STW War Story II - Imagawa's Struggle
Chapter 9 Breaking the Bamboo
As we all remember, the most furious general of Oda, Shibata Katsuei, was also known as the general of "breaking bamboo". While orginally he inspired his army's morale by breaking their bamboo water jars (so they must win or would have no water to drink), "breaking bamboo" also implies the strength of an army is so strong, and the enemy is like a bamboo stick to be broken.
1540, the 11th year of our campaign. All other clans being eleminated, the army of thunder, the Imagawa regime had no major enemy left on the land of Japan. The only challege left became how to unite Japan a little faster. We now have 15 provinces left to be conqurered, with roughly 3000 army. The rebels should have roughly the same, or slighty more of this size scattered around.
Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto encountered no trouble in Chukoku (the central countries, previously the land of Mori) so far - yet we could see a large army in Aki waiting for a good fight. On the south of Shikoku (the four countries) Imagawa Ujizene now marches back to Tosa, the second attemp - but this time we cannot lose. We outnumber the enemy too much, 565 vs. 188.
General Nagai Ujisada has stepped onto the land of Kiushu (the nine states); there might be a fight in Bungo, or might not.
Here comes the Imagawa horde of 3000!
1540 Winter
Tosa: Revisit
The second time that Ujizene stepped in Tosa - but to our disappointment the enemy gave up their will to fight. We took this province without a fight, despite 3 and 2 seasons ago there were a total of 4000 braves here fighting for their honor.
1541 Summer
The enemy in Bungo of Kiushu island retreated to Hyuga. General Nagai did not wait any longer after the reinforcement from the northeast arrived through the sea and took over the siege business.
Our daimyo, Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto, this time led his army to Aki - a nasty fight expected.
Hyuga: The Second Army
The enemy in Hyuga, numbered 616, decided to fight against our invasion army of 700, We soon found out that the enemy was split into two forests - obviously this was a big mistake as we had the numerical advantage.
However, we will not tire our troops climbing up and down. Instead, we shall leave 1/3 of the army down the valley, so we can have some fresh troops after finishing the third. With 2/3 of our army we can easily finish the first group on our left, consisting of no archers.
As soon as our archers shoot the yari enemies out of the forests, our yari samurai followed up and our cavalry downhill charged their back when the quickly marched away. The enemy suffered great losses. However, as our cavalry chased the enemy near the bottom of the valley, soon we see the second group of the enemy rushed downhill - premarily yaris. Our cavalry was in trouble, because the other troops could not catch up for a while!
Finally our Ashigaru has rushed to the spot. Flanking the enemy with no mercy, soon the Hyuga rebels of former Shimazu started to run - and grinded up by our survived cavalry.
Our second army then combined with the first, marched up to challege the second group of archers and YS. Although we did not have a height advantage, flanking by our numbers finally enabled us to rout and killed the enemy Taisho.
The battle was won after a long chase of a coward enemy unit over half ot the map. Our calvalry, althogh heavily damaged, was responsible for half of the kills in the battle. The rebels in Kiushu was serverly weakened.
Aki: Total Confrotation
The same time, Imagawa Yoshimoto's 627 men confronted a horde of a full sized 960 army in Aki. The enemy, outnumbered us by 1.5, confidently marched towards us, despite our archers' rain of arrows. We also spread out the line, while leaving the center a little backed up, luring the enemy center to come deep in.
Our right flank ashigaru first charged towards the enemy, and soon our left engaged enemy cavalry. The enemy was lured into the center of our line. Seeing both distance sides attacked, they started to waver and rout. Lord Imagawa then issued a full charge of all units!
The victory was achieved in a short time! We killed about half of the enemy. Although the rebels are vast in numbers, they are not experienced in real combats as we do.
1541 Winter
Hyuga: Skill to be Improved
To avoid the possible snow storms, we stayed in our newly acquired provinces, waiting the castles to fall. The harvest of the recent years were a straight normal under low tax rate. We forgot the plan of building a buddist temple at all - well seems we cannot see it finish now.
We did some shooting exercise using the live targets inside the castle of Hyuga. The outcome was extremely poor --- look at those idiot archers who shot dead their comrades on the front row!
Disappointed at our archers' performance, Imagawa Ujizene ordered the full assault of the yari troops. We wiped out the enemy easily.
1542 Spring
After the fall of Hyuga, our Kiushu armies marched towards Satsuma and Higo at the same time. Neither of them were resisted - the enemy retreated into the castles.
On the north, Lord Imagawa has pushed forward to the lsat province of Chukoku - Nagato. The retreated ronins again gathered a number of 1006, facing our 789.
Nagato: Right-Offense
The last rebels of left on the land of Honshu (the main land of Japan) was sitting on a plateau on the south, and we should also climb up there first. Since flanking does not work well when going downhill up, we have concentrated the flanking units on the right, while our left flank stood adjacent to the slope, making them more defendable. Soon the archers tarted their work.
Our right flank decimated multiple units of enemy, also their reinforcement. However, our left is not doing so well as the enemy obviously outnumbered us. The enemy had advanced to our center, where Lord Imagawa had to pull back behind the archers, who finally routed the advancing enemy yari samurais.
Our right flank gave a lot of pressure to the enemy. The vast number of cavalry and ashigaru was devastating. Finally we wrapped up the whole enemy army body using the strong, swift right flank - and surrounded the enemy Taisho.
The enemy taisho soon had his head cut off - and we could not help but to vaccum clean the run-away ronins once more using the horse riders.
A great victory it was, we killed more than 700. Our YC themself contributed 280, a great job done.
1542 Autumn
The final battle is here - seeing no enemy army in Hizen and Chigoku, we left the last province of Japan for Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto.
Chikuzen: The Last Resistance
The enemy in Chikuzen was numbered only 120 - we had 493. Easily we surrounded and killed them - no we don't want to kill them all. They were once the loyal peasants of Imagawa, abandoned by us to achieve the lightning actions on the east... Well ten years later, we are back again, this time we brought with us the rest of entire Japan.
The last harvest, under the great mercy of Lord Imagawa, was excellent under the very low tax rate! Yet we have no chance to spend this 27, 000 big koku.
The proud portugese traders arrived soon after we conqurered the last province of Japan. We rejected his greedy and ego-centric offer of goods and religion. Before his departure, he wished us not seeing any enemy with greater strength than us. Was he color blind, so he failed to see the big "sky-blued" map just in fron of him?
1542 winter, the 13th year of our campaign from Totomi, the clan of Imagawa united the 60 provinces of Japan using 49 seasons - with an army of 4000 as our final number. Lord Imagwa Yoshimoto, 23, was probably one of the youngest Shoguns, or the daimyo that conqurered the nation! We used our speed to destroy the opponents - and kept the tax at low all the time. By conqurering the east, we are gauranteed with sufficient income.
So this is the end of the War Story 2 series - shorter than expected. (This was also my new record of finishing an expert level campaign, no save-loads). We had good lucks in battles, also we were swift in action - even if we were badly defeated, then half a year later we shall be back and kick their arse!
Thank you for your support once more!
