The Siege of Ueda Castle

Synopsis

Mitsunari rallies his forces and Ieyasu responds and turns around from his way to the Uesugi to fight him. Ieyasu splits his forces into two between him and his son, Hidetada, with Nobuyuki going with Hidetada through a mountain route to Sekigahara. Meanwhile the Date will take over the assault on the Uesugi.

Mitsunari sends a letter to Yukimura for him to delay Hidetada. Hidetada however decides to ignore reaching Sekigahara anyway and instead attack Ueda castle where Yukimura is.

Hidetada splits his force into four and attacks Ueda castle from all directions. But Yukimura saw that coming and set ambush troops everywhere to drive them back. Hidetada then tries to burn the castle but is ambushed again and Yukimura charges out to go for Hidetada himself. Nobuyuki comes by this time to get Hidetada to safety.

At Sekigahara, Mitsunari and Ieyasu set up their camps north and south respectively.

Hidetada decides to use some of the ammunition he’s transporting to Sekigahara now to siege Ueda with cannons. But Yukimura sees this as the perfect opportunity to ambush the enemy main camp in broad daylight and charges straight for Hidetada by a forest route.

Thoughts

So, both sides fight in the name of the Toyotomi, yet with all the indications here it’s more likely Ieyasu is fighting for himself and using Toyotomi as an excuse so it seems ‘legit’. Still though, he obviously doesn’t believe Mitsunari is good enough to rule and so when you don’t agree in that era, what do you do, you go to war.

I’m not that familiar with exactly how the battle of Ueda castle went, so I’m actually kinda hoping that they are taking a different route to history. I say this because Koei tends to base the games loosely on the history and they also have alternate endings for each sides. It’s only recently they decided to base the games’ story more closely to what actually happened. So, what I hoped as you all know is that they do a different ending. Or at least tweak it somewhat. That’s what anime based on the Sengoku period usually do, isn’t it? And also Hidetada seems to be getting destroyed, I think what I remember is that he did lose but I didn’t think it was this bad.

Speaking of Hidetada, like father like son, he’s basically getting over confident just like Ieyasu when he tried to siege Ueda. I do wonder why he’s so stuck on Ueda though. Obviously there are many reasons for wanting to, such as Ieyasu losing there before so it’ll be like he surpassed his father or he just wants his daddy to praise him. Or because Nobuyuki married Ina and I think I remember Hidetada liking her? So in essence this is like getting revenge on the Sanada as he probably hates everything about them. Either way, he’s too arrogant for his own good at the moment so I’m glad the invasion is backfiring to teach him a listen not to pick on someone smaller without any knowledge of tactical warfare.

Also, I feel that this story is advancing pretty quickly. We’re already into Sekigahara next episode, I’m assuming they’ll flesh it out a lot by what’s going on in the battle camps rather than just the battle itself. And probably a lot of drama between the important people especially the Sanada brothers.