Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 160 The Warring States Period is about to begin
Modern autumn watermelons will ripen in about two months. The ancient autumn watermelons were similar. Yuan Ye was busy waiting for the news, and it ripened naturally. It's just that this thing grows...

Yuanye had been thinking about it for more than two months. After picking a few, he took pictures of them and fell into deep thought. He always felt that the ancient watermelon was more like a large melon with a darker skin, or a rounder bitter melon. Anyway, it was not like the big watermelon in his impression - it was too small, weighing only five or six pounds each.

Ah Man happened to come by and was very curious about this fruit that Yuan Ye valued so much that he specially arranged people to protect it during the typhoon. He flicked his eyebrows and imitated him by gently patting the watermelon, and asked curiously, "It's finally ripe? Is this kind of melon delicious?"

Yuanye was unsure now. This watermelon didn't look like the modern one. He hesitated and said, "In theory, it should taste good. It should be sweet and thirst-quenching."

"Sweet? Then let's try it?" Sweet is good. Ah Man immediately became interested and asked while holding the melon, "How do you eat this melon? Is it the same as pumpkin?"

This was the first time they planted the melons, so there weren’t many. Yuanye had originally planned to eat them all secretly, but now that there were more, A-man didn’t mind, so he immediately said, “No need to cook them, just cut them up and eat them raw.”

A-man immediately drew out the wakizashi from his waist, cut the watermelon in two with a flash of the knife, took the big half for himself, and left the small half for Yuanye. Then he started to bite it, and after taking a bite he spat it out, making “Puh-Puh” sounds all the time, wondering, “What kind of a rotten watermelon is this? How can it be sweet? It’s obviously bitter!”

Yuanye was a little confused looking at the half watermelon in his hand. After the ancient watermelon was cut open, there was no red flesh at all. The flesh inside was white with a little light green, and only a little light yellow in the middle. There were so many watermelon seeds that it made him feel like he had claustrophobia at first glance.

Ah Man spat twice before spitting out all the melon seeds. He looked at Yuan Ye with suspicion and said dissatisfiedly, "What's going on? You can't lie even if you are the lord. Have you really eaten this kind of melon?"

“Of course I have eaten it!” Yuanye has been eating watermelons since he was a child and he is very familiar with them. In the past, his uncle’s factory would distribute watermelons every summer. He and Meng Ziqi could grow three watermelons a day during the summer vacation. It can be said to be the first fruit in his life. Otherwise, he would not have felt so fond of watermelon seeds. But why did something go wrong when he grew them?

He forcefully broke open half of the watermelon and carefully took a bite of the white, greenish and yellowish flesh. He savored it carefully and found that it was indeed very juicy and could quench thirst, which was a basic function of a watermelon. However, the taste... was indeed not sweet at all. Instead, it had a slightly bitter taste like zucchini. Furthermore, there were indeed too many seeds, making them difficult to eat and even harder to swallow.

When Ah Man saw that he had eaten it, her doubts faded. She no longer felt that Yuan Ye was teasing her on purpose. She used the wakizashi to chop the watermelon, picked up a piece, removed the seeds, and put it in her mouth to taste it. It still tasted the same, bland as water, slightly bitter, and not delicious at all. She couldn't help but wonder, "Did you plant it wrong? Do you want me to find an old man who knows how to plant the land and plant it again?"

“What’s the right or wrong way to grow watermelon! Since it’s already been grown, there must be something wrong with the planting method!” Yuanye took another bite of the watermelon flesh and gently spit out the watermelon seeds. He thought it must be a problem with the variety - maybe this was what watermelons looked like in ancient times, just a bag of water, nothing to eat at all.

But when I read online articles before, most of the time travelers from Qidian returned to ancient times to grow watermelons. How did they grow big red watermelons? Did they even bring watermelon seeds with them when they traveled through time?

Online articles are really unreliable. Those guys really eat bamboo and make mats. They are just making up nonsense!
Yuanye originally had high hopes for watermelon, believing it to be an excellent economic crop that was not picky about the soil and could be grown on sandy soil or on mountains. It was also durable in storage, had a high yield, was delicious and thirst-quenching, and could supplement a variety of vitamins. Yuanye was planning to promote it vigorously in the territory. It turned out that ancient watermelons and modern watermelons were not the same thing at all, and it was okay to say that they were two different kinds of fruit.

Ah Man had already thrown away all the watermelons. She would eat the delicious food and no one could stop her, but she threw away the unpalatable food faster than anyone else. She was also very disappointed that she didn't get to taste the "sweetness", but looking at the watermelon seeds on the ground, she still asked, "This thing is not tasty at all, do you still want to grow it?"

The "bitter fruit" he had grown had to be eaten up anyway. Yuanye didn't waste it and ate half of the watermelon. He got the complete experimental data. After thinking for a moment, he sighed and said, "Let's plant some near the port and promote it on a large scale... Let's see how it goes!"

Ancient watermelons were not delicious. They lacked the ability to synthesize carotenoids and had no sweetness at all. However, they synthesized cucurbitacin very strongly, but the taste was extremely bad. This was probably because they had not been repeatedly selected for many generations, so there was no need for large-scale promotion now. However, they still had value - they contained a large amount of fresh water and could be used as a reserve water source for long-term navigation, so it was enough to plant a few for the navy to use. Civilians did not need to eat them for the time being.

He had long wanted to solve the problem of drinking water during sailing. The fresh water on the ship was a difficult problem to describe. It was still okay as the sailing distance was short, but as long as the sailing distance was a little longer, such as a two or three-day voyage, the fresh water on the ship would inevitably stink and even breed maggots, making it impossible for people to swallow it and it would also be very easy to cause illness. It seemed that bringing some watermelons would be much better - it was said that the ancient Romans ate watermelons while wandering on the sea when they were doing business around the Mediterranean. In the future, he would also want to drill into the Seto Inland Sea, so he had to consider the source of clean water early on.

After all, his next focus in building up the army will be slightly tilted towards the navy, and he himself will most likely be on board for a long time, so even if it is to make himself less disgusted, he has to grow some watermelons.

Of course, by planting ancient watermelons for a long time, one can also select the varieties at the same time. Maybe during his lifetime, he can eat modern watermelons in ancient times. Moreover, fried watermelon seeds are also very nutritious. This aspect can be promoted in the future and sold as snacks to boost the economy and improve the physical fitness of the people.

Anyway, we have worked so hard, we can't let it go to waste. We have to squeeze some value out of the watermelon. This is the only thing we can do.

Ah Man didn't care at all and didn't even ask for the reason. What to plant, build and produce in the territory was all decided by Yuanye. Even if she thought she was smarter than him, she admitted that she was far inferior to him in this respect. Yuanye made so many strange things to make money by himself. Not to mention her, even people like Endo Chiyo and Maejima Jiro were shocked. It's just that this era emphasizes "morality and integrity". They never praise Yuanye in front of him, so as not to be considered as "fawning on the master", which would lead to being looked down upon by colleagues or being underestimated by Yuanye. But in their hearts, they admired him very much. Otherwise, when Yuanye brought his whole family to Xinwanjin to fight for the territory, they would not have cooperated so much and didn't even raise any objections. This was the trust brought by Yuanye's repeated "miracles" and the great optimism about his prospects. They believed that he would make a name for himself sooner or later, and they could rise with the tide and were willing to take some risks for it.

So A-man said nothing. Otherwise, given her personality, if Yuanye wanted to grow such a disgusting melon, she would definitely mutter some "unpleasant but honest advice". Then, if Yuanye didn't listen and insisted on having his own way, she would go to A-qing to complain that Yuanye didn't have the "appearance of a wise leader". Now all these can be saved.

At least in terms of production and construction, she no longer has the intention to offer "unpleasant but honest advice", but she will talk about other aspects later - if Yuanye fails to give birth to a son after a year, she will definitely still offer "unpleasant but honest advice".

She didn't mention the unfortunate ancient watermelon again. Anyway, she would never eat a bite of it again. She might as well eat fried chicken legs. She took out a letter from her bosom and handed it to Yuanye, "Here, there is news about Oda Nobumitsu."

This was the main reason why she came to see Yuanye, and Yuanye immediately took the letter and unfolded it to read it carefully. After a moment, he sighed: "The Furuno Castle has returned to Oda Nobunaga's hands..."

Oda Nobumitsu worked in vain, and finally became the lord of Furuno Castle, but he died half a year later. His eldest son did not come of age early, so he was unable to take on the responsibility for a while. He seemed to be frightened and actually handed Furuno Castle back to Oda Nobunaga, retaining only a few manors outside the city. Now there are all kinds of rumors in Furuno Castle. Many people say that Oda Nobumitsu was assassinated by Oda Nobunaga. Oda Nobunari, Oda Nobumitsu's eldest son, is a good son like his father, and most of them believe it.

Aman didn't care and said casually: "Oda Nobumitsu betrayed the covenant before the gods, he deserved to die a miserable death, and now he has fulfilled his oath."

Yuanye didn't believe in these feudal superstitions. He kept his oath only as a moral requirement, but he didn't correct Aman's thoughts. He nodded slightly and asked, "Is there any news from Kiyosu Castle? Is there any sign that this matter is related to Oda Nobunaga?"

To be honest, if we only look at the final benefits, Furuno Castle belonged to Oda Nobunaga again, and most of Oda Nobumitsu's retainers during his lifetime also followed the city to Oda Nobunaga. Oda Nobunaga got a great bargain, and his strength increased a lot. It really felt like he was the one who secretly killed Oda Nobumitsu and put the blame on the remnants of the Oda family in Kiyosu.

Ah Man shook his head. "There is some uncertain news from Kiyosu Castle. I heard that Oda Nobunaga is furious and has sent Shinshumaru to personally hunt down Sakai Sonpachiro and bring back his head. I think there will be news soon. It seems that Oda Nobunaga wants to marry one of his sisters to Oda Nobunari to show his support for Nobumitsu's family and his gratitude."

"Marry your sister again?" Yuanye was slightly stunned, but he was just surprised that Oda Nobunaga was addicted to marrying his sisters recently. He was not concerned about the problem of close relative marriage - cousin marriage was normal in ancient and medieval Japan, and it was even the mainstream at one time. It was not uncommon for brothers and sisters to marry each other. At that time, it was believed that this could maintain the "pure bloodline" of the family and make it easier to produce talents.

Ah Man pulled out a small notebook from his bosom, flipped through it, and replied, "It looks like she is going to get married, but who she is going to marry is not yet certain."

"Okay!" Yuan Ye didn't really care who she married. This kind of marriage was more political. It didn't matter who it was. He asked, "Any other news?"

Ah Man flipped through the notebook again, and suddenly remembered something, and immediately said, "Oh, right, weren't you looking for someone named Aichi before? You found her before you even started looking. Oda Nobunaga's only legitimate daughter and the youngest daughter he loved the most is called Aichi. I heard that Oda Nobunaga has ordered her to be taken to Kiyosu Castle to raise her personally. She will be Princess Ichi in the future."

After a pause, she recalled and asked uncertainly, "You mentioned before that you wanted to find someone named Oda City, right? Is it this Oda City or is it a duplicate name?"

Yuan Ye didn't expect that "the most beautiful woman in the Japanese Warring States Period" Oda Ichi would suddenly appear. It was very unexpected. He had never thought that she was actually Oda Nobunaga's cousin. There was such a big age difference between them. Oda Nobunaga had to raise her like an adopted daughter. But he remained calm and quickly made up for his previous carelessness, "Of course it's not this, and I didn't want to find this person. Maybe I had just come to Owari at that time, and confused Nobumitsu and Nobuhide, and thought Aichi was Nobuhide's daughter."

Aman nodded casually. The era she lived in was not enough for her to think of things like "time travel" or "precognition". She thought that this was probably the case, so this person was irrelevant.

She casually crossed out Oda City's name from the small notebook, indicating that there was no need to pay too much attention to this person in the future and there was no need to waste intelligence resources on her. After Yuanye's denial, he seemed dazed for a while.

The city princess has appeared, and history has begun to correspond. That means the Warring States Period is probably about to begin.

(End of this chapter)