Chapter 224 - 157 Busy and Fulfilling

Words : 1902 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Harano and Princess Dog had settled on an engagement, but when they would officially marry was still uncertain. He didn’t understand the marriage etiquette of the Japan Middle Ages, and there was no one in his territory who specialized in "ritual law," so he just planned to follow whatever Oda Nobunaga’s side suggested, waiting for further notice. He wasn’t in a hurry to take a wife; marrying an eleven-year-old would only give him a headache. With the alliance set, his main focus was still on restoring production and building up New Wanjin. The workshop had to be rebuilt, the houses had to be rebuilt, and even the small experimental lab needed to be rebuilt. However, thanks to the marriage alliance, everything that had been confiscated from Wanjin was being returned. Many pieces of equipment and containers he simply sent people back to fetch, so here in New Wanjin he only needed to build the factory buildings and such, and didn’t have to worry too much about it. Especially since this new round of construction could use volcanic ash cement, a building material that was both cheap and particularly suited for rapid construction, also making it possible to build large-scale structures. Once the factories and so on were finished, they should be even grander and more functional than before. At the same time, New Wanjin’s soil was quite good. He organized people by the river, opening up the first rice field in Wanjin’s history. He immediately drew up all kinds of plans, preparing to build a small-scale waterworks and irrigation system in the future, and to continue expanding arable land, aiming for self-sufficiency in food, and also to be able to plant some cash crops for commercial and industrial needs. The successful opening of these fields gave a real boost to the morale in New Wanjin. After a collective petition from the elders was approved, they chiseled out a long giant stone from the mountain, dragged it to the riverside, and stuck it in the ground, then invited Harano to personally use a file to engrave the first line on the stone. This thing was called the "荒石" (Flood Stone), used to record the river’s height. It was said that anyone who spent enough years here, as long as they recorded river heights by season, could use the Flood Stone to judge whether next year would bring a good harvest or if they’d need to prepare for famine early. There were even popular folk legends about the Flood Stone. After all, strictly speaking, Japan is not truly a maritime civilization. Even though its main territory is island-based, in reality it is a river-civilization—a curious phenomenon caused by deep influences from China since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and quite different from most island nations. The common "living off the sea" situation is not serious here and is very rare in world history. This meant that most villages in Japan at this time were built by rivers, and the "Flood Stone" became a signature feature of most villages. Now, finally, New Wanjin also had one, and in a way it meant the people here truly accepted this place, were genuinely willing to settle down and began to regard it as their home. New Wanjin’s situation was even better than old Wanjin’s, at least after surviving a fierce battle and with bright prospects ahead. The sense of communal identity among the people grew stronger, with more and more calling themselves "Wanjin people," no longer distinguishing between "old Wanjin" and "new immigrants," and gradually merging into a unified whole. Also because of the new fields, composting became something people did willingly on their own. The residential area attached to the workshop hadn’t even been completed, but the many public toilets (called nightsoil fields at this time) were quickly finished. Even though it was already summer and typhoon season wasn’t far off, so they couldn’t start planting, the families who were confident they’d get plots still competed to collect compost. Composting was already a tradition in Japan at this time, having been introduced from the Song Dynasty. For example, the "Illustrated Biography of the Monk Honen" has pictures showing Honen chanting scriptures on the toilet and taking young monks to collect nightsoil in buckets for compost. The people eagerly collected compost, planning to plant beans to enrich the fields as soon as typhoon season passed. As for Harano, eager to see his land get better, he was busy too, prioritizing the transport of all the bird guano phosphate he’d stockpiled and, after suitable crushing and processing, applied it to the fields. Bird guano phosphate is slow-release; after it’s applied to the soil, its nutrients aren’t released all at once but dissolve gradually, supplying crops with nutrients over time. This can reduce fertilizer application frequency, save labor, and prevent waste from too rapid nutrient release, offering long-term support for crop growth. At the same time, bird guano phosphate is an excellent natural fertilizer, rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, and other elements crops urgently need—it’s really one of those "those who use it know." For instance, in the Spring and Autumn period, the Wu and Yue kingdoms relied on bird guano phosphate, matured guano-soil, and migratory birds regularly defecating in their fields to raise bumper harvests, greatly strengthening national power, enabling them to train many swordsmen, and for small states to beat up heavyweight powers like Chu and Qi—and nearly wipe them out. But China’s sages had used up the natural fertilizers like bird guano phosphate in advance, so later generations had none left to use, and there are very few historical records. Meanwhile, from Sui-Tang times, Japan tried to imitate but failed to copy this part. This turned out just right for Harano, who could pay tribute to the sages by getting Japan in early on bird guano phosphate—and also enrich himself a bit—in truth, you can really tell the difference in crops grown with and without fertilizer. In modern times, you could say over 60% of the world’s population depends on fertilizer, and you wouldn’t be wrong. New Wanjin was thriving, bouncing back quickly, with new buildings completed every day, and more fields added daily. According to Harano’s estimates, this quick pace of recovery and growth could last until early next year. At that time, he’d likely be short on manpower again, forced to maintain the status quo and unable to keep expanding rapidly. This gave him a headache. Progress was jerky and halting, which affected his long-term plan. But there wasn’t much he could do to prepare in advance. Looking around, there was no one left nearby he could forcibly resettle, so he just had to hold back for now and see if he could dream up some new way to scrape together some population. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten the islanders in Ise Bay. After so much interaction on both sides, mutual trust was much higher than before, so he sent Ah Man and Yu Da to again hire islanders to help ship goods, continue profit-sharing with them, and tempt them to move to his land. This was already showing results: about thirty households had been attracted so far. But now his territory was so much larger—over five times the area of the old Wanjin—including the Oya Family’s lands that he could occupy but hadn’t yet gotten around to. Tossing in a hundred-odd people made barely a ripple; it just meant he had a few more managed fishermen. The development of the territory was still a long, hard road. He was still just a gentry clan leader, at best a gentry with advanced production technology who was good at making money. To really become a "small Daimyo," with the power to steer the course of events at critical moments, he’d need to stuff his territory with populations until it was nearly full—otherwise, he wasn’t all that different from before. As soon as the workshop gradually resumed production and the fields, waterworks, housing projects—everything—was planned, he tried building a small salt-drying facility on the seaside tidal flats using volcanic ash cement, hoping to provide a stable salt supply for the territory. It would also help accumulate technical expertise and management staff, preparing for a larger-scale expansion that would eventually squeeze out all the rival salt merchants. Of course, he couldn’t do that right away. The cost of securing this plot had already been several hundred able-bodied men. He was already stretched thin just getting the workshop running again, never mind allocating more manpower to large-scale salt making—it couldn’t be done for now, but the future looked promising. He’d also tried making sugar, attempting to ferment white sugar from rice using microbes. He’d seen a paper about this before he crossed over, so he remembered some steps and data, but unfortunately, fermentation conditions were impossibly demanding in ancient times. Even in labs, success rates were low and costs prohibitive—no way to do it workshop-style. It looked like, to get his hands on hyper-profitable white sugar, he’d need to find and improve on ancient sugar-making, but even after sending Ah Man out to inquire several times (and checking while reestablishing his intelligence network in Owari), she’d found neither sugarcane nor beets—probably neither had entered Japan in this era. Or maybe, like domestic pigs, which had been brought over several times from China or the Korean Peninsula since the Tang, but had for various reasons died out. In any case, now you simply couldn’t find them. There probably really weren’t any. He vaguely remembered that even in modern Japan, no one eats sugarcane—the fruit stores and supermarkets never even stock it. Beets are more of a leafy root vegetable, not very common either. In his old home region in Guanzhong, people almost never ate them at all. Luckily, Ah Man wasn’t one to come back empty-handed. Even after several rounds of searching, she wasn’t totally out of luck—she managed to pick up some watermelon seeds from Atsuta Harbor. That was a pleasant surprise, and there was still time to plant autumn watermelons. Harano hurriedly started the seedlings, hoping that come autumn he could have a bite of watermelon to remember modern life—a real luxury, because life in ancient times was pretty rough. It felt like going from a big city to a remote African village: there was nothing at all. He worked hard every day, and wanted a good snack to lift his spirits. As for the sugar-making endeavor, that could only be put aside for now, unless he could find sugarcane seedlings to restart the effort. For now, every so often he’d brew a tank of rice in the lab to see if a bit of white sugar would turn up—for making medicine and explosives. "A handful of gunpowder and a handful of sugar—nicknamed Big Ivan," and "a bite of sugar, a life saved"—these were common sayings. For serious wounds, if you could drink sugar water or lick a sugar crystal, it really boosted survival chances. That made sugar a strategic material, and with strategic supplies, you never worried about cost—it was always better to have more on hand. Simple, building-focused life really suited a STEM person like him. As the watermelons began to set and grow, his life only got busier but more fulfilling. Honestly, if it weren’t for his ultimate plan, he would be fine living like this for the rest of his life.

Chapter 224 - 157 Busy and Fulfilling

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