One of the Horde
Vote
for the Future of Hojo (click here) !!| STW War Story VI
One of the Horde |
Vote
for the Future of Hojo (click here) !! |
Welcome back, noble lords of Hojo. 
I am Miyoshi Tadayoshi, your humble servant and the narrator of this war story.
The meeting of 1539 involved some intense debate, and the throne room was packed
by the warm, soured sox... oh I mean the enthusiastic noble lords throughout the lands of
Hojo. 
This time, we adapted a different voting system. Every noble lord can cast
multiple votes as long as an opinion looks good in his eyes. Thus, we can see
quite a boost in vote counts this time.
Here comes the result:
| 18 | 28% | [Miyoshi Tadayoshi] Please give me just 600 men and I will defeat the monks in Kaga (300 only in total)! |
| 15 | 23% | [Maltz] Hey don't forget to CS (counter strike) if odds are good! |
| 14 | 22% | [[Hojo Ujiyasu] Oda is more likely to attack Mikawa. Please give me more men. |
| 12 | 19% | [Ota Yasusuke] We should completely abandon the Kaga campaign and concentrate on defense this year. |
| 5 | 8% | [Hojo Ujisuna] Concentrate on defending Shinano! |
I am truly grateful that many noble lords approved my request to attack Kaga! I shall bring back the heads of those proud monks.
Also, the noble lords has
decided to put more attention in Mikawa defense than in Shinano. Quite a few also
thought we should counter strike if we can win. 
Spring 1538
 |
Hmm actually I inflated my estimated army a little, so I brought a total
of 674 men into Kaga!
Also, 800 men were gathered in Mikawa for the defense now, while Shinano has another 600. That's the best we could do. At the same time, general Suwa Shigemasa was harassed by a ninja from an unknown origin! However, Shigemasa easily detected this careless assassin and terminated him outside his room. Eeeek! What a mass. Where is the janitor? |
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Noble lords! Oda has launched a total attack in Mikawa - emptying their
Mino and Owari army at once! Hojo Ujiyasu was right. Can he defend the province against an army that was 2.5 times of its size?
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| The defense of Mikawa was strengthened. Faced with the vast
numbers of Oda samurai, Hojo Ujiyasu divided his men into three groups. The
archers stood at front, facing the bridge. The yari samurai were on the
two sides, while the center were supported by the ashigaru of Hojo.
Hojo Ujiyasu asked the archers to hold their fires first. What is he
waiting for? |
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| Ujiyasu's plan was to shoot after the enemy crossed the
bridge!
Oda was not that dumb, however. They first sent many individual groups of yari samurai, trying to deplete our arrows. These soldiers rout quite slowly so we had no choice but to keep shooting at them, and send out the yari troops to drive these yari samurai back to the other side of the bridge... |
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| After a few struggles, the enemy has depleted most of our
arrows. They thought the time has come!
The enemy launched a full attack over the bridge, involving the enemy taisho. This was the only good chance for Hojo to win - Hojo Ujiyasu ordered all soldiers to charge forward! |
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The full charge of the Hojo soldiers created a complete
havoc within Oda's men who crossed the bridge. The enemy taisho failed to
control his men - and himself got killed in the chaos! Suddenly every
single Oda soldier turned around on the bridge! 
Let's chase over! |
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| Hojo Ujiyasu ordered the entire Hojo army to pursue -
because we have no arrows to defend the bridge anymore. Although the
enemy archers tried to rally and released their arrows towards us, they
couldn't stop the collapse of Oda after all!
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| A great defense of Hojo Ujiyasu! 1/3 of the 2065 Oda army was killed, while Hojo only lost 27% as much. Out of Oda's 2000 men, more than 1100 of them were yari samurai, 400 of them yari cavalry, 300 of them samurai archers. |
Good news noble lords! The monks in Kaga has decided to retreat into the
castle.
We conquered Kaga without losing any man. My job now is to siege the castle...
but how long will it last? 
Summer 1538
 |
As planned, the counter attack was launched!
It might be hard to grab Mino and Owari at the same time, so Lord Hojo
decided to go first - an assault of Mino with the elite of Hojo!
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Well, the elite... still many of them ashigaru. The enemy got quite a lot of cavalry, so... We could not see the enemy
anywhere when we arrived in Mino.
There were only two possibilities : on
the back of the left-hand-side
mountain, or on the back of the
right-hand-side mountain Lord Hojo decided to try left first. He ordered everyone to climb up the mountain... |
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| Wow and he was correct! Looks like the entire Oda's army is camped there. But why didn't they go to the highest ground in the first place? Anyways, if they don't want, we should take it! Lord Hojo asks everybody to run as fast as they could! |
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| As soon as the Hojo army occupied the higher ground, Lord Hojo ordered the entire army to charge down. The yari samurai were responsible for the right flank via the forest, while the yari ashigaru directly charge into the enemy yari samurai on the center. Can our archers support the peasants? |
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| The answer was yes, because the daimyo himself also rushed to the front! The enemy broke into chaos within minutes, and the enemy taisho was trapped within our troops, surrounded and killed! |
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There were only a few of the enemy units that refused to
retreat 
- but now they are chased by half of Hojo men!
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| A fast victory - almost a gift for Hojo. The Oda general was
stupid enough not to camp his men on the peak of the mountain, so he was
even unaware of the approaching Hojo army... what was he thinking? This
stupid taisho deserves his death.
General Ota Yasusuke also participated this battle as one of the two archer unit leaders. His unit didn't have a good chance to perform, though. |
Autumn 1538
 |
Wow! Another good news. Our clan was now the richest in Japan. Many of our lands
were productive in agriculture.
Lord Hojo also suggested that some farmland improvement can be done in the future. The Kaga castle siege went slowly but smoothly. The enemy reduced its
size in a rate of 1/4 per season. So hopefully by the end of next spring
the castle will fall. Mino is now under our control. Lord Hojo soon ordered some extra garrison from Mikawa - The chance of Oda to attack Mino was pretty high as Oda has quite a large army in Wakasa, Omi, and Owari all together. The defense of Mino - Mikawa should be strong enough to defend, though.
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Indeed, they come back right in the next season! Lord Hojo now faces an army twice as large as his, but Mino was famous for its defensibility...! |
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| Our reinforcement was... purely peasants.
Indeed, the financial situation of Hojo was not really good enough in the recent
years due to the super low tax rate. Fortunately the peasants were handled
well enough so this year we have brought back the tax rate to normal.
To compensate for the weakness in samurai, general Ota Yasusuke again joined the defense, still under the command of Lord Hojo Ujisuna! Eh... 1500 of Oda's men was marching up the mountain... on the other side of the valley. Lord Hojo could not help but laughed out loud. They
went the wrong way! |
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| Finally they come. The Oda soldiers must be a
little tired already! (hmm... maltz says he doubts that)
However, the enemy general also sent half of his men into the valley, attempting to attack us from the other side - quite a cunning move! Now this will create some big problem if we don't react quickly enough... should we charge down both sides, or concentrate on one? In the meantime, our archers released their arrows without mercy - and just before we depleted our arrows, Lord Hojo orders every single men to charge down the slope. Concentrate on the left! Let's go, fellow peasants of Hojo! |
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| The landslide of the HOJO ASHIGARU HORDE
prevailed!
Lord Hojo only let the most right flank to chase down the enemy out of
the battlefield, while the main force to concentrate on the enemy in the
valley. Now most of the enemy was trapped within the valley! Let's get
them! |
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| Nearly one thousand of Oda's men, hopeless
trying to make their way out. However, their way was completely blocked by layers
and layers of Hojo's ashigaru and yari samurai.
It was a bloody massacre indeed... a cunning tactics of Oda failed completely. |
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| Very few of them made out the valley, while they were further intercepted by groups of Hojo ashigaru and yari samurai. |
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| The valley was filled with corpse. The 1500 elite
army of Oda, only 60 of them ashigaru, were totally defeated by the
ashigaru-horde of Hojo. A loss ratio of 10 to 1 !!
After this decisive victory, Lord Hojo's fame was really wide spread
throughout Japan. (R4). |
Winter 1538
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With the total defeat of Oda, the defense in Wakasa, Omi, and Owari was severely weakened. Lord Hojo wouldn't give up this perfect chance of the second counter strike! Hojo Ujiyasu, the heir of Hojo attacked Owari in winter! |
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| However, Oda still managed quite a large group in Owari
despite their two major defeats in Mikawa and Mino.
The armies of Hojo and Oda clashed on the two bridges of Owari. The majority of Oda was sitting on the back - while right-hand-side bridge was only guarded by ONE group of yari ashigaru - much weaker compared to the left. Arranging two units of archers on the left, Hojo Ujiyasu ordered all Hojo yari ashigaru to charge over the right, followed by his own archers and yari samurai! |
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| The enemy ashigaru soon backed off, and their yari samurai
marched forward to defend. The arrows of Oda poured down from two
directions, and the yari samurai of Hojo was still on the other side of
the bridge.
Stillm Hojo Ujiyasu managed a flank of ashigaru! |
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| The flank was a bitter success. The first group of enemy YS
was destroyed using quite a lot of Hojo's yari ashigaru.
Soon after our yari samurai also crossed the bridge, Oda started the full-scaled attack - initiated by their yari cavalry! Hojo Ujiyasu defended using the Hojo yari samurai, while the samurai archers on the other side sneaked across the bridge... |
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| The first group of enemy yari cavalry was eliminated, but
the second group actually caught Hojo Ujiyasu's archers while they were
chasing down the first group! With no yari at hand, Hojo Ujiyasu's life
was in great danger! A group of yari ashigaru soon rushed over to help!
On the other side, the Hojo men were charging towards the Oda archers! |
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| Hojo Ujiyasu lasted till the rescue of yari ashigaru
arrived! The yari of the peasants stabbed the Oda cavalry on their back -
and these horse riders could do nothing but to let their horse run away
crazily.
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| On the other side, the attack of the other two archer units from the other side was a total surprise to Oda. The Hojo men had destroyed one entire group of Oda's archers! It should be the time to work on the rest - and the enemy fled one by one! |
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| Oda's men certainly runs fast in the snow. However, Hojo
Ujiyasu has been waiting for a while there.
On the right, one group of enemy yari cavalry attempted to march away from the trouble, but they were chased down by Hojo's yari samurai and finally routed. |
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| Now Owari is also ours!
The two important victories of Hojo Ujiyasu has made him really well-known throughout the nation, too. (R5) |
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| What a busy year. The counter strikes of Hojo were a great
success!
However, the intense battle has also cut down our army size quite a bit -
perhaps Hojo needs to make more recruit... luckily the harvest was good
this year with a normal tax rate. The increased budget has allowed us to
start many farm improvement in the productive provinces!
So what is going to be the objective of the coming year? We ask for your
participation, noble lords! |
Oda 2065
Hojo 814
