STW War Story II - Imagawa's Struggle

Chapter 5     Budda's Rage

Spring 1536

    Six years have past since the young Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto became our lord.  From then on, we did not know what peace is - war every year, every season. However, our peasants were not too upset, as we always keep the tax rate low, or very low. 

    Oda and Takeda was destroyed in 1530, Hojo 1533, and Uesugi 1535. We became the only one lord of northern Japan, and the succumb of the ronin provinces seemed to be a matter of time. Dewa, Sado, Etchu, Noto were added to our map in two seasons.

    The large army of 2000 Imagawa is now gathering to take Kaga - the famous province of Budda's shrine. The local warriors are primarily monks. As we swiped through the northern-eastern ronin provinces without resistance, those who retreated are all now taking refugee in Kaga, numbered a few hundred. It is going to be a tough battle.

    Lord Imagawa was short of advanced troop - all we had in these six years were samurai archers, yari samurais, and yari ashigaru. Yet - lord Imagawa denied the possibility of leaving it alone for now. Well, give it a try.     

Kaga: Total Defeat

Lord Imagawa selected the most elite troops we could afford at that time. 6 H3+ archers, 7 H2+ yari samurais, and 2 H3 yari ashigarus. The enemy numbered 898, while we had 857.

As we finally climbed up the hill near the base of the rebels, we sited the enemy - their leader is a samurai archer, which is a good news. Some more archers are hiding in the forests, including one visible warrior monk. Lord Imagawa ordered the left flank YS and YA soon go into position, and attacked the forest along with our frontal, down-hill assault. Hopefully the monks in the forests will lose their will to fight after seeing they already got surrounded...

When our left flank rushed into the forest, we saw nothing. The forest only contained 3 archer groups of enemy plus one or two no-dachi and monks. Our vast amount of yari soon outnumbered them, and they started to flee.

Although lord Imagawa charged into the enemy taisho's archers personally, finally we let him escaped. He was too close to the edge of the map, and soon we could not reach him.

So where are the monks, at least numbered 300 or 400? Experience tells us they must be in the other forests. The forest had an excellent location, allowing the defending army to downhill charge almost all direction (except north, showing on the right here). However, on the northeast (where the camera stands) there is a medium valley in between. If the enemy charge towards us first, then before they reach us they need to climb up for quite a distance. That will be our only chance to prevail against these furious warrios.

As soon as our archers are in position, the monks rushed out, wave after wave. They ran much faster than we expected, therefore our yari samurais are not in their position yet! In a panic, lord Imagawa ordered some archers to charge down, at least stop them on the slope!

The enemy came out in three directions, only the center group had to climb up. On the right flank our ashigaru and yari samurai has to fight two or three groups of no-dachi -- if we are in position we could have flanked them, but we were not! Now the enemy has advanced to our right!

The left flank was not too bad, we handled the enemy with a slight height advantage! Our left-most yari samurai attemped to flank the enemy, yet we did not get a good chance... Soon the casaulty was pulled back to even!

We cannot win, realized lord Imagawa. But it might be too late. Lord Imagawa soon ordered a total withdraw on the units. Run for your life! Yet our escaping path was blocked by the enemy!

The battle ended in a total disaster. The once invincible army of Imagawa was badly beaten - only 53 men made their way back to Etchu - we lost 94% of our troops in Kaga. This is almost half of our total army at that time. We underestimated the mighty sword of Budda - the result was the first major defeat of Imagawa clan.

Summer 1536

    The life of 800 Imagawa soldiers exchanged 400 of Kaga, so now we are roughly facing 500 of them. Lord Imagawa quickly reorganized the nearby army, along with the fresh recruits from Totomi, Shinano, Mino, and Owari, soon we will gather another 1000 in the next season. 

    To further ensure the victory in our second attempt, we asked the retired legendary ninja of us, now a rank 5, to do us one more favor. He easily took the life of Kaga commander, who just reached rank 1. Although we know this will not make a big difference, but we need to let the other parts of Japan realize what will be the outcome of opposing Imagawa!

Autumn 1536

Well, definitely one is not enough. When Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto marched our elite troops into Kaga once more, we again assassinated their new commander - hopefully now these proud fighting experts are a little afraid, and least prone to!

Kaga: Proud Monks

The same location, we are back after one half year 813 vs. 489. Apparantly we outnumbered the enemy, but our soldiers are no match of theirs. Indeed, the monks are proud after their total victory in spring! The enemy commander was standing on the peak on the most right hand side hill, watching our movement every second. A good thing is he cannot charge down onto us directly - there is a rock cliff in between. Therefore, we set three groups of yari samurai just beneath the cliff, as long as he charge towards our main body we will backstab! To fasten his charge, we moved a group of archer just below.

Soon the proud monks came, even before our archers released any arrows! Considering their speed charging downhill, we mobilized the entire right flank Yari samurai even if there is still a distance between us. While the enemy rush out of the forest, our center also charged down hill, full speed - the battle horn echoed in the valley, heard miles away!

Although our soldiers were no match of the enemy's warrior monks, the enemy Taisho is now back-attacked by our three groups of yari samurai. The enemy taisho monk unit suffered great casaulty - but they stand still and fight, winning easily! As we think we have got him this time, another group of enemy suddenly emerged on the peak. And now they charged downhill, right towards our right flank samurai!  We are back attacked - by monks!

So who will run first?

It was them! The enemy taisho turned around first! Now lets chase them! Although the enemy is skillful in battle, they cannot keep their morale anymore seeing their brave taisho runing panically. The proud monks eventually lost their battle - they could have won if their commander stay cool in the forest...

So we made it! The confident monks were defeated - cost 200 lives from ours this time. Anyways, we overcome the nightmare of Budda's sword. The Imagawa army prevailed by their numbers and persistence!

Punishing our negligence of soldiers' lives, the harvest in 1935 was extremely poor under the all-year low tax rate. Yet, we had 4000 koku to further strengthen the army still.

Now - our target is the imperial city of Kyoto!