The Kubota Fujiwara, a branch of the Fujiwara Clan, is a playable faction in Rise of the Samurai.
Description[]
The Fujiwara were great, once. They could be great again. Educated, urbane, sophisticated and worldly, they were consummate courtiers and scholars, and had the ear of the emperor in all matters. They ruled from the shadows, with influence over the emperor, and over the upbringing of many imperial heirs. For that matter, the mothers of many imperial offspring were Fujiwara ladies.
All of that power slowly slipped away from the family after the coronation of the Emperor Go-Sanjo; his mother was not a Fujiwara. The northern and southern halves of the family quarrelled, and the quarrel became virtually open warfare. The “Hogen Disturbance” when the Fujiwara tried, and failed, to impose their choice of imperial heirs did not help their fortunes at all. The Fujiwara star was eclipsed by the power of other families, the Minamoto and the Taira. To the wider world their reduced position looked secure, but the Fujiwara leadership retired from politics, concentrating instead on their lands, the arts, and literature. But now, perhaps, it is time to be great again.
The Fujiwara therefore have a long family tradition of hidden power to draw upon. They did not just use the system of government: they became the system, using the family’s daughters to extend their influence over, and input into, the imperial bloodline. They were manipulative in the extreme, but they were also staunch traditionalists. They wanted control from behind the scenes, not revolution. This political and governmental expertise could now serve the family well: their junsatsushi agents act with great efficiency and at reduced cost; they repress the common people much more effectively than other clans; and they also spend less to maintain their lands and troops. The Fujiwara believe, quite sincerely, that they are always in the right, and have high battlefield morale as a result.
Illustrious
- Bureaucratic (+10% to recruitment cost for levy and attendant units)
- Chinese traditions (poetry and literature art already mastered)
- Chinese missions (+30% to the rate at which bunka arts are mastered)
- Zealotry (can recruit the finest warrior monks)
General Information[]
The Kubota Fujiwara are initially situated in the north-westernmost tip of Japan, controlling the provinces of Ugo and Uzen. Uzen has the hallowed ground speciality, making it easier to control and giving bonuses in morale and warrior monk experience. The Kubota Fujiwara also neighbor their ostensibly staunch and powerful ally, the Hiraizumi Fujiwara.
However, the start of the campaign for the Kubota Fujiwara is not as straightforward as it seems. The obvious path for expansion is to invade neighboring Fukushima. However, conquering it always leads to the Hiraizumi Fujiwara declaring war on the Kubota. This can lead to a fairly long conflict at worst, and at best it wipes out a faction that should have been a useful ally. The large provinces of northern Japan also lends to slower campaigns where attrition may be a problem, as armies often have to spend multiple turns marching through them. An alternate path for the Kubota Fujiwara is to invade the provinces of Echigo or Sado. These lands are farther away, but they are wealthy and useful in their own right, and invading them doesn't automatically trigger a war with the Hiraizumi. Annexing Echigo, in particular, is easy as it is initially controlled by the Fujiwara-aligned Amakasu clan.
Economically, the Kubota Fujiwara have a leg up on art mastery. Unusually, they have a penalty as one of their traits: their attendants and levies are 10% more expensive to recruit. In the early game, it may be more economically feasible to have Junsatsushi bribe enemy armies instead of training them from scratch. In the late game, this weakness is alleviated as samurai and monk troops become available; indeed, the Kubota Fujiwara trains superior warrior monks with no increased recruitment cost. The home province of Uzen has a holy site specialty, granting these superior monks experience and giving them an even larger advantage over their opponents.
After pacifying the north, the Fujiwara generally have a straightforward campaign, marching south and exterminating their enemies.