One of the Horde

Greetings noble lords of Hojo. I am Miyoshi Tadayoshi, reporting the decision of the 1538 Spring clan meeting.

8	40%	[Miyoshi Tadayoshi] Please allow me to attack Izu!
5	25%	[Suwa Shigemasa] I will be grateful if I can lead an assault to the Kofu castle of Kai.
4	20%	[Hojo Ujisuna] We should take Kaga after the ronins on the back are handled. How about give this job to Tadayoshi?
2	10%	[Hojo Ujiyasu] We need more garrison in Shinano and Mikawa.
1	5%	[Maltz] I'd say you guys just sleep and do nothing! hehe

I am very grateful that many noble lords have agreed with my proposal! I will try my best not to disappoint you. I was also asked to attack Kaga if time allows - probably need a good large army although there are only 300 defenders.

General Suwa was also supported of his volunteering assault of the Kofu castle of Kai.

On the other hand, not so many lords thought we need really a lot of garrison in Mikawa and Shinano - probably they are confident in the ability of our daimyo and heir.

A rather small-scaled battle in Izu. Our army was standard - archers, yari samurai, and myself. Although the enemy is slightly smaller in size, they have more units (5). To obtain the victory, I must think of a way not to engage all of the enemy at one time, or our men will be flanked easily. Hmm...

Anyways, let's get to the higher ground first!

I decided to take a more defense approach - wait till the enemy comes. This way, we won't be easily surrounded as we have more time to act according to the enemy's move. Asking the archers to hold position and start a shootout with enemy cavalry archers, I made the yari samurai to take the higher ground and charge down any single approaching enemy unit that is rather isolated, and break them down as soon as possible. My men will add flanking it in case the enemy holds the ground.

Here they come! The first group was handled easily - they started to flee even before I flanked it - so my men turned left and charged down, while the yari samurai keeps chasing!

With the height advantage, I successfully defeated the enemy yari samurai! Up the hill the enemy cavalry archers were carried away by their fellow yari samurai, too. The battle is almost won!

The enemy attempted a rally on the hill later - only the cavalry is left now. Should be an easy job, just attack by flanking both sides...

But the enemy both charged towards me! There was nowhere to run! Quickly I told my men to hold position and point our yari towards them!

Our yari samurai stabbed their back! Even so, the enemy still inflicted a large damage on my own men... I was afraid my men would rout - but these Hitachi home boys didn't.

Killing 88% of the enemy, we countered Izu - also the last missing piece of Hojo's inner provinces. Now we can concentrate on Oda on the west!

This was a relatively peaceful year. With the good harvest, our clan has the largest revenue ever in history even if the tax rate was still very low!

The boosted budget allowed us to start the castle upgrade in Shinano as well as a better archery dojo in Totomi, and a better spear dojo in Hitachi. We also have recruited a large number of soldiers. The size of Hojo army has never been so great before.

When the spring comes, my men was already ready in Etchu to assault Kaga. We gathered a number of 800! But just after we were about to depart, Lord Hojo got the emergency news that Oda is gathering a large army on the border of Mino - perhaps there will soon be a major attack to Mikawa or Shinano! Should we call off the plan of Kaga attack right now to strengthen the defense - or just go for the gamble that our Lord and his heir Ujiyasu can hold the front with not so many new recruits?

The meeting of 1539 spring has started. Noble lords, please contribute your opinions!