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Moriyake's Ambition - Sengoku Jidai

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Their time is past, and a decade of peace is downright excessive.

Fight fight fight.
 
Ahura Mazda said:
A supermoderator outside of the OT? :eek:
Click to expand...

It's an Omen! The end times are coming!
Nice expansion and, as I already (or should have) said, I love your writing style! It makes it very pleasureble to see these 'underdogs' get a share of the imperial pie.
 
Enewald - All we need is a little luck ;)

Stonewall - Don't re-lurk! Stick around! Thanks for reading and saying hi!

RGB - I agree!

PhilleP & Ahura Mazda :eek: Thanks for reading guys!

mayorqw - Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy it :)

So, hopefully I'll come up with a celebratory 1500 gameplay update sometime today on how we're doing, and then it's back onto the story!
 
SUPER HAPPY GAMEPLAY 1500 CELEBRATION OF MORIYAKE GAMEPLAY

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​


So hello! First, let's take a look at the world map; things seem to be going swimmingly. One thing I am particularly happy about is the survival of the Yorkist dynasty in England, Edward IV continues to reign, and his 3rd son Edward (the other ones must have died) is next in line for the throne! France is annexing it's vassals very slowly, but in general Western Europe seems to be on solid ground. The Kalmar Union continues, Castille has taken over Aragon, but not kicked the Moors out of Spain yet, and is thus lagging behind a bit. Russia has formed, and spends most of it's time fighting against the Ottomans over the Ukraine, I believe the OE had inherited Crimea, and most of their efforts have been concentrated in Russia rather than Europe or the Middle East. Consequently Ak Koyunlu have ballooned.

Colonisation is going pretty slowly, only Castille has really made it to the Americas, and I'm patiently waiting on the Portos to show up in Japan..

I'm very happy that Ming is being relatively contained, they spend much of their time fighting the Mongols and the Manchu to the north, as does Korea. Unfortunately, the Ming alliance with Korea precludes any impromptu invasion of the peninsula :(


Well, let's take a closer look at the Moriyake holdings.

akis.png

Aki is our capital province, and makes good money in tax and has good manpower, not a great trade good though, it's a good solid base province, and at this point, only slightly divided, being the closest to completely unified as we can get, one more campaign and we lose all maluses on tax and order!

nagatod.png

Nagato is probably the jewel in our crown at the moment, a high production and nice trade goods. It is however also slightly divided and suffering from Piracy at the moment, which I cannot really afford to combat. It is however, more vulnerable to attack. It is connected to two provinces in Kyushu, and I have no fleet to block the strait. Further to this, it only has a 1000 man garrison. Thanks to this, almost every possible war involves me having to pull off a Schlieffien plan every time to neutralise Kyushu before attacking eastwards.

iwami.png

Iwami is pretty unremarkable, and also suffers from piracy, which I cannot afford to combat. Sometimes MMU runs you hard on the money. That said, every extra province is cash and manpower, so it all adds up

Which concludes the tour of our world spanning empire.

court1500.png

This is all pretty self explanatory, the succession is still in hand, though Takeyoshi is 32 and I'm getting a bit worried that he'll pop his clogs. And I'm really unhappy that HT3 doesn't seem to store up heirs in case of an emergency. My advisors are gone, and there are none worth paying for so far, which isn't great.

econ1500.png

The economy is ok, I wouldn't mind having more money, I get about 15g at the end of every year so the treasury is climbing gradually. Tech is spread very un-evenly, and to be honest, I've always been pretty bad at tech stuff.

gov1500.png

Unfortunately, spy actions are so expensively out of my league that the Espionage NIs aren't really paying their way. The military ones are, and I always make sure to take Military Drill, and I expect that the Bureaucracy is helping the state chug along. I am gradually centralising, but I'm loath to change anything else at the moment, usually I'd be more Quality than Quantity, but the Arms race against the Toki mean that I'm really trying to push my army size to the limits, although I could probably stand to move the Land slider, since I have literally no ships to speak of.

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Hopefully this map is pretty self-explanatory. I have RM's set up with the Akamatu and Hosokawa, and I'm going to be claiming their thrones, with a little luck, those countries should be put into PUs and gradually inherited. I still have a core on Awa, which once I have subjugated the area, I'll be hopping across the sea to take. However, the major problem there is that the Miyoshi can simply block the strait, hopefully, with the Akamatsu and Hosokawa as Junior partners, I can use their fleets to take down the Miyoshi. With those provinces taken, I will be a serious threat to the Shogunate and can take it down.

Feel free to question me on anything, and I hope this has been mildly informative!

Next update - Back to our regular viewing!
 
I hate the lack of heirs too... When playing a bit country, such as Ming, historically the Imperial clan was huge, there always was some heir. But in HTTT, everyone lacks heirs!
 
No early conquests overseas then. Damn diplomacy.
 
Enewald - It is incredibly annoying, the Japanese clans should have the same thing too, I mean what with all the concubines and everything!

mayorqw - Yeah things are going pretty well, even though we couldn't close the deal in the Iwami war, we will be back!

tuore - They are, and lucky that they are allied, since I'd probably grab Ryukyu, well if I had the ships :(

RGB - Yes! I know, I'd love to do a little Korea invading, and I reckon I could probably do pretty well, if I had the fleet, which I really should get round to building..

So, I'm going off to Crete tomorrow for a week, for some sun etc with the girlfriend, so I may have an update for you sometime today/tomorrow, if not, I'll be some time!
 
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Part VI

Takehiko's Ambition 1500 - 1504​

The peace however had not been kind to the Moriyake clan. It's position among the powerful clans of Japan had been built through an aggressive and often opportunistic military policy. Rather than giving the clan time to breath, the decade of peace had instead weakened the clan and caused internal rivalries to spring up amongst retainers of the clan. With the advisors and old Generals of the clan now dead or relegated to the monastic life, Takehiko relied increasingly upon the bureaucratic system that he had originally created. While he took to the field to pacify the Iwami region, the clans affairs were run by a highly efficient system which had been enlarged and emboldened over the past decade. With little else to spend on, the income from the many fiefdoms controlled by the Moriyake were either assigned to supplies, or increasingly began to line the pockets of the bureaucracy. Excessive taxes were hurting the populace, and the bad working conditions and rigid caste structure had led to a great drop in agricultural productivity over the opening years of the 16th century.

The Moriyake were in simple terms stagnating, and not just economically. The Toki Shogunate had run a concerted campaign of isolating the Moriyake clan, and it had worked, the Otomo clan in 1501 pleaded their inability to oppose the Shogunate in any form and formally broke the alliance between the two clans, leaving the Moriyake once more without allies.

In late May of 1501, Takehiko returned from campaign in Iwami. The campaign itself had been unremarkable, there had been only one genuine battle, that had been easily won, and few sieges. The sight of the Moriyake army had been enough to persuade the Samurai in the region to submit themselves to Takehiko. But out on campaign, Takehiko had time to ponder his situation and that of the clan, it had readily become apparent that on campaign he had a great deal more freedom than when he resided at Koriyama Castle. The reality was that for the most part, the bureaucrats were running the clan.

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The power of the bureaucracy had grown immensely as Takehiko's circle of advisors withered.​

When he returned, Takehiko used elite members of his army to seek out and eject those bureaucrats, Samurai or otherwise who were abusing their position and to take into custody those who held too much power. Sitting clad in armour as the head of the Moriyake clan, Takehiko pronounced those arrested to be guilty of treason, and others to be guilty of embezzlement and negligence. At the age of 56, Takehiko decided that it was time to re-energise the clan and take an active role in the politics of the islands once more, much to the chagrin of the bureaucracy who had seen their role in government rapidly cut down.

bureucrats.png

Although the move alienated much of the current government, it was a popular move among much of the Moriyake retainers, who took the opportunity of the weakened administration​

Takehiko's first order of business was to force the issue of the Akamatsu succession, which had originally offered the throne to the young nephew of Takehiko. It was a common rumour at the time that Takehiko had the Miyoshi head of the Akamatsu poisoned, and asserted the Moriyake rights to the leadership of the Akamatsu clan. The sudden appearance of the Moriyake army in Akamatsu land brought any debate to a quick decision, and the clan was put under the power of Moriyake Takehiko.

puakamatsu.png

It was a forced and unpopular union, but the Akamatsu would remain loyal to the Moriyake​

It was an inflammatory move to make, regardless of whether any murder had taken place, Takehiko had forced himself upon the rulership of another clan. The Miyoshi clan, who held strong ties with the Akamatsu were understandably outraged at being sidestepped in the order of succession within the clan. The city of Kyoto was ablaze with complaints from Akamatsu retainers and the Miyoshi clan over the conduct of the Moriyake, but the Shogun, young Masafusa who had been befriended by Takehiko was anxious not to let the succession escalate into a full scale war. The Moriyake had a sizeable force, and control over vital passages in the west of Honshu. Added to that, the Toki had fared badly against the Moriyake in past engagements. The Miyoshi were incredibly frustrated, but were unwilling to move against the Moriyake without the military backing of the Shogunate.

The dilemma was solved however by the resurgent Takehiko, who fearing that any break in his expansion would enable the other clans to isolate and surround him decided to attack the Miyoshi, with the pronounced goal of taking the Awa province that had been claimed two decades ago. The declaration of war set the islands on fire, two sides sprang up around the defence of Awa. The Moriyake clan, the aggressors had been joined by the Akamatsu clan and their allies the Shimazu, who hoped to recover the province of Higo from the Otomo. The Miyoshi faction were now led by the forces of the Shogunate, along with the Ashikaga and Otomo clans. Masafusa had once more been forced into action by his advisors, who feared that the Shogun was far too weak to govern vassals like the Moriyake through diplomacy alone.

battleyama1502.png

The single major battle of the 'False War'​

The forces of the Shogunate had expected that the Moriyake, without numerical superiority would defend the narrow passes of their homeland and await the enemy there. However, upon learning that the Shogun was now taking action against the Moriyake, Takehiko took his army and in the hot august of 1502 headed straight for Kyoto. He took the 6,000 man garrison unaware, killing them to a man for the loss of 336 of his own men. The Battle at Kyoto sent a shockwave throughout the Toki Shogunate, in a single stroke, it ruined their military credibility and their authority over the Daimyo of Japan. In the opening weeks of 1503, the central clans of Japan broke away from the Shogunate and declared war, the Uesugi, Hosokawa, Yamana and Hatakeyama all now fought against the Shogun.

Five months later, the city of Kyoto, along with the Imperial family, and Shogun Masafusa fell into the hands of Moriyake Takehiko. His army had fought off the weak attempts at breaking the siege and the entire area was now under control of the Moriyake. Takehiko placed Masafusa in custody and made his supplication to the Emperor Katsuhito who had apparently been so impoverished by the Onin War that though he had reigned for three years he had not been able to afford the coronation ceremony. In June of 1503, Emperor Katsuhito was formally crowned, and announced his support for a Moriyake Shogunate under the leadership of Takehiko. This was the death stroke for the Toki clan, although the war continued. Takehiko led an invasion of the Mino region just as the Hatakeyama forced the Toki to release the lands of the Imagawa clan in Totomi.

On the 7th of January, 1504, the Mino region was overrun by the Moriyake army, combat and disease had taken its toll on the army, and Moriyake could not afford an invasion of the Miyoshi lands, which were also defended by a potent naval force, and thus Takehiko began to draw up terms for Masafusa to sign.

It was ironic that nothing was said of the Awa province, instead, Masafusa formally resigned from the Shogunate, the Yamashiro region was given to the Moriyake and Higo was returned to the Shimazu.

The Toki Shogunate lasted for less than 25 years. In its beginning it had seemed like the Shogunate would be revitalised after the cataclysmic Onin War, and under strong leadership from Toki Shigeyori this may well have been achieved had the Moriyake clan cooperated. Instead, of peace, the leitmotif of the Toki Shogunate was its ruinous rivalry with the Moriyake clan who eventually supplanted it. The young Toki Masafusa was doomed in part to his youthful inexperience, while Takehiko had decades of military and political experience to draw on, Masafusa was taken in by his charisma and at the same time, drawn away by his advisors who saw the Moriyake as the genuine threat to their power. Their defeat in the False War of 1502 – 1504 ended the Toki's period of real power. Their star had risen dramatically during the Onin War, and had now fallen with as much rapidity.

But Takehiko had not inherited a strong Shogunate, and much in part due to his own attacks on the Shogun's authority, he was now occupying a largely pointless office. The stability of the old Ashikaga Shogunate had completely disappeared, and it now seemed as if the Shogunate was something to be won and lost on the battlefield, a prize that could be taken by any man. Takehiko held ultimate power within Japan, but held no authority.

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Bam! I'm back, enormously sorry about the delay, uni has pretty much swamped me with work and employment so time has been really short. I didn't want to say anything and then have you waiting for an update, also, sorry if it's pretty short, but I just got carried away in that war!
 
Well, they do rise by the sword, and what is a shogun but the sword that guards the Emperor :D

Legitimacy comes with time. The trick is to stay on in power now.
 
Enewald - I think the real challenge would be replicating the Moriyake achievements in Sengoku. But alas, I have no monies :(

AlexanderPrimus - Haha it's been hidden away for a long long time.

RGB - It certainly seems that way now!

My apologies for the necromancy, I decided to take a tour of my old AARs and noticed that this one still had unanswered comments on it. Please, excuse this little vanity!
 
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