Yutaka Ueda

Lord Superior of Dok-lang Yutaka Ueda
Ueda in Sieuxerr in 1936
Nickname(s)	"Napoleon of the Orient"
Born	15 December, 1888 Seto, Dayashina
Died	21 June, 1979 Kanegawa, Dayashina
Allegiance	Imperial Dayashinese Army Republic of Dayashina Army
Years of service	1909-1943 1950-1955
Rank	General
Commands held	7th Infantry Regiment, 1930-1933 3rd Division "Ikari Heidan", 1933-1938 Meridian Army, 1938-1943 Chief of Staff, Joint Staff of the Republic of Dayashina Defence Forces, 1950-1955
Awards	Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (2nd class) Order of the Rising Sun (1st class) Order of the Sacred Treasure (1st class) Legion of Honour (Sieuxerr) Lord Superior of Dok-lang (Themiclesia) Order of the Star (Themiclesia)
Spouse(s)	Reiko Utsugi
Children	Two sons
Other work	Professor, Sojo Institute of Military History, 1957-1965 Author, The Corruption of the Rising Sun, 1962

Yutaka Ueda (1888-1979) was a general in the Imperial Dayashinese Army in the Pan-Septentrion War. He also served as the Chief of Staff, Joint Staff of the Republic of Dayashina Defence Forces from 1950 to 1955. He is one of the most important figures in Dayashinese political and military history, and is renowned across the world for his military exploits and resistance to the policies of Genki Suzuki throughout the Pan-Septentrion War. Furthermore, he is credited as the forefather of the reformed Dayashinese military and its doctrine.

Early life

Yutaka Ueda was born in the Sanbachi District of Seto on 15 December, 1888. He was the first and only child born to a modestly living family within the merchant caste, with a limited military service history. Throughout his early life, he attended the typical system of education, wherein he was introduced to the world of soldiering and warfare, but also trained under his father to eventually ascend to owning the small family trading business. Ueda was known for his lofty personality, believing himself smarter and better than many of his authority figures, and being comparatively unafraid to ask challenging questions in his early education, which got him reprimanded and punished on numerous separate occasions.

Despite his tendency for defiance and questioning, Ueda completed his early education without massive issue. Despite the indoctrination and romanticisation focused attitudes towards warfare in Dayashinese education at the time, Ueda had developed more of an independent interest for the technicalities of warfare, and was reported to frequent his local library to study military historical texts relating to various places around the world. Subsequently, in 1909, he signed up to Imperial Dayashinese Army Cadet School, which he would graduate from in 1913, ranked 15th out of 400 candidates. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry in the IDA.

High education and ascension

Ueda in Themiclesia during his tenure at the Themiclesian Army Academy, 1916

After graduating from IDACS in 1913, Ueda would be granted permission by authorities to forego some of his duties under the military to pursue further education abroad, being selected as a part of the Imperial Dayashinese Army's initiative to create a profoundly educated base of prospective high ranking officers. Ueda, finding himself dissatisfied with the current situation of IDA code of conduct and practice of law, opted to attend the Themiclesian Army Academy for several years, where he would study the tenets of legal theory. Here, he would learn the intricacies of foreign systems of constitutionality and democracy, and reinforce his silent contempt for what he believed was unjust rigidity within Dayashinese law and society. However, he refrained from expressing this contempt to his superiors, instead opting to publish his findings for the IDA with the objective of updating and modernising a number of outdated and then unpractical laws that were still being enforced. Despite this, he was known within the Themiclesian Army Academy to have published a controversial dissertation critiquing injustice within Dayashinese government at the time.

Partly due to pressure from his superiors, Ueda would depart the Themiclesian Army Academy in 1920, where he would return to Dayashina for two years to receive a promotion and fulfill subsequent duties for having contributed to the legal modernisation of the IDA. From there, he, and other prospective candidates, would be mandated to study in various universities and academies across Casaterra, with orders to identify the intricacies and conventions of modern battlefield efficiency from those who had already been practicing it for centuries. IDA high command had set out to create the most efficient fighting force in the history of the world, and intended to do so by following convention and standard, which Ueda realised as problematic. Despite his orders, Ueda realised the uniqueness of Dayashina's situation, in that there were certain areas that Dayashina would never be able to compete with external powers with, as a newly industrialised stated and fledgling military by comparison to those that the IDA sought to eclipse. Thus, he set out with the personal objective of identifying current conventions and devising unconventional ways to defeat them with specific thought given towards Dayashina's capacity and composition.

Through studying in academies, primarily in Tyran, Ostland, and Sieuxerr, it became apparent to Ueda that a convention of armoured warfare would emerge, with Casaterran countries putting an unprecedented emphasis on the development of armour and mechanisation of infantry for both higher speed and more destructive power. With massive, time-tried, and developed industrial bases, along with a competitive nature between very closely located states, the Casaterran countries had the capacity and willingness to stress these types of developments, and Ueda reckoned they would represent the future of land based warfare. Reporting these findings back to the IDA, he (and other officers who had identified similar issues) had caused a fair amount of stir and panic amongst high command, who realised that they were being out-competed in the line of armour and mechanisation, due to both incentive and industrial capacity. Ueda presented the argument that the IDA, with these factors taken into account, would need to defy the developing convention if it wanted to remain competitive, and develop a systematic method of bridging the century long gap between the industrial development of Dayashina and their competitors. After much debate, such arguments were accepted as reality by the IDA. Ueda, by now, had ascended to the rank of Major General, in command of the 3rd Infantry Division, "Ikari Heidan." He, along with others, were ordered to begin work among themselves and with their units to devise a method at which the IDA would be able to overcome their setbacks and bridge the gap between their competitors. Ueda, accounting for both political and military trends in Casaterra, opted to ground his studies in Sieuxerr.

Studies in Sieuxerr

Ueda's contributions to Sieuxerran doctrine were a major part of Sieuxerran-Dayashinese friendship during the PSW

Ueda and the IDA's 3rd Division were granted access to train in Sieuxerr under an agreement of favourable doctrinal and technological sharing between the two countries. Ueda had already caught the eye of a number of famed and high ranking Sieuxerran officers, and thus was granted special access to the country, being the among the only Dayashinese officers who were also allowed to bring their subsequent units with them to train with the Sieuxerran armed forces. Here, Ueda would maintain a constant dialogue with said Sieuxerran officers, whom which he would collaborate with to develop both Dayashinese and Sieuxerran ground based doctrine out of mutual interest and similar predicaments (with tensions between Sieuxerr and the very armour-focused Ostland mounting).

Development of IDA doctrine and tactics

Through much trial and error, running scenarios and games between the Ikari Heidan and units across the Sieuxerran armed forces, Ueda and his counterparts were able to develop a sound strategic overlay and develop small-unit tactics grounded in infantry-based mobility and heavy focus on infantry based anti-armour weapons and movements. Staples of this development were wide employment of mortars, anti-tank rifles, and mobile guns, with specific movements developed down to the squad level for most imaginable scenarios where an infantry unit would need to fight against an oncoming hostile armoured unit. He spent over six years in Sieuxerr perfecting this doctrine, streamlining his findings back to Dayashina, which responded by incorporating such training at home, and vastly changing weapons procurement schedules and developments to align with what would be needed en masse to actually fulfill such a strategy. His developments would be put to the ultimate test only a year after his return to home, with Dayashina entering the Pan-Septentrion War with a declaration of war on Tyran and Sylva.

National Military Academy

Ueda's transfer of information and ideas back to Imperial Dayashina after his studies in Sieuxerr not only led to the overhaul and refining of IDA training, but also led to the development of the National Military Academy, a standardised network of military acadamies spanning the population centres of Dayashina. It is said that Ueda mused about the idea of a standard military academy after his studies at the Themiclesian Army Academy, and had pitched the idea in private to agreeable colleagues, Generals Akira Nagata and Eito Uehara. Nagata and Uehara would go on pass the idea onto High Command, where it was received well enough to be considered officially by Ascendancy Party officials. After terms were agreed upon, as dictated by the Party, the proposition was authorised, and High Command launched the academy system preceding Dayashina's entry into the Pan-Septentrion War. The National Military Academy would prove vital in the rapid production of quality servicemembers and non-commissioned officers up until the end of the war, when Ascendancy Party officials interfered with the Academy to hasten its qualification standards and vastly increase emphasis on political indoctrination, abandoning the principles which allowed it to produce quality soldiers quickly.

After the war, the National Military Academy was reconstructed and repurposed into the Republic of Dayashina Military Academy, where students ages 13-18 are offered heavily subsidised, competitively ranked secondary education in addition to preparatory skills and military-oriented training. The RDMA still follows the same principles of the NMA - to produce future servicemembers at the highest quality possible. However, it is not a requirement for RDMA students to try out for the Armed Forces, they may just as easily apply for a traditional tertiary education, making use of a high degree of state benefits.

Success at Sundan

After the Imperial Dayashinese military reclaimed the Divine Island Chain, they set their sights on Sundan, a major and built up Tyrannian holding in the East. Following the Battle of Portcullia Strait, the Royal Navy intended to retreat to the friendly ports of Sundan, but the Imperial Dayashinese Navy had already moved into place, inflicting further losses on the retreating Royal Navy vessels as they slipped through to Dickenson. Furthermore, the IDN had been waging unrestricted submarine warfare on Tyrannian-Sundanese shipping, cutting the hundreds of thousands of troops on the islands off from resupply. Nevertheless, the Tyrannians refused to surrender the territory, and the IDN, with their aviation, launched a bombing campaign on the nation's political and industrial centres, particularly the capital, Penang.

General Ueda was called in to command the operations in Penang. As Dayashinese troops landed on a half-decimated Penang, the early stages of the fighting were largely governed by close quarters infantry combat. IDN Marines were able to win multiple critical set piece battles and clear the coastal outskirts of the city. Though, as the Marines started to push inland towards the center of the city, they were beginning to encounter clusters of Tyrannian armour and their progress slowed significantly, as Dayashinese armour were outclassed by that of the Tyrannians and were forced to avoid direct confrontations, and the Marines found themselves ill equipped to deal with the enemy armour. This was Ueda's first opportunity to put his doctrine into action. He the IDN Marines and armour to the back line to perform reinforcement and fire support functions, while landing the IDA 3rd Division, the Ikari Heidan, who were equipped with vast amounts of portable anti-armour equipment.

IDA personnel operate light artillery outside Penang

The 3rd Division established light artillery positions in the areas surrounding Penang to perform precision fire support functions, while sending infantry armed with anti-tank rifles, towed guns, mortars, and anti-tank bundle grenades into the center of the city to confront the Tyrannian armoured units. The tactics developed proved to be effective, as the 3rd Division made usage of their high mobility and scattered entrenchment within buildings to confuse and overwhelm the enemy armoured units, forcing constant retreat to avoid destruction. When units of the 3rd Division got stalemated in a firefight, Ueda would assign a unit of IDN Marines to assist them and break the stalemate and continue the press against the retreating armour. After about a week and a half of steady progress, Ueda's forces had captured about two thirds of the city, narrowing down Tyrannian held territory to a slim 1/3 of the city's land. Dayashinese victories elsewhere in Sundan meant that reinforcements from the capital had been cut off or expended elsewhere, and so there were no resupplies or reinforcements coming to the Tyrannians from inland. The Tyrannians still held fast and refused offers of surrender.

After deliberation with Admiral Kantaro Yamaguchi, Ueda called all of his troops to the coastal region of the city, allowing the IDN group present to unleash a hellish two day long naval and aviation bombardment of the remaining Tyrannian territory in the city. After a ceasefire was ordered on the part of the Dayashinese, the commanding officer of the Tyrannian forces emerged and agreed to terms of surrender for Penang and Sundan as a whole (this was because six of the eight people who held the power to discuss terms of surrender had been killed, and the remaining two were being held by the IDN, refusing to surrender). Ueda had won his first battle as a general, and won the trust in his doctrine by the IDA, as its implementation directly led to the first major theatre victory of Dayashina over a Casaterran opponent. Dayashina suffered approximately 7,000 deaths in Penang, with the Tyrannisn suffering 11,000, and approximately a further 15,000 amongst local colonial forces. Over 130,000 troops, including 40,000 Tyrannian Army personnel and 90,000 local embeds, had been taken prisoner from Sundan. With this victory under his belt, Imperial Dayashina was more than prepared to entrust him with wider operations on the Meridian continent.

Meridian War

East Meridia

Imperial Dayashinese Army personnel in a firefight with Sylvan soldiers during the Battle of Marabella, 1940

Removal from command

After repeated refusals over the course of five years to carry out orders from back home which he deemed inhumane or lacking in foresight, Ueda was already on thin ice with High Command. Ueda's repeated defiance to their orders had triggered an all but psychotic reaction, but the High Command repeatedly voted against removing him from his position, as what was indisputable was that Ueda's campaign in Meridia had seen unprecedented and rapid success, and that he was the best tactician the IDA had to offer at that point. However, the line in the sand was finally drawn when the Ascendancy Party entered the conflict directly, overruling the votes of the High Command.

In 1943, at which point Ueda was on the brink of having completely conquered all of East Meridia (points of concentrated resistance remained in inland Verpletterant), direct Ascendancy Party orders to carry out a genocide on the Maracaiban people reached his desk. Ueda, like his moralist character, and reinforced by ideals he'd learnt in the Themiclesian Army Academy, categorically refused to carry out this order, even though it came from an Ascendancy Party motion signed by the Emperor himself. With haste, High Command was forced to another vote on whether or not to remove him from command of the Meridian Army, and this time, they voted in favour of his removal under immense pressure from the Ascendancy Party.

Many predicted that Ueda would initiate a revolt and split Dayashinese Meridia off from the Empire, given his trend of defiance over the course of the campaign. Despite this, he did not take any such action, and simply abided by the notice of his relief of duty, and returned to Dayashina. He spent a brief time in Nakazara, where he was questioned and chastised by the Ascendancy Party, but leveraged his allies in High Command to protect his sanctity and force a halt on escalation to avoid a split inside the High Command. From there, he spent the the remaining three years of the war living as commoner with his family in Seto, which was largely untouched by allied bombings.

Controversies

Ueda's character has been viewed with a varying degree of scepticism from both international and domestic critics alike. While he is famed mostly for his benevolent leadership, morally sound decision making and military genius, he is also at the center of several controversial thinking points in history.

Primarily, he is coined by some as the "Butcher of Meridia" due to the lasting effect that the Imperial Dayashinese Army under his command had on the continent, from a personal to a geopolitical level. Ueda's armies tore across Meridia, subjugating dozens of nations and assisting the subjugation of many others, entirely changing Meridian political landscapes and social orders, the lasting effects of which can still be seen today. Imperial Dayashinese Army destruction and taxation has been repeatedly cited as a major factor in the stifling of propensity for economic growth for several Meridian nations, while other Meridian nations, particularly Shijuku, continue to reap the benefits of these actions. Ueda's compliance in Imperial Dayashina's short and long term plans for the subjugation of Meridia are viewed as nothing short of criminal by multiple international organisations.

D/ISOG sharpshooters Eiji Takamura and Shinjiro Uehara pictured in the mountains of Khalistan, 1941

Ueda is also famed for the formation of the Dayashinese/Imperial Special Operations Group (D/ISOG), which was an Imperial Dayashinese Army organisation formed specifically to enact and counter irregular warfare tactics employed by allied powers. The group utilised a mix of elite infantry, those with relevant background skills, and knowledgeable natives to both conduct and prevent raids, hit-and-runs, and other such irregular tactics. The group was fairly successful throughout the war with several important victories across both the Helian War and Meridian War, and famously fighting a brutal irregular conflict with Anglian troops till the last day of the war in the mountains of Khalistan. Furthermore, D/ISOG provided the basis for the reformation of a Dayashinese special forces group in 1950. Despite the group's successful record, it is also confirmed to be the organisation behind numerous war crimes committed across the world, from the burning of villages in Khalistan up to assassination attempts upon the Themiclesian emperor. The group was also cited to consistently use the threat of violence upon civilians to force the hand of opposition forces, luring them into kill zones. Although it was evidenced in Ueda's Sakurajima trial that Ascendancy Party officials had a hand in corrupting D/ISOG's original purpose, Ueda is still cited as complicit in the sense that he had created the organisation to begin with. The pardoning of Ueda, along with numerous other D/ISOG personnel, for these actions, remain to this day one of the most controversial aspects of the Sakurajima trials.

Lastly, Ueda openly discussed having been a primary proponent of the minimisation of post-war reparations to allied-aligned countries. Ueda and other high ranking officials in occupied Dayashina worked primarily with the Glasic delegation to ensure that Dayashina paid the least post-war reparations as possible. He and others tirelessly vied for the mitigation of reparations beyond those paid to Tir Glas and Anglia for the Helian War, completely neglecting to acknowledge the ravaged Meridia as needing or worthy of post-war reparations. Nations such as Khalistan and Maracaibo, which shouldered some of the worst consequences of the IDA's rampage across Meridia, have been and continue to be extremely vocal in their demands for the payment of appropriate reparations by Dayashina. As the Anglian delegation was unable to wrestle further reparations from Dayashina for Meridia and other allied countries (compounded with the fact that the situation on the ground in Menghe was increasingly demanding), they eventually backed out of the joint occupation of Dayashina with Tir Glas. This would directly lead to a hastier end to the occupation and a subsequent assisted jump-start of the Dayashinese military-industrial complex in 1950, an issue that also remains controversial to this day.

Reformation of the Dayashinese Armed Forces

Yutaka Ueda took a leading role in the post-occupation formation of the Republic of Dayashina Defence Forces, serving as its first Chief of Staff, Joint Staff from 1950 to 1955, laying out the structure as well as short and long term plans for the RDDF, which Dayashinese military planners continue to follow on a broad level. His status as the most successful Dayashinese Pan-Septentrion War General and commitment to the ideals of liberal democracy made him a shoo-in for the position. It is reported that he was repeatedly beckoned to serve further tenures as Chief of Staff, Joint Staff, but he indeed refused all of them, asserting in a 1956 interview that he had done "all that was needed" for the Dayashinese military to be restored to "efficient, winning order."

Professorship

Yutaka Ueda was a frequent lecturer at the Officer Candidate Academy

Ueda signed an eight year contract to teach as a professor at the Sojo Institute of Military History in Nakazara. His courses focused largely on Hemithean military history; though, his most popular course by far was his course focusing on Imperial Dayashina and where it went wrong. Ueda believed it was his duty to enlighten Dayashinese students to the wrongdoings of the Empire so that the Dayashinese people would never be able to subjugated in such a way again in the future, but also placed importance on elements of the Empire which students could reasonably draw pride from in the spirit of their ancestors. Students of the institute were known to rush and compete to sign up for his courses, eager to learn from arguably most monumental figure in Dayashinese military history. Ueda was remarked for being among the most forgiving of professors at Sojo, and lacked any need to demand respect from his students.

Ueda was cited to have traveled both domestically and internationally with great frequency, serving as a consistent guest lecturer in academic institutions and military academies across Dayashina and the world.

Current Prime Minister Daichi Noru's father, Tadamichi Noru, is noted to have attended all of Ueda's courses at Sojo, where he graduated with his degree in history.

Authorship

In 1962, Yutaka Ueda's book The Corruption of the Rising Sun was published. With a mix of well-researched academic dialogue and personal examples, the book looks at the innumerable faults of how Imperial Dayashina subjugated and controlled its own people, the upper-level inefficiencies in the Imperial Dayashinese military which doomed it from the start, and how the Ascendancy Party corrupted and manipulated Dayashinese traditional values for their own sinister purposes. Ueda himself stated that the book is meant to serve as a reference for education so that the Dayashinese people may never allow such an institution to take control again, and to bring light to the plight of the common man as an Imperial subject during the Pan-Septentrion War. It is a bestseller in Dayashina, and required reading in most secondary and tertiary institutions of education.

Retirement and late life

Yutaka Ueda retired in the company of his wife and two sons in Kanegawa, Dayashina.

Death and burial

Ueda passed away of old age on the evening of 21 June, 1979, at the age of 91. His funeral and burial was a national spectacle, with an informal day of mourning declared by the Dayashinese government. This informal occasion would then develop into the national holiday that is Remembrance Day, declared for the purpose of reflecting on the sacrifices made by the PSW generation, reaffirming Dayashina's absolute commitment to the values of liberal democracy, and the emphasis of the necessity of strength as one of the core factors in preserving Dayashinese democracy.

Legacy

Ueda's contributions to developing a counter-convention would see him hailed as a saviour within Dayashina, which had been racked with desperation for nearly a decade as far as development of a solution to glaring, unavoidable problems within Dayashina's industrial base. The IDA's widespread early success against the armoured juggernauts of Casaterra would later see his prowess recognised internationally, forcing Casaterran armies to account for the system of fighting he'd developed and leading to far more advanced developments in the line of armour-based land warfare in response. Ueda is known as the first person to develop a viable non-armour based counter to armour-based warfare, and perhaps the only person to have implemented such a doctrine successfully on a massive scale. His innate ability to take one of the IDA's most glaring weaknesses and re-purpose it into one of its greatest strengths has earned him recognition as a military genius and as the most influential figure in the IDA's early and mid war successes. Ueda's vision also landed him a long standing impact on the nature of warfare even up to present day, with his works and tactics often being referenced as a baseline for the development of the intricacies of contemporary guerilla warfare.

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