Chapter 11   Rise and Fall

Hojo failed their first attemp of assaulting Shinano. They might come back soon.

The Takeda weret severely weakened due to their failure in Kaga as well as two total defeat in Shinano by us.

We decided to aim for Etchu next spring, hoping to kill Lord Takeda right there. If Takeda Shingen has lost his life in Kaga, then the Takeda clan has a good chance to turn ronin. Then, the southern garrison could be withdrawn, allowing us to invade Hojo right away!

Our trading post with the European is now operational in Owari. Folks are amused to see the new funny, yet powerful weapon. Who will be the first victim of the bullet?

1946 Winter

The Hojo Return

We knew they are coming back - yet we disappointed, it was another rank 0 general carrying 1823 men to challenge our 740. The Hojo horde had the numerical advantage, but were like babies in front of adults.

The weather condition was poor, making our arrows not so accurate, while theirs funtioning well 100 meters below... The horde avoided the march uphill, but camped under the cliff where we could not charge down, kept throwing arrows at us.

We got extremely irritated by this cowardy action. As a result, we charged all YS down, while monks blockiong their way of return.

The horde tasted the bitter fruit planted by themselves. With the returning path totally blocked, only few of them made their way home. Some yaris tried to climb up from the other end of the mountain, but were discovered by our archers on the top. Needless to mention, they were eliminated by our well-experienced archers

The horde again suffered a heavy loss. We are always here welcoming them, any season, any weather, any taisho.

As planned, the next spring we marched Oda Nobuhiro (the heir)'s army into Etchu, challenging the losing Takeda daimyo. They retreated to Noto, and via the watch tower in Etchu, we saw no appearance of Takeda Shingen in Noto. The genius of warfare, had become an ashigaru general, and perhaps killed by the monks in Kaga - what a pity.

1947 Spring

The Hojo Return 2

The next season we again saw the familiar faces of Hojo, this time 2041 vs. 678. In this fine spring morning, we glady spotted a 10-men heavy cavalry unit - yes, their daimyo Hojo Ujitsuna.

Their flags were few, eh? Maybe he had lost many against the Uesugi clan, probably Uesugi Kenshin - another legendary man in Senkoku Jidai. Maybe that's how Uesugi reclaimed Dewa.

We showed no mercy to Hojo Ujitsuna. As soon as he and his shabby hordes got close, we marched down all of our available fighters, including Oda Nobuhide with his H9 bodyguards. We gave him the honor of fighting our daimyo directly.

Ujitsuna lasted quite a while, but inevitably perished in front of Oda Nobuhide. Ujitsuna even strived to kill 2 of Nobuhide's elite bodyguards.

The Hojo daimyo is dead. We commenced another massacre on the horde. The Hojo horde attacked Shinano 4 times in a row: first time retreated, else suffered a total death of 1539, including their daimyo.

To our surprise, lord Hojo was actually heirless. He might have lost his heir (the famous Hojo Ujiyasu) in the battles against Uesugi.

The Hojo horde turns into ronin. Not growing as fast, but equally aggressive.

Next season, summer 1947, Kanamori Nagachika marched his full force into the province of Kai, since the siege of Suruga castle has been taken over by the "siege backups" who have accomplished their mission in Totomi. Asking for a decent fight in Kai, the enemy retreated again. At the same time, the Takeda clan were also attacked by the once-Hojo ronins in Sagami. Apparantly, Takeda split some troops to Sagami, leaving insufficient soldiers in Kai. They lost both Kai and Sagami as a result.

1947 Autumn

Outnumbered

We invaded Izu right away, letting another siege group continue the business in Kai. The battle, 775 Oda vs. 259 Takeda, was not even fun. The enemy ashigaru taisho committed suicide by hiding himself with an archer unit shooting at our monks.

The monks tore these annoying bowmen apart, while the general got surrounded by our entire left flank. All 29 of them died, without a single kill.

The rest of Takeda army were some archers and calvary. The archer, shooting at our monks again, tasted the anger of Budda. The cavalry were surrounded by the spears, not many of them escaped.

Althought the harvest in 1547 ended up a horror, our normal tax rate did not upset the peasants too much. Bringing back the total army size to 5000, we, the Oda clan has temporarily defeated the horde, and again declared the richest clan in Japan.

The fall of Takeda is close. But before that we might want to take care of the monks in Kaga. This way, we will only have four front provinces: Noto, Etchu, Shinano, and Sagami (also our next target).

The previous Hojo hordes still occupy Musashi and Echigo, both river provinces. We might need to figure out an easy way to cross the bridge...