That would be the conventional wisdom answer. But this is not an acute need I am feeling.
You are so, so close to guessing the idea group. I will be posting next chapter soon, so answer is in there.
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Chapter 8: A Cartographer's Nightmare (1520-1530)
Chapter 8: A Cartographer's Nightmare (1520-1530)
WE ended the last chapter at war with Ming. The Chinese Emperor was losing, and quite badly, to the point they appeared to have no troops whatsoever
So it was only a matter of time before they unconditionally surrender to Oda. And after Oda captured Huizhou, her armies laid siege to the coastal city of Fuzhou. Soon after that city fell, the joyful news of the birth of a new capable heir (Yoshinobu 5/5/5) filled Kyoto.
But then things took an unexpected turn ( well actually it should have been expected). The Ming Empire began to collapse, with the Southern Kingdoms of Wu and Yue breaking away
This event upended the Shogun's plans ( presented in the last chapter) of creating a number of Daimyos in South China. The Shogun had to adjust his plans. And he immediately sent diplomats to spy on the new nations. But to fabricate claims on them , he needed to own a province in South China. And that meant it was time to make peace with Ming
Oda annexed a large swath of land from North china, turning it into the Daimyos of Qi and Yan . She kept a couple of provinces, including Fuzhou in the South, for purposes of trade and claim fabrication. And also took a large sum of money while Ming could still give a big payout.
After this great victory, the Shogun turned his attention to the issue of Colonialism. During the war with China, Prosperity had been achieved in the capital Kyoto . And so he issued the Development Edict for the state, and then summoned the diet and passed the Merchant Guild's agenda to earn their support in developing the province.
With Colonialism now present in Kyoto, it was only a matter of waiting for it to spread. These events caused Ming to drop as a rival of Oda, who , for now, had no valid rivals.
And in further celebration of Kyoto's growth, the upgrade of the Imperial City there was begun.
And while the Shogun waited for his claims on Wu to be ready, he decided to declare war on Uzbek.
Uzbek had fallen on hard times and had no allies, and was small enough to vassalize in one war. So the Shogun figured this would be a quick war that can be completed without delaying the expansion in South China a lot. But what the Shogun did not really take into account was the distances involved in Central Asia, distances that had to be traversed by land. And it would be whole year after the war started before the Uzbek capital fell
Unfortunately, the Uzbekis still refused to accept vassal status . So Oda had to occupy more of their land, which was even further West . And some of it appeared to be in terra that was incognita to Oda. And so it was another year before those lands were occupied
While that was happening, Ming began to disintegrate and lost its southern lands to Dali, and then got declared on by Manchu. But even after occupying more Uzbek land, the Uzbekis still refused to accept peace. That meant they had more provinces inside the terra incognita. And using some cartography skills [on diplomatic map mode, look for a hint of red] , the Japanese thought they were able to find the last province.
After asking Transoxiana for military access, Odan forces occupied the Uzbeki province. Only to find out that was not enough for peace. Which meant there as *more* Uzbek land in the terra incognita. And so Katsunaga finally did what he should have done to begin with, and that is ask for maps from one of his Horde vassals. Chahar was happy to oblige.
ANd with the new maps in hand, Oda was able to find the last Uzbek provinces and occupy them. And with that, finally, Uzbek agree to become a vassal of Oda.
The "short" war to vassalize Uzbek took almost 4 years and now had Odan armies deep in Central Asia. And so instead of starting the troops on the long trek back to Eastern China, Katsunaga decided to expand Oda's presence in Central Asia. After all, the Uzbek provinces near the Urals were not connected to Oda's other holdings and therefore would be hard to defend . And so without much fanfare, war was declared on Oirat, allied to Nogai, Kham and Kara Del.
THe first move for the Odan troops was to invade Oirat itself and capture their capital Kuznetsk [ that name is as Russian as the province would get in this run!] . The armies then moved further west towards Nogai , who was Oirat's most effective ally ( their military technology was up to date, thanks to their proximity to Europe) ,
Meanwhile, back in China , the collapse of Ming continued apace as they lost all of their Manchurian holdings to Manchu . And thus North China became a bordergore jumble of nations , most of which were subjects of Oda.
Back west, the Nogay capital was finally taken and - to the Shogun's delight- Odan troops venturing into the unknown lands of the Ural mountains hit upon the strategic province of Bashgird, home to a gold mine and a mountain fort.
On the other side of that province lay a hitherto unknown nation, with a pale beige map color [not green!]. Odan forces had now ventured to the edges of her known world. But that meant it was up to the vassal swarm to hold the line against Oirat on the Eastern front. And in that regard they were doing poorly , as they failed to combine their tiny stacks into one large force. And so Oda had to help them. But instead of marching the troops back from Nogai , a time consuming process, Katsunaga decided to hire a new mercenary company. And in that regard, he was greatly assisted by the fact that Oda had just recently adopted Mercenary Ideas and implemented the second idea of a War Council, which lifted the trade range limit on being able to hire mercenaries
Of course the new mercenaries were going to cost the treasury. But as luck would have it, just then silver was discovered in the province of Iwami , alleviating the strain on the treasury
And speaking of gold provinces, Oda would soon gain her second Gold province by annexing Bashgird in a separate peace from Nogai.
ANd thanks to maps stolen from Chagatai, Oda learned about her new neighbor to the West, a nation called Muscovy that followed strange customs and a strange God. And soon enough he learned that Muscovy had been defeated in war by a very powerful nation called the "Ottomans"
Something told Katsunaga that one day Oda and the Ottomans would become mortal enemies . But that day has not come yet. And his focus went back to winning the war on Oirat. The troops were ordered from Nogai towards China to help the beleaguered vassal swarm. And during that time, he had Oda pass her 5th government reform, relating to military matters
By choosing Bushido Code, he planned for Oda to have the highest military tradition so as to continue to produce excellent generals, among other benefits. This reform also allowed Oda to recruit more Samurai. Katsunaga told his advisors that his long term plan was to have Oda recruit just Samurai and artillery units, and use her vassal swarm and mercenaries for all other military tasks. This way the acute shortage of manpower would not be as painful [ @jak7139 correctly identified this bottleneck]
Back in the war , the armies returning from Nogai finally took the capital of Kara Del and made them into the newest Daimyo, while the Kazakh company was busy suppressing Ming and Korean rebels.
After Kara Del , the armies moved to Kham in the tibetan plateau . And this is where we leave as the Chapter ends
And so what started as a "quick war" against Uzbek ended up dragging Japan deep into Central Asia, and within a stone's throw of the Empires of the West . And as the final act of the chapter, Katsunaga asked the Uzbeks to share their maps of the Pontic Steppe, which allowed him to learn more about those Empires. And since he was the Shogun of the one and only legitimate Emperor ( that of Japan ) , he swore an oath that those Empires had to die.
As for Oda's status, it is , as usual, great .
WE ended the last chapter at war with Ming. The Chinese Emperor was losing, and quite badly, to the point they appeared to have no troops whatsoever
So it was only a matter of time before they unconditionally surrender to Oda. And after Oda captured Huizhou, her armies laid siege to the coastal city of Fuzhou. Soon after that city fell, the joyful news of the birth of a new capable heir (Yoshinobu 5/5/5) filled Kyoto.
But then things took an unexpected turn ( well actually it should have been expected). The Ming Empire began to collapse, with the Southern Kingdoms of Wu and Yue breaking away
This event upended the Shogun's plans ( presented in the last chapter) of creating a number of Daimyos in South China. The Shogun had to adjust his plans. And he immediately sent diplomats to spy on the new nations. But to fabricate claims on them , he needed to own a province in South China. And that meant it was time to make peace with Ming
Oda annexed a large swath of land from North china, turning it into the Daimyos of Qi and Yan . She kept a couple of provinces, including Fuzhou in the South, for purposes of trade and claim fabrication. And also took a large sum of money while Ming could still give a big payout.
After this great victory, the Shogun turned his attention to the issue of Colonialism. During the war with China, Prosperity had been achieved in the capital Kyoto . And so he issued the Development Edict for the state, and then summoned the diet and passed the Merchant Guild's agenda to earn their support in developing the province.
With Colonialism now present in Kyoto, it was only a matter of waiting for it to spread. These events caused Ming to drop as a rival of Oda, who , for now, had no valid rivals.
And in further celebration of Kyoto's growth, the upgrade of the Imperial City there was begun.
And while the Shogun waited for his claims on Wu to be ready, he decided to declare war on Uzbek.
Uzbek had fallen on hard times and had no allies, and was small enough to vassalize in one war. So the Shogun figured this would be a quick war that can be completed without delaying the expansion in South China a lot. But what the Shogun did not really take into account was the distances involved in Central Asia, distances that had to be traversed by land. And it would be whole year after the war started before the Uzbek capital fell
Unfortunately, the Uzbekis still refused to accept vassal status . So Oda had to occupy more of their land, which was even further West . And some of it appeared to be in terra that was incognita to Oda. And so it was another year before those lands were occupied
While that was happening, Ming began to disintegrate and lost its southern lands to Dali, and then got declared on by Manchu. But even after occupying more Uzbek land, the Uzbekis still refused to accept peace. That meant they had more provinces inside the terra incognita. And using some cartography skills [on diplomatic map mode, look for a hint of red] , the Japanese thought they were able to find the last province.
After asking Transoxiana for military access, Odan forces occupied the Uzbeki province. Only to find out that was not enough for peace. Which meant there as *more* Uzbek land in the terra incognita. And so Katsunaga finally did what he should have done to begin with, and that is ask for maps from one of his Horde vassals. Chahar was happy to oblige.
ANd with the new maps in hand, Oda was able to find the last Uzbek provinces and occupy them. And with that, finally, Uzbek agree to become a vassal of Oda.
The "short" war to vassalize Uzbek took almost 4 years and now had Odan armies deep in Central Asia. And so instead of starting the troops on the long trek back to Eastern China, Katsunaga decided to expand Oda's presence in Central Asia. After all, the Uzbek provinces near the Urals were not connected to Oda's other holdings and therefore would be hard to defend . And so without much fanfare, war was declared on Oirat, allied to Nogai, Kham and Kara Del.
THe first move for the Odan troops was to invade Oirat itself and capture their capital Kuznetsk [ that name is as Russian as the province would get in this run!] . The armies then moved further west towards Nogai , who was Oirat's most effective ally ( their military technology was up to date, thanks to their proximity to Europe) ,
Meanwhile, back in China , the collapse of Ming continued apace as they lost all of their Manchurian holdings to Manchu . And thus North China became a bordergore jumble of nations , most of which were subjects of Oda.
Back west, the Nogay capital was finally taken and - to the Shogun's delight- Odan troops venturing into the unknown lands of the Ural mountains hit upon the strategic province of Bashgird, home to a gold mine and a mountain fort.
On the other side of that province lay a hitherto unknown nation, with a pale beige map color [not green!]. Odan forces had now ventured to the edges of her known world. But that meant it was up to the vassal swarm to hold the line against Oirat on the Eastern front. And in that regard they were doing poorly , as they failed to combine their tiny stacks into one large force. And so Oda had to help them. But instead of marching the troops back from Nogai , a time consuming process, Katsunaga decided to hire a new mercenary company. And in that regard, he was greatly assisted by the fact that Oda had just recently adopted Mercenary Ideas and implemented the second idea of a War Council, which lifted the trade range limit on being able to hire mercenaries
Of course the new mercenaries were going to cost the treasury. But as luck would have it, just then silver was discovered in the province of Iwami , alleviating the strain on the treasury
And speaking of gold provinces, Oda would soon gain her second Gold province by annexing Bashgird in a separate peace from Nogai.
ANd thanks to maps stolen from Chagatai, Oda learned about her new neighbor to the West, a nation called Muscovy that followed strange customs and a strange God. And soon enough he learned that Muscovy had been defeated in war by a very powerful nation called the "Ottomans"
Something told Katsunaga that one day Oda and the Ottomans would become mortal enemies . But that day has not come yet. And his focus went back to winning the war on Oirat. The troops were ordered from Nogai towards China to help the beleaguered vassal swarm. And during that time, he had Oda pass her 5th government reform, relating to military matters
By choosing Bushido Code, he planned for Oda to have the highest military tradition so as to continue to produce excellent generals, among other benefits. This reform also allowed Oda to recruit more Samurai. Katsunaga told his advisors that his long term plan was to have Oda recruit just Samurai and artillery units, and use her vassal swarm and mercenaries for all other military tasks. This way the acute shortage of manpower would not be as painful [ @jak7139 correctly identified this bottleneck]
Back in the war , the armies returning from Nogai finally took the capital of Kara Del and made them into the newest Daimyo, while the Kazakh company was busy suppressing Ming and Korean rebels.
After Kara Del , the armies moved to Kham in the tibetan plateau . And this is where we leave as the Chapter ends
And so what started as a "quick war" against Uzbek ended up dragging Japan deep into Central Asia, and within a stone's throw of the Empires of the West . And as the final act of the chapter, Katsunaga asked the Uzbeks to share their maps of the Pontic Steppe, which allowed him to learn more about those Empires. And since he was the Shogun of the one and only legitimate Emperor ( that of Japan ) , he swore an oath that those Empires had to die.
As for Oda's status, it is , as usual, great .
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A few notes .
I know I did not give readers a chance to chime in on the guess about the idea group . But I really want to keep the AAR in sync with the game, and I really ,really, want to go back to playing . This is a fun run because it is different with the swarm. It is worth it to play in Japan just to experience the swarm power.
I think @jak7139 was probably thinking about mercenary ideas the way he wrote his post. The Influence-Mercenary policy allows early client States.
Which is extremely useful when annexing areas without cores that can be released into new nations. Now paradox has nerfed the Shogun a bit by making Client states NOT be able to become Daimyos, so I think they become regular vassals and occupy a slot. but I have plenty of relations slots since I have no allies ( so far) . I am hoping that I will be able to use claims fabricated by the client states to declare war, something I cannot do with Daimyos.
Aggressive Expansion is something I have not paid much attention to. Partly because in Asia distances are so far and religions so disparate that you do not accumulate much . But also because the size of the swarm will eventually dissuade other countries from attacking Oda. Things will be different in Europe.
Finally, being able to see Muscovy gives me one possible strategy of getting Printing Press without developing. Namely , try to punch to a port on the White Sea ( Arkhangelsk) and then from that core , ally a Protestant nation and ask for knowledge sharing.
I know I did not give readers a chance to chime in on the guess about the idea group . But I really want to keep the AAR in sync with the game, and I really ,really, want to go back to playing . This is a fun run because it is different with the swarm. It is worth it to play in Japan just to experience the swarm power.
I think @jak7139 was probably thinking about mercenary ideas the way he wrote his post. The Influence-Mercenary policy allows early client States.
Which is extremely useful when annexing areas without cores that can be released into new nations. Now paradox has nerfed the Shogun a bit by making Client states NOT be able to become Daimyos, so I think they become regular vassals and occupy a slot. but I have plenty of relations slots since I have no allies ( so far) . I am hoping that I will be able to use claims fabricated by the client states to declare war, something I cannot do with Daimyos.
Aggressive Expansion is something I have not paid much attention to. Partly because in Asia distances are so far and religions so disparate that you do not accumulate much . But also because the size of the swarm will eventually dissuade other countries from attacking Oda. Things will be different in Europe.
Finally, being able to see Muscovy gives me one possible strategy of getting Printing Press without developing. Namely , try to punch to a port on the White Sea ( Arkhangelsk) and then from that core , ally a Protestant nation and ask for knowledge sharing.
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Ming has collapsed, which should make destroying the Mandate easier...
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Ah! But there is a twist. The mandate has been claimed by another. See next chapter.
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Chapter 9 : Back to the East ( 1530-1540)
Chapter 9 : Back to the East ( 1530-1540)
The last Chapter saw Japan venture far into Asia, reaching the fort of Bashgird in the Ural mountains. We left her at war with Oirat, trying to establish a continuous corridor of vassals between the Far East and the edge of Europe. IN that war , Oirat still had their ally Kham. BUt when Kham's capital fell and their army was destroyed, they agreed to join the growing Daimyo family
That left Oirat all alone. And despite their large size, they also got to join the family .
Oda took jus two provinces for purposes of claim fabrication. With Oirat a vassal, Oda could move armies easily from Manchuria to Central Asia . But there remained a one province gap between Bashgird and Uzbek. And the Shogun set about correcting that problem. But before he did that, knowing that Japan will be tied up in the west for a while, he threatened Korea with war over the island of Jeju. The Koreans , lacking any allies, agreed to cede the province.
And after that Oda established her first ever Tributary with the nation of Kazan in Europe
The Kazanians were to contribute manpower to Oda, about 1 month worth , so not negligible. But the main purpose of this relation was to prevent Muscovy or the Ottomans from annexing Kazan, until Oda herself was ready to swallow it into the swarm .
And now Oda was ready to declare war in Central Asia to complete the land corridor to Bashgird . And the ideal target of such a war would have been Transoxiana. But unfortunately they were allied to the Ottomans. So Oda had to attack Chagatai and Nogai instead
The main aim in that war was Nogai, who held a key province separating Oirat form Oda's land in Bashkiria. But war with Nogai meant that progress on turning Oda's new provinces into core provinces would he stalled for a while. Nevertheless, the Shogun proceeded with the plan . And it appeared that the Gods were happy with that decision because soon after Echigo began producing Gold
That was the last notable event of Shogun Katsunaga's reign, as he succumbed in 1531, ushering in the regency of Lady Tama Kan'in 4/2/4.
The regent continued the prosecution of the war, which was going slowly due to the distances involved. But eventually Nogay city fell and the Odan armies wheeled East towards Chagatai and Delhi in India.
Once in India, the Grand Company - augmented by 6 artillery regiments- took the fort of Bhera, and then proceeded towards the capital Delji
With troops deep in India, the regent had to resort to hiring new mercenaries when a Korean rebellion broke out
Her late husband's decision to adopt mercenary ideas for Oda certainly seemed to have been a good one.
And on the internal front, Lady Tama improved her legitimacy by clamping down on smuggling of exotic goods from the Kazan tributary. As a result she was able to call for a Sword Hunt and increase the military power of the state.
Now back to the war. After 3 long years of occupation, Nogai finally agreed to give maximum concessions in a side peace.
Oda took from them one province to connect Bashgird to Oirat. And then several provinces on their western border , so that Oda obtained more borders with Kazan and Muscovy, and a new - tiny - border with the Ottomans. lady Tama hoped that one day these provinces would form a Japanese forward base of operations ( to recruit troops and mercenaries , fabricate claims and obtain alliances) . As for India, the fall of Delhi led to a monetary peace giving Oda a nice windfall and reparations for several years
After that, the war dragged on for another 2 years as Oda sieged down the remaining Chagatai forts ( the slow progress was due to the fact that Oda only had one siege army, something that needs to be remedied going forward)
Finally Chagatai surrendered unconditionally .They were too large to turn into a Daimyo, but they were made to lose a lot of land. And most of that land was turned into the new Daimyo of Yarkand
Lady Tama had come to the conclusion that larger Daimyos are better than smaller ones, as the small Daimyo armies kept getting picked off during war. And so she made sure that the annexation from Chagatai led to a viable subject. But Oda still kept strategically located provinces in the Himalayas that allowed her to claim Delhian land for future expansion into the Indian subcontinent.
She followed that peace with the controversial decision to declare the powerful Ottomans as rivals of Oda, mainly to preserve power projection
The experience from the last few wars in Central Asia showed the flexibility of the vassal swarm and how easily it allowed Oda to expand rapidly . But it exposed a key weakness, which was the poor performance of the small Daimyos in battle. In all of the wars of the last decade or so, Oda had to do the heavy lifting herself and the main role of the Daimyos was to soak up the siege armies of the enemies. Lady Tama wanted to remedy this by strengthening the existing Daimyos. And she chose Manchu as the target since they had no allies.
That would be the regent's last official act, as soon after her capable son Yoshinobu 5/5/5 came of age and took the reigns of power [amazingly he made it!].
The new SHogun's first action was to dismiss the Grand Company and the Free Company , whose manpower had been depleted severely, to make space for fresh mercenary companies and new artillery regiments. But during that period of low troop numbers, a coalition against Oda began to form .
Luckily as soon as the new troops were recruited, the coalition members saw the error of their ways and disbanded the coalition
Still, that episode was a warning to Oda to pay some attention to her aggressive expansion . As for the war on Manchu, we will not detail it as it was a mostly lopsided affair ( although again he Daimyo troops fared badly in battle ) . Eventually in late 1538 , Manchu agreed to peace terms
In the peace, Oda apportioned the provinces according to culture. The Korchin culture went to Korchin, the Mongol to Chahar, and the Chengdong to Yan. Jianzhou ended up with the Manchu culture provinces, which were the lion's share . And those events bring us almost to the end of the decade. But there was time for one more war, against Shun + Korea.
The true purpose of that war was the annexation of more Korean land. Especially that Oda had an abundance of administrative power that would assist in turning Korea into core provinces. And Korea was included as a co-belligerent , but the war leader was designate as Shun , so that an initial separate peace can be made early with Korea before going on to partition Shun among new and old Daimyos.
That war is obviously ongoing as we speak. Already the first Korean fort had fallen, and their capital is under siege. But before we show that progress, we note that the Ottomans decided to rival Oda, just before they embarked on a conquest of their old rival the Mamluks, a conquest that could turn out to be final one given the Casus Belli they used.
As to the war with Korea, it is going well for Oda.
The Korean capital is under siege, and the SHun armies have been defeated. But just to a put a little twist in our narrative, Shun finally got the Mandate of Heaven as the decade ended.
as for Oda herself, she is doing well but dealing from a lot of war exhaustion
As soon as possible, Yoshinobu will switch his focus from military to diplomatic affairs to help alleviate the war exhaustion problem.
The last Chapter saw Japan venture far into Asia, reaching the fort of Bashgird in the Ural mountains. We left her at war with Oirat, trying to establish a continuous corridor of vassals between the Far East and the edge of Europe. IN that war , Oirat still had their ally Kham. BUt when Kham's capital fell and their army was destroyed, they agreed to join the growing Daimyo family
That left Oirat all alone. And despite their large size, they also got to join the family .
Oda took jus two provinces for purposes of claim fabrication. With Oirat a vassal, Oda could move armies easily from Manchuria to Central Asia . But there remained a one province gap between Bashgird and Uzbek. And the Shogun set about correcting that problem. But before he did that, knowing that Japan will be tied up in the west for a while, he threatened Korea with war over the island of Jeju. The Koreans , lacking any allies, agreed to cede the province.
And after that Oda established her first ever Tributary with the nation of Kazan in Europe
The Kazanians were to contribute manpower to Oda, about 1 month worth , so not negligible. But the main purpose of this relation was to prevent Muscovy or the Ottomans from annexing Kazan, until Oda herself was ready to swallow it into the swarm .
And now Oda was ready to declare war in Central Asia to complete the land corridor to Bashgird . And the ideal target of such a war would have been Transoxiana. But unfortunately they were allied to the Ottomans. So Oda had to attack Chagatai and Nogai instead
The main aim in that war was Nogai, who held a key province separating Oirat form Oda's land in Bashkiria. But war with Nogai meant that progress on turning Oda's new provinces into core provinces would he stalled for a while. Nevertheless, the Shogun proceeded with the plan . And it appeared that the Gods were happy with that decision because soon after Echigo began producing Gold
That was the last notable event of Shogun Katsunaga's reign, as he succumbed in 1531, ushering in the regency of Lady Tama Kan'in 4/2/4.
The regent continued the prosecution of the war, which was going slowly due to the distances involved. But eventually Nogay city fell and the Odan armies wheeled East towards Chagatai and Delhi in India.
Once in India, the Grand Company - augmented by 6 artillery regiments- took the fort of Bhera, and then proceeded towards the capital Delji
With troops deep in India, the regent had to resort to hiring new mercenaries when a Korean rebellion broke out
Her late husband's decision to adopt mercenary ideas for Oda certainly seemed to have been a good one.
And on the internal front, Lady Tama improved her legitimacy by clamping down on smuggling of exotic goods from the Kazan tributary. As a result she was able to call for a Sword Hunt and increase the military power of the state.
Now back to the war. After 3 long years of occupation, Nogai finally agreed to give maximum concessions in a side peace.
Oda took from them one province to connect Bashgird to Oirat. And then several provinces on their western border , so that Oda obtained more borders with Kazan and Muscovy, and a new - tiny - border with the Ottomans. lady Tama hoped that one day these provinces would form a Japanese forward base of operations ( to recruit troops and mercenaries , fabricate claims and obtain alliances) . As for India, the fall of Delhi led to a monetary peace giving Oda a nice windfall and reparations for several years
After that, the war dragged on for another 2 years as Oda sieged down the remaining Chagatai forts ( the slow progress was due to the fact that Oda only had one siege army, something that needs to be remedied going forward)
Finally Chagatai surrendered unconditionally .They were too large to turn into a Daimyo, but they were made to lose a lot of land. And most of that land was turned into the new Daimyo of Yarkand
Lady Tama had come to the conclusion that larger Daimyos are better than smaller ones, as the small Daimyo armies kept getting picked off during war. And so she made sure that the annexation from Chagatai led to a viable subject. But Oda still kept strategically located provinces in the Himalayas that allowed her to claim Delhian land for future expansion into the Indian subcontinent.
She followed that peace with the controversial decision to declare the powerful Ottomans as rivals of Oda, mainly to preserve power projection
The experience from the last few wars in Central Asia showed the flexibility of the vassal swarm and how easily it allowed Oda to expand rapidly . But it exposed a key weakness, which was the poor performance of the small Daimyos in battle. In all of the wars of the last decade or so, Oda had to do the heavy lifting herself and the main role of the Daimyos was to soak up the siege armies of the enemies. Lady Tama wanted to remedy this by strengthening the existing Daimyos. And she chose Manchu as the target since they had no allies.
That would be the regent's last official act, as soon after her capable son Yoshinobu 5/5/5 came of age and took the reigns of power [amazingly he made it!].
The new SHogun's first action was to dismiss the Grand Company and the Free Company , whose manpower had been depleted severely, to make space for fresh mercenary companies and new artillery regiments. But during that period of low troop numbers, a coalition against Oda began to form .
Luckily as soon as the new troops were recruited, the coalition members saw the error of their ways and disbanded the coalition
Still, that episode was a warning to Oda to pay some attention to her aggressive expansion . As for the war on Manchu, we will not detail it as it was a mostly lopsided affair ( although again he Daimyo troops fared badly in battle ) . Eventually in late 1538 , Manchu agreed to peace terms
In the peace, Oda apportioned the provinces according to culture. The Korchin culture went to Korchin, the Mongol to Chahar, and the Chengdong to Yan. Jianzhou ended up with the Manchu culture provinces, which were the lion's share . And those events bring us almost to the end of the decade. But there was time for one more war, against Shun + Korea.
The true purpose of that war was the annexation of more Korean land. Especially that Oda had an abundance of administrative power that would assist in turning Korea into core provinces. And Korea was included as a co-belligerent , but the war leader was designate as Shun , so that an initial separate peace can be made early with Korea before going on to partition Shun among new and old Daimyos.
That war is obviously ongoing as we speak. Already the first Korean fort had fallen, and their capital is under siege. But before we show that progress, we note that the Ottomans decided to rival Oda, just before they embarked on a conquest of their old rival the Mamluks, a conquest that could turn out to be final one given the Casus Belli they used.
As to the war with Korea, it is going well for Oda.
The Korean capital is under siege, and the SHun armies have been defeated. But just to a put a little twist in our narrative, Shun finally got the Mandate of Heaven as the decade ended.
as for Oda herself, she is doing well but dealing from a lot of war exhaustion
As soon as possible, Yoshinobu will switch his focus from military to diplomatic affairs to help alleviate the war exhaustion problem.
Attachments
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He's not going to last very long, is he?...
Shun taking the Mandate will only make you stronger when you destroy it (as Ming is now small and irrelevant)
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The border gore is ugly. I admit .Great job on the wars, terrible job on all borders
But this brings up a general discussion of the overall strategy for the run. There is a method to the madness as we say . In a typical Japan start , one would have consolidated Korea and Japan by now and begun annexation of CHina and SE Asia for an economic base. And if I were going for something like a World COnquest , that would be the optimal strategy.
But I have opted to quickly send "tentacles" towards Europe and India instead, delaying consolidation of my home region ( which hurts me economically , BTW). The purpose of the tentacles is to try to prevent Empire formation when possible. Some Empires are guaranteed to form and will need to be fought anyways ( Ottomans, PLC and in this run France who seems to be on track to be an Empire Rank nation). But others, like in India, can be prevented if I act fast enough.
Already there is one usual EMpire that hopefully will not form and that is Russia. CUrrently PLC holds Smolensk and Ottomans hold Ryazan, so they cannot form Russia
On the other hand, Persia did form and that promoted it to Empire rank.
So going forward my strategy should be
1. Continue consolidating economic base in Korea and Japan , so I can afford multiple wars.
2. intervene in India to prevent it from consolidating into mega-states. SImilarly prevent Ayutthaya from growing to Empire. I have to be on the lookout for formable nations in these regions that give Empire rank like Persia got.
3. Begin encroaching on Europe to create a power base for later intervention. Easiest path seems to be Russia
Obviously what I am ignoring in this path is the Colonial Regions and Africa. When I started this AAR , I thought I would be taking the SE Asia -> India->Cape->Ivory Coast route to Europe . BUt thanks to the power of the swarm, it seems that I am following in the general footsteps of Genghis Khan and his Mongol successors.
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I should've expected mercenary ideas. But I forgot Daimyos don't take a slot, letting you annex them whenever.
Even if not consolidating hurts your economy, snaking is usually the better idea anyway. The AI just doesn't know how to handle it.
Even if not consolidating hurts your economy, snaking is usually the better idea anyway. The AI just doesn't know how to handle it.
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Chapter 10: From Sea to Shining Sea ( 1540-1550)
Chapter 10: From Sea to Shining Sea ( 1540-1550)
We left the last chapter at war with Shun and Korea. The fighting was going well but war exhaustion was taking its toll in Oda and diplomatic power had to be spent to address that
And further west, the Shogun followed with interest the war between his rival the Ottomans and their nemesis the Mamluks.
It appeared that the Ottomans were planning on turning the Mamluks into their vassals, which would for sure make them a more formidable enemy.
Meanwhile, Oda was slowly turning her Ural provinces into cores. But we stress the *slowly* part here.
At that rate, the most westward province would not be cored till 1556, which meant continued over-extension strain on Oda's government.
In contrast to the slow coring progress, Oda made good progress on her national ideas, adopting the last mercenary idea in July 1540, giving her mercenary companies more manpower ( something they needed sorely ) . And this immediately allowed the Odan military to improve the discipline of the mercenaries [mercenary finisher] , to increase the total manpower pool [7th national idea], to increase the fire skills of future generals [ national ambition], and to adopt the Client State Act allowing creation of client states and increasing the vassal contribution to force limits [Influence-Mercenary policy]. Yoshinobu considered these multiple bonuses well worth the price of a slight delay in the adoption of the next military technology.
As to the war with SHun and Korea, a big milestone was reached in October 1540 when the Korean capital Hanseong fell, and the Japanese troops encountered the ancient Tripitaka Koreana [don't know why this event did not trigger in the previous war].
The Shogun was asked what to do with this ancient document collection, and some urged him to burn it. But he wisely decided to bring it back to Kyoto where he hoped it would help with the adoption of new institutions and give more splendor to his government. He followed that success with a peace treaty forcing the Koreans to cede much of their remaining land, reducing the once populous nation to a rump state
The annexation of North Korea significantly exacerbated Oda's over-extension, which was still dealing with the uncored provinces in the Urals.
The Shogun worried that rebellions would start to pop everywhere as a result, which would put more strain on Oda's dwindling manpower reserves. SO he decided to remedy this problem quickly by giving his westernmost Ural provinces to a new vassal ( Astrakhan) . And that meant he had to make peace in a hurry with Shun. And in that effort, he made a minor mistake when he signed a separate peace with Shun's ally Ning, taking money and reparations, instead of simply negotiating with Shun who was willing to end the war right then.
The peace with Ning gave up the only provinces that Oda still occupied in the war, and so Oda had to occupy a few more enemy provinces to convince Shun to sign a white, a process that took a few months.
The good thing about a white peace was the short truce, which meant Oda would get to attack Shun a second time this decade . And now with Oda at peace, the provinces in the Urals west of the Bashgird gold mine were given to Astrakhan, solving Oda's over-extension problem.
After that, Oda spent some time at peace in order to improve relations with the original Japanese Daimyos, and then began the simultaneous annexations of So, Ashikaga and Yamana ( they had to be simultaneous, otherwise as soon as the first one completed, the relation hit with the others would prevent starting the next annexation). THat lull in war was apparently enough to give Jianzhou the chance to attack their fellow Daimyo Orochoni. And as far as we know, that was the first instance of an Odan vassal declaring Sengoku on another one.
The Shogun immediately reacted by ordering the Jianzhou leader to commit Seppuku. That did not stop the war, but it did improve the Oda's governmental resources. This was followed by the adoption of a Religious Wars as an ability fitting this age of religious turmoil.
Oda chose that because she was surrounded on all sides by non-Shinto nations, and this would make annexation of future land easier. And the heathen land that Oda coveted was that of Orthodox Muscovy
This was a good time for Oda to attack the Muscovites. They had no allies, and were militarily backwards . And Oda wanted to take advantage of the fact that Muscovy's Christian neighbors had no knowledge of Oda and could not join any coalitions against her if Oda annexed too much land.
The war was managed by the SHogun carefully. The distances to Russia were vast and reinforcing with a fresh army from the home provinces would be difficult , so Oda could not afford to lose any battles . But before we detail that war, we will note an important international event
The Ottomans decided against turning the Mamluks into their vassal, and instead opted for annexing more land. The Shogun, who was obviously very fond of having loyal vassals, wondered why the Turkish Sultan would chose such a course. But it certainly was the better choice for Oda
Now back to the war in Russia.
The first major event was the fall of the fort of Kazan to the Odan siege army ( which was backed up by two mercenary companies) . The siege was made shorter thanks to skilled generalship and plenty of artillery. The armies immediately moved onto the enemy capital Moskva, sticking together in case of enemy counter attack. THe main Odan force took Moskva after 141 days while small Daimyo armies started arriving and occupying unfortified provinces in the Perm area. Meanwhile the Russians were counter-sieging the fort at Kazan.
The Odan army hurried back to relieve the garrison of Kazan. But an unlucky breach had the city fall to the RUssians just before help arrived [fell at 21%]. The Muscovites then moved on from Kazan to wipe out the small Daimyo armies to the East. That unlucky siege probably lengthened the war by a whole year as it allowed the Musvoite main army to escape. But the outcome of the war was never in doubt. Oda went back to sieging Russian cities, taking Novgorod in August 1544, while the Muscovites wasted their time chasing the Daimyos in the Urals.
And after the fall of Novgorod, Odan armies moved on to Luki, taking that fort and exterminating the Russian force hiding behind it in Ostrov.
A few months later, peace was concluded
In the peace, Oda took land all the way to the Baltic and White Sea, making the Odan Empire stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic. She also took land just north of her Ottoman rival to cut them off from further expansion North into the Russian region . Almost all the new land was given to the new Daimyos of Novgorod and Nizhni Novgorod. The Shogun planned to annex those vasals - particularly Novgorod- as soon as possible, so that Oda would have her own port [and cores] in Europe. Amazingly, this was all done with the neighboring Swedes and Poles not really knowing who was the new Asian power absorbing all that land next door.
With his western borders expanded, the Shogun turned his attention South, towards Persia and India. And here he eschewed the methods of war, and chose the diplomatic route. First an alliance was concluded with Persia ( although they are an empire that Katsunaga swore to kill, they can be a useful ally for a while) .
Persia was Oda's first ally since the assumption of the Shogunate many moons ago . Persia was chosen as a counter-weight to the Ottomans and potential helper in any expansion in Central Asia. The Shogun then assessed the situation in India. There was no strategic imperative for Oda to invade INdia. But there was concern that a successful nation there would one day become a so-called Empire. And in particular the nation of Bahmanis seemed to be the most concerning .
Bahmanis was allied to Delhi and Bengal, both strong nations at the other "corners" of the Indian "triangle" . Neigboring Bahmanis were the weaker nations of Vijayanagar , Jaunpur, and Gujarat. Without intervention by Oda, Bahmanis was very likely to unify Southern India and become the Deccan Empire. To prevent that , Oda allied bahmani's neighbors. Hopefully that diplomatic action would be enough to prevent the Deccan Empire from rising .
Those events coincided with the start of the Ikko-Ikki Shinto incident, where free land Buddhism began to take hold in Japan. The Shogun took , again, the maximal isolationist view against it [to get Sakoku law achievement].
With no war planned in India, the Shogun waited for the truce with Shun to expire. Here he had a strategic imperative to destroy that decrepit so-called Empire and the Gods of the game clearly egged him on .
BUt the Shogun's plans were not telepathically transmitted to his Yan Daimyo, who decided to declare war on the Qi Daimyo. Needless to say, such internecine squabbling among the Daimyos was swiftly punished by Seppuku.
In addition to ordering Seppuku and reaping power rewards, the Shogun milked his vassals for generals. And when he saw that Chahar had an excellent siege general, better than Oda's best, he conscripted him into his armies
With an excellent siege general and some fresh artillery recruited, it was time to declare war on Shun
But before we describe that war, we detour to the West where Sweden and Kazan took advantage of Muscovy's defeat at the hands of Oda. As a result , Muscovy lost more land and Oda gained a new neighbor , Perm, who was willing to become a tributary of Oda. But the Perm question will be left for the next chapter
.Oda reacted to these events by improving relations with Sweden, who still had an unknown attitude towards Oda.
Now back to the Shun war. The two forts in the South of Shun, including their capital, were quickly taken by Oda's conscripted Chahar general .
The siege armies then wheeled north, helping the Daimyos finish the siege of Datong west oF Beijing, then continued towards Korea
That coincided with another event from the Ikko-Ikki incident, and again the Shogun took the isolationist stance. After that, the Korean capital fell and Oda annexed even more of Korea, leaving just one province remaining.
A peace with Shun followed a few months later.
Oda took a lot of land from Shun, most of which ending up in the hands of the new Daimyos Liang and Jin and the older Daimyo Yan. As usual, Oda kept a few provinces for purposes of claim fabrication.
And those events bring us to the end of the decade. But we will cover the first day of the new decade, as the new institution of Printing Press spawned in Bern . And Oda happened to be sitting on a large amount of military resources. And so instead of waiting to get Novgorod annexed and then allying somone with the institution in Europe, the Shogun decided it was simpler and faster to get Printing Press by developing Settsu, just next door to the capital.
When developing Settsu, military resources were used so that Settsu became the leading province in manpower in Oda. And thanks to the presence of the Tripitaka Koreana next door in Kyoto, the institution is expected to be adopted in the capital very soon .
And that brings us to the end of the chapter. Oda sits at the top of the Great Powers table. And she has only one rival ( for now ) .
The ODan empire stretches all across Eurasia and thanks to strategically obtained claims ( red arrows on map), Oda has various avenues of expansion. But the Shogun has told his advisors that Oda will not expand just for expansion's sake. Any expansion has to be justified in the service of the ultimate aim of eliminating all other Empires. And so expansion into India is not necessary, at least not yet. Expansion into Europe is much more helpful in that aim. But before Oda can take on the larger European powers, she needs a stronger economic base. And for that, the best place to expand is likely the Philippines and the East Indies. THese are areas where Japan can build trade companies and obtain additional merchants. And if she adopts trade ideas next, she will doubtless have the income to wage war on the powerful Empires of Europe.
We left the last chapter at war with Shun and Korea. The fighting was going well but war exhaustion was taking its toll in Oda and diplomatic power had to be spent to address that
And further west, the Shogun followed with interest the war between his rival the Ottomans and their nemesis the Mamluks.
It appeared that the Ottomans were planning on turning the Mamluks into their vassals, which would for sure make them a more formidable enemy.
Meanwhile, Oda was slowly turning her Ural provinces into cores. But we stress the *slowly* part here.
At that rate, the most westward province would not be cored till 1556, which meant continued over-extension strain on Oda's government.
In contrast to the slow coring progress, Oda made good progress on her national ideas, adopting the last mercenary idea in July 1540, giving her mercenary companies more manpower ( something they needed sorely ) . And this immediately allowed the Odan military to improve the discipline of the mercenaries [mercenary finisher] , to increase the total manpower pool [7th national idea], to increase the fire skills of future generals [ national ambition], and to adopt the Client State Act allowing creation of client states and increasing the vassal contribution to force limits [Influence-Mercenary policy]. Yoshinobu considered these multiple bonuses well worth the price of a slight delay in the adoption of the next military technology.
As to the war with SHun and Korea, a big milestone was reached in October 1540 when the Korean capital Hanseong fell, and the Japanese troops encountered the ancient Tripitaka Koreana [don't know why this event did not trigger in the previous war].
The Shogun was asked what to do with this ancient document collection, and some urged him to burn it. But he wisely decided to bring it back to Kyoto where he hoped it would help with the adoption of new institutions and give more splendor to his government. He followed that success with a peace treaty forcing the Koreans to cede much of their remaining land, reducing the once populous nation to a rump state
The annexation of North Korea significantly exacerbated Oda's over-extension, which was still dealing with the uncored provinces in the Urals.
The Shogun worried that rebellions would start to pop everywhere as a result, which would put more strain on Oda's dwindling manpower reserves. SO he decided to remedy this problem quickly by giving his westernmost Ural provinces to a new vassal ( Astrakhan) . And that meant he had to make peace in a hurry with Shun. And in that effort, he made a minor mistake when he signed a separate peace with Shun's ally Ning, taking money and reparations, instead of simply negotiating with Shun who was willing to end the war right then.
The peace with Ning gave up the only provinces that Oda still occupied in the war, and so Oda had to occupy a few more enemy provinces to convince Shun to sign a white, a process that took a few months.
The good thing about a white peace was the short truce, which meant Oda would get to attack Shun a second time this decade . And now with Oda at peace, the provinces in the Urals west of the Bashgird gold mine were given to Astrakhan, solving Oda's over-extension problem.
After that, Oda spent some time at peace in order to improve relations with the original Japanese Daimyos, and then began the simultaneous annexations of So, Ashikaga and Yamana ( they had to be simultaneous, otherwise as soon as the first one completed, the relation hit with the others would prevent starting the next annexation). THat lull in war was apparently enough to give Jianzhou the chance to attack their fellow Daimyo Orochoni. And as far as we know, that was the first instance of an Odan vassal declaring Sengoku on another one.
The Shogun immediately reacted by ordering the Jianzhou leader to commit Seppuku. That did not stop the war, but it did improve the Oda's governmental resources. This was followed by the adoption of a Religious Wars as an ability fitting this age of religious turmoil.
Oda chose that because she was surrounded on all sides by non-Shinto nations, and this would make annexation of future land easier. And the heathen land that Oda coveted was that of Orthodox Muscovy
This was a good time for Oda to attack the Muscovites. They had no allies, and were militarily backwards . And Oda wanted to take advantage of the fact that Muscovy's Christian neighbors had no knowledge of Oda and could not join any coalitions against her if Oda annexed too much land.
The war was managed by the SHogun carefully. The distances to Russia were vast and reinforcing with a fresh army from the home provinces would be difficult , so Oda could not afford to lose any battles . But before we detail that war, we will note an important international event
The Ottomans decided against turning the Mamluks into their vassal, and instead opted for annexing more land. The Shogun, who was obviously very fond of having loyal vassals, wondered why the Turkish Sultan would chose such a course. But it certainly was the better choice for Oda
Now back to the war in Russia.
The first major event was the fall of the fort of Kazan to the Odan siege army ( which was backed up by two mercenary companies) . The siege was made shorter thanks to skilled generalship and plenty of artillery. The armies immediately moved onto the enemy capital Moskva, sticking together in case of enemy counter attack. THe main Odan force took Moskva after 141 days while small Daimyo armies started arriving and occupying unfortified provinces in the Perm area. Meanwhile the Russians were counter-sieging the fort at Kazan.
The Odan army hurried back to relieve the garrison of Kazan. But an unlucky breach had the city fall to the RUssians just before help arrived [fell at 21%]. The Muscovites then moved on from Kazan to wipe out the small Daimyo armies to the East. That unlucky siege probably lengthened the war by a whole year as it allowed the Musvoite main army to escape. But the outcome of the war was never in doubt. Oda went back to sieging Russian cities, taking Novgorod in August 1544, while the Muscovites wasted their time chasing the Daimyos in the Urals.
And after the fall of Novgorod, Odan armies moved on to Luki, taking that fort and exterminating the Russian force hiding behind it in Ostrov.
A few months later, peace was concluded
In the peace, Oda took land all the way to the Baltic and White Sea, making the Odan Empire stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic. She also took land just north of her Ottoman rival to cut them off from further expansion North into the Russian region . Almost all the new land was given to the new Daimyos of Novgorod and Nizhni Novgorod. The Shogun planned to annex those vasals - particularly Novgorod- as soon as possible, so that Oda would have her own port [and cores] in Europe. Amazingly, this was all done with the neighboring Swedes and Poles not really knowing who was the new Asian power absorbing all that land next door.
With his western borders expanded, the Shogun turned his attention South, towards Persia and India. And here he eschewed the methods of war, and chose the diplomatic route. First an alliance was concluded with Persia ( although they are an empire that Katsunaga swore to kill, they can be a useful ally for a while) .
Persia was Oda's first ally since the assumption of the Shogunate many moons ago . Persia was chosen as a counter-weight to the Ottomans and potential helper in any expansion in Central Asia. The Shogun then assessed the situation in India. There was no strategic imperative for Oda to invade INdia. But there was concern that a successful nation there would one day become a so-called Empire. And in particular the nation of Bahmanis seemed to be the most concerning .
Bahmanis was allied to Delhi and Bengal, both strong nations at the other "corners" of the Indian "triangle" . Neigboring Bahmanis were the weaker nations of Vijayanagar , Jaunpur, and Gujarat. Without intervention by Oda, Bahmanis was very likely to unify Southern India and become the Deccan Empire. To prevent that , Oda allied bahmani's neighbors. Hopefully that diplomatic action would be enough to prevent the Deccan Empire from rising .
Those events coincided with the start of the Ikko-Ikki Shinto incident, where free land Buddhism began to take hold in Japan. The Shogun took , again, the maximal isolationist view against it [to get Sakoku law achievement].
With no war planned in India, the Shogun waited for the truce with Shun to expire. Here he had a strategic imperative to destroy that decrepit so-called Empire and the Gods of the game clearly egged him on .
BUt the Shogun's plans were not telepathically transmitted to his Yan Daimyo, who decided to declare war on the Qi Daimyo. Needless to say, such internecine squabbling among the Daimyos was swiftly punished by Seppuku.
In addition to ordering Seppuku and reaping power rewards, the Shogun milked his vassals for generals. And when he saw that Chahar had an excellent siege general, better than Oda's best, he conscripted him into his armies
With an excellent siege general and some fresh artillery recruited, it was time to declare war on Shun
But before we describe that war, we detour to the West where Sweden and Kazan took advantage of Muscovy's defeat at the hands of Oda. As a result , Muscovy lost more land and Oda gained a new neighbor , Perm, who was willing to become a tributary of Oda. But the Perm question will be left for the next chapter
.Oda reacted to these events by improving relations with Sweden, who still had an unknown attitude towards Oda.
Now back to the Shun war. The two forts in the South of Shun, including their capital, were quickly taken by Oda's conscripted Chahar general .
The siege armies then wheeled north, helping the Daimyos finish the siege of Datong west oF Beijing, then continued towards Korea
That coincided with another event from the Ikko-Ikki incident, and again the Shogun took the isolationist stance. After that, the Korean capital fell and Oda annexed even more of Korea, leaving just one province remaining.
A peace with Shun followed a few months later.
Oda took a lot of land from Shun, most of which ending up in the hands of the new Daimyos Liang and Jin and the older Daimyo Yan. As usual, Oda kept a few provinces for purposes of claim fabrication.
And those events bring us to the end of the decade. But we will cover the first day of the new decade, as the new institution of Printing Press spawned in Bern . And Oda happened to be sitting on a large amount of military resources. And so instead of waiting to get Novgorod annexed and then allying somone with the institution in Europe, the Shogun decided it was simpler and faster to get Printing Press by developing Settsu, just next door to the capital.
When developing Settsu, military resources were used so that Settsu became the leading province in manpower in Oda. And thanks to the presence of the Tripitaka Koreana next door in Kyoto, the institution is expected to be adopted in the capital very soon .
And that brings us to the end of the chapter. Oda sits at the top of the Great Powers table. And she has only one rival ( for now ) .
The ODan empire stretches all across Eurasia and thanks to strategically obtained claims ( red arrows on map), Oda has various avenues of expansion. But the Shogun has told his advisors that Oda will not expand just for expansion's sake. Any expansion has to be justified in the service of the ultimate aim of eliminating all other Empires. And so expansion into India is not necessary, at least not yet. Expansion into Europe is much more helpful in that aim. But before Oda can take on the larger European powers, she needs a stronger economic base. And for that, the best place to expand is likely the Philippines and the East Indies. THese are areas where Japan can build trade companies and obtain additional merchants. And if she adopts trade ideas next, she will doubtless have the income to wage war on the powerful Empires of Europe.
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Does Force Seppuku actually make the AI daimyo less likely to declare war afterwards? Or is it just a way to farm diplo, admin and mil points?
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Agreeing with @StrategyGameEnthusiast. Does it actually affect the Daimyo's behavior.
They need admin tech 20 too. So it only really becomes a worry once they're close to that tech.
You can get trade companies in Novgorod and Europe once you expand there too. Or you could move your capital to Europe and TC Japan.
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I checked the personality of the 2 countries I did seppuku on : Yan has an administrator, Jianzhou has an administrator ,. Could be luck. I do not know when the game randomizes the personality of an AI ruler. I will keep checking this as I do more Seppukus and let you know.
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Good to know. Then I do not need to worry. Run may be almost done by then
. Of course I need to make sure they do not get over 1000 Dev . (in the Geneva run, Deccan formed and it was a formidable Empire, but was very late in 1700s).You are not allowed to change capitals as Shogun ( makes sense- you are Shogun to the Japanese Emperor who lives in Kyoto ) .
My intention for the Russian provinces is to state them up and use them as a base of operations against Europe. I can accept Muscovite and Novgorodian culture to get manpower boosts . I will keep them Orthodox though, so that I can convert through them via rebels for the Kirishitan achievement at the end. And for that reason I am not converting the Korean provinces to Shinto anymore,
I think the easiest Trade chain for me to dominate is Girin->Nippon->Hagnzhou ( can be made TC or stated ) ->Philippines ( TC) ->Moluccas(TC)->Malacca(TC) . If I control Malacca enough, I can turn Moluccas into a rich pseudo-end node.
The last 3 nodes I can get a merchant from via TC by just taking the Centers of Trade for me and Daimyo the rest .
If I am able to get trade high enough from that before next idea group ( 1570) then I may use that 4th idea spot for something else ( Humanist , Diplo , Offensive, Quantity, Admin , Espionage all can be useful).
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Chapter 11: Island Hopping (1550-1560)
Chapter 11: Island Hopping (1550-1560)
The last chapter saw Oda reach the Baltic sea. She was now poised to being intervening in European affairs. But first, the shogun wanted to put his economic affairs in order. And the best way to raise large sums of money was to improve Oda's trade situation. And that meant expansion into the island of the Philippines and the East Indies, where Oda could create trade companies and earn more merchants who can collect money for her. And to get claims on those islands, Oda needed to occupy the intermediate island of Taiwan, held at the time by Yue.
The war on Yue was relatively easy for Oda. Using two siege stacks , the enemy forts were quickly taken after their field army was defeated and withdrew to Macau.
And when Canton fell, Oda had the option of sacking the city for some dough. But Yoshinobu chose to pay the price to improve the professionalism of his army
Yue was ready to negotiate, but Oda had to wait a bit longer till Yue's ally Ning agreed to join the Daimyo family . Meanwhile, the Shogun had his spies building a network in Pangasinan in the Philippine Islands, ready to create a claim as soon as Oda annexed Taiwan island. And anticipating that futher island hopping in teh East Indies would require fresh claims, he hired a spy advisor at a high price
Meanwhile, the last event of the IkkoIkki incident happened, with the Shogun choosing the most isolationist view. That triggered an armed rebellion by about 32,000 zealots, and required the hiring of the Grand Company to put it down.
That event reiterated the need for a higher income for Oda as mercenary hiring and firing, while flexible and spared a lot of manpower, was expensive.
Back to the war with Yue. Oda concluded peace with their ally Ning first, making them another Daimyo. Then made peace with Yue.
Oda took all the Centers of Trade in both Canton and Huangzhou trade nodes as well as any needed provinces to establish connections to those centers. Any such provinces were then fed to Daimyo vassals, so as to minimize the strain on Oda's government capacity which was already over limit. But even with the addition of two new Daimyos, Oda found herself over-extended due to the highly developed provinces in China. And so the Shogun resorted to a different type of vassal, the Client State
Instead of giving the Centers of trade of Huangzhou and Ninbon to a Daimyo, he created a client state to hold them temporarily for Oda ( aptly the client was named South China Holdings). Although the client state occupied a diplomatic relation slot , Oda could rest assured that no other Daimyo would annex those provinces until Oda could integrate them ( and as a corollary, Oda was assured that South China Holdings would not expand on its own like other Daimyos could, forcing Oda to integrate unwanted provinces later) . After that , Oda moved on to the Philippines, thanks to a claim fabricated via Taiwan.
that war on Pangasinan and Madyas was easy, and we will not detail it. Suffice it to say that during that time the Ikko-Ikki incident completed and Oda remained at the maximum level of Shinto Isolationism .
As for the war in the Philippines, it ended with the full annexation of both Madyas and Pangasinan, and the vassalization of Kutai.
Yoshinobu used the new conquests to fabricate claims on Cebu and Mindanao and then created the new Daimyo of Tondo giving them all land except the Center of Trade of Pangasinan . He then started spying on Brunei in anticipation for the war *after* the next war. And the next was was predictably against Cebu and Mindanao
Cebu was allied to Maguindano, Maynila and Sulu, basically all the remaining nations in the Philippine Islands. And between them they held 4 centers of trade. Oda was after all of them . ANd in a replay of the last war, ODa quickly sieged and captured all the enemy capitals, thanks to her very powerful navy and excellent siege generals ( the one conscripted from Chahar as well as homegrown ones )
In the eventual peace, Oda pretty much annexed all of the Philippines except a couple of provinces left for Maguindanao. A new Daimyo, Lanao, was created out of provinces that di not have centers of trade. It was then time to move on to the next island, that of Borneo where Brunei held sway. But before we get to that, we detour all the way to the far west, where it has been 10 years since Novgorod was reborn out of Muscovy's defeat. And now it was time to integrate Novgorod into Oda .
And to speed up the annexation, the SHogun resorted to the edict of Sankin Kotai, an edict that he rarely used. And also reactivated the Integrated Administration Act policy. Those actions put the estimated completion of the annexation of Novgorod before the end of the decade. And before starting the next war, he created Trade Companies in the Philippines and Canton trade nodes, and with the appropriate investments
Now back to the East Indies. War on Brunei was started using Kutai as a base of operations .
In addition to Brunei, Oda dragged in Sunda who was allied to Banjar. The aim was to annex as much as possible in one war and leave less for the next war. Fanning out of the base in Kutai, Odan armies quickly overran the island of Borneo, then moved on to the island of Java
It was during that war that Oda embraced the Printing Press and soon upgraded her military, administrative and political technology.
Thanks to the Shogun's personal skills ( 5/5/5) , Oda had no difficulty maintaining a good technological advancement pace. Amd being he first Great Power to adopt hte new institution, Oda was considered, for a while at lease, a nation without peer rivals.
And this was followed soon after by adoption of General Estates as the next governmental reform . The Shogun was already looking towards a day when he would start to remove privileges from the Estates, and that reform would greatly assist in that regard.
Feeling that ODa was a in a very good position, the Shogun felt confident ( maybe over-confident?) to start another war before finishing up with Brunei. ANd that was against Transoxiana, who held a geographically strategic position in the center of EUrasia.
The Shogun recalled that years ago the Transoxianans were allied to the Ottomans. But somehow that alliance was lost. He worried that the alliane would be renewed. And Transoxiana had just finished a successful war with Oirat and was without allies. So he decided to strike at that time, and he also wanted to test how his Daimyo vassal swarm would fare without any help from Oda directly , so he did not direct the Odan armies in Russia to help out.
Back in SE Asia, Yoshinobu made peace with Brunei's allies separately . HE annexed Jambi to allow fabrication of claims on Malacca. He took one province from Banjar to fabricate claims on the remaining Moluccas center of trade provinces, and he annexed the three centers of trade owned by Sunda.
He then made peace with Brunei itself, taking their capital which wa a center of trade in Malacca node, and turning htem into another Daimyo.
Obviously these aggressive actions led many countries to take an outraged attitude towards Oda. But the Shogun figured that no one would dare start a coalition against Oda, who was supported by over 20 vassal Daimyos at that point. But his estimate would turn out to be wrong. A few weeks later, tiny Pagarruyung started a coalition against Oda.
The Shogun immediately took notice [I hit pause]. He was a bit surprised, and wondered if the fact that his strongest ally ( Persia) had just declared war on another country influenced the formation of the coalition. Or maybe the fact that his vassal Daimyos were losing against Transoxiana had led Pagarruyung to realize that the vassal swarm was a paper tiger . Regardless, this presented a problem for the Shogun. Not because he feared a declaration of war from the coalition, but because it complicated his expansion plans in the Malacca node. So before the coalition added any members from his Malacca target list, he took pre-emptive action and declared war on Malacca.
And in that declaration of war he made sure that every nation owning a trade center in the region was included ( save Ayutthaya). Obviously the fact that Oda was now in 2 wars at once encouraged more nations to join the coalition, and the notices of countries joining the coalition became an annoying announcement at the Shogun's palace in Kyoto.
But that did not prevent Oda from effectively fighting the war and her armies already in Borneo quickly dispatched Lanfang's force and put their capital under siege. Similarly the armies on Java quickly besieged the Majaphit capital. And it appears those quick victories seemed to convince the coalition members of the futility of resisting Oda and her swarm.
And to add to the happy news in Kyoto, Prospering Times led to the growth of the city of OShima on Hokaido, and Yoshinobu adopted Hideyoshi Toyotom
But then news started arriving again of the coalition growing back
And then news of the coalition shrinking came right on their heels.
And this back and forth of coalition notices - sometimes growing, sometimes shrinking- kept arriving to Oda for the remainder of the decade. The Shogun learned to ignore them , but this was certainly annoying and distracting him from the conduct of the war. And speaking of the war, a great assist came to the armies of Oda with the ability to deploy Flotaing Batteries, hastening coastal sieges significantly
And in Oda's other war against Transoxiana, the Shogun finally decided to bail out his flailing Daimyos and had Odan armies directly drive to the enemy capital
The remainder of the year saw Oda continue to take fort after fort in the Malacca area, and we will not list all those sieges. But we will call attention to the completion of the annexation of Novgorod in late 1559 .
Apparently the annexation of Novgorod gave Oda all the former's maps [is that a known thing? ]. And so the Shogun learned that there was another Emperor in the West, called Holy and Roman although he was an Embezzler and a Czech. He learned that the French king was considered a de facto emperor, but not so the rulers of Spain and the Polish Commonwealth. He learned that the Europeans had this strange custom of a "personal union" whereby the Emperor of France was also the King of Naples, and the King of Poland was also the King of Hungary. And he also learned that the weak ruler of Ethiopia customarily called himself Emperor, even though he clearly did not deserve the title. But the Shogun did not have much time to dwell on the future fate of these fake Emperors. He had two wars to win. And as the decade drew to a close, he was near concluding peace, andwas thinking about potential terms.
As for the status of Oda, she is prospering and trade is increasingly and important part of her eonomy.
The last chapter saw Oda reach the Baltic sea. She was now poised to being intervening in European affairs. But first, the shogun wanted to put his economic affairs in order. And the best way to raise large sums of money was to improve Oda's trade situation. And that meant expansion into the island of the Philippines and the East Indies, where Oda could create trade companies and earn more merchants who can collect money for her. And to get claims on those islands, Oda needed to occupy the intermediate island of Taiwan, held at the time by Yue.
The war on Yue was relatively easy for Oda. Using two siege stacks , the enemy forts were quickly taken after their field army was defeated and withdrew to Macau.
And when Canton fell, Oda had the option of sacking the city for some dough. But Yoshinobu chose to pay the price to improve the professionalism of his army
Yue was ready to negotiate, but Oda had to wait a bit longer till Yue's ally Ning agreed to join the Daimyo family . Meanwhile, the Shogun had his spies building a network in Pangasinan in the Philippine Islands, ready to create a claim as soon as Oda annexed Taiwan island. And anticipating that futher island hopping in teh East Indies would require fresh claims, he hired a spy advisor at a high price
Meanwhile, the last event of the IkkoIkki incident happened, with the Shogun choosing the most isolationist view. That triggered an armed rebellion by about 32,000 zealots, and required the hiring of the Grand Company to put it down.
That event reiterated the need for a higher income for Oda as mercenary hiring and firing, while flexible and spared a lot of manpower, was expensive.
Back to the war with Yue. Oda concluded peace with their ally Ning first, making them another Daimyo. Then made peace with Yue.
Oda took all the Centers of Trade in both Canton and Huangzhou trade nodes as well as any needed provinces to establish connections to those centers. Any such provinces were then fed to Daimyo vassals, so as to minimize the strain on Oda's government capacity which was already over limit. But even with the addition of two new Daimyos, Oda found herself over-extended due to the highly developed provinces in China. And so the Shogun resorted to a different type of vassal, the Client State
Instead of giving the Centers of trade of Huangzhou and Ninbon to a Daimyo, he created a client state to hold them temporarily for Oda ( aptly the client was named South China Holdings). Although the client state occupied a diplomatic relation slot , Oda could rest assured that no other Daimyo would annex those provinces until Oda could integrate them ( and as a corollary, Oda was assured that South China Holdings would not expand on its own like other Daimyos could, forcing Oda to integrate unwanted provinces later) . After that , Oda moved on to the Philippines, thanks to a claim fabricated via Taiwan.
that war on Pangasinan and Madyas was easy, and we will not detail it. Suffice it to say that during that time the Ikko-Ikki incident completed and Oda remained at the maximum level of Shinto Isolationism .
As for the war in the Philippines, it ended with the full annexation of both Madyas and Pangasinan, and the vassalization of Kutai.
Yoshinobu used the new conquests to fabricate claims on Cebu and Mindanao and then created the new Daimyo of Tondo giving them all land except the Center of Trade of Pangasinan . He then started spying on Brunei in anticipation for the war *after* the next war. And the next was was predictably against Cebu and Mindanao
Cebu was allied to Maguindano, Maynila and Sulu, basically all the remaining nations in the Philippine Islands. And between them they held 4 centers of trade. Oda was after all of them . ANd in a replay of the last war, ODa quickly sieged and captured all the enemy capitals, thanks to her very powerful navy and excellent siege generals ( the one conscripted from Chahar as well as homegrown ones )
In the eventual peace, Oda pretty much annexed all of the Philippines except a couple of provinces left for Maguindanao. A new Daimyo, Lanao, was created out of provinces that di not have centers of trade. It was then time to move on to the next island, that of Borneo where Brunei held sway. But before we get to that, we detour all the way to the far west, where it has been 10 years since Novgorod was reborn out of Muscovy's defeat. And now it was time to integrate Novgorod into Oda .
And to speed up the annexation, the SHogun resorted to the edict of Sankin Kotai, an edict that he rarely used. And also reactivated the Integrated Administration Act policy. Those actions put the estimated completion of the annexation of Novgorod before the end of the decade. And before starting the next war, he created Trade Companies in the Philippines and Canton trade nodes, and with the appropriate investments
Now back to the East Indies. War on Brunei was started using Kutai as a base of operations .
In addition to Brunei, Oda dragged in Sunda who was allied to Banjar. The aim was to annex as much as possible in one war and leave less for the next war. Fanning out of the base in Kutai, Odan armies quickly overran the island of Borneo, then moved on to the island of Java
It was during that war that Oda embraced the Printing Press and soon upgraded her military, administrative and political technology.
Thanks to the Shogun's personal skills ( 5/5/5) , Oda had no difficulty maintaining a good technological advancement pace. Amd being he first Great Power to adopt hte new institution, Oda was considered, for a while at lease, a nation without peer rivals.
And this was followed soon after by adoption of General Estates as the next governmental reform . The Shogun was already looking towards a day when he would start to remove privileges from the Estates, and that reform would greatly assist in that regard.
Feeling that ODa was a in a very good position, the Shogun felt confident ( maybe over-confident?) to start another war before finishing up with Brunei. ANd that was against Transoxiana, who held a geographically strategic position in the center of EUrasia.
The Shogun recalled that years ago the Transoxianans were allied to the Ottomans. But somehow that alliance was lost. He worried that the alliane would be renewed. And Transoxiana had just finished a successful war with Oirat and was without allies. So he decided to strike at that time, and he also wanted to test how his Daimyo vassal swarm would fare without any help from Oda directly , so he did not direct the Odan armies in Russia to help out.
Back in SE Asia, Yoshinobu made peace with Brunei's allies separately . HE annexed Jambi to allow fabrication of claims on Malacca. He took one province from Banjar to fabricate claims on the remaining Moluccas center of trade provinces, and he annexed the three centers of trade owned by Sunda.
He then made peace with Brunei itself, taking their capital which wa a center of trade in Malacca node, and turning htem into another Daimyo.
Obviously these aggressive actions led many countries to take an outraged attitude towards Oda. But the Shogun figured that no one would dare start a coalition against Oda, who was supported by over 20 vassal Daimyos at that point. But his estimate would turn out to be wrong. A few weeks later, tiny Pagarruyung started a coalition against Oda.
The Shogun immediately took notice [I hit pause]. He was a bit surprised, and wondered if the fact that his strongest ally ( Persia) had just declared war on another country influenced the formation of the coalition. Or maybe the fact that his vassal Daimyos were losing against Transoxiana had led Pagarruyung to realize that the vassal swarm was a paper tiger . Regardless, this presented a problem for the Shogun. Not because he feared a declaration of war from the coalition, but because it complicated his expansion plans in the Malacca node. So before the coalition added any members from his Malacca target list, he took pre-emptive action and declared war on Malacca.
And in that declaration of war he made sure that every nation owning a trade center in the region was included ( save Ayutthaya). Obviously the fact that Oda was now in 2 wars at once encouraged more nations to join the coalition, and the notices of countries joining the coalition became an annoying announcement at the Shogun's palace in Kyoto.
But that did not prevent Oda from effectively fighting the war and her armies already in Borneo quickly dispatched Lanfang's force and put their capital under siege. Similarly the armies on Java quickly besieged the Majaphit capital. And it appears those quick victories seemed to convince the coalition members of the futility of resisting Oda and her swarm.
And to add to the happy news in Kyoto, Prospering Times led to the growth of the city of OShima on Hokaido, and Yoshinobu adopted Hideyoshi Toyotom
But then news started arriving again of the coalition growing back
And then news of the coalition shrinking came right on their heels.
And this back and forth of coalition notices - sometimes growing, sometimes shrinking- kept arriving to Oda for the remainder of the decade. The Shogun learned to ignore them , but this was certainly annoying and distracting him from the conduct of the war. And speaking of the war, a great assist came to the armies of Oda with the ability to deploy Flotaing Batteries, hastening coastal sieges significantly
And in Oda's other war against Transoxiana, the Shogun finally decided to bail out his flailing Daimyos and had Odan armies directly drive to the enemy capital
The remainder of the year saw Oda continue to take fort after fort in the Malacca area, and we will not list all those sieges. But we will call attention to the completion of the annexation of Novgorod in late 1559 .
Apparently the annexation of Novgorod gave Oda all the former's maps [is that a known thing? ]. And so the Shogun learned that there was another Emperor in the West, called Holy and Roman although he was an Embezzler and a Czech. He learned that the French king was considered a de facto emperor, but not so the rulers of Spain and the Polish Commonwealth. He learned that the Europeans had this strange custom of a "personal union" whereby the Emperor of France was also the King of Naples, and the King of Poland was also the King of Hungary. And he also learned that the weak ruler of Ethiopia customarily called himself Emperor, even though he clearly did not deserve the title. But the Shogun did not have much time to dwell on the future fate of these fake Emperors. He had two wars to win. And as the decade drew to a close, he was near concluding peace, andwas thinking about potential terms.
As for the status of Oda, she is prospering and trade is increasingly and important part of her eonomy.
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A few notes about the chapter and the run.
1. I am "ahead of schedule" compared to what I thought the situation would be when I reach Europe. So I have the chance to prevent some nations from becoming an Empire. PLC is the obvious one . They are at 988 own Dev ( more if you count Hungary) and 54 prestige.
2. The vassal swarm : I am assuming readers know that the Daimyos do not occupy a relation slot, and their liberty desire is calculated individually, so this is how I have so many. In many guides and videos one gets the impression that the swarm can do the fighting for you and you just sit back and relax. That has not been my experience. I am still doing the fighting myself, and was disappointed in their performance against Transoxiana ( so forget about the swarm defeating PLC or Ottos for me!). The main benefit of the swarm is that you can expand very fast without worrying too much about AE because you are absorbing the defeated nations . And you do not have to core everything.
3 the coalition yo-yo. I have seen coalitions form and dissipate almost at random before, but never like this. Don't know what is going on. Hopefully they go away for good once I am at peace
4. next idea group. I think I may be able to do without trade, seeing how I got 3 extra merchants from the TC and I can easily force my Daimyos to divert trade . If that is the case, my leading contender is actually aristocratic, but I am open to changing my mind.
I almost never pick aristocratic in my runs ( I have written over 10 AARs and I do not think I ever picked it). But this run is different in that I am forced to use conquest CB all the time via fabricating claims. That is because I did not take Religious ideas. And the Shogun cannot use the Daimyo's claims or reconquest CBs to declare war. So Aristocratic can help dramatically in speeding up claim fabrication by adding the Diplomat and halving the cost. . IN addition, the extra siege pip, plus Oda's national idea and the army tradition being at 100 means I should always have +4 or higher siege generals. So that speeds sieges. And compared to Quantity, or offensive, Aristocratic my give me just as much Force Limit via this policy
Only issue is that I do not remember if I selected at the beginning of the game to allow more than half the idea groups from same type or not. I hope I did. If not, then back to the drawing board.
1. I am "ahead of schedule" compared to what I thought the situation would be when I reach Europe. So I have the chance to prevent some nations from becoming an Empire. PLC is the obvious one . They are at 988 own Dev ( more if you count Hungary) and 54 prestige.
2. The vassal swarm : I am assuming readers know that the Daimyos do not occupy a relation slot, and their liberty desire is calculated individually, so this is how I have so many. In many guides and videos one gets the impression that the swarm can do the fighting for you and you just sit back and relax. That has not been my experience. I am still doing the fighting myself, and was disappointed in their performance against Transoxiana ( so forget about the swarm defeating PLC or Ottos for me!). The main benefit of the swarm is that you can expand very fast without worrying too much about AE because you are absorbing the defeated nations . And you do not have to core everything.
3 the coalition yo-yo. I have seen coalitions form and dissipate almost at random before, but never like this. Don't know what is going on. Hopefully they go away for good once I am at peace
4. next idea group. I think I may be able to do without trade, seeing how I got 3 extra merchants from the TC and I can easily force my Daimyos to divert trade . If that is the case, my leading contender is actually aristocratic, but I am open to changing my mind.
I almost never pick aristocratic in my runs ( I have written over 10 AARs and I do not think I ever picked it). But this run is different in that I am forced to use conquest CB all the time via fabricating claims. That is because I did not take Religious ideas. And the Shogun cannot use the Daimyo's claims or reconquest CBs to declare war. So Aristocratic can help dramatically in speeding up claim fabrication by adding the Diplomat and halving the cost. . IN addition, the extra siege pip, plus Oda's national idea and the army tradition being at 100 means I should always have +4 or higher siege generals. So that speeds sieges. And compared to Quantity, or offensive, Aristocratic my give me just as much Force Limit via this policy
Only issue is that I do not remember if I selected at the beginning of the game to allow more than half the idea groups from same type or not. I hope I did. If not, then back to the drawing board.
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If you haven't selected to allow that, maybe just take espionage to help with your claims?
Or economic if you're more interested in the vassal force limit contribution, economic-influence also has that policy. The rest of the group may not be all that usefull though with the way you're set to dominate the Malacca node.
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The irony of the reform saying that the estates' privileges must be respected, while you plan to use it to make revoking said privileges easier...And this was followed soon after by adoption of General Estates as the next governmental reform . The Shogun was already looking towards a day when he would start to remove privileges from the Estates, and that reform would greatly assist in that regard.
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Intersting a Shogun bringing down Emperor's in the name of the Emperor!
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