Strategy & Tactics

Field

Japan's Warring States period

From the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth, the age in which regional lords fought for supremacy across Japan. Service was close to a contract — duty for guaranteed land — so a battle always came with a renegotiation of who obeyed whom.

1 casePeriod: 1600

Lordship in this period worked close to a contract: military service was rendered in exchange for a guarantee of holdings. So a troop count is the number that could be mustered, not the number that will obey. The case in this field shows a design that stops part of the enemy force before any fighting starts.

Patterns found in this field

  1. 09
    A design of defection

    Before fighting, take part of his strength out of the count.

    Sekigahara — the battle settled in the correspondence →

A pattern is not a template to apply but a tool for checking conditions. The conditions under which each one fails are set out on the patterns page. The thirteen patterns

A folding screen of the battle of Sekigahara, dense with banner-carrying contingents in combat
Sekigahara — the battle settled in the correspondence

A design of defection: before the fighting, put part of the enemy's strength into the state of not moving. The number to count was never the headcount.

Pattern: a design of defection
Decisive victory for the Eastern army Read →

Other fields

Napoleonic Wars Second Punic War The Pacific War The Eastern Front The Hundred Years War The American Civil War The Western Front, 1940–45 The Vietnam War The Western Front, 1914–18