STW War Story Part III - Western Uprise
Chapter 10 Horde vs. Hordes
Winter 1546
With the Takeda clans destroyed in three decisive battles (two led by Mori Saigo Iezane), now the 5000 men of Mori finally needs to face the strong northern and eastern powers of Uesugi and Hojo. Mori Motonari decided to concentrate their power on Uesugi first, since their province of Hida and Echizen are a great threat to the Kinki area. He has moved to Mino, preparing for an assault of Echizen.
However, Hojo had the first move. With 1300 hordes of Musashi, the strongest clan at the time invaded Sagami, defended by Mori Saigo Iezane!
Sagami: Hojo (1351) vs. Mori (892)
The horde of Hojo picked the attack under a snow shower. Camping the troops on the bottom Fuji mountain, Mori Saigo Iezane soon ordered a total arrow rain on the ashigarus of Hojo as they approach. The snow had impered the accuracy of arrows a lot, yet the light-amoured peasants still suffered a great deal on their way up.
Soon it came to the time for the total charge down of the yari samurai and monks of Mori. The enemy broke into chaos in seconds!
The chase left sacttered corpse of Hojo peasants. Losing only 26, Iezane obtained the first victory against Hojo.
Spring 1547
Yet the Hojo was not declaring war on Mori. They made up an excuse that the assault was a misunderstanding - their aim was Takeda, since they did not know Sagami had already fallen to Mori the last season. What a stupid lie it was.
Mori Motonari would not tolerate cheaters like Hojo, and decided to open fire on Hojo from Kai and Sagami. The first assault into Musashi was of course led by Mori Saigo Iezane! The daimyo's tail is now equivalent to the "right arm" of Motonari.
At the same time, Lord Mori also decided to declare war on Uesugi. The 5000 men of army now simultaneously opened fire on the two large hordes of allied Uesugi and Hojo. Which side would prevail?
Echizen: Mori (855) vs. Uesugi (752)
The high mountains of Echizen provided a perfect hiding place for the Uesugi army. The first guess of Mori Motonari was completely wrong - no enemy were hiding in the forest on the right. Only after Mori's men searched more than half of the forest did they see the distant Uesugi soldiers on the other side of the valley...
By the time the Mori army arrived at the mountain on the left, most of them were already quite tired. But Uesugi had grabbed this perfect chance and send their archers forward to harass our army!
The long-waiting Mori cavalry on the left soon back-attacked these proud archers. At the same time, the horde of Mori charged into the archers of Uesugi - although our men were tired and positioned downhilll, in hand to hand combat we still prevail by outnumbering these poor archers.
The left flank of Mori's cavalry soon advanced all the way up the mountain, catching the enemy taisho who had been hiding on the top, giving commands to his army. Needless to say he was surrounded and killed.
It was annother success of Mori Motonari. The high mobility of the Mori army successfully interefered Uesugi's archers action, yet Mori also paid a high price.
Nearly 70% of Uesugi soldiers were dead - now is the good time for Mori to advance further into the northern land of Uesugi!
Musashi: Mori (806) vs. Hojo (1871)
The same time, the soldiers of Mori Saigo Iezane had approached the bridge of Musashi. 1800 of Hojo, led by their daimyo Hojo Ujisuna -- half of them archers, 1/4 ashigaru, and 1/4 yari samurai, had been waiting for Mori's arrival on the other side of the river.
"A windy day. Hopefully the enemy's arrows are not so effective," Iezane spoke to himself. Since his first victory in Bingo, Iezane have had another 14 wins throughout Japan. His two old comrades had both returned to heaven (please refer to Chapter 7 and 8), and so did more than one thousand brave soldiers under his service. Yet the army of Iezane killed more than twice as many.
This is probably the toughest challenge to Iezane - crossing the river of Musashi facing the horde of Hojo with their daimyo. If he prevails, he will be promoted to the fifth rank for sure...!
The attack was soon led by the bronze-shielded yari samurai. The battle begins with the shower of enemy arrows!
As the first brave team of yari samurai absorbing the arrows on the front, Iezane soon ordered a full charge of the monks - hopefully breaking the enemy defense all at once. Indeed the enemy started to fall back! Iezane wouldn't give up this good chance - he ordered a full charge of all available fighters to the other side of the bridge!
However, the enemy archers were more clever than Iezane had tought. Soon they pulled back to all directions and targed on our monks. The three group of monks could not handle more than 6 groups of enemy archers at the same time, and soon they perished in a few minutes without too many fighting! (I doubt it was partially the work of the infamous rout bug, but anyways it is natural for these monks to get quite nervous down there). At the same time, those who already crossed the bridge were all seriously frightened, and now the Hojo horde started to charge back!
Iezane soon ordered every men to withdraw back to our own side. Using the archers raining arrows on Hojo's bridge crowded defense, soon we also killed many of them. The both sides withdrew from the bridge for now, leaving hundreds of corpses already...
Soon after the Hojo troops left the bridge, Iezane himself led the second wave of attack, this time led by Iezane himself. Inspired by the bravery of their general, the Mori soldiers rushed to the other side of the bridge - the size of enemy's hand-to-hand troops had been greatly reduced by the arrows of Mori archers, therefore not many of them rushed forward to receive more arrow fires from us. Soon they broke into chaos and the Mori soldiers chased after!
Iezane successfully routed the entire enemy army -- almost. We could not see Hojo's daimyo anywhere. Finally we spot him camping on a distant hill with few of his men - such a coward!
Leaving just enough troops (monks and archers) to scare away the enemy's reinforcement, Iezane now leads his yari samurai to hunt down the daimyo of Hojo. Unfortunately, the speed of Yari samurai was no match of lord Hojo's heavy cavalry. Hojo Ujisuna shamelessly left his other men behind to get slaughtered by Mori, and himself fled away.
The day was going to end soon...
Iezane then soon pulled the yari cavalry unit to intercept the lord of Hojo -- but this resulted in an insufficiency of the Mori army to scare away the Hojo hordes reinforcement! Hundreds of them suddenly appeared and charge downhill, and Mori's brave monks and archers rush down -- and soon outnumbered!
On the other hand, the yari cavalry of Mori has caught lord Hojo's yari cavalry -- but Ujisuna again abandoned his loyal bodyguards, and ran for his life! Iezane soon ordered the monks on the front to intercept the lord of Hojo, yet this was just a few minutes too late -- the Mori soldiers, tired and outnumbered, has decided to flee in front of the vast numbers of Hojo reinforcement!
The only hope to catch the fleeing enemy daimyo (which is very fragile) would still be the yari cavalry - but they got carried away by the fleeing mori army from the front, just a few meters behind the enemy's fleeing daimyo...! Both Lord Hojo and the Mori army ran away from each other...
Now Iezane is left alone with just over 200 men with him on the other side of the river. Should the horde decides to charge against him, Iezane might not survive to pass the bridge! Soon he ordered the fleeing troops to rally on the other side of the bridge, and ordered them to come back as soon as possible. The two forces now joined together to face the last hordes of Hojo (no more appeared)!
Fighting till only less than 100 men left, the yari samurai of Mori Saigo Iezane did not left their brave leadeer. With the flanking of Mori's archers and cavalry, finally the large number of Hojo hordes broke up again, and fled towards the exit of the battlefield!
All Iezane could see was the last group of enemy archers hopelessly releasing arrows towards the braves of Mori. Iezane ordered all forces to target these archers, wishing to elimiate them before the day ends...
Just when the enemy were all routed, there was yet another very small group of enemy yari ashigaru hiding on a hill far away...
The Hojo horde won -- by the time limit. They only had less than 20 men left from the 1800 to fight against the 250 of Mori left from 800...
The first formal defeat of Mori. Iezane lost 2/3 of his men, although himself taking 7 heads from the enemy...
Lord Mori was not very pleased with the defeat of Iezane - yet he still sent a encouraging message to his distance nephew. Iezane will be given another full-strength army to commence the second assault to Musahi the next season -- given that many of Hojo's units were seriously damaged. Also, Mori Motonari himself has advanced into the province of Hida.
Also, another bad news was collected by the watchtower of Echizen. The formidable general Uesugi Kenshin (should be Nagao Kagetora at the time) has matured and joined the Uesugi defense force of Kaga. With very little army in Kaga, he might not be able to prevail. Yet with the reinforcement from Hida, Etchu, and Noto, Kaga's mountain might have the toughest defense in the whole nation...!
