Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 73 Temporary Workers

Wakizashi is a short sword, usually about one and a half feet long, which evolved from the "waist sword" of the Heian period.

The classic samurai equipment in Japanese Taiga dramas is "a waist with two swords", that is, two long and short swords worn on one side of the body. The short sword is the wakizashi, but it is not used exclusively for seppuku as shown in later Japanese dramas. It is more often used in close combat and is a combat weapon.

This thing was still a novelty in Japan's Warring States Period. The long sword with a katana and the short sword with a wakizashi only began to become popular during this period. It was not until the Edo Period that it became the standard. Oda Nobunaga was a "curio lover" who pursued fashion and was always at the forefront of the trend, so he carried one with him.

Now this gorgeous and beautiful wakizashi, which looks more like a work of art than a murder weapon, has fallen into Aman's hands.

She happily stroked the exquisite scabbard for a few times, then gently pulled out a piece and looked at the snow-patterned blade, and without hesitation, inserted it diagonally through her belt to equip herself. It was just right for her height of more than one meter. She also thought that she should be more fashionable. The short-handled axe was too crude and no longer suitable for her current status. She could just throw it away and replace it with a long sword to match the wakizashi.

At the same time, her impression of Oda Nobunaga also changed greatly. While trying to pull out the wakizashi, she burped and sighed dizzily: "Hiccup, Oda Nobunaga is really a good person. I shouldn't have called him a fool behind his back before!"

"He's okay, he's really an okay person." Yuanye had a good impression of Oda Nobunaga. People who are more proud of themselves usually have okay character. Although Oda Nobunaga had this and that problem, compared with the lords of the Warring States Period in Japan, he was already quite good, at least not despicable.

Of course, this is his personal perception. In fact, whether Oda Nobunaga is good or bad is still up to the public to decide.

The two of them were talking about Oda Nobunaga, and Yuanye reminded Aman to keep it a secret and not spread Oda Nobunaga's plan around, so as not to ruin the overall situation. After waiting for a while, the large group of ox carts slowly moved over.

A'man stopped riding the horse and climbed onto the oxcart carrying the cowhide wine bag. It seemed that she was going to drink all the way back to Guye City. Yuanye glanced at her, shook his head, and called A'qing over to report her, asking A'qing to find a way to confiscate her wine bag.

He had to find a way to cure her drinking habit. After all, A-man was very important to him, and he didn't want A-man to become a drunkard.

They were on the road again. Yuanye rode on horseback for a while and saw Maejima Jiro taking Aman's place, rushing around the ox team. He waved at him and said, "Maejima-sama, take a break. Don't rush. Going too fast won't be good for the injured."

Well, that group of unlucky townspeople actually carried their elderly and children and followed on foot at the end of the ox caravan, with no intention of dispersing at all. Yuanye felt that the management of the ox caravan should be relaxed to give them a chance to escape.

He was even wondering why these guys didn't run away?
It was obviously already lax before, and no one was watching them!

Maejima Juichiro was quite obedient. After all, what Yuanye said made sense. After a slight hesitation, he turned his horse around and followed him. Yuanye had never paid much attention to him before. He just thought that he was a very honest and hardworking person. So he asked casually, "I haven't had a good chat with Maejima-sama. Is Maejima-sama a retainer supported by His Highness Kamitsusuke?"

"Nohara-sama, just call me Jijiro. Please don't be so polite." Maejima Jijiro was slightly younger than Nohara, about 18 or 19 years old. He was very humble and said with a little embarrassment, "I am not a retainer of Lord Kamisuke. I just work at Takeuchi Manor."

"Oh, Lord Maejima is not a retainer of the Oda family?" Yuan Ye really didn't expect this. He always thought that Maejima Jushiro and Oruki Seibei were in the same group and were both members of the old-school retainer group.

Maejima Juichiro lowered his head slightly and said embarrassedly: "Not yet. I am just doing clerk work now. I have never had the opportunity to get the permission of His Highness Kazusuke to officially become His Highness's retainer."

"So that's how it is..." It had been several months since Yuanye had been stranded in Japan's medieval era. His common sense had gradually increased, and he was able to barely understand what was going on. It turned out that Maejima Juichiro was a temporary worker.

Generally speaking, the samurai of the Japanese Warring States period can be roughly divided into three types:

The first type is the close retainer, who is directly employed by the lord.

For example, people with small surnames like Maeda Toshiie were close retainers of Oda Nobunaga. They received an annual salary, rice support and irregular rewards from Oda Nobunaga every year. They had no worries about food and drink. They followed Oda Nobunaga around on a daily basis and obeyed his orders directly. Whoever he said to kill, they would kill.

The second type is the local nobles and local warriors. These people, big or small, have their own territories of knowledge and action.

Normally speaking, daimyo lords like Oda Nobunaga not only did not have to pay them a penny, but they had to pay money and rice to Oda Nobunaga to fulfill various feudal obligations. However, they only recognized Oda Nobunaga as their "adoptive father" in name and joined the Danjotada family as a non-blood-related member. Their autonomy was still quite strong. In the entire history of Japan, it was this group of people who often rebelled against their superiors, killed their "fathers" and established themselves as rebels.

The third type is the wandering samurai, that is, a samurai without a king or father.

For various reasons, such as the decline of their family, the death of the previous lord, internal conflicts within the family, etc., they are unable to stay in their own family and have no territory of their own. They can only find a "lord" to serve as an official so as to have a meal. However, serving as an official is a two-way choice, just like in modern times, you cannot become a civil servant just because you want to. You have to pass an exam and the government must be willing to accept you.

Therefore, there were many masterless samurai wandering around, hoping to find a job as an official, but jobs were not easy to find, and they also needed to eat while looking for jobs, so they could only work as temporary workers, that is, clerks, to earn a little money to eat, and at the same time, they hoped that through hard work or hard-earned military exploits, they could be allowed to officially become retainers and civil servants, so that they would have a stable income and never have to worry about their lives. Maejima Juichiro was in this situation. He wanted to be a retainer of Oda Nobunaga, but Oda Nobunaga looked down on him, but he also needed to eat, so he could only work odd jobs for Oda Nobunaga first, and then slowly find a way out - he could leave at any time, go to other places to take the civil service exam, and freely look for a lord, without any feudal obligations or etiquette constraints.

Yuanye thought quickly and figured it out, feeling slightly embarrassed. He didn't want to lose his freedom, didn't want to be constrained, didn't want to kowtow to others, and he had plenty of money, so he had always refused to serve as a retainer to Oda Nobunaga. As a result, Maejima Juichiro wanted to kowtow but couldn't get in line, which made him feel inexplicably embarrassed.

Maybe this is the legendary "one man's meat is another man's poison"!

He quickly said a few words of comfort, saying that Maejima Jujiro had assisted him very well during this period and was very capable, and would definitely be successful in the future. When he met Oruki Seibei again, he would definitely praise him a lot. Then he quickly changed the subject and asked about Maejima Jujiro's background to end this awkward topic. As a result, he was surprised to find out that he was actually from a branch of the Niwa family and was a distant relative of Niwa Nagahide - the Maejima family was a branch of the Niwa family, similar to the relationship between the Shimokishiki Maeda family and the Arako Maeda family, except that the Maejima family had been separated from the Niwa family for a long time, so long that even the family name was changed.

But if you think about it, this isn't that strange.

The local nobles in Owari, even the pioneers like the Maeda family who came from Mino, have lived in Owari for 70 or 80 years, and there are also other families that have lived for more than 100 years, or even 200 or 300 years. So over the years, they have spread out and intermarried with each other, and if you talk to any two samurai carefully, they may be distant relatives, but they have a certain blood relationship.

In other words, 99.9% of the samurai in Owari, regardless of who they were loyal to, were related to the local powerful families.

Owari was originally the Owari of the powerful families. Yuan Ye had never thought of this before. If Oda Nobunaga wanted to control all the local powerful families in Owari and achieve the "separation of soldiers and farmers", it would be even more difficult. I don't know what method he would come up with...

Maejima Juichiro's mind was not as complicated as his. He would always think about all sorts of things. He was very happy to receive his praise and hesitated for a moment. He felt that Yuanye was gentle and polite, and seemed to be a good candidate for the lord. However, he was not familiar with Yuanye, and he was too young and thin-skinned. He was not sure whether Yuanye needed a retainer. He did not recommend himself too presumptuously, but he began to feel itchy in his heart.

He has been wanting to find a master for a long time and really doesn't want to be a temporary worker anymore.

…………

Hara was worrying about the future development of Owari while chatting with Maejima Juichiro. It took him almost a day to finally get back to Furuno Castle. Then he was surprised to find that the group of unfortunate townspeople were still following him obediently, and it seemed that none of them had escaped.

He was puzzled, but had no other choice but to shell out some money and rent a place in the castle town, let them settle down on their own, and then leave them alone - there was no one to watch them, and they were in a busy city, so they would definitely run away, right?
He had done his best and stopped worrying about these people. He continued to do his job, placing the wounded in the special area assigned to him and strictly implementing hygiene controls to minimize the possibility of wound infection and inflammation, thereby reducing the mortality rate so that he could charge Oda Nobunaga more money in the future.

He was busy directing his men when Ah Man came strolling over, pulled him hard, and whispered in his ear: "I just heard that something happened again!"

After she came back, she saw that the city of Gunye was very quiet and there was no sign of celebration after a great victory. She felt very strange. After all, she had planned to take the opportunity to get some wine. So, without waiting for Yuanye's instructions, she went to ask her drinking buddies. When she found out that there was indeed something going on, she immediately ran back to report to Yuanye.

Yuanye was silent for a while. He had just come back and barely had time to sit down when something happened again?
Why is it so unlucky?
Fortunately, he also knew that the situation in Owari was complicated and it was a turbulent time. It was normal for any accidents to happen and he was not too disappointed.

He kept his composure, and waited until he finished the work at hand before turning around and taking Ah Man to the side and asking, "What happened again?"

"Assistant Coach Yamaguchi Samara has rebelled!" Aman directly said the key point and sighed.

"Tell me from the beginning, who is Yamaguchi Kyotsugu?"

"He is a senior official of the Danjo family and the lord of Narumi Castle." Although Aman was a gambler and a drinker and a wild child, he was still qualified to be a ninja and explained to him immediately, "Nrumi Castle is the first line of defense against the Mikawa and Imagawa families, but just last night, Yamaguchi Kyotsugu rebelled and killed a large number of retainers sent by Oda Nobuhide. He has officially announced his allegiance to the Imagawa family."

What the hell...

Yuanye had never heard of this person before, and now he jumps out of nowhere to cause trouble. If this continues, when will he be able to go home and grow up?
He quickly took out the map and took a look, and found that Narumi Castle was indeed in a key location, stuck on the main transportation route from Mikawa Province to Chita County. It was also a big city and one of the hubs for the Danjo Tadashi family to control Chita County.

He cursed inwardly again, lamenting that after the death of the "Tiger of Owari", the whole country of Owari had become a mess. The Matsudaira clan launched a strong attack, the Kiyosu Oda clan came to take advantage, and now the Imagawa clan has also come, and they have directly instigated the generals on the front line to rebel, pushing the front line to the Higashitsuno and Higashikigawa areas in one fell swoop, not far from Atsuta.

But this kind of historical event was not something he could influence, and he had participated in two battles in a row and had seen thousands of deaths. He had gotten used to it and no longer had the modern fear of death that he had at the beginning. After cursing, he just said calmly, "So, there's another fierce battle?"

Okay, let's fight. People in ancient times were not afraid of trouble, so why should he, a modern man, worry about it? Even after Oda Nobunaga won the victory, he was still thinking about how to lock up all the local powerful families. As a result, his own head was almost chopped off first. I wonder how he feels now.

(End of this chapter)