Following the routine, please allow me to rubbish a few lines first.

To make the third in the series more enjoyable than the previous (I hope), I will:

(1) Adapt a general and tell the story from his point of view (as done by candidgamera)

(2) Supply more historical background. There will be more stories surrounding the main character.

(3) Make a better format, more graphics and tabling (as you might have noticed).

Thanks for you support and hope you like this one, too. :-) Any opinions are welcomed!

Maltz June, 2001

STW War Story Part III

Mori Motonari - Western Uprise (expert level, no cheat, save-loads of any sort)

Table of Content

Following are some background stories that you are probably interested to know.

Appendix 1: A Brief Introduction of Mori Motonari

    Mori Motonari is usually referred to the no. 1 intelligent daimyo of Sengoku Jidai. If you have played the Nobunaga's Ambition series of KOEI, you can always see Mori Motonari being the smartest general among hundreds.

    So why do people think he is the most intelligent? He managed to expand from a normal landholder (in STW, their job includes counting your harvest) in Aki, finally to become the ruler of almost the entire Chugoku area. This achievement was indeed unique in medieval Japan. Other daimyos with such a great achievement all suceeded a large portion of rich lands and army from their father or previous daimyo. What was more special of Mori Motonari was that he used profound diplomacy to survive and prosper between the struggles of two adjacent, much larger clans of Amako (Izumo) and Ouchi (Suo).

    The three sons of Mori Motonari: Mori Takamoto, Kikkawa Motoharu, and Kobayakawa Takakage were also wonderful generals that assisted Mori to establish their absolute dominance of Chugoku. A story that is still told to Japanese children today is the "lesson of three arrows". Motonari demonstrated how hard it is to break a bundle of three arrows, compared to three individual arrows - telling the three sons to unite as a whole.

    Two battles were especially well-known involving Mori Motonari. The first one took place in 1517, also referred to as the Okehazama of the western countries (Okehazama is where Oda Nobunaga killed Imagawa Yoshimoto, with probably 2,000 vs. 20,000). Motonari was 21. Despite the rejections of other generals, he confronted the 4,000 invasion of Takeda (not related to eastern Kai Takeda as in STW) with less than 1000. Yet he lured the enemy army into a narrow valley, where his ambush took the life of the enemy Taisho.

    The other great battle (perhaps one of the most famous in Sengoku Jidai) was Miyajima in 1555 A.D.  The 59-year-old Mori Motonari's 4000 soldiers landed the island of Miyajima, where the 20,000 army of Ouchi were snoring during a thunderstorm night. (Monotari made the Ouchi taisho believe that they would be better off to invade this island, while the small island did not give the big army a real advantage.) The victory ensured the dominance of Mori in western Chugoku. Not long after the Mori clan also destroyed the Amako clan who had been threatening Mori since Motonari assumed the deputy clan leader in 1516.

    The Mori clan had been a strong opponent of Oda after Mori's death in 1571 - Oda's power was recognized as the strongest not long after Nobunaga controlled Kyoto.  Hashiba (later Toyotomi) Hideyoshi was responsible for Oda's campaign against Mori. When Oda Nobunaga's died in 1582, the Mori clan, led by Motonari's grandson, Mori Terumoto, was still a great threat from the west. 

    Mori Terumoto was also named the Chief Taisho of the West army in the famous Sekigahara battle in 1600. However, he was deceived by Tokugawa Ieyasu, thinking this battle is purely a conflict between the "military" and "non-military" figures inside the Toyotomi regime. Without their chief Taisho even joining the battle, the West army was ultimately defeated. Yet, Mori still played a significant role in the later Tokogawa regime for hundreds of years.

Appendix 2: A Brief Introduction of Mori Saigo Iezane

    The general, Mori Saigo Iezane, will be the main character in the story. Borned in 1501, he became one of Mori Motonari's ashigaru leaders about the same time that Mononari assumes the leader of the clan in 1523. His father, Mori Motowana, was the 5th son of Mori Hidemoto, who was in turn the cousin of Mori Hiromoto, Mori Motonari's father. He probably got his position in the army due to this not-too-distant relationship with Mononari.

    There were quite a few historical attributions to Mori Saigo Iezane. He joined various battles involving the Mori and the powerful Amako and Ouchi at that time. He also made his name appeared on the list of army leaders in the decisive battle Miyajima in 1555. Later on, he became one of the generals who were responsible for Mori's formidable navy that defeated Oda, where he was described as calm, brave, and humerous. However, later he sacrificed his life under Oda Nobunaga's iron-sheeted gun boat in 1580, lived an old age of 79.

    Ok. I hope you will enjoy the story of Mori Saigo Iezane in the Shogun: Total War version. By the way, everything I mentioend above about Mori Saigo Iezane are purefly fictional.