Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 104: Born with a worthless life, there is no way I can die!

Wanjin, located on the coast of Ise Bay facing the Pacific Ocean, was named just two days ago and there is not even a single human being in the place.

He looked around at the desolate and silent surroundings, felt the slightly salty sea breeze gently caressing his face, glanced at the fine sandy river beach not far away, bent down and turned over the ground under his feet with a dagger, picked up a handful of dark gray soil, looked at it, and then let it fall from his fingers.

A wasteland is a wasteland, and the soil is indeed very bad. It is a heavy clay soil with poor air permeability and water permeability. It is difficult for plant roots to obtain rainwater and oxygen. If you really want to farm here, you need to take rotten soil and sand and gravel from the woods and mix them in proportion. After one or two years of deep plowing, it may become "paddy soil".

But it doesn't matter. We didn't come here to open up new land. This is just a forward base. As long as we can develop without constraints, it's fine.

At the very least, no one here will hinder him from burning charcoal and recruiting men.

As for safety issues...

There is no need to worry too much for the time being. The powerful families in the four counties under Owari have just been severely beaten by Oda Nobunaga. I think within three to five months, no one will dare to come and attack the projects that Oda Nobunaga pays close attention to.

This is a rare window period, and we must seize the time to resume work and production during this period and have stronger self-protection capabilities than before. Only then can we talk about the next step and the future.

He was observing the terrain and thinking about random things. The people behind him also caught up with him. He turned around and ordered, "Let's set up camp here!"

Maejima Jichiro looked around and felt that this place was not bad, as it was close to the water source and the terrain was flat enough, so he directly told his family members to surround the vehicles and start unloading them. The two new recruits, Nakajo Heijiro and Maruhashi Gomon, also led their men to disperse under Yuanye's instructions to check if there were any wild animals nearby that could harm people.

Yuanye took Ah Qing and continued to move forward, one step deep and one step shallow. They were going to take a look at the small bay again and prepare to select a site to build a small dock that could temporarily accommodate a medium-sized ship.

This is necessary. Without this boat, he can't quickly obtain saltpeter...

This is not quite accurate. There is no way to quickly obtain saltpeter according to Plan A, and he will be forced to use Plan B, which is to use the saltpeter field method that first appeared in France in the 14th century and was popular in the mid-15th century. In that case, he will need to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to dig lime and dig holes, and it will be difficult for him to do his own thing in a short period of time. It is not advisable.

Moreover, the technology of making saltpeter in saltpeter fields is very easy to imitate. Oda Nobunaga can learn it by sending people to secretly take a few glances. By then, his personal value will be greatly reduced, which will greatly affect his future plans.

Therefore, unless he really could not deliver the goods and there was a risk that Oda Nobunaga would take back his land, he did not want to implement Plan B. He still wanted to make it more complicated so that he could have the key technology in his own hands. He wanted this wasteland mainly to meet his own needs. In fact, the saltpeter that Oda Nobunaga wanted could be obtained with just one ship if nothing unexpected happened.

Of course, it is hard to say whether to choose A or B now. We need to wait and see the situation, but it is definitely right to do it first.

…………

Thus began the arduous life of land reclamation. Yuanye commanded his more than one hundred men to destroy nature at will, setting fire to the wasteland, clearing brush, cutting down trees, driving away wild beasts, leveling the land, building huts, and by the way determining the locations of important buildings such as the soy sauce workshop, dyeing workshop, charcoal kiln, lime kiln, and water diversion channel.

After working hard for five or six days, the camp was basically habitable. He began to think about building a soy sauce workshop first to quickly restore cash flow so that he would have more funds on hand and could hire more craftsmen to speed up construction.

There is no big problem in this regard. After all, the requirements for a soy sauce workshop are very low. Maejima Jiro and the Momoi brothers are also experienced workers, so the preliminary preparations can be left directly to them. However, he was discussing with these three people pointing at the open space when he suddenly noticed that something seemed to have happened in the distance.

The guards nearby - the guards of the Oda family whom he borrowed from Niwa Nagahide - stopped two people and a cart, and it seemed that a small dispute had occurred.

Curious, he asked Maejima and the other two to go ahead and went to take a look. When he got closer, he found that a muscular man of about 18 or 19 was clamoring to see him. A 13 or 14-year-old Kosode girl was standing next to him. Behind him was a tattered cart pulled by manpower, on which were piled some tattered luggage and a large pile of straw. A dirty foot was sticking out diagonally from the straw. The foot looked very familiar...

It really looked very familiar. He had often seen someone picking this foot after dinner. When he first crossed over, he had spent a long time persuading the owner of this foot to wash his feet before going to bed at night. He was deeply impressed...

"grown ups!"

He was staring at the dirty foot in a daze, feeling his heart beating faster and faster, and a sense of illusion, when a man noticed him coming and turned around to greet him. The man, who was about 18 or 19, also looked at him up and down, and asked in a daze, "Are you Nohara Saburo?"

"it's me!"

Yuanye finally came to his senses, answered instinctively and walked towards the cart, but the man immediately grabbed the hilt of the knife and shouted: "Wait, give us the money first!"

Yuanye didn't have time to deal with him now, so he shouted directly at the cart: "Aman!"

The straw pile didn't respond. Yuanye's heart sank slightly, and he immediately shouted again with all his strength: "A-Man!"

Finally, there was movement in the straw pile. A pair of hands reached out and rummaged around, uncovering some of the straw. Then Ah Man's dazed voice came out, "Is it time to eat?"

Yuanye's heartbeat slowed down at this point, and he felt a mixture of emotions, a sense of ups and downs - he was very excited to see Aman, and he couldn't believe that she had come back like this. But when he called her, she didn't respond, so he thought she was here to deliver a corpse.

Ah Man also recognized his voice at this time, and pulled at the straw a few more times, and shouted happily: "It's you! I finally found you. Why were you running around all day? I couldn't find you anywhere, and I thought you were dead! Come on, come and help me, my wound hasn't healed yet, and I can't sit up by myself!"

Yuanye hurried forward, but the man pushed him hard and shouted angrily again: "Pay first!"

"Don't be so insolent!" These borrowed men from Nohara were not just for show. The reason they were borrowed was to provide protection in the wild so that they would not be easily wiped out by a group of thieves. At this time, they really played a role. Seeing Yuanye being attacked, they immediately put down their spears and stopped the man's rude behavior.

Yuanye quickly waved his hand to signal that there was no need to be nervous, in case a fight really broke out. After calming himself down, he was about to ask the man what money he was talking about, when Ah Qing came running over quickly with a copper hoop stick in his hand. He had probably seen a conflict while he was busy in the camp, and was worried that Ah Qing might have an accident, so he hurried over to check.

She knew Ah-man better than Yuan-ye did. Even though Ah-man was walking towards them with his feet on his back and waving his hands in the straw to avoid the wind, she recognized him at once when she ran closer. She stopped in disbelief and asked blankly as if she was afraid she was dreaming, "Sister? Sister...you're not dead?!"

She had gone to Xiaohewan and searched for A-man's "body" for a long time but couldn't find it. She felt upset for a long time after coming back. She didn't expect that A-man would suddenly come back to life, and her mind was somewhat blank.

Ah Man was very happy to hear that she had also come. Lying there unable to move did not stop her from talking nonsense. She began to express her hindsight and laughed wildly, "Hahahahahaha, of course I'm not dead! What do you think? I was right, wasn't I? I was born with a worthless life and there's no way I can die! Now look, it's true!"

"elder sister!"

Ah Qing finally couldn't hold back her tears. She regained her mobility and immediately rushed to the cart, wanting to take a closer look at Ah Man. However, the man showed no mercy and just held his hand across his chest, shouting, "Have you said enough? I've already said that you should pay first and then give it to the other person!"

Ah Qing suddenly dodged by leaning to one side, and subconsciously wanted to hit him with a stick. No one could stop her from seeing Ah Man at this time, but the little girl with small sleeves beside the man finally spoke up and whispered, "Don't be like this, Kotaro, let them see each other first!"

The man named Kotaro hesitated for a moment and made way, but still stood by the car, holding the hilt of the knife, as if he was afraid that they would snatch Aman and run away.

Ah Qing didn't have time to argue with him. She went over to push aside the straw, used her body to block the cool sea breeze, and carefully helped Ah Man sit up. Ah Man grimaced in pain and said in dissatisfaction, "Be gentle!"

"Okay, sister!" Ah Qing obeyed her completely at this moment, and lightened the strength in his hands by a little.

Yuan Ye was finally able to get through. Looking at the familiar Dou Dou Mei of Ah Man, thinking about the past year of getting along with her, and then thinking about how she risked her life to save him, he really wanted to give her a big hug, but it was not convenient, so he squatted down and asked, "Are you seriously injured?"

"You keep saying this nonsense all the time!" Ah Man, who never knew how to be polite, immediately started to complain and boast, "I fought against hundreds of people by myself, killed twenty or thirty of them, and when I was exhausted, I was shot with hundreds of arrows from seven or eight steps away... uh, dozens of arrows, blood spurted out, and I finally made it out of the encirclement like a blood gourd. How could I not be seriously injured?"

God, I chopped down twenty or thirty of them...

Yuanye was speechless and didn't know what to say for a moment. The excitement of the reunion had subsided a lot.

Ah Qing also stayed for a while, hesitated for a moment, and whispered: "Sister, Tao Liulang and Jing Qilang were rescued a few days ago."

Ah Man was shocked and asked in amazement, "Are they both alive? What is the Lin family doing that they can't even kill them?"

"Sister, this is a little complicated, but they are indeed not dead."

“Is that so…” Ah Man scratched his face, looked at her, then looked at Yuan Ye. Even though he was extremely thick-skinned, he felt a little embarrassed. He said awkwardly, “Well, I’ll tell you in detail about my experience of escaping the encirclement later. Anyway… I was seriously injured, and I almost died this time! It’s only because I’m smart. If it were someone else, it would definitely be a disaster!”

Yuan Ye didn't want her to be embarrassed. He could understand bragging after escaping death, so he immediately said, "Of course! No matter what, it's good to be back. Nothing else matters!"

"Yes, sister, it's good that you're back!" A Qing also echoed.

After hearing what they said, Ah Man was not happy. He leaned forward and emphasized, "I'm not bragging. If it were anyone else, they would definitely be dead. It's only me who has the ability to come back alive. It's not by luck!"

"We believe you!"

"It's true, I survived by my own ability!"

They kept talking endlessly. Kotaro, who was guarding the cart and worried that A-man would be snatched away, was not happy about it. He shouted at A-man, "Haven't you said enough? We sent you to him as agreed. Where's the money?!"

After he finished shouting at Aman, he saw Yuanye standing up and looking over, and immediately shouted at him again: "We fished this thing out of the river. She promised us that if we send her to you, you would give us a thousand strings of cash! Don't even think about taking her away without paying!"

Ah Man was stunned for a moment, then she remembered that she had to pay. She had indeed promised to pay 1,000 guan to buy her life. After all, she was floating in the river with her urine bubble, and she was about to die. When she saw a chance to be rescued, she dared to ask for 10,000 guan, 100,000 guan, not to mention 1,000 guan. She was even afraid that the two men would refuse to treat her injuries and throw her to the side of the road. She kept repeating her promise, which was...

It's really time to pay the bill. Buying her life for one thousand strings of coins... is a bit too much. Even if she cuts it into pieces and sells it in small quantities, she won't be able to sell it for one thousand strings of coins.

She twitched her eyebrows and saw that Yuanye and Aqing were there, and there were five or six armored men around. Her eyes instantly flashed with murderous intent. She thought it would be better to hack these two people to death and bury them directly. However, just as the murderous light flashed in her eyes, she remembered that these two people had saved her life after all. It seemed a bit too ungentle to kill her lifesaver directly...

The fierce light in her eyes was uncertain for a moment. She was reluctant to spend the money but also didn't want to ruin her reputation. At this time, the kosode girl spoke up and directly shouted at Kotaro in a low voice: "Don't say such things. Saving lives is what we should do. How can you demand payment for doing such a favor?"

Then she turned to Yuanye, raised her little face to him and asked with a smile: "Master Nohara, is that right?"

(End of this chapter)