It was a slow and painful grind that started with a botched invasion of a small island that had some gold on it. I fgured, they're small, shouldn't be much of an issue, and then I ran into a 1200 strong army with my measly 800 one, the fight was rather nasty as they had the terrain advantage too and my daimyo died then and there. It was a setback I thought, but as I'm rebuilding my troops and waiting for a fucking general to a appear, a clan twice my size decides they don't like my face existing. So now I have a 1500+ stack of doom with two generals and a daimyo in it (so good luck with sabotage and bribery I guess). Shortly afterwards another big clan declares war, but they're kinda far away, so they resort to murdering all my trade ships with their giant samurai fleet.
At this point I had rebuilt most of my army with some better troops, and had lost one of my provinces, so I figure, the island is a safe bet, if I take that they probably won't go for it on account of my strong navy guarding it. Wanna know what the island folk were doing while I was gone for a couple of years? Breeding soldiers, and arrows, lots and lots and lots of both. Like, 2000 men army against my invasion force of slightly under a 1000. So I say fuck it, this is over and delete the save.
Edit:
Shogun 2, Rise of the Samurai campaign