Emperor's Armed Forces in the Warring States

Chapter 7 - Siamese-Burmese War

This will be the beginning of a new chapter.

Siding with the Kingdom of Siam, Japan will intervene in the Siamese-Burmese War.

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7-1

Second Lieutenant Harunobu Takeda has a habit of reciting Buddhist prayers from time to time.

Why he did do so?

It was because of his wife. Furthermore, because of his wife, Harunobu had to be expelled from the head of the Takeda clan. However, there was another reason why Harunobu was expelled: family rivalry.

Harunobu had to complain to Captain Yoshinao Oniniwa, who arrived later from the Japanese mainland.

"The Date clan also had to fight a civil war because of the family rivalry, didn't they? You understand how I feel, right?"

"Mm. I know very well."

On the one hand, he was related to Sanemori Saitō, who was famous in The Tale of the Heike and was said to be a member of the Taira clan, and on the other hand, he was the head of the Kai Takeda clan, who had inherited the legitimate lineage of the Kai Minamoto clan. Because of this, Yoshinao and Harunobu had a strange affinity for each other, and Harunobu Takeda complained.

"You may say that it is absurd to compare the Takeda to the Date, which lost its power at the end of the civil war. The Takeda clan in Kai would also have been better off if there had been no conflict between family members. Although the Takeda clan was able to secure the position of Kai's provincial governor, I had to hand over the position of the clan head to my younger brother Nobushige. If it were not for the family conflict..."

Harunobu trailed off because he thought that to say more would be too much of a complaint. But Yoshinao seemed to understand what he meant.

"For the Takeda clan, it has been a tradition since the first generation, Nobuyoshi Takeda, to have rivalry between the families. You will feel more at ease if you think that way. But still, the family rivalry led to a conflict between the vassals with unexpected results," Yoshinao consoled Harunobu.

Harunobu and his father, Nobutora Takeda, had a subtle disagreement. As a result, his father began publicly announcing that Nobushige, Harunobu's brother, would be his heir. Furthermore, his father's harsh personality caused a rift between the vassals, and some of them, who did not like his father, began plotting a rebellion to prop Harunobu as their lord. As a result, in 1541, Harunobu banished his father to Suruga (the Imagawa clan, which ruled Suruga at the time, was also complicit in this exile). It would have been better if all is well that ends happily ever after.

The appearance of the so-called "Imperial forces" and its landing in southern Kyūshū, as well as the fact that the Imperial forces had succeeded in traveling to the capital of Kyoto, radically changed Harunobu Takeda's fate. The first wife of Harunobu, Sanjō, was the younger sister of Harumoto Hosokawa's first wife. This meant that Harunobu was Harumoto Hosokawa's brother-in-law. Furthermore, Harumoto Hosokawa was defeated by the Imperial forces (officially, his whereabouts are unknown. However, everyone thought that he must have fallen in the chaos of the hunt for fallen warriors, and in fact, after the Battle of Yamazaki, it's as if Harumoto disappeared from the land).

Because of his relationship with Harumoto Hosokawa, rumors began to circulate that the Imperial Court was furious that Harunobu Takeda would exile his own father. In fact, Harunobu himself has recently doubted whether the Imperial Court was really furious. However, given the current situation in which the Imperial forces have given the Imperial Court the power to force the Ashikaga Shogunate to relinquish power, the question is whether the Court was actually enraged. Many of the vassals switched sides and banished Harunobu, carrying Nobushige Takeda with them. This was the end of the vassals' competing arguments that they could not carry a lord who would oust their own father. The Imperial Court made Nobushige Takeda the provincial governor of Kai, rather than have Kai in disarray.