ogata's request, the villagers led by Konnosuke, including the young men who had been blocking the door just now, all fled to the third floor of the mansion.

Without those few young men blocking the door, the overwhelmed "squeak" sound of the door became louder.

From the louder and louder "squeaks", it is not difficult to judge that the door will not last long.

In a short time, nearly a hundred soldiers of the shogunate army would break through the gate of the mansion, swarm up, and rush into the mansion with teeth and claws.

The four of Ogata were standing in the corridor facing the gate of the mansion right now.

After looking at the door that was being knocked into a "booming" sound, Mamiya smiled wryly and asked Ogata:

"Then Ogata-kun, we have brought all the swords and swords we have collected so far according to your instructions, can you tell us your clever plan to defeat the enemy?"

Just now, after hearing from the maid on the third floor that the shogunate army was attacking, Ogata pondered for a while, then said to Mamiya and the others:

"Take all the swords we have collected so far. If my plan goes well, I might be able to rely on the terrain to kill all the incoming shogunate troops."

Ogata didn't say what his plan was on the spot, but asked Mamiya and the others to take all the swords they had collected so far.

After beheading Sotaro and his party just now, Ogata and others adhered to the concept of not wasting, and collected all the swords of Sotaro and the others.

After supplementing the swords that Sotaro and the others can still use, Ogata and his party currently have a considerable number of swords: 29 swords and 36 wakizashis.

Although they couldn't figure out why Ogata asked to bring so many knives with him, Mamiya and the others decided to believe in the plan that Ogata said, and followed his orders to bring all the knives.

"Mamiya, Makimura, Atachi." After Mamiya's question fell, Ogata casually threw the knife in his arms to the ground at his feet, and said to the three of them, "Konnosuke's The layout of this mansion is very special."

"There is no back door, and the only entrance is this gate on the first floor."

"After entering the gate, we have to go through the corridor that is neither long nor short under our feet before we can go to other places on the first floor, or reach the stairs leading to the second and third floors."

"so"

Speaking of this, a meaningful smile appeared on Ogata's face.

"Do you still remember how the swordsman general Ashikaga Yoshiki fought against the entire army by himself?"

As soon as Ogata's words fell, Mamiya raised his eyebrows, and then chuckled a few times: "I see."

"Help me set up a position to meet the enemy." Ogata said softly, "Although I don't know why the shogunate suddenly went crazy and suddenly sent troops up to kill people."

"But since they are here to take my life, I will take their lives back without hesitation."

"I will stay here and give the shogunate a head-on blow."

"After setting up the position for me, it's up to you whether you want to follow me to meet the shogunate army, or take refuge on the second or third floor."

"Ogata-kun." Mamiya shrugged helplessly, "Stay here to help you or go upstairs to take refuge? Aren't you asking this question in vain?"

boom!

After directing the soldiers to carry out a new round of collisions towards the gate in front of him, the officer finally saw that the gate in front of him was obviously deformed to the extreme.

Looking at the gate that was finally about to fail, no matter whether it was an officer or other ordinary soldiers, all of them were happy.

"Keep on!" the officer yelled. "This door is going to fail! One more push and it will be knocked open!"

Encouraged by the officers, the soldiers, whose morale was high because the gate was finally deformed, were gearing up and their fighting spirit became even more high-spirited.

"one two Three!"

After chanting the neat slogan again, the dozen or so soldiers who were in charge of hitting the wall rallied again and slammed into the door in front of them.

boom!