Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 103 Temporary Territory
For samurai, land is power, and matters involving land are never trivial.

After a moment's silence in the room, a retainer saw Oda Nobunaga stroking his newly grown mustache and pondering in silence, as if he could not make up his mind. He could not help but open his mouth to object, but how to obtain saltpeter was still a problem.

Among all the current internal affairs officers (bugyo), only Harano said that he would give it a try. It would be easy to object, but what if Oda Nobunaga continued to urge the task, or asked those who objected to complete the task...

Several officials opened their mouths and then closed them again, not daring to speak for a moment. However, they still stared at Yuanye with extremely subtle eyes, revealing vague vigilance, jealousy and dissatisfaction.

Is this an attempt to reach the top in one step?

This wandering warrior from outside the area has great ambitions. He wants to take advantage of the situation and get a piece of fat meat?
It’s quite a beautiful thought!

Yuanye turned a blind eye and didn't care what these people thought of him. He also didn't care whether he could obtain the land this time. He just wanted to let Oda Nobunaga know that he might be able to produce saltpeter.

Yes, as long as you can do this first, it will be enough.

He vaguely remembered that in history, in order to get enough gunpowder, Oda Nobunaga personally went to Sakai town to visit various wealthy merchants, trying to solve the problem by spending a lot of money. As a result, he was ridiculed as a country bumpkin, and was finally forced to restrain his edge. He worshipped the big man of Sakai town as a tea ceremony teacher and bowed his head to the wealthy merchants. Only then did he get the stable supply he wanted.

After he came back, he felt deeply humiliated and held a grudge for the rest of his life. After he successfully went to Kyoto, he immediately began to take revenge. He even disagreed with the wealthy merchants from Jiemachi who wanted to buy peace with money. He changed his mind several times, played tricks on them in various ways, and picked them out to slap them in the face for no reason.

Therefore, Yuanye was not in a hurry, this thing would definitely work out. Oda Nobunaga could not stand being humiliated, not this time. Once he was humiliated, he would not care about anything else. As long as he could get saltpeter from Owari, even if all his retainers knelt down and cried blood in opposition, he would give the land directly.

Of course, even so, this is still a difficult matter, and it will certainly be opposed by most of Oda Danjotada's retainers, and it will easily take too long, affecting his development.

He waited for a while, and seeing that Oda Nobunaga had no intention of making a final decision, he felt that asking for a good piece of land directly might be a problem. Even Oda Nobunaga could not accept such a thing. In order to get the land as soon as possible, he immediately took a step back: "If it really doesn't work, an uninhabited wasteland will also do. I can recruit some people to help."

wasteland?

With the lion's big opening in front of him, his new conditions were undoubtedly much easier to accept. Among the retainers who had been hesitant to speak before, two or three of them relaxed their expressions slightly, and found that he did not seem to be eyeing the big piece of fat meat of Takeuchi House, and was not a competitor who was preparing to take advantage of the situation to get promoted.

Oda Nobunaga's face was less hesitant. If this problem could be solved, a piece of wasteland would not be an option. Even if Harano used this as an excuse to secretly reclaim the wasteland, the reclaimed land would still be part of Owari and would never fly into the sky. Moreover, if Harano really succeeded, as long as he wanted to obtain permanent ownership of that land, he could only become a local noble in Owari. He would still need to become his "foster son" and call him lord. That would mean that he, this troublemaker, was finally incorporated into the system of Oda Danjotada's family.

Oda Nobunaga had already agreed in his heart, but granting land was a big deal after all, even if it was wasteland, it was a big deal, and it could easily shake the current ruling foundation of Oda Danjo Tadashi's family, so he looked at the following magistrates and asked, "What do you think?"

Internal affairs officers such as Niwa Nagahide looked at each other for a few times. Some of them still felt unwilling to accept this. So many people fought hard on the battlefield but couldn't get a piece of land, but Yuanye just said "let's try" and took it away. Even if it was a wasteland, it still made people feel unhappy. But they really had no reason to object. If they objected again, there was a 99% chance that the task would fall on them. They could only shut up.

Oda Nobunaga was very satisfied and felt that this group of new magistrates were indeed much more useful than the old retainers. If a similar thing had happened in the past, there would have been a quarrel here and everyone would have rushed to teach him how to do things.

It's good like this now. The new followers are honest and smart. He plans to be bolder in the future.

He directly ordered Niwa Nagahide: "Go get the map!"

Niwa Nagahide immediately ordered someone to bring a map and spread it in front of him. He began to pick a place for Hara in the direct territory of Oda Danmasatada's family. After looking around, he pointed to an uninhabited area in the lower reaches of the Odai River and said, "Let's choose this place! The water and soil here are good!" What he meant was that he allowed Hara to abuse his power for personal gain, and after completing his tasks, he would secretly open some fields. When Hara became a local powerful family, he would acknowledge that these fields belonged to the Nohara family and directly give them a "title".

Yuanye leaned over to take a look, pointed and said, "This place is not suitable, Your Highness. It would be better to be closer to Atsuta Port so that it will be easier to collect supplies for the experiment. How about choosing this place?"

Oda Nobunaga looked in the direction of his finger and found that it was a wasteland facing the sea southwest of Atsuta Port. It was very close to the root of the Chita Peninsula and not far from the front line where the Oda family, Imagawa family, and Yamaguchi family were confronting each other. He couldn't help but wonder, "Choose this place?"

This is not a good place to settle down. Although there are a large number of rock forts built along the Shirakawaguchi line, it is difficult for the Imagawa and Matsudaira families to cross and invade on a large scale, but it is normal for small troops to occasionally wander over, and it is not very stable.

Yuanye had already made a plan and insisted, "Let's do it here! I personally think this is the most suitable place!"

"Whatever you want!" Oda Nobunaga usually didn't care about trivial matters, as long as the result was to his liking. He turned around and ordered Niwa Nagahide, "Give him the land, and from now on it will be called... Wanjin!"

He saw a small bay where a river flows into the sea not far from that damn place, so he casually gave it a name. Then he found a book, flipped through a few pages and read for a while, then said to Yuanye: "I will give you Maruhashi and Nakajo as your assistants. Work hard, and I will see results in half a year!"

At the end of his words, his tone became stern again, meaning that he had met all the conditions that Yuanye wanted and had also sent two assistants. If he still couldn't do a good job, don't blame him for turning his back on him and making Yuanye give up the land he had taken. He also put some pressure on him and shortened the time from one year to half a year, regardless of whether it would work or not.

In short, he had to get saltpeter as quickly as possible so that he could have a large amount of gunpowder and complete his plan of having a battalion of iron cannon foot soldiers.

Yuanye didn't care. It was normal to push for the deadline. Even if he failed, even if it couldn't be completed in half a year, Oda Nobunaga would not kill him. It didn't matter at all.

At this point, his goal has been achieved. He finally has a piece of land over which he has complete control and can do whatever he wants with it. Even if it is a wasteland, it is enough for him!
…………

Oda Nobunaga found the person in charge of the task and felt that the problem had been solved, so he left on his own. The magistrates also dispersed with a lot of discussions, and kept talking about Yuanye's good luck. They felt that as long as he could successfully complete this task, he would be able to instantly realize the dream that many samurai could not accomplish in their lifetime - directly owning a piece of Zhixing territory.

Of course, where there are envious people there are jealous people. Many people who will never achieve the realm of knowledge and action in their lifetime will also say sour and sarcastic words.

Yuanye still didn't care, he just wanted to get things done quickly. After all, Oda Nobunaga was only responsible for making the final decision and never took care of small matters. The specific details still had to be handled by internal affairs officials such as Niwa Nagahide and their retainers.

He spent another two days bargaining with Niwa Nagahide, and finally determined the approximate area of Wanjin, and received two yorikuni "gifted" by Oda Nobunaga, namely the two low-level samurai Nakajo Heijiro Nagatoshi and Maruhashi Gomon Ietada - yorikuni is a status with different definitions in different eras, and in the current era, yorikuni is similar to "dispatched workers", and the feudal affiliation is still with Oda Nobunaga, but Yuanye can order them to work, and even take them to charge into battle and kill the enemy, which is considered dual management.

These two men were previously members of Oda Nobunaga's horsemen. They were both sons of Owari noble families who had no inheritance rights. They were also slightly younger than Oda Nobunaga. Nakajo Heijiro was 18 years old and Maruhashi Gomon was 17 years old. They were very polite when they met their new superior, Harano, and Harano naturally had to be polite as well. After all, these two men were also considered alternative "supervisors" and had to wear red hats on the construction site.

After all the chores were taken care of, Harano took his entire family, the eighty-nine "old, weak, sick and disabled" people, and the thirty men borrowed from Niwa Nagahide, and let Nakajo Heijiro and Maruhashi Gomon lead them, and headed straight for his temporary territory, Wanjin.

Yes, this is a temporary territory, just a stepping stone, his destination is not here.

He would go to a place where he could be the master of his own house, instead of being a local tycoon in Owari.

(End of this chapter)