Summoning his officers, the Prince gave the order to evacuate the works. Horses were attached to such of the guns as were worth saving. Then, with these in the rear, the remnant of the Shimonoseki garrison began the march to the Choshui fortress.
Upon rejoining his chief in the latter’s private apartment, Oguri had news to impart.
“It is a strange army, truly,” he said, “that the Shogun has sent against us. They are encamped near the highway, a good day’s journey north of us.”
“A strange army, you say?” inquired Mori, mindful of Jiro’s letter.
“Ay. Though all the clans were ordered to march against us, but few have done so, and they are sick, silly fellows, growling at having to leave the court and its pleasures.”
Mori was lost in reflection for some moments. Then:
Mori added, without pausing to explain to his puzzled chief lieutenant the reason of his strange order: “At dusk report to me.”
However large an army the Shogun might have sent against the men of Choshui, the fortress defenders with its attendant army went to their unaccustomed rest without the slightest fear. The fortress might now well be considered impregnable. In addition to its regular defensive works, constructed immediately upon the return of Mori from his melancholy wedding-day, there were now a deep moat of great width constructed about the whole region of the fortress, gun-factories, and the works built by the Prince of Satsuma.
All that afternoon the army of Mori slept. The first hour of darkness saw a departure from the fortress. First rode six companies of horsemen, from whose body scouts were thrown out. Next marched two thousand infantry, all with rifles. They wore no heavy armor, and as their company commanders gave their orders, their tactics were seen to be modelled upon European forms. Finally, in the rear lumbered sixty field-pieces. Oguri rode with the cavalry, directing the route of the army. Close behind him was Toro, who, since the affair of Kioto, was on intimate terms of good-fellowship with the chief lieutenant.
Mori, attended at a distance by his staff, rode in the centre of the infantry division. The entire direction of the current routine he left to his subordinates, riding moodily apart from all. The men marched with firm and light step. On their own soil they were more assured and hopeful of the issue.