The first action of the Spring 1606 campaign move was, moving from east to west, the Japanese invasion of Kyushu. If this seems a little odd to you, a while ago the Koreans invaded Japan to prevent the Japanese from raising a fleet, and are still there. As the Japanese now have a fleet, they have decided to counterattack. A little dice rolling concluded that they landed safely and are attempting to move inland from a port.
The battlefield and deployment are shown above. The Koreans are to the right, with their baggage safely stowed behind the river. Mind you, fighting with your back to a river is not necessarily a good thing. In the centre foreground, incidentally, is a hill which everyone ignored. The Korean plan was to hold the centre, while the bow-armed troops nearest the camera tried to get on the flank of the advancing Japanese. If you look closely at the top right of the shot, you can see some Korean cavalry right over on their right. These were to work the other flank.
After the last outing, the Japanese learnt that their main power was in their heavy foot, and so these were deployed up front this time. They were supported by more heavy foot (ashigaru), and two sleeves of shot. The Japanese did not roll any cavalry (it is extra bows of horse, and they got bows). This was going to be a problem, it turned out. The Japanese baggage was deployed, reasonably enough, on the baseline.
As seen above, the plans developed. The Samurai foot are getting close to the Korean line, while the Korean flanks are starting to cause issues, particularly the cavalry of the Korean right. Four bases of Japanese, including the general, have been detached to contain them. Still, with the heavy foot about to make contact, what, really, could go wrong?
As you can see above, it did go a bit wrong. While the leftmost Samurai routed their musket-armed opponents easily, the overlap on the other side was recoiled by shot, and the Samurai only managed to push back the bowmen. The Samurai attacking the block of spear came off second best, and the Koreans easily survived the morale test. Meanwhile, the problem of the Korean cavalry on the Japanese left is not improving.
A few moves later, and it is going a little pear-shaped for the Japanese. In the centre, the semi-successful Samurai base did not manage to rout the bowmen, and was taken in flank by some musketeers led by the Korean general and destroyed. A counterattack in the centre by the Korean spears has routed another Samurai base. On the near flank, the Japanese shot are suffering a bit from Korean shooting, and in the top left corner of the picture, the Korean cavalry is looking like they are slipping past the Japanese to wreak havoc in the rear.
Well, the Japanese general decided that he was needed in the centre, and set off at high speed. You can see him on his own in the middle of the field, desperately hoping that he can get there before things get much worse. In fact, they just have because the Korean general has split the spear block and led one half against the hitherto successful Samurai by the wood, and the other half against the supporting ashigaru. Honours are even in the latter, but going the Korean’s way in the former. On the shooting flank nearest the camera, the Koreans are coming out on top. Meanwhile, in the Japanese rear, a serious situation is developing. The Japanese shot have managed to halt one of the Korean cavalry bases, but the other is now within striking distance of the Japanese baggage. Now, baggage bases are lost, of course, just as ordinary ones are, and count against morale. So this could be the routing of the Japanese army.
That it was not was due entirely to the Japanese baggage train. While the Koreans could not count charge or advancing factors in combat against the train, it still looked bad. Baggage gets a factor of 0 (zero) in combat, cavalry gets 4. While the other baggage gave the base attacked a plus 1, even so, what would you have expected to happen?
Quite so. The Korean cavalry was bounced by the heroes of the baggage train. When the songs and ballads of the action are recorded, it will be these camp followers who are lauded, for they saved the army. After all, in the top left, you can see that another Samurai base has been routed, and the Japanese general has pulled the ashigaru base back. In fact, all the Japanese bases have been pulled back, because their morale went to fall back as a consequence of the morale check resulting from the latest Samurai base routing.
Now the Japanese general had a decision to make. He could fight on. After all, the Samurai base and ashigaru with him were still pretty potent as a fighting force, and the archers on the far side had one base of cavalry pinned. On the other hand, the Koreans could well launch the recoiled cavalry against the baggage again, and it was still highly likely to be lost, which may well rout the army. Also, with three bases lost against one, it could not really be said that he was winning the argument.
Reluctantly, then, the Japanese general ordered a withdrawal. As they had not been routed or even got a withdraw morale result, they could get off the field intact, and would now hunker down in the captured port, hoping for reinforcements or the Koreans simply to get bored and go home.
That was a somewhat unexpected result, I confess. I suspected that the Japanese, when they rolled no cavalry, might struggle a bit, but I did expect the Samurai bases to cut through the Korean infantry quickly. That it was not to be was a result of good Korean dice rolling, poor Japanese tempo rolling, and the fact that the Japanese general got distracted by the left flank when I could have done with him in the centre. Perhaps the dispositions were faulty. I should have deployed the baggage closer to the rear of the army so it could have been more easily protected.
Still, next up, the Mongols are raiding China, and have run into the regular army. Loads of cavalry, this time. Let’s see what happens.
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