STW War Story Part III - Western Uprise
Chapter 7 Southern Menace
Spring 1941, the Kinki area was now under the control of Mori.
Marching south, Lord Mori Motonari decided to take the island of Shigoku (4 countries) first, since Shimazu might not fall to Imagawa in such a short time. A few more years might even cause more destructions on both Imagawa and Shimazu in Kyushu, which would be beneficial to Mori.
The invasion of Shigoku was a complete overwhelm - Awaji, Awa, Sanuki, and Iyo all surrendered to Mori Motonari. The only trouble left was Tosa - managed by the famous Chosokabe family. Their commander was Rank 5 Chosokabe Motochika, the "ablest of Tosa".
Summer 1542
A sad news came to us in the summer of 1542 - Rank 3 general Miyoshi Hideyasu, who was responsible for Tajima invasion back in 1530, and successfully conqurered and defended Wakasa with minimal cost, was assassinated by an enemy ninja in Suruga! Iezane was especially shocked by this news. Both him and Miyoshi were new generals when Mori started their attack in 1530. Both of them made to rank 3 right now - yet the other has gone...
With rage and regret, the Shinobi defense in Suruga was increased from 2 to 4, and Shinano from 3 to 6. A new general was appointed to Suruga - the first son of Mori Motonari, Mori Takamoto (R3). So two of Mori Motonari's heris are responsible for eastern defense.
p.s. In history, Mori Takamoto also died of a sudden. Rumor indicates that he was assassinated by Amako's ninja.
The harvset in 1541 and 42 were both poor, leaving mori no more than 3000 koku to spend for the year. Mori Motonari ordered a cut in troop production to reduce upkeep cost. The total size of Mori's army has reached 4000. About 1600 of them were in Shinano and Suruga, 700 of them in Buzen, and 1700 in Shigoku.
Spring 1543
The invasion of Tosa finally took place in Spring 1543. The soldiers of Mori have been largely replaced by those with improved armor, two years after Yamashiro was fallen. Two rank 5 generals, Mori Motonari and Chosokabe Motochika now meet on the battlefield!
Meanwhile, Mori Saigo Iezane was appointed the defense general of Iyo when Motonari led Mori's large army into Tosa.
Tosa: Mori (821) vs. Chosokabe (933)
Chosokabe Motochika rested his large army on the central mountain. Since Motonari had investigated the terrain in advance, he deliberately picked a rainy day for the assault to avoid enemy archer fires -- although the Mori unit was half-archer as well. Mori's first monk unit also made their appearance in battle!
The attack was led by Chosokabe's archers, yet Mori's archers was far enough to urge the enemies to completely walk down the slope, cancelling their height advantage. With only numberical difference of archers counted, Mori had a higher kill. Yet Motonari still ordered all the yari troops to march ahead, preparing to assault the enemy archers down the slope!
The enemy soon had a full charged down. Mori Motonari soon ordered the samurais seperate to the two sides and hold the base of the slope - not moving up. Meanwhile, the monks rushed out the left for a flank attack, and essentially 99% of the enemy archers' arrows were concentrating on them!
Our fearless warrior monks did not disappoint the rest of us. It broke into the left of Chosokabe's formation. At the same time, our archers had surrounded half of the mountain and succumbed the enemies charging down from the center. The Chosokabe soldiers broke into a total routing!
A decisive victory of Mori - now Shigoku is ours. Chosokabe Motochika was down-graded to rank 4 (16W-1L). The famous general left the defending army of the Tosa castle in the next season - nobody knows where he went...
Then we all know what happened, the daimyo's tail was assigned the job of sieging Tosa castle. Due to the large army left in the castle, Iezane was ordered not to assault, same as in Ise and Yamashiro.
With Tosa conqurered, now Mori's army should march southwest - not to rescue the ally Shimazu, but to conqurer the entire Kiushu (9 states) island when Imagawa and Shimazu were both weakended by their warfare!
Autumn 1543
Bungo: Mori (636) vs. Shimazu (781)
Mori Motonari did not stop in Iyo. With two more units of monks, the Mori army invaded the already losing Shimazu.
The Shimazu general camped his men agiainst the mountain slope, with 3 of their archers stayed on the top of the mountain, shooting arrows on us. To avoid heavy losses during our slow climb up, Mori Motonari ordered the monks to take out these annoying archers as soon as possible.
However, these Shimazu archers were ordered to put in skirmish. They kept falling back, and so does their entire army. Finally our monks were faced with the entire Shimazu archers shooting from below --- their numbers drastically reduced. Two groups had gone too far and it was too late for them to fall back...
Facing the rains of arrows down below, Mori Motonari immdeiately ordered all men to charge down once they were in position. Mori's archers stayed on the top of the mountain - now it comes to our turn to pour down arrows. The downhill charge soon altered the battle, with heavy losses of the frontal monk teams...
The Shimazu general was killed in a chaos. Soon the enemy routed, leaving corpses lying all the way from the mountain tip to the valley. Most of them shot dead.
The lives of these faithful warrios brought Mori the victory in Bungo. At roughly the same time, Shimazu lost Osumi to Imagawa. Now Shimazu was only left with Hyuga - its termination became a matter of time...
The harvest was good in 1543! With both Kii and Mimasaka's temple for monks, Aki hosts the training of yari samurai, Totomi for arhcers, and Shinano will be ready for cavalry in the near future.
Winter 1543
Mori Motonari did not let Imagawa to grow stronger when we brought down Shimazu. Leaving the defense of Bungo to Mori Saigo Iezane, Mori Motonari led most troops in Buzen to the Imagawa province of Chikuzen, where the heaviest Imagawa's garrison was!
Chikuzen: Mori (914) vs. Imagawa (1163)
It was a mild winter day, lightly fogged. Soon the two armies confronted each other on the plain, and the intense shooting of archers began. The Imagawa army was consisted of mostly archers, but many of them had not moved to the front line yet.
With yari samurai holding the main forces of the enemy, our ashigaru and monk flanked the enemies on the sides, without giving too much time for the enemy archers to shoot. The enemy taisho was soon trapped in between as he moved to the front.
The enemy Taisho was soon killed, and the large numbers Imagawa archers fled all of a sudden.
Again, the famous army of Imagawa was defeated. Had the enemy taisho not come forward so soon, we might have lost the battle under the enemy's high-honored archers...!
Just as the Mori army were celebrating their victory, a sad news were reported to Mori Saigo Iezane. One of his comrade yari samurai leaders, Kono Nagachika, were killed in this battle.
The campaign of Kiushu has begun. With Buzen, Chikuzen, and Bungo in our grasp, our Kiushu army is now closely matching the power of Imagawa plus Shimazu, which was pushed back the former to only one province (Hyuga) left!
Is the son of Imagawa Yoshimoto, Imagawa Ujizane, going to be a greater for than his father?
