T w e n t y S i d e d
 |
And so our protagonist, Oda Nobunaga, finds himself in a precarious position. Completely untested in battle, he now faces off against two of the most skilled and renowned generals in all of Japan, and the strongest single army in the country.
 |
There’s a certain irony â€" or perhaps, poetry â€" to how all of these elements have managed to fall into just the right place.
In real life, Nobunaga’s first decisive battle was the Battle of Okehazama. Imagawa Yoshimoto, who you may remember as one of the first opponents we had in this campaign, was leading an absolutely massive army (allegedly some 25,000 to 40,000 men) towards Kyoto to “lend aid” to the Ashikaga Shogunate. Winning a string of victories as he marched his forces east towards Kyoto, Yoshimoto entered Nobunaga’s Owari Province and took several border forts without much difficulty. Nobunaga, on the other hand, only had some 2,500 to 3,000 men to stand against the Imagawa army â€" impossible odds, or so his retainers thought.
Other samurai might have tried to fortify the remaining forts in the province and wait out the aggressors, or charged the Imagawa center in a suicidal attack to satisfy their honor, or â€" indeed â€" simply surrender, as many of Nobunaga’s retainers urged him to do. But Nobunaga was nothing if not shrewd and ambitious, and he viewed this as an opportunity to become the greatest warlord in all of Japan practically overnight.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Josh Plays Shogun 2 Part 17: The Battle of Okehazama”
