Chapter 182 - 124: Born Rebel

After Oda Nobunaga forcibly took Anshi Zhenyuan Temple, the army was exhausted, supplies of gunpowder and arrows were severely depleted, and it was impossible to keep fighting. All he could do was reluctantly set the place on fire, then burn down the castle town of Qingzhou City, and temporarily order a retreat. Having failed to achieve his goal of eliminating the main Oda family in Qingzhou, Oda Nobunaga was in a foul mood. When he returned to Nagano Castle, there was a mass scolding, and Harano still didn’t manage to escape; he was severely cursed again and ordered to return to Wanjin immediately, to focus entirely on raising gunpowder production—the job had to be finished ahead of schedule, or else it would be far worse than just being yelled at. So, after two months of indecisive fighting, Harano could finally go home. Aside from a "Training Manual," he hadn’t gotten anything out of this—serving as a battlefield doctor this time, Oda Nobunaga didn’t even pay him any wages, as if, now that he had land in Owari, he was supposed to work for free by default. Harano didn’t stoop to his level. Mainly, he couldn’t afford to cross him yet, so he brought A-Qing and the rest, galloping all the way back to Wanjin. From a distance he saw kitchen smoke curling upward, the place calm and peaceful, finally letting him relax a little. Not bad. The village was still standing, not reduced to ruins. People seemed to be alive too—those guys who wrote to him hadn’t just reported the good news and held back the bad. When he rode up close, he discovered that during his absence, no one had been slacking off. Wanjin looked like it had expanded again, the buildings were even neater, and they’d started building walls on the outskirts. The place was transforming from a village into a manor, and a very tall horse marker now stood in his yard—a thick pole topped with a giant golden gourd, gaudy as hell, practically screaming for the artillery to use it as a targeting beacon. He hadn’t given that order. Most likely, it was Ah Man acting on her own. She’d always liked these flashy, useless things—now that she’d become a Samurai and considered herself respectable, she probably thought even more of this junk and insisted on making it look like something special. But Harano didn’t care either. So long as it wasn’t a matter of principle, with his personality, he wasn’t about to force people to do everything his way. Letting others mess around a bit didn’t matter to him. He slowed his horse, meandering toward his home, taking in all the changes in Wanjin along the way. As the lord of Wanjin returned from campaign, it made quite a stir. Household Retainers, clerks, and all sorts of minor leaders gathered around him, all talking over each other to welcome him back safe and sound. Harano was genuinely happy too—back in Wanjin, on his own turf, that inner sense of relaxation came rushing in. It was a hundred times better than staying in Nagano Castle. Back at Nagano Castle, he always felt stifled, probably because he was just born not to like being around domineering people. Even if the big boss meant him no real harm—at most just yelling at him—he still didn’t like it. There was always this unspeakable discomfort, a sense of insecurity he couldn’t shake. It was a hard mindset to describe—maybe you’d need to learn some psychology to really figure it out. Or maybe he was just born with a "rebel’s bump," couldn’t stand being beneath others, couldn’t stand being manipulated? Was he not born to be "Big-Eared Liu," but rather born to be Wei Yan? With a smile, Harano thanked everyone for their concern, but couldn’t help letting his thoughts drift. He raised his hand to the back of his head to feel for this mythical "rebel’s bump"—but he didn’t find anything special, his skull was round and smooth, no dents or lumps, so he couldn’t tell if he had one or not. "Milord, the tasks you mentioned before—most of them are already..." Endo Chiyoda hurried over, but she didn’t just want to greet him—she brought a pile of reports, wanting Harano to see all the work she’d done lately and give her a good performance review. But before she could finish, her reports were snatched away by Ah Man in a flash. Ah Man didn’t just steal her stuff, she started herding the crowd away like chickens, "Alright, alright, the Lord just got back—he hasn’t even caught his breath! Why are you all crowding around? Go get on with your work!" Endo Chiyoda glared at Ah Man at once, looking as if she really regretted not strangling her when she fished her out of the river long ago. When Harano was around, if someone made a little mistake, he wouldn’t scold them. Instead, he’d ask about difficulties and help figure out solutions. As long as the same mistake wasn’t repeated, the matter was considered done; it was like basking in a warm spring breeze—no hard feelings at all. But Ah Man was a totally different story. No matter the cause or difficulty, if the job wasn’t done exactly as planned, she’d start yelling with her finger in someone’s face, and even tried to dock people’s yearly pay as punishment. But Harano hadn’t given her the right to do that, and nobody agreed with her at the team meetings, so she couldn’t get away with it in the end. After two months of this, Ah Man had managed to find faults great and small in every person in the territory, offending absolutely everyone. If Harano had been away another month, there might have been a full-blown mutiny, and they’d have tied Ah Man to a rock and chucked her into the sea. Harano had received plenty of veiled "complaint letters" about this too. But after all, Ah Man being the "East Factory Director"—it’s only normal that a Factory Director isn’t liked by the civil servants. Having someone on hand to yell at people now and then was actually a good thing—a little pressure brings results better than pure generosity and leniency. Seriously, if Ah Man hadn’t been keeping an eye on the place for two months while he was away, he wouldn’t have felt at ease at all. He quickly stepped in as peacemaker to calm everyone: "Alright, alright, there’s no rush to talk—let’s eat together tonight and discuss things in detail then. For now, let’s all get back to work!" "Yes, milord!" As the founder and the boss paying the wages, Harano still had authority. Endo Chiyoda, Maeshima Shichiro, and the others left in groups to get back to their tasks. Harano also gave A-Qing, the Yoriki Warrior, and the loyal veterans who’d come with him a two-day break to rest up. Once everyone had been sent off, he didn’t rush off to rest. Instead, he strolled all over Wanjin, letting Ah Man feed him "gossip"—but it was all trivial nonsense, like who was buttering up whom, who was getting chummy with whom, who had slowed down the work schedule. Totally unimportant. If something serious had really happened, Ah Man would have written him within three days at the latest. There were even fewer issues on the workshop front—that’s the source of income, and Ah Man was watching it like a hawk. Besides doing Harano’s "Daily Mission," keeping the twelve silly women massaging her precious son, she kept daily tabs on workshop output. If anyone dared report less than the day before, she’d hunt down the culprit and publicly tear into them. Amazingly, after two months of this, productivity had ticked up slightly—though overall morale was a bit lower. Harano figured he’d have to hand out a bonus soon to mop up after her. The small bay’s new dock was finished as scheduled—and they’d bought three Customs Ships (one big, two small), adding over twenty new recruits to form a small fleet. But Yu Da had taken them all out for short-range sea training, so the people and ships were gone for now. The dock wasn’t empty, though—a few battered, tiny boats were moored, with some half-naked fisherfolk haggling with a few women, trying to swap their catch for some grain, cloth, or ironware. Harano was about to get closer to chat when Ah Man pulled him back: "Don’t go, Lord. Those paupers are terrified of getting caught—if big-bodied you show up, they’ll all bolt back to their boats. Going back and forth will just waste time." Harano nodded, not stubborn about it, and said with satisfaction, "These are the islanders from Ise Bay, right? They’re finally willing to trade with us?" "Yeah, that bunch of paupers—only recently did some of them dare to come over, bringing stinky dried fish and seaweed to swap for goods. We traded at a loss just like you told us, lost seven or eight kan for nothing, and this is how it’s been since. Every day a few little boats come to swap and run, and if they get spooked, they run again." "No one’s willing to settle down? If they come as free people, no tax or labor for the first three years—we told them all that, right?" "Told them, but still no one wants to stay." Harano was a bit disappointed. He’d wanted to be a good guy—give these people plenty to eat and wear, and pay them fairly for working. But for all his good intentions, these folks didn’t appreciate it at all, not giving a shred of trust even after nearly half a year—just a handful show up each day. But it was a start; as they get used to the lower prices here and see it’s safe, more would come eventually. Watching his "future subjects" for a while, he turned back and asked Ah Man, "How much has the population grown while I was gone?" "Only up by a hundred and twenty-one. But one guy fell and died at the construction site, so it’s only up by a hundred and twenty," Ah Man answered—she knew Harano cared about this the most, but she was already nagging Maeshima Shichiro for not working hard enough, and Maeshima was practically depressed. Despite that, the efficiency of buying people was steadily declining: "It’s getting harder to buy people now, and since we keep buying, the price is way up. It’s a bad deal." Harano shook his head. The lack of labor was killing him; without workers, nothing went smoothly, and now even spending money didn’t bring more people—maybe they’d have to start raiding neighbors... No, have to keep the moral high ground: It’s not "raiding"—it’s "liberating commoners cruelly enslaved by the enemy," giving them a happy new life. Harano changed his mind, turning toward the workshop district, and asked Ah Man, "That thing I wrote about earlier—how’s your prep going? Is it doable?" "Should be doable," Ah Man answered as she followed him, hand on sword hilt. "Those folks have been eating their fill for half a year—they’re not like when we first bought them, acting like they’d drop dead if you touched them. I think they can be sent to fight now, and they’re definitely more obedient and disciplined than when they first arrived. I picked through them—can select about a hundred and forty people." "Only a hundred and forty?" "We only have a bit over five hundred people. A hundred and forty’s not bad," said Ah Man, adding a warning in advance: "But these are the best workers we’ve got—take them out and the workshop’s output will drop a lot. Might take half a year to recover." "Still have to do it—it’s an upfront investment, can’t cut corners." Harano had already made up his mind, and wasn’t about to hesitate now. It might seem dumb to draft the best "industry workers" into the army, but this was wartime—war trumped everything, so of course the best people had to become soldiers. That was just the reality of it. If the recruits weren’t good enough and they lost battles, the loss would be much bigger—so for now, this was the only way. Whoever is most obedient and works the hardest gets to risk their life. After all, since they’re already well-behaved, of course they have to be the "organizational backbone" and take on greater responsibilities, and make even greater contributions! Since ancient times, that’s one thing that never changes!