Alrighty so, as I write this I'm 32 seasons (8 years) away from ending my second campaign on Hard.

This time I'm using the Date. The last one, I played as Shimazu.
At the moment I control 12 provinces, including all my victory condition ones except for Kyoto.
I do not foresee winning this campaign. My longtime ally, Uesugi, currently also holds 12 provinces, is listed as having "terrifying" strength (while I'm just 'strong'), and covers the entire quarter of the island from coast to coast, cutting me off from Kyoto. I have four provinces right above Kyoto that are my only holdout west of Uesugi lands, and that's where most if not all of my marshalling strength is forced to come from (although I DO have an army coming from Uzen on a fleet to help with a pincer move.)
Uesugi and I are locked in a bloody war against the Hattori, and have both taken quite a beating. Kenshin is dead, as Terumune. We're both running out of heirs, far as I can tell (from ninja intel) and our armies have both taken quite the beating(s). As of last turn, before I got off, Uesugi had one fairly healthy full stack of 10 yari ashigaru, 4 light cavalry, and 5 katana samurai, as well as a smaller stack of heavily-damaged units (3 yari samurai, 2 bow samurai, 1 naginata cavalry). I JUST won a heroic victory against a massive Hattori force (my one full stack led by my heir against 3 full Hattori stacks). While I only lost 2 units, the others are damaged and I'm afraid Hattori will attack me again with their FOURTH full stack as soon as I press the "next turn" button.
While I believe we just managed to break the power of the Hattori, with Uesugi so gosh-darn greedy for land I'm assuming I won't get 11 provinces by the time I get to Kyoto.
Point is, I'm gonna have to play perfectly, AND not have any more friggin Ikko Ikki revolts in Echizen in order to win. And then it's still a question of whether I'll have the military strength to take Kyoto.

Almost this exact same thing happened to me last game. Different allies and enemies and all, but as Shimazu I had to forfeit. I finally made it to Kyoto with 10 turns left, and missing 7 provinces. I had three full stacks and had to gamble: it was take Kyoto and POSSIBLE expand elsewhere, or lose, as my strength would go down with other provinces I conquered.
I attacked, and was wiped-out. Reloaded, tried agian, same thing. Reloaded, did auto-resolve, same thing.

Fact is I just take too long getting to Kyoto, at least as Shimazu or Date. Those extra 5 years really don't help me at all lol.
What am I doing wrong? Why am I so slow? I don't get it. I mean, I NEVER pass a single season without attacking someone or marshalling a decent army/re-enforcements. So I mean, I'm not being passive by any means. I've always got my ninja out in the field, etc etc...

Any suggestions or help on speeding-up my game would be much appreciated!