candidgamera
06-10-2001, 03:45
As A Daimyo Meets His End
http://www.richards4.fsnet.co.uk/daimyo.jpg
A late summer day began cool and damp as the Daimyo, Hojo Ujiyasu, knew he would soon see his ancestors. Lord Katagiri Motonaga's samurai steadily climbed the last of the grassy slope, the nearest shifting and lowering their Yari to make final thrusts. He did not need to look, but could hear the rustle and equipment clatter of Lord Saigo Norihisa's Samurai, approaching from his flank and rear as well.
Across the valley, among the trees, lay the better part of Ujiyasu’s army. The forest had proven no bulwark against the steady advance of the well-balanced Imagawa force. Losing the patch of forest, Ujiyasu’s army had fled the field, and only his Hatamoto had stood its ground: it lay where it had fallen, tracing a path to his current position.
On the opposite slope, the young heir, Tokugawa Ieyasu mounted amongst his yari cavalry watched this final, necessary act that would complete the fall of House Hojo as contender for the Shogunate. A House already in crisis, its armies demoralized, and with no grown heirs. Open mutiny in the ranks had put an end to ceaseless, futile assaults against Yamashiro several years prior, followed by a stalemate that would now end. Ieyasu’s army, massed to his sides, and in the valley below him. After a morning’s march to contact and sharp fighting amongst the trees, it rested and watched now also, save the troops of the two lords closing in. Banners and sashimono fluttered like a field of light blue blossoms in a fresh breeze that was driving off the last hints of mist and thin smoke from recent arquebusier fire.
It was a little late for Ujiyasu to ponder his choice of Kii, in its forward location, as his headquarters, especially after his father Ujitsana, and brother Ujimasa had fallen in just preceeding years. Or: the deficit spending that permitted raising a large army, but an army of largely Ashigaru. An army that had died as fast as it was raised, or that had largely run away, attempting to take the heights in Yamashiro, all at the hands of the great Koriki Kiyonaga’s army. The Hojo Grand Army in Omi had proven impotent, as for some strange reason it could only attack one unit at a time, and then when reinforced, had chosen the same disastrous point to enter battle time after time. In later years scholars would never cease to wonder why this great force had not divided and moved on the weaker lands of the Mori to the north of Yamashiro, emperor’s palace or no. What divine powers were these that so twisted a family destiny to grant along with such power, such limitations? Ujiyasu wondered, and prepared himself for the next life.
http://www.richards4.fsnet.co.uk/daimyo.jpg
A late summer day began cool and damp as the Daimyo, Hojo Ujiyasu, knew he would soon see his ancestors. Lord Katagiri Motonaga's samurai steadily climbed the last of the grassy slope, the nearest shifting and lowering their Yari to make final thrusts. He did not need to look, but could hear the rustle and equipment clatter of Lord Saigo Norihisa's Samurai, approaching from his flank and rear as well.
Across the valley, among the trees, lay the better part of Ujiyasu’s army. The forest had proven no bulwark against the steady advance of the well-balanced Imagawa force. Losing the patch of forest, Ujiyasu’s army had fled the field, and only his Hatamoto had stood its ground: it lay where it had fallen, tracing a path to his current position.
On the opposite slope, the young heir, Tokugawa Ieyasu mounted amongst his yari cavalry watched this final, necessary act that would complete the fall of House Hojo as contender for the Shogunate. A House already in crisis, its armies demoralized, and with no grown heirs. Open mutiny in the ranks had put an end to ceaseless, futile assaults against Yamashiro several years prior, followed by a stalemate that would now end. Ieyasu’s army, massed to his sides, and in the valley below him. After a morning’s march to contact and sharp fighting amongst the trees, it rested and watched now also, save the troops of the two lords closing in. Banners and sashimono fluttered like a field of light blue blossoms in a fresh breeze that was driving off the last hints of mist and thin smoke from recent arquebusier fire.
It was a little late for Ujiyasu to ponder his choice of Kii, in its forward location, as his headquarters, especially after his father Ujitsana, and brother Ujimasa had fallen in just preceeding years. Or: the deficit spending that permitted raising a large army, but an army of largely Ashigaru. An army that had died as fast as it was raised, or that had largely run away, attempting to take the heights in Yamashiro, all at the hands of the great Koriki Kiyonaga’s army. The Hojo Grand Army in Omi had proven impotent, as for some strange reason it could only attack one unit at a time, and then when reinforced, had chosen the same disastrous point to enter battle time after time. In later years scholars would never cease to wonder why this great force had not divided and moved on the weaker lands of the Mori to the north of Yamashiro, emperor’s palace or no. What divine powers were these that so twisted a family destiny to grant along with such power, such limitations? Ujiyasu wondered, and prepared himself for the next life.