STW War Story II - Imagawa's Struggle

Chapter 6    The Way to Kyoto

    In history, Imagawa Yoshimoto, the wise leader of the Imagawa clan died on his way to Kyoto in 1560. Probably one of the most famous Sengoku Jidai battles - Oda Nobunaga's 3000 surprised the 15,000 (also said 20,000 or 30,000) army of Imagawa in the valley of Okahazama, taken the head of Yoshimoto.

    In Sengoku, marching the army into Kyoto implies that the daimyo must destroy all the clans on his way - and finally establish his dominance in the nearby regions of Yamashiro. This way, his unmatchable military power makes him a good candidate of Shogun. Being Shogun (whole name : Sen-Yi-Tai-Sho-Gun = attack barbarian chief general) is not the end of the campaign. Even Oda Nobunaga was offered to become the Shogun - but he rejected! Near the end of Sengoku Jidai, Shogun really lost its glory that comes with the name. The point became to unite Japan - then you can make the nation name you whatever you want - done by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

    The year is now 1537 - apparantly Oda Nobuhide died before Nobunaga could be born. So, Imagawa Yoshimoto is on his way to Kyoto 23 years earlier - and we passed Okahazama right in Spring 1530!

    Immediately after the fall of Kaga, lord Imagawa continued his lightning attack across the ronin provinces. Echizen and Wakasa surrendered with no condition.

    In spring 1537, a young man called Imagawa Ujizane, 2 years younger than our lord Imagawa Yoshimoto but claimed to be the son of him, joined our army being a rank 3 general.  Because we are totally untold that Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto is having an maturing heir who was supposed to be conceived when Yoshimoto was 1, we had randomly assigned this new gengeral to the yari samurai team in Mino - well at least better than ended up in an Owari ashigaru army.

    In history, Imagawa Ujizane was indeed the son of Yoshimoto - but he was born in 1538, not maturing in 1537!! STW made a big mistake here, without question. Oh well, maybe we can from now on call him Ujizene to make a little difference here.

    Our army total army soon recovered to 2000 in a few seasons. Omi, Ise, Yamato, Iga, had succumbed to the vast horde of Imagawa army - either hiding in the castle, or retreatedt to a neighbor province. Finally a large number gathered in the emperor province of Yamashiro - hoping to stop Imagawa entering Kyoto. A full-scale battle was again inevitable.

    The time was summer, 1538.

1538 Summer

Yamashiro: Divided, They Lost

The enemy army in Yamashiro has accumulated to the number of 900, many of them again warrior monks. We were not very confident when stepping into the province of emperor, since our army composition was almost identical to the last time in Kaga - also we only have 725 now.

Strangly, the enemy was separated in two major groups as if they were not related. On our left was a long line of archers stretching out, hiding behind the mini-hill, on our distant right were some more archers and monks sitting on the mountain, watching. Lord Imagawa reminded us that many monks might be hidden in the forest on the left.  Our explanation was that some of the armies retreated from adjacent province did not get well with the local Yamashiro soldiers; therefore, they split the 900 army into two.

Since it will take some time for the right hand side enemy to march down, we should take out the left hand side enemy as soon as possible - using this local numerical advantage plus the hill that is not occupied, we should prevail even if facing the formidable warrior monks.

Full speed, we marched on the hill in the rain of enemy arrows, and charged our right and center YS right into the enemy archers. Under the coverage of our own archers' fire, soon the enemy archers backed off. 

The next thing we saw was a not-too-huge tide of warrior monks rushing out of the forests - finally the monk rush comes! We certainly had prepared for it, immediately our left flank stabbed these warriors' back. But the more monks rushed out the forest -- our left flank had a nasty fight with the monks - yet finally we broke their morale at the center - the enemy retreated in a hurry!  These hyper monks might rally any time - we gotta chase them using whatever soldiers we have. Therefore, lord Imagawa ordered all spear units follow the retreating enemy, giving them no chance of rally.

Meanwhile, the enemies on the mountain marched down! This was not the right time of giving up the chase, while all we had was 5 groups of archers! We soon put them into position, and pulled back 2 YS and 3 YA. Can we stop the monks?

Our archers released arrows crazily, while the enemy monks came forward unaffected! Our peasants bravely charged towads te enemy, but definitely we were dying in a much faster rate. More monks are coming !

At the same time, the left flank enemies were totally retreated off the battlefield. So lord Imagawa ordered all units rushing back to help. Our men were already very tired after this hasty chase - can we match the enemy monks, plus half our archers have depleted their arrows?

Right at this momnk, the enemy monk taisho charged into our arrow-less archers!

However, he didn't make it, as soon as we charged the nearby archer group to attack his back right after he had passed the line - now he is well stuck right between the sky-blue army of Imagawa. Monks, so what? The enemy Taisho were slain with no compassion of Budda.

The battle was won with quite a significant casaulty. Although the enemy does not have such a high portion of monks and no-dachi as in Yamashiro, we might not be able to handle if all of them rushed to us at once. They divided and lose, while we survived as a united whole!

1538 Winter

We entered Kyoto, now the emperor also recognized our dominance of half of Japan. We did not stop the land grab - as long as the harvest is done (and it was normal under the lowered tax rate), Lord Imagawa soon left Yamashiro and invaded Tamba, while the unexpected heir, Imagawa Ujizene will have his first show, taking the rich province of Kawachi with 600 vs 420.

By the way, the 1537 harvest was good under the lowest tax rate. So far we haven't taxed the peasants to average for a straight 9 years. The peasants are not complaing, now celebrating such a generous (actually, rich) lord of Imagawa.

Kawachi: Pre-matured Heir's First Show

The enemy was a mixture of archers and ashigaru - pretty much the same as Lord Oda left them to be after the first season of 1530. Imagawa Ujizene soon ordered the ashigarus run over the bridge - looks like we will sacrifice these poor peasants again.

The peasants was ordered to rush eastward after they ran through the bridge. The enemy was distracted, and this is a good chance for our yari samurai to cross now!

We quickly ordered the ashigaru to pull back, hoping to attack the right flank enemy's back - yet they wavered, and finally blocked, killed to one digit. Our samurais were not doing too great over the bridge - totally stopped by the enemy ashigaru. The new general, Imagawa Ujizene,was assigned of such a difficult task to his first show.

Fortunately, our archers were not lazy. Under the rain of arrows, we were roughly killing the enemy the same rate as they killing us!

Finally, the ashigaru general turned around! We chased of course, even knowing we could not catch up any.

The victory was ours. Taking this important river province, we not only secured the west (from Shimazu) and the north (from Mori), but also we are now able to visualize the army of Mori right beside us. The time has come to challenge the lord of Chugoku (central countries).

Oh wait, just one more ronin province left : Tajima.

1539 Spring

    There were several common battle formations used in Sengoku Jidai. We are not talking about 10 x 6 or 10 x 12 here - but involving several thousands of troops in one cooperative formation. For example, in the fourth Kawanakajima (island between the river) battle, Uesugi Kenshin used his most specialized formation of "Rolling Wheels (don't know what's the Japanese pronunciation here). While when Tokugawa Ieyasu was badly defeated by the marching-to-Kyoto Takeda Shingen (Ieyasu shxt his pants on his run! How embarassing to himself and his fans. hehe), he was using the battle formation of crane wings. The crane wings was actually a versatile formation for attack, yet the experienced war genius Takeda Shingen definitely knew it better than Ieyasu. Too bad Shingen died just after the victory.

    Now back to year 1539, spring, the 10th year of our campaign. The last ronin province on central Japan area was waiting to be conqurered. Lord Imagawa took the command of this assault himself; the number of the both sides was 908 (Imagawa) vs. 720 (Rebels).

Tajima: Wings of Crane

The enemy army was spread out in the form of many lines, on the plain of Tajima. On the left we saw a mild mountain, and seems there were more enemies hiding in the forest. Because of the numerical advantage and the spread plain battlefield, lord Imagawa ordered his men to form the Wings of Crane - a formation particularly good at wrap up enemies from the two sides on an opened terrain.

Our left wing extends to the slope of the mountain on the left, while the right wing extends to the other side of the plain - such a big bird it was. Our center was a line of three SA, while other SA stayed in left flank raining arrows down the enemy. Now the wings are fully extended - it is the time for the crane to fly.

The two wings wrapped up -- and the enemies in the center had no where to go except backing off. Soon it was a huge wave of retreat - and the crane flied forward!

The wings are just after the enemy! This is probably the picture of the day - what a beautiful, 1500 people run it was.

The battle was won in a very short time - with very littile casaulty on both sides. "It is the best to succumb the enemy without a battle," said Sun Tsu.

After the total victory in Tajima, lord Imagawa Yoshimoto, 20, reached the sixed rank for 33 win 1 loss. He is for sure one of the youngest generals who reached this status in Japenese history.

From 1936 to 1939, we stormed through the entire central Japan, made our way to Kyoto, and conqurered 15 provinces in 14 seasons. Only four decisive battles were fought: the battle of Yamashiro, Kawachi, and Tajima, and the bitter victory in Kaga.

So the time has come of challenging Mori in Chugoku, the central states! Our cavalry is finally ready, while the hilly terrain of Mori might not allow us to fully utilize its power. Are we going to encounter the horrible monks again? The large castle is Kaga is now almost complete - we will have monks soon, too!