The Spirit Fields: A Chokosabe Campaign Story/AAR
This is a story driven After Action Report of my Chokosabe Campaign, co-posted along side a copy to be added to the TreasAARy, our special home for after action reports and campaign stories. After Action Reports are story and gameplay driven narratives where you recount the things you saw happen in your campaigns and battles. They are often used as gameplay guides and turorials to show new players the finer points of strategy, and the why of certain gameplay choices.
This will be a story-driven format. Attempting to blend the gameplay of Shogun 2 with a rather basic narrative.
If you'd like to read more stuff like this, please don't hesitate to check out the TreasAARRy at this link: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forum...?296-TreasAARy
This thread will be updated on a semi-regular basis as I have time and if there's enough interest.
Sorry about the map. When i decided to do this i realized I didn't have saved maps of the intervals I wanted to write about, so i had to retouch by hand. It demonstrates the extent of the powers in my game well. The Hattori are highlighted here in red to make them standout.
Enough of that: Hope you enjoy.
The Spirit Fields
A Chokosabe After Action Report
Japan
1570
After decades of warfare in the Japanese Islands, one man has risen above his peers. He has overcome the terrible divide plaguing his nation and established his family at the head of the Shogunate. With the Emperor's blessing and support, all warfare has ceased and it is a time of peace. A time for an exhausted nation to settle down and once more begin to live their lives at ease. That man is.. is Oda Nobuhide. Together with his ally, an aging Uesugi Kenshin, he consolidates his power in Kyoto, he declares his alliance to be the de facto seat of power in the islands.
But the land is hardly united.
Though much of Honshu falls beneath the command of the Oda alliance, another power has risen in the western half of Japan. Lead by the Chokosabe clan, Shikoku and Kyushu have flourished in peace since being united in 1565. The Chokosabe daimyo, Motochika, is celebrated throughout Japan as a true hero. The man who drove foreign influence from the shores of Kyushu, and put an end once and for all to the divide amongst the people's faith. You would need to be blind to have ignored his rise to power, and Nobuhide was wary.
In 1568 the two warlords announced a grand alliance. Between the powerful trio of Kenshin, Nobuhide and Motochika, Japan was indeed united, save for the independent territories in Eastern Honshu. Though they appear to be friends and make nice for public appearances, especially those before the Emperor, it is no secret Motochika and Nobuhide despise one another. It is rumored the attempt upon Motochika's life, perpetuated by a nameless assassin in 1569, was the work of the Shogun himself.
Regardless of their private feelings, neither man truly wished to wage full scale war upon the other. They were complete equals in power, if not in name or position, and any armed conflict would bring about the deaths of thousands... and so the realm sat, perched precariously upon a divide between east and west.
In the summer of 1570 Motochika launched an impressive three-pronged assault into the Hattori lands in western Honshu. Long since raiding trade routes to fund their insurgancy against the Shogunate, Motochika's goal was to pin down and eradicate the troublesome clan once and for all. His assault was made, however, without the approval of Nobuhide. As tales of the incredibly rough fighting in the Hattori territories made their way east, the Shogunate found his own accomplishments increasingly overshadowed by that of the Chokosabe Alliance.
By the time of his final victory in late December of 1570, Motochika had eradicated the hattori in western Honshu. But there came a request. Nobuhide demanded the won territories be handed over to the Shogunate, as a show of loyalty, and of respect. Motochika flatly refused. It would dishonor those who had died, he argued, but the Shogun refused compromise, as did Motochika.
In January of 1571 it came to war.
And so it was that the realm was divided between east and west. On one side: The western forces of the Chokosabe and their vassals, the Ouchi. On the other, the eastern armies of the Oda Shogunate and their vassals, the Yamana, as well as their stanch allies the Uesugi.
Despite a state of war persisting for nearly four years, no major battles took place in the period of 1571 to 1574. The engagements between the two sides were limited to minor skirmishes, cavalry raids, and quick naval strikes on trade. All of that would chang at Kurayoshi in 1575.
The Battle of Kurayoshi
Year: 1575
Belligerents: Clan Chokosabe v Oda Shogunate
Commanders: Chokosabe Motochika | Takigawa Tokinari
Gathering his forces in the western tip of Honshu, Motochika launched a quick strike into Hoki province in April of 1575. His sweep easily knocked away the local defenders, securing the province with little bloodshed. It proved to be an embarrassing loss for the Shogunate, the first true shots of the war fired, and the man from the west had beaten the legitimate government clean. Nobuhide himself had been putting down a rebellion near Kii province when the word reached him. Furious, he ordered Takigawa Tokinari from Osaka to march north and drive the Chokosabe out.
It wasn't until the following autumn that Tokinari could muster a march from Osaka castle. Many of the best troops in service to the Shogunate had been sent south to aid Nobuhide in putting down the Kii rebellions. More still had been sent to the east to fight the coalition of independent cities that had maintained their freedom around Dewa. With winter fast approaching and little choice other than to obey his directives, he marched, and arrived in Hoki during late September. Motochika had established a forward base just outside the town of Kurayoshi. Tokanari marched upon his position, only to find the Chokosabe Daimyo well dug in on a hill...
Supported on the right with archers, a veteran core of samurai at his center, and a fanatical group of religious monks at his left, Chokosabe was well prepared for an attack. For three days the two sides stood at odds. Chokosabe patiently waiting upon his favorable terrain, blocking the way forward, while Tokinari paced nervous in encampment. Should he attack? Should he wait? On September 28 he made his choice.
He would attack. The Oda cavalry pressed forward at the spearhead of a great host of samurai and ashigaru, well motivated and seasoned. They were the army of the Shogunate, no force had withstood their attack since Nobuhide had claimed power. The right was with them, surely, they would win... surely they marched to victory.
Motochika sent forward his cavalry and the two forces clashed at the base of the hill. Oda and Chokosabe horsemen met in a vicious fight as the Oda army moved into position. But Motochika waited, his archers on the ridge laying down a hail of arrows, but his men on the hill stood their ground. They would not move.
Chokosabe pulled his cavalry core back, just as the Oda infantry reached the bottem of the ridge. His archers laid continued to fire as his men retreated behind the mainline. The Oda's push was stronger than expected and his cavalry reserves paid for it in blood. The initial skirmish was over, a point to the Shogunate, and now the real game was about to begin. With a mighty horn came the signal to charge, and the two forces clashed against one another. A terrible sound as steel met flesh, Oda's war on the Chokosabe begun in earnest.
From the position on the hill, one could see the entire battle line. The sounds of battle, of steel, of screams, it all meshed into one as the archers continued to fire.
But slowly... the Oda push was stopped in its tracks, it ground to a halt.. and then, the Chokosabe pushed back. Step by bloody step they forced the army of the Shogunate backwards down the hill until they were tripping over the bodies of the horsemen they'd passed on the way up.
The Oda right flank was hit the hardest, subject to a devastating charge from the Chokosabe Warrior Monks. The furious attack ripped the samurai who had been entrusted to that flank apart, collapsing the line. Motochika seized upon the opportunity, and led his cavalry in a wide sweep around the lines. His charge against the Oda support troops and second way cut the hart from the Shogun's powerful army. Without support the men on the hill were ground into submission. Those who did not flee were cut down where they stood. The battle had been ended and Chokosabe Motochika surveyed the field. He had defied the Shogun, and had won.
But he and his men had not escaped without a scratch. Many brave men of the Chokosabe had been felled alongside those of the Oda. Laying silent in death they were equals, no longer men of the Chokosabe, or men of the Shogunate, simply men. Upon seeing the carnage Motochika is said to have ordered those of both sides be given proper rites in death.
As for Takigawa Tokinari, commander of the failed assault on Kurayoshi, his body was never found. It is unknown whether he survived the battle.
The battle would see the complete annihilation of the Oda Shogunate's western army and pave the way for an attack to the south. Although having suffered so many losses, Motochika would need to wait in order to press his advantage. He wintered in Hoki, rebuilding his strength for the coming storm. Kurayoshi was the start of the greatest conflict in Japanese history, one that would decide the Sengoku era once and for all and bring about an end to the power of the samurai.
In the follwing year, 1576.. that war was far from over...
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