Discharge the Honourable: Chosokabe (Legendary, Domination)

[Maltz]

Since the rebel has a large number of Cavalry but we have limited Yari units, our ramen general camped all the way back to the corner of the battefield, with spear walls completely seal off any possibility of flanking.



So what does the rebel cavalry do? They charged into the spear wall!

[Maltz]

There was a hill obstacle before our line, so the rebel infantry had to readjust their group formation when passing by it.



This delay not only resulted in the total loss of the rebel's light cavalry, but also funnelled most their infantry into the middle, where our always-massive Bow Ashigaru horde had plenty of time showering arrows on them one by one.

[Maltz]

We only lost 75 men. This is way better than storming the castle in the first place.



However, two dying units of Light Cavalry made it back to the castle. So we will have to fight them again next spring. In the meantime, we will suffer from winter attrition. This is not a problem at all - the soldiers will have several years of rest after this. The countdown to the pre-Realm Divide Pause has started!

This concludes chapter 14 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 15. Long road to prosperity

Welcome back, great daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana. Yes, I am back to narrate our clan's story.



My brother Motochika has become an official adult at a young age of 15, in the Nanban year of 1554. As the heir of our clan, Motochika must receive rigorous military training and accumulate his reputation (honor) as a good daimyo. He has boarded a ship in the Nanban port in Bungo.

We Chosokabe are undoubtedly now the richest clan in Japan, with a financial rating of "Spectacular" in the current issue of Daimyo magazine. We sell products to almost every corner of Japan. With the completion of Terrace Framing upgrade soon in all 21 provinces, we now generate an enormous amount of food surplus.
We still wish to further develop our economy so eventually we will be able to support our armies even without a healthy trading income. Within 3 years, we will be able to start improving our agriculture to its ultimate form - Land Consolidation. This will push our food surplus to about 45. We will have very prosperous towns in all provinces.

Only after we accumulate a tremendous amount of wealth and advanced military power will we take on the rest of Japan.

[Maltz]

In the meantime, we will simply maintain as many trade partners as we can. The best way to business is to be friendly to everyone. So we will try to avoid any kind of alliance, so we do not have to pick sides. No matter who is at war with whom, they buy Chosokabe products.



Interestingly, weaker clans such as Hatakeyama are now especially eager to pay to trade with us. They would pay so much. They probably think that the trading relationship will eventually lead to our "Terrifying" army's protection. But they never explicitedly ask for it. It is to our best interest that they are kept alive, as each trading partner brings in at least 1000 koku per season.

[Maltz]

Here, our financial commissioner takes over one additional province from rebels.



But he has to stop now. Our fame is now dangerously high. We can at most take just two more provinces. We have to pick them wisely. The next province on the upper route of Chugoku has nothing special.

[Maltz]

Finally, our trade fleet has reached the trade node in the northeast. Irons are a must for military. So far we have been buying Iron from other clans. Since whoever supplies us iron might not be our friend after Realm Divide, taking this trade node also help ourselves.



It is a good time to spend some time to discuss diplomacy for the upcoming Realm Divide.

Thoughts #23. Realm Divide Diplomacy

Realm Divide produces an one-time initial penalty at -50 or less, plus a gradually increasing penalty of diplomatic relationship up to -200. It is reasonable to assume that eventually even the best ally will betray us, but if we keep them friendly for long enough so that we can eliminate other hostile clans before they turn hostile, our diplomacy is already successful.

In order to make one clan to lilke us as much as they can, here are the factors to consider:

Military Alliance. Initially +100 relationship, but the effect wears off over time. So it is better to form the alliance at the last moment before the Realm Divide for the best result. While making an alliance, we can bundle it up with sending a Hostage just like we did with Ouchi. This powerful bargaining chip could create a very desired situation that allows us to ask the new ally to break their alliance with another clan, who is about to declare war on us due to Realm Divide.

We are in no hurry to find an ally. Our current favorite choice is Hojo, as they are the farthest from us, so there is little chance that they even want to betray us. However, this does not mean that we will not send agents to slow down their expansion. If we are so good that we can destroy them just by the works of agents, we do not even have to ally with them.

Marriage. Initially +100 relationship, but the effect wears off. While I am not going to re-marry into another clan, we might be able to find wives for my younger brothers from other clans. While we also want to delay the marriage to the last moment, we also want to get the girls before they are married to someone else.

The drawback of marriage is that we will be quite disliked by the clan's enemies. So it is probably a good idea to avoid marriage with an unpopular clan.

Trade. Improves realtionship +1 per season, starting from +15 and goes up to +60. Given that we have just relocated and established trade realtionship with other clans for a few years, we need to wait quite a bit longer for the friendship to develop. It is resonable that we trigger Realm Divide about 10 years (40 season) later.

Territorial Expansion. Each province acquired from another clan gives a penalty, which improves by +1 per season. Currently, we have a -28 modifier on this one. After seven years, all clans will forget about what ever happened to our bloody wars. However, once the Realm Divide triggers, if we take lands from another clan, we will again fill up this mind of hatred quickly. So it is still a good idea to use agents to create rebeled provinces as we move forward.

Monetary Gift. Everybody likes more money, even though they already have plenty. This may be the powerful push we need to improve the relationship of a certain clan to delay their war on us. It is more efficient to give an one-time large gift than many small gifts.

[Maltz]

Currently, we make about 15000 from trades - 13000 from the actual trade, 2000 from unsold resources. This trade income will stay more of less the same if we maintain the same number of trade partners. However, if we start losing trade partners, we will lose trade income.



It is reasonable to assume that after Realm Divide, we will lose a lot of trade partners as they declare war on us. So at that time we better rely almost solely on non-trade income - tax income.

[Maltz]

Let's draw a graph to explain it better.



Currently, our trade income is almost twice as much as our tax income from farming, towns, commerce (Markets, Sake Den, etc.), and mining. However, since we will have a lot of food surplus, we will have rapidly growing towns. Eventually tax income will surpass trade income even at its full capacity.

Thoughts #24. Realm Divide Economy

Most of our post-Realm Divide economy will be supported by tax revenue. But since trade income is still so lucrative, it might be worthwhile to keep a few trading partners, if we can turn a profit from it. If we think about the bright side, we would be supporting an additional ally through trade revenue with this clan. We won't get any extra money, but we get one less enemy.

A very reliable and inexpensive way to generate trade partners after Realm divide is to make vassals of formally destroyed clans. When we conquer a province, we sometimes have the option to revive a fallen clan which used to based in that province. Such clan will immediately become our vassal. If a clan is revived after the realm divide takes place, they will not be affected by the diplomatic penalty. We will be able to enjoy friendship with this clan and trade with it continuously.

Now since there are two Realm Divide triggers - one for having more than about 22 provinces (Domination campaign) and one for taking Kyoto, it would be a good idea to make both happen as quickly as possible, so we can start making vassals/trade partners all over Japan. Our current plan is to coincide the clan fame Ream Divide with our march toward Kyoto.

[Maltz]

Actually, trade income is not always stable. The fluctuation is not that big, but we can always expect one or more trade routes blocked or raided by our trade partners' enemies.

In addition, the Wako pirates always love to raid our trade routes or blockade our ports. Luckily, even one Bow Kabuya can defend a key passage, and keep a lot of ports safe.



In this case, we can effectly stop the Wako pirates from going north to threaten our trade routes base in Bungo, Buzen, etc. The Wako pirates also can't go west, as our full-stack main fleet is there. So it had no other choice but to go east, and eventually destroyed by other clans's navy.