Chapter 3    Wipe Up

Lord Mori left a couple of poorly defended (also poor income) lands. With limited army left the Oda clan should still be able to take over these provinces. However...

1532 Winter

Struggle of Tajima

Two seasons after Mori's defeat, our first target would be the province of Tajima (with shinobi specialty). Tajima remains a ronin province since the campaign started. The local army numbered 300, consisting of 3 ashigarus and 2 archers.  The snowy weather makes it difficult to see where the enemy is. Our first guess was the forest on the left (on the hill).

Well, we were wrong. Only after getting close to the forest did we realize that the enemy actually sits on the slope of the mountain  on the edge of the map. Given that our soldiers are all quite tired after marching up and down in the snow, Oda Nobuhide allowed his men to rest a while in the forests.

The soldiers are now less tired (but they got quite tired again when finally walked to the enemy). We gained a little height advantage on the way and our archers shooting at them easily. The time has come - the two YA and one YS (finally we got a YS!) along with the daimyo charged downhill!

The charge looks great and victory seems close. However, there is one mysteriously wavering ashigaru. It has a complete height advantage charging downhill, but these peasants still likes to take a rest.

This wavering YA got wiped out. And to the worse, all of the other 3 charging unit got stopped by a single honor 0 enemy ashigaru! The ronins are raining arrows on us, while our archers do the same thing to them. So who would waver first? Luckily it was them again. Their archer general rout at the same time as their heroic ashigaru did, and himself got killed by our archers charging down.

We happily set the battle speed to fastest waiting for the victory screen, but it didn't come. After a panic search we found two fleeing enemy soldiers trapping in our own soldiers, and none of them are fighting each other! Showing in the snapshot you can see this little ronin soldier on the top-left of the archer group.

The battle is instantly won when the two wimpys got caught. The battle was tougher than we had thought. The reason might be the troops got really tired marching in the snow, so they became very ineffective.

1533 Summer

In order to revenge for the heavy loss in Tajima, Oda Nobuhide commenced a final castle assault two seasons later. (The truth is that the 50-defender castle would take 3 more seasons to fall!)  Nobuhide's elite bodyguards charged into the castle first and took most of the remaining soldiers' heads.

After the fall of Tajima, we obtained fresh recruitment from the east and invaded former Mori's provinces such as Inaba, Hoki, and Bizen. There were no resistance in Inaba and Hoki, while around 170 enemy soldiers retreated into the castle of Bizen. In order to avoid heavy losses we waited for its fall till the last season.

1535 Spring

After the campaign of Bizen, we, the Oda Clan became the richest clan in all Japan despite AIs all started free farm upgrades everywhere. In Yamashiro, an archery dojo was also established, so now we have the capacity to train 3 units per season (Owari for Ashigaru, Mino for YS). Besides, Kii is almost ready to build a buddist temple. Thanks for the good harvest in 1533 (34 was normal).

The eastern border is peaceful as Imagawa attacked the northern ronin province Echu, and later lost it probably due to revolts. Our shinobis are happily intercepting spys sent from Imagawa and other clans. Our emissary tried to see Lord Hojo and Uesugi to deliver our proposal of an alliance, but these daimyos are very good runners and we haven't got a chance.

So now it comes to the time to face the western Takeda directly. Should we risk the river province Bitchu first (against possibly its rank 5 general), or we have a better chance strike the enemy's back?