They searched through the mounds of the dead, looking for entrapped comrades that still yet drew breath. It was a grim task, but it did nothing to dull the mood of the victorious. Of the original eight thousand, only a little over two thousand remained.
Another man would have counted his blessings. To be able to defeat an army of thirty-four thousand with merely eight thousand – it was certainly a feat. But the losses were heavier than Gengyo had wished for. Kenshin had pushed them to their absolute limits with his careful strategic head.
The only mercy was that he had lost none of his generals. Though Yamagata had come close to breathing his final breath. He lay once more on a sick bed, barely hanging on to life.
Gengyo had his own mission to tend to, before the evening's celebrations. He mounted his horse as his men worked, taking two hundred guards with him, and he went in search of defeated Uesugi soldiers.
