STW War Story Part III - Western Uprise

Chapter 9     The Realm of Cavalry

1544 Winter

    The total assault against Imagawa in Autumn was a great success. Lord Mori Motonari soon took over the castle siege of Higo himself, asking Mori Saigo Ujizane to take back Hyuga. With a clear numerical difference, Takeda retreated. This was also the second formal war declaration of Mori against Takeda, the first one being 15 years ago. 

Spring 1544

    Passing the Higo castle siege to the reinforcement, Mori Motonari himself led an assault to Satsuma. At the same time, Mori Saigo Iezane marched into the province of Osumi. The large army of Mori wished to terminated the existence of Takeda on the land of Kyushu all at once!

    Obviously, Takeda had also took over the men of shadow from Imagawa. Yet they were not very skilled in mission - their assassination to the Mori Rank 2 general of Amako failed.

    However, Takeda had decided to concentrate their defense of Osumi, which has a port. The fight in Osumi now became a much closer match - Mori suspected that Takeda also obtained reinforcement through the sea.

Osumi: Mori (828) vs. Takeda (658)

    The Takeda army, led by a quite famous general Anayama Tadatoshi (at least a R2 from the flags), was sitting against the slope near the edge. Iezane divided his soldiers into two teams. With himself and other yari samurais on the left slowly approaching the enemy, the right of 3 monks and 3 yari ashigarus climb up the mountain, hopefully to flank the enemies all of a sudden.

    However, we detected enemy's ambush troop in the forest. Iezane soon ordered the monks to give them a rush -- and enemy no-dachi samurais left the forests in a hurry. Our monks chased after.

    All of a sudden, the 3 or 4 groups of enemy no-dachi charged down, picking up the monks of Mori hand-to-hand! Iezane soon ordered the peasants to climb up and flank the sides of the enemy no-dachi - yet the enemy soon arranged extra troops to the right, and numerically outnumbered our right flank! Now the Takeda archers were also ruthless devastating our right flank!

    The enemy Taisho, on the other hand, could not tolerate the insult of Mori's archers, and charged down the slope with his not-so-many men. Iezane's brave yari samurais soon moved forward to intercept their charges, while Mori's own archers from be hind. Our left-flank monks had climbed up the hill and taken over the enemy archers.

    Our right flank ended up in a complete disaster, both due to enemy archers' arrow as well as the uphill fighting position. However, at the same time the enemy general was routed by their absolute numerical inferiority. Iezane soon ordered the left flank monks to intercept the enemy taisho!

    The enemy taisho was killed! But Mori's right flank had already collapsed into pieces. The enemy no-dachi were chasing our fleeing monks and ashigarus to the other end of the battlefield, while the two groups of enemy archers had concealed in the forest again.

    Seeing the death of so many of his loyal fellowmen, the angry Mori Saigo Iezane marched the full central army into the forests and executed almost the two entire groups of Takeda archers!

    Soon, the Takeda no-dachi had returned to the battlefield. But at this time theMori army also did not have too much left - especially the monks that could post a greater threat to the enemy no-dachi. Iezane orderd all his men to rest on a small hill, waiting for the approaching enemy no-dachi.

    The enemy no-dachi has lost their will to fight, however. They passed by the hill and retreated. Our monks made some extra kills of them, a small revenge.

    Iezane paid heavily for his 10th victory. More than half of his men were dead, and many were precious monk warriors. His archers had not really showed their power - because by the time the archers arrived the front, the enemy had already charged down. To avoid friendly kills, the archers were reluctant to shoot at the enemy. Had the archers targeted towards the enemy no-dachi, the loss of the right flank might be less... 

Summer 1545

With the Takeda army of Satsuma retreated in the castle, Kyushu was now entirely under the control of Mori.

The general of Amako survived another assassination attemp - this time in Satsuma. The limited Shinobi numbers of Mori had restricted their ability to catch enemy ninja. Mori Motonari thus arranged two more tea houses to be built: one in Yamashiro and the other in Hizen.

    The entire southern Japan finally fell under Mori. With now almost 5000 men, what should be Mori Motonari's next target? 

    Motonari decided to take out Takeda first, since we had already declared war with the realm of cavalry. Through the seaport of Osumi, Mori Motonari and Mori Saigo Iezane soon returned to Sagami. A few hundreds of ashigaru were left in Kyushu to ensure the order among peasants.

    However, the harvest of 1545 was extremely poor. Combining the very-low tax rate, the Mori clan only had less than 3000 koku for the entire year. Motonari soon ordered the production of ashigaru and monks in Mimasaka to stop for now, concentrating on the yari samurai and samurai archers in Aki and Totomi.

Spring 1546

    Half year later, most of Mori's 5000 men had gathered on the east! Mori Motonari himself responsible for the safety of Shinano, and more soldiers were assigned to Mino and Wakasa for the defense against Uesugi. Mori Saigo Iezane received the order of attacking Kai. Another tough task.

Kai: Mori (908) vs. Takeda (1931)

    The large horde of Takeda cavalry were rested on mountain of Kai. With a closer look, Iezane soon discovered that Takeda had absolutely no archers in their initial army. This might give Mori a big advantage!

    Yet the daimyo of Takeda, Takeda Nobutora, was truly audacious. He had also discovered the disadvantage of not having any archers, and himself moved forward and tried to lure the Mori soldiers into the strong Takeda army. By doing this the mory archers would be busy follow up and not having too many time to shoot.

    As soon as the Mori yari samurai follow up, the enemy daimyo ran away. However, the Takeda yari samurais soon emerged from behind, accompanied by waves of Takeda Yari cavalry. Iezane ordered the archers soon get into position and release as many arrows as the can!

    The Takeda yari samurai could not stand for too long, and soon they backed off with their master. Now the large Takeda up is sitting on the mountain - with no easy alternatives to climb up. Mori Saigo Iezane's men marched forward in the coverage of archers. Soon the enemy charged down!

A truly nasty fight. Mori's archers did not spare any mercy to release their deadly arrows on Takeda's men. However, waves of downhill charge of Takeda's cavalry were truly powerful even compared to the long yari of Mori's samurai. The Takeda suffered very great losses at front; only those who were truly skilled in battle (those carry the banners) survived. Yet they held the position for a very long time!

    One by one, the brave warrios of Takeda decided to run away. Iezane along with his brave men successfully held the charges of the formidable Takeda cavalry!

    Iezane commanded the army in the first line with no fear. He also killed one Takeda soldier himself.

    All his men performed well. The samurai archers rained arrows on the Takeda men, and the large amount of yari samurai were exactly the predators of enemy cavalry. Although in terms of tactics Takeda Nobutora successfully trapped Iezane in a uphill fighting position, they lost inevitably.

Summer 15446

    With Kai conqurered, Iezane soon handed over the defense of Kai to Mori Motonari's first son, Mori Takamoto. He received a new order from Mori Motonari right away - to attack Izu, where the enemy daimyo had fled into. 

    Surprisingly, the enemy decided to retreat into Sagami even if they were not really inferior in numbers in Izu. The last province of Takeda now hosts more than 2000 Takeda soldiers.

Autumn 1546

    Without stop, the siege of Izu was taken over by general Amako. Iezane's new order was to attack Sagami. Also, Takeda had lanched a main assault, led by Takeda Nobutora himself, into Kai which was defended by Mori Takamoto..!

Kai: Mori (845) vs. Takeda (1589)

    This was the first battle of R3 Mori Takamoto, the first son and heir of Mori Motonari. With a balanced combination of troops, the monk-army general located his men on the plateau in the corner. The archers were spread out thin, maximizing the contact surface. 

    The Takeda daimyo decided to take a frontal assault!

    With our archers emptying their arrows stock crazily, the Takedas were killed in large numbers. Just when they were about to reach half way, Mori Takamoto ordered all yari samurais to charge down the sloope along with himself. Now the Takeda samurai collapsed like a wave!

    Takeda Nobutora rushed to the front line, attempting to stop the grand escape of his soldiers -- but this was of little use. He ended up with facing hunderds of Mori soldiers charging down!

    Nobutora fled in a panic, and was soon killed by the horde of Mori. The chase was not too effective as the enemy cavalry retreated very fast. Many of them soon rallied, but were ultimately crushed by Mori's yari samurai. 

    Also, the lengendary general of H7 Takeda Shingen, son of Takeda Nobutora, was killed by an ananomous arrow, making him one of the only two deaths in his yari cavalry unit!

    A decisive victory by Mori Takamoto - he was proven as great as his father. The Takeda had lost their daimyo and heir, marking the end of the realm of cavalry.

Sagami: Mori (861) vs. 1200 (Takeda)

    Roughly at the same time of the great battle took place in Kai, Mori Saigo Iezane's elite troops also marched into Sagami. The 1200 Takeda army was led by its rank 3 general Yokota Takatoshi - another tough fight expected. 

    Iezane also brought with him two Shinano cavalry units!

    With the cover of archers, the yari samurais of Mori bravely broke into the lines of Takeda cavalry. The Takeda horse riders soon tasted the long spears of Mori. On the left, the cavalry of Mori had advanced into the enemy, charging towards the Takeda archers.

    After several very brutal hand-to-hand fights, Mori had succumbed the Takeda men. The enemy general finally rushed into the horde of Mori, attempting to alter the situation. But he was stopped completely by Mori yari samurais. As their famous general turned around and run, the morale of Takeda army was destroyed all of a sudden. The Mori yari cavalry followed up right behind, without letting too many of them to escape!

    The massacre of Sagami, the battle was named. Almost 1100 were killed, 70% of them were Takeda soldiers, much killed by the yari samurai and cavalry of Mori. The clan of Takeda ended in such a sorrow. 

    Killing 5 men himself, Iezane's battle skilled further improves. Now he becomes a H5 YS!

    The harvest of 1546 was normal, while Mori Motonari had brought back the tax rate to low. The peasants of Kyusha were pretty happy, and the hundreds of ashigaru left in Satsuma and Osumi were doing a good job.

    Takeda was destroyed, and the nation was left to Mori, Uesugi, and Hojo. Hojo had the largest army in Japan, while Uesugi had a wide-spread land with well-trained archers. Now the three powers were all allied to each other, but in anytime a full-scale warfare could break out.

    There are more difficult obstacles lying on Mori's way to end the Sengoku Jidai!