STW War Story II - Imagawa's Struggle

Chapter 4     Lord of the North

Spring 1534

The fifth year of our campaign had come. Our troops has almost recovered from the decisive, yet expensive battle of Shimosa. As soon as the snow melted, Lord Imagawa resumed his military campaign. This time we will aim for both Hitachi and Shimozuke of Uesugi, as well as the non-defended province of Kanzusa on the southeast. The attack of Hitachi invasion was led by the daimyo Yoshimoto himself, while the legendary swordman general Nagai Ujisada was responsible of Shimozuke.

Uesugi had concentrated his army in Echigo - as a result they decided to abondon both provinces. We grabbed Hitachi and Shimozuke easily.

However, this time the enemy daimyo did not use a shadow - he was trapped in the castle of Hitachi. With such a small army led by Imagawa Yoshimoto, we have no chance to defend once the reinforcement of Hojo has arrived in such a flat-land province of Hitachi. As a result, Lord Imagawa drew most soldiers from Shimozuke to Hitachi, preparing for a large strike-back from Uesugi.

Autumn 1534

Hitachi: The Honorable Death

Yet, lord Uesugi was abandoned. There was no sign of any rescue action, and the castle of Hitachi was going to fall in Autumn. Well, we would not let a daimyo die without seeing him on the battlefield - at least once.  By doing this we also offer lord Uesugi a oppurtunity of an honorable death.

So, we lifted the siege and marched all available troop in Hitachi to the castle. 678 vs. 80. We should prevail easily.

It was a thunder shower weather again - deliberately picked by our commander - seems that it had become a superstition, but who dared to speak out? The rainy weather was actually good to us, since the defense army was archers in majority.

To our surprise, Lord Uesugi charged out of the castle with his brave men, and our troops has now surrounded him from all direction. Yet his men were not afraid, they fought, winning easily, though gradually fell down one by one...

Lord Uesugi Tomooki exchanged his head with 19 of us. The Uesugi army, truly brave and honored, buried with their honorable daimyo. There was an archer unit firing at us from behind - what a dishonorable act compared to their daimyo! This unit was totaly torn apart by our angry horde.

Winter 1534

The harvest of 1534 was good again, under the low tax rate. The happy peasants stored extra grains. This brought as a good 5000 koku to spend! Castle upgrades were soon started in Owari and Totomi. A spear dojo was also planned in Shinano, for the later horse dojo.

The Clan of Uesugi did not succumb, yet the heir Uesugi Tomosada assumed the leader of the clan.

We did not give them any time to adjust to the new leader. Lord Imagawa attacked the homebase of Uesugi - Mutsu with all available forces in the next season. The Uesugi had anticipated this, and they drew the large army from Echigo to defend Mutsu. The battle between the two daimyo, numbered 558 (Imagawa) vs. 636 (Uesugi), is by far the largest in our caimpaign.

Winter 1534

Mutsu: The Collapse of Mountain

There is an old saying of Chinese, 'The fall of an army resembles the collapse of a mountain.' This phenomenon is well-simulated in Shogun-Total War. The real-world battle does not allow each individual soldiers to fight till their "hit point" has reduced to 0, as all RPG does. The outcome of a battle is usually determined much earlier -- sometimes just by a single event, a flank, a rout, even a rumor from the front or back. The event triggers a chain reaction that finally casues the collapse of the whole army. Once the collapse started, it accumulates and causes the ultimate disaster. Men are very nervous on the battlefield - not all normal soldiers can remain cool to follow global skeptism... :)

Now back to the story.

The Uesugi army consisted of purely archers in Mutsu, so our army would obtain more advantage fighting in the forest, hand to hand. Lord Imagawa ordered all of his men marched into the forest of the right, but soon we discovered vast numbers of enemy archers hiding inside.

Our yari samurai were divided into three teams, rushing into the forest from three differect directions at the same time. The enemy archers retreated in a panic - and we chased after.

However, as soon as we chased the skirmishing enemy archers out of the forests, we were again exposed to the heavy rain of arrows. Each of our yari samurai was roughly assigned to one group of enemy archer, yet we still suffer a higher casaulty than the enemy. Being already inferior in numbers, we might lose the battle if this situation continues.

Lord Imagawa ordered our archers to shoot back, yet we could not inflict a good damage as the enemy archers are moving all the time. Now we are going into trouble...

However, right at this moment,  one of the Uesugi archers started to rout. This archery group was caught by two of our yari samurai groups near the exit of the first forest, so it was relatively isolated from the other part of the Uesugi army. The routing of this army soon spread out, the nearby Uesugi archer units turned around, then the next, then the next -- In less a minute, all enemy unit were on the run!

The new daimyo, Uesugi Tomosada (rank 3) was caught by one of our YS in the forest. Suddenly, the huge sound wall of "run-for-your-life" reached his ears.  He also turned around! The Uesugi army totally collapsed at this point - though they were winning!

The chase brought down more Uesugi archers than expected. The battle decided down to a simple, single event of routing, not because of real tactical success. In fact, the retreated army ended up in the castle of Mutzu was even of a larger size than the sieging army!

Well, our reinforcement soon altered the numerical disadvantage. The large army of Uesugi was very frustrated after losing in such a manner. Crowded, the horde starved until their ultimate death two seasons later. Each season more than 200 men fell down.

On the other hand, general Nagai Ujisada has obtained a large number of fresh reinforcement from the south, and assaulted the now-poorly defended province of Echigo in Spring, 1535 (the next season after Uesugi's defeat in Mutsu). The river province housed quite a few archers of a total size of 358, faced with our 895.

Spring 1535

Echigo: The Shield of Human Flesh

Faced with the entirely archery Uesugi army, we must figure out a way to avoid heavy loss. General Nagai Ujisada was reluctant to order the peasants to march over first, to absorb the enemy arrows...

The peasants were killed ruthelessly - yet our samurai behind were able to cross the bridge with much less damage. Along with the remaining peasants, we repeled the enemy long before the bulk of samurai arrived on the other side.

The battle was won in a short, straight-forward pursue. 60% of our peasants were dead, but their lives brought us the easy victory. Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto then decided to maintain another year of low tax to compensate the loss of our loyal peasants.

(The true reason was that Lord Imagawa did not want to leave large numbers of soldiers to garrison Mutsu, Echigo, and the later Dewa, and so on. Potlicians are good liars!)

The next season, summer of 1935, general Nagai Ujisada marched the large army into the province of Dewa. The local Uesugi army retreated to Sado - also their last official move.  The castle of Mutsu fell in the same season - the Uesugi clan walked into history, exactly two years after Hojo.

The army of Dewa soon proceeded to the island of Sado, where they also faced no resistance.

Winter of 1535, exactly 6 years after we started the military expansion. The entire northern Japan is in our grasp - including lands from the former Uesugi, Hojo, and Takeda.

Our lands in Kiushu had lost to Shimazu this year, yet our emissary soon delivered our willing for an alliance - as our next official enemy will be Mori - on the other side of Japan.

Praying for a stronger opponent, we were disappointed to find out that Mori even hasn't taken the lands from the previous Takeda. Does this mean we, the Imagawa Clan, army of the thunder, will take over Japan easily from now on?

However, the wars over these years has severly slowed down our internal constructions, we might need to obtain more high quality troops for the monks...

Anyways, now is the time to go south!