STW War Story Part III - Western Uprise

Chapter 5    Towards Fuji Mountain

    It has been 8 years since Mori Motonari initiated the surprise total attack of Takeda on southern Chugoku. However, 8 years later the Mori clan has not quite got rid off the financial crisis, partly due to the already-poor lands, partly due to the poor harvest recently. Also, although we now had Totomi and Shinano as our two eastern front, the defense was not strong enough.

    Totomi was not a defensible province. To hold Totomi we might need an army at least of 80% of enemy's size. Yet now we only have less than 700, while Imagawa has more than 1000 in Suruga. 

    Mori Saigo Iezane was appointed the defense commander of Shinano, with less than 500 soldiers. We had already made alliance with all other daimyos except Imagawa, so hopefully we will not receive any large-scaled assault. Also, the hilly terrain of Shinano should give us a big advantage even facing an enemy twice of our size.

Spring 1538

    Indeed, Imagawa soon launched a full attack back to Totomi again, spring 1538. Outnumbered by 661 vs. 1056, we had very little chance to prevail against the Rank 4 daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto's elite army on this open plain. We decided to retreat once more. Totomi was the second time lost to Imagawa, yet we will take it back soon...

Summer 1538

    That's just the next season! With some fresh reinforcement over a short sailing from Owari and a long journey from Aki, Mori Motonari was able to gather a full-16 unit army.

    (p.s. The AI uses ports to gather distant soldiers and adjacent provinces, too.)

    With half of his army split to Suruga, Lord Imagawa Yoshimoto could only retreat into the Totomi castle!

Autumn 1538

On the other end of the Honchu (main land) island, general Saito Toshimasa (Rank 3) in Nagato sent an emergency report - the Shimazu in Buzen has been defeated by Imagawa - and now their defense is weak! Since we are already at war with Imagawa, it definitely would not hurt to grab one more of Imagwa's province easily.

General Saito marched his men into Buzen - and the enemy retreated in advance.

Of course, Imagawa's Yoshimoto's generals would not allow their daimyo to starve to death in the Totomi castle. The entire eastern Imagawa army now again gathered in Totomi. The second Totomi battle it was, involving 2000 from both sides - almost doubled from the first 3 seasons ago.

Totomi: Mori (841) vs. Imagawa (1116)

During these three seasons, the Mori army has been also reinforced by yari samurais from Aki, as well as yari ashigarus from Owari. Lord Mori ordered the yrai soldiers to spread out widely, and devided into 4 teams. The 3 yari ashigarus were filling the gaps in between the 4 teams, waiting for any good chance to perform flanks after our YS have engaged with the enemy.

The Imagawa army was also a large number of yari samurai mixed with some archers, making the battle a really good match. However, the rapid flanking of our peasants soon had a dramtic effect on the enemies morale!

WIth his soldiers on the front totally collapsed, Imagawa Yoshimoto turned around. He was soon intercepted by our yari samurai, and killed by the stab of dozens of spears. The once invincible Imagawa army was defeated!

Matched in both number and soldier quality, Mori clan prevailed in this open-plain assault by using the peasants wisely. Imagawa Ujizane succeeded the Imagawa clan now, yet he was far away in Kiushu. Looks like Suruga would be ours in the near future...

The harvest of 1538 was normal, under the normal tax rate. Having about 3000 + koku to spend, Mori Motonari set down the plan of training archers in Totomi and Yari Cavalry in Shinano. The Mori clan is very short of archers now as we did not have enough money to train them.

Spring 1539

The Totomi castle fell in winter of 1538, due to lack of foods. It came to the time for Mori Motonari to take over Suruga from Imagawa.

Suruga: Mori (655) vs. Imagawa (584)

    With probably the reinforcement from Kiushu, the Imagawa soldier numbers were closely matched with Mori's. Motonari picked a rainy day for the attack because Mori's army were primarily hand-to-hand fighters, not missle units.

    The enemy Taisho was hiding under the very base of Fuji mountain, and he climbed up as our soldiers came close. We did not see too many of his fellowmen on the mouontain. So can this be bait?

Indeed it was! The entire Imagawa army was hidden on the other side of the mountain, and as soon as we climbed up, they moved towards the peak and prepared for a total charge downhill! If this came true, then the Mori army would have no chance to survive - the only chance we have now is to intercept their Taisho before he commands his entire army to charge down.

Mori Motonari's fast heavy cavalry was the first to catch up, and soon he stopped the enemy Taisho - our yari samurai soon covered up, plus the flanking of our ashigaru. 

The enemy was also close to the top of the mountain! We really don't have too much time left - Mori Motonari soon re-assigned the ashigaru and most yari samurais to get on the mountain as fast as they can, while the enemy taisho unit was handled by only Mori Motonari himself and another yari samurai team. So who can made the top first?

Yet, the enemy Taisho was killed by the Mori horde. The Imagawa army, seeing their general slained by Mori, gave up their plan to occupy the mountain top and started to rout! 

The chase was not effective as most of our soldiers were still climbing up on the other side of the mountain. Yet the battle was won, without too many casaulties.

Autumn 1539

Suruga: Mori (710) vs. Imagawa (113)

    Two seasons later, right before the fall of Suruga castle, it came to the time for Mori Saigo Iezane to perform again. With the heavy rains, the large number of Mori soldiers charged into the small gate of Suruga castle. Seeing the bravery of their Taisho, the mori yari samurais were inspired!

Although enemy archers tried their best to empty their arrow bags before the castle gate was penetrated, the rain had greatly reduced their accuracy. With 13 friendly kills, these Imagawa archers' heads were taken by our high-morale yari samurai.

Iezane has lost most of his own men within the unit - due to his courage - and he still killed nobody -- for a rank 3 general already! All of his own honor 4 soldiers were sacrificed, must including the once-legendary swordsman #48 (supposedly the #07/22/25/32 who were all Honor 4 and now dead). Iezane paid a great deal in this battle.

Some of Iezane soldiers were complaining about their general's blind courage - but that seems the only thing one can do under such extensive archery fires - to risk his own life and joined the front to encourage his fighters.

The poor years seemed to be over for now. The harvest of 1539 was good under the normal tax rate as lord Mori had promised. This brought the clan a good 5800 koku in the store house. Seems we can do some castle upgrades now!

With the gain of Suruga, the Mori army has marched to Fugi mountain, the landmark of Japan. With Suruga and Shinano, it seems that the eatsern defense should be of little trouble, as long as the northern Uesugi are busy with the monks of Kaga...

Year 1539 -- should Mori now go for the east further, breaking more alliances, or go for the the small but strong powers in Ise and Yamashiro first?