Chapter 5  Unification of Chugoku

The Chugoku (central countries) region is almost entirely under our conotrol, except the ronin provinces of Iwabi, Suo, and Nagato of Shimazu. Attacking Suo first would expose us to Shimazu, making it hard to draw forces back to take Iwabi. Therefore, the attack sequence would be Iwabi, Suo, then Nagato.

1537 Summer

Mimasaka replayed

After the struggle with Takeda our total western army size was reduced 500 or so. Subtract the necessary garrison troops we did not have too much left. So the defending army in Iwabi had a little numerical advantage, 323:288.

The terrain of Iwabi is quite similar to Mimasaka. The AI hid themselves in the forest at the corner, ignoring a higher adjacent peak. This peak now gets even higher in Iwabi, so we cannot help but to take it.

Soon the AI lost its patience and marched Yari troops to our left flank (right in the snapshot). Our two Yari samurai sat on the right because most of enemy troops (as well as their Taisho) was on the right. The left flank was only handled by a 31-men, honor 4 Ashigaru. We let them charge down hill to handle the first enemy Ashigaru assault, while the other enemy YS attempts to flank it, our YS also charged down to flank it. The other YS of us charged directly down to handle another enemy YS attack.

Both enemy YS were defeated and ran home, and our YS advanced into the forests to take their archers. The enemy taisho marched quite far away, out of the woods. But our chasing YS won't let them go like that. Finally, we took the head of the enemy Taisho.

The out-numbered (31:60) Ashigaru on our left flank showed some wavering flags, but the enemy Ashigaru rout first, with 20+ men still while we only had 8.

Our heroic YS and YA had heavy losses yet quite a few kills. Most amazingly is the courageous H4 Ashigaru who keeping fighting even they only had 8 men left. Wiping out 75% of the enemy forces, Iwabi was conqurered.

1537 Winter

Archers' sword

We had no patience to wait till next spring, since the reinforcement of Shimazu will probably arrive in Nagato soon. We lanched the attack in Suo in the winter. The army ratio between enemy and us was 368 : 386. Roughly the same size.

However, our army was largly archers since the yari units depleted in the recent fights against Takeda and ronin. This gives us a disadvantage as we know the archers are not very good at hand-to-hand combats. Besides, the terrain of Suo also resembles another province - Bingo (the central province of western Takeda). This means that the enemy will hide in the high-ground forests again (it is not very clear in this snapshot, but the cursor in the game clearly pointed to an SA right there in the woods). Our arrows will not be very effective.

Anyways, we should have higher honors and hope that helps. As we had a major victory in Bingo approaching the enemy from the high grounds on the west, we will do the same thing.

As soon as we march uphill, the enemy launched an assault. However they did not come at once, but wave after wave. The first two wave were two suicide archer units, who were easily wrapped and wiped out by our archers in hand to hand combat. The enemy taisho remains in the woods with 3 or 4 other archer units to shoot at us.

 We decided to charge all available forces at him, and he soon ran for his life.

Most enemy escaped our chase though, we should have left one or two units at the high ground to intercept the fleeing army. Many archer units did a good job in their hand-to-hand battle. Our two mini Ashigaru units also killed many. Suo is left with about 150 troops in the castle, which fell after 2 seasons.

Another encouraging news was that the harvest of 1537 was good. We started a port in Wakasa for more convenient troop transport in the near future. Also, in Owari we started a palace to improve ashigaru morales. In Yamashiro we started building the famous archery dojo.

The first monk troop is out. But it takes some years to move it to the front line...

A bad news came that our only H2 emissary who served us well by spying here and there, is finally assassinated in the Echigo province of Uesugi. May he rest in peace. Until his death he was not able to see the face of Lord Uesugi or Lord Hojo.

1538 Autumn

No Guts

As our reinforcement (of massive Ashigaru units produced in the recent bad years) arrived, we decleared war to Shimazu and marched 803 men into the province of Nagato, where they only have 480. The enemy Taisho tried to make it to the battlefield, but as soon as he saw the numerous flags carried by our army, his courage ran away.  The retreat gives him a -1 rank before his ultimate death in the Nagato castle siege that lasted two seasons.

The harvest was excellent in 1538! Now we have the money to build even more upgrades. We started building the swordsmith in Kii and Yamashiro. The armoury of Mino is now completed, so we starts generating Naginata, which will be a great bonus defending the eastern invasions.

Now the whole Chugoku (the central contries) are unified under the Oda clan. During these nine years the other part of Japan did not change too much. Imagawa took Shinano from Uesugi, who took Shimozuke from Hojo. Alliance was made between Imagawa and Takeda, Imagawa and Hojo (which was quite historically accurate, just happening a little too early). Will Uesugi hold long to fight against the other three clans?