Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 31: Good Housekeeping, Good Housekeeping

After going down the hill, Yuanye and his group soon arrived in front of Huangzi City.

It was not wartime, so the Araki family was not so strict in their defense. They walked all the way to the moat before they met the family members of the Araki Maeda family. After explaining their purpose, they waited for a while, and soon an elderly samurai who looked to be in his fifties came out to greet them. He was not as strong as a local tyrant, and he bowed warmly from a distance and said, "Sir Nohara, thank you so much for taking the trouble to come here."

"No, no, I should have come to visit you a long time ago." Yuanye also responded politely, being very courteous.

"You are just as the rumors say, a very handsome man!" Okumura Iefuku was short and thick, with a one-month-old haircut, a plain jacket and a haori, a sword at his waist, and straw clogs on his feet. He looked like a very traditional Muromachi samurai, but when he spoke, there were smile lines at the corners of his eyes, and he seemed very kind. He looked at Yuanye carefully for a few times, and a look of surprise flashed across his eyes. He repeatedly extended his hand to greet the guest, "Excuse me, excuse me! Please come in, please come in quickly!"

"Sorry for bothering you." Yuanye nodded in thanks, and led his followers across the river into Huangzi City. For the first time in his life, he saw the interior of a medieval Japanese city.

Like the walls of Huangzi City, the interior of Huangzi City is also very shabby. Unlike ancient Chinese cities, which emphasize bluestone houses and loess ground, everything must be neat and tidy. Instead, it is no different from an ordinary village, with uneven mud ground, messy and dilapidated thatched huts, and occasional clumps of withered grass and underground caves between the buildings.

There were not many military buildings, and even fewer soldiers. At most, there were more warehouses, a row of stables and cowsheds, and a few connected wells. Other than that, it looked like an ordinary residential area, nothing special.

While visiting, Harano chatted with Okumura Iefuku. Araki Castle was not big, and they soon arrived in front of the Maeda family's residence.

Unlike the ordinary Arako Castle, the Maeda family's residence is quite unique.

The Maeda family's house had no yard. It was composed of four bulky wooden long houses forming a "mouth" shape. The round log walls were installed with bamboo mud walls to enhance defense and fire prevention. The windows were "protruding wooden samurai windows", a type of window with bamboo lattice paper pasted on the inside and a thick wooden board on the outside. The board was propped up for daily use to let in light, and put down when not in use. Even strong bows and crossbows could not penetrate it, and it was difficult for the enemy to break in through the window.

The windows of the house are protruding, while the door is recessed.

There is a row of narrow "lookout windows" on each side of the door, which can be used to secretly check who is coming in. If necessary, it is estimated that a long spear can be used to stab out from here and kill the enemy who wants to break through the door.

In addition, there is a "small watchtower" on the roof, and the ground around the house seems to have been reinforced. The overall appearance is very different from ordinary houses, but I couldn't check it carefully in a hurry.

Perhaps this was the refuge for the women of Arako Castle during the war, or the fortress where the Arako-Maeda family made their last stand.

In daily life, it can probably be used to guard against sudden rebellions?

Yuanye admired this strange defensive building very much. He thought that if he wanted to live here, he should nail another layer of iron sheet on the window panels. He couldn't help but look at the door several times. Seeing that he was interested in the house, Okumura Iefuku also showed nostalgia on his face. He sighed: "This is the first house built by my master when he moved us here. At that time, the surrounding area was still a wilderness, so it was named Araki's House. Now look, ten years have passed..."

Yuanye suddenly realized that this house was the 1.0 version of Araki Castle. During the land reclamation period, all the people of the Araki Maeda family were crowded in it. It was the life-saving building of the Araki Maeda family at that time. No wonder it was built like this.

This makes sense. Probably most of the cities in medieval Japan were slowly expanded from a single house in this way.

Harano politely said a few words of praise, expressing his admiration for Maeda Toshiharu's ability to overcome difficulties and start from scratch, and then he entered the "Arakko House" with Okumura Iefuku.

The interior of the house returned to being ordinary, similar to the Yayoi family, with mostly mud floors and not many decorations. At most, the guest room was more exquisite, with the straw curtains replaced with paper-pasted wooden sliding doors and upper doors, and the earthen seats were covered with proper tatami, and there were also a few household items such as painted two-fold screens and shoji screens, which were slightly elegant but still simple.

Okumura Iefuku was an old-school, attentive samurai who was very polite to his guests. He invited Harano into the tea room and asked someone to ask Aqing and the Momoi brothers to go to another room to rest. However, Aqing lowered her brows and eyes and remained silent. She handed the copper-hooped naginata stick to the Momoi brothers for safekeeping. She followed Harano with a medicine box in her arms, as if she didn't hear anything.

Okumura Iefuku was not surprised, and he and Hara sat down at the earth seat, and asked someone to serve him tea, and then started chatting with him. He first praised his benevolence and medical ethics in treating the villagers, and then began to ask about his background in a roundabout way, wanting to know about his past.

This is to be expected. After all, when you are on someone else's territory, it is normal for the local tyrant to want to get to know the powerful dragon that has just come from elsewhere and to weigh his weight. Yuanye was mentally prepared for this.

He knew very well what the other party was worried about. In this era, Chinese Confucian classics were compulsory courses for Japanese samurai, and recognizing Chinese characters was a basic skill. After all, most of the books in Japan and the orders of daimyo from all over the country were written entirely in Chinese characters. If you couldn't read and write Chinese characters, you couldn't even be a low-level samurai.

Even many warriors, not necessarily of high status, often quoted phrases from Chinese classics such as "The Analects of Confucius", "Zuo Zhuan" and "Records of the Grand Historian" when giving advice or writing documents, and they were very skilled at it. Writing Chinese poetry was even more fashionable and was a symbol of profound knowledge.

As for hiragana and katakana, they were not popular in that era. At most, they were used in renga and daily letters. If you used too many "kana" in serious documents, people might ask you with a smile, "Are you a woman?" - in this era, "kana" was mainly popular among Japanese aristocratic women, and most of them were used by court ladies. It was a convenient shorthand, cursive Chinese character.

Therefore, there is a 99% chance that Okumura Iefuku had read Chinese history books, knew about the deeds of rebellious sages such as Zhang Jue, and was very clear that medicine and witchcraft were absolutely powerful tools to incite riots.

Yuanye had been prepared for this. After all, he had no intention of starting a riot, and he had no intention of causing trouble on the territory of the Araki Maeda family. He had been working with Jikuro and Jubei since the "black clinic" was not yet opened. He would discuss things with them and ask for their opinions. He had never avoided them. He also believed that Okumura Iefuku had asked them a long time ago. Now he was just worried and wanted to confirm it in person. Yuanye had nothing to worry about in this regard, so he enriched the details of the words he had used to fool Aman, and then used them to fool Okumura Iefuku. After talking for a while, Okumura Iefuku was indeed fooled. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that there was no problem and everything was reasonable.

After all, Yuanye's appearance was too deceptive in this era. He was tall and strong, with neat white teeth, knowledgeable, and quick-witted. He could talk about astronomy, geography, arithmetic, and literature. Except for his strange accent, he was a standard upper-class person from any angle. His bloodline was suspected to be extremely noble. Not to mention the common people, even the ordinary samurai family could not raise a person like him.

Simply put, in medieval Japan, he stood out from the crowd and was obviously an extraordinary person.

Using such a person to target the Araki Maeda family, to act as a spy to cause sabotage and to incite riots, can even be said to be a huge waste and totally not worth it.

Even if Okumura Iefuku asked himself, he would feel that it was impossible for him to do such a stupid thing.

But Okumura Iefuku was a very conscientious person. Although he felt that there was no problem, he also deliberately tested Harano's religious inclinations and found that he had no feelings for the Ikko sect, the Lotus sect, the Vinaya sect, and the Zen sect. He had a mediocre impression of Buddhism and did not care about the dispute between the old and new Buddhism. Finally, he was completely relieved and believed that Harano was indeed just a wandering samurai from another place who accidentally came to the Odai River basin when climbing the mountains, a poor man who was exiled, and there should be no conspiracy.

He himself is not dangerous at all, his eyes are clear and pure, and he speaks frankly. Although Okumura Iefuku is old, he still has some ability to judge people. I believe that he practices medicine simply out of kindness and because he has a compassionate heart.

In that case, there would be no problem for Yuanye to temporarily stay in Hibitsu Village.

On the contrary, it’s a good thing!
Okumura Iefuku became more and more enthusiastic about Yuanye. After all, having a miracle doctor in the territory could save a lot of lives, and the longer the time, the higher the profit. Anyone with a brain could figure this out. He couldn't help but be enthusiastic. He chatted with Yuanye about his experiences in various places. Seeing that Yuanye was not familiar with Owari, he even introduced him to the nearby local customs and scenic spots in detail.

Yuanye also wanted to make friends. After all, a strong dragon cannot defeat a local snake. So he took some interesting stories from ancient times that he had heard from later generations and told them to Okumura Iefuku, a samurai who had never left Tokaido, as the folk customs of Saikaido. The two of them had a very pleasant conversation for a while.

When the brown rice tea was fully soaked, Yuanye felt that it was almost time. A friendly relationship had been established, so he finally got down to business: "I forgot the time while chatting. I heard that Master Maeda Kurato was not feeling well. Do you want to go over and take a look now?"

It was enough for him to maintain a friendly relationship with the Arako-Maeda family. If he wanted to chat, he might as well go to Maeda Toshiie, which would be more beneficial. He already wanted to go back as soon as he could after seeing the doctor. After all, the idiots in the Arako-Maeda family didn't repair the road, so the road was too difficult to walk on, and it would take several hours to walk back.

Okumura Iefuku was a little unsatisfied. Some of what Yuanye said sounded really interesting. He wanted to talk more about it, but of course business was more important. He immediately said, "Not only is my master in poor health, but also Shinichiro-sama... that is, my master's eldest son, Maeda Shinichiro Rikyu-sama, his health is not very good either."

At this point, he looked outside and apologized, "I'm so sorry, I didn't expect you to come so soon. My lord and Lord Shinichiro are out for something. I have already sent someone to inform them. They should be back soon. Lord Nohara, please wait a moment."

"I see!" Yuanye nodded, not caring at all, and said politely, "If there's something important, I can come back tomorrow."

Okumura Iefuku smiled and waved his hands, "It's nothing important, it's nothing important. My master just took some people to pick wild vegetables. He won't go far and should be back soon."

"Oh? Lord Maeda Kurando went to pick wild vegetables himself? Does he go there often?" Yuanye was slightly surprised and suspected that Maeda Toshiharu was going to experience grassroots life, just like he did a few days ago.

"Yes, I go there often." Okumura Iefuku said as a matter of course, "My master is an expert at digging wild vegetables and farming. There are few people in Arashi City who can compare to him."

"This is really... uh, amazing!" Yuanye looked around the simple guest teahouse, and then recalled the unfinished Huangzi City that was not at all decent. He didn't know what to say for a moment, and only sighed reluctantly.

It seems that in this terrible era, the local nobles and warriors are not doing well either. Even the lord of a city, even if he squeezes the common people to death and imposes a lot of heavy taxes, still has to dig wild vegetables and plant the land himself, and he often goes...

Is it because he is not good at managing his territory, or because he has bought all the weapons and equipment, or is it because the "Tiger of Owari" Oda Nobuhide is such a bastard?
There should be three reasons, but the biggest reason is that Oda Nobuhide was too bad. Oda Nobuhide seemed to be intentionally or unintentionally weakening the power of the powerful families in the territory, and he would mobilize all of them to go to war at any time, which cost a lot of money and caused heavy casualties. It was really miserable that a bunch of feudal lords under him had to work in the fields themselves.

But even though it was so tragic, these local powerful families still didn't unite to kill Oda Nobuhide. They were really patient!

Hara was complaining in his mind, calculating the internal relations of Oda Danmasatada's family, but Okumura Iefuku took his sigh seriously and bowed to him in an old-fashioned way, thanking Hara for his compliment on behalf of his lord, "Nohara, you are too kind. Frugality is the duty of a samurai family. You are too kind!"

"No, no! He is good at managing the household, indeed he is good at managing the household, and the family tradition is excellent!" Yuanye put away his wild thoughts and could only follow the topic and praise him repeatedly, showing that he admired Maeda Toshiharu very much.

The greetings had to continue, and they chatted for more than two hundred words. Yuanye was almost full of tea when Maeda Toshiharu came back. He came back with a large group of people, including men, women, young and old.

(End of this chapter)