Sustaining the Army

More armies are defeated by logistics than by battle casualties. Armies require food and water for soldiers, fodder for animals, materials and support for equipment maintenance and repair, and medical support for injured personnel. Denial of any of these things to an enemy can bring a victory without combat. Consequently, a skilled commander always knows where their supply train is and assigns reliable troops to keep that supply train safe.

Food and Water

Soldiers expend a great deal of energy marching to and then fighting in battles. Accordingly, they require adequate supplies of food and potable water to sustain them as they exert themselves. Much of Rokugan is bountiful with plant and animal life, so some of these needs can be met by foraging for food, water, and timber for fuel and construction. However, this takes time and runs risks. Parties of foragers who roam ahead of the army can alert the enemy about their own army’s intentions and positions. Further, although pillaging farms and villages isn’t uncommon for an army, it is considered a last resort, since ownership of these same farms and villages is often a key objective of conflicts in the first place.

As a result, most armies carry the bulk of their food and water with them. Each soldier carries at least a day’s worth of food, while the rest is transported in a baggage train, located near the rear of the army’s column of march, where it can be protected.

The food an army travels with must be relatively easy to transport and store and resistant to spoilage. Rice, oats, and millet are the bulk of what soldiers eat, livened up with dried vegetables and salted fish. Each soldier requires a minimum of about a quarter kan (roughly two pounds) of food per day.

Further, a soldier on the march typically requires at least two sho (around three and a half quarts) of water per day, and more in hot weather. Because water is heavy and cumbersome to transport, armies draw significant portions of their requirements from streams, lakes, and rivers along their line of march. When possible, they boil this water to ensure it doesn’t make personnel good strategist will look at the map, estimate how far an army can move in a day, and lay ambushes or place scouts at streams and other bodies of water.

The management and distribution of food and water is the purview of quartermasters, who are sometimes samurai, but may also be heimin. Quartermasters and their subordinates normally accompany the baggage train, engaging in combat only to protect the vital commodities they supervise.

Consumable Supplies

In addition to food and water, armies consume large volumes of material supplies. Foremost among these is fuel. Wood, coke, or charcoal is used for cooking, watch fires, and portable forges for repairs. In addition to candles, lanterns fueled with oil made from animal fats provide illumination.

Timber, which requires foraging, is needed for palisades and on-site construction. Artisans, who accompany the quartermaster, need the raw materials of their trades, which include making candles, rope, and wicker as well as repairing barrels and wagons. Artisans may also supplement stocks of expendable weapons and ammunition by crafting spears and arrows.

Additionally, armies require a wide array of miscellaneous goods to replace unrepairable, worn-out, and lost items. These include articles of clothing, both under- and outerwear; socks, sandals, and other footwear; headgear; and packs, satchels, and cases of different types.

Maintenance

Soldiers are expected to carry out routine maintenance on their own weapons, basic armor, and equipment to ensure they are ready for battle; harsh punishment awaits those who let their gear fall into disrepair. However, some types of damage and wear exceed soldiers’ ability to fix. This is particularly true of more complex weapons, such as swords, and more sophisticated types of armor. An army’s artisans repair such items using specialized tools, and when repair is not possible, the quartermaster stores might have replacements.

Medical Support

The most effective means of treating and healing injuries is through the elemental invocations of shugenja. However, shugenja are rare and conducting invocations is too demanding for armies to rely solely on this type of treatment. Healing by shugenja is normally reserved for important and high-ranking individuals. The vast majority of soldiers must expect to receive more mundane treatment for their wounds.

To that end, Rokugani armies have medics: individuals skilled in medical procedures to treat wounds and care for the injured and ill. In battle, soldiers too injured to continue fighting must make their way to the army’s rear for treatment; unfortunately, those too badly wounded to do so usually must wait until the battle has ended to receive aid. Armies have made attempts to employ commoners as litter bearers to evacuate the wounded during battle, but with only some success; the danger and confusion of battle makes most such efforts impractical.

Medics and their assisting staff treat the wounded by administering opium-based painkillers; cleaning, stitching, and bandaging wounds; and when this is not sufficient, amputating injured limbs. Soldiers too badly injured to return to duty are evacuated to the nearest friendly village or town. This spares the army the effect on morale when soldiers see their comrades suffering from grievous wounds and missing limbs—or dying of infections—when there is little they can do to help.

Mobility Support

Moving an army across the countryside may entail significant challenges, as it may need to cross rivers or traverse rugged and difficult terrain. For assistance, an army sometimes conscripts local commoners as laborers—under the supervision of engineers or sappers (specialists in field fortifications or demolitions)— to construct roads through forests, clear trails in the mountains, run ferries across rivers, or build bridges. Depending on the nature and objectives of a campaign, these contingents can be very large, with considerable baggage and supply trains of their own.