The Conquests

I know what you mean about the lack of posts from readers, choxorn. Perhaps 10-15% of the posts in "Blood and Iron" are from someone other than me. Still, with well over 100k views, somebody out there is reading your wonderful tale! I'm certainly eagerly awaiting your next update. Go Miyoshi! :)
 
I didn't even notice I'd broken the 100,000 mark! Looking at it, wow, this is the 6th-most viewed story in Civ 3 S&T history! I'm only behind your story, TCPK, 2051 AD, Conquest of the World, and Pax Romana! And my other story is all the way up to 14th (it's been around there for a while, but still)!

I'm kind of surprised people are still reading this so much when I take so long to update. OTOH, seeing as how Pax Romana hasn't been updated in nearly 6 years and it's the most-viewed in S&T by a mile, clearly the secret to getting people to read your story is to write it really well, then take forever to finish it. :lol: That, or getting a billion people to make their first posts in the story thread, like with 2051 AD and COTW.
 
Chapter 58: The War Council

The Miyoshi spent a few months in 1518 wondering what happened to the city the Ichijo had built on Kyushu. They were clearly at war with someone, but who? The Ryuzoji were the likely culprit, but it certainly wasn't impossible it was someone else.

It wasn't something that would be too difficult for them to find out; all they would have to do would be establishing an embassy with the Ichijo, that would tell them everyone they were at war with.

After a bit of debate, they decided they were tired of being in the dark about everyone else's diplomatic relations, and figured that if they were going to build this War Council thing for all the clans to meet diplomatically, they should probably have some kind of relations with their neighbors.

So, in July, they built an embassy in the Ichijo capital of Matsuyama:



It was wasn't a large, prosperous city, but it wasn't small, either. It wasn't particularly rich, though, and it had almost no resources, which meant that it was defended largely by Ashigaru, with a few Yamabushi on the way. The Ichijo didn't look particularly militarily strong, is the point- probably why the city they built on Kyushu looked like an easy target.

The establishment of the embassy did tell the Miyoshi the thing they wanted to know: Just as they'd suspected, the Ichijo were at war with the Ryuzoji. The Miyoshi wondered if the Ryuzoji would fight anyone else over small cities on Kyushu, but they never got the chance to find out- in August, the Ryuzoji built their own city on the coast, on top of the ruins of the Ichijo city they'd just destroyed. Unless someone got a settler into the interior before they did somehow or they wanted to fight the Shimazu, they weren't going to fight anyone else to settle the ruins of the former Otomo clan.

They had the gold to build more embassies if they wanted to, but they decided to hold on to it for now- after all, they had other things they wanted to spend their money on, and surely at some point the other clans would get around to spending some money building embassies of their own in Kyoto, right?

One such thing they wanted to save their money for was upgrading their military- or at least, upgrading their military as soon as one of the other things they wanted to save their money for, science, gave them new technology to upgrade to. It gave them the military technology they desired in December. They called it Bushido, a code for their Sword-wielding military that would for some reason make them better soldiers: Samurai (7/7/1, Amphibious, and they have an extra hitpoint like an Ancient Cavalry or a War Elephant), rather than Bushi, and it would also apparently let them make Miyoshi Nagayoshi stronger again and also let them build an Academy to do great things with their Military (Military Academy, which in this also gives the benefits of Heroic Epic and the Pentagon- which means there's actually three wonders in this scenario that increase the chances of getting leaders. Whether they stack or not is something I'm not sure of), but that was something they'd get around to later.



Something they'd get around to now was upgrading their military- or at least as much of it as they could with the gold they had. They also decided to look around at the technology situation of their rivals- as they'd expected, the Ryuzoji, Takeda, and Hojo had all researched something they needed Bushido to research, something they called Bajutsu. It was another military technology, one largely focused on Horses.

They were unwilling to trade it for just the Miyoshi's Diplomatic Finesse- they wanted something more. Figuring they could do better, the Miyoshi decided to hold off on trading that and research something else none of them had yet, and see if they'd be willing to trade then.

They would all soon research Diplomatic Finesse on their own anyway- probably why they didn't want to trade for it. They also all would eventually try to build the War Council- not like they'd come close to getting it with the Miyoshi having a huge head start on them.

In February, 1519, apparently feeling like they just might be in a bad situation in their war against the Ryuzoji, asked for help from the Miyoshi:



Miyoshi and his advisors discussed this for a minute. The Ryuzoji were certainly a powerful threat, and they'd like to stop them at some point- but now really wasn't the time. They weren't really in a position to do much about them. Also, the Ryuzoji were paying them a bit of money right now for... something, Miyoshi couldn't really remember what.

Their reply to the Ichijo's envoy was "We'd love to stop them, but we're pretty sure there's a few other logical targets before they get to us- or you, for that matter. We may have to fight them when the time comes, but that time is not now."

The Ichijo left, evidently disappointed by this.

As it turned out, the Ichijo were getting a bit worried over nothing anyway- the Ryuzoji were apparently only interested in that one city they had on Kyushu, and didn't particularly care about the Ichijo's territory on Shikoku. Perhaps they didn't feel like it was worth the effort to put together an invasion force and take their pathetic half of an island.

Whatever the reason, they were feeling like peace- and so, the Ichijo-Ryuzoji War ended in November, 1519, almost as quickly as it had started.



It probably meant that they were likely to fight anyone else who came near Kyushu, though- and the Shimazu probably shouldn't get too comfortable, either.

Speaking of War, March of 1520 saw years of work by the Miyoshi come to a satisfying end, as the War Council was finally finished in Kyoto.



Its first meeting couldn't really get anything done- the remaining 16 clans weren't particularly inclined to agree on much of anything, certainly not on who could lead them all as Daimyo, end the last century of Civil War and reunite Japan. No elections were held at the time, as it was agreed by all- and particularly by the Miyoshi leading the council- that holding them would be pointless.



The Council ended with everyone heading back home, mostly still mad at each other- and a few seemed kind of irritated that the Miyoshi had built the Council and not them.

The Hojo seemed to redirect their efforts towards building the War Council at another wonder: A Trade Network, to help pay the costs of the trading part of their economy and build better ships (It's Smith's Trading Company + The Great Lighthouse). Among other things, this meant that the Hojo had a technological edge beyond what the Miyoshi could see (the wonder requires Akinai, the first tech in the 3rd age).

But that edge would soon be narrowed, as the Miyoshi scientists announced they had a technology nobody else had in September, 1520.

Well, calling it a technology seemed a bit odd, as it seemed more like they'd just managed to make contact with the roving bands of soldiers that the Ainu had long had and referred to as "Ronin," but that was certainly something.



"So, this will let me hire Ronin to fight for me?"

"Yes, they're decently strong warriors, and on account of their mercenary nature, we can have them attack our enemies without even needing to declare war on them- they'll never know it was us."

"Splendid, I'll get to trading this right away..."

"But there is one thing we should..."

Miyoshi Nagayoshi had already gone by this point, to trade it. The Takeda, Ryuzoji, and Hojo were all willing to offer a good deal of stuff in exchange- the Ryuzoji and Hojo both offered Bajutsu and then some, and while the Takeda wouldn't offer Bajutsu, they would offer large sums of money.

After some negotiations with all three of them, Miyoshi ended up with not just Bajutsu and tons of money, but also some luxuries from the Ryuzoji. They even got a map out of it:



"Well, that was good... now, about those Ronin?"

"We were trying to tell you, they only accept payment in Jade- and we don't have any!"

Miyoshi Nagayoshi frowned. "That does seem to be a problem... where can we get some?"

"Looking around, the nearest sources are in the territory of the Saito, the Chosokabe, and the Urakami, and there's an unclaimed one on an island to the far west.



"I see... the Urakami one is a bit far, on their western border with the Mori, but we'd have to build boats to get the Chosokabe's Jade and we'd have to go through the Oda to get to the Saito's Jade. As to the unclaimed one, that's pretty far, and it doesn't seem likely we'd get it."

"Good points."

"Plus, we've been annoyed at the Urakami ever since Kakogawa grabbed those Horses and Spices just a few months before we would, right? They've had it coming, we should totally invade them."

They decided to upgrade their military first- their new gold was enough to upgrade all of their Bushi to Samurai Warriors, except one of their most elite units and the ones that made up Hiyoshi's Army. It was also enough to upgrade their one unit of Horsemen to Samurai- but Mounted Samurai (7/7/2, have Blitz). It even gave them time to build some more military to fight with, and time to start building that Military Academy they'd been meaning to get around to building.

At the start of 1521, their preparations were over. The time to fight was now.

Seeing that building an embassy in the Urakami capital of Kobe was cheap, they figured they might as well go for it- even if it wouldn't offer much other benefit, it would tell them a bit about the city and the Urakami relations with the other clans. So they decided to go for it:



Kobe was pretty well defended, both by its military garrison and by the Great Wall- though that was defending all of the Urakami's cities, not just Kobe. It was fairly nice and well developed, though stuck at its current size until it finished the Aqueduct it was working on.

Still, defense or not, the Miyoshi were determined to fight.

Just for the heck of it, they decided to see if the Urakami would give up the city they wanted without them needing to fight for it. Predictably, they declined:



"Alright, then," said the Miyoshi, "We'll have to take Fukuchiyama, and its Jade, and the rest of your cities... by force."



And the Miyoshi were more than prepared to back up this statement, sending large amounts of troops towards both of the Urakami's cities on the border. Outside of Ako, they had both of their Mounted Samurai units, a unit of Samurai Archers, their Grandmaster Bushi, and a couple of catapults. Heading in the direction of Kakogawa was 3 units of Samurai Archers, one of Samurai Warriors, and leading the way at Kakogawa was Hiyoshi's Army, which effortlessly destroyed an Urakami Bushi unit that it encountered on the road to Kakogawa.



The Urakami seemed too surprised by this declaration of war to mount any kind of response other than to bunker down their forces defending Ako and Kakogawa and wait for the Miyoshi to attack. The Miyoshi didn't particularly care- heck, they were probably more interested to hear the news that the Takeda and Ryuzoji had researched the technology of Akinai, which the Hojo had researched some time ago and the Miyoshi were working on.

The Miyoshi prepared to attack in April. Ako was to be attacked first.

"Fire the catapults!" yelled the Miyoshi commander in charge of the forces at Ako.

They were fired, and rocks were hurled, directly at Ako's section of the Great Wall. One of the catapults managed to hit it... causing no damage to the Wall at all. It instead bounced up in the air a seemingly unbelievably high distance, as if the Wall was protected by some kind of magic. It did, however, manage to fall on Ako's barracks, destroying them completely, so it wasn't a total loss (The Great Wall bug in full effect, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it).

"Well... that was useless... but oh well. Charge!!!!!!"

The first unit of Mounted Samurai, knowing full well the disadvantage they were at having to still deal with the Great Wall, nonetheless charged at the city to fight the Yamabushi defending it. They almost succeeded, bringing the Yamabushi almost completely down before dying themselves. Too injured to still fight, the Yamabushi retreated into the city and a unit of Samurai Archers came out to defend against the next Mounted Samurai charge- far less successfully. The Archers didn't do well defending at close range and the Mounted Samurai killed them all with little effort. The Mounted Samurai got a bit overconfident from their easy victory, though, and decided to attack the injured Yamabushi again- and like the first Mounted attack, they failed, despite how close to destruction the Yamabushi were. The Miyoshi sent in their Samurai Archers to finish the Yamabushi off- and they too failed. Finally, the Bushi they had brought along were able to kill this tough Yamabushi unit, but the Miyoshi had run out of things to attack with and there were still Ashigaru defending the city. The Miyoshi were able to send in some of their own Yamabushi to quickly come to the city and kill one of Ako's Ashigaru units, but that wasn't enough. Ako would remain Urakami for at least a few more months.

The Miyoshi had considerably more success in Kakogawa, though. It was defended much less well, by only one unit of Yamabushi and one of Ashigaru. It seemed odd that they defended their larger city with resources more poorly than their smaller city surrounded by featureless hills, but the Miyoshi weren't complaining. The Yamabushi and Ashigaru in Kakogawa were easy prey for Hiyoshi's Army, and the city quickly fell to the Miyoshi.



Finally, they had the Horses and Spices, not to mention some Silks, outside the city that they'd wanted for so long, nevermind the fact that they already had Horses and had recently traded with the Ryuzoji to get the Spices and Silks.

Control of the Area around Kakogawa let the Samurai Archers and Warriors following Hiyoshi's Army use the roads more effectively to kill 2 units of Bushi to the Southwest of the city shortly after the battle ended. So the Urakami did have some kind of counter-attack coming, it was just coming very slowly...

...Indeed, some of their units, specifically Bushi and Crossbowmen, appeared to the west in May, although none of them bothered to attack any of the Miyoshi's forces.

They also didn't bother to reinforce the defenders of Ako, at this point just one unit of Ashigaru- but the Miyoshi had sent some reinforcements to the city in the form of a unit of Samurai Archers, which rained a hail of arrows on the Ashigaru in July to end the Battle of Ako and take the city for the Miyoshi.



With Ako taken, the Miyoshi military moved to deal with the Urakami's pitiful counter-attack in the area west of Kakogawa. Units of Samurai Archers and Warriors killed 2 of the units of Bushi the Urakami had sent, and Hiyoshi's army killed another unit of Bushi and a unit of Stone Crossbowmen.

Their early victories were certainly worth celebrating, but the Miyoshi were suffering more casualties and injuries than they expected and they would need to take some time to heal their wounds and deal with both the small Urakami counter-attacks and the large resistances in Ako and Kakogawa before advancing.

Another problem was that they'd have to go around Kobe and hit Fukuchiyama first- even putting aside how well defended Kobe was, they couldn't take it without killing Urakami Munekage, and then the rest of the clan would collapse. They couldn't risk losing Fukuchiyama's location if that happened.

Going around Kobe by land would be very difficult due to the terrain and Kobe's cultural influence, so they'd go by sea, building some boats while they waited for their army to recover. They would take the Urakami's southwestern coastal cities, Nishiwaki and Kurayoshi, then move North to Fukuchiyama and their other Western city, Toyooka, and then finally, Kobe. As to their isolated city surrounded by the Mori- they didn't particularly care about that one.

The Urakami spent the rest of the Summer of 1521 still not particularly interested in attacking any of the Miyoshi military, just moving their own units around.

Perhaps more interesting was the things on the Miyoshi's Eastern border: An Oda Samurai Archer unit appeared on the Northern part of the Oda-Miyoshi border, and a Hojo Ashigaru unit, appeared on the Southern part, then the Hojo entered Miyoshi territory.

"Where are they going, I wonder? Is there a War somewhere we haven't been made aware of? If so, seems like some awfully small invasion forces..."

To settle whether or not the Hojo and Oda were involved in any wars, the Miyoshi built embassies in their capitals in October: The Hojo capital, Tsuchiuru:



And the Oda capital, Nagoya:



Nagoya didn't seem particularly interesting- it was about the same as Kobe and Matsuyama, as far as the Miyoshi could tell- although it did, amusingly, have the Oda's Izumo Shrine in it, despite having far too little water in its area to make the Izumo Shrine worthwhile. Tsuchiuru caught the Miyoshi's eye, though- it wasn't well-developed, but it was big, and very well defended, even by the standards of a capitol city- They counted 9 units of Ashigaru, 5 of Yamabushi, and 2 of Samurai Archers in the city.

Their new diplomatic knowledge revealed that the Hojo and Oda weren't at war with anyone else- at the moment. So where were they going, then? To declare a war? If so, the Miyoshi hoped it wasn't them they wanted to fight...

The only had more questions a month later, when the Hojo Ashigaru turned around and headed North, and the Oda Archers simply took defensive positions on the border.

The Urakami, meanwhile, finally started to seem like they were trying to counter-attack, sending not only some Bushi towards the border, but a Galley with... probably something in it, heading towards Ako.

They took a while to get anywhere, but the Miyoshi were waiting to heal, which gave them time to arrive- a unit of Bushi and a unit of Stone Crossbowmen reached the hill Northwest of Ako in February, 1522, followed shortly by Stone Crossbowmen exiting the Galley to occupy the hill to the Northeast, and some Bushi and Ashigaru were to the North.

More worryingly, though, the Hojo reappeared on the Northern part of the Oda-Miyoshi border- and not just the Ashigaru, they had a large force of Samurai Archers with them now.



Miyoshi Nagayoshi and his advisors met to discuss this. "Just what are they up to?" asked Miyoshi.

"I don't know... but I don't like it."

They clearly intended to fight somebody. The Miyoshi could only hope it wasn't them.

Whatever it was, they couldn't really do much about the Hojo but wait and see where they were going. If it looked like it was farther west- a distinct possibility, considering they had been sending some ships in that direction for some time now- then it was no big deal. But if they looked like they were here to fight the Miyoshi- well, that was a problem.

But putting aside possible wars, they had an actual war to deal with: Those Urakami weren't going to kill themselves, so the Miyoshi would have to do it for them. They started by attacking the units in the vicinity of Ako. Sending in one unit each of Samurai Warriors, Archers, and Bushi, and two of Yamabushi, they eventually dealt with the two units of Urakami Crossbowmen and 1 of Bushi on the hills outside Ako, though they lost the entirety of their unit of Archers trying to kill the Urakami Bushi and one of the Yamabushi units had to run from the Crossbowmen to avoid death.

Hiyoshi's Army had less trouble dealing with the Urakami units of Ashigaru and Bushi to the north, though the army didn't come out completely unscathed.

With the latest Urakami counter-attack completely dealt with, it was sure looking like the Miyoshi could easily win the war against them.

The Hojo were another story, if they planned to fight the Miyoshi. The Miyoshi and Hojo were fairly close in military strength, but the Hojo had the technological edge- and the Miyoshi were kind of doubtful they could fight both the Urakami and the Hojo at the same time.

They sure hoped the Hojo Archers weren't there to fight them.

 
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Well, they're clearly headed to attack somebody, so clearly I should watch out and see if it's me...
 
Continuing my image-fixing of the earlier chapters, I'm up to Chapter 13, about halfway through the Rise of Rome scenario.

I'm not quite sure what to do with the images in Chapter 14- they actually seem to be working, which is unusual. Most of the working images in older chapters are actually images that I already re-hosted at imgur a few years ago anyway for some reason (I can't remember exactly), or ImageShack images that strangely still work but aren't at full size. Chapter 14's images, though, are all at ImageShack, and they for the most part, still work and aren't resized. Strangely, it's only most of the images in that chapter- some of them don't work, some of them do work. It's just weird...
 
Now, that's just straight up weird.

I decided to at least fix the images in chapter 14 that were actually broken. So, I fixed the first two (broken) ones, then decided to rehost the third (working) image at imgur just to see if it would change the image quality any. A quick comparison showed no discernible difference- and also that the rest of the chapter's images had started working again, for some reason. I'm both confused and a little relieved that at least that one chapter has working images. I decided to leave the rest of them alone to save myself work, but I've taken note that chapter 14's images are still mostly at ImageShack.

This also hasn't made any images in any other chapter magically start working- just that one, the rest of them still appear to be broken.

Maybe if I edit and fix one image in another chapter, the rest will magically start working again? :crazyeye:
 
Fixed one image in Chapter 15 (looks like two right now, because the first image in that chapter was already imgur-hosted). Yep, rest of the chapter's images still broken.

So Chapter 14's images are just a weird anomaly, I guess. I wish I knew what the cause was, but I don't, and I probably can't.
 
Nice update, and cliffhanger! That Hojo invasion force certainly looks threatening. It could get quite interesting indeed if they aren't merely passing through your lands. How well is Tottori defended?
 
Fairly well. I actually have already played a few more turns, haven't gotten around to writing the update yet. I do know where that Hojo invasion force headed.

Did it attack me, or did it go on further West? You'll have to wait and see. :mischief:
 
Sorry for the lack of activity the past few days, I was having some internet problems and I also headed back to college. I think I should be able to continue image-fixing and release an update fairly soon, though.
 
Chox, you could go silent for months, and all it would do is make your next update even better<3
 
:bump: Any updates on the Hojo invaders? Hard to believe it's almost been two months since the update. Not that I'm one to talk!
 
I keep thinking I can update this, and keep not updating it. Partly because I'm busy, sure, but also partly because I get distracted by other things in my free time. Like, I've played quite a few turns past this weeks ago and still haven't gotten around to writing the actual story!

Sorry for lack of update and sorry for being so lazy.
 
Chapter 59: Unexpected Setbacks

The eyes of the Miyoshi were mostly focused on the Hojo, and whatever the hell it was they were up to. It certainly didn't seem good.

As the Miyoshi thought they would, the Hojo, with their army mostly made of Samurai Archers, did indeed enter Miyoshi territory in May, 1522. But they seemed like they were heading west, along the northern coastline- a path that didn't really make sense if they wanted to fight the Miyoshi. Perhaps they were heading for Tottori or Kakogawa, the Miyoshi's cities in the north, or perhaps confusion was their goal, but it looked like there was also a fair chance they were heading for the Urakami or the Mori. Still, until the Miyoshi were sure the Hojo were heading towards one of their Western neighbors and not them, they'd keep their guard up and their northern cities well-defended.

The Urakami, meanwhile, did little in their war against the Miyoshi other than to retreat a Galley that had been hanging around near Ako and sent a lone unit of Samurai Archers into Miyoshi territory- apparently the best the Urakami could muster for a counter-attack.

For many years now, the Miyoshi had been debating about where they should build something called the Izumo Shrine that would give the best benefit (It's been a while since I mentioned what it does, so if you've forgotten, it's a Harbor+Offshore Platform+Commercial Dock and it even gives 2 content faces). They needed to build it somewhere that would have enough sea water in its vicinity to make the bonuses worthwhile, while also having enough land in its vicinity and be lose enough to Kyoto to be able to actually build the Shrine in a reasonable amount of time. Luckily, the recent conquest of Ako added a fair amount of coastal territory in the vicinity of Kasuga, enough to make it the clear best fit for the Izumo Shrine. So, they began construction of it in Kasuga in July.

The Hojo continued heading West along the Northern coast with their Samurai Archers in August, but mysteriously, the lone unit of Ashigaru turned around and headed back East, where it was joined by some more units of Ashigaru. What were they planning, exactly?

A few months later, the Miyoshi received word that, as usual, their immediate technological rivals, the Ryuzoji, Takeda, and Hojo, were still researching new technology faster than they were. Their recent new advantage was Ninjutsu, giving something of an upgrade on the Ronin that was apparently the most awesome thing ever (Ninja are 6/2/1 with a ton of abilities- Hidden Nationality, All Terrain As Roads, Amphibious, Invisibility, and the Stealth Attack ability that lets you choose which unit in a stack you want to attack- they're pretty awesome and dangerous).

The Miyoshi weren't doing a whole lot on the Urakami were front, but the Urakami weren't doing much more. They did send 2 units of Samurai Archers to occupy a hill to the northwest of Ako in November, 1522, but that was all that either side had done in months.

The large group of Hojo Archers continued its westward journey that month, and it had gone far enough West that the Miyoshi could rule out an attack on any one of their cities but Kakogawa. Still, they weren't about to let their guard down until the Hojo were past Kakogawa and into Urakami territory.

Towards the end of the year, the Miyoshi caught up a bit towards their ahead-of-them-in-technology rivals by researching Akinai, which they had all had for quite some time now. Somewhat unsurprisingly, they all had worked upon that to get a new technology, something about contact with some far-away land.



The Miyoshi thought about building the Trade Network that Akinai allowed- it had some impressive benefits (Smith's + Lighthouse), but they decided they also wanted to build the Military Academy and Izumo Shrine, and couldn't really dedicate too many of their cities to building wonders at once when they had such a dire need for military units.

The most pressing matter in January, 1523 was doing something about those Urakami Archers near Ako. Luckily, the Miyoshi had some catapults to weaken them, which then made it fairly simple for some Samurai Warriors and Hiyoshi's army of Bushi to wipe the Archers out.

The Miyoshi wanted to press forward into Urakami territory, but they knew they had to be careful with the Hojo around, just in case they were heading towards Kakogawa.

And they continued heading in that direction, and reached the city's gates in February. The next few months would tell if they were just passing through- or if they had other plans.

Also in February, the Urakami somewhat annoyingly used the great speed of one of their units of Yamabushi to run well into Miyoshi territory and destroy the road to the Horses between Kakogawa and Tottori. Well, perhaps the Urakami felt that if they couldn't have Kakogawa's Horses, nobody could. They also had a Galley bring a unit of Ashigaru to a hill to the Northeast of Ako, which was apparently the best threat they could muster.

The Miyoshi military spent April dealing with these insignificant Urakami pests. A unit of Samurai Warriors killed the Yamabushi, and sent word that some of the nearby workers should try to rebuild the destroyed road as soon as they could. Some catapults combined with a unit of Bushi to take out the Ashigaru near Ako. And, for good measure, a Caravel sunk the annoying Urakami Galley.

Now would be the moment of truth: Were the Hojo planning to attack Kakogawa, or would they continue heading West?

The calendar turned over to May. The Urakami moved first, with their usual weak foray into Miyoshi territory, this time in the form of a unit of Samurai Warriors and a unit of Yamabushi. Then came the Hojo...

The advisor was in a hurry to deliver the news. Most of the things he told to Miyoshi Nagayoshi were important, but this... this was a lot more important than usual.

"Sir, I bring news about the Hojo!"

"Yes? Were they attacking us, or continuing westward?"

"They abruptly turned North, and started firing Arrows into Kakogawa! They intend to destroy us!"

"So that was their target..."



Luckily, Kakogawa was well-prepared, with many Samurai Warriors defending it. In the ensuing Battle of Kakogawa, the Hojo lost their unit of Stone Crossbowmen and 2 of their units of Samurai Archers to Kakogawa's Warriors, who took no casualties of their own, and the Hojo lost another unit of Archers when they tried to attack the Samurai Warriors who had recently killed the Urakami Yamabushi at the Horses. The remaining 2 Samurai Archers that had come with this now-devastated army decided attacking wouldn't be such a great idea, so they just destroyed some roads and killed some Miyoshi Workers that had been cutting down the jungles in the area.

The Miyoshi were glad that the Hojo had mostly been dealt with and didn't pose much of an immediate threat, but they also knew that there were probably more where those Archers came from, and fighting a two-front war was really not what they needed right now.

So, in July, they decided to enlist the help of some of the other clans. They knew at least they'd need to get the Oda in on this, to keep the Hojo from sending any more units through their territory without a fight, and they probably also would need the help of some of the other clans in the area, just to make sure the Oda didn't get destroyed. Problem was, the Oda capital of Nagoya was one of the few capitals they actually had an embassy in to negotiate these sorts of alliances. Luckily, the Miyoshi had plenty of gold- more than enough to establish embassies in the Imagawa capital of Fuji...



And the Uesugi capital of Sendai...



With two out of three of the Hojo's immediate neighbors now open to negotiation, the Miyoshi talked to all of them about getting in on an alliance. As it turned out, the Oda, Uesugi, and Imagawa were all more than willing to join the Miyoshi against the Hojo in return for some technology that they lacked- the Uesugi even threw in their recently-researched technology of Ninjutsu (And the Imagawa and Oda would have given gold, but it was decided they needed it to fight the Hojo)



With the alliances taken care of, the Miyoshi went about fighting the Urakami and Hojo units in their territory. A Samurai Archer unit killed the Urakami Yamabushi after Samurai Warriors failed to get the job done, A Samurai Warrior unit killed one of the two remaining Hojo Samurai Archer units, and the other Hojo Archers were killed by Hiyoshi's Army, who also had time to kill a unit of Hojo Ashigaru.

Unfortunately, there was a unit of Hojo Yamabushi they couldn't deal with, and in August, it destroyed the road to the Spices between Kakogawa and Tottori and then ascended a Mountain, both to make it really difficult for the Miyoshi to get rid of them and to presumably destroy the gold mine that was on the mountain.

But, in October of 1523, the Miyoshi managed to get rid of them anyway. They lost a unit of Mounted Samurai in the process, but Hiyoshi's Army managed to get the job done and save the Gold Mine, though the Mine was now littered with the corpses of Hojo Yamabushi.

They also paid close attention to the Hojo ships that were passing by them to the South and sent some Samurai Warriors to kill one of the units of Archers that was heading back into Oda territory. The Warriors were successful, but just barely.

Since they possessed a bit more gold than they did a few months ago, they decided to build an embassy in the Takeda capital, Nagaoka, and see if they were willing to join in the fight against the Hojo.



Although the Takeda appreciated the embassy and the Miyoshi comments about their defenses (Nagaoka had 12 Yamabushi, 3 Samurai Warriors, 1 Samurai Archer, and 1 Samurai Spearman in it!), they weren't willing to join in the fight against the Hojo- not for any price the Miyoshi were willing to pay, anyway.

So the Miyoshi decided to just try to keep the Takeda friendly, and the two clans agreed to let each other pass through their territory. The Takeda even gave the Miyoshi a bit of gold and a map as part of the agreement.

The map showed the Miyoshi a great deal of the roads passing through the clans to their East, which weren't terribly good- that was probably a good thing, as it meant the Hojo were unlikely to be able to get any significant reinforcements headed their way, if they could even get past the Imagawa and the Oda.

And the Hojo still had a few units trapped in the middle of hostile territory on the Oda-Miyoshi border, though the Miyoshi observed them having some success against the Oda in November.

The Urakami did much more against them than the Hojo did, though, sending another unit of Yamabushi in to destroy their roads- this time, it managed to cut the Miyoshi off from their lone Iron source in the vicinity of Tottori. The Miyoshi resolved to do something to stop these incursions from pillaging any more of their needed resources and to get the Iron re-connected as soon as they possibly could.

They didn't really have the strength to easily dislodge the Yamabushi from the Mountain, unfortunately, so they just surrounded it in January of 1524 to make sure it didn't attack anything else important. Miyoshi Nagayoshi himself even contributed to the blockade, for lack of any better options more than anything else.



The Yamabushi obviously lacked the offensive strength to break out of this blockade, so in February, the Urakami sent two units of Samurai Warriors to help them out by attacking the Miyoshi Samurai Warriors to the West. The Miyoshi Warriors held the Urakami Warriors off and the Yamabushi remained surrounded, though they now had time to fortify themselves on the mountain.

It wouldn't save them, though. Though they avoided taking much damage from the Archers and Catapults that bombarded them and even managed to bring down a unit of Samurai Warriors that attacked them in April, they finally perished before the might of Hiyoshi's Army. Workers immediately headed to the mountain to ensure that the Miyoshi would have access to Iron again as soon as possible.

On the southern coastline, there was still the problem of a Hojo Caravel and Galley going... somewhere. Wherever it was, the Miyoshi didn't think it was good, so they sent some of their own Caravels to send the Hojo ships to the bottom of the sea. They were partially successful: The Hojo Caravel found its way to the ocean floor when it was attacked, but the Galley held off an attack and instead the Miyoshi found one of its Caravels sunk.

The next few months were a bit less eventful- The Urakami, apparently no longer capable of sending 2 units every 3 months towards the Miyoshi, sent one lone unit of Samurai Warriors to attack a Miyoshi Samurai Warrior unit near the border, a battle that the Miyoshi won. In July, the Miyoshi regained access to Iron, and swore to defend it better from the Urakami's marauding Yamabushi. Other than that, the Urakami-Miyoshi War continued to be largely uneventful.

At least until things picked up again in August. Not because of anything the Urakami army did, no- but because the citizens of Ako, having long struggled to return themselves to the rule of the Urakami, had finally succeeded.



Obviously, this could not be allowed to stand. The Miyoshi would make the citizens of Ako pay- at least as soon as they could get their military there. In October, they sent some of their forces towards the city, but the hills slowed them down enough to keep Ako's citizens alive for a few more months. The Miyoshi were able to send some Yamabushi to destroy a section of road to the west of the city, though, preventing the Urakami from reinforcing Ako with anything but their own Yamabushi.



Those Miyoshi Yamabushi were attacked by the Urakami in November, as they thought they might be. They didn't manage to do much to the Samurai Warriors that attacked them, but they did manage to retreat with their lives, at least.

A few weeks later, the Miyoshi received news that the Tokugawa had joined the war on the side of the Hojo, declaring war on the Uesugi. At least, they think the Hojo were involved in this- the Tokugawa are tiny and weak, so it makes no sense for them to declare war on the Uesugi of their own accord.



"Worried about their neighbors, I see?"

"I would imagine so, the Uesugi are clearly winning. They recently destroyed the city of Ota, on the border between the Hojo and the Uesugi. Actually, according to our records, that happened at least a year ago, but we somehow didn't notice it until now."

"That's good to hear..."

"It also appears that our military is now significantly stronger than the Hojo's again. It appears these wars are taking a toll on them."

"That's very good to hear..."

Even better news came a month later, when Kyoto finally finished the Military Academy it had long been working on. They could now build bigger, stronger armies, and Hiyoshi's Army would be a little bit better than it already was.



Not that it helped them much in the battle of Ako. In January, 1525, the Miyoshi charged into the city. It did not go as well for them as they had hoped. First, a unit of Mounted Samurai attacked the city. It fought well, but the Samurai Spearmen the city had mustered for defense were too strong, and the Mounted Samurai fell. Then, Hiyoshi's Army attacked.

To say it did not go well would be an understatement. The Army was completely annihilated, down to the last man, while the Spearmen suffered not so much as a scratch. (Oh, come on! I know Ako had hills and Walls, and it was a Bushi Army against a Spearman, but the Army had 13 HP! And it didn't do a single point of damage!)

Now they would need that Military Academy's Armies...

Luckily, the unit of Samurai Warriors that the Miyoshi had brought along with them to Ako did much better than the Mounted Samurai and Hiyoshi did, finally killing these annoying Spearmen and taking the city. As vengeance for both their revolting and the death of Hiyoshi and the rest of his army, the Miyoshi reduced Ako to a pile of dust.



The Urakami again sent a few units of their military in the general direction of the Miyoshi in February, now greatly slowed down by the lack of roads. A unit of their Yamabushi did get all the way to Kyoto, but didn't have time to pillage anything or attack Miyoshi Nagayoshi in the city (not that that would have ended well for them). They never did get the chance, because the Miyoshi quickly descended on it in April. Following some bombardment from Catapults to weaken them and an attack by Samurai Archers that almost killed them but that the Yamabushi managed to retreat from, the Yamabushi were killed by some Miyoshi Samurai Warriors. The Miyoshi would have none of that "Yamabushi-runs around and wrecks all our stuff" that had been happening far too much for the past few years of their wars against the Urakami and Hojo.

In less interesting news, a Caravel sunk a Hojo Galley, specifically the one that had earlier emerged victorious in a battle against a Miyoshi Caravel.

The Urakami continued their slow "send one or two or three units of our military towards the Miyoshi with no real direction in mind" tactics in May. The Miyoshi questioned what their strategy was.

For a couple of years, several of the other clans had a technological edge over the Miyoshi in the form of contact with a far-away nation. The Takeda, Hojo, and Ryuzoji had all contacted a ship of explorers from this country first, and the Uesugi had also gotten it recently. The Miyoshi were hoping they could meet soon, too.

Finally, in June 1525, the Miyoshi were able to meet this nation themselves: They called themselves the Portuguese, and they were from somewhere far away indeed- their continent of Europe was almost on the direct other side of the world. The Portuguese had recently taken to exploring said world and their journey had now taken them to the islands of Japan. They seemed to have some interesting ideas about technology (well, they had to, to build ships capable of going that far) and religion.



One of their other technological ideas was weapons coming from an explosive called Gunpowder, which the Takeda, Hojo, and Ryuzoji had all recently developed from their contact with these strange people. The Miyoshi hoped to get this weapon soon before the Hojo could use it to terrible ends. They at least hoped the Uesugi could get it soon...

In July, the Miyoshi went about their tri-monthly business of dealing with the small bits of the Urakami military that had come their way two months ago. Three Miyoshi Samurai Warriors were more than sufficient to kill all three of the Urakami units heading their way- one of Samurai Warriors, one of Samurai Archers, and one of Ashigaru.

The Urakami tried to avenge their losses by attacking the Miyoshi Warriors in August with their own Samurai Warriors, but only succeeded in getting two more units of their own men killed without causing any significant harm to the Miyoshi.

They also sent a Caravel eastward, probably to put a lone unit on a hill near what used to be Ako, and some Settlers escorted by Samurai Spearmen, presumably to re-build Ako. The Miyoshi certainly weren't about to let that happen. Some catapults and Samurai Warriors descended upon them in October, with the satsifying result of some dead Urakami Spearmen and some new slave workers from the settlers.

The Miyoshi were starting to feel pretty good about the western war front for the first time in a while- they were easily turning back everything the Urakami threw at them, they had all their resources hooked back up and well defended against any Yamabushi that might try to do something to them, and they were starting to have some military to spare to go attack with.

They also now felt fairly secure in having two sources of Horses. Secure enough, in fact, that they decided to see what the Oda might offer for one of them. The Oda were fighting the Hojo, after all, and the Miyoshi really would like it if they did well.

The Oda offered a fairly substantial amount of gold in return, and the Miyoshi were happy to take that gold- they could always use more gold. The Miyoshi and Oda wished each other luck in fighting the Hojo.



The Urakami finally managed to mount a somewhat substantial counter-attack in November of 1525, with 4 units of Samurai Warriors and Archers being spotted on the Urakami-Miyoshi border. That was actually a little bit scary. A bit less scary, and a bit more odd, was the Urakami Caravel, which continued to go South.

"Bad News: The Hojo got another ally into the war, and this time it was against us!"

"Well, that sucks, who was it, exactly."

"That's the Good News: It's the Shimazu."



"The Shimazu? The guys on another island, with about 4 cities and a weak, backwards military? Do the Hojo have any idea what they're doing?"

"It would appear not, sir."

The Miyoshi, for whatever good it did them, at least tended to be coherent and have some idea of what they were doing, way more so than the other clans. Stupid other clans.

One of those things they had been doing for a long time was building the Izumo Shrine in a city where it would do them a lot of good: Kasuga, which finally finished it in December, 1525. Heck, it might even be more useful now that Ako wasn't crowding it. The Miyoshi decided that when they rebuilt that area, they'd move the city a bit to the southwest.



The Miyoshi couldn't really do much about those Urakami Warriors in January, 1526, but they could easily get rid of the Urakami Samurai Archers with some of their Mounted Samurai, and they could also sink the Urakami Caravel with their own. It would never reach its destination, wherever it was going...

They also thought about where to send a recently-built Settler group in Kyoto. They thought about sending it West, but the Western front was still very lively and they weren't sure they'd have the ability to defend a city they built there. They decided to instead send it East. It reached its destination, a small gap in territory where there was just enough room for a city on the eastern coast, and built the city of Suzuka there in April:



Another advantage of not re-settling the area around Ako was that the Urakami would continue to try to- in March, they had sent their own settler group escorted by Bushi to that area, which the Miyoshi saw as more free slaves for them.

They couldn't really attack them in April, though, and also couldn't safely do anything about the Samurai Warriors that were smartly staying on the high ground, so they just hunkered down and waited to see what the Urakami would do.

What they did in May was go and attack a unit of Miyoshi Samurai Warriors that had been guarding some Workers re-building roads in the vicinity of what used to be Ako. Outnumbered 3 to 1, the Miyoshi didn't really have a chance, although they did take 2 of the Urakami Warriors down with them and caused some injury to the third. The workers were lost, sadly. Mysteriously, the Urakami killed some of them and had others retreat (maybe the ones they killed were mine and the ones that retreated were theirs?)

Because they had retreated to an area with no Urakami military units, it was quite simple for the Miyoshi to take them back in July with some Yamabushi. It was also quite simple for the Miyoshi to kill the Samurai Warriors who had captured them and another unit of Samurai Warriors with two Samurai Warrior units of their own, and the Bushi and Settlers were quite easy prey for a unit of Samurai Archers. Two more slaves for the Miyoshi.

Following this series of battles, Miyoshi Nagayoshi's military advisor proudly reported that they were now much stronger than the Urakami, for the first time in a while (I was average compared to them for quite a bit, and only just now became strong again).



Well, it was about damn time things started going their way again. The Miyoshi had had enough of these setbacks and wanted to get back to pushing forward into the Urakami, and finally getting that Jade they so desired.
 
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Why do people only post here when I go several months without saying anything, then I post an update or two and everyone else vanishes? :crazyeye:
 
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