The realm of the Mountain

maverick

Banned
The Realm of the Mountain

風林火山


Swift as the Wind, Silent as a Forest, Fierce as Fire and Immovable as a Mountain

Chapter I: The Tiger of Kai

The end of the Ashikaga order, the extinction of stability and peace, the rise and fall of the daimyos, the social and national war and the rise of the great generals of lowly origins.

By 1573, the empire of Japan has suffered from generations of war as the shoguns lost their grip over the nation and let the country disintegrate and divide under the influence and power of the most powerful daimyo clans.
One of these clans was the Takeda of the Kai Province, in western Japan, a family of power and influence, under the leadership of the talented and resourceful Takeda Shingen, son of Takeda Nobutara.

ta1.jpg


Shingen, a man of great intelligence and skill, was able to take the domain he inherited at the age of 21 and turn it into a force to be reckoned with in the west of Japan, beginning a series of campaigns against his neighboring clans, succeeding in the conquest of the provinces of Shinano and several other territories around his own domain, including several castles from the warlord that would become his chief rival over the years, Uesugi Kenshin.
Kenshin and Shingen would come to fight each other for several years, the rivalry between the two gaining fame thanks to the series of engagements fought at Kawanakajima, the Takeda facing the Uesugi five times in a war that nearly bled the two clans white.

In the year of 1572, Takeda Shingen had made himself one of the most powerful daimyos in Japan, having expanded his domains greatly at the expense of his neighbors and achieving an uneasy yet effective peace with his neighbors thanks to the truce made with Hojo Ujimasa and the exhaustion that resulted from his wars with Uesugi Kenshin, who would remain a threat to Shingenfs northern border for years nonetheless.
It was the great fame and power that Shingen had obtained in his years as head of the Takeda clan that made him the most suitable candidate for shogun Ashikaga Yoshinaki, who had been conspiring against his patron, the great daimyo Oda Nobunaga.
Nobunaga, who had risen from relative obscurity in the Owari province, had not only conquered the imperial capital of Kyoto along with most of central Japan, but had also been able to install a puppet Shogun in the capital, but in spite of Yoshinaki's role as de jure ruler of the country, it was Nobunaga the one who controlled the government, much to the frustration of the Shogun.

Of the great four daimyos that quarreled for power outside of the Oda sphere of influence; Mori Motonari, Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen and Hojo Ujiyasu, Shingen was the only one with the power and in the position to halt Nobunaga's momentum and prevent him from gaining national hegemony.

Shingen's campaign began in earnest in 1572, when he launched an invasion of the domains of Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of Nobunaga's staunch allies and Shingen's rivals, with whom he had disputed the division of the Imagawa domain recently.
The invasion of Totomi and the capture of the imposing fortress of Iwamura marked the beginning of the campaign against Ieyasu in the winter of 1572, in an offensive made possible by the strategic genius of the Takeda generals and Shingen himself, while the Tokugawa suffered from poorer leadership and only enjoyed little support from Nobunaga, who was at the time engaged in a series of campaigns at Nagashima.

Meanwhile, the war between Ieyasu and Shingen would continue, eventually leading to the decisive battle of Mikatagahara, on January 6th of 1573.


 

maverick

Banned
This is sort of an introduction, the POD not appearing yet...

In any case, I've wanted to write this TL ever since I saw Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha a few months ago. I think the PoD is fairly obvious, but the consequences are not, and I hope that makes a good TL.
This one will have a different style and purpose than The Dragon Rises High, but I hope that this one will turn out to be more realistic and better written...I'll annex some maps now...

180px-Takeda_domain.jpg


I hope these help too...

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6192/takeda2ot2.jpg
http://www.sarudama.com/history/images/sengoku_daimyo_tohoku_sm.gif
 

maverick

Banned
Mikatagahara

Shingen had brought forward an army of 30,000 men to engage the Tokugawa north of Ieyasu’s stronghold of Hamamatsu, his best generals, Yamagata Masakage and Baba Nobufusa standing besides him along with his son and heir, Takeda Katsuyori.
To oppose him, Ieyasu only counted with nearly 8,000 men reinforced with 3,000 troops that Oda Nobunaga had reluctantly sent as a sign of support, although it would also prove to be a sign of Nobunaga’s distrust of Ieyasu, especially in the dire situation in which the lord of Totomi was at the moment.

The two armies met at the high plain of Mikata, north of Hamamatsu, as Ieyasu tried to halt Shingen’s attack before the fortress was directly compromised.
According to the historical records, Shingen organized his men in gyôrin (fish-scale) formation, enticing his opponent to attack, while Ieyasu’s forces formed a line, with the hope of being able to take advantage of the arquebusiers, even though the use of firearms in Japan was still quite new and the techniques not quite perfected.
The battle was nonetheless began when Shigen ordered his famous cavalry to begin a charge, devastating the center of the Tokugawa line and overrunning the frightened and inexperienced ashigaru, while leaving only a few still standing by the end of the charge.

The battle then continued with the withdrawal of the first cavalry units, allowing them to rest, and their replacement with fresh troops that proceeded to attack the Tokugawa line once more, this time under the command of Takeda Katsuyori and Obata Masamori, inflicting further damage to the Tokugawa line before being joined by the main Takeda force, which quickly routed the enemy forces. The full retreat of the Tokugawa army began shortly after the second breaking of the main line. The routing, as the early stages of the battle, had proven to be particularly bloody and costly, especially for the Tokugawa, given the terrible psychological effect of facing the great Takeda Shingen and his famed cavalry.

Seeing his army in retreat and his main generals trapped, Ieyasu ordered to have his standard raised at where the high plains began to drop off. The daimyo’s intentions being to lead a new surprise attack against the Takeda and free his men, despite the attempts by his remaining officers to have him retreat to safety.
Ieyasu was only able to muster a force of 4,000 men to lead his attack, but he was hoping that the surprise factor would enable him to drive the tired and overconfident Takeda forces as they were scattered around the battlefield pursuing his army.

The attempted counterattack would nevertheless be entirely futile. The battle was lost and the army was in retreat, and Ieyasu’s charge, although successful in pushing the Takeda flank at the early stages of the attack, was eventually driven back as Yamagata Masakage himself regrouped his men from the center and the flank to halt the Tokugawa counterattack and route the enemy forces, killing Ieyasu and most of his remaining troops in the process.
The rest of the army retreated in all directions, the main force effectively losing all coherence and disintegrating through the battle site. The field was Shingen’s.

The battle, despite several disputes over the historical records, officially ended when the vanguard of the Takeda force entered the abandoned fortress of Hamamatsu the following morning.
 
A Takeda Shingen Timeline! Wow!:cool: He is my prefered character of the time of Sengoku.

Originally posted by Maverick
In any case, I've wanted to write this TL ever since I saw Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha a few months ago.

Great film. I like a lot the Akira Kurosawa films ambiented in the times of samurais (principally my loved triada is the Seven Samurais, Yojimbo and Sanjuro)

You know of the existence of this web?http://www.samurai-archives.com/

It gives a lot of information about this period.

I want more of this TL, no doubt:cool:
 

maverick

Banned
The Oda-Takeda war

The season that followed the downfall of the Tokugawa domain and the Takeda conquest of Hamamatsu was one of great shock and incertitude for the daimyos east and west of Kyoto and this was most true for no other than Oda Nobunaga.
While the three other most powerful clans in Japan, the Hojo, the Uesugi and the Mori, were contempt sitting back and evaluating the situation, Nobunaga had lost an important ally, one that protected the routes to the Owari and Mino provinces, where Nobunaga’s most vital and at the time most vulnerable strongholds were located.
What made matters worse for Nobunaga was not only that he would have to face one of the most powerful daimyos and ablest military commanders in the Empire, but the fact that at the time the resources of the Oda domain were occupied in a lengthy campaign against the Asai and Asakura clans, allied to the Ikko-Ikki rebels in the north, east and west of the Oda territory.

In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Hamamatsu, the Shingen camp was divided, with some of his veteran generals suggesting a more conservative campaign that could allow the armies to rest and the situation to be studied more carefully, while a more aggressive faction led by Shingen’s son Katsuyori wanted the Takeda force regrouped as soon as possible to strike the Oda while they were weak and out of guard, striking directly against Nagoya and Gifu, through the “Soft underbelly.”
The short-lived divide was ended when Shingen decided to take advantage of the dispersion of the Oda forces, otherwise occupied engaging the Ikko-Ikki and the Asakura, and launch a swift invasion of the Owari and Mino provinces.

The campaign begun in early 1573 found only little resistance at Owari, where the Oda forces had been trying to besiege Nagashima, where the Ikko-Ikki had defeated them in 1571.
The Ikko-Ikki (the Single-minded leagues), mobs of peasant farmers, samurai, ronin, monks, local nobles and Shinto priests adherent to the Jodo Shinshu (“True Pure land”) sect of Buddhism, had risen against Samurai rule and were now opposed to Oda Nobunaga and allied to the Oda enemies of the Asai and Asakura clans.
Shingen’s arrival in the later winter of 1573 provided a morale boost for the defenders of Nagashima, finding a suitable ally in the head of the Takeda clan. Nagashima’s 20,000 troops would at the same time provide a great reinforcement to the Takeda army, despite the objection of many of the Takeda generals and the distrust of the Ikko-Ikki. These would nonetheless prove quite useful in the subsequent engagements in central Japan. Of the entire force based at Nagashima, only 8,000 would join the Takeda force at the beginning, a sign of mutual distrust.
Further north, Oda Nobunaga and his generals, which included the famed Toyotomi Hashiba and Sakuma Nobumori, who had been in charge of regrouping the Oda forces for a second attempt at taking Nagashima, had massed an army of 20,000 men to engage the invading Takeda, the first major engagement taking place at Kiyosu, south of Gifu.

The battle itself is said to have taken place in the early spring of 1573, although it is mostly agreed that it was actually in early March of that year, the Takeda forces numbering nearly 30,000 and the Oda about 20,000.
Tactically, the engagement was complicated for both sides. The Takeda army had showed up at the battlefield as the Oda army was taking positions, being thus taking by surprise when Yamagata Masakage led the first cavalry charge against the unprepared Oda lines, routing the center and forcing the main army to regroup nearly a mile north of the field.
Unfortunately for the Takeda, however, Toyotomi Hashiba was able to regroup his forces north of the town and prevent Yamagata and Takeda from outflanking his force, while his arquebusiers kept the enemy cavalry at bay.

A second Takeda attack, this time pressing the flanks, would nonetheless suffice to push the Oda forces north, towards the river, thanks to a diversionary attack on Hashiba’s right flank which depleted the arquebusier’s line and weapons.
A third attack would finally force Toyotomi to cross the river and retreat back to Gifu, where the main Oda force under Nobunaga himself awaited patiently for Shingen and his armies.
 
No Oda reuniting Japan? This will have very interesting implications. The maps are good too, is the dark gren unafiliated states and Lords?
 
I agree, you are making a good job using the map of samurai-archives as base map, looking how Tokugawa dominion was converted in red that symbolised the dominion of Takeda was very, very graphic, I have the sensation that the rose of Oda soon could be converted in red:)
 

maverick

Banned
Gifu

The fortress of Gifu had been built by Oda Nobunaga himself after his conquest of the region, not only to serve as a fortification with military purposes, but also as a symbol of his power, erected with the purpose of causing awe and fear in the hearts of his enemies and to serve as a sign of Nobunaga’s power and ambition, the name Gifu having been chosen as it had been the name of the castle from which Wu Wang of the Chou began his campaigns to unify China.

Laying in the center of his domains, Nobunaga had probably never expected to one day be forced to fall back on his castle and defend it from an invading army, but Takeda Shingen’s force numbered well over 30,000 when he ended the siege of Nagashima and took over the home of the Oda clan, the Owari province.
Nobunaga had responded by mobilizing his own forces and recalling his ablest commanders, on top of which was Hashiba Hideyoshi, despite his early defeat at Kiyosu, and by the time Shingen approached the impregnable fortress of Gifu, the Oda force exceeding the 30,000 men just as the Takeda army.

The engagement between the two forces began in late march of 1573, the Takeda army approaching from the south towards the entrenched and patient Oda troops, which had the imposing fortress of Gifu to provide not only shelter but also a great psychological advantage, in spite of the previous Takeda triumphs over Iwamura and Hamamatsu.

The first cavalry charge under Yamagata was initially successful thanks to the element of surprise and the ferocity of the attack, and the Oda line was pushed several hundreds of meters northwardly before Nobunaga and Hideyoshi themselves appeared with 3,000 reinforcements and regrouped the dispersed troops about 500 meters north of the original line and forced the Takeda advance to stop, to then push them back with great casualties for the first group. This first exchange resulted in the death of Oda retainer Akechi Mitsuhide and Takeda general Oyamada Nobushige, who had been one of the famed “24 Generals”

The second phase began when Hashiba Hideyoshi led an attack against the Takeda lines just as they prepared to launch a second attack. The result was an hour of fighting in which the Oda troops, exhausted from pursuing the retreating troops under Yamagata, were met by fresh and experienced soldiers under Takeda Katsuyori and Sanada Nobutsuna, who led the final cavalry charge that drove Hideyoshi and his men back.
Unfortunately, as the enemy forces retreated, Katsuyori’s aggressiveness and Nobutsuna’s inability to stop him led to a renewed attack on the retreating Oda troops, and with only 2,000 men, Shingen’s son attacked Hashiba Hideyoshi’s men directly south of Gifu.

The result was a continued carnage. Sanada Nobutsuna was killed as he charged at the Oda Arquebusiers, which had created a new line with trenches and palisades just north of where they had previously stand, taking the Takeda forces by surprise and halting their advance once more.
The battle nonetheless ensued for another three hours in which the Oda and Takeda reserves were called to bring about an end to the battle, only adding blood to the massacre that was the battle of Gifu.

As Dusk neared, the Takeda left the battlefield leaving nearly 8,000 men behind, including famed and feared generals such as Oyamada Nobushige, Sanada Nobutsuna and Hara Masatane, while the Oda suffered casualties nearing the 7,500, having lost men such as Akechi Mitsuhide and Yamouchi Kazutoyo.

The main Takeda force took positions south of the Kiso River, Shingen and his generals making preparations for what promised to be a long and bloody siege.
 

maverick

Banned
The Beginning of the End

The long and costly process of reducing Gifu had left a toll of nearly 10,000 men for Shingen by the third month of the siege, while Nobunaga had lost approximately the same amount of soldiers, most during the attempts to break the siege or push back the Takeda lines.
The last attempt, in which Hashiba Hideyoshi led 10,000 men against the center of the Takeda line under Baba Nobufusa, entrenched along the Kiso river as well as the rest of the Takeda army, resulted in the loss of 3,000 soldiers, including infantrymen and arquebusiers, and 350 arquebuses, while strategically it allowed the Takeda general to leave his position along the river to pursue Hideyoshi’s men and thus break through the external line of defenses of the Oda fortress.

This was by far the worst disaster yet for the defenders: in the aftermath of the failed attack the outer defensive perimeter had been breached and Shingen was in a position to threaten Gifu castle itself.

To make matters worse for Nobunaga, while he and his men tried to outlast Shingen’s invasion, outside his fortress the domain and power he had amassed at the expense of blood and sacrifice began to crumble with the rallying of his enemies against him.

At Kyoto, taking advantage of Oda Nobunaga’s absence and perhaps imminent defeat, the puppet shogun Ashikaga Yoshinaki, whom the daimyo of Owari had put in power personally, broke his relations with his former champion and began to fortify Nijo castle while creating a new alliance with the Azai and Asakura clans to ally against the Oda once more, although they had been left on a terribly weak state after their war against Nobunaga in 1570 and would not be able to interfere at this stage of the conflict.

But further south, at the cathedral fortress of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, where the Ikko-Ikki had their central base and most powerful stronghold, the news of the desperate Oda plight to defend his domains against Shingen, the letters received from the Shogun encouraging the Ikko-Ikki to continue to fight against Nogunaga and the arrival of reinforcements from their allies of the Mori clan in the form of 3,000 soldiers and a large amount of supplies made the force at Ishiyama strong enough to take on the Oda soldiers that had been tasked with monitoring the situation at the long siege.

By the time the Ikko-Ikki launched their general counterattack with the help of the Mori fleet, the Oda forces surrounding the fortress had been greatly reduced by the need to engage the Takeda at Gifu and reinforce the Oda positions at Kyoto and the border with the Asakura, and thus the siege ended with a victory for the Ikko-Ikki, while the Abbot Kosa began to make preparations to link up with the remaining members of the anti-Oda coalition further north.
 
So Oda is now completely beggared? This'll be very interesting. No invasion of Korea then?
 
Originally posted by DAv
No invasion of Korea then?

Hmm, we will have to see what plans have Maverick with the timeline, but I would not discart an ATL invasion of Korea, in my personal opinion Takeda was a better personification of the japanese warrior than Oda, Hideyoshi or Tokugawa (while more decided to action thanTokugawa, he was not so megalomaniac as Hideyoshi and not so without scruples as Oda) and he could decide that after controlling the situation in Japan, a campaign in Korea to show his force to the foreign countries (Korea states and China) and obtain a foothold in the southern portion of Korea could be interesting.

So I think than if in TTL exists a Takeda campaign against Korea, it would be not the megamaloniac campaign of seeing Korea as a first step to conquer China as it seems that Hideyoshi saw it, with Takeda I think it would be more realistic aimed to reconquer the position than in the past the japanese had in the southern portion of Korea.
 

maverick

Banned
The fall of the House of Oda

The nearing of the autumn marked the sixth month of the siege against the complex fortification that was Gifu. For 25 weeks the Takeda had tried to reduce the fortress through every imaginable mean, both by conventional and unconventional means, but at the end being forced to engage the Oda in a conventional siege, destroying the enemy resistance by outlasting his forces and starving the defenders.

The arrival of reinforcements from the Ikko-Ikki and the Takeda domain in the late summer gave renewed hope to the Takeda generals and retainers, and convinced some that a new offensive was necessary if Gifu was to fall before the arrival of the winter and more importantly, before geopolitical complications came into play.
Shingen had abandoned his domains nearly a year ago and his enemies were not to be trusted if the master was away for too long. A siege could convince a daimyo’s enemy that it was the moment to attack, and this could prove to be true not only for Nobunaga, but also for Shingen.

But although neither Uesugi Kenshin nor Hojo Ujimasa made any aggressive move against the Kai or Shinano provinces, the enemies of the Oda had rallied before the figures of the Ashikaga shogun and the Takeda daimyo: the Asakura and the Azai coming to the calling of Yoshiaki and Shingen in the late summer of 1573 along with the Ikko-Ikki and some troops sent by the Mori clan of Chugoku, all of which proved of great utility for the war effort against the Oda, both at Gifu and elsewhere.
And while the Azai and Asakura attacked the northern border of the Oda domain while assisting Shingen in the siege with reinforcements, the situation for Nobunaga and his generals grew more and more desperate as things progressed.
All attempts made by the Takeda to cut the castle’s water supply had failed, as had all the initiatives aimed at assaulting the fortress directly, but for the men inside Gifu time was running out and the situation continued to deteriorate.

When the month of September ended, the Oda force had been reduced to just 18,000 men, while the Takeda army had increased its own numbers to 30,000 once more thanks to the continued reinforcements from the Anti-Oda coalition. Nobunaga could not pretend to be able to hold the enemy for much longer and Shingen could not maintain the siege forever: someone had to make a move.

The time to end the campaign came, according to western sources, on October 18th of 1573, when the Takeda and Oda forces met on the open field and engaged in the last battle of the Gifu operation.
Oda Nobunaga had witnessed how his defensive lines collapsed and fell to the Takeda forces through a period of six months, losing nearly 12,000 men in the process while the survivors grew more desperate and demoralized as the prospect of defeat lurked as a shadow in the castle, behind every door, behind every soldier.

Nobunaga put his hope on his arquebusiers, of which he could still yield an impressive amount of 2,000 on the battlefield, as opposed to Shingen’s own 900, of which half were Ikko-Ikki.
The Oda daimyo positioned his men along a large irregular line, taking advantage of the terrain to stop the dreaded and feared Takeda cavalry, while the Arquebusiers used a line of trenches and palisades to hold their line and slow down any possible cavalry charge.
The Takeda force was on the other hand divided into three main corps under Shingen’s trusted generals. Each division, with around 7,000 men deployed, comprised the bulk of the Takeda army, while the rest served as a reserve force. The famed Takeda cavalry was put aside due to the difficulties presented by the terrain and the positioning of the Oda force, and thus relegated to serve as skirmishers and for a possible routing of the Oda troops, therefore leaving much of the battle in the hands of the Ashigaru infantry and the Arquebusiers and archers.

Shingen began the attack with a small cavalry attack aimed at the flanks, with the purpose of testing the strength of the Oda line, and then following with the Ashigaru infantry in a three-pronged attack in which Yamagata’s “Fire division” attacked the center and engaged the arquebusiers on the center-right, nearly driving the Oda troops back only to be pushed by the arrival of Nobunaga’s infantry reserves from the left flank.
The arrival of the reserves convinced Shingen to deploy his second division in a diversionary attack against the depleted left flank of the Oda force, while taking his own third division under his personal command, as well as that of Baba Nobufusa’s, to attack the center of the Oda army.

The attack on the left flank, which forced Nobunaga to focus his attention on Takeda Katsuyori’s cavalry, managed to enrage the commander of the Oda Army of the Left, Hashiba Hideyoshi, enough for him to lead an attack to pursue the Takeda with his own troops and reserves…what followed was the end of the battle, with the left flank inexistent, Shingen took his men and attacked the center-right, that is the arquebusiers from two different directions while his own arquebusiers kept them preoccupied shooting at the south-east while the Takeda infantry came from the south and the south-west…


The engagement, which lasted for over six hours, left the Oda armies completely vanquished, with over 9,000 laying on the fields and other 2,000 having retreated, while the Takeda casualties only amounted to 1,800. The camel’s back was broken, and so was the will of Oda Nobunaga and his generals.
Hashiba Hideyoshi had been killed as his troops were surrounded on two directions, by Katsuyori’s cavalry and by Baba Nobufusa’s reserves, which had turned to the south-west after routing the center of the Oda army.

Oda Nobunaga, the man that had defeated the Imagawa, conquered Kyoto and nearly unified central Japan, committed Seppuku two days after the battle, merely hours before Shingen ordered the final assault on Gifu castle.


Kyoto

The near disintegration of the Oda domain that followed the fall of Gifu and the death of Nobunaga was followed by a rush by Shingen to march on the Imperial capital and restore order to the situation of Central Japan.
While the Takeda besieged Gifu castle, a combined force of Ikko-Ikki, Azai and Asakura troops, as well as those loyal to the Shogun threatened Kyoto before entering the city and coming to the aid of Shingen at the battle with Nobunaga.

Shingen wasted little time after the Gifu campaign and marched on Kyoto almost immediately, leaving most of his army at the battlefield or sending them back to Kofu, thus only taking some 10,000 men with him in hic march to Kyoto.
Having spared the lives of most of the old Oda clan, excepting for many of his sons and brothers, who could have become menaces with time, as well as some prominent generals and retainers, the Oda domain was greatly reduced by the new advances of the old enemies, something Shingen would have to remedy if he was to take over the Oda territories as he had with the Tokugawa domain.

10,000 men entered Kyoto on November 3rd of 1573, with Takeda Shingen, his generals and his son Katsuyori at the head of the conquering army. The flags and standards of the Takeda clan soon filled the city, its streets and its main buildings as the army marched through the city.
Shingen himself was reportedly ecstatic as he saw the capital, visiting several Buddhist temples and shrines on his way to meet the Emperor and the Shogun, who had waited for him ever since hearing the news on the conquest of Gifu.

The Tiger of Kai was received by the Shogun and the Emperor with great cordiality and greeted by the notables of the city and the anti-Oda alliance with an expected surprise and enthusiasm. Shingen had not only defeated the Oda and their allies, but had within the batting of a butterfly’s wing become the most powerful daimyo of the Empire, both in terms of power and territory, and now he stood in the Imperial Capital with a conquering army.
 
This'll definetly be interesting to see how it pans out in terms of what the Takeda do with foreigners on Japanese soil. Weren't the first Spanish visits around about this time?
 
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