Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 88 I really hope the rain will keep falling!
Yuanye shamelessly forced his way to the position, and Ningning unknowingly became his little apprentice. He also really started to develop feelings with Ningning, but it was a father-daughter relationship - at the age of 20 and 7, it was only a father-daughter relationship, otherwise what else could he develop?
In medieval Japan, women would be considered adults as long as they held the "Tangshang Teeth Dyeing Ceremony", which was usually an even-numbered age, such as eight, ten, or twelve. As long as they reached adulthood, they could get married.

For example, the heroine Osomatsu in the famous "Toriie and Matsu" was only nine years old (ten years old in nominal terms) when she married Maeda Toshiie, or according to other documents, this age should be +1, but even if +1 is added, she is still very young;

For example, Ikkyu Sojun, the protagonist of "The Clever Ikkyu", took a concubine when he was old. He loved her very much and even wrote a poem about her that has been passed down to later generations. The concubine was only eleven years old at the time.

Another example is Oda Nobunaga’s legal wife, Nohime. She was about fourteen years old when she married Oda Nobunaga, but she was marrying for the second time. Her previous husband had died before she got married, and she was only about ten years old when she got married for the first time.

These are not exceptions, but a common situation in medieval Japan. Even in this era, if a woman was not married by the age of fourteen, it was basically certain that the girl had some defects in character or body, and those who proposed marriage had to be vigilant.

Yuanye knew all these, even if he was not very clear about them before because A-man had scolded him. But he couldn't accept it. Even though he was not rigid and had no intention of abiding by the Marriage Law after traveling through time, he still found it difficult to accept - at least sixteen, fifteen could be negotiated, any younger would not be acceptable, and it would seriously violate the education he had received since childhood.

What's more, Ningning is not his type, at least it doesn't seem like he is at the moment. He likes women with gentle and soft personalities, but Ningning is far from that. Her well-behaved nature currently seems to be fake.

Anyway, he really treated Ningning as his "little apprentice" and deliberately kept a distance from her, acting as a good master.

A'man was shocked again and could not understand what he was doing. He went to the stable alone and looked at the second-hand donkey at home carefully for a long time. He seemed to begin to suspect that the donkey had become a spirit. Then he came back to complain to A'qing: I knew he was a little crazy, but I didn't expect him to be so crazy. These people who are curious about strange things are really weird. They even want to steal other people's adopted daughters. If they really want to, they can just find one themselves, which is not difficult. Why do they have to steal other people's? I really don't know what he is thinking about all day long.

Yuanye heard it, but didn't bother with a wild child like her. At this point, his plan to harm the monkey was basically completed. It couldn't be said that he had completely killed the monkey, but at least he had broken one of his legs.

At present, he can't do more. Apart from teaching Ningning seriously in study, caring for her in life, cultivating good feelings, and occupying the position of master, he doesn't force anything else.

At this time, the rainy season finally arrived. The drizzle continued to fall all day long. The whole Owari suddenly became peaceful and quiet. Even the daily defense of Takeuchi Manor seemed a little lax.

In this era, wars could not be fought during the rainy season. Otherwise, the foot soldiers would have to move dozens of miles with one foot in a puddle and the other in mud to reach the enemy city. As long as the enemy stayed indoors, at least 30% of these foot soldiers would be unable to get up the next day after being exposed to the rain all night, and would simply collapse without a fight.

Moreover, this period is the busiest time of the year for farmers. They have to race against time to replant late rice. Even though Japan's rice is fast-growing now, they still have to race against typhoons. Every second counts. Farmers need to soak in the paddy fields all day and night, and the more work they can do, the better.

In order to save time, some middle and lower-level warriors would even go to the fields to plant rice themselves. Many of them left a reputation of being hardworking and thrifty in later generations. The warriors would only do some farm work this month, and most of them did it to supervise their own men and friends to make sure they were not lazy. They did not really do hard labor, but in later books it was written that XX as XX actually went to the fields to plant rice himself and got his feet covered in mud, making them look like pacifists who lay in the fields all year round. If you really believe it, you are just stupid.

In short, with the arrival of the rainy season, the originally chaotic Owari suddenly turned into a paradise.

No one made trouble, no one rebelled, there were no conspiracies or bloody fights, and everyone stayed at home obediently, working hard to take care of their own little piece of land.

Of course, this does not include the wilderness. He has no capital to engage in agricultural production, and he has no land, so the plum rain season has little impact on him. In fact, it is a good thing for him to have such an absolutely safe period where war is impossible.

So he took advantage of this time to upgrade the production line of the soy sauce workshop, and also officially added kelp juice, namely "Wei Jixian Soy Sauce", into the production system, striving to make more profits with this high-end product.

In addition, he is also trying to synthesize Shilin dyes and sulphur dyes by traditional methods, preparing to make some money from the "clothing" aspect of the "food, clothing, housing and transportation" category.

Through his long-term observation and asking around, he found that in terms of cloth dyeing, Japan in the Middle Ages mainly used the primitive "immersion dyeing method" and natural dyes. Not only was the coloring not deep and solid, causing it to fade after washing twice, but the production efficiency was also very low. Even though there were a few workshops that used the "immersion dyeing + pad dyeing" method to produce certain high-end products, the production process was still very primitive, resulting in very low output, few colors and patterns, and a very high scrap rate.

He felt that there was great potential in this area. Whether it was the various bright colors of later generations or the modern technology that was difficult to fade even if washed hard, it would definitely be a dimensionality reduction attack on the traditional dyeing method of cloth, and there would be no worries about sales. Moreover, as long as he controlled the key reagents such as reducing agents and catalysts, he would not have to worry about other merchants imitating them. Even if the dyes were stolen, it would not be a problem. After all, those dyes were insoluble in water without reducing agents, and would be pure waste in the hands of others.

Therefore, apart from teaching Ningning a few hours of classes every two or three days, he devoted most of his energy to synthetic dyes. However, there were always all kinds of strange problems with the traditional synthetic methods, and they were not smooth in the laboratory. The colors that were often dyed were seriously deviated, and it was impossible to carry out workshop production for the time being.

This was a bit difficult, much more difficult than producing soy sauce by the dilute hydrochloric acid hydrolysis method. He was mentally prepared, so he tried slowly and without haste. He was not idle, and A-man, who was becoming more and more worried, was even more busy. According to his orders, the first batch of ten men were gathered together in a short time, and he was forcibly dragged out of the laboratory for inspection.

Yuanye stood on the corridor and looked around. He found that they were all children of sixteen or seventeen years old. Their faces were still a little immature and they all looked honest. He couldn't help but whispered to Aman, "Are they too young? And there's no need to recruit people of the same age, right?"

He wanted to recruit some men who could go into battle and kill people right away. After all, he had seen Oda Nobunaga fall into the same trap before, and he didn't want to fall into it himself. If Oda Nobunaga fell into it, he could say that he was young and inexperienced, but he had the lesson of the past, and it would be stupid for him to fall into it again. Ah Man had her own ideas. Looking at the ten men who could not move in the drizzle wearing bamboo hats and bark raincoats - she and Ah Qing had to beat them for three days before they could line up in a row and not move around - she vowed, "They have to be this young. If they grow up, they will start to be slippery and you can't tame them! These ones now are very good. I picked them out one by one. They are all the second and third sons of decent families, and every family is very poor. If you raise them well for a year or two, give them enough food, and occasionally give them a little money, they will be loyal to you."

After a pause, she added, "As for your concerns, don't be afraid. With just a few people like this, it's enough for Ah Qing to lead them for now. When you recruit a few more of them and they start to be grateful to you, I'll find some good fighters who have fought in battles to join in. By then, most people will listen to you. Even if those good fighters dare to do something crooked, you can easily deal with them and they won't cause any trouble. It's very stable!"

Yuanye nodded slowly, thinking that what Aman said made sense. It was indeed a good idea to first help the young, obedient and easy-to-foolery honest guys to set up the framework, and then consider recruiting adult players, so as to prevent these players from having complicated minds and leading the atmosphere astray from the beginning.

An old hand like her is indeed reliable. Not everyone else might be able to think so carefully.

He immediately brought out his new persona and immediately affirmed her work: "You've worked so hard. I wouldn't be able to do this without you!"

Ah Man's eyebrows twitched and she pursed her lips tightly. She felt that running around in the wind and rain these days was all worth it. But she didn't seem to care at all. She waved her little hand and said generously, "It's nothing. I should do some work for you after eating your meal! We are brothers!"

Harabihara Xuande: ...

You wild child, you really have no respect for your elders. I am so much older than you, who would treat you as a brother? I said so many nice things before, but you didn't learn them. You also learned all the nonsense I said occasionally. You are really a good material who is born to be a bad learner!

Yuanye couldn't help complaining in his heart, but there was nothing he could do. When hiring people, he couldn't care too much. It doesn't matter if they are disrespectful. He didn't care about this face and continued to talk about business: "What are you going to do next?"

"Here! This is the weapon set I prepared for them. Write me a note and I'll go get the money from Yayoi to buy it." Ah Man had thought it through and was fully prepared. "Then let Ah Qing help them lay the foundation first, learn some moves, and train their bodies. Otherwise, without a body, nothing else can be achieved."

"Don't you need to practice formations or something?"

"With so few people, what kind of formation do we need? Just follow A-Qing and charge forward. If you can beat them, fight. If you can't, run away!"

Yuanye couldn't help but nod slowly, feeling that what Aman said made sense. There was really no need to be too particular with such a small number of people, just do it simply and roughly for now - if you want to be particular, you have to save up for a year, and when the number of people exceeds a hundred, then consider other things.

By then, maybe we will have to hire an experienced warrior, but there is still a long time to go, so there is no need to rush. We should first train these people well, no, cultivate their loyalty.

Yuanye agreed immediately. After taking a look at the weapons list, he wrote a note to Ah Man, asking her to go get the money herself. But after a moment of hesitation, he asked her, "Do you think I should practice with Ah Qing?"

"What do you practice?"

“Didn’t you say we should learn some moves? By the way, can you help me get a suitable weapon so I can practice with you too!” Yuanye was preparing for a rainy day. It rained every day and the sun didn’t come out for more than three hours a day. It was like a mud pit outside and there was basically nothing he could do.

Now that we have free time, it would be nice to spend a little time every day to learn a few moves. It doesn't require great power, but just to slightly improve our melee survival rate.

Ah Man patted his lower back, pinched his joints, and said thoughtfully, "That's fine, you really should move around. You feel so stiff, like a stone. If you keep sitting like this all day, you might die early."

That was the deal, and Aman walked away, but he didn't pay much attention to his idea of practicing. The next day, he was given a big, black and thick eight-sided iron rod, which was probably made by the blacksmith in a hurry. It was very rough, so he was allowed to play with it first and discuss the weapon upgrade after he had some results.

Yuanye was speechless, he originally wanted to use a nodachi as he felt it was more majestic, but luckily he was not a very particular person so he could just make do with it for now.

Therefore, his life during the rainy season became that he spent most of his time in the laboratory dyeing various cloths, hoping to catch a dead mouse with a blind chance. He also spent a small part of his time practicing martial arts with Ah Qing to keep his body active. In addition, he taught Ningning for a few hours every two or three days to cultivate the father-daughter relationship. For a while, he was quite leisurely.

To be honest, this feels pretty good. I wish Owari could always be so peaceful.

I really hope the rain will keep falling!
(End of this chapter)