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
Battles/wars	Helian War, Meridian War Battle of Sundan, 1938 Battle of Lahore, 1939 Battle of Peshawar, 1940 Battle of Marabella, 1941 Battle of Santiago, 1941 Battle of Eersteling, 1942
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

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 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.

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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