Chapter 219 - 153 Prince Nozawa

Niwa Nagahide and Maeda Toshie, carrying Oda Nobunaga’s earnest instructions, set out immediately. They split up to prepare gifts and each gathered their household retainers to head for Wanjin to rendezvous. After doing a quick inspection and making arrangements, they boarded a customs ship at the dock and began sailing south along the coast, searching for Harano along the way. Sailing was boring and the two, with nothing to do, just sat idle in the general’s cabin. Meanwhile, Maeda Toshie was still struggling to process the situation—Harano, who used to be penniless and shamelessly freeloading in villagers’ homes, running his "black clinic," somehow managed, in less than three years’ time, to land himself a princess. From now on, if others wanted to be respectful, they could even address him as "Lord Yehua." This was an upgrade speed like a rocket’s—good enough to be made into a kabuki play and sung about for a hundred years. He mulled it over for a while but couldn’t figure it out, so he turned to the meditating Niwa Nagahide and asked, "Lord Niwa, what on earth is going on here? Why is our lord... why is he suddenly planning to marry off Princess Dog to Lord Saburō?" If it were possible, he wouldn’t mind marrying a princess of the Oda Family himself—after all, all the Oda princesses were quite pretty. Niwa Nagahide had a headache, uncertain if he could complete this mission, and opened his eyes with a sigh. "It’s all because of gunpowder!" His own work was mostly in domestic affairs and logistics, quite different from Maeda Toshie, who mainly did the fighting and killing. He knew the inside story very well—previously, Harano had rented land in Wanjin, with the initial agreement requiring over two thousand jin of saltpeter paid annually. Then, after only a few months, he delivered several hundred jin of saltpeter to Nagano Castle. Oda Nobunaga, thinking just collecting saltpeter was troublesome, waved his hand and changed Wanjin’s annual tax to three thousand jin of gunpowder per year. If the gunpowder quota wasn’t met, then the territory would be taken back. He’d said this himself, maybe as a joke, but maybe not. Once gunpowder was plentiful and the logistics were secured, Oda Nobunaga continued training his iron cannon ashigaru and kept expanding the Oda Iron Cannon Team. But whenever gunpowder ran short—like after blowing through their supplies in the battle of Anshi Zhenyuan Temple—he would immediately demand Niwa Nagahide to replenish it. Niwa Nagahide was forced to keep scrounging everywhere: sending people to scrape out cesspits, dig in the mountains for saltpeter soil, dispatching others to Kaido Town in search of smuggled "imported saltpeter," begging wealthy merchants to sell a bit, and sending magistrates to buy from Wanjin—since Wanjin was on their home turf and Oda Nobunaga’s word was law there, meaning they had no choice but to sell, which was much less of a headache (and much cheaper!) than dealing with those snobbish big shots in Kaido Town. So, in practice, Wanjin had already become the main gunpowder supply base for the Oda Danjo Chonosuke household, providing over sixty percent of their annual gunpowder needs. But at the same time, that was burning through the Oda Danjo Chonosuke household’s accumulated wealth—because at this point, saltpeter was ridiculously expensive, and Oda Nobunaga’s wars were endless, like burning cash. Niwa Nagahide seriously suspected that if Harano ever stopped running, Oda Nobunaga would come up with some reason to seize the saltpeter production process, so the Oda Danjo Chonosuke household could be self-sufficient and save a fortune every year. Of course, given Oda Nobunaga’s generous nature, he probably wouldn’t treat Harano unfairly—he might well still marry a younger sister to him, making him part of the Oda Danjo Chonosuke extended household, to make up for his loss. But since Harano ran off so cleanly, none of that matters now. Besides the gunpowder, there was another reason as well. Harano had suddenly grown so powerful that even the Imagawa family couldn’t kill him off—this was beyond what Oda Nobunaga had expected. If today Harano could cross from Aichi County by sea to attack Chita County and manage to hold on, then who’s to say tomorrow he couldn’t strike back from Chita County to take root in Aichi County, too? No one could guarantee it—no one dared to! Especially considering he’d reached some sort of peace agreement with the Imagawa family. The terms were unknown, but what if he suddenly became the Imagawa family’s vanguard for a sneak attack on the Oda Danjo Chonosuke household, managing to break deep into their heartland—maybe even stab the Bai Chuan Pass defenses in the back—then it would be a catastrophe far bigger than just a gunpowder shortage. The Danjo Chonosuke household could be facing extermination. From that angle, even Niwa Nagahide had to agree to marrying off a princess to Harano. After all, raising a princess in the house was just a drain on resources—might as well put her to good use. Maeda Toshie didn’t get any of this. He was only eighteen or nineteen now; in modern times, at his age, he’d still have the right to be called a "baby." He lacked experience and was pretty simple-minded—he had never even thought about things like this. So Niwa Nagahide simply explained what he could, focusing on Harano’s substantial gunpowder supply: the Danjo Chonosuke household didn’t want to lose such an "excellent munitions supplier." Without Harano, their annual spending on gunpowder would go up by ten or even twenty thousand kan. And even with that much money, they might not get enough gunpowder, because the big trading houses in Kaido Town, who had overseas connections, were all backed by large temples—like, the top few merchants were deeply entangled with Ishiyama Honganji Temple. Meanwhile, Oda Nobunaga was currently pushing the "guild abolition" policy, and would soon upgrade that to "guild and guild households" in Qingzhou City, systematically stripping the temples of their commercial privileges in the Lower Four Provinces of Owari. This had aroused general suspicion and resentment from the monks. Those wealthy merchants, protected by the temples’ exclusive rights, naturally weren’t going to look kindly on Oda Nobunaga. If you wanted to make a bulk buy of gunpowder, you’d have to either pay a huge premium—or bow your head. Historically, Oda Nobunaga really did bow his head. To build up his iron cannon ashigaru, when he got his court post in Kyoto, he had to grit his teeth and go to Kaido Town and even had to take a wealthy merchant as his tea ceremony teacher. He stopped the "guild and guild households" policy for quite a long stretch, only resuming after burning the temple’s sacred site at Mount Hiei and beating up Ishiyama Honganji Temple—losing over ten years in the process. But now, with Harano in the mix, things were different. Oda Nobunaga was tough; from beginning to end, he showed no sign of bowing his head. The idea of going personally to curry favor—forget it! He’d rather marry off a sister to cement an alliance with Harano than ever go crawling to the merchants for mercy. He might be furious with Harano, but he didn’t hate him, not compared to those monks and merchants mocked him from afar, calling him a country bumpkin and threatening him in order to stop his "guild abolition" policy. If there was anyone he really hated, it was the monks and merchants—he swore he’d pay them back sooner or later. "So that’s it!" Maeda Toshie finally had an epiphany. Harano’s runaway move could cost the Oda Danjo Chonosuke household a fortune, as well as hit their lord’s capacity for war and personal pride. Now he thought the princess ought to be married off—ten or twenty thousand kan was nearly three times the Hosokawa Family’s annual income. Spending a princess to recover such losses was a bargain—during Japan’s Warring States, princesses weren’t rare at all. Here at the start of the era, there were already over 3,580 princesses floating around. If you put one up for public auction, you might not even get ten thousand kan of Yongle Coins for her. Niwa Nagahide sighed quietly, still worrying whether Harano would even agree to marry. After all, Harano and Oda Nobunaga really were birds of a feather—both a little crazy, unpredictable, and both loved acting on their own impulses. Whether he’d go for a marriage alliance—who knew? He closed his eyes again, pushing his worries away and trying to rest. Mainly, he was a little seasick—still too young, hadn’t traveled much, not used to seafaring routes yet. The more worried he felt, the queasier he got. ...... Harano, meanwhile, had no idea that Oda Nobunaga was planning to become his brother-in-law. He was just worried that Oda Nobunaga would lose his marbles and come after him for revenge. In his mind, Oda Nobunaga was about as reliable as Ah Man—completely unpredictable, capable of anything. In the ten days since the Imagawa family retreated, he’d reorganized his troops, braced for small-scale seaborne raids, and personally led the recovery of their dead’s remains. He set up a public cemetery atop North Mountain, where Ah Man, guest-starring as a "little monk," conducted a grand funeral ceremony. He even publicly announced generous compensation for the bereaved to calm the people—Ah Man was proficient in the "Life-extending Flowing Yang Technique" and could play "void monk" or the like. For now, she was the only one in the territory who could chant the Sutra of the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha’s Liberation of the Dead—without her, funerals really weren’t doable. After that, Harano personally led by example, scrambling around digging soil and chopping wood, beginning the hard work of rebuilding the new domain, intent on quickly restoring strength—now he truly believed the legends about Mouri Motonari surviving on half a bowl of bean rice a day and toiling in the fields with his own hands. Apparently, even Mouri Motonari got walloped so badly he had to set an example to inspire his people—the same thing Harano found himself doing now. Along the way, he named this nameless wasteland "New Wanjin"—meaning "a new home for the Wanjin people." His naming sense was pretty lousy, but as the founder of the territory, nobody dared object, except for Ah Man, who grumbled a couple of times. And so the name was officially set. In New Wanjin, everything had to start over; aside from the defenses, not a single proper house stood, but Harano had no regrets. He just rolled up his sleeves and got to work—from building houses to plowing fields, he threw himself into it all. His people were surprisingly cooperative. Apparently, the peasants’ endurance was off the charts—as long as they could still eat, even if it was just subsistence eating, nobody dreamed of rebelling or overthrowing the upper class. No one blamed Harano for his impulsiveness or for landing them in this mess. On the contrary, since Harano had always owed a pile of debts (dating back to Takeshige Manor), and this "Battle of New Wanjin" carried plenty of promises of battlefield rewards, and seeing as the land now belonged to him outright, everything built or plowed could be handed out by him. It was very likely he’d make good on the debts and bonuses, giving land to the people—some of it even excellent fields with years of tax and labor exemption. Because of this, everyone was bursting with enthusiasm for rebuilding. In these times, nothing gave more peace of mind than land. Even workshop workers who always had enough to eat still wished for a plot to farm; what they grew didn’t matter—just that it be theirs. This way, the men could keep earning in the workshops while the old folk, women, and children could grow food and vegetables at home; for them, that felt secure and perfect. Harano did, in fact, want to compensate his people and soldiers for their efforts—they’d proven their loyalty, and loyalty should always be rewarded. In the past ten days, Harano had worried over this every day—working by day, planning personally by night. He wasn’t getting any more sleep than he had when fighting; he’d lost even more weight and now sported double dark circles under his eyes—looking, on first glance, like a panda who stepped through the wrong portal and ended up in the Japanese archipelago by mistake. The only good news was: though exhausted, he wasn’t anxious anymore, his mental burden much lighter, and his hair had stopped falling out by the handful. It looked like he’d dodged the ultimate tragedy—not going bald young, and getting stronger in the process. The fact that he could keep his hair made him feel pretty good—until he heard news from the port: a customs ship flying the Five Melon Flags was circling the bay.