Best Korea: Part 05: 1479-1486: First War with Japan

I started creating network of tributaries with Brunei, which prefered that to our alliance. Unfortunately they patched it so AI will never accept tributary unless you border them directly - it's generally sensible, but I don't see why minor islands and Kamchatka OPMs wouldn't want to be my tributaries, I'm a sea zone away. I'll deal with it eventually.

It was high time to show some Great Power Energy, so I declared war on Japan.

My forces:

• 26inf / 6cav / 2art (34k total)
• 6 light ships
• 8 galleys
• 10 transports
• plus technically 4inf 1cav from Yeren, but no way they'd actually help
• plus technically 2 lights / 2 galleys / 3 transports from Yeren

Enemy forces (participating):

• 37inf / 6cav (43k)
• 17 lights
• 16 galleys
• 20 transports

They're also quite far behind on tech, with most of Japan being on mil tech 5-6 while I'm on mil tech 7. Paying for Renaissance early is totally worth it.

War goal was part of Hokkaido occupied by the Japanese.

I don't actually fight all Japanese daimyos, as some are at war with each other, and that blocks it. Otherwise they'd have something closer to 55k-60k troops.

There was zero coordination between enemy fleets so I scored victory after victory in spite of their numerical superiority. I didn't lose a single ship and I sunk 43 and captured 6 of theirs, including somehow capturing a heavy ship that wasn't there originally.

From Hokkaido my armies marched to East Honshu. This turned out to be a disaster - enemy armies overwhelmed me with numbers.

So another plan - declare two more wars on damiyos who did not originally participate. First take Tsushima (separate tiny war), then Kyushu (half of it in separate war), then Shikoku. All while using my naval superiority to prevent enemy reinforcents.

After that I tried invading Hoshu from Shikoku, and I failed miserably again.

Japan got some reinforcements, as daimyos who originally were blocked from joining the war got unblocked and joined halfway. Then rebels brought Mori back to life, instantly as their daimyo, and with 10k free stack.

Third invasion was more successful - road from Shikoku to Kyoto isn't too far, so first I stack wiped a few tiny armies for warscore. Then I carpet sieged surroundings, and put my stack on Kyoto.

Once I sacked it, that got Ashikaga clan really interested in peace talks. I took Tsushima, Kyushu, Shikoku, their last province in Hokkaido, and two provinces on Honshu cutting it in half, just next to Kyoto.

A lot of my warscore was from ticking warscore on that Hokkaido province, and from naval battles. I never really reached convinging superiority on land, but it was good enough.

That's 97dev of Japanese land, or a bit over a third of it. Next war my naval superiority will be of little use as Japan has only its one island left, island trap strategy got nerfed many patches ago, and there's no obvious easy ticking warscore, but just balance of power should be much more even.

Ming is slowly recovering from low mandate due to first reform.

For second reform I took +2 promoted cultures over -0.05 monthly autonomy change. Empire of China requires weird culture juggling, and if I need less autonomy I can always force it upon peasants.

It's going too well. Machuria is fully controlled, I'm independent from Ming, Japan is defeated, and my colonies start spreading both North and South.

On the downside my unrest is killing me as Confucian monarchies are awful, Ming refuses to collapse, and I don't have any clear next steps after Japan.