STW War Story Part III - Western Uprise

Chapter 1    Braves of Chugoku

Spring 1530

    It has been 7 years since Mori Saigo Iezane became a member of the Mori clan. His father joined dozens of small battles, including the famous "West countries' Okehazama" in 1516, but later died in a hasty withdraw several years later.  As the near year came close, Saigo Iezane would turn 29 - one year ago he was promoted to a samurai leader.

    The borders between Mori and Takeda was peaceful, yet he heard that his distant young uncle, Mori Motonari, is training soldiers intensely these seasons...

    "Full attack on the Takeda Lands!" That was the conclusion of the military meeting. Mori Saigo Iezane, now assigned as the leader of a group of yari samurai, was responsible for the attack of Bingo! The assault team will be made of purely yari samurais, numbered 180. This was Iezane's first time to actually command an army, and he was obviously nervous and excited.

    The assault of Aki was handled by a much more experienced general, Saito Toshimasa. (We belive that this is not the famous Saito Toshimasa who later became Saito Dosan (see here), the father-in-law of Oda Nobunaga.) Mori Motonari himself was responsible for the attack of Bitchu. It was anticipated that the large army of Mori would easily outnumber the defense of Takeda.

Aki: Mori (240) vs. Takeda (120)

Saito Toshimasa has a swift action. His army was the first who stepped in the territory of Takeda. With an absolute advantage in numbers, the enemy immediately retreated into the castle.

Bingo: Mori (180) vs. Takeda (120)

The First Victory

A sunny spring morning - the three fresh but quite inexperienced yari samurai army crossed the border of Bingo. Soon they sighted the enemy resting aginst a mild slope ahead.

'Ok.. the enemy is made up of a group of yari samurai and the others are cavalry archers. So what should we do?' Saigo Iezane asked the other two leaders.

"Commander, we can go in three different directions, and flank the two wings of the enemy", says Kono Nagachika, the second YS leader. Kono has decent skills in commading. 

Oh well in Sengoku Jidai, you cannot trust anybody. Daimyos prefer close relatives to be military commanders. They might lack ability, but slightly less likely to lack loyalty - so Kono Nagachika was appointed under Mori Saigo Iezane.

"Yeah! I will stay still down here, and you two climb up the slope. That will give us some height advantage!" The other YS leader Ouchi Fuyuyasu added.

"All right, then Kono will be respinsible for the left flank, while Ouchi responsible for the right!". Wait for my order and we wrap the enemy up!

"Ho!"

Soon the enemy started to move too. The cavalry rained arrows on us.

"Ah~~~!!" Some of Iezane's soldiers were hit by the deadly arrows!

"Keep going! We are not in position yet!" yelled Iezane.

Soon the enemy also marched forward. It comes the time to charge!

"Come with me! Attack!" The three yari samurai of Mari sounded the horn of battle - and the enemies are trapped right between! Although our right flank are taking heavy losses from both groups of enemy, the downhill charge of Iezane and Kono Nagachika decimated the soldiers of Takeda.

The enemy fell down one after one, finally we poked down the enemy taisho from the horse, and our men took his head off!

The enemy soon ran in a panic. After a short chase, we killed a few more of them. Out of the total 120 Takeda soldiers, 112 (incl. 3 friendly kills) were dead! The major victory of Mori Saigo Iezane was soon heard by Mori Motonari and his other great generals.

Out of the three units of Iezane's army, Ouchi's YS suffered the greatest lost because he was holding down the slope, while Kono Nachika's men did not lose any! Iezane himself, quite shameful, did not make any kill as the taisho. His combat skill was not very good already - so ...

However, one of Iezane's soldiers, #48, took 5 heads of the enemy! He was then named as one of the swordmasters, and now he can earn his living by opening sword dojos! Iezane congratulatated his soldiers' promotaion soon after hearing the good news.

This total victory also brought Mori Saigo Iezane to rank 1, and the average honor of his own unit went up 2, inspired by the leadership of Iezane!

Bitchu: Mori (240) vs. Takeda (60)

Roughly the same time when the victory in Bingo took place, Lord Mori's army of 240 had no difficulty crossing the bridge in Bitchu. The total army Takeda had was a group of 60 yari samurai.

The enemy dared not to stand aginst lord Mori - with no place to flee, this unit perished in the province. The three Takeda's provinces were taken without trouble.

Tajima: Mori (120) vs. Ronins (60)

    Lord Mori also dispatched another team of 120, led by another new general called Miyoshi Hideyasu, to invade Tajima. Tajima is currently controlled by ronin, but we heard that all the defending army were not present in the province at this moment.

    When general Hideyasu arrived Tajima, the ronins had managed to pull back one unit of YS - hiding in the forest on the left. General Hideyasu cleverly occupied the higher hill just beside the forest, and rained arrow on the enemy. Finally the enemy could not stand this insult and charged uphill, where they got outnumbered and defeated.

Tajima was also conqurered easily. That was 4 provinces added to the map of Mori in the first season!

Again, congratulations to #48.

Summer 1530

Tajima: Mori (103) vs. Ronins (11)

In order to fasten the training of high-quality shinobis, the men of shadow, Lord Mori soon ordered the assault on the Toyooka castle of Tajima. The enemy, only numbered 11, had no archers. General R1 Hideyasu soon made them a good targeting practice for our archers.

Well, obviously they need more training. They didn't kill any, using up all their arrows. Hideyasu truly lost his face.

Finally, the taisho Hideyasu himself took the job. Losing only 1, his fellowmen finished all the 11 inside!

The siege of Aki had been taken over by Iezane. A new order issued from Mori Motonari. The army retreated into the Aki castle had a size of 120, so there should be little worry letting 143 of Iezane's man taking over. The soldiers of Iezane had a peaceful summer in the seaport province of Aki. They noticed that there is a rich silver deposit in the mountains - maybe we can produce some significant income here in the future!

On ther other hand, the original Aki assault group led by Saito Yoshimasa (R3) now have a new mission - to take Nagato from Shimazu.

Autumn 1530

Nagato: Mori (240) vs. Shimazu (120)

The result in Nagato was the same as Saito in Aki two seasons ago - the 120 enemy army retreated on the battlefield. Lucky Saito Yoshimasa got two free victories. Yet the Shimazu will come back for sure... we better start producing some more troops to defend Nagato.

The population loyalty was very low due to our ruthless land grab in the first year. Lord Mori had promised the peasants to have the lowest possible tax for the year, so the Takeda or Shimazu loyalists would forget their previous lords temporarily. However, this tax-cut only gaves Mori clan the income of 1130 koku, even if the harvest was normal... hopefully with the newly acquired lands, we will be better off next year.

Winter 1530

As soon as Mori Motonari moved to the front line of Harima, he launched an attack to Kawachi, the rich river province of Oda. With this important holding, Oda's reinforcement can only come from one side, which can be easily blocked - then we can take Tamba and Wakasa without trouble!

Aki: Mori (143) vs. Takeda (40)

The second chance for Mori Saigo Iezane came in winter 1530. Lord Mori ordered him to assault the castle of Aki, leaving none alive. This way the Mori clan could keep the castle more or less intact, and remove the future re-build construction budget.

The Takeda army left in Aki castle was numbered 38 - half of them yari samurai, half of them samurai archers. Iezane with the other two brave generals rushed in the castle gate, and after an intense fight finally eliminated the Takeda army.

However, Iezane hasn't killed any men so far. It might be a bad thing in Sengoku Jidai! Even himself was getting a little anxious now. A rank 2 general has 0 kill himself!

Kawachi: Mori (257) vs. Oda (180)

Same time, our swift attack into Kawachi was beyond Oda Nobuhide's imagination. With only archers available, the enemy were not able to stop us cross the bridge. 

Luckily, the snow showered also covered out men as the arrows became inaccurate in the strong wind.  Faced with our daimyo himself charging at front, the enemy had a hard time to create enough distance to skirmish. Motonari, H7, was pretty confident at his ability to solo - especially when facing archers!

Finally, we concentrated our power and finished one group after another. The enemy taisho unit ran pretty fast, but were inevitably stopped by Lord Mori.

We won the bridge fight easily! Mori Motonari killed 18 enemy soldiers by himself!

The Mori clan now had a good start - although very very short of koku. Which way should we go first? The rich lands are on the east, while the ronin lands on the south are begging to be taken as well. However, since Lord Mori already started fighting with Oda, we better destroy it at once - the ronins grow much slower anyways...