Battle of Fate Gorge

The Battle of Fate Gorge was in which the assassination of the Lion CLan commander bolstered his army into victory against the Phoenix over a dispute regarding the use of shugenja in the Imperial Legions.
== Preambles ==
In the year 1100, a bitter dispute flared in the Imperial Winter Court between a high-ranking Lion Clan general who also served in the Imperial Legions, Matsu Uniri, and the Phoenix Clan's Master of Water, Isawa Kaiyoko. During his tenure, fewer of the Phoenix's Isawa Elementalists entered the legions each year, until only Water Elementalists who specialized in healing were joining the ranks, because Kaiyoko had forbidden those shugenja from calling upon the kami for any violent purpose. Uniri saw this as a violation of the chain of command. The dispute boiled over when a Shiba commander in the Imperial Legions joined Uniri's argument. Emerald Champion Doji Satsume, commanded that those legions remained neutral in the dispute. Uniri decided to march with his own Lion Clan forces into Phoenix lands to forcibly requisition the shugenja he believed the Imperial Legions were owed. Fields of Victory, pp. 42-43
== Battle ==
Isawa Kaiyoko summoned the Tsunami Legion, one of the Elemental Legions, to dissuade Uniri from continuing his march. She summoned a powerful typhoon to slow his soldiers' progress, but the Lion continued their advance, until they imperiled the lives of the very students Kaiyoko was teaching at the Elemental Academies. Under the cover of torrential rain, Kaiyoko dispatched assassins who killed Uniri. His wife, Yunaki, and his ten years old daughter, who would grow to become Matsu Tsuko, were in the same war tent and put up a fight of their own, dispatching several of the attackers. The next day, Matsu Yunaki assumed command and attacked the Phoenix in the Battle of Fate Gorge. It was Uniri's young daughter who proved the true rallying point for the Lion, when she cried for vengeance for her father. By the end of the day, the Phoenix had been driven from the field with heavy losses, and the Lion were victorious. Kaiyoko surrendered many shugenja from her Tsunami Legion to Yunaki, and the conflict ended. Fields of Victory, p. 43
== Aftermath ==
The clans rarely employed shugenja in battle, keeping their precious shugenja in relative safety and relegated them to supporting roles such as healing, controlling the weather, or rapidly creating earthwork defenses. 
Category:Battles (TCG)