Chapter 13 Pushing the Hordes
As we handled the Kaga monks and Noto Takeda, the front provinces are now reduced to Noto (Sado, Uesugi), Etchu (Echigo, ronin), Shinano (Echigo / Kozuke, ronin), Kai (Musashi, ronin), and Sagami (Musashi, ronin). Attacking Musashi will fruther reduce our garrison requirement; besides Musashi does not make contact with the territory of Uesugi. If we take Musashi, we don't have to leave a large garrison in the province against the possible attack of Uesugi Kenshin. This way, we can attack Shimosa and Kanzuza.
However, Musashi is a river province, and the local army are archers in majority. Seems we now have no other choice. As Oda Nobuhide was in Noto, the most furious Taisho of the Oda Clan, Shibata Katsuie (rank 4), volunteered to lead the assault of Musashi.
At the same time, Lord Oda marched his invincible troop onto the defenseless province of Uesugi Sado. Sado is famous for its armoury (in real history it has a rich gold deposit). Our water tower in Noto revealed that Uesugi keeps generating silver-shielded archers from the province. We better destory their army supply as soon as possible.
As we planned, the archers of Sado gave up the defense and retreated into the castle, and the famous archer dojo / famous armoury were both destoryed.
Winter 1548
Never Surrender
Facing the massaive arhcers in Musashi, Shibata Katsuie carried two units of broze shielded Naginata with him. (By that time the legendary armoury in Mino has been built, just the troops produced haven't yet reached the front line). The enemy numbered 1496, we had 838.
To draw some of enemy's arrows, we moved these heavily armoured warrior on to the bridge, trying their best to survive. The enemy was lured, charging units onto the bridge, where most of them were killed by our archers before they ran home.
The two Naginata units were soon heavily damaged, yet we even achieved a higher kill than the enemy. Now it should be our time to much all YS ahead!
The enemy surely had an abundant ammo supply. Most of our brave YS on the front line were killed and the rest began to waver. Seeing this, Shibata Katsuie charged all of the monk units across the bridge, in the rain of arrows. The uncertainty among our men was gone as soon as they see our monks pushed the enemy back not long after.
However, the enemy did not rout. They simply quickly march away. We wouldn't give up this good chance chasing them to keep them routing, but we were soon outnumbered by the enemy's reinforcement. All of the YS units gave up their honor and fell back of the bridge, we were left with 4 units of monk on the other side of the river now. The enemy comes wave after wave, yet our monks showed no anxiety.
Shibata Katsuie bravely charged his fellowmen into multiple units of enemy, driving each one away. He then engaed the enemy Taisho who hesitated to flee - and took his head!
The enemy's reinforcement never stopped, outnumbering our faithful warriors. However, Shibata Katsuie refused to surrender, charging again and again into the hordes!
The battle was finally won before the day ends. We lost 44% of soldiers in the river province, but the enemy has now learned the bravery of Shibata Katsuie!
Spring 1549
The twentieth year since Lord Oda started his campaign in Owari - no other clans could stand long before the Oda.
After taking Sado from Uesugi, Lord Oda realized that Dewa was also poorly defended. Leaving the siege of Sado castle to the backup army, Lord Uesugi marched into the province of Dewa in spring, 1949.
The enemy general in Dewa received only limited reinforcement from Mutzu, and was out-numbered by 396 vs. 635 of Oda Nobuhide. The Uesugi army turned around on the battlefield; Lord Oda occupied two of the three remaining Uesugi's province without the loss of any man.
On the other hand, the backup siege troops also arrived Musashi. We have the choices of taking Kozuke, Hitachi, or Shimoza next. Kozuke is closet to our territory. Shibata Katsuie then quickl gathered another fresh army to Kozuke. The head count was 791 vs. 2029.
Spring 1549
Never Surrender 2
Soon after the battle began, the scout of the Shibata Katsuie army reported enemy archers hiding in the woods. We quickly surrounded the forests and starts raining arrows to it. Our YS marching into the forest, and the enemy archers soon pulled back.
Maintaining a high kill ratio, seems we have won. The enemies keeps falling back - but they do not rout. They ran to different directions. Our yari calvary had a great time intercepting enemy troops quick-marching away, but the enemy's many group of archers gave our yari samurais a hard time.
Just when our Yari Ashigaru had chased the routing army to the end of the map, suddenly hordes of enemy reinforcement appeared. The brave peasants were severly outnumbered and finally routed. In a short time, many of our units were defeated by the reinforcement. Our horse riders began to waver as well because there were just too many units to chase...
A winning battle seems now have turned. Shibata Katsuie charged the monks into the hordes, but this time, the buddist themselves wavered as well - there were just too many of enemy. Finally, Shibata Katsuie's fellowmen abandoned him - leaving himself fighting an entire group of enemy archers. Will this the end of the bravest Taisho of the Oda Clan?
Shibata Katsuie did not surrender. He stood and fight, taking as many heads as he could before his own cut off.
The miracle happend! The archers suddenly turned around! The actual reason is still a myst, while the most reasonable assumption is that they were affected by a routing friendly unit, which happens to pass by...
The bravery of Shibata Katsuie greatly inspired the Oda army, and soon we were able to rally all of the units exactly at where the enemy reinforcement appeared. There were so many of them, but none dared to charge down of the slope. Finally, the victory was ours! We took 783 heads from the enemy, which is a new record of us! (The next being the invasion of Shinano by Oda Nobuhide in Spring 1546, we killed 759).
Summer 1549
Through the watch tower of Dewa, we found the name of Uesugi Kenshin! It is usually referred to as the strongest daimyo in the Sengoku Jidai. However, he hasn't become one - now serving under his father Uesugi Tomooki as an archer leader - what a waste of the great general.
Although we have lowered the tax rate to minimum, in summer the Ikko-Ikki buddists erected the flag of rebellion! Oh no!
Well - only 60 of them. The Oda clan will not tolerate any betrayers, epecially those who did not measure their strength in advance. Immediately, we marched all of the nearby siege backup troops to Kaga. A fight of 1130 vs 60!
The ocean of Ashigaru surrounded the monks - the enemy general didnt even dare to charge into us.
Our cavalry performed a great chase of the monks. Killing 5/6 of them, we lost nothing. The ashigarus prevailed!
Summer 1549
The Blue Horde
As all hordes do, Uesugi Tomooki soon started attacking Dewa.
It was an extremely foggy summer day. All we could do was to guess which way the enemy would come from...
Here they are! The enemy Taisho was a careless rusher in front of his entire army!
We won't let him flee back so easily. Charging towards the enemy taisho YC, the H9 HC of Oda Nobuhide,was followed tightly by the formidable H5 monks of Kii!
The enemy Taisho soon lost his head, but the enemy's arrow rain also reduced the number of our men quite a lot. Immediately lord Oda ordered a total charge, which in no time routed the entire Uesugi horde.
It was finally the showtime for our Hida yari cavalry. The enemies, hopelessly running as fast as they could, were stabbed from behind one by one.
The calvary inflicted 300 deaths on the enemy, making 2/3 of the kills in the battle - both of them gained other 2. The blue horde lost their first battle. Now we truly wish that Uesugi Kenshin could lead the next...
Autumn 1549
The siege of Musashi caslte was now over, and immediately we can launched another attack. We picked Shimosa, as there was only a small army (compared to the huge horde in Hitachi), and also we don't want to see a huge horde retreat into a river provice later.
Kanamori Nagachika (rank 4) was the general in command. WIth the heavy losses in Musashi and Kozuke, we gathered a 16 unit army of 656 men. The enemy numbered 420.
¡@
This time, there were not so many archers in Shimosa. We successfully lured the enemy taisho onto the bridge with a H4 silver-shielded YS. The enemy tased our arrow rain, and during his hasty retreat we marched the entire YS and monks over.
The ronins pulled back after a short resistance. The cavalry archers constaly harass our troups marching forward.
Finally the ronins retreated, and Shimosa is now ours.
Autumn 1549
Another Roockie
The hordes of Uesugi soon came back the next season, autumn of 1549. We felt sorry to see such few flags carried by the blue horde. Their taisho this time marched slowly, and stretched their numerous archers almost 1/2 of the battlefield wide.
Our YC soon flanked their right, and monks handled their left. With all YC charging down the center, the enemy could do nothing but to turn around.
The great cavalry chase was repated. This time it caused the life of their Taisho, another rank 0 general.
Killing 200, the horse riders gained another honor. The Uesugi clan lost 800 men in total, only bringing down our 165.
The Uesugi clan was weakened after their two defeats in Dewa.
As soon as the Castle of Kozuke fell, Shibata Katsuie invaded another ronin province - Shimosuke. The ronins abandoned the province.
What a busy year. The harvest of 1549 was poor under the lowest tax rate - but we don't care. During the previous four months, we gained the province of Sado, Musashi, Dewa, Kozuke, Shimosa, and Shimozuke - our campaign is only left with Uesugi in Mutsu and two large hordes in Echigo and Hitachi, plus a defenseless Kanzuza!
