The realm of the Mountain

maverick

Banned
1580

The last of the Ashikaga

The march that the army of 30,000 men undertook from Kofu in Kai to the Imperial Capital of Kyoto in the spring and summer of 1580 was, unlike the original entry of the Takeda armies into the great capital, not as much a triumphal march but a quest for vengeance and settlement.

The Ashikaga shogun had instigated the war between the Uesugi and the Takeda just as he had done with the Oda five years earlier. Yet this is only one reason why the Takeda armies took their banners once more and embarked on the quest of subduing Kyoto and overthrowing the last Shogun.

Ashikaga Yoshiaki was the last of the Ashikaga clan, an eastern daimyo clan that had taken power as Shoguns in the aftermath of the downfall of the Kamakura Shogunate in the 14th century, only to lose their hold over the Empire at the dawn of the Sengoku period in the 15th century.
As the 15th shogun of the Ashikaga bakufu, Yoshiaki had seen his power diminished and his position dependant upon daimyo such as Oda Nobunaga and Takeda Shingen, and by 1580 his power base was limited to a reduced group of loyalists at the capital and some rather weak neighboring daimyo.

The engagement at Kyoto was not particularly uneventful, as the last Shogun was able to mount a surprising defense of the city for about three weeks before his contingent of 10,000 men was legendarily betrayed by a group of ronin bought off by the Takeda, thus showing them the vulnerable flanks of the city and opening the strategic gates to them. Several legends and tales like these circulated in the aftermath of the fall of Kyoto, especially about the burning of temples, the execution of Ashikaga loyalists and the massive suicides of the Shogun’s generals, culminating in the ominous and hasty ceremony of seppuku of Yoshiaki himself at Shoryuji castle, as the Takeda forces approached his last stronghold.

Thus ended the Ashikaga Shogunate and a new stage of the Sengoku period was inaugurated, the end of the Warring states period approaching faster than anybody could have expected after over a century of civil war…

The Dragon and the Setting Sun

Kyoto fell in the summer of 1580 according to most sources, 8 years after Takeda Shingen declared open war upon the Tokugawa and the Oda, and 10 years before the end of the Sengoku period.

The definitive end of the Shogunate meant the ascension of Takeda Katsuyori to a position of near absolute power, as he became the de facto ruler of most of Nippon and the possessor of the vastest domains in the island of Honshu. Yet the Empire of the Sun was far from complete political unification, as powerful daimyo still remained with the capabilities to challenge the central authority of the Takeda.

At the time, these daimyo existed in the west of the nation, in the regions of Bungo, Tosa, Satsuma and Bunzen.
The Takeda had previously countered the power of the Mori and the Shimazu by forming a loose alliance with the Christian daimyo of Bungo, Otomo Sorin, but following the Kyoto campaign of 1580 the western daimyo could no longer ignore what was happening to their left and thus in the winter of 1580, the Shimazu of Satsuma, the Chosokabe of Tosa and the Mori of Bunzen forged an alliance against the Takeda and the Otomo, what would later be called the second anti-Takeda coalition.

The alliance, motivated by a desire to defend themselves against the perceived threat of national unification and conquest under the Takeda was led by no other than Mori Terumoto, lord of Bunzen and ruler of most of western Honshu, grandson of the Great Moro Motonari. And alongside him were his uncle’s Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, his greatest advisors and generals, and avid enemies of the Takeda order that had been imposed in central Nippon at the time.


Far from being unmoved by the threat of a new enemy alliance, Takeda Katsuyori saw the formation of a league between the remaining daimyo as well as the resurgent expansionism of the Mori, the Shimazu and the Chosokabe to be a direct menace to his own national project, and the animosities between the Takeda and the Second Anti-Takeda Coalition grew as the decade progressed.
 

DAv

So there's curretly two great powers in Japan? This TL's thrown enough side shots to make me really curious regarding how it'll all turn out. Is Japan still isolationist at this point?
 

Tizoc

The Japan isn't isolationist yet.

I have a question - in one of the chapters it was said that forces (IIRC Takeda ones) brought their guns and cannons. It suprised me, because I don't remember cannons being used during Sengoku at all... Firearms yes, cannons no.
 

maverick

Banned
Oh, I meant the earlier versions of Muskets, the ones that looked more like hand-cannons and less than muskets...

Now, the introduction of field artillery would be interesting, especially if we can get more foreign trade going on, even though I already went down that road with my last Japanese TL...

Meh, I'll think about that later...
 

maverick

Banned
1582

Foundations

Unlike the state of generalized war that had characterized the better part of the Sengoku period from the late 1400s to the mid 1500s, by 1582 the situation in Japan had led to a polarization of the Empire’s daimyos into two separate bands, with a third category of neutrals that exercised little influence in the general outcome of the period.

In the east there was the Takeda domain, under which there were dozens of vassal daimyos and retainers that swelled the ranks of Takeda Katsuyori’s armies; while in the west the triple alliance of Mori Terumoto with the Chosokabe and the Shimazu provided some balance in the internal situation of the empire. Until war was finally unleashed in 1582 that is, and the balance was lost.

The war between the Takeda and the second anti-Takeda coalition officially started on the spring of 1582, by a small border skirmish between the Mori domain and the small realm of the Ukita clan, an ally that the Takeda had made in their effort to form a platform from which to invade the Mori provinces in the west.

The conflict between the Ukita and the Mori escalated into a general war within weeks, as the Takeda were preparing themselves for a final war of national unification ever since Katsuyori’s return to Kyoto and the overthrowing of the Ashikaga.

The Mori invasion of the Ukita domain was followed by the outbreak of war in Kyushu, where the Shimazu led their allies, the Sagara, the Ryuzoki and the Ito into an invasion of the Otomo domains in the northern half of the island.

What followed was the gathering of the main Takeda armies at Kyoto and of the Mori forces at Hiroshima castle, while the mighty Mori fleet prepared for a surprise attack against the inferior naval forces of the Takeda, mostly composed of allied pirates that had served Shingen in his quests against his old enemies.

Summer breeze

Osaka bay was the first scenery of the war, as the Mori fleet obliterated the few ships the Takeda had at their disposal and put Osaka under occupation, with the help of the Ikko-Ikki of Ishiyama Hongan-Ji, old allies of the Mori during the times of Oda Nobunaga.

The swift action was followed by the arrival of the Takeda army under Kosaka Masanobu and Hara Matasane at the outskirts of Osaka on June of 1582.
20,000 men spearheaded the Takeda offensive, while other 15,000 troops under Baba Nobufusa were marching from Kyoto towards the lands of the Mori, in order to gather the combined forces on the eastern borders of the Mori domain and launch an attack against Hiroshima itself.

This could be called the first act of the wars of unification, taking place from June of 1582 to February of 1583.

The campaign against Osaka was short-lived, as the Ikko-Ikki broke their league with the Mori, as Takeda Katsusori himself demanded that they honored the alliance established by his father.
With only 5,000 men at his disposal, Kuki Yoshitaka, the Mori admiral in charge of the defense of Osaka, retreated and left the city after a few skirmishes, returning to his ships with the decision of continuing the war from the sea.

The successive campaigns against the Mori would nevertheless be far from being as easy as Osaka was.

The march on Hiroshima began on August of 1582, when 40,000 men, including the Ashigaru infantry of 20,000, Samurai troops numbering the 5,000 and the force of arquebusiers and recruited ronin composing the rest of the grand army, met at the lands of the Ukita, where they were greeted by the Ukita lord and his loyal forces.

The Mori had in the meantime been less than prepared to face the imminent invasion. Forces were gathering in the western provinces of the domain, leaving only 10,000 available for the defense of Hiroshima castle. Reinforcements could not be expected from the west for about another month; the Mori allies in Kyushu were in the meantime preoccupied with their war against Otomo Sorin.

Thus, the Siege of Hiroshima began on September of 1583, when 30,000 Takeda soldiers surrounded the city and the castle, only defended by 10,000 men under the able and beloved Kikkawa Motoharu.

Hiroshima

As many sieges of the Sengoku period, the operations against Hiroshima during the fall and winter of 1583 were undertaken with extreme care and determination, and like in many cases, such as the ones of Odawara and Nagashima, both the defenders and the attackers proved to be especially determined to emerge victorious.

The numerical advantage yielded by the Takeda was to a degree mitigated by the complete naval superiority of the Mori, which assured that the fortress would be well supplied and impossible to attack from the sea. Furthermore, the march from Kyoto had left the Takeda forces exhausted and in need to make preparations for a winter camp around Hiroshima.

Of the 30,000 troops stationed around the main Mori stronghold, only 12,000 of them under Obata Masamori and Tsuchiya Masatugu undertook offensive actions against the fortress, trying to cut the city’s water supply in October of 1583 and to break the city’s weaker defenses later that month, as the rest of the army simply limited itself to wait until the main Mori army under Terumoto and Kobayakawa Takakage arrived.

The arrival did not take place until late October of 1583, shortly after the failed attacks against the castle.
Terumoto and Takakage had spent great part of the time that had passed gathering forces from the domains of the Mori, recruiting peasants, Samurai and Ronin into a force of 25,000 men that arrived to the west of the Takeda camp at Hiroshima on October of 1583.

The result was the only important battle of the Hiroshima campaign, which is the battle of Hiroshima that took place on November 2nd of 1582, according to most sources.



....................

Note: Hiroshima Castle was built by Mori Terumoto IOTL in 1589...this is accelerated ITTL for several reasons...
 

maverick

Banned
1582-1583

Vicissitudes

The battle of Hiroshima, as it was later known, was in reality a series of engagements and skirmishes that took place between November 2nd of 1582 and January 3rd of 1583, in the proximities of the port of Hiroshima and the Mori stronghold at Hiroshima castle.

As many sieges of the Sengoku period, a relief force had arrived in rescue of the defenders and thus the fate of the castle would have to be decided on the open battlefield rather than by a bloody assault against the walls of the fortress or by an inner treachery on the behalf of the defendants, as it also usually happened in cases like this.

The firs series of skirmishes between Obata Masamori’s right flank and Kobayakawa Takakage’s Samurai relief force took place as an attempt by the Mori army to break the siege evolved into a chain of light attacks and counterattacks. A battle of positioning and maneuver; little casualties and considerable time were wasted, and by the end of the month both sides had achieved very little.

What followed was the arrival of the winter and the entrenchment of the defendants, as Takeda Katsuyori was advised to leave the siege and return once the conditions were more favorable. Feeling the weight of his father’s legacy on his shoulders, Katsuyori, backed by his younger and most reckless generals, refused to leave the Mori domain without a single victory, without a castle taken.

With time running out and the winter becoming harsher and colder, Katsuyori pressed for an attack and thus on December of 1582 the bulk of his army center attacked the Mori camps west of the Otagawa river, defended only by 10,000 men of the Mori right wing.

The battle nonetheless turned into a bloodbath as the Takeda ashigaru infantry was unable to break the Mori lines of defenses. Mori Terumoto’s next move was to force a war of attrition upon the Takeda by sending heavy ashigaru reinforcements to the center of his line, adding more cannon to the bloody massacre.

Three days later the Takeda retreated from the Otagawa River with 8,000 dead, including his general Hara Matasane.

Momentum was now on the Mori side and Terumoto was very able when the advantage was on his side. Having depleted the left flank of the Takeda army at the Otagawa River, he rallied 14,000 men between Samurai warriors and Ashigaru infantry and pressed upon the retreating Takeda forces on their left flank, while the Kobayakawa force provided a distraction by attacking the center of the Takeda line for a third time in less than two weeks.

The result of the fourth battle was the near annihilation of the Takeda left flank and the near end of the siege operations right there and then on December of 1582, but the Takeda forces were able to resist the offensive long enough to organize an effective retreat and consolidate the center of the army into a cohesive force once more.

By mid-December the Takeda were ready to strike at the Mori army once more when disturbing news arrived from the east: a rebellion had begun at the Kanto province and the allied Uesugi Kagetora had been deposed by his half-brother.

After an entire season of battling, the Takeda forces were exhausted and depleted, yet Katsuyori saw victory as imminent, even upon losing over 10,000 men.

Practical matters were nevertheless not on Katsuyori’s favor. His armies needed more time to complete the war against the Mori and Hiroshima castle was not about to fall that winter. Besides, the necessity to eliminate any threat to the Takeda hegemony in the west came first.

Thus, in late January of 1583 the Takeda army began to leave, not without having to suffer further attacks by the Mori army as they left the enemy province, but nonetheless reaching the safety of Osaka in February and beginning the march towards the Uesugi domain once the army was rested and reorganized at Kyoto.

Otate no Ran

Such was the name given to the civil war that took place at the Uesugi domain of Kanto between December of 1582 and October of 1583.

Uesugi Kagekatsu, second son of Nagao Echizen no Kami Masakage, husband of Uesugi Kenshin's elder sister Ayahime, was an adopted son of Kenshin along Uesugi Kagetora, who had been Hojo Ujijasu’s seventh son.

While following the Takeda-Uesugi war in the 1570s the Uesugi clan had been left under Kagetora’s guidance in the quality of a virtual Takeda vassal, a strong faction within the clan and the Kanto domain aligned itself with the alternate heir, Kagekatsu for a variety of reasons, from the greed of power to the desire for a return of the past glories of the great house of Uesugi.

Kagekatsu’s rebellion overthrew Kagetora on late December of 1582, taking over Edo castle and several other important Uesugi strongholds and towns, forcing Kagetora to take refuge at Odawara under the protection of the Takeda retainer, Yamagata Masakage.

While he only had barely 20,000 men under his service, including the ronin from neighboring provinces that had joined him but without mentioning the drafted Ashigaru infantry of peasants; the war would nonetheless drag for several months for a number of reasons.

Firstly it was the matter of distance, as the Takeda were forced to march from Kyoto to Edo in order to engage the rebel forces. Secondly, it was the war in the west, still raging, that forced the Takeda to leave considerable forces defending Kyoto, Osaka and other western strongholds. Finally, the Takeda that arrived were only 25,000 exhausted and overstretched soldiers that considered the rebellion to be a simple walk in the park, a show of strength.

The first reverse came when Kagekatsu launched a surprise night raid upon the Takeda camp near Odawara, which forced Katsuyori’s army to retreat to the castle and delay the invasion of the Kanto for three weeks as Kagekatsu returned to prepare his forces at Edo.

Ergo, once the invasion began on late July of 1583, the enemy forces left vast areas of territory undefended.

The castles between Edo and Odawara were only defended by small garrisons, most of which surrendered by defecting to the Takeda side or after being cut off from supplies and water.

Edo castle, the Uesugi capital, was another story whatsoever. While Kagekatsu was not the ablest of commanders, he was a brave and determined leader, and when the tired Takeda army arrived at the walls of Edo to meet the fresh and prepared Uesugi force, the massacre was inevitable.

The first defense saw the Uesugi easily push the Takeda force northwards before falling back to their defensive positions.

What ensued was a bloody onslaught that lasted for another month.

By mid-August, the Takeda force was fully rested and a new offensive began against Edo. This time fate was not on the Uesugi side, as the experienced and battle hardened Takeda commanders smashed at the center of the enemy line with overwhelming force in a swift maneuver. The Takeda superiority in the matter of fire weapons, with the possession of 1,280 arquebusiers in comparison to Kagekatsu’s 230 was decisive in the outcome of the battle, although also it was the capabilities of the army commanders.

Following the second battle, Kagekatsu headed north with the remains of his army, some 5,000 men, while 8,000 remained defending the castle. The rest, some 7,000 men, had been either killed or had committed suicide in the face of defeat. This included most of Kagekatsu’s ablest and most loyal retainers.

Edo would fall a week later, once the supplies had been denied to the castle and the option to either sustain a bloody assault or surrender the fortress was given to the defendants.

Uesugi Kagekatsu was subsequently caught near the northern borders of the Kanto, about to enter the northern provinces of Dewa and Woshu, where he had hoped to live in exile and prepare for further war with the help of the northern daimyo.

The rebel daimyo’s end was nonetheless quite different. One final skirmish decimated his army, and as the mercenaries left him, he gathered with the loyal retainers he had left and committed suicide on September 14th of 1583.

Thus was the end of Uesugi Kagekatsu, heir to Uesugi Kenshin, Kanto Kanrei.
 

Iñaki

Bump Bump!

Suscribing also.:cool:

Sorry for not made comments but until the last weeks I was a lot of irregular in the board.:eek:

So please Maverick could you continue this awesome TL.:)
 
Herr Frage

Herr Frage

Ah the Takeda finally get their due. I look forward ro seeingb how this pans out as Japan becomes more divergent.

Please continue at your earliest convenience.
 

maverick

Banned
Well, since my writing depends on my time and on the response I get (feed my ego, people) I'm gonna continue this one this weekend...the next update is 50% finished anyways and the Sengoku period is nearly over...
 

maverick

Banned
As promised, an update...

Asuras

The Takeda army that returned to Kyoto in late 1583, upon clearing the last remnants of Uegugi Kagekatsu’s loyalists at the Kanto, spent much of the winter of 1583 and 1584 reorganizing and expanding its base.

Of the original 24 generals that Takeda Shingen had at its service during his life, from his rise at Kofu to his death at Kasugayama, only 10 remained. And of them, only 6 would take part in the final invasion of the Mori holdings in the west, many having retired to their lands in the west and replaced by younger and more impetuous successors, who shared Katsuyori’s ambitions and plans for Japan.

The army that was built at Kyoto from the ashes of the old one reached an impressive number of 58,000 men by the time the invasion of the west was launched, counting Samurai warriors, Ronin mercenaries, Ashigaru conscripts, cavalry, infantry and arquebusiers.

The Takeda Grand Army began its march westwards in the spring of 1584, just as the Mori continued their own preparations for the continuation of the war.

Just like in the previous year’s campaign, the Takeda army began by launching a swift invasion of the eastern Mori holdings, taking over the smaller castles and annihilating the small forces under the Mori vassals in their eastern border. Thus the path towards Hiroshima Castle, the Mori capital, was cleared. It was in this early part of the campaign that the castles of Takamatsu and Gassan-Toda were taken in the eastern limits of the Mori domain.

Takamatsu was more of a challenge that Hiroshima was in the first campaign, lasting for about 60 days of a prolonged siege in which only a small relief force arrived to provide assistance for the castle. Terumoto had miscalculated the size and force of the new Takeda army and the relief force was crushed after two days, after which the castle was forced to surrender after the ploys employed by Katsuyori to force his victory, from the cutting of the supply lines to the flooding of the castle grounds to turn it into a moss, a tactic which he employed by diverting a nearby river.

What followed were the sieges of Tottori castle, in the north of the Mori domains in the Tottori castle, and the siege of Miki Castle.

While Miki’s small garrison proved to be an easy nut to crack, Tottori presented a more difficult target, resisting for 200 days the besieging forces of the Takeda thanks to the reinforcements of the Kikkawa and Kobayakawa clans, as well as the resourcefulness of Kobakayawa.

There were nonetheless two main problems the Mori were forced to face: fwas the issue of the numerical superiority of the Grand Takeda army, which allowed them to overwhelm the fortress and cut its supply lines while a secondary force advanced on Hiroshima and threatened the fortress in a series of skirmishes. Secondly there was the inability to receive further reinforcements since the capital was directly menaced.

Starvation was what brought Tottori castle down. With the defending forces decimated and demoralized and the commanders committing seppuku as the possibility of surrender became inevitable, the main Mori stronghold in the north surrendered after 200 days.

Believing in the use of overwhelming force to route the enemy and isolate the castle more than in the need to instantly obliterate the enemy army, Katsuyori’s attack upon the fortress-town of Hiroshima began with a division of his force and by a surrounding move around the Mori armies around the town, this time numbering about 35,000 men, against the nearly 60,000 of Takeda Katsuyori.

The lonely death of Kobayakawa Takakage

Ever since the death of the great Mori Motonari, the reign of Daimyo Mori Terumoto depended upon the two great rivers, his uncles Kikkawa Motoharu and Kobayakawa Takakage, sons of Motonari who had been adopted into allied clans under their rule. The two rivers, both extremely intelligent and able commanders, had for the duration of the war led the Mori domain, but by 1585 the realm was exhausted, the nine provinces bled white and morale had vanished into thin air.

In charge of the defense of Hiroshima was Kobayakawa Takakage, the most intelligent of the two rivers and the most experienced. With the aim of holding the enemy at bay in the hope of receiving reinforcements and winning more time for the preparation of the defenses, the Mori army was prepared to face the Takeda on the open field in the bloody battles of the five villages.

The result was the routing of the enemy army after two days of bloody engagements around the town, after which they were forced to retreat to the west of the Otagawa and leave only 11,000 defenders behind the castle’s walls. The new camp was placed west of the river, leaving Takakage with a divided and beaten force.

It took nearly six weeks for Hiroshima castle, the main and newest stronghold of the great Mori domain to surrender to the great national army that Takeda Katsuyori had assembled throughout his vast domains. The water supplies had been cut off and while the fleet could provide some relief, the commanders of the garrison were confronted with the choice of either surrender or sustain a prolonged siege and then a brutal assault.

Attempts to break the Takeda lines and lift the siege took place throughout the spring of 1585, each as fruitless as the one before, the most important one taking place in late May of that year, with 10,000 men of the Mori clan charging across the river and driving the Takeda several miles eastwards before being stopped by the Takeda line of arquebusiers, over 2,000 at the point of the charge, and then repulsed by a counteroffensive led by Katsuyori and Nobufusa themselves. With over 3,000 left on the fields dead or wounded, the war was over.

Kobayakawa himself returned to the camp wounded and shocked, pale and with his spirit gone, according to the several accounts of the battle that survived the period.

The night of the battle, back at the Mori camp, the Mori general took his sword and committed suicide in the presence of his most loyal retainers. Thus was the end of Kobayakawa Takakage, Great River of the Mori clan.

His brother Kikkawa Motoharu would die two days later on the field, during a Takeda attempt to take the Mori camp.

The official surrender took place on June 20th of 1585 according to various sources, being followed by ceremonies of ritual suicide on the behalf of 15 Mori retainers in charge of the defense of the fortress, only three choosing to change sides and join the Takeda.


While Mori Terumoto found himself with a decimated domain on the losing end of a war with the Great Takeda army, the Mori would not be the last to suffer the strength of the National army, and even the Mori could find a chance to redeem themselves in the years that remained of the Sengoku period.
 
Herr Frage

Herr Frage

Nicely played. Now we are left to wondser if the new oppoertunity you speak of for the Mori Clan is another war against the Takeda or if they side with the Twakeda in future wars securing a place in the new order.

Having read a biography of the great Hideyoshi I learned about the Tiger of Kai and found him an admirable person. I am glad that the Takeda's seem likely to be the unifiers.

Refresh my memory, now that the Mori are out f the picture for at least five years who is the next target or threat to the Takeda ambitions?
 

maverick

Banned
oh, no! Update time!

Tosa

Chosokabe Motochika had been the daimyo of Tosa for only a few years when the second anti-Takeda coalition was created and the last major war of the Sengoku period started. Having been born to the Chosokabe clan, vassals of the Ichijo clan of Tosa, he led the rebellion that ousted the last of the Ichijo and unified the province of Tosa from his base at the Koichi plain by 1574, and by 1582 he had unified the entire island of Shikoku.

1582 was also the year in which the coalition of Buzen, Satsuma and Tosa under the Mori, the Shimazu and Chosokabe Motochika himself declared war upon the Takeda of Kai and their eastern allies.

But while the war was quick to reach and fall upon the Mori as a rain of fire from above, resulting in the destruction of its armies, the invasion of its domains and the death of its most loyal and capable retainers, for Chosokabe Motochika the war had been simply limited to his small island of Shikoku, where he was able to quickly dispose of his enemies and unify the island in a series of undemanding campaigns against the forces of Kono Michinao of Iyo province, who later fled to a safe haven in Otomo Sorin’s domains.

The fall of the Mori in 1585 nevertheless meant an end to the second anti-takeda coalition, as the most powerful partner in the alliance had been defeated, and an end to Chosokae Motochika’s comfortable way of life.

In late 1585 preparations for the invasion of Shikoku were being made, mainly at the ports of Hiroshima and Osaka, where the reassembled Mori armies were forming as part of the treaty between Terumoto and Katsuyori. The daimyo of Buzen would lead the invasion of Shikoku and Tosa himself, as part of the spearhead offensive made by his own 20,000 men contingent.

The actual invasion came on February of 1586, when the new Mori army invaded the island, only finding token resistance. The state of the Chosokabe army was deplorable; 10,000 poorly armed men with low morale. The state of the outdated equipment and the lack of cohesion found in the enemy army surprised the Mori invaders, to the point in which further reinforcements were later cancelled due to the need to save men from the upcoming campaign in Kyushu.

Motochika was found to be incredibly eager to negotiate with Terumoto and Katsuyori when they approached his castle, and the conditions were found to be most generous and acceptable; the defeated daimyo would be allowed to keep his province of Tosa as well as his head, an offer Motochika was not inclined to refuse.

Six weeks after the invasion, the provinces of Shikoku had been pacified and a fleet was being readied for the reinforcement of Otomo Sorin’s positions in northern Kyushu, where the Christian daimyo of Bungo had held for nearly three years with incredible tenacity.


Bungo and Satsuma

In the island of Kyushu, the second in the Empire of the Sun in importance, size and population, existed two rival realms in the final years of the Sengoku period.

To the south laid the province of Satsuma, a domain governed by the Shimazu under warlord Yoshihisa from his capital of Kagoshima; and in the north there was the realm of Bungo, under the rule of daimyo Otomo Sorin, who by 1582 By this point, Sôrin could claim control of Bungo, most of Buzen, Chikuzen, Chikugo, and considerable influence over Higo and Hizen. Shimazu Yoshihisa on the other hand only controlled his rich province of Satsuma, but by alliance the southern clans, enemies and rivals of the Otomo, fought under the banner of Yoshihisa.

Otomo Sorin, known in western sources as Francisco Otomo, following the expansion of his realm in the 1550s and 1560s, took interest in religious affairs when in the decade of the 1570s he became involved in the activity of the Jesuit missionaries within his realm despite the resistance of several retainers and his own wife. The issue of Christianity as well as the rivalry with the Shimazu, which had become a force to be reckoned with in those years, plunged the Christian daimyo and his realm into a crisis and an eventual war against the Shimazu as part of the second Anti-Takeda coalition.

Even before the Mori, the Shimazu and the Chosokabe had allied against the Takeda of Kai, Otomo Sorin had been approached, first by Shingen and then by Katsuyori, with the prospect of an alliance to keep the Mori in check, a proposition that the lord of Bungo was quick to accept.

Limited operations had been undertaken in the island of Kyushu in the late 1570s, the Shimazu invasion of Hyuga and occupation of Sadowara had let to the fleeing of the Ito lord of Hyuga, who sought refugee in the Otomo lands; Then followed a limited war that was interrupted when news of a gathering of Mori troops near Buzen and the Otomo took defensive positions. A general war was averted by the second entrance of the Takeda army in Kyoto, this time under Katsuyori, a threat too great for the Mori at the time.

War would nonetheless come three years later, and this time Kyushu was not spared.

The Satsuma had consolidated their gains in Hyuga province, which prompted the impetuous Otomo Yoshimune (Constantinho) and his retainers to launch a general invasion of southern Kyushu in 1581, with as many as 40,000 men under his command. The father followed the son, upon whom the nominal rule of the realm had been delegated, and the clan marched as a family.

The invasion, followed by a vicious campaign of destruction of Buddhist and Shinto Shrines and Icons through Hyuga, caused discontent amongst the Otomo ranks and the local population, a fact that did not stop the father and son team from crossing the Omura river and besieging the castle of Taka-Jo, under the command of Shimazu Yoshihise’s brother, Iehisa. The siege was short as the numerically superior Otomo army allowed them to overwhelm the fortress after thirteen days, a period short enough to be considered a victory but too slow for the Otomo, who wished to crush the Shimazu and create their Christian realm of Kyushu as rapidly as possible.

This rush and the overconfidence of the Otomo retainers and lords would nonetheless result in the disaster of Mimigawa.


Mimigawa

On September of 1582 50,000 men of the Otomo clans stood near the Mimigawa river after their success at Taka-Jo castle and a series of maneuvers by which the Shimazu had driven north and eluded the Otomo until that day. Yoshihisa only had 30,000 men under his command.

Tawara Chikataka, relative and retainer of the Otomo, was as impetuous and impatient as his masters, and had the Otomo army under his command at Mimigawa, while the Shimazu army was led by Yoshihisa and his brother Yoshihiro, both very capable and accomplished tacticians.

Adopting a defensive posture, the outnumbered Shimazu army was inviting an attack. Tawara saw this as a sign of weakness and considering the battle to have been won already, led a charge with the entire Otomo army upon the Shimazu troops at the Taka area. The sheer force of the attack tore apart the center of the Shimazu line and several generals fell along with thousands of men; it seemed to spell the ruin of the Shimazu clan. But the catastrophe did not fall upon Yoshihisa.

The Shimazu daimyo was not the kind of man to flinch or panic and refused to take his banner one inch back and stood firm, rallying his faltering men and proving the kind of general he was.

Yoshihisa ordered the troops at his flanks to charge at the Otomo flanks in a pincer movement. The Ôtomo levies panicked and suddenly the battle had developed into a rout, with the Shimazu mercilessly riding won their defeated enemy as they fled north. Hundreds if not thousands were drowned attempting to cross the Mimigawa.

Over 20,000 men of the Otomo camp lay dead at the battlefield, most along the Mimigawa, after the battle, including Tawara Chikataka and several other retainers.

As the Otomo flee northwards, back to the safety of their domain, Shimazu Yoshihisa marches through Hyuga and central Kyushu rallying support for his campaign against the Otomo as his popularity and reputation soars.

By 1583, he is able to launch an invasion of the Otomo domain proper.

................................

Note: the ITTL battle of Mimigawa is based on the IOTL battle of Mimigawa, but ITTL is 1582 rather than 1578...
 

Iñaki

Nice update, no doubt you are the most prolific author of all the board:cool:

Originally posted by maverick
The actual invasion came on February of 1586, when the new Mori army invaded the island, only finding token resistance. The state of the Chosokabe army was deplorable; 10,000 poorly armed men with low morale. The state of the outdated equipment and the lack of cohesion found in the enemy army surprised the Mori invaders, to the point in which further reinforcements were later cancelled due to the need to save men from the upcoming campaign in Kyushu.
Click to expand...

The state of Chosokabe army was so bad in OTL? a paper tiger so.
 
Herr Frage

Herr Frage

Oh dear, I hope Japan does not still go down the road of pogroms against the Christians. I know a christian Japan under these circumstances is a no go, but just a community that is not actively persecuted would be nice.
 
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