STW War Story Part III - Western Uprise

Chapter 11    The Regrets of Hero

    The time was summer 1547 - warfare was intense on the east. The Mori clan, controlling 2/3 of Japan, had opened fire on both Uesugi and Hojo, both having possibly a much army than Mori themselves...

    The attack on the north was led by Mori Motonari himself, while the south was under the command of Mori Saigo Iezane. 17 years ago he was still a leader of some ashigaru, but now he has become the taisho of the entire eastern Mori, with at least 2000 men to command.

    However, Iezane suffered a great defeat in Musashi in spring. The 800 brave Mori soldiers had almost wiped out the 1800 Hojo, yet they were forced to retreat as the time was up. Also, 2/3 of the men sacrificed their lives. The fled enemy daimyo, Hojo Ujitusa won a victory that does not truly belonged to him.

    Now Mori is going to ask it back. With reinforcement from Shinano, Kai, and Sagami, another full-strength Mori army has returned to the bridge of Musashi!

    Also, Lord Mori Motonari lauched another major attack to Uesugi's mountain province of Hida. By distracting Uesugi to Hida, the defense left in Kaga might be weak enough for Mori to defeat the formidable general Uesugi Kenshin.

    At the same time, the Uesugi army in Hida attacked Mino, defended by only 4 yari samurai of Mori. The Mori taisho was Rank 3 Miyoshi Chokei. This act has led Hida with insufficient army to defend. Therefore, as long as Miyoshi Chokei can hold Mino, the Uesugi soldiers would be isolated and forced to perish.

Mino: Uesugi (300) vs. Mori (240)

    The Uesugi army were consisted of 2 yari cavalry, 2 yari samurai, and 1 samurai archer, led by a rather new general named Honjo Yoshiyaki. However, his men were well trained and at least having an honor of 1. That was a good match with Mori, yet Mori were purely yari samurai.

    Wihtout too much waiting, general Miyoshi ordered all units to charge down the hill, while one on the left dealing with an enemy cavalry attempting for a flank. In a short time, the enemy's left flank YC collapsed, and this extra Mori yari samurai joined the battle on the center, giving a harder time to Uesugi yari samurai and archers. The Uesugi general was inexperienced enough to let their archers join the hand to hand combat.

    Soon the Uesugi army broke into a run-home contest. In a hasty retreat their cavalry taisho was trapped in the spears of his own men. Soon his head was taken by Mori samurai!

    A beautiful victory by Miyoshi Chokei. The Mori army is not only strong at the front, but also supported by fine backups on the 2nd line!

Hida: Mori (586) vs. Uesugi (480)

Leaving 180 men in Mino due to the assault, Lord Mori Motonari now faced essentially 300 less enemy army in Hida. The enemy taisho retreated in a hurry wihout the attemp to fight...!

Musashi: Mori (850) vs. Hojo (1204)

    Here Mori Saigo Iezane is back again -- with fresh 850 soldiers of Mori (this has almost emptied the soldier supply of the east.. quite a wage). Iezane brought a large number of warrior monks, preparing for a fast breakthrough of the already reduced enemy numbers. The costy battle in the last season had hopefully left the Hojo with more higher-honored units with small numbers. It was estimated that the initially deployed Hojo army only had a number of less than 500.

    Iezane finally waited till a rainy day. With the help from the sky, Iezane tested the enemy archers with a group of yari samurai -- indeed their power was greatly reduced by the rain and their reduced number. Soon Iezane himself led the full-scale charge over the bridge!

    Although the yari samurai at the front wavered due to the vast number of enemy, they were soon supported by the brave taisho Iezane. The monks were tightly following Iezane, preparing to break open the Hojo's bridge defense.

    As expected, the Hojo army suffered a great loss defending the bridge. They did not have enough men! Iezane ordered all troops to chase down the enemy -- and this time taking an eye on Hojo Ujisuna, their daimyo!

    Here comes Hojo Ujisuna charging towards us from the left! However, immediately the men of Iezane wavered -- perhaps they can recalled what happened last season..*(see below) However, as soon as the reinforcement arrived from the back, the anxiety disappeared and the hundres of yari samurai had surrounded the lord of Hojo!

* I would make another shameless excuse that this is again the rout "bug" -- bcz Iezane's men received a lot of commands to go left, which moves them away from the (fleeing) enemy!

    Iezane's men basically handled Hojo Unisuna face to face. With a heavy loss, the Mori soldiers finally routed and took the head of the cowardy daimyo of Hojo! Iezane himself also took three heads from the enemy! 

    Helped by the rain, the rush ended up a toal success. The warrior monks even did not have a chance to demonstrate their ability - the brave taisho of Mori Saigo Iezane with the yari samurai charged into the enemy and took the head of enemy taisho before the monks arrived.

    The Hojo daimyo was killed, and the river province of Musashi has fallen. Iezane did not disappointed Mori Motonari!

Autumn 1547

    The son of Hojo Ujisuna, Hojo Ujiyasu, had succeeded the leader of the large Hojo clan. With sorrow and rage, almost the entire Hojo army, numbered more than 5000, rushed back to Musashi for the revenge of their daimyo! (The total number of Mori has been reduced to about 4000 due to the recent intense warfare and low income by harvest and tax rate).

    At the same time, Mori Motonari had marched his troop into Kaga -- after knowing that the retreated army from Hida was largely left inside the Hida castle. Uesugi Kenshin better to be expelled from Kaga, if possible.

Kaga: Mori (706) vs. Uesugi (715)

    Uesugi Kenshin might had anticipated Mori Motonari's intention. He had requested a large reinforcement from Etchu at the same time -- so the elites of Uesugi and Mori finally clashed in Kaga! Mori Motonari hoped to wait for a rainy day, but ended up with a foggy one. Well, lets see which Rank 6 general prevail!

    The fog made the scouting especially difficult, yet this also gave less reaction time to the enemy. Finally, Mori soldiers discovered countless Uesugi soldiers on the mountain, the same time the enemy archers also released their arrows on us! Motonari immediately ordered the archers to march ahead to shoot back, and the cavalry rush ahead to expel the frontal enemy archers.

    The enemy archers keeps falling back - they were in skirmish mode. Usually this lures our army into the heart of the arrow rain - but at this very moment the sacrifice was worthwhile, because now the Mori army had a chance to occupy the hilltop! With the suicidal charge of Mori's cavalry, The Mori soldiers ran to the top of the mountain, and started a full-scale charge down! In the fog, the Uesugi soldiers cannot really tell how many Mori's men were on and behind the hill!

    Uesugi Kenshin finally discovered the over-simplicity of his tactics -- yet it was too late. All he could do was to come to the front, attempting to stop the Mori army from charging down with their fine spears -- but most of his men were already routed. Finally he failed to stop his own men fron turning around!

    Uesugi Kenshin, probably one of the most capable generals in Sengoku Jidai, lost his first battle as well as his life. With the mobility of cavalry and the confusion brought by the fog, Mori Motonari defeated Uesugi Kenshin in the easy-to-defend ground of Kaga.

    Under the command of the Rank 6 general, yet 60% of Uesugi's soldiers were still dead. The brave yari cavalry of Mori was responsible for more than half of the kill, largely done in the chase. The two great warlords of Sengoku Jidai, Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin, had both fallen to the army of Mori.

Musashi: Hojo (5295) vs. Mori (957)

    Hojo Ujiyasu emptied the province of Kozuke, Shimosa and Shimozuke - a total of 4900 men combined with the 400 in the castle. (So the total Hojo army should be around 6500 as there should be another 1000+ in Hitachi).

    Mori Saigo Iezane has obtained fresh reinforcement from Sagami and Kai. Now his army was almost half archers, combined with monk and cavalry and yari samurai.

    Iezane divided the archers into three groups, standing on the left and right (to avoid friendly kills later). Only one of the most frontal group will be firing, and if the enemy sent more troops over the bridge, the other side could also fire to demoralize the enemy quicker. As soon as the arrows are depleted, this unit is moved to the back as a melee backup, and the second archer unit will go forward to replace its position. So the sequence becomes 1a (left) - 1b (right) - 2a (left)... etc.

    The enemy was surely directionless in the fog. Two heavy cavalry, previously Hojo Ujisuna's bodyguard, over-scouted and crossed the bridge (might be an intentional sacrifice to give a fresh reinforcement for Ujiyasu). Our archers had no problem to take them out -- their corpses lied lonely on the ground.

    Soon the Hojo started to push their ashigaru forward. Iezane let the archers to save their arrows, only firing after the enemy ashigaru has crossed the bridge. After a few turns, finally Hojo Ujiyasu himself cross the bridge to stop the routing of his men!

    Of course we cannot let him go away. The monks who have been waiting on the two sides soon appeared on the enemys flanks. Needless to say their targets are Hojo Ujiyasu! Also all of the archers were ordered to fire-at-will. Thousands of arrows are now kissing the Hojo troops that dared cross the bridge with their new daimyo!

    Iezane now issued a total charge -- the yari samurai on the center march forwards, full speed! The horn of battle filled the plain of Musashi!

    Outnumbered by the furious monks of Mori, Hojo Ujiyasu's 11 heavy cavalry were soon routed and elieminated. Seeing the death of their daimyo again, the Hojo soldiers wish they had a wing to fly back to the other side of the river. Too late -- our cavalry and monks followed up!

    I wish to nominate the following the picture of the day. The 5000 Hojo men ended up a pile of panic ants. The Mori soldiers chased after!

    The ants fled fast, but killing 100 more won't make a big difference compared to the size of the horde. The 17th victory of Mori Saigo Iezane, bringing him to the 5th rank! More importantly, he terminated the daimyo of Hojo again -- the 4th daimyo destroyed in his hand. With only 22 men lost, the clan of Hojo disappeared...

But now all of the Hojo's men ended up wearing blue -- they are now loyal to Uesugi! Mori now needs to face a formidable, at least 10000 army of Uesugi, using their own 4000!

The harvest of 1547 was normal. No doubt the money goes into troop production - which Mori needed most.

Although Mori is numerically inferior, Uesugi Kenshin and Hojo Ujiyasu, the two strong enemy had fallen in this very season. Uesugi killed one men before his death, and Ujiyasu killed none -- what a regret for the great hero!

Now, the Uesugi is left with only a few rank 3 general and below. On the other hand, Mori has a rank 6 (daimyo) and a rank 5 (Iezane), plus rank 4 Saito Toshimasa and the just-matured, second son of Mori Motonari: Kikkawa Motoharu (web link courtesy to FW Seal) known as the bravest general in the western countries, pillar of the Mori clan in history!