Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 66 This investment is worthwhile

The weather in the Kanto area of Japan is quite good in spring, with little wind and fresh air.

Yuanye took a few deep breaths of fresh air to dispel the strong smell of blood in his nose, then looked at the depressed Maeda Toshiie and comforted him, "Victory and defeat are common in the military, don't worry too much."

"Alas!" Maeda Toshiie sighed, and it seemed that he could not get out of the psychological trauma for a while, but he soon cheered up and said gratefully, "Thank you so much this time. If you hadn't asked for Torii Tadahira, we wouldn't have been able to get away so easily. At that time, I was ready... ready..."

At that time, he was ready to charge back and fight to the death to entangle Torii Tadahira to create a good opportunity for Oda Nobunaga to escape, but he probably would not have survived. So if you count it this way, Yuanye also saved his life, so he had to thank him anyway.

"That's nothing. You would do the same if it were you." Yuanye replied politely without taking credit for it. He then asked with great interest, "Torii Tadahira? What is his background?"

"A famous general of the new generation of the Matsudaira family, he is an excellent archer and martial artist, known as the 'Mikawa Akadore Archery'." Maeda Toshiie was very familiar with this man. After all, the Matsudaira family came several times a year in recent years, and Torii Tadahira led the team many times. "His father was the chief magistrate of the Matsudaira family, and he was also a powerful figure. I heard that he was quite strategic and had a deep knowledge of Chinese studies."

Yuanye nodded slightly. "Mikawa Red Demon Yumtari?" What kind of nicknames are these?

He had no impression of this man, and there should be no such person in "Taikou 2". He was probably just a short-lived person in history, and being shot to death by him inexplicably would not have much impact, and would not create any butterfly effect.

He didn't take this guy too seriously, and instead asked Maeda Toshiie, "Are there many casualties this time? Have all the people been gathered together?"

He had more than a hundred lightly wounded soldiers, but he was not sure how many were dead, captured, or missing.

Maeda Toshiie sighed, "Including the ones from your side, we have only gathered over 300 people. If we look for them again tomorrow, we may be able to find dozens more!"

One of Oda Nobunaga's strengths was his more than 600 direct subordinates, but after one battle, more than one-third of them were killed, which was a serious blow to his vitality.

Yuan Ye also sighed with him and asked, "What about you? You attendants..."

"More than a dozen people died and five are missing, probably..." Maeda Toshiie sighed again. These were his colleagues who worked with him day and night. They had fought with Oda Nobunaga and then fought to the death to cover Oda Nobunaga's retreat. Nearly twenty people were killed.

I have to say, being a retainer in times of war is indeed a high-risk job!

Yuanye really sighed this time. People died easily in the war, and their deaths were as worthless as ants being trampled. Two or three hundred lives had been lost in this afternoon alone. He felt very unlucky and wondered if he would be unlucky in the future. In novels, hundreds of thousands of people died at any time, and it seemed like nothing happened. But in fact, let alone two or three hundred, even two or three corpses in front of the eyes would be enough to scare most people to the point of making their legs go weak. It was already considered good to just feel unlucky.

After sighing, he asked, "Since there are so many casualties, why hasn't His Highness Shangzong... uh, Shangzongjie returned to Kuno Castle?"

"I don't know, and no one dares to ask." Maeda Toshiie shook his head. "Maybe they want to contain the Matsudaira family again, so that they won't lose their scruples and attack the Tojin Fort again."

Yuanye nodded, thinking that this made sense, but only Oda Nobunaga knew the actual situation.

…………

The two of them chatted and soon arrived at Oda Nobunaga's tent. This time, there was no need to announce it. The young man guarding the gate let him in directly, nodded at him and gave him a friendly smile, probably to thank him for his previous "help".

If you look at it this way, this investment is worth it. All of Oda Nobunaga's personal guards and attendants were saved at once. In the future, if these people have some dignity, they will be polite to him when they see him, which will make it much easier for him to do things.

He hadn't thought of this before, it was a pleasant surprise, not bad!

He entered the tent with great joy. The tent was well guarded outside, but there were few people inside. However, the tent was luxuriously decorated. The floor was covered with thick southern barbarian carpets, and two gilded candlesticks stood at the two corners, filled with bright lacquer candles. There were also hand-painted screens, carved wooden knife racks, and vermilion lacquer tables. It was probably no different from living at home.

Oda Nobunaga himself was sitting at the back of the tent, his hair slightly wet, as if he had just taken a bath. He was now leaning beside the table, drinking by himself. When he saw him coming, he simply pointed to the person beside him and said, "Sit down!"

Then he ordered Ikeda Terumasa beside him, "Pour him some wine!"

Yuanye sat down, but quickly waved his hand: "Thank you, but no thanks, I don't drink."

"Hmm?" Oda Nobunaga's thick eyebrows immediately stood up, his expression was a little unhappy, even a little gloomy, he suspected that Haraye was looking down on him as a "defeated general", and Ikeda Terumasa had already brought the wine over, with his back to him, looking at Haraye with a pleading look - Oda Nobunaga was in a bad mood, he didn't want Oda Nobunaga to get even angrier. Haraye didn't care about all that, he had been badly cheated by alcohol, his life was almost ruined, he had vowed early on that he would never touch alcohol for the rest of his life, it was a matter of principle. Anyway, he couldn't drink anyway, so he just smiled gently at Ikeda Terumasa, still insisted: "Really not necessary, I don't drink, never drink."

Ikeda Terumasa didn't know what to do for a moment, and Oda Nobunaga was also very upset. From childhood to adulthood, almost no one dared to disobey him, and his mood was not very good. He raised the wine cup in his hand as if he wanted to smash it over and curse at him, but suddenly remembered that Yuanye didn't seem to be a small retainer who could be scolded at will. If he threw the wine cup at him, he would probably turn around and leave, and it was not impossible for him to just move to another place.

As for severely punishing him, or even chopping him off…

It was too inhumane to chop off the greatest contributor and savior of the day just because of a trivial matter. He was not crazy to that extent. Even if he wanted to chop off Yuanye, he couldn't do it. Even for the sake of his reputation, his retainers with small surnames would definitely hold him tightly so that Yuanye could leave quickly.

He held his breath for two seconds, then put the cup back heavily, and shouted angrily at Ikeda Terumasa, "What are you standing there for? He said he doesn't want to drink anymore, can't you hear me? Why don't you change his tea?"

Ikeda Terumasa was stunned for a moment, and quickly went to bring a cup of hot tea. Yuanye politely took it with both hands, smiled at him, and said that he felt a little embarrassed for accidentally causing him to get scolded.

Ikeda Terumasa seemed to have a good personality. He smiled back to indicate that it was nothing. Then he retreated to Nobunaga's side and knelt down. He also quietly took Nobunaga's wine cup and hid it in his arms.

This little action seemed to make Yuanye see the burning gay passion, as if there were many cases of gay men sharing peaches in ancient Japan. Xiaoxing was with the lord every day, and sometimes they even slept together. It was hard to say whether there was any alternative feeling involved.

But this was none of his business, and he didn't have to sleep with Oda Nobunaga. He drank a sip of tea while thinking about something else, and then asked Oda Nobunaga seriously, "Your Highness Kamitsusuke came to see me, is there something?"

Oda Nobunaga invited him to drink as a way of thanking him - in this era, inviting people to drink was really a way of thanking them - and he specially waited until Hara had finished treating the wounded before inviting him. As a result, this weirdo Hara didn't drink a drop of alcohol and didn't look like a warrior at all. He didn't know what to say for a moment. He was silent for a moment and reached for the wine cup but didn't touch it. He glanced at Ikeda Terumasa and said nothing. He took out an envelope from his bosom and threw it over, saying unhappily: "This is the thank-you gift we agreed on!"

The envelope flew over like a dart, almost piercing Yuanye's head, looking very resentful. Yuanye quickly caught it and opened it, spilling out a piece of thick leather paper. Looking more closely, it was covered with colorful patterns and seals, and in the middle were eight Chinese characters in black ink: "100 strings of cash, payable upon seeing the seal."

This is quite new. It turns out that Japan at this time had paper money. I have never heard of it before and I don’t know if it is a replica of the “Jiaozi” from the Northern Song Dynasty in China.

He looked through the "banknote" carefully, and asked, "What is this?"

Oda Nobunaga said impatiently: "It's a thank you gift. We agreed before that you treated eighty-four people, three pieces of rice per person, so I should give you twenty-nine kan, but forget about the rest, you can keep it!"

Eighty-four people should be worth twenty-five strings of coins and two pieces of silver... No, if calculated based on the market price, it would be around twenty-nine strings of coins. I didn't expect that a third-generation rich man like you would be good at math!
Yuanye thought for a moment before he realized that he was not asking about the medical expenses. He pointed at the thick paper and said, "Your Highness, you misunderstood. I am asking what this paper is?"

Oda Nobunaga looked at him in confusion, but still answered patiently, "It's 'for replacement'. You can take it to any temple in Owari Province to exchange for money and rice of equal value, or you can directly exchange it for temple produce. It's very convenient."

Yuanye understood. It turned out that it was the Japanese monks who came up with it. They were also involved in the financial industry. They came up with paper money or cash checks? This was good news. I just didn't know if the management in this area was strict. If it wasn't strict, maybe I could print some paper money to pay salaries or something...

Yuanye thought about it and put the "replacement" in his arms. Oda Nobunaga didn't care about the money and was willing to give more. He didn't need to refuse. He just said politely: "Don't worry, Your Highness, I will do my best to make the wounded recover."

After a pause, he asked again: "I wonder if Your Highness has anything else to say?"

Oda Nobunaga looked at him for a while with a dark face, and said as if he was holding back a lot of anger: "No more!"

"Then I'll take my leave first." Yuan Ye didn't have much to say to him. Even if he lost the battle, there would be a group of people rushing to comfort him. There was no need for him to interfere. He just said a polite word and got up and left. But when they reached the door of the tent, Oda Nobunaga's voice came from behind. It seemed hesitant and not very loud. "Well, about today's matter... Thank you... Well, you've worked hard!"

He didn't take it too seriously that Yuanye helped him escape danger today. After all, he was used to it because a large group of people often rushed to save him. But Yuanye inexplicably shot and killed Torii Tadahira, a famous general of the Matsudaira family. This made him look not a complete failure despite the loss of his troops. It seemed that he had a fig leaf and he would feel much better when he returned.

For this purpose, he specially invited Yuanye to the banquet, hoping to have a couple of drinks with him, the greatest contributor of the day, and then reward him handsomely like the famous generals in ancient times, even if he failed to successfully retrieve the enemy general's head. However, Yuanye refused to drink and did not rush to take credit, which made him a little confused about what to do. He could only say this roughly - it would be easy if Yuanye was his retainer, he could just send him a letter of thanks, but he was not!

Yuanye didn't care that he was struggling, and he just left after another polite remark. Anyway, as long as Oda Nobunaga remembered his favor, it would be worth the risk. He was already thinking about what to exchange for in the future - how about tax exemption? Or keep it to save his life? Or save up a little more and exchange it for the right to reclaim and build a city on a piece of wasteland?

He thought for a while but still had no idea. He planned to save this favor for a critical moment in the future, and went to inspect the wounded. These people were paid by Oda Nobunaga, so he must try his best to heal them all, and then after these people recovered, he could return to Takeuchi Manor to continue his development.

Well, that's it, there should be no problem!
(End of this chapter)