Toxicman007
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Awwww I thought it was an update 
The Conquests
- Thread starter choxorn
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Chapter 51: What a Great Neighborhood
As the workers prepared to build a road to the Wheat fields outside of Kyoto and the Ashigaru prepared to explore the coast to the West of Kyoto, Miyoshi Nagayoshi spent months attempting to convince the rest of the Miyoshi clan that nothing bad would happen if he left and went exploring, and that they could get an advantage over all those other silly clans that thought their Daimyo couldn't so much as take a step outside their capital without dying.
"I'll be fine. There's no threat big enough to really hurt me. Not yet, at least. You should be fine without me for a while. Just in case you're worried about Kyoto being temporarily defenseless, why don't you just train some more Ashigaru?"
Eventually, they were convinced, and in July, 1450, Miyoshi went to the East to explore more of the coast.
The Ashigaru and Miyoshi found that most of the nearby coast was just the Pacific Ocean, both to the West and to the East of Kyoto. However, the coast to the Northeast was a lake of Fresh Water. That there was Fresh Water near Kyoto had to be good news.
Not all the news was good, though. In April, 1451, two units of Ainu Ashigaru appeared to the North of Kyoto, just outside Miyoshi territory. Though they would take another year to reach the city, that was still faster than they could train a unit of Ashigaru to defend themselves, and faster than the Ashigaru that had went west could get back to Kyoto. Miyoshi, however, was close enough. So, in July, he started going back towards Kyoto. He couldn't reach it quite yet, but he was able to reach the workers in the wheat field and their newly-finished road. They originally had planned to head to the lake next year and build irrigation ditches to bring fresh water back to the wheat and to Kyoto, but the Ainu were making it look like that plan wasn't going to work. Surely, they would continue heading South towards Kyoto.
And yet, they didn't. One fortified in place, one headed Southwest, around the edge of Miyoshi territory, and a third suddenly appeared on the Mountain to the Southeast. Perhaps there was something the Miyoshi couldn't see that the Ainu could? Or they were waiting for the third group before attacking? It didn't seem to make sense.
Whatever the reason, the Miyoshi were perfectly happy for the delay, which would allow them to train another unit of Ashigaru to defend Kyoto before the Ainu could get there, and allow the workers to safely head to the lake. Just to be safe, Miyoshi went into Kyoto in January, 1452 and fortified to help with the defense.
To the west, the Miyoshi Ashigaru spotted a village of Ainu. Hoping they were the friendly kind, they went into the village. Sadly, they were not, and the Ashigaru found themselves partially surrounded by two units of Ainu Ashigaru. They also saw a camp of Ainu on a small island across the Sea. Well, that meant they couldn't be attacked, but how would they get off the island? How did they get ON the island in the first place?
Whatever, they had more pressing matters at hand, like all the Ainu Ashigaru that WERE on the same landmass as them.
For whatever reason, they decided not to attack the Ashigaru that had disturbed them, and the fortified Ainu to the north of Kyoto remained so. The other two Ashigaru units, on the other hand, headed towards the now undefended workers.
One of them had gone up onto a nearby hill and thus was still not threatening Kyoto, but the other one, taking the shortest possible path, was now directly to the East of Kyoto. They would need to reinforce the workers and keep Kyoto defended at the same time. Miyoshi Nagayoshi suggested that the best defense in this case was offense, and the newly trained Ashigaru that they had should head out and go kill the Ashigaru that threatened Kyoto, and Miyoshi could protect the workers from the other group. It probably would have been a good plan, if said new Ashigaru didn't all die in battle when they went to do this, though they did take most of the Ainus down with them.
Miyoshi sighed. "Looks like if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." So, upon hearing that the Ashigaru had failed, he went out and finished the job, killing all the remaining Ainus. Single-handedly. Without taking so much as a scratch, and somehow becoming stronger after having won the fight. Yeah, Miyoshi Nagayoshi is kind of a badass. He even had enough time left to run north and defend the workers before the other group could reach them!
To the west, the exploring Ashigaru noticed that one of the Ainu units they'd disturbed was directly in the path they now wished to go, so they decided that going in that path anyway and killing any Ainu who tried to stop them sounded like a good plan. And this time, it actually worked!
Following the battle, they noticed some strange purplish markings in the distance, probably borders of some sort. They'd have to go check it out.
The other unit of Ashigaru that they'd disturbed thought that checking out the Purple area seemed like a great idea, and headed in that direction as well in October. That, or they wanted revenge.
Back East, the Ainu Ashigaru on the hill were confused. One man tried to stand against them, the only thing between them and some workers? Well, sure, Nagayoshi had killed a bunch of other Ainu earlier, but he'd done that after they'd just fought a battle against some of Nagayoshi's soldiers. Surely they, fresh troops, could easily defeat him.
They failed to account for just how awesome Miyoshi Nagayoshi was. An entire unit of them charged down a hill at him. He killed every single one of them with his super martial arts powers, swords, and ninja moves that he somehow knew despite the technology being required for ninjas being at least 100 years off in the future. And, once again, his attackers didn't so much as graze him.
At this point, the remaining unit of Ainu Ashigaru in the East that had been fortified for the past year decided "screw it, it couldn't be that hard to take this guy out, could it?" and so they went up on the hill their fallen comrades had formerly occupied. Miyoshi Nagayoshi prepared for their arrival and requested that a few of the workers dig a giant middle finger in the mud to point at the Ainu.
In April, 1453, the unit of Ashigaru saw this finger, took offense to it, and charged down the hill at Miyoshi and the workers. Little did they know that IT WAS A TRAP! Well, no it really wasn't, technically, it's just that anyone should know better than to attack Miyoshi Nagayoshi, and he himself should occasionally be considered a trap. Once again, all of the guys who attacked him found themselves with a severe case of being dead, and Miyoshi didn't even mess up his impossibly spiky hair.
The Exploring Ashigaru finally reached the purple borders in July (the Ainu would soon follow), but the inhabitants weren't within their sight yet, so contact between the Miyoshi and the Purple Clan would have to wait until the following January.
The Purple Clan revealed that their name was not, in fact, the Purple Clan, but the Urakami. Common mistake, though. Perfectly understandable. They were led by Urakami Munekage, a name so awesome it invoked feats similar to Miyoshi Nagayoshi's ability to fight endless hordes of barbarians, and it didn't even have any silly rhyming. Presumably, even if he wasn't quite as awesome as Miyoshi, he must at least have some nice moves and an epic amount of the manliest kind of chest hair.
Sadly, the Urakami and Miyoshi had nothing to trade, so all they could do was have a brief talk and hope to do things later.
Shortly after this meeting finished, Miyoshi decided that the Ainu in the immediate vicinity of Kyoto were all gone, so he went exploring again, and left Kyoto's borders. Not that long after he left, those borders expanded- as did the Urakami's, and presumably did every other clan's borders. In fact, the Miyoshi could now see the borders of two new clans purely because of that expansion: a Yellow-Orange clan to the Northeast of them, and an Orange one to the South of Purple... across the water.
Miyoshi himself was a bit too far south to head towards the one border they could reach in 1455, so a newly trained unit of Ashigaru from Kyoto was sent in that direction.
A few months into the year, the Miyoshi scientists announced that they had made a great discovery: How to make things to put food into. Which for some reason they didn't know how to do yet, despite the art of making pots being known for the past several thousand years.
A bit earlier, the Urakami scientists had announced a similar discovery involving how to work metal, which, again, everyone except a few clans on Japan had apparently known for several thousand years. The Miyoshi offered to trade Pottery to the Urakami for Metal Working in July, but they wanted a little bit more gold than the Miyoshi had.
No problem, thought Miyoshi Nagayoshi. He'd just walk into the Ainu village he was standing on the edge of and ask them politely for a bit of gold so they could learn how to work metal. Sadly, this didn't work, and instead resulted in one unit of angry Ainu Ashigaru nearby. Still, no problem: There was only unit of Ashigaru defending the camp to the Northeast of the village, and if asking nicely wasn't going to work, going into that camp and killing every living thing that wasn't Miyoshi Nagayoshi (once again, without so much as a paper cut), then taking all 25 of their gold would work just fine.
Having accomplished this, negotiations with the Urakami were re-opened. It turned out they actually only needed 2 more gold than they had previously had to get Metal Working. Well, okay, that just meant they had 23 additional gold to save for a rainy day, then.
The unit of Ashigaru that had come out of the village when Miyoshi entered it had evidently heard of his legends, and decided that running away to the West seemed like a much better idea than trying to fight him.
Perhaps word of Miyoshi's badassery reached to areas in the West where he had never been by January, 1456, when the western Ashigaru went into a village of Ainu and were treated nicely for once, even getting a gift of 25 gold. That was a welcome change.
Back East, the other unit of Ashigaru reached the border that had been described as Yellowish-Orange, and found that it belonged to the Oda clan, led by Oda Nobunaga, a name that sounded not quite as badass as Miyoshi Nagayoshi or Urakami Munekage, but was still sort of cool-sounding. Unlike the Urakami, they actually kept people near their border- or at least, there were workers working on something there at the time the Ashigaru ran into the border. Perhaps that let them talk to each other faster.
Like the Urakami, the Oda had decided to research Metal Working rather than Pottery, which left them with nothing to trade.
Miyoshi, on his way to the Southwest to see what was there, ran into that unit of Ainu Ashigaru he had earlier irritated. Apparently it forgot why it ran away the first time and attacked Miyoshi in April. They met exactly the same fate that all the other Ainu Ashigaru that had dared to attack Miyoshi met.
Miyoshi continued Southwest following the attack, and spotted in the distance some very, very dark green borders.
In July, the Western Ashigaru unit kept going West and saw more Ainu camps defended by Ashigaru in the Mountains, and one village, and the Eastern Ashigaru unit went up onto a hill that gave them a nice view of the area around the Oda capital of Nagoya... and made the worker they had look very, very vulnerable to capture from, say, a surprise attack by light blue wearing Sword Wielders led by the most awesome Daimyo ever. Not that they'd ever do anything like that, would they?
Miyoshi reached the dark green borders in January, 1457 and discovered that the inhabitants called themselves the Matsunaga, after their clan leader, Matsunaga Hisahida. They were about as technologically advanced as everyone else, and Miyoshi found them and their leader's name so uninteresting that he forgot to even use his mind powers to take a "screenshot" as he called it documenting the event of his meeting them.
Shortly after the meeting, he learned of what his two exploring Ashigaru units had found a few months ago. Like he always did, he ordered the Western One to walk into the possibly peaceful Ainu village, and it worked out well, as these Ainu decided giving the Ashigaru 25 gold sounded like a much better idea than trying to kill them, presumably because trying to kill them never worked.
As to the undefended Workers that the Oda had...
"It's just sad, those workers are just sitting around there and anyone could come in and take them. We'll have to, ahem, 'protect' them. Whether the Oda like it or not."
Following this notification to the Oda that their peasant worker group was now under Miyoshi command, the Ashigaru went down to the Workers to make sure they got that message, and to tell them to head Southwest towards Kyoto.
The Oda didn't even have a response to this when they got the chance, either because they were too scared to come fight the mighty powerful Miyoshi or because, more likely, they didn't actually have anybody in the area aside from a unit of Ashigaru defending Nagoya and Oda Nobunaga.
The Miyoshi Ashigaru decided in July that if the Oda military wasn't going to do anything about them and wasn't going to open peace talks, they might as well go wreck all the things around Nagoya that the Workers had built while still under Oda control. Which was, as far as they could tell, nothing other than a road and a mine to a wheaty area West of Nagoya, because 7 years isn't enough time to build much. Upon reaching that area, they were somewhat dismayed to see that the Oda had built another unit of Ashigaru in Nagoya, who they assumed at least attempt to kill them before they could destroy the road and mine.
But they assumed wrong, and the Ashigaru did nothing. Clearly the legend of the great and powerful Miyoshi was scaring them, which meant that it was pretty easy for the Miyoshi Ashigaru to pillage the road and mine in January, 1458.
A bit after that, the Western Explorers ran into another new clan that they had seen a year ago, owning light green borders. They called themselves the Mori, and were led by Mori Motonari, a name not as rhymingly funny as Miyoshi Nagayoshi, but was somewhat alliterative. Presumably, this meant that Mori Motonari would be as totally badass as Miyoshi. Sadly, they too had nothing to trade.
The Oda were still not willing to surrender but the Ashigaru outside of Nagoya both not getting attacked and not in a position to attack the city. They found this to be incredibly boring and pointless, and decided to go head North and explore more unexplored territory. To the South, Miyoshi Nagayoshi decided that there was nothing more to the South of the Matsunaga and turned around and went north, briefly irritating the Matsunaga by going through their territory.
In July, 1459, the Ashigaru formerly besieging Nagoya found, to the North of the Oda, yet more Ainu, and a clan that wore Red that they would try to get to. First, in January 1460, they ran into a village of Ainu, who evidently hadn't heard the stories of the awesomeness of the Miyoshi, and three units of their Ashigaru appeared, preparing to kill the Miyoshi Ashigaru.
Also in January 1460, a bunch of people in Kyoto decided that the city was getting too big, and that they wanted to go live somewhere else. They formed a group of Settlers, prepared to go somewhere else. They just hadn't decided where to go yet. There were a couple of decent locations for cities in their immediate surroundings, all of which they'd have to get to fairly soon if they didn't want to lose them to the Matsunaga, or the Oda, or the Urakami.
Heading Northeast might be a bit more dangerous cause, you know, the Oda were at war with them, but the Oda military seemed completely incapable of action and they could probably get a peace treaty going before too long anyway. So they headed Northeast, to try to get to a nice looking location near the lake and the ocean. But mostly because there was some Sake there, and they totally wanted that. So that's where they headed, and just to be safe, they took some Ashigaru with them for defense.
The Ainu that the Northern Ashigaru had disturbed all, strangely enough, ignored them and headed East, except for one unit, which attacked them. Considering the Ainu all died, they probably should have followed the other two and headed East.
Fresh off their victory, the Ashigaru kept going North in July, 1460 and met the Red-wearing Saito, led by Saito Tatsuoki. They appeared to be exactly the same as every other clan in Japan in every way- tech, approximate military strength, and all of that. Miyoshi scientists have yet to analyze the awesomeness of Saito Tatsuoki's name.
In January, 1461, the Oda finally realized that continuing to fight a war against the Miyoshi was pointless, which the Miyoshi had realized two years ago, and so the two were able to come to an agreement ending the pointless conflict, in which the Oda gave the Miyoshi all 10 of the gold they had in tribute.
The Settlers that had ventured Northeast were happy about this agreement, as around the time as it was being laid out, they were arriving in the location they had wanted to go to and putting the finishing touches on their shiny new city, Maizuru, a location near the edge of which now formed the Miyoshi-Oda border:
After the city was finished, they sent a letter to the government in Kyoto asking them to send some workers over there as soon as they could so that they could enjoy the Sake to the Northeast of Maizuru.
In April, A bit to the North, the exploring Miyoshi Nagayoshi was, for the umpteenth time, attacked by a unit of Ainu Ashigaru. You guys will never learn, will you? he thought as he waited for them to come.
As he always did, he unleashed an epic amount of cool sword slices and martial arts moves to kick people in the head, then cut said head off. As always, it worked amazingly, and as always, he cut down his opponents by the dozen. But this time, it did not work flawlessly; one of the final Ashigaru managed to give him a small cut on his left arm.
"Impressive," said Miyoshi, "You're the first human who has ever managed to actually hurt me in a fight. You must be surprisingly awesome for a simple Ainu Swordsman. Who are you?"
The Swordsman replied, "My name is..." before having his head removed mid-sentence by Miyoshi's sword.
"I guess you weren't so awesome after all, or you would have realized that I can still attack you while you're talking."
In July, Miyoshi went up a Mountain to go see what a village of Ainu would offer him. Clearly they had either heard of his legends or watched him just completely destroy an entire unit of Ashigaru single-handedly, so they gave him 25 gold in tribute, either out of respect or out of fear. From atop the Mountain, he could see another Ainu Village and some Militaristic Ainu Camps, plus some Urakami Settlers who were completely undefended and, for obvious reasons, decided to run away to a safer area in October.
Miyoshi went to the other village in January, 1462, and this one evidently decided that fighting someone of his renown would be fun, and prepared three units of Ashigaru to do so. Maybe that there were two more Ainu Ashigaru units from... somewhere affected their decision.
"5 units of Ashigaru against me? Well, maybe I'll have to actually try for once."
It turned out that he would not have to actually try, as after the first two units of them attacked, and got slaughtered same as all the other Ainu that had ever attacked him, without so much as getting dirt on his robes, the others decided maybe attacking him would not be such a great idea.
"Aw, you guys scared of me? Yeah, that's right, run."
In January, 1463, Miyoshi heard that the Northern Ashigaru had discovered a lot more Ainu up there, and annoyed a few more of them when they went into a village, because apparently the Ainu are extremely bipolar and either give money to or attempt to kill anyone they meet.
He decided to go up there and join the fight. Maybe he'd run into another person who could lightly graze his arm again.
As the workers prepared to build a road to the Wheat fields outside of Kyoto and the Ashigaru prepared to explore the coast to the West of Kyoto, Miyoshi Nagayoshi spent months attempting to convince the rest of the Miyoshi clan that nothing bad would happen if he left and went exploring, and that they could get an advantage over all those other silly clans that thought their Daimyo couldn't so much as take a step outside their capital without dying.
"I'll be fine. There's no threat big enough to really hurt me. Not yet, at least. You should be fine without me for a while. Just in case you're worried about Kyoto being temporarily defenseless, why don't you just train some more Ashigaru?"
Eventually, they were convinced, and in July, 1450, Miyoshi went to the East to explore more of the coast.
The Ashigaru and Miyoshi found that most of the nearby coast was just the Pacific Ocean, both to the West and to the East of Kyoto. However, the coast to the Northeast was a lake of Fresh Water. That there was Fresh Water near Kyoto had to be good news.
Not all the news was good, though. In April, 1451, two units of Ainu Ashigaru appeared to the North of Kyoto, just outside Miyoshi territory. Though they would take another year to reach the city, that was still faster than they could train a unit of Ashigaru to defend themselves, and faster than the Ashigaru that had went west could get back to Kyoto. Miyoshi, however, was close enough. So, in July, he started going back towards Kyoto. He couldn't reach it quite yet, but he was able to reach the workers in the wheat field and their newly-finished road. They originally had planned to head to the lake next year and build irrigation ditches to bring fresh water back to the wheat and to Kyoto, but the Ainu were making it look like that plan wasn't going to work. Surely, they would continue heading South towards Kyoto.
And yet, they didn't. One fortified in place, one headed Southwest, around the edge of Miyoshi territory, and a third suddenly appeared on the Mountain to the Southeast. Perhaps there was something the Miyoshi couldn't see that the Ainu could? Or they were waiting for the third group before attacking? It didn't seem to make sense.
Whatever the reason, the Miyoshi were perfectly happy for the delay, which would allow them to train another unit of Ashigaru to defend Kyoto before the Ainu could get there, and allow the workers to safely head to the lake. Just to be safe, Miyoshi went into Kyoto in January, 1452 and fortified to help with the defense.
To the west, the Miyoshi Ashigaru spotted a village of Ainu. Hoping they were the friendly kind, they went into the village. Sadly, they were not, and the Ashigaru found themselves partially surrounded by two units of Ainu Ashigaru. They also saw a camp of Ainu on a small island across the Sea. Well, that meant they couldn't be attacked, but how would they get off the island? How did they get ON the island in the first place?
Whatever, they had more pressing matters at hand, like all the Ainu Ashigaru that WERE on the same landmass as them.
For whatever reason, they decided not to attack the Ashigaru that had disturbed them, and the fortified Ainu to the north of Kyoto remained so. The other two Ashigaru units, on the other hand, headed towards the now undefended workers.
One of them had gone up onto a nearby hill and thus was still not threatening Kyoto, but the other one, taking the shortest possible path, was now directly to the East of Kyoto. They would need to reinforce the workers and keep Kyoto defended at the same time. Miyoshi Nagayoshi suggested that the best defense in this case was offense, and the newly trained Ashigaru that they had should head out and go kill the Ashigaru that threatened Kyoto, and Miyoshi could protect the workers from the other group. It probably would have been a good plan, if said new Ashigaru didn't all die in battle when they went to do this, though they did take most of the Ainus down with them.
Miyoshi sighed. "Looks like if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." So, upon hearing that the Ashigaru had failed, he went out and finished the job, killing all the remaining Ainus. Single-handedly. Without taking so much as a scratch, and somehow becoming stronger after having won the fight. Yeah, Miyoshi Nagayoshi is kind of a badass. He even had enough time left to run north and defend the workers before the other group could reach them!
To the west, the exploring Ashigaru noticed that one of the Ainu units they'd disturbed was directly in the path they now wished to go, so they decided that going in that path anyway and killing any Ainu who tried to stop them sounded like a good plan. And this time, it actually worked!
Following the battle, they noticed some strange purplish markings in the distance, probably borders of some sort. They'd have to go check it out.
The other unit of Ashigaru that they'd disturbed thought that checking out the Purple area seemed like a great idea, and headed in that direction as well in October. That, or they wanted revenge.
Back East, the Ainu Ashigaru on the hill were confused. One man tried to stand against them, the only thing between them and some workers? Well, sure, Nagayoshi had killed a bunch of other Ainu earlier, but he'd done that after they'd just fought a battle against some of Nagayoshi's soldiers. Surely they, fresh troops, could easily defeat him.
They failed to account for just how awesome Miyoshi Nagayoshi was. An entire unit of them charged down a hill at him. He killed every single one of them with his super martial arts powers, swords, and ninja moves that he somehow knew despite the technology being required for ninjas being at least 100 years off in the future. And, once again, his attackers didn't so much as graze him.
At this point, the remaining unit of Ainu Ashigaru in the East that had been fortified for the past year decided "screw it, it couldn't be that hard to take this guy out, could it?" and so they went up on the hill their fallen comrades had formerly occupied. Miyoshi Nagayoshi prepared for their arrival and requested that a few of the workers dig a giant middle finger in the mud to point at the Ainu.
In April, 1453, the unit of Ashigaru saw this finger, took offense to it, and charged down the hill at Miyoshi and the workers. Little did they know that IT WAS A TRAP! Well, no it really wasn't, technically, it's just that anyone should know better than to attack Miyoshi Nagayoshi, and he himself should occasionally be considered a trap. Once again, all of the guys who attacked him found themselves with a severe case of being dead, and Miyoshi didn't even mess up his impossibly spiky hair.
The Exploring Ashigaru finally reached the purple borders in July (the Ainu would soon follow), but the inhabitants weren't within their sight yet, so contact between the Miyoshi and the Purple Clan would have to wait until the following January.
The Purple Clan revealed that their name was not, in fact, the Purple Clan, but the Urakami. Common mistake, though. Perfectly understandable. They were led by Urakami Munekage, a name so awesome it invoked feats similar to Miyoshi Nagayoshi's ability to fight endless hordes of barbarians, and it didn't even have any silly rhyming. Presumably, even if he wasn't quite as awesome as Miyoshi, he must at least have some nice moves and an epic amount of the manliest kind of chest hair.
Sadly, the Urakami and Miyoshi had nothing to trade, so all they could do was have a brief talk and hope to do things later.
Shortly after this meeting finished, Miyoshi decided that the Ainu in the immediate vicinity of Kyoto were all gone, so he went exploring again, and left Kyoto's borders. Not that long after he left, those borders expanded- as did the Urakami's, and presumably did every other clan's borders. In fact, the Miyoshi could now see the borders of two new clans purely because of that expansion: a Yellow-Orange clan to the Northeast of them, and an Orange one to the South of Purple... across the water.
Miyoshi himself was a bit too far south to head towards the one border they could reach in 1455, so a newly trained unit of Ashigaru from Kyoto was sent in that direction.
A few months into the year, the Miyoshi scientists announced that they had made a great discovery: How to make things to put food into. Which for some reason they didn't know how to do yet, despite the art of making pots being known for the past several thousand years.
A bit earlier, the Urakami scientists had announced a similar discovery involving how to work metal, which, again, everyone except a few clans on Japan had apparently known for several thousand years. The Miyoshi offered to trade Pottery to the Urakami for Metal Working in July, but they wanted a little bit more gold than the Miyoshi had.
No problem, thought Miyoshi Nagayoshi. He'd just walk into the Ainu village he was standing on the edge of and ask them politely for a bit of gold so they could learn how to work metal. Sadly, this didn't work, and instead resulted in one unit of angry Ainu Ashigaru nearby. Still, no problem: There was only unit of Ashigaru defending the camp to the Northeast of the village, and if asking nicely wasn't going to work, going into that camp and killing every living thing that wasn't Miyoshi Nagayoshi (once again, without so much as a paper cut), then taking all 25 of their gold would work just fine.
Having accomplished this, negotiations with the Urakami were re-opened. It turned out they actually only needed 2 more gold than they had previously had to get Metal Working. Well, okay, that just meant they had 23 additional gold to save for a rainy day, then.
The unit of Ashigaru that had come out of the village when Miyoshi entered it had evidently heard of his legends, and decided that running away to the West seemed like a much better idea than trying to fight him.
Perhaps word of Miyoshi's badassery reached to areas in the West where he had never been by January, 1456, when the western Ashigaru went into a village of Ainu and were treated nicely for once, even getting a gift of 25 gold. That was a welcome change.
Back East, the other unit of Ashigaru reached the border that had been described as Yellowish-Orange, and found that it belonged to the Oda clan, led by Oda Nobunaga, a name that sounded not quite as badass as Miyoshi Nagayoshi or Urakami Munekage, but was still sort of cool-sounding. Unlike the Urakami, they actually kept people near their border- or at least, there were workers working on something there at the time the Ashigaru ran into the border. Perhaps that let them talk to each other faster.
Like the Urakami, the Oda had decided to research Metal Working rather than Pottery, which left them with nothing to trade.
Miyoshi, on his way to the Southwest to see what was there, ran into that unit of Ainu Ashigaru he had earlier irritated. Apparently it forgot why it ran away the first time and attacked Miyoshi in April. They met exactly the same fate that all the other Ainu Ashigaru that had dared to attack Miyoshi met.
Miyoshi continued Southwest following the attack, and spotted in the distance some very, very dark green borders.
In July, the Western Ashigaru unit kept going West and saw more Ainu camps defended by Ashigaru in the Mountains, and one village, and the Eastern Ashigaru unit went up onto a hill that gave them a nice view of the area around the Oda capital of Nagoya... and made the worker they had look very, very vulnerable to capture from, say, a surprise attack by light blue wearing Sword Wielders led by the most awesome Daimyo ever. Not that they'd ever do anything like that, would they?
Miyoshi reached the dark green borders in January, 1457 and discovered that the inhabitants called themselves the Matsunaga, after their clan leader, Matsunaga Hisahida. They were about as technologically advanced as everyone else, and Miyoshi found them and their leader's name so uninteresting that he forgot to even use his mind powers to take a "screenshot" as he called it documenting the event of his meeting them.
Shortly after the meeting, he learned of what his two exploring Ashigaru units had found a few months ago. Like he always did, he ordered the Western One to walk into the possibly peaceful Ainu village, and it worked out well, as these Ainu decided giving the Ashigaru 25 gold sounded like a much better idea than trying to kill them, presumably because trying to kill them never worked.
As to the undefended Workers that the Oda had...
"It's just sad, those workers are just sitting around there and anyone could come in and take them. We'll have to, ahem, 'protect' them. Whether the Oda like it or not."
Following this notification to the Oda that their peasant worker group was now under Miyoshi command, the Ashigaru went down to the Workers to make sure they got that message, and to tell them to head Southwest towards Kyoto.
The Oda didn't even have a response to this when they got the chance, either because they were too scared to come fight the mighty powerful Miyoshi or because, more likely, they didn't actually have anybody in the area aside from a unit of Ashigaru defending Nagoya and Oda Nobunaga.
The Miyoshi Ashigaru decided in July that if the Oda military wasn't going to do anything about them and wasn't going to open peace talks, they might as well go wreck all the things around Nagoya that the Workers had built while still under Oda control. Which was, as far as they could tell, nothing other than a road and a mine to a wheaty area West of Nagoya, because 7 years isn't enough time to build much. Upon reaching that area, they were somewhat dismayed to see that the Oda had built another unit of Ashigaru in Nagoya, who they assumed at least attempt to kill them before they could destroy the road and mine.
But they assumed wrong, and the Ashigaru did nothing. Clearly the legend of the great and powerful Miyoshi was scaring them, which meant that it was pretty easy for the Miyoshi Ashigaru to pillage the road and mine in January, 1458.
A bit after that, the Western Explorers ran into another new clan that they had seen a year ago, owning light green borders. They called themselves the Mori, and were led by Mori Motonari, a name not as rhymingly funny as Miyoshi Nagayoshi, but was somewhat alliterative. Presumably, this meant that Mori Motonari would be as totally badass as Miyoshi. Sadly, they too had nothing to trade.
The Oda were still not willing to surrender but the Ashigaru outside of Nagoya both not getting attacked and not in a position to attack the city. They found this to be incredibly boring and pointless, and decided to go head North and explore more unexplored territory. To the South, Miyoshi Nagayoshi decided that there was nothing more to the South of the Matsunaga and turned around and went north, briefly irritating the Matsunaga by going through their territory.
In July, 1459, the Ashigaru formerly besieging Nagoya found, to the North of the Oda, yet more Ainu, and a clan that wore Red that they would try to get to. First, in January 1460, they ran into a village of Ainu, who evidently hadn't heard the stories of the awesomeness of the Miyoshi, and three units of their Ashigaru appeared, preparing to kill the Miyoshi Ashigaru.
Also in January 1460, a bunch of people in Kyoto decided that the city was getting too big, and that they wanted to go live somewhere else. They formed a group of Settlers, prepared to go somewhere else. They just hadn't decided where to go yet. There were a couple of decent locations for cities in their immediate surroundings, all of which they'd have to get to fairly soon if they didn't want to lose them to the Matsunaga, or the Oda, or the Urakami.
Heading Northeast might be a bit more dangerous cause, you know, the Oda were at war with them, but the Oda military seemed completely incapable of action and they could probably get a peace treaty going before too long anyway. So they headed Northeast, to try to get to a nice looking location near the lake and the ocean. But mostly because there was some Sake there, and they totally wanted that. So that's where they headed, and just to be safe, they took some Ashigaru with them for defense.
The Ainu that the Northern Ashigaru had disturbed all, strangely enough, ignored them and headed East, except for one unit, which attacked them. Considering the Ainu all died, they probably should have followed the other two and headed East.
Fresh off their victory, the Ashigaru kept going North in July, 1460 and met the Red-wearing Saito, led by Saito Tatsuoki. They appeared to be exactly the same as every other clan in Japan in every way- tech, approximate military strength, and all of that. Miyoshi scientists have yet to analyze the awesomeness of Saito Tatsuoki's name.
In January, 1461, the Oda finally realized that continuing to fight a war against the Miyoshi was pointless, which the Miyoshi had realized two years ago, and so the two were able to come to an agreement ending the pointless conflict, in which the Oda gave the Miyoshi all 10 of the gold they had in tribute.
The Settlers that had ventured Northeast were happy about this agreement, as around the time as it was being laid out, they were arriving in the location they had wanted to go to and putting the finishing touches on their shiny new city, Maizuru, a location near the edge of which now formed the Miyoshi-Oda border:
After the city was finished, they sent a letter to the government in Kyoto asking them to send some workers over there as soon as they could so that they could enjoy the Sake to the Northeast of Maizuru.
In April, A bit to the North, the exploring Miyoshi Nagayoshi was, for the umpteenth time, attacked by a unit of Ainu Ashigaru. You guys will never learn, will you? he thought as he waited for them to come.
As he always did, he unleashed an epic amount of cool sword slices and martial arts moves to kick people in the head, then cut said head off. As always, it worked amazingly, and as always, he cut down his opponents by the dozen. But this time, it did not work flawlessly; one of the final Ashigaru managed to give him a small cut on his left arm.
"Impressive," said Miyoshi, "You're the first human who has ever managed to actually hurt me in a fight. You must be surprisingly awesome for a simple Ainu Swordsman. Who are you?"
The Swordsman replied, "My name is..." before having his head removed mid-sentence by Miyoshi's sword.
"I guess you weren't so awesome after all, or you would have realized that I can still attack you while you're talking."
In July, Miyoshi went up a Mountain to go see what a village of Ainu would offer him. Clearly they had either heard of his legends or watched him just completely destroy an entire unit of Ashigaru single-handedly, so they gave him 25 gold in tribute, either out of respect or out of fear. From atop the Mountain, he could see another Ainu Village and some Militaristic Ainu Camps, plus some Urakami Settlers who were completely undefended and, for obvious reasons, decided to run away to a safer area in October.
Miyoshi went to the other village in January, 1462, and this one evidently decided that fighting someone of his renown would be fun, and prepared three units of Ashigaru to do so. Maybe that there were two more Ainu Ashigaru units from... somewhere affected their decision.
"5 units of Ashigaru against me? Well, maybe I'll have to actually try for once."
It turned out that he would not have to actually try, as after the first two units of them attacked, and got slaughtered same as all the other Ainu that had ever attacked him, without so much as getting dirt on his robes, the others decided maybe attacking him would not be such a great idea.
"Aw, you guys scared of me? Yeah, that's right, run."
In January, 1463, Miyoshi heard that the Northern Ashigaru had discovered a lot more Ainu up there, and annoyed a few more of them when they went into a village, because apparently the Ainu are extremely bipolar and either give money to or attempt to kill anyone they meet.
He decided to go up there and join the fight. Maybe he'd run into another person who could lightly graze his arm again.
Last edited:
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Woohoo, Conquests is back! It has been ages since I've played Civ3, so I can't tell how you're doing, but it's good to see your humor is as good as ever.
MTB4884
Emperor
Great update, choxorn! Go Miyoshi! 
Pieman
Prince
Aaaand he's back! Good update, as per usual.
Chapter 52: Secrets of the Ainu
Miyoshi Nagayoshi had headed Northeast in the beginning of 1463 in search of both what was in the unexplored area and in search of someone who could actually challenge him in a fight. The first because he wanted to see how close the Lake near Maizuru and the Sea on the other side came to each other, and the second because being invincible all the time was getting boring. But hey, surely some of the Ainu were actually capable of fighting.
He would find a challenge far sooner than he anticipated. In April, 1463, a group of Ainu attacked him. Most of the group went down easily, but the last few straggling Ashigaru actually fought well, and managed to cut him a few times before Miyoshi killed them. Nothing too serious, but it was certainly the most he'd ever been injured in a fight, and he estimated himself as being at 60% Strength for the time being. Eh, maybe I shouldn't get into too many more fights, he thought. 1 damage a while ago, then 2 this time... before long one of these groups of Ashigaru will hit me 3 times, then 4 times, then 5 times and I'll be dead.
In July, some bad news reached the Miyoshi: The Oda and Urakami had both researched Sword-Smithing. Combined with the earlier discovery by the Matsunaga, this meant that all three of their immediate neighbors knew how to make better weapons than they did.
"That's bad," said Miyoshi Nagayoshi, "Go talk to those guys and see if one of them won't teach us how to make Swords."
They eventually decided that trading with the Oda made the most sense. The Miyoshi sent the Oda some gold and taught them how to make pots, and the Oda in return taught the Miyoshi how to make swords.
"Really?" said Miyoshi upon hearing about the trade, "The guys we just attacked a few years ago are totally fine with teaching us how to make better weapons? Well, okay then, I certainly don't have any problems with that..."
Maybe they just didn't think the Miyoshi could use it against them for a while: They'd need a source of Iron, and the nearest one was in some Mountains a bit to the Northwest of Kyoto... that some Ainu just happened to be camping in. Well, that made things a bit more complicated...
Speaking of Ainu, up in the North, the Miyoshi Ashigaru attacked the Ainu camp that was there, killed all the Ainu Ashigaru that were there, and plundered what money they could from the camp.
The Western Ashigaru had at this point gone a while without running into trouble, and in fact, found yet another village of seemingly peaceful Ainu and decided to venture in in January, 1464. At worst, they'd get more fighting experience, but hopefully, these Ainu would be nicer and give them something. It turns out, they were pretty nice, and were fairly welcoming to the Ashigaru, giving them a place to stay for the 6-month period everyone always took before moving again and a bit of food. While they were in the village, the Ashigaru noticed that the Ainu, despite talking the same language as them and often writing things the same way, didn't always right things the same way, and had several things written in what looked like an entirely different, somewhat simpler looking writing system.
"What is that?" one of the Ashigaru asked.
"It's our new way of writing words. We call it Hiragana. Rather than draw a character that just sort of looks like something, we write a character that corresponds to a syllable. Makes words longer, but it means we can use only 71 characters instead of thousands," replied one of the Ainu.
"Interesting. Can you teach this to us?"
"Thanks. And, if it's not too much to ask, do you mind if we go kill those Ashigaru that are attacking us?"
The Ashigaru he referred to was the group of Ainu Ashigaru that went up the mountain they were on and attacked them in April.
The villagers didn't seem to mind at all when the Miyoshi Ashigaru killed all of the attackers.
After taking a bit of time to heal from the attack, the Ashigaru decided to get some revenge in 1465, and went to the Ainu camp on the mountain to the Southwest of them in January, killed all of the defending Ashigaru, and razed the camp. Hopefully the peaceful Ainu wouldn't be too mad about that, although, despite the fact that they were all Ainu, most of the peaceful Ainu (and actually peaceful Ainu, not "peaceful" Ainu who attacked anyone who came to their village) seemed to dislike the warlike Ainu a lot and be pretty cool with all of the various Japanese clans.
They were certainly hoping so, at least: Another village was on the other side of the mountain.
The Ashigaru entered the village in July. Like the last village they were at, these Ainu treated them well. They were even similarly willing to teach the Ashigaru new things: They knew a lot more about Religion than the Miyoshi did, and were quite happy to enlighten them on a few things.
The Miyoshi were very grateful for the generosity of the Ainu in this region, who had saved them lots of time and money. If only all of the Ainu could be that nice...
Even better, their own scientists finished their research into how to do things with Stone and make buildings a bit after, meaning that the Ainu's knowledge had increased by 3 technologies in about 2 years. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi looked out at the coast he was standing on at the beginning of January, 1466. He would certainly miss going places, but he had explored all of the area immediately around Kyoto now, and he didn't want to go too far. He had also mostly satisfied his hunger for fighting the Ainu. He would be needed more back at home, leading people and escorting the Settlers that were getting increasingly close to being ready to leave to the locations of the cities they planned on building.
To the North, the Ashigaru, getting somewhat jealous of the other exploring Ashigaru unit's successes with Ainu villages while all it could find were other Ainu Ashigaru hellbent on killing them, took a shortcut through the area controlled by the Saito, which they didn't seem too happy about, and they sent some guys to go complain about it:
"International Incident?" said Miyoshi Nagayoshi, "What are you talking about? We're all in THE SAME COUNTRY!"
But, hey, the Saito's entire territory appeared to be almost completely surrounded by marauding Ainu, so the Miyoshi couldn't fault them for being mad and saying weird things. The Ashigaru didn't stick around long, as the Saito territory wasn't particularly big, so the Saito didn't stay mad for long.
A bit after exiting the other side, in January, 1467, the Northern Ashigaru attacked some Ainu Ashigaru, hoping it would give them just a little bit of the glory that the Western Ashigaru possessed. Instead, they all died, and became infamous as the first unit of Miyoshi soldiers to completely die in battle. AND SO ONLY ONE EXPLORING ASHIGARU REMAINED! There could only ever be one, in the end...
Said lone remaining group of Ashigaru continued heading West, and reached another village of Ainu in July, hoping to learn another technology. Sadly, these Ainu villagers didn't know as much as the last ones they'd went to and had nothing to teach them, but they did give them a map of the area, revealing another village to the South, that their village was at the Southwest end of the island of Honshu, and that across the water on the island of Kyushu, there was another clan, which was identifying itself with the color Pink.
Venturing into the village would also get them close enough to the Pink borders to make contact, so the Ashigaru decided it would be a great idea to kill two birds with one stone and do exactly that in January, 1468. It didn't work exactly as planned, as this village of Ainu was not nearly as interested in showing them new things as the last ones they had gone to. In fact, they immediately rounded up a unit of their own Ashigaru and prepared to fight.
But, at least they got to make contact with the people wearing Pink, who identified themselves as the Ryuzoji. Their leader, Ryuzoji Takanobu, asked them about trading, but the Ryuzoji were only about as technologically advanced as everyone else, which was far behind the Miyoshi, thanks to those generous Ainu villagers they'd met. They also had only one city and little money. So trading was pretty much out of the question. It was nice to have met them, though.
The Ainu Ashigaru that the Miyoshi Ashigaru had angered didn't do anything, so the Miyoshi decided "Eh, why not" and killed them in July.
A group of people in Kyoto decided that January, 1469 was a very good time to leave Kyoto, because it was... too crowded, or something? I mean, it wasn't that big, but apparently they thought it was. They briefly considered going to grab the Iron, but there were Ainu up there, and it would probably not be taken by anyone else for a while. The area to the South, on the other hand, had some Gems, and it was close enough to the Matsunaga that it was likely to be settled soon. In fact, when the Settlers and some Ashigaru went South to go claim them, they found "Soon" was perhaps not quite an apt descriptor: A group of Matsunaga Settlers looked like they were heading for the same location.
It at first looked like the Matsunaga would get there first, but they paused for a bit to wait for their own Ashigaru- perhaps they were originally comfortable not having one, but found the Miyoshi slightly threatening and didn't want to risk getting killed.
That gave them a bit of time to catch up, but following the Miyoshi's movements in July, 1469 and the Matsunaga's movements shortly after, it was plainly obvious that the Matsunaga wanted the Gems, and might already be in the location they wanted to settle in.
An updated map of the area was given to Miyoshi a bit before the end of the year, attached to a notice that the scientists had just figured out how to do things with numbers.
If the Matsunaga were planning on building a city in their current location, that meant that the Miyoshi would have to act now and build their own city before the Matsunaga could. It wasn't quite what they wanted to do- they would have preferred to settle closer to the coast- but they couldn't risk waiting to get to a slightly better location and lose the entire area to the Matsunaga. Besides, this also had one distinct advantage: It gave them control of a mountain currently in Matsunaga territory, which could potentially make fighting them easier, if it ever came to that. So, it was here, in January, 1470, that the city of Nara was founded.
The Matsunaga, a bit angry about this but incapable of really doing anything, shook their fists in vain and had their Settlers and Ashigaru head North and East, presumably to build a city in the vast empty expanse of hills.
In July, the Miyoshi again noticed that other people had better weapons than them, and didn't like it. Luckily, one of those groups of "Other people" was the Ryuzoji, who probably didn't know anyone else outside of their island and didn't have any reason not to like the Miyoshi. They also couldn't trade anything the Miyoshi traded them for their Invented weapons to other people for profit, so the Miyoshi were quite fine with teaching them several of their technologies for their new weapons.
The Matsunaga Settlers finally built a city named Wakayama in 1472, right around the time another group of people in Kyoto decided that they wanted to leave. With the Urakami having also expanded a bit to the East recently, they were running out of places to go, and it was looking like they would really need to go grab that source of Iron, like now, before the Urakami did. So they set out there, Ainu in the area be damned.
And there were certainly still Ainu in the area- once they reached the location at the base of the mountain where they intended to build their new city, they noticed that both camps were very much alive, as were their defenders. Luckily, it was only one unit defending both camps, and they had their own Ashigaru defending them, so they weren't in any serious trouble.
Indeed, the Ainu never even moved as they built the city of Tottori in January, 1474, even as the construction of their city caused their camp to spontaneously vanish.
They didn't even attack after the city's construction was finished. Weird.
The Miyoshi Scientists announced that they had made another discovery at the end of 1474.
"Wow, already? You guys work fast."
"Not really, it just seems that way because we're working with simple things and nothing else is going on."
"Okay... well, what have you learned?"
"How to draw pictures of places we've explored! We call them maps!"
The utility of this wasn't immediately obvious, but it soon became clear that they could go ask the other people they knew to show them the area they had explored, including all of their territory. They decided asking the Matsunaga would be a waste of time, as they already knew basically all of their area, but they didn't know much about what the other clans knew. So they asked the Ryuzoji, Urakami, Mori, Oda, and Saito for some trades.
It soon became apparent that almost nobody else had explored really anything outside of their own territory, at least, nothing outside of their own territory or areas the Miyoshi had also seen. Bah. What, did the Ainu scare all of them?
But that wasn't entirely true. Even if the maps the Miyoshi got were mostly useless, they weren't entirely useless: there were a few other clans to the east of the Oda that the Oda probably knew.
They'd have to introduce themselves at some point.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi had headed Northeast in the beginning of 1463 in search of both what was in the unexplored area and in search of someone who could actually challenge him in a fight. The first because he wanted to see how close the Lake near Maizuru and the Sea on the other side came to each other, and the second because being invincible all the time was getting boring. But hey, surely some of the Ainu were actually capable of fighting.
He would find a challenge far sooner than he anticipated. In April, 1463, a group of Ainu attacked him. Most of the group went down easily, but the last few straggling Ashigaru actually fought well, and managed to cut him a few times before Miyoshi killed them. Nothing too serious, but it was certainly the most he'd ever been injured in a fight, and he estimated himself as being at 60% Strength for the time being. Eh, maybe I shouldn't get into too many more fights, he thought. 1 damage a while ago, then 2 this time... before long one of these groups of Ashigaru will hit me 3 times, then 4 times, then 5 times and I'll be dead.
In July, some bad news reached the Miyoshi: The Oda and Urakami had both researched Sword-Smithing. Combined with the earlier discovery by the Matsunaga, this meant that all three of their immediate neighbors knew how to make better weapons than they did.
"That's bad," said Miyoshi Nagayoshi, "Go talk to those guys and see if one of them won't teach us how to make Swords."
They eventually decided that trading with the Oda made the most sense. The Miyoshi sent the Oda some gold and taught them how to make pots, and the Oda in return taught the Miyoshi how to make swords.
"Really?" said Miyoshi upon hearing about the trade, "The guys we just attacked a few years ago are totally fine with teaching us how to make better weapons? Well, okay then, I certainly don't have any problems with that..."
Maybe they just didn't think the Miyoshi could use it against them for a while: They'd need a source of Iron, and the nearest one was in some Mountains a bit to the Northwest of Kyoto... that some Ainu just happened to be camping in. Well, that made things a bit more complicated...
Speaking of Ainu, up in the North, the Miyoshi Ashigaru attacked the Ainu camp that was there, killed all the Ainu Ashigaru that were there, and plundered what money they could from the camp.
The Western Ashigaru had at this point gone a while without running into trouble, and in fact, found yet another village of seemingly peaceful Ainu and decided to venture in in January, 1464. At worst, they'd get more fighting experience, but hopefully, these Ainu would be nicer and give them something. It turns out, they were pretty nice, and were fairly welcoming to the Ashigaru, giving them a place to stay for the 6-month period everyone always took before moving again and a bit of food. While they were in the village, the Ashigaru noticed that the Ainu, despite talking the same language as them and often writing things the same way, didn't always right things the same way, and had several things written in what looked like an entirely different, somewhat simpler looking writing system.
"What is that?" one of the Ashigaru asked.
"It's our new way of writing words. We call it Hiragana. Rather than draw a character that just sort of looks like something, we write a character that corresponds to a syllable. Makes words longer, but it means we can use only 71 characters instead of thousands," replied one of the Ainu.
"Interesting. Can you teach this to us?"
"Thanks. And, if it's not too much to ask, do you mind if we go kill those Ashigaru that are attacking us?"
The Ashigaru he referred to was the group of Ainu Ashigaru that went up the mountain they were on and attacked them in April.
The villagers didn't seem to mind at all when the Miyoshi Ashigaru killed all of the attackers.
After taking a bit of time to heal from the attack, the Ashigaru decided to get some revenge in 1465, and went to the Ainu camp on the mountain to the Southwest of them in January, killed all of the defending Ashigaru, and razed the camp. Hopefully the peaceful Ainu wouldn't be too mad about that, although, despite the fact that they were all Ainu, most of the peaceful Ainu (and actually peaceful Ainu, not "peaceful" Ainu who attacked anyone who came to their village) seemed to dislike the warlike Ainu a lot and be pretty cool with all of the various Japanese clans.
They were certainly hoping so, at least: Another village was on the other side of the mountain.
The Ashigaru entered the village in July. Like the last village they were at, these Ainu treated them well. They were even similarly willing to teach the Ashigaru new things: They knew a lot more about Religion than the Miyoshi did, and were quite happy to enlighten them on a few things.
The Miyoshi were very grateful for the generosity of the Ainu in this region, who had saved them lots of time and money. If only all of the Ainu could be that nice...
Even better, their own scientists finished their research into how to do things with Stone and make buildings a bit after, meaning that the Ainu's knowledge had increased by 3 technologies in about 2 years. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi looked out at the coast he was standing on at the beginning of January, 1466. He would certainly miss going places, but he had explored all of the area immediately around Kyoto now, and he didn't want to go too far. He had also mostly satisfied his hunger for fighting the Ainu. He would be needed more back at home, leading people and escorting the Settlers that were getting increasingly close to being ready to leave to the locations of the cities they planned on building.
To the North, the Ashigaru, getting somewhat jealous of the other exploring Ashigaru unit's successes with Ainu villages while all it could find were other Ainu Ashigaru hellbent on killing them, took a shortcut through the area controlled by the Saito, which they didn't seem too happy about, and they sent some guys to go complain about it:
"International Incident?" said Miyoshi Nagayoshi, "What are you talking about? We're all in THE SAME COUNTRY!"
But, hey, the Saito's entire territory appeared to be almost completely surrounded by marauding Ainu, so the Miyoshi couldn't fault them for being mad and saying weird things. The Ashigaru didn't stick around long, as the Saito territory wasn't particularly big, so the Saito didn't stay mad for long.
A bit after exiting the other side, in January, 1467, the Northern Ashigaru attacked some Ainu Ashigaru, hoping it would give them just a little bit of the glory that the Western Ashigaru possessed. Instead, they all died, and became infamous as the first unit of Miyoshi soldiers to completely die in battle. AND SO ONLY ONE EXPLORING ASHIGARU REMAINED! There could only ever be one, in the end...
Said lone remaining group of Ashigaru continued heading West, and reached another village of Ainu in July, hoping to learn another technology. Sadly, these Ainu villagers didn't know as much as the last ones they'd went to and had nothing to teach them, but they did give them a map of the area, revealing another village to the South, that their village was at the Southwest end of the island of Honshu, and that across the water on the island of Kyushu, there was another clan, which was identifying itself with the color Pink.
Venturing into the village would also get them close enough to the Pink borders to make contact, so the Ashigaru decided it would be a great idea to kill two birds with one stone and do exactly that in January, 1468. It didn't work exactly as planned, as this village of Ainu was not nearly as interested in showing them new things as the last ones they had gone to. In fact, they immediately rounded up a unit of their own Ashigaru and prepared to fight.
But, at least they got to make contact with the people wearing Pink, who identified themselves as the Ryuzoji. Their leader, Ryuzoji Takanobu, asked them about trading, but the Ryuzoji were only about as technologically advanced as everyone else, which was far behind the Miyoshi, thanks to those generous Ainu villagers they'd met. They also had only one city and little money. So trading was pretty much out of the question. It was nice to have met them, though.
The Ainu Ashigaru that the Miyoshi Ashigaru had angered didn't do anything, so the Miyoshi decided "Eh, why not" and killed them in July.
A group of people in Kyoto decided that January, 1469 was a very good time to leave Kyoto, because it was... too crowded, or something? I mean, it wasn't that big, but apparently they thought it was. They briefly considered going to grab the Iron, but there were Ainu up there, and it would probably not be taken by anyone else for a while. The area to the South, on the other hand, had some Gems, and it was close enough to the Matsunaga that it was likely to be settled soon. In fact, when the Settlers and some Ashigaru went South to go claim them, they found "Soon" was perhaps not quite an apt descriptor: A group of Matsunaga Settlers looked like they were heading for the same location.
It at first looked like the Matsunaga would get there first, but they paused for a bit to wait for their own Ashigaru- perhaps they were originally comfortable not having one, but found the Miyoshi slightly threatening and didn't want to risk getting killed.
That gave them a bit of time to catch up, but following the Miyoshi's movements in July, 1469 and the Matsunaga's movements shortly after, it was plainly obvious that the Matsunaga wanted the Gems, and might already be in the location they wanted to settle in.
An updated map of the area was given to Miyoshi a bit before the end of the year, attached to a notice that the scientists had just figured out how to do things with numbers.
If the Matsunaga were planning on building a city in their current location, that meant that the Miyoshi would have to act now and build their own city before the Matsunaga could. It wasn't quite what they wanted to do- they would have preferred to settle closer to the coast- but they couldn't risk waiting to get to a slightly better location and lose the entire area to the Matsunaga. Besides, this also had one distinct advantage: It gave them control of a mountain currently in Matsunaga territory, which could potentially make fighting them easier, if it ever came to that. So, it was here, in January, 1470, that the city of Nara was founded.
The Matsunaga, a bit angry about this but incapable of really doing anything, shook their fists in vain and had their Settlers and Ashigaru head North and East, presumably to build a city in the vast empty expanse of hills.
In July, the Miyoshi again noticed that other people had better weapons than them, and didn't like it. Luckily, one of those groups of "Other people" was the Ryuzoji, who probably didn't know anyone else outside of their island and didn't have any reason not to like the Miyoshi. They also couldn't trade anything the Miyoshi traded them for their Invented weapons to other people for profit, so the Miyoshi were quite fine with teaching them several of their technologies for their new weapons.
The Matsunaga Settlers finally built a city named Wakayama in 1472, right around the time another group of people in Kyoto decided that they wanted to leave. With the Urakami having also expanded a bit to the East recently, they were running out of places to go, and it was looking like they would really need to go grab that source of Iron, like now, before the Urakami did. So they set out there, Ainu in the area be damned.
And there were certainly still Ainu in the area- once they reached the location at the base of the mountain where they intended to build their new city, they noticed that both camps were very much alive, as were their defenders. Luckily, it was only one unit defending both camps, and they had their own Ashigaru defending them, so they weren't in any serious trouble.
Indeed, the Ainu never even moved as they built the city of Tottori in January, 1474, even as the construction of their city caused their camp to spontaneously vanish.
They didn't even attack after the city's construction was finished. Weird.
The Miyoshi Scientists announced that they had made another discovery at the end of 1474.
"Wow, already? You guys work fast."
"Not really, it just seems that way because we're working with simple things and nothing else is going on."
"Okay... well, what have you learned?"
"How to draw pictures of places we've explored! We call them maps!"
The utility of this wasn't immediately obvious, but it soon became clear that they could go ask the other people they knew to show them the area they had explored, including all of their territory. They decided asking the Matsunaga would be a waste of time, as they already knew basically all of their area, but they didn't know much about what the other clans knew. So they asked the Ryuzoji, Urakami, Mori, Oda, and Saito for some trades.
It soon became apparent that almost nobody else had explored really anything outside of their own territory, at least, nothing outside of their own territory or areas the Miyoshi had also seen. Bah. What, did the Ainu scare all of them?
But that wasn't entirely true. Even if the maps the Miyoshi got were mostly useless, they weren't entirely useless: there were a few other clans to the east of the Oda that the Oda probably knew.
They'd have to introduce themselves at some point.
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Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Ah, feels good to be caught up with this great series of games. As always, looking forward to the continuation.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Looking good as always, Chox! Time for war soon, I hope 
Pieman
Prince
Let us destroy them, sir!
Lord Bigfoot
King
You ever going to finish this?
Lord Bigfoot
King
Phew. I was starting to get worried there.
Chapter 53: The War of Southern Aggression
One thing that had been readily apparent even before the Miyoshi had traded for a lot of their neighbors' maps in 1475 was that they were running out of room, and fast. Their new maps made it apparent that most of their neighbors were also running out of room. Sooner or later, this could only lead to conflict. The Miyoshi only hoped that whenever the conflict happened, they'd be ready for it.
But right now the only conflicts they really had to worry about were with the Ainu that were scattered around the areas still unclaimed by any of the larger clans, and they weren't that big of a threat, to the Miyoshi or to anyone else. Even the Mori, who faced the largest number of Ainu because of their relative isolation, were handling the Ainu threat well- the Miyoshi Ashigaru that were exploring the west could vouch for that, having seen a few battles between the Mori and Ainu that the Mori generally won.
The Miyoshi of course also usually won any battles they fought against the Ainu, but the decreasing unsettled space near them was making those battles fewer and farther between. But there were still certainly some Ainu near them- one group of Ainu Ashigaru entered Miyoshi territory in April, 1475 and managed to stay there for a while thanks to the poor roads and hilly terrain around Kyoto, which made the Miyoshi reluctant to do anything about them.
They were less reluctant to take action, though, when the Matsunaga sent a settling party north... through their territory. Wherever the Matsunaga were headed, the Miyoshi didn't really like that. But, for now, they weren't really in a position to fight the Matsunaga, so they simply talked to them and told them to get their people out of Miyoshi territory. They complied in October, 1476, but presumably were doing that anyway, which was somewhat expected, then went back into Miyoshi territory the following April, and were now occupying the hilly area about halfway between Kyoto and Nara, which was unexpected, and made Miyoshi Nagayoshi and his advisors wonder where the hell they were going.
The Miyoshi told the Matsunaga again to leave in July, 1477, and the Matsunaga responded by... continuing even farther North into Miyoshi territory, which apparently annoyed the Ainu Ashigaru that had been hanging around Kyoto's hills enough to attack the Matsunaga settling party, and get totally destroyed by the Ashigaru defending them.
At the end of 1477, the Miyoshi scientists announced that they'd developed something interesting by messing around with pots: A round block called a "Wheel" that could be used to get things around more easily. Like, for instance, big siege weapons that fire huge arrows.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi decided that with his new weapons, they could be a bit more assertive against the Matsunaga encroachers, even if the Miyoshi didn't actually have any Giant Crossbow Siege Weapon things yet, and told the Matsunaga to get out of Miyoshi lands, or there would be hell to pay.
Somewhat to Miyoshi's surprise, they actually left. But he had no doubt that conflict with the Matsunaga would come eventually. There just wasn't enough space for both of them. To make sure they'd be ready, he upgraded his own weapons and armor, something he'd been planning on doing ever since Kyoto had built a barracks but that he'd never gotten around to actually doing.
For now, though, the Matsunaga and Miyoshi were at a somewhat tenuous peace. The Settlers and Ashigaru, after taking a brief stop so the Ashigaru could heal from the Ainu attack, continued North in 1478, this time outside of Miyoshi territory, then West into Urakami territory in 1479, presumably to the large unsettled areas in the West that the Urakami and Mori hadn't gotten to yet.
This suited the Miyoshi just fine, as it meant that they weren't settling in a somewhat crowded but still settleable area to the Southwest of Kyoto, which meant that the Miyoshi could send their own settlers there in January, 1480. It also meant that they'd probably build a city in an area too far away from their core to be much of anything. The Miyoshi didn't particularly care about much that happened that far West anyway, except for what their exploring Ashigaru were doing.
Which, in 1480, was quite a lot: In January, they attacked some Ainu Ashigaru that had been camping on the mountains, killed them all, and took the gold that they had at their camp. They stopped for a second to admire the view, and from that view, they could see a more peaceful-looking Ainu village to the Northeast, and decided to pay it a visit in July.
They did not regret that decision, as the Ainu in that village were hospitable and welcomed them. They also, like many other Ainu villages that the Miyoshi had encountered over the previous few decades, were very knowledgeable, and willing to share that knowledge with the Miyoshi. What they knew was that their Ancestors were seriously awesome, much more awesome than the current Ainu that had tiny villages and occasionally raided the more settled Japanese clans.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi couldn't believe how amazingly generous all of these knowledgeable Ainu villages had been to the Miyoshi, basically collectively giving them decades of research for free. At this rate they'd be... well... doing futury things, Miyoshi didn't know where science would go in the future... while the rest of the clans were throwing rocks and sticks at each other. As if they weren't already.
Unfortunately, this attracted some degree of jealousy, especially from the Matsunaga, who quickly came to the realization that despite the technological gap between them and the Miyoshi, it mostly wasn't in military technologies.
So the Matsunaga declared war.
The Miyoshi were caught a little bit off guard by this, not expecting the war to happen so soon, and certainly weren't entirely prepared for it. Perhaps that explains why, when the Matsunaga Stone Crossbow unit that had been hanging around outside of Nara attacked the city, the unfortified unit of Ashigaru defending it came out to fight rather than the fortified one, and it got completely destroyed (Seriously, I had a fortified Ashigaru and an unfortified Ashigaru in Nara when this happened, both with the same hit points, both the same in every way except being fortified, but for some reason the unfortified one was the one to fight and I don't have the slightest idea why).
On the bright side, the Miyoshi extended their technological edge a bit after that by researching a Code of Laws. On the not-so-bright side, that didn't help their military at all, and their military needed help.
In other bad news, the Stone Crossbows had suffered no casualties in their attack on Nara, which was in January of 1481 very poorly defended by just one unit of Ashigaru. That couldn't hold Nara on its own, but the lack of a road to the city meant that almost nothing could reach it in time to reinforce it. The only person in the Miyoshi Clan that could reach Nara before the Stone Crossbows reorganized and attacked again was Miyoshi Nagayoshi himself. So head to Nara he did, although he couldn't get there fast enough to fortify. He'd settle for just occupying the city and to rush more defenders by overworking the citizens of Nara in order to keep the city in Miyoshi hands.
On the other hand, some Miyoshi settlers reached their intended destination on the coast Southwest of Kyoto around that time, and founded the city of Kasuga. Maybe they'd be able to distract some of the Matsunaga away from Nara.
Or maybe not. As expected, the Matsunaga Stone Crossbows attacked Nara again in April, this time being met by fortified Ashigaru. They put up a better fight than the ones that died 6 months ago, almost killing all of the Stone Crossbows... but not quite. Only Miyoshi Nagayoshi remained to defend Nara, but while more Matsunaga had appeared in the area, none more could attack until after the Stone Crossbows that he had rushed the creation of would be ready. Nara would not be completely doomed, at least.
Seeing as how Stone Crossbows are much better on the offense than the defense, Miyoshi Nagayoshi sent his new Stone Crossbows to attack the Matsunaga in July, reasoning that they were almost dead. Instead, the Matsunaga took no casualties and all of the Miyoshi dies. Just their luck.
To the East, the exploring Ashigaru found the Light Blue Clan that they'd seen on the maps. Actually, they'd run into them months ago, but the Miyoshi were too distracted by the war with the Matsunaga to notice. The Light Blue Clan called themselves the Imagawa, and were led by Imagawa Yoshimoto. They were in no way at all distinct from literally every other clan.
There were still 2 units of Stone Crossbows outside Nara to the one Miyoshi Nagayoshi inside, but luckily, one was hurt and decided to run away, and the one that wasn't hurt decided that Miyoshi was too strong to attack, perhaps having heard of his legendary battles against the Ainu. So they waited, for more Stone Crossbows to show up.
Luckily, by the time they did in 1482, the road to Nara was finally finished. Several Miyoshi units poured into the city in January to help fend of the Matsunaga, and the workers that had built the road rushed to the North to finally build a road to the Iron near Tottori and make it useful. The Miyoshi needed that Iron badly to make better weapons.
In the meantime, all they could do was fortify what they had and ask their Stone Crossbows to bombard the Matsunaga (which didn't work, of course)
Back to the East, the Ashigaru met the other bluish clan that they'd seen on maps, who called themselves the Tokugawa, after their leader, Tokugawa Ieyasu, a clan as average as all the other clans.
Wanting some idea of where to go next, they asked the Imagawa for a map.
The Imagawa's map wasn't terribly helpful, as like everyone else they hadn't explored much outside of their territory, but they revealed that there was a Green-Wearing Clan to the Northeast and that the Tokugawa city they'd encountered, Komagane, was pretty far away from the rest of the Tokugawa's territory.
Komagane also had some Ainu Ashigaru preparing to attack, and attack they did in April, 1482, one against the defenders of Komagane and one against the Miyoshi explorers. It probably didn't matter much who they attacked, though, since both units of Ainu lost badly.
About the same time, the Matsunaga Crossbows attacked Nara again, with less success than they'd had in their previous attacks: They killed a unit of Miyoshi Ashigaru, but when they attacked the Stone Crossbows, the Miyoshi finally figured out how to win and killed the Matsunaga Crossbows, albeit just barely.
Emboldened by this victory, they decided to counter-attack in July with the Stone Crossbows they had that had not participated in the fighting in April, and thus were undamaged. There were at this point two units of Miyoshi Crossbows that could attack, and two units of Matsunaga Crossbows to attack, one of which had taken some damage from fighting the Ashigaru in April. They decided to chance an attack on the full-health Crossbow unit, which was occupying a Mountain with some precious Gems on it. This turned out to be a bad idea, as both of the attacking Miyoshi units met their demise, with the Matsunaga not taking that much damage. Apparently being on top of a mountain totally matters a lot.
This did convince that unit of Crossbowmen to retreat, but not the one they had not attacked, which attacked Nara again in October. Not wanting to risk Miyoshi Nagayoshi's death, the lone other Miyoshi soldiers in the city, the Stone Crossbowmen that had nearly died killing another attacking Matsunaga unit of Crossbowmen in April, went out to fight them. Predictably, being almost dead made them not exactly suited to continuing to fight, and "Almost Dead" quickly became "Entirely Dead."
Being less emboldened by victory and just wanting to finally win a battle for a change, in January 1483 a unit of Miyoshi crossbowmen attacked the Matsunaga crossbowmen that had fled from the Gems Mountain. This time, they actually won. About freakin' time.
With no other fighting they could do, the Miyoshi decided to see if they could get help from elsewhere. As it turned out, the answer was yes: The Ryuzoji had researched a new technology that would enable them to build new units. They could upgrade Miyoshi Nagayoshi's combat ability again, and they could build a strong defensive unit known as the Spearman. So they asked the Ryuzoji what they wanted in return for their new technology, which they called Sojutsu.
The answer: A lot. More than the Miyoshi could give them.
But the Miyoshi could give them a technology they knew in order to get some gold from the Ryuzoji, then trade that gold and some technology that they would need the technology that the Miyoshi had given them to understand.
So the Miyoshi first taught them how to do things with numbers in return for gold and a map...
...Then traded that gold, and a lot more, and every other technological advantage they had over the Ryuzoji save the Wheel, in return for Sojutsu.
The Miyoshi would later come to somewhat regret this decision, as they lacked the gold to upgrade Miyoshi right now, and would need to wait for Iron to get Spearmen, at which point they would realize Bushi were better anyway (Bushi are 3/2/1 for 30 shields, same as a Swordsman, and Spearmen are 1/3/1 for 40, basically a more expensive Pikemen... why???)
And in return to get marginal upgrades, they had given up a lot of gold and most of their technological advantage- and the Ryuzoji would soon completely even the technological advantage by somehow obtaining the Wheel (Must have been from a hut or something, they couldn't have researched it without Masonry which I traded them one turn before they got the Wheel).
Oh well. They could worry about the Ryuzoji after they finished worrying about the Matsunaga.
Back on the war front in April, the Matsunaga, not having much to do, didn't do much, except for attack a unit of Miyoshi Stone Crossbows with their own Stone Crossbows, which, for once, worked out well for the Miyoshi: the Miyoshi crossbowmen did a superb job of fighting off the attack, killing all of the Matsunaga crossbowmen and not even almost dying in the process.
Even so, Miyoshi Nagayoshi was the only one even remotely capable of defending Nara, and the Matsunaga had a unit of Crossbowmen outside the city. All Miyoshi could do was wait and hope he didn't die.
Luckily, the Matsunaga Crossbowmen were more afraid of him than he was of them; in October, 1483, rather than attack him, they fortified outside the city and waited for more reinforcements to arrive.
It remained there until April, 1484, as the Miyoshi had left a unit of their own Crossbowmen near them in the hopes of getting them to leave and attack them. It worked, sort of. The Matsunaga Crossbowmen did leave and attack them, but the Matsunaga were victorious in the Battle of That Flat Area near Nara. If nothing else, this made them a lot more vulnerable to counter-attack.
And come, a counter-attack certainly would: A bit before the battle, Miyoshi received the excellent news that the workers had finally finished getting the Iron hooked up. They could now finally make better weapons to arm their soldiers with, and kill the Matsunaga much more easily with.
For now, though, all they had was Crossbowmen. That would do. In July, the Miyoshi counter-attacked these Matsunaga Crossbowman with their own, killing them, avenging the other unit they'd killed and maybe some more. Losing 1 unit of Crossbowmen to kill 1 unit wasn't a trade they wanted to make very often, but at least the Matsunaga's Crossbowmen were more experienced and tougher in a fight.
To the North, the Miyoshi decided that the Ainu camp outside of Tottori really had to go if they wanted to be sure of the safety of their Iron supply, so they sent some of their Ashigaru out to take it down. Everything went according to keikaku, the Ainu lost a unit of Ashigaru and their camp, and the people of Tottori and the guys who got Iron to the Miyoshi could now sleep feeling about 4% safer.
Speaking of Ainu, the exploring ones to the Northeast went into a village of them, hoping to get more technology. Instead, they got a lot of angry Ainu, who killed them in October. So much for learning new things.
In other bad news, the Matsunaga finally started showing up in more than one or two units of Stone Crossbowmen at once. At the end of 1484, they had an incredible... 3 units of Stone Crossbowmen in the area outside of Nara.
But 3 was more than the Miyoshi could handle, so they wanted to see if they could get another way out. And, as luck would have it, they could: The Matsunaga were finally willing to end the war. It seemed that fighting for a bit more than four years and getting nowhere was tiring them out, and they'd be happy to sign a peace treaty for a bit of gold. Given their huge technological and economical leads and source of Iron which the Matsunaga didn't have, the Miyoshi were somewhat reluctant to give up anything, but they recognized that they weren't in a position to fight the Matsunaga right now, even if they would be in a few years once they'd had time to build the stronger military that their technologies and Iron would give them. A few years was not time they had.
And they weren't even mad about the deal they got from the Matsunaga: Apparently the Matsunaga very badly wanted the Miyoshi's World Map and were willing to pay to get it. And thus, the 1485 Treaty of Nara was signed, ending the hostilities in the Matsunaga-Miyoshi War, as some knew it, or as the "War of Southern Aggression" as some of the Miyoshi liked to call it, when they weren't coming up with more... offensive ways to describe the Matsunaga.
With the war over, the Miyoshi got back to being at peace, which was slightly more boring but with a smaller chance of death. And if nothing else, they were glad to have a few years to build up and prepare for the next time they would inevitably end up at war with somebody.
Which actually might be sooner than they thought: With the ink on the Treaty of Nara not even dry, the Ryuzoji showed up in Kyoto with a demand.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi thought about this for about two seconds and then said, "Riiiiight, sure, for the sake of friendship. So, uh, speaking of ships, how many of those do you have? Enough to bring a sizable force off of Kyushu to attack us with? No? I didn't think so."
The Ryuzoji mentioned something about only not declaring war to not have to lose the gold the Miyoshi were still paying them, and left.
But, with that minor issue taken care of, the relative boredom of peacetime ensued for the next few years. The only notable thing to happen outside of their small clan was the Urakami getting irritated that the exploring Ashigaru in the west that had been heading home for a while now was going through their territory, the only real notable things going on inside their clan being the researching of new technology for how to do things with money...
...And finally putting some of their older technologies to use by upgrading some of their Ashigaru with new Swords made out of Tottori's Iron, into new, Stronger units that they called "Bushi."
The citizens of Maizuru also finally finished work on the Miyoshi's first ship, a Galley, at the end of 1486, with Kasuga not far behind with their own Galley. The Maizuru Galley set out to explore the Eastern coast in 1487 and meet new people.
Hopefully, they'd be more hospitable than the Matsunaga.
One thing that had been readily apparent even before the Miyoshi had traded for a lot of their neighbors' maps in 1475 was that they were running out of room, and fast. Their new maps made it apparent that most of their neighbors were also running out of room. Sooner or later, this could only lead to conflict. The Miyoshi only hoped that whenever the conflict happened, they'd be ready for it.
But right now the only conflicts they really had to worry about were with the Ainu that were scattered around the areas still unclaimed by any of the larger clans, and they weren't that big of a threat, to the Miyoshi or to anyone else. Even the Mori, who faced the largest number of Ainu because of their relative isolation, were handling the Ainu threat well- the Miyoshi Ashigaru that were exploring the west could vouch for that, having seen a few battles between the Mori and Ainu that the Mori generally won.
The Miyoshi of course also usually won any battles they fought against the Ainu, but the decreasing unsettled space near them was making those battles fewer and farther between. But there were still certainly some Ainu near them- one group of Ainu Ashigaru entered Miyoshi territory in April, 1475 and managed to stay there for a while thanks to the poor roads and hilly terrain around Kyoto, which made the Miyoshi reluctant to do anything about them.
They were less reluctant to take action, though, when the Matsunaga sent a settling party north... through their territory. Wherever the Matsunaga were headed, the Miyoshi didn't really like that. But, for now, they weren't really in a position to fight the Matsunaga, so they simply talked to them and told them to get their people out of Miyoshi territory. They complied in October, 1476, but presumably were doing that anyway, which was somewhat expected, then went back into Miyoshi territory the following April, and were now occupying the hilly area about halfway between Kyoto and Nara, which was unexpected, and made Miyoshi Nagayoshi and his advisors wonder where the hell they were going.
The Miyoshi told the Matsunaga again to leave in July, 1477, and the Matsunaga responded by... continuing even farther North into Miyoshi territory, which apparently annoyed the Ainu Ashigaru that had been hanging around Kyoto's hills enough to attack the Matsunaga settling party, and get totally destroyed by the Ashigaru defending them.
At the end of 1477, the Miyoshi scientists announced that they'd developed something interesting by messing around with pots: A round block called a "Wheel" that could be used to get things around more easily. Like, for instance, big siege weapons that fire huge arrows.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi decided that with his new weapons, they could be a bit more assertive against the Matsunaga encroachers, even if the Miyoshi didn't actually have any Giant Crossbow Siege Weapon things yet, and told the Matsunaga to get out of Miyoshi lands, or there would be hell to pay.
Somewhat to Miyoshi's surprise, they actually left. But he had no doubt that conflict with the Matsunaga would come eventually. There just wasn't enough space for both of them. To make sure they'd be ready, he upgraded his own weapons and armor, something he'd been planning on doing ever since Kyoto had built a barracks but that he'd never gotten around to actually doing.
For now, though, the Matsunaga and Miyoshi were at a somewhat tenuous peace. The Settlers and Ashigaru, after taking a brief stop so the Ashigaru could heal from the Ainu attack, continued North in 1478, this time outside of Miyoshi territory, then West into Urakami territory in 1479, presumably to the large unsettled areas in the West that the Urakami and Mori hadn't gotten to yet.
This suited the Miyoshi just fine, as it meant that they weren't settling in a somewhat crowded but still settleable area to the Southwest of Kyoto, which meant that the Miyoshi could send their own settlers there in January, 1480. It also meant that they'd probably build a city in an area too far away from their core to be much of anything. The Miyoshi didn't particularly care about much that happened that far West anyway, except for what their exploring Ashigaru were doing.
Which, in 1480, was quite a lot: In January, they attacked some Ainu Ashigaru that had been camping on the mountains, killed them all, and took the gold that they had at their camp. They stopped for a second to admire the view, and from that view, they could see a more peaceful-looking Ainu village to the Northeast, and decided to pay it a visit in July.
They did not regret that decision, as the Ainu in that village were hospitable and welcomed them. They also, like many other Ainu villages that the Miyoshi had encountered over the previous few decades, were very knowledgeable, and willing to share that knowledge with the Miyoshi. What they knew was that their Ancestors were seriously awesome, much more awesome than the current Ainu that had tiny villages and occasionally raided the more settled Japanese clans.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi couldn't believe how amazingly generous all of these knowledgeable Ainu villages had been to the Miyoshi, basically collectively giving them decades of research for free. At this rate they'd be... well... doing futury things, Miyoshi didn't know where science would go in the future... while the rest of the clans were throwing rocks and sticks at each other. As if they weren't already.
Unfortunately, this attracted some degree of jealousy, especially from the Matsunaga, who quickly came to the realization that despite the technological gap between them and the Miyoshi, it mostly wasn't in military technologies.
So the Matsunaga declared war.
The Miyoshi were caught a little bit off guard by this, not expecting the war to happen so soon, and certainly weren't entirely prepared for it. Perhaps that explains why, when the Matsunaga Stone Crossbow unit that had been hanging around outside of Nara attacked the city, the unfortified unit of Ashigaru defending it came out to fight rather than the fortified one, and it got completely destroyed (Seriously, I had a fortified Ashigaru and an unfortified Ashigaru in Nara when this happened, both with the same hit points, both the same in every way except being fortified, but for some reason the unfortified one was the one to fight and I don't have the slightest idea why).
On the bright side, the Miyoshi extended their technological edge a bit after that by researching a Code of Laws. On the not-so-bright side, that didn't help their military at all, and their military needed help.
In other bad news, the Stone Crossbows had suffered no casualties in their attack on Nara, which was in January of 1481 very poorly defended by just one unit of Ashigaru. That couldn't hold Nara on its own, but the lack of a road to the city meant that almost nothing could reach it in time to reinforce it. The only person in the Miyoshi Clan that could reach Nara before the Stone Crossbows reorganized and attacked again was Miyoshi Nagayoshi himself. So head to Nara he did, although he couldn't get there fast enough to fortify. He'd settle for just occupying the city and to rush more defenders by overworking the citizens of Nara in order to keep the city in Miyoshi hands.
On the other hand, some Miyoshi settlers reached their intended destination on the coast Southwest of Kyoto around that time, and founded the city of Kasuga. Maybe they'd be able to distract some of the Matsunaga away from Nara.
Or maybe not. As expected, the Matsunaga Stone Crossbows attacked Nara again in April, this time being met by fortified Ashigaru. They put up a better fight than the ones that died 6 months ago, almost killing all of the Stone Crossbows... but not quite. Only Miyoshi Nagayoshi remained to defend Nara, but while more Matsunaga had appeared in the area, none more could attack until after the Stone Crossbows that he had rushed the creation of would be ready. Nara would not be completely doomed, at least.
Seeing as how Stone Crossbows are much better on the offense than the defense, Miyoshi Nagayoshi sent his new Stone Crossbows to attack the Matsunaga in July, reasoning that they were almost dead. Instead, the Matsunaga took no casualties and all of the Miyoshi dies. Just their luck.
To the East, the exploring Ashigaru found the Light Blue Clan that they'd seen on the maps. Actually, they'd run into them months ago, but the Miyoshi were too distracted by the war with the Matsunaga to notice. The Light Blue Clan called themselves the Imagawa, and were led by Imagawa Yoshimoto. They were in no way at all distinct from literally every other clan.
There were still 2 units of Stone Crossbows outside Nara to the one Miyoshi Nagayoshi inside, but luckily, one was hurt and decided to run away, and the one that wasn't hurt decided that Miyoshi was too strong to attack, perhaps having heard of his legendary battles against the Ainu. So they waited, for more Stone Crossbows to show up.
Luckily, by the time they did in 1482, the road to Nara was finally finished. Several Miyoshi units poured into the city in January to help fend of the Matsunaga, and the workers that had built the road rushed to the North to finally build a road to the Iron near Tottori and make it useful. The Miyoshi needed that Iron badly to make better weapons.
In the meantime, all they could do was fortify what they had and ask their Stone Crossbows to bombard the Matsunaga (which didn't work, of course)
Back to the East, the Ashigaru met the other bluish clan that they'd seen on maps, who called themselves the Tokugawa, after their leader, Tokugawa Ieyasu, a clan as average as all the other clans.
Wanting some idea of where to go next, they asked the Imagawa for a map.
The Imagawa's map wasn't terribly helpful, as like everyone else they hadn't explored much outside of their territory, but they revealed that there was a Green-Wearing Clan to the Northeast and that the Tokugawa city they'd encountered, Komagane, was pretty far away from the rest of the Tokugawa's territory.
Komagane also had some Ainu Ashigaru preparing to attack, and attack they did in April, 1482, one against the defenders of Komagane and one against the Miyoshi explorers. It probably didn't matter much who they attacked, though, since both units of Ainu lost badly.
About the same time, the Matsunaga Crossbows attacked Nara again, with less success than they'd had in their previous attacks: They killed a unit of Miyoshi Ashigaru, but when they attacked the Stone Crossbows, the Miyoshi finally figured out how to win and killed the Matsunaga Crossbows, albeit just barely.
Emboldened by this victory, they decided to counter-attack in July with the Stone Crossbows they had that had not participated in the fighting in April, and thus were undamaged. There were at this point two units of Miyoshi Crossbows that could attack, and two units of Matsunaga Crossbows to attack, one of which had taken some damage from fighting the Ashigaru in April. They decided to chance an attack on the full-health Crossbow unit, which was occupying a Mountain with some precious Gems on it. This turned out to be a bad idea, as both of the attacking Miyoshi units met their demise, with the Matsunaga not taking that much damage. Apparently being on top of a mountain totally matters a lot.
This did convince that unit of Crossbowmen to retreat, but not the one they had not attacked, which attacked Nara again in October. Not wanting to risk Miyoshi Nagayoshi's death, the lone other Miyoshi soldiers in the city, the Stone Crossbowmen that had nearly died killing another attacking Matsunaga unit of Crossbowmen in April, went out to fight them. Predictably, being almost dead made them not exactly suited to continuing to fight, and "Almost Dead" quickly became "Entirely Dead."
Being less emboldened by victory and just wanting to finally win a battle for a change, in January 1483 a unit of Miyoshi crossbowmen attacked the Matsunaga crossbowmen that had fled from the Gems Mountain. This time, they actually won. About freakin' time.
With no other fighting they could do, the Miyoshi decided to see if they could get help from elsewhere. As it turned out, the answer was yes: The Ryuzoji had researched a new technology that would enable them to build new units. They could upgrade Miyoshi Nagayoshi's combat ability again, and they could build a strong defensive unit known as the Spearman. So they asked the Ryuzoji what they wanted in return for their new technology, which they called Sojutsu.
The answer: A lot. More than the Miyoshi could give them.
But the Miyoshi could give them a technology they knew in order to get some gold from the Ryuzoji, then trade that gold and some technology that they would need the technology that the Miyoshi had given them to understand.
So the Miyoshi first taught them how to do things with numbers in return for gold and a map...
...Then traded that gold, and a lot more, and every other technological advantage they had over the Ryuzoji save the Wheel, in return for Sojutsu.
The Miyoshi would later come to somewhat regret this decision, as they lacked the gold to upgrade Miyoshi right now, and would need to wait for Iron to get Spearmen, at which point they would realize Bushi were better anyway (Bushi are 3/2/1 for 30 shields, same as a Swordsman, and Spearmen are 1/3/1 for 40, basically a more expensive Pikemen... why???)
And in return to get marginal upgrades, they had given up a lot of gold and most of their technological advantage- and the Ryuzoji would soon completely even the technological advantage by somehow obtaining the Wheel (Must have been from a hut or something, they couldn't have researched it without Masonry which I traded them one turn before they got the Wheel).
Oh well. They could worry about the Ryuzoji after they finished worrying about the Matsunaga.
Back on the war front in April, the Matsunaga, not having much to do, didn't do much, except for attack a unit of Miyoshi Stone Crossbows with their own Stone Crossbows, which, for once, worked out well for the Miyoshi: the Miyoshi crossbowmen did a superb job of fighting off the attack, killing all of the Matsunaga crossbowmen and not even almost dying in the process.
Even so, Miyoshi Nagayoshi was the only one even remotely capable of defending Nara, and the Matsunaga had a unit of Crossbowmen outside the city. All Miyoshi could do was wait and hope he didn't die.
Luckily, the Matsunaga Crossbowmen were more afraid of him than he was of them; in October, 1483, rather than attack him, they fortified outside the city and waited for more reinforcements to arrive.
It remained there until April, 1484, as the Miyoshi had left a unit of their own Crossbowmen near them in the hopes of getting them to leave and attack them. It worked, sort of. The Matsunaga Crossbowmen did leave and attack them, but the Matsunaga were victorious in the Battle of That Flat Area near Nara. If nothing else, this made them a lot more vulnerable to counter-attack.
And come, a counter-attack certainly would: A bit before the battle, Miyoshi received the excellent news that the workers had finally finished getting the Iron hooked up. They could now finally make better weapons to arm their soldiers with, and kill the Matsunaga much more easily with.
For now, though, all they had was Crossbowmen. That would do. In July, the Miyoshi counter-attacked these Matsunaga Crossbowman with their own, killing them, avenging the other unit they'd killed and maybe some more. Losing 1 unit of Crossbowmen to kill 1 unit wasn't a trade they wanted to make very often, but at least the Matsunaga's Crossbowmen were more experienced and tougher in a fight.
To the North, the Miyoshi decided that the Ainu camp outside of Tottori really had to go if they wanted to be sure of the safety of their Iron supply, so they sent some of their Ashigaru out to take it down. Everything went according to keikaku, the Ainu lost a unit of Ashigaru and their camp, and the people of Tottori and the guys who got Iron to the Miyoshi could now sleep feeling about 4% safer.
Speaking of Ainu, the exploring ones to the Northeast went into a village of them, hoping to get more technology. Instead, they got a lot of angry Ainu, who killed them in October. So much for learning new things.
In other bad news, the Matsunaga finally started showing up in more than one or two units of Stone Crossbowmen at once. At the end of 1484, they had an incredible... 3 units of Stone Crossbowmen in the area outside of Nara.
But 3 was more than the Miyoshi could handle, so they wanted to see if they could get another way out. And, as luck would have it, they could: The Matsunaga were finally willing to end the war. It seemed that fighting for a bit more than four years and getting nowhere was tiring them out, and they'd be happy to sign a peace treaty for a bit of gold. Given their huge technological and economical leads and source of Iron which the Matsunaga didn't have, the Miyoshi were somewhat reluctant to give up anything, but they recognized that they weren't in a position to fight the Matsunaga right now, even if they would be in a few years once they'd had time to build the stronger military that their technologies and Iron would give them. A few years was not time they had.
And they weren't even mad about the deal they got from the Matsunaga: Apparently the Matsunaga very badly wanted the Miyoshi's World Map and were willing to pay to get it. And thus, the 1485 Treaty of Nara was signed, ending the hostilities in the Matsunaga-Miyoshi War, as some knew it, or as the "War of Southern Aggression" as some of the Miyoshi liked to call it, when they weren't coming up with more... offensive ways to describe the Matsunaga.
With the war over, the Miyoshi got back to being at peace, which was slightly more boring but with a smaller chance of death. And if nothing else, they were glad to have a few years to build up and prepare for the next time they would inevitably end up at war with somebody.
Which actually might be sooner than they thought: With the ink on the Treaty of Nara not even dry, the Ryuzoji showed up in Kyoto with a demand.
Miyoshi Nagayoshi thought about this for about two seconds and then said, "Riiiiight, sure, for the sake of friendship. So, uh, speaking of ships, how many of those do you have? Enough to bring a sizable force off of Kyushu to attack us with? No? I didn't think so."
The Ryuzoji mentioned something about only not declaring war to not have to lose the gold the Miyoshi were still paying them, and left.
But, with that minor issue taken care of, the relative boredom of peacetime ensued for the next few years. The only notable thing to happen outside of their small clan was the Urakami getting irritated that the exploring Ashigaru in the west that had been heading home for a while now was going through their territory, the only real notable things going on inside their clan being the researching of new technology for how to do things with money...
...And finally putting some of their older technologies to use by upgrading some of their Ashigaru with new Swords made out of Tottori's Iron, into new, Stronger units that they called "Bushi."
The citizens of Maizuru also finally finished work on the Miyoshi's first ship, a Galley, at the end of 1486, with Kasuga not far behind with their own Galley. The Maizuru Galley set out to explore the Eastern coast in 1487 and meet new people.
Hopefully, they'd be more hospitable than the Matsunaga.
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mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Whoo, Miyoshi lives on! Sucks that that deal turned out to be a burn in the end, though. Still, good luck in future endeavors.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
What's the status, chox? Any chance of an update soon?
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