No Empires Allowed: a daimyo-shogun run

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 22: Boxing Them In (1660-1670)

The highlight of the last decade was a war against Persia that left that empire surrounded on most sides by Oda and her subjects. This decade continued this trend. But first Oda adopted Manufactories institution, about 11 years late.

During that time, all the newly released Indian nations ( Mysore, Venad, Golkonda etc ) were made into Daimyos, and troops moved ( slowly ) through central Asia towards the Pontic steppes in anticipation of war with Commonwealth. That war was declared in April 1661

On the Polish side was England again, as well as German minors Silesia and Mecklenburg. Luckily, Venice who was defender of the Catholics declined to help them this time, as they were tied up in an Ottoman war ( as you may recall, Venice was a thorn in Oda's side in the last war with Poland). On Oda's side was the future vassal Teutonic Order who was promised land ( fatten them before eating them) . Mantua and Burgundy were included to prevent them from getting larger during peacetime.

The most interesting fighting happened in Britain, where an Odan siege army quickly took the English capital (York). But then its commander went on a foolhardy advance against the English forces that retreated into the Highlands of Scotland. There he suffered a defeat due to the poor army composition, which as mostly artillery suitable for siege and not land warfare

But of course, as one would expect for a nation with vast resources like Oda, regrouping in Britain was easily done with mercenaries and reinforcements. The offensive was retaken and soon enough the English were made to sign peace

The English were forced to return 3 provinces to Scotland, which was as large as Scotland could get before becoming ineligible for diplo-vassalization. And immediately the shogun started improving relations with Scotland, as well as currying favors in hope of improving trust to get them to accept the proposal.

The war with Poland was then prosecuted vigorously until they were willing to accept a near unconditional peace

Here the Shogun had the problem of not having any nations to release as Daiymos, with the exception of Hungary (which would have been the only peace treaty item, and would be too large to vassalize). Instead of releasing a very large Hungarian nation, he decided to have Oda annex the former Lithuanian provinces in the Russo-Ukrainian plain , provinces that were Orthodox religion . This was made with an eye towards future conversion to Orthodox religion , but also as a way to box in Commonwealth and make future wars against them easy , and deny them avenues for expansion. Furthermore, the Shogun reasoned that with Hungary geographically separated from Poland, rebels may one day achieve Hungarian independence , saving Oda a full war.

In addition to annexing the Orthodox land, Oda also gave her ally Teutonic Order 2 provinces ( they did not want more) and her tributary Moldavia 3 provinces. The tributary treaty with Moldavia was then broken and replaced with an alliance, as a step towards making Moldavia a Daimyo. This was as much expansion as Oda could do without incurring more aggressive expansion .


An immediate upshot of the peace treaty was giving Orthodoxy a plurality among Oda's mix of faiths.

Following the victory over the Commonwealth, war was declared on Spain .

This time Venice decided to Defend their fellow Catholics, even though they had not completed their war against Ottomans. And just like the previous war with Spain, Venice was the toughest opponent thanks to their strong fleet

One effect of Venice fighting Oda was the early conclusion of the Venetian-Ottoman war, which ended up with Venice taking Constantinople and a few other Greek provinces.

The Shogun was pleased to see the Ottoman Empire continue to shrink , but was unhappy to see Venice rise. And a few months later he forced Venice to part away with two Italian provinces , one going to newly independent Milan ( a future Daimyo) and one to Oda ally Mantua .

That left Spain as the only enemy remaining . And to maximize Japan's' negotiating position [warscore] , the remote islands of Mauritius and Bourbon in the Indian Ocean, and the Canarias in the Atlantic were occupied by Odan troops. Another boost to Oda's negotiating ability was the adoption of "Diving Right" as the 10th government reform [ -5% warscore cost vs other religions].

Between that and the passage of time , Spain was eventually forced to part with almost all her coastal provinces in Europe , Africa , Asia and Oceania

The Shogun prioritized acquisition of Spain's outlying provinces rather than her main holding in Iberia so that in a future war, a complete occupation would be much faster for Oda to do . The last thing Oda wanted to have to deal with was sieging a fort on a remote island in the Pacific, and the easiest way to avoid that was to annex those provinces while Spain's center of gravity was in easy to conquer Iberia ( an ironic situation for a country based in japan, to consider Iberia "closer" than the Pacific)

With Spain thus boxed in, it was time to continue the rotation of Empire bashing by moving against France. But before that war was begun, Oda scored one of her best diplomatic coups when Scotland was made into a large Daimyo

Considering that Oda had been at war with Scotland before ( most of Oda's Irish vassals were released from Scotland, not England) , having the Scots accept vassal status was a veritable tour de force. Oda's control of the British Isles was becoming more and more unassailable.
After that , Oda declared on France.

Again Venice was on the enemy side , defending the Catholics. But this time Venice was easier to defeat, having recently been beaten up in war already. After taking the fort of Treviso, the armies of Oda and her swarm descended on Venice city and defeated the garrison there.

The loss of Venice doomed the Venetians, even though their navy turned out to still be superior to Japan's . After their forts of Split and Istria fell, the agreed to this peace

Venice released Dalmatia as a free nation, but not before ODa took one province off of Dalmatia. That was to ensure that Dalmatia would be small enough to turn into a Daimyo after the peace ( no repeating the Syria mistake). Then after peacing out Oldenburg, France was forced to sign this:

The peace was similar to that imposed on Spain earlier. Since France had no more nations to release, ODa was forced to annex land directly . Oda took all of France's coastline on the Channel and Mediterranean. This made the main French holdings a landlocked entity. The only ports France kept were in London, Gelre and Flanders. All the annexed provinces were distributed among the various Daimyos with one major exception. And that was the provinces in the Channel. Here Oda created the new client state of Normandie [i explain why in a separate post] by "spawning" it off the province of Calais given to the Suez HOldings client state during the war.

To help facilitate French loss of their remaining ports, Gelren rebels were supported and England cheered on when she declared reconquest on France.

And these would be the last notable events of the decade. ODa is preparing to move against Persia again, who has replaced Ottomans in the rotation

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 23: The Beginning of the End (1670-1680)

In the last chapter the Shogunate of Oda had managed to "box-in" several of the large Empires . The first event of the new chapter is the death of the excellent Yoshinobu III , and his replacement with the unimpressive Yoshinobu IV 1/3/5 .

The one remarkable trait of the new shogun was his religious zeal, which will become relevant at the end of the chapter. And speaking of religion, the 6th Shinto incident occurred soon after, with Urbanization being the crisis facing Shinto

As usual, the Shogun chose the isolationist option . Meanwhile, Dalmatia, Warsangali (in Horn of Africa) and Koho ( in Indochina) all became Daimyos of Oda thanks to diplomatic activity. And ODa was getting ready to attack the Persian empire when news arrived that her ally Bulgaria was about to attack the Ottomans

Since Bulgaria was smaller than Ottomans, the Bulgars must have been banking on Oda to help them. Not wanting to be dragged as a junior partner in a war , the Shogun pre-empted the Bulgars by declaring first and calling them in .

The Ottoman were again allied to Ethiopia. So there were two theatres to the war. In Anatolia , the war with Ottomans turned out to be more of a war with Janissary rebels.

Over 100,000 Janissaries were roaming Anatolia at war start and all had to be defeated by Oda and her subjects before peace could be imposed. As for the Ethiopian theatre, this was an easy affair thanks to the many vassals Oda had in the area already. And soon enough, Ethiopia was forced to cede land and release nations

As usual, Ethiopia released nations and ceded land to Oda. Most of the ceded land would later be given to Daimyos ( mostly Ogaadeen and Harer) , while the newly released nations became new Daimyos. The Ottomans came next:

Oda tried to minimize aggressive expansion by giving three provinces to ally Bulgaria. But with no more remaining releasable nations, Oda ended up annexing a large swath of Ottoman land, mostly focusing on their coastline and again boxing them in. A few scattered exclaves in Egypt and elsewhere were left behind as "food" for potential vultures like the Mamluks. All the annexed land , save the province of Saruhan, were distributed among Daimyos. Saruhan was kept to maintain a border with Ottomans, so that Oda can annex land in the next war.

And Oda's ploy to leave some provinces for Mamluks worked like a charm, as the latter declared war soon after.

Meanwhile, Oda moved on against Persia, who was at the time the largest of the Empires.

We will not detail that war, but instead will note that France, once a proud and powerful Empire, was now so weak that Liege declared war on her

And we also note that the coalition made another surprise appearance, starting with Muscoy.

Luckily this coalition was nothing like the first one from a hundred years ago. And it quickly dissipated once peace was concluded with Persia's ally the Bahmanis. Still, its appearance was validation for all the effort the Shoguns had spent on minimizing aggressive expansion in the last century. No doubt that a willy-nilly expansion like the days before the first coalition would have created a bigger problem. But now Oda was much larger than before, with less nations capable of joining the coalition considering that many of them were in the Daimyo family.

And when it came to peace with Persia , the Shogun did accept some aggressive expansion notoriety in order to cripple the enemy .

In the peace, Mazandaran was released and eventually became a Daimyo. But the much larger nation of Khorasan was not released. Instead , Oda annexed a string of provinces that turned Khorasan region into an exclave of Persia. If the Shogun is lucky, Khorasani rebels would spawn and help trigger cession of the region from Persia. Oda also took many outlying provinces of Persia, counting on their Shia religion to keep aggressive expansion limited for Oda.

Following the peace, Oda adopted new administrative technology and new Diplomatic ideas

The main anticipated benefit was allowing Oda to annex more provinces during war by reducing the warscore cost. Also in that peace interlude, Oda finally managed to convince the Bulgars to join the Daimyo family.

Compared to other vassals, Bulgaria was very, very difficult to woo due to their desiring provinces that belonged to other Daimyos. And because they were Christian, improving relations with a royal marriage was not possible. Even the recent war where Oda gave them 3 provinces in Anatolia was not sufficient to please them enough. And the Shogun had instructed one diplomat to remain in Sofia to improve relations constantly , hoping for some chance to get them over the threshold [of 190 ]. And when the Shogun' diplomats noticed that Bulgaria was in debt, they immediately offered to pay it. Then started monthly subsidies and sent a gift. All that generosity was finally able to convince the Bulgarians to join the Daimyo family .

And one big upshot of the Bulgaria becoming a Daimyo is that they lost their Empire Rank and became a Princedom. That was one empire down, eight to go .


Oda followed this targeting another small Empire, that of China, headed by Shun

While that small war was fought, the Shogun was happy to see France, another Empire, lose two provinces to non-Empire England.

And a few months later , Shun and the Empire of China ceased to exist

That meant Oda had eliminated another Empire from the list.
At that point Oda had the option of attacking Spain again, as their truce had already expired ( it was a 10 year truce, instead of the usual 15 years ). But the Shogun chose to wait until full adoption of Diplomatic ideas, hoping that Spain could be annexed in a single war .

He feared that war that left Spain very weakened would let New Spain break free. And new Spain was large and had avenues of expansion htat would make them close to becoming an Empire themselves. Rather, the Shogun preferred to wait and then annex Spain in one fell swoop and thus become over-lord of New Spain. And so he focused on internal affairs, finally enacting the last event of the Urbanization Shinto incident, and cementing Japan's "isolationism".

19 end of incident and Sakoku
With Oda achieving Sakoku law , the Shogun decided the time has come to transition away from Shinto towards Christianity . But first he wanted to grow his Orthodox provinces at the expense of the Commonwealth, and another war was declared

The war took about 2 years, and ended up with England ceding a few provinces to ODa's vassals in Britain and Poland ceding many provinces to Oda directly, as well as releasing Hungary as a free nation.

Of course Hungary was too large to turn into a Daiymo. But at this point, the Shogun felt the end was getting near for the various Empires, and Oda did not need to be as vigilant at incorporating released lands as before. Instead the Shogun put his focus on changing the religion of Oda by sending missionaries to Smolensk where they fomented an Orthodox zealot unrest. The Shogun then made a point of acceding to teh rebel demands, and converted Oda in teh process to Christianity

And he immediately proceeded to cement the new religion in Japan by proclaiming himself defender of hte Orthodox faith and passing various laws to strengthen missionary strength. He also commissioned the icon of St Eleusa to improve unrest in the population and allow easier suppression of rebels.

and that brings us to the end of the chapter .

Oda now rules, directly or indirectly, a significant portion of the world. And there are still many Empires to slay. But with two gone and the others turned small, it is but a matter of a few decades before Oda stands alone as the only "Empire" on earth.

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 24: The Galapagos Problem(1680-1690)

The last chapter saw the conversion of Oda to Orthodox religion and the elimination of the Empire of Shun ( by annexation) and the Empire of Bulgaria ( by vassalization) . The truce with Spain had expired and they were the next target for Oda. But there were concerns in Kyoto about the size of their colonial nation of New Spain, which had been growing at the expense of the Aztecs and other American nations

The concern was that a partial annexation of Spain ( or vassalization) would allow New Spain to break free, forming the independent nation of Mexico which could then become an Empire. An empire that would require several wars to kill . So Oda waited till the Diplomatic Idea "Flexible Negotiations" was nearly adopted before declaring war on Spain . With that idea, Oda would be able to annex Spain in one war , turning her Colonies int Oda's own colonies.

The war was a repeat of previous wars with Spain. Iberia was quickly occupied, and so were Spain's allies in Europe (Austria, Palatinate and Portugal). But instead of signing separate peace treaties with Spain's allies , the Shogun ordered the occupations of those lands to continue , to improve the negotiating position vis a vis Spain [keep them occupied for higher war score] . That was because Spain always counted on her colonies and so could never be brought to a complete unconditional surrender in previous wars [I estimated I needed a warscore of 80 or so for full annexation].


While fighting in Iberia, Odan armies noticed the presence of a large Kilwa force besieging Portuguese land.

This was part of Kilwa's defensive colonial war against Portugal. And it appeared Kilwa was winning handily ( and of course, Oda beating up Portugal as part of the Spanish war helped Kilwa tremendously). Because Kilwa was a successful and large nation, the Shogun ordered an attack on them, to prevent them from turning into an Empire after their expected victory on Portugal

in that war the Shogun pretty much delegated the fighting to the many vassals, spearheaded by those in the Horn of Africa ( but later, Daimyos from India and Persia would join the attack on Kilwa)

Meanwhile conversion of the Japanese island to Orthodoxy was proceeding apace, thanks to construction of Basilicas in all provinces and the hiring of an Inquisitor advisor.

i

Back in the war with Spain, things had progressed enough by January 1584 that the Shogun began looking at peace options. And to his dismay, he discovered that Spain could not be annexed fully

The problem was the remote province of Galapagos in South America. That province was held by Spain herself, not her Colonial Nation of Peru. But was too far from the Japanese Pacific islands to annex. Odan diplomats looked at options to annex one of the small independent kingdoms in the Pacific like Samoa, but that meant declaring war without a casus belli , and then ferrying troops to take the island and then getting a core established .

All that looked like too much effort that would take too long. So the Shogun opted for a different plan. Spain would not be annexed, but would become a vassal Daimyo, and would also be asked to cede provinces belonging to New Spain in Central America. That plan required getting enough war score on the Spanish, and so an armada was assembled to invade the New World, arriving in Cuba in late 1584

After securing a couple of provinces in Cuba for supplying the fleet and recruiting the Misquito mercenary company, the troops crossed the Yucatan strait into New Spain. There, they anticipated a battle with the local Spanish colonials, who should not be a problem for Oda's disciplined forces.

But what the Odan expeditionary force did not count on was the presence of Spanish troops in the New World, hiding in the jungles beyond sight of the fleet. When these appeared, the battle turned in favor of the enemy and the Odan forces were broken and ran into the jungle of Chikinchel where they were cut down to a man.

Of the 80,000 soldiers who sailed from Iberia to Mexico, none returned home with the fleet. But despite that stinging defeat, the Shogun persisted in the same plan, and began assembling another expedition. Meanwhile, the war with Kilwa concluded, setting back that nascent Empire a few years, and creating a new power base for Oda in the region

With Mutapa and Maravi later becoming vassals of Oda, keeping Kilwa under control became a relatively easy task.
Back in the New World, the second expedition arrived to the coast of Cuba in February 1686 .

After securing a couple of beachhead provinces, new mercenary companies were recruited on site ( the Independent Company as well as the New World companies) to augment the expeditionary force. The combined forces then moved against the Portuguese and Spanish Colonial forces on the island and destroyed them at Guantanamo and Bayomo

And once Cuba was secured, forces began moving onto Florida , avoiding the Yucatan peninsula where the Spanish army likely lurked.

There was little resistance to the Odan advance and the capital cities of Florida and New Spain soon fell to the Japanese. Forces then moved onto Mexico proper, but by then the call for peace had come out . And negotiations were opened with Spain .

A crucial advance in negotiating this peace was the improvement in administrative efficiency in Oda, which lowered the cost of making Spain a vassal of ODa. That allowed annexation of a lot of land in the New World. The annexed provinces were all ( except one ) turned into new Daiymos of Totonac, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tapuia and Tuppiquinim.

As for the vanquished Spanish, they were demoted to Duchy status. But surprisingly , they kept their colonies intact. So New Spain and her friends now became indirect dependency of Oda ( a fact first noted when the troops in New Spain did not become exiled at the end of the war) .

With the Spanish colonies remaining subject to Spain, there was no concern about them turning into Empires. The prospect of the Spanish colonies winning a war of independence against Spain, supported by Oda and the other Daimyos, was negligible.

With one the original BIG FOUR empires now demoted, the Shogun moved against the largest extant Empire : Persia. And war was declared on the day of truce expiration

That war was ongoing as the chapter ended , with the vassal swarm having overrun Persia proper and moving against Bahmanis.

As you can see in the map, there were troops from as far as Leon and Karelia assisting troops from Solon in besieging Indian land.

And before we show the status of the Domain of Oda, we will present the progress of the Orthodox faith in japan

Finally, Oda's dominion

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 25: War of the Swarms (1690-1700)


We left the last chapter at war with Persia, the largest of the Empires. After signing a separate peace with Bahmani, asking for reparations, the Shogun dealt with Persia And it was a harsh deal

All of Persia's western and central provinces were annexed to Oda ( who later distributed them among the Daimyos). The only remaining provinces were some outlying land near Delhi and Chagatai . The Shogun hoped that those powers would finish off the Persians , saving him from another war. But if not, 15 years was not a long time.

A few months later he took aim at a formerly large Empire, that of the Ottomans. And soon followed with another war on a potential Empire, that of Ayutthaya

Ayutthaya put a brave resistance, winning a few battles against Odan armies . But eventually succumbed to the irresistible power of the swarm .

Ayutthaya ended up releasing Khmer and Pegu as free nations. Oda did not care much for turning them into vassals. They were too large for that, and Oda's purpose in the war was more to downsize Ayutthaya than anything else. You see, the Shogun was now more focused on finishing off the remaining Empires and converting Japan to Christianity, and less so on the long term power of Oda. And he did finish another Empire soon with the complete annexation of Ottomans

All the Ottoman lands were distributed between various Daimyos. Next up would have been France, but there was another detour to prevent another Empire from rising. And that was Vijayanagar who had just declared war on the Mamluks. And so they faced the wrath of Oda for their temerity to aspire to Empire status.

Of course, taking on Vijayanagar did not prevent Oda from going after France the next month. And so it was another period of double wars. BUt the Indians put on some stiff resistance, defeating the vanguard of Oda armies at Raichur. An impatient Shogun, when presented with the news that the diplomatic corps had finally adopted the Imperialism casus belli [tech 23], asked his military to upgrade their technology earlier, so as to make the star fort obsolete and speed up the sieges.

Although that came a high cost in military power, few at that time thought this would be an issue for all-powerful Oda. Thanks to the new technology and the arrival of the swarm in the Deccan, Oda was able to force Vijayanagar to part with a good chunk of territory, enough to keep away from Empire status for a while

7

Oda took the land of the nation of Madurai, but instead of releasing Madurai in the peace, Oda released her later as a Daimyo - Madurai would have been too large to diplo-vassalize. As for France and her ally Cologne, it was quasi complete annexation :

From Cologne, Oda took a lot of land stretching from Gelre on the coast to the deep interior. That cost Oda a lot of aggressive expansion ( Cologne was in HRE and not a co-belligerent). But the Shogun at that point was thinking about dismantling the Holy Roman Empire. Cologne was an elector, and he wanted them small enough to turn into a vassal in a later war if needed. Oda had already acquired a bad reputation with the Catholics of Europe due to her annexation of Polish, Spanish and French lands . That made any alliance with the Catholic electors impossible. So if the electors would not ally Oda, Oda was going to force them. And a that point, aggressive expansion reputation did not matter to the Shogun . But apparently it mattered to Burgundy, who broke their alliance with Oda in anger.

As for France, that once proud Empire was completely annexed. Most of the provinces were distributed among the various Daimyos. But the core of France was released back as its own Daimyo .

As Oda readied her armies for the next war, the Shogun took the holy city of Jerusalem from the Mamluks by nicely asking for it, and threatening war if they refused

The Mamluks complied with the threat, handing over the holy site to Suez Holdings. Oda immediately started building a Basilica there , and later seized the province from the client state. The whole exercise , of course, was to eventually upgrade the Holy City to a magnificent level, so as to earn more missionaries to convert Japan . With all the Empire-killing going well, the Shogun thought that converting Japan was his hardest task. Little did he know what came ahead.

While he waited on Jersualem's Basilica to finish, he declared war on Poland, still allied to England.

An immediate effect of the declaration of war was the re-creation of the Colaition, spearheaded by several German minor princes.

The Shogun figured that the Germans were encouraged by Oda being at war with fairly medium to large size nations ( Poland and England) , and that most likely the coalition would dissipate at the end of the war. Soon after that, news came that Bohemia, a fairly large nation at the time, had declared war on Oldenburg.

This had significance for Oda, because Bohemia was close to reaching Empire status based on their size. But being a prince of the HRE, their rank was limited. However, if and when Oda dismantled the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia would potentially become a de facto Empire. So the Shogun was keen on keeping them from reaching the requisite size [1000 Dev]. So he looked at options for war. But first he had to finish the current affair with Poland and England. So troops were ferried to England to help the beleaguered Celtic Daimyos.

The enemy capital - still called Domaine Francais even though the English took it back - was easily taken. But when troops finally met the English in battle at Pale in Ireland, Oda discovered that her armies were not invincible. The Shogun responded by blockading the English force on Ireland, occupying Britain and then signing a limited side peace

With England out, Poland capitulated. And ceased to exist

ODa partitioned the lands in Poland between Ducal Prussia and Nitra. But also kept several provinces bordering Bohemia, in order to allow expansion in that direction in the future, and to avoid extreme over-extension of the two Daimyos.

With ODa at peace, the Shogun's young son led a palace coup supported by adherents of the new Christian faith . The elder Yoshinobu was forced to abdicate in favor of the 23 year old who had better administrative skills, and was able to pass the "Sunday Schools" and "Act of Blasphemy" laws.

Although the father was a zealot himself [first trait - +1 missionary strength] , he had indulged the family of his wife Lady Aya Takeda in Settsu, and they have clung to the old Shinto ways, slowing down the conversion significantly . By forcing the old Shogun to abdicate, the missionaries also got rid of his wife and her family . And Settsu was converted to Orthodoxy soon after.
Some in the military hierarchy expressed their displeasure at this switch , as the older ruler had better military skills. But with Oda's battlefield successes of late, no one seemed to care about their concerns.

And when diplomats told our young Shogun that the coalition had not dissipated after the end of the Poland war, he told them to look at the bright side. His father had faced the dilemma of how to dismantle the Holy Roman Emmpire. And the problem was that he had to control the capitals of all the electors simultaneously . And since one cannot declare war on an elector if already at war with the Emperor ( and vice versa) , doing that in one war was difficult . BUT, with almost all the electors in the coalition now, all Oda had to do was declare on the coalition, and in one fell swoop would be at war with both the Emperor ( currently Austria) and almost all the electors.

So the Shogun had the diplomats survey all the electors to see if there was a way for Oda to be at war with all the electros and the Emperor at the same time. All the electors save two were in the coalition. Those two were Cologne , who had a truce with Oda after the French war. And Lorraine, who was fighting alongside Bohemia against Oldenburg and therefore did not join the coalition . To get to Lorraine without involving the Emperor, Oda could declare on Bohemia, because Austria hated Bohemia and would not defend them. And to get to Cologne, Oda could declare on Liege who was allied to them . With that information in hand, the Shogun decided that his first war was going to be a glorious double war - a fitting finale to the long saga of the Oda Shogunate . And so ODa declared war on Bohemia first, with Lorraine the real target

And a month later, war was declared on Liege - and by extension the coalition and the Emperor. Annoyingly, during that one month wait , Muscovy joined the coalition .

Although Oda was at war with many nations, a look at the map, and her treasury of 10K ducats, and her force limit of over 900 regiments reassured the Shogun that only glory lay ahead.

But things started going awry very quickly. Armies that were in scattered locations after the previous wars became easy targets for the enemy stacks, and annihilation defeats in Gelre and Volgoda were harbingers of things to come

And a big part of the problem for Oda was the difficulty in keeping track of the sheer number of armies an battles [the CPU got choppy too - I played on speed 2 to make it smoother]

Just looking at the map gave analysists and commentators headaches. Figuring out friend from foe was often tricky , with so many coats of arms to identify and sort out. BUt as is wont to happen with such large wars, fighting eventually settled down into a few large "fronts".

THe first one was the Western front in France, where the coalition made her early push destroying an army at Gelre and another one at Bruges. ODa tried to stabilize the front with regrouping at Poitiers , and called on the Icon of St Michael to improve discipline. But the coalition swarm was invincible, and ODa could not prevent the fall of Paris and many other French cities, with Lille suffering the cruel fate of a sack.

On the Bohemian front, Oda enjoyed early successes with Berlin, Ruppin and Liegnitz falling to the siege armies. That was because Oda had a concentration of force there ( left over from the Polish war) and because Bohemia was occupied with Oldenburg.

And soon ODa began transferring troops from that front South, towards Hungary and Austria. There the ODan high command decided to deliver its strongest thrust, with the aim of effectively knocking out Hungary from the war by fully occupying it . To that end several mercenary companies were hired, draining the treasury in the process. [in screenshot 100% overextension increases mercenary cost by 50% . is that documented?]

The extra forces were able to push and take Pest, Fejer and Wien .


Another front was in North Russia, where the Oda swarm was able to occupy the lands of Muscovy, but was unable to destroy the larger Muscovite field army. And Odan troops had to be dispatched there to shore up the front against a counter attack from the coalition swarm coming through Finland.

And there was also an Asian theatre, where Ming and Manchu tied up several vassal and Odan armies in a cat and mouse game.

Finally there was a front in Greece, where Venice held many provinces. Here ODan and vassal forces that had recently conquered Hungary followed the enemy South towards Greece in an attempt to completely annihilate their forces, particularly the Hungarians who would not be able to recruit again

And so on many of these fronts Odan arms encountered success. However, as soon as they moved from one area to the other, the enemy swarm came back and threatened their gains. And things continued to be bad for Oda on the Western front in France, where repeated attempts to stop the coalition advance were unsuccessful . And eventually , the Odan forces there had to withdraw south of the Pyrenees and hope to hold that line

In that regard, Oda was getting a taste of her own medicine. Despite winning a battle here and there, the force of the swarm was just too much . And in France and Spain, Oda had too few vassals to create an effective swarm of her own .

In mid 1698, about halfway between war start and the end of the decade, Oda had a slight switch in strategy . Instead of concentrating on pushing through from Hungary towards Austria and South Germany, forces were sent back to North Germany with a twofold mission. First to secure the Pomeranian provinces recently taken from Poland and ensure that the coring process there continued un-interrupted ( to avoid the pain of unrest and increased mercenary cost due to over-extension ). Second, to secure the European side of the Skagerrak and thus cut off the enemy swarm in Scandinavia from Germany . This was feasible thanks to the dominance of the Oda fleet in the Baltic ( but not in the Mediterranean where the Venetian fleet roamed) .

IT was here that ODa scored one of the sweetest victories in a while, where the entire Wolgast army was chased to Rugen and destroyed.

And with Wolgast fully occupied, Oda had eliminated at least one of the enemy swarm members. But alas that could not be said of many others, as the diversion of troops to North German meant that the Russian front was starting to buckle, with the enemy taking Novgorod, Beloozero and threatening Smolensk.

Oda responded to threat of the swarm liberateing Muscovy by transferring troops from the Greece front to Russia. And after a victory at Vitebsk , things stabilized with the enemy withdrawing back to Finland.

But with the attention of the Odan high command focused on Eastern Europe, they did not realize that a 24K Odan army had wandered to the fort of Roussillon, instead of staying behind it . And they only learned of that fact with the news of its complete destruction

The loss of 24,000 men in Iberia was keenly felt as Oda was not in a situation to spare manpower for a new army ( or money for more mercenaries). And that meant that slowly but surely the enemy swarm advanced across the Pyrenees, eventually taking Barcelona and BUrgos, despite valiant attempts at stopping them on favorable terrain .

Meanwhile fighting flared again on the Central front in Austria where Oda was hard pressed to contain an enemy counter-offensive, trading victories at Ob der Enns and Unterkarten

And in North Russia things became a jumbled mess as a large Odan army of over 100K managed to defeat several smaller enemy stacks. Which resulted in the enemy sacattering *south" into the Russian plain, destroying any semblance of a true front.

And as for the Bohemian front, things had started to move again after Bohemia finished her war with Oldenburg in May 1599. With more troops to spare, the Bohemians had started a counteroffensive that Oda could not stop. And as the decade ended , the Bohemian army was besieging Prague again , with only 9 days till a possible recapture (42%) . And with Bohemian troops about to engage Odan troops in battle as well.

So the Shogun assembled his New Year's council and asked for ideas. His advisors gave him 3 choices.

First option was to continue the current course and try to win the wars and dismantle the HRE. The Shogun looked askance at that view, as Oda was barely winning if not actually losing. From the big picture, Oda had occupied Manchu, Ming, Muscovy and Hungary. But has lost all of France and was about to lose Spain . And would be hard pressed to hold on to Hungary. Not to mention having to deal with the Bohemian counter-attack.


The second option was to make peace with Bohemia while Oda was ahead.

If peace was concluded immediately, Oda could get some concessions: money to fund the war, reparations for several years, one province for Nitra and improvements to Kyoto (1,1,1) at the expense of Prague . But that deal had to be taken immediately. Waiting just a few days risked changing things dramatically, especially if Bohemia took back Prague. If Oda took this deal, there is a better chance that she would prevail against the Coalition . And while a victory would not dismantle the HRE ( Lorraine being allied to Bohemia and therefore would be at peace with Oda), it would be a chance to turn an elector or two into vassals.

Finally, there was the option whispered in low voices, for the Bushido code forbade talking about defeat. And that option was to concede to the coalition's demands:

Surprisingly, Oda would pay a very low price for her foolish declaration of war. Only three measly provinces that belong to her vassals. In exchange, the coalition would disband, and Oda would be able to continue her war with Bohemia ( and Lorraine) and crush them . And then in a few years, take aim at the Empire again.

So dear readers, should our Shogun swallow his pride and take the coalition deal, or does the honor of the Samurai forbid accepting defeat?

 

[mackwolfe]

Chapter 26: And Then There Were None Two ( 1700-1712)

The last chapter ended up with Oda in two wars: with Bohemia +Lorraine, and with Liege +the coalition ( essentially the Holy Roman Empire with some old bitter enemies like Muscovy, Ming and Manchu). Oda was struggling to hold on to her gains in Bohemia and Hungary, and after seeking advice , both internal and external , the Shogun decided to cut his losses, swallow his pride and ask for terms from the coalition.

Oda had to give up 3 provinces that belonged to vassals. The damage to Oda's power was negligible. That set up a truce till January 1707 , which gave Oda ample time to finish her war with Bohemia, reorganize and prepare for revenge. And it was a good thing that Oda got the respite from the coalaition because Bohemia did manage to take Prague and win a battle at Sternberg. In other words, if Oda had continued with both wars, she was going to lose.

Of course the Bohemian successes were short lived, because soon the entire might of the Oda vassal swarm descended on them . And the first of Bohemia's allies to be fully occupied was Ingolstadt who was forced to become a Daimyo.

At that point , Oda had two choices on how to deal with the coalition forming back after the truce: either lay low and let many members drop out of it with decay of aggressive expansion, or turn as many nations into vassals, as this will keep them out the coalition permanently. Obviously with the peace treaty with Ingolstadt, an HRE member who was no a co-belligerent, Oda had chosen the second course.

The next victim was Lorraine, an elector of the HRE and who was the main target of the war on Bohemia.

Lorraine was made into a vassal And in a show of ill-advised hubris, Oda forced them to convert to Orthodox. And I say ill-advised because the official religion of the HRE was Catholic ( having won the league war) and that meant Orthodox Lorraine was not an elector anymore. And Austria promptly appointed Salzburg to replace them . So instead of vassalizing one elector, a step on the way to dismantling the HRE, Oda vassalized a regular German minor. [I was thinking of the God Tier achievement still, hence the forced-conversion. after this I decided to leave that achievement for another run].

After that, it was Bohemia's turn. And Oda took maximum land. The land was then split between long time Daimyo Nitra, newly vassalized Daimyo Ingolstadt , and released nation Daimyos Brandenburg, Anhalt, Silesia and Lusatia

With that peace , Oda turned land that belonged to a former foe during the wars of the swarms into subservient vassals who would help in the next war. And of course , any threat that Bohemia would become an Empire after dismantling the HRE had disappeared.

At that point Oda was finally at peace and the Shogun gathered his diplomats to assess moves before the expiration of the truce with the coalition countries. And he directed his diplomats to look at every elector's alliances, and see if Oda can declare an indirect war on that elector via a 3rd party who was not in a truce with Oda ( there were several EUropean countries who were not part of the last coalition , either because they were in a war at the time or they had a truce with Oda) . After some searching, they settled on Portugal who was allied to the electro of Cologne. And thanks to having the Imperialism casus belli, war was promptly declared

An added bonus for Oda was Portugal's alliance with Ethiopia, one of the Empires on the "kill list". A few months into the war, Cologne was occupied. And thanks to its "thinning" in size in the previous chapter, it was under the limit for turning into a vassal. And this time the Shogun did not convert their religion to Orthodox, so they remained an elector.

The next nation to sign peace in the war was Mamluks, which got involved as the guarantor of Ethiopia. And truth be told, the Shogun was not aware of their involvement till he asked his advisors about the status of Ethiopia, only to discover that the Daimyo swarm had descended like locusts on the Nile valley

And while that war went on, Oda took care of long overdue business near home, by finally declaring on Ryu Kyu to annex the last province in the Japan region .

the purpose of annexing Ryukyu was to convert it later to Orthodoxy, so as to achieve a fully Kirishitan Japan. The war with Ryukyu would take some time because Oda had to assemble a new transport fleet ( all the transports were in the Atlantic fleet at that point). But eventually Okinawa became part of ODa in 1705

It was then time to conclude peace with Portugal.

Ethiopia was made into another Daimyo ( reluctantly - they refused it in separate peace) and Portugal made to return many cores to Morocco. At that point, the Shogun was happy with Oda's recovery after the coalition war. Although her aggressive expansion reputation had worsened a lot, her vassal swarm had grown in size, while the number of independent nations that could join a coalition had shrunk significantly. And so he continued the pattern of chipping away at potential coalition members via side wars with countries out of truces.

After surveying those countries again ( there we 6), Oda declared on Oldenburg as that brought in not just the Emperor ( Austria) and his 4 elector allies (Mainz, WUrzburg, Augsburg and Salzburg) , but also Liege who was a very large elector at that point, and would have required more than one war to annex or vassalize.

Compared to the last war against the HRE/Coalition, this was a much easier task. Still the enemy did not put up a fight and there were few defeats reminiscent of the "war of the swarms".

BUt once the swarm armies arrived, the tide of war shifted and Oda began taking fort after fort. The first enemy to make peace was Burgundy, who became Daimyo ( therefore correcting the mistake in the Chapter "The Two That Got Away").

And with Burgundy a Daimyo, the Shogun forced Liege to return cores to Burgundy alongside France and Switzerland. That put Liege under the size of becoming a vassal in the next war, although a truce was established till 1720 .

The elector of Wurzburg followed suit, becoming a vassal

Unfortunately , Mainz was too large to turn into vassal, and so they were made smaller by returning provinces

After that Austria was forced to give up much land , making a future war with the Emperor easier.

Finally , the electors of Augsburg and Salzburg were turned into vassals.

At that point, Oda controlled 4 of the seven electros. To dismantle the HRE , she needed to control the remaining 3 and also the IMperial capital.

And at that point in time, the truce with the coalition , which included the elector of Munster was set to expire soon. Oda used that time to finish off the Persian and Aztec Empires.

And then when truce expired with Munster and the rest of the coalition, war was declared immediately .

Munster was allied to Mainz, another elector . So this was a chance for Oda to get two of the remaining free electors ( the last one being Liege).

Meanwhile Aztec was vassalized after it was fully occupied, with Odan troops combining with the Meso-American Daimyos to accomplish the job .

Then it was Austria's turn to sign peace, losing even more land

This gave Oda enough war score to get Mainz vassalized followed by Munster a few month later

The decade was almost over. And the impatient Shogun had his diplomats sign a peace, any peace, with Persia's allies to wrap up that war

And so with a series of peace deals Persia became a vassal of Oda . That left the Holy Roman EMperor as the only man claiming the title of Emperor on earth .Meanwhile , Japan was almost completely converted to Orthodox ( the conversions slowed down because the SHogun lost the title of Defender of the Faith when he conceded defeat to the coalition, and forgot to reclaim it).

And normally we stop our narrative at this point. But we will continue as there is not a lot left to our long story. The impatient Shogun was not willing to wait for the truce with Liege to expire in 1720 and ordered his diplomats to break the truce and declare war regardless

That unconventional move coincided with the beginning of a new age, that of Revolutions, where rulers were expected to claim the title of Emperor.

And at that point, only one man could. And our shogun was ready to strip away that title after Wien fell on March 10, 1710 and Merz, capital of Lorraine fell on April 4.

BUt it turned out the ruler of Austria had pulled off the ultimate prank by having moved his capital to LOLland before the war. And so it was not until AUgust 18, 1710 that the HRE was officially dismantled

With the old dream of the shoguns now realized, Nobuyuki promptly concluded a white peace with Liege

And now with no other men claiming the title of Emperor, our Shogun Nobuyuki felt ready to proclaim himself the Emperor of Japan. but first we take a final look at the Oda Dominion

And that wide and glorious domain was sacrificed for the vanity of one man who ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne as the first Emperor of Japan

ANd Nobuyuki had one task remaining, which was to finish the conversion of Japan . And as he waited the few months needed till his missionaries finished work in Ryukyu, he got a taste of the difference between the power of the Shogunate and a regular government. For starters, the coalition promptly reappeared, as Japan did not have the protection of the Daimyo swarm anymore. Furthermore, the Odan force limit shrunk from over 900 regiments to a still large 266. But until many armies were disbanded, the budget was in atrocious shape.

And to stabilize Oda's diplomatic situation, the Shogun re-established alliances with strong former Daimyos like Prussia, Nitra and Bulgaria.

With things under control, the Shogun could savor the moment in February 1712 when the last Shinto province in Japan became Christian. Kirishitan Japan was achieved.

At that point , Japan was not the only Empire on Earth. The Bulgarian ruler, now independent, had reclaimed the old title. And doubtless others would soon as well. But Oda - ahem Japan- was not interested in preventing that anymore. The ruler of Japan was simply content with his new title, new faith and his status as the strongest nation on Earth .

the End.