Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 229 Private Gathering
Haruno only stayed in Wanjin for a few days before taking Princess Inu and a thousand Wanjin soldiers to Komakiyama Castle in Komaki Township, Kasugai County.

This is Oda Nobunaga's new residence, but it has just been built and doesn't have a strong sense of daily life. It's more like a large fortress complex than a castle, with military considerations taking precedence. There are more supply warehouses and barracks than residential houses.

Because of her identity, Haruno was placed in a branch city, while the Inu Princess was personally brought to Komakiyama Castle by Niwa Nagahide, as if she were returning to her maternal home to visit her relatives.

Perhaps Oda Nobunaga wanted the Inu no Princess to meet Ikoma Yoshino, his "true love sister-in-law"?
Haruno didn't care too much about that. He prepared some specialties from the Kanto, Tohoku, and Hokuriku regions for the Inu Princess to take back to her family home to make a good impression. He also sent two extra boxes of Ezo specialties—sea otter furs—to Oda Nobunaga and Ikoma Yoshino.

This item is relatively rare in Owari, but it's practically everywhere in Ezo (Japanese islands). You can get three or four pieces for one tael of silver. It's perfect as a gift, and it also has practical value. It can be used to make armor instead of deerskin, or to make game props that women like, such as backgammon.

Haruno rested in the branch castle for a day, and Oda Nobunaga invited him to meet the next day.

The meeting place was arranged in the wilderness, ostensibly for hunting, but Oda Nobunaga's entire family came—this refers to his entire family at Komakiyama Castle, namely Ikoma Yoshino and her second son and youngest daughter.

Yes, Yoshino Ikoma's eldest son was given to Nohime by Oda Nobunaga as a good gift. Now he is Nohime's child and has moved into Kiyosu Castle.

After Haruno led A-Qing into the tent, they saw Oda Nobunaga enjoying family time, personally holding his daughter and dipping chopsticks in rice porridge for her to suckle.

Thankfully it wasn't alcohol. Oda Nobunaga would definitely do something like force-feeding alcohol to children.

However, this is still a rare and spectacular sight.

In those days, men had high status and didn't care about children; it was all the women's responsibility. Oda Nobunaga was considered unconventional in this era for being able to play with children. Even if he actually fed the children sake, he could probably still earn the title of "good father."

Of course, it could also be seen as a sign of weakness, since loving children is not a virtue of a lord these days.

When Oda Nobunaga saw Haruno arrive, he didn't stand on ceremony with him. It wasn't a formal occasion, and he had always been unconventional and disliked formalities. He simply swayed his body, gesturing for Haruno to sit down, and then, in a good mood, showed him the daughter in his arms, laughing, "What a pity. We could have become even closer through marriage, but now you have no chance."

He already has six or seven children, and Yuan Ye is two or three years older than him, yet he doesn't have a single child. Judging from his smile, he probably feels like he's won a battle.

Moreover, he also had some doubts about Haruno's ability to have children. He had been considering whether to give Haruno a son to adopt in order to ensure the stability of Chita County in the future. He had just had another son born out of wedlock this year and was worried about where to put him. Sending him to the Nohara family seemed like a good idea.

Of course, it's not convenient to mention this now, but he has already sent Yoshino to ask the Inu-hime what's going on. After all, the secrets of the Wanjin family are always excellent, and he doesn't know what's going on in the Haruno family mansion, or even how many concubines Haruno has.

He had no choice. As the daimyo of Owari, he had to consider the stability of his subordinate clans and allies. From the perspective of that era, the lack of a clear successor was the greatest instability.

Judging from the current strategy of the Oda clan, their focus will remain in northern Owari for a long time. He is probably the one who least wants chaos in the south, and he is even a little worried that Haruno might suddenly die.

Yuan Ye didn't think that much about it. He was not even thirty years old yet, so why was he in such a hurry to have a child? Besides, his previous circumstances didn't allow it. Princess Quan and A Qing were both too young, and he really couldn't bring himself to do it.

That's not an old ox eating tender grass, that's an old ox chewing grass seeds!
He couldn't be bothered to pay attention to Oda Nobunaga's ravings. He glanced at the daughter in Oda Nobunaga's arms, smiled gently at her, and asked Oda Nobunaga, "Is this the Five Virtues?"

Princess Gotoku, Oda Nobunaga's most beloved daughter, but her name...

The meaning of the Five Virtues has nothing to do with virtues such as "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness." It refers to a portable cooking utensil, specifically the five-legged iron frame under a kettle. It can only be said that Oda Nobunaga was quite casual in naming his children.

This is not surprising. Oda Nobunaga often did this before. For example, his second son was named "Makimoto-maru". It is said that when the child was born, he was looking at an account book and casually gave the child the nickname "Makimoto" - an ancient bookbinding method commonly used in account books.

However, the child is no longer called that. After Nohime took the child, she felt that "magic scroll" was too vulgar and unpleasant to hear, so she took the character "奇" from her former name "奇蝶" and changed the child's nickname to "奇奇妙丸".

Other names include "Chasenmaru," which Oda Nobunaga was probably attending a tea party at the time; "Sanshimaru," which refers to a child born on the seventh day of the third month, but at first glance, it sounds like a kind of external wound medicine, which is quite strange; and "Yukihime," which is passable, sounding like a girl's name, but Oda Nobunaga definitely didn't think that much about it, and probably just made it up on the spot while it was snowing.

Anyway, this was the routine Oda Nobunaga used when naming his children. He didn't care about anything else. He just named his children whatever he was doing at the time. Maybe children weren't valuable in that era. Which daimyo didn't have seven or eight children? Some even had dozens. Once you had too many children, they became worthless, so there was no need to pay too much attention to them.

"Of course it's the Five Virtues. Your men are in and out of Owari all day long, what else is there to ask?" Oda Nobunaga was in a good mood at the moment, but his words were still very sharp, implying that he disliked the "survivalists" of the wilderness for asking about the Oda family all day long.

However, he was just saying it casually. All the daimyo and powerful clans do the same thing. They even get restless if they don't know what their neighbors are up to. It's just that Harano has done it on a larger scale and sent more people to Owari. It's not too outrageous.

Of course, the main reason was that he had no intention of plotting against Haruno and didn't care at all about Haruno seeing what the Oda family was doing.

He handed Wude directly to Yuanye, letting his "uncle" hold her. Yuanye took Wude and was momentarily at a loss.

He'd lived this long and had absolutely no experience holding a baby. Luckily, Wude was just over a year old and could already walk a few steps, so she wasn't a tiny infant anymore. He didn't have to worry too much about hurting or making her cry, but…

Soft, small, and innocent eyes, as clear as lacquer, softened Yuan Ye's heart for a moment.

Continuing the bloodline and passing on genes is a human instinct. He's been stuck in this unfortunate era for almost ten years and still sees no hope of returning to the modern world. Maybe he should really consider having a child...

Yuanye hugged Wudeji and saw her smile at him. He couldn't help but reach out and touch his body, pulling out a small piece of gold nugget for her to play with. It was bought by someone during the "Selling Goods Expedition". Because this kind of natural gold mineral is very rare and has auspicious and evil-repelling meanings, it was given to him. He wore it as a small ornament, and now it was perfect for the child to play with.

Haruno and Oda Nobunaga played with the child for a while, and only when Gotoku-hime was sleepy did they hand her over to the wet nurse to take away. At this point, Oda Nobunaga got down to business and began to ask him about his previous trip out to sell goods.

Haruno didn't care and told him about what he had seen and heard along the way. He didn't even bother to hide the fact that he had traded with the Imagawa and Hojo families. After forcibly opening up the waterway and securing the right to dock and trade in the ports along the way for Wanjin merchants, as well as the right to be protected from being robbed by river pirates, Wanjin's reliance on Japanese mainland merchants decreased significantly. Atsuta Port was no longer as important to Wanjin. He didn't care whether Oda Nobunaga was angry or not.

Oda Nobunaga was indeed not angry. Harano was just an ally of the Oda clan, not a vassal clan. He couldn't interfere with such matters. Moreover, the Imagawa and Hojo clans were now only nominal enemies of the Oda clan and had basically nothing to do with him. If anyone should protest, it should be Matsudaira Motoyasu.

Furthermore, because of the alliance, Atsuta Port doesn't collect much tax from Wanjin; on the contrary, Wanjin takes away a large portion of its resources. He has long hoped that Haruno would get out of there as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the people of Wanjin transported specialties from Kanto, Tohoku, and Hokuriku back to the Kinki and Seto Inland Sea regions, intending to resell them. However, they could not bypass him or Shimazu Port. The pirates of the Seto Inland Sea existed for centuries, but they were not as easy to deal with as the Kanto barbarians or the Tohoku savages. It was impossible for the people of the Plain to have opened up the shipping routes to those areas as well.

Oda Nobunaga was more concerned about the situation in eastern Owari. His main goal was to eliminate the traitors in Owari and conquer Mino. All his actions were centered around this strategic objective. He hoped that the situation in eastern Owari could also remain stable. After hearing that the situation there was also in chaos, he was slightly relieved, but at the same time felt a sense of urgency.

Then he began to demand that Haruno fulfill the alliance and help him take over Inuyama Castle first, and directly ask Haruno to borrow troops for use.

We don't need Harano to launch an offensive; the Oda clan should handle the heavy casualties themselves. But he needs to hold the line and prevent Mino's reinforcements from passing through easily.

Yuan Ye actively negotiated with him. Now that Wanjin was in a state of active large-scale production, the population was somewhat insufficient. Food could barely be self-sufficient, and reserves could only guarantee basic security at best. It was becoming difficult to grow cash crops such as ramie, cotton, mulberry, and indigo. Traditional craftsmen such as carpenters and blacksmiths were also in short supply, and there was even a shortage of women. The high female mortality rate in this era led to a shortage of women of marriageable and childbearing age, which seriously affected the natural population growth of Wanjin. Yuan Ye was secretly instructing the Wanjin Theater to promote the harm of early marriage and childbearing through opera. Once a consensus was reached, the marriage age would be forcibly set.

Therefore, Oda Nobunaga was willing to let him help fight, since stability in Owari would also benefit Wanjin. However, he couldn't fight for nothing. Oda Nobunaga had to provide him with food, cotton, hemp, raw silk, dyes, and high-quality timber. He also allowed him to expand the old Wanjin Port so that he could transport supplies to Shimazu Port more quickly.

The two sides argued from morning until noon, and only after each side gave in did they manage to reach a settlement. They then had lunch together. Oda Nobunaga was very interested in the "O-Atake copper-clad boat" and praised Harano for his ingenious idea. He was even tempted to build one himself, but unfortunately, he was currently at war with Inuyama Castle and Mino, so the O-Atake boat was useless. In the end, he only ordered a small "copper-clad yacht" to serve as his vehicle on the inland waterways, which would also show off his wealth.

Time flies, and Oda Nobunaga is approaching thirty. He has grown a mustache and looks much more mature. Recently, he has been able to spend time with his "true love" day and night, which has greatly reduced his gloomy mood. His neurotic episodes have also stopped. Haruno had a good conversation with him this time and felt that he was not as difficult to get along with as before.

To be honest, unlike the "Sixth Heaven Demon King" described in history, Oda Nobunaga was a pretty good friend as long as he didn't have a fit of madness. He was quick-witted, not narrow-minded, and not fussy. Apart from his love of drinking, he didn't have any major flaws.

After this private gathering, Haruno waited two more days before Matsudaira Motoyasu and Asai Nagamasa finally arrived.

(End of this chapter)