Interview with the Translator: Hills of Silver Ruins, Battles

Kate: Some of the battle tactics by the land gangs described in Hills of Silver Ruins remind me of the assault by Saruman on Helm’s Deep: ladders against the wall.

How do battles/confrontations in The Twelve Kingdoms reflect Japanese and Chinese history?

Eugene: One important factor that sets the Twelve Kingdoms apart in the fantasy genre when it comes to military matters is that one kingdom cannot invade another. It's only happened once and ended badly for the invader (despite the invader possessing the moral high ground). Even providing "aid and comfort" gets tricky.

Thus military conflicts arise because of a civil uprising or coup d'etat or struggles for power during periods of an empty throne. All three come into play in Hills of Silver Ruins, with the land gangs taking advantage of the breakdown in political order after a coup d'etat to carve out their own spheres of influence. Analogies can be found throughout Japanese history.

Such as during the 16th century, when the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate led to the Warring States period. And in the middle of the 19th century, when an enervated Tokugawa shogunate attempted to discipline the fractious Choshu province and failed when the powerful Satsuma clan stopped pretending to be a loyal ally and aligned itself with Choshu instead.

In the case of the former, it took half a century for the "Three Great Unifiers" (Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu) to unify the country under a single national government. In the latter, Satsuma and Choshu swept aside the Tokugawa shogunate in less than a year, after which they moved the emperor to Tokyo and declared the "restoration" of the imperial government.

Even after the Meiji emperor was formally installed, regional revolts broke out across the country, culminating in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. The conflict never moved off the island of Kyushu but was costly in terms of men and material, and triggered a series of revenge assassinations.

The other big difference in the Twelve Kingdoms is that imperial succession is determined by literal divine will. Any caretaker government will end at some point. Only by keeping Taiki and Gyousou alive can Asen remain in power. A pretender's claim to the throne is always on a precarious footing.

Kate: In Hills of Silver Ruins, Book IV, "disguised as civilians, [the land gangs would] mingle among them in the cities and the fields, attacking the Imperial Army at times and in places of their choosing.”

Americans make a big deal out of colonialists ducking behind trees and shrubbery to shoot at those dumb Britishers in their bright red coats. The maneuver didn’t happen as much as I was led to believe as a child (and disciplined formations have their upsides) but it did happen.

How about in Japanese history?

Eugene: Historical battles in Japan often involved open battlefield maneuvers where the opposing sides amassed and positioned their forces before commencing hostilities or staging breakouts from sieges.

Both came into play at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575. Oda Nobunaga (backed up by Tokugawa Ieyasu) wiped out the once feared Takeda army (that had on a previous occasion clobbered Ieyasu) with concentrated musket fire and then broke the Takeda siege of Nagashino castle.

It was one of the first "modern" battles in world history and proved the futility of charging entrenched soldiers with firearms, a lesson that wouldn't be learned for another 350 years.

Of the three Great Unifiers, Ieyasu was the least skilled as a battlefield tactician. But when it came to politics and the art of the deal, he was the grand master. At the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, he won the day largely by convincing many of the opposing generals to sit on their hands or switch sides.

There is one famous naval engagement. The Battle of Dan-no-Ura in 1185 sealed the fate of the Taira clan and ushered in the age of the shoguns. It figures prominently in the equally famous historical account, The Tale of the Heike, and the recent anime series based on it, The Heike Story.

Leading up to Dan-no-Ura, the Minamoto defeated the Taira in several major battles, often employing what today would be called "psyops." At the Battle of Kurikara, Minamoto no Yoshinaka tied torches to the horns of a herd of oxen and drove them through the Taira camp in the middle of the night. Panicked Taira soldiers ran into ambushes and fell to their deaths in the rocky terrain.

The first Tensho Iga war in 1578 was a showcase for unconventional warfare. Nobunaga's son Nobukatsu invaded Iga territory without the go-ahead from his father and was soundly defeated. Dividing their smaller forces and employing hit and run tactics, the "Iga troops made heavy use of their knowledge of the terrain and guerrilla tactics to surprise and confuse Nobukatsu's army."

A thoroughly exasperated Nobunaga invaded Iga in 1581 with a much larger army and carried out a scorched earth campaign that brought the province to heel in less than a month. The Iga region, the local tourist industry will happily tell you, is where the legends of the ninja arose. Also see episode 7 of What's Hot in Japan.

https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/463950/s01-e07-shiga-ninja-and-sky-walker

That is why every rebellion in the Twelve Kingdom either overthrows the government, overthrows a pretender, or at some point turns into a siege.