Summer of 1540: The Defense of Sanuki
The Oda Daimyo, smarting from the attack into Tamba, decided to go around our armies and into Sanuki. This would open the door for them directly into the Mori heartland while drawing our forces away from the Northern Front to protect the gateway of Bizen.
Unfortunately for us, our Heir decided to move some of his units to defend Harima before his father, the Daimyo, could take over the defenses after leaving some units to tenuously hold onto to Tamba. In Sanuki, we have an inexperienced general to face the Oda Daimyo but at least he has a good mix of Warrior Monks, Samurai Archers and Yari Samurai units. The terrain was rolling farmlands in a late spring rain. Fortunately behind us are some high hills with a few woods on the flanks. We places a unit of Warrior Monks in the woods on the right flank but some distance from where the Oda forces would be coming up. In front of the woods and closer to the enemy, we placed a unit a Yari Samurai. The other Yari Samurai unit was placed behind a hill on the left flank. In the center, we could only place a unit of Samurai Archers and…wait. The Oda Daimyo came with a larger force and our archers could not do much damage while they spread out to attack our flanks and center. The Yari Samurai units charged into them from the flanks but were quickly driven back. Even the Warrior Monks could not make a difference for before they were engaged, our General fled the battlefield and our units lost their fighting spirit after losing half of our men.
Army
| Units
| Total
| Casualties
|
|
|
|
|
Mori
| Sam Archers, Yari Sam, Warrior Monks
| 240
| 115
|
Oda
| Cav Archers, Yari Sam, Sam Archers
| 317
| 89
|
Results: Oda Victory, loss of Sanuki Province and 456 koku in annual revenues
Now Bizen and our Mori heartland was threatened and the only good news to come out of this season was the completion of the Swordsmith in Mimasaka, allowing our Warrior Monks units to have better weapons – and they will need them.
With a strong 300-men army in Sanuki, a smaller force in Awaji and another 300-men army in Kawachi, Oda could have struck back – unless we struck first but it would be risky. By this season, enough units were placed in Tamba to hold that province from an attacks. The Daimyo and his Heir have 10+ units between them in Harima and new units of Warrior Monks were diverted to Bizen for its defense. We decided to gamble…