Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 242 Aizaka Aman
While everyone was overjoyed at the disguised implementation of the "household responsibility system" in Wanjin, Aman was furious.

In about a year, she had fully integrated into the Ainu community. According to Ainu custom, she also painted a big mouth with purple paint. Moreover, because she always cared a lot about her status and identity, she painted it with the deep purple that only respected women in the tribe could paint, so deep that it was almost black.

At the same time, she was also wearing a dark brown bear skin with the bear's head on her head. This "bear head garment" was only worn by respected elders in the Ainu community and was a symbol of status and position.

She even gave herself an Ainu name, "Ayzaka," which translates to "one who possesses wisdom," or simply "the wise one."

Now, any Ainu person who sees her knows that her status is definitely not ordinary; she is at least a "tribal chief" level figure. Aman deserves this treatment. She personally led the Zhair tribe to attack the Kakizaki family's immigrant village, killing all the samurai and Lang party members, and even packed up the commoners who had been tricked into coming and transported them back to Wanjin to settle down.

Well, most of the adult men in the Zhair tribe are hunters, good material for soldiers, but the people in the Zhair tribe have little war experience. Aman, this half-baked "veteran", is considered a "famous general" in this wild land. She is shameless enough to naturally seize command.

Afterwards, she led the Zhair tribe to successfully ambush the retaliatory force of the Kakizaki family, killing more than thirty samurai and capturing more than seventy others on the spot.

As it turned out, with similar levels of weaponry technology, and not to the point where bone arrows and stone spears were no match for iron armor and steel swords, samurai on Ezo Island were no match for Ainu hunters. At least in small battles involving a hundred people, the Ainu hunters had a significant advantage. Even in archery duels, which the samurai had always been proud of, the samurai of the Kakizaki clan suffered heavy losses after the Ainu hunters acquired better bows and arrows. Sometimes, they were shot dead without even knowing where the enemy was.

Perhaps if they lined up and stabbed each other with long spears, the discipline of the Samurai Party would have given them the upper hand, but they couldn't find an opportunity to fight head-on and lost in a daze.

Then, Aman led the Zhaier tribe... to flee.

Well, at that time, winter on Ezo Island had ended, and it was time for the Zhair tribe to switch from hunting to gathering. They should have left the valley and gone to the river. At the same time, the Zhair tribe only had about a thousand people in total, and only about two hundred and thirty or forty adult men with fighting ability. They couldn't fight the Kakizaki family head-on. The Kakizaki family could mobilize five or six hundred people when they suppressed the Ainu uprising decades ago. Now, if they were to fight to the death, mobilizing two or three thousand people would not be a problem.

Anyway, Aman ran away, which prolonged the distance between the enemy and us, and moved around from time to time, allowing the Zhaier tribe to launch surprise attacks on the Kakizaki family's immigrant village at any time, but the Kakizaki family found it difficult to deal a fatal blow to the Zhaier tribe.

The Kakizaki family also wanted to retaliate, but their main method was to prohibit all villages, trading posts and the Zhair tribe from trading, and to withhold salt, iron and cloth from them. However, the Zhair tribe had already secured the support of Wanjin and did not care about this at all.

After the news spread, many Ainu tribes were also encouraged. After all, they had been oppressed by the Kakizaki family for decades, and had been deceived, bought, sold inferior goods, and had their territories wantonly occupied. They had long been filled with anger. Seeing that someone had taken the lead, and with the Kakizaki family also becoming somewhat paranoid, they began to be wary of all Ainu tribes. The number of frictions between the tribes and the Kakizaki family suddenly increased sharply.

Aman was naturally delighted with this; she was there to cause trouble, and the more chaotic the situation, the better. She worked tirelessly, actively making contacts, hoping to create a "Great Alliance of Ainu People," gather several thousand young men, and cripple or kill the Kakizaki family in one fell swoop.

If she can cripple the Kakizaki family and drive them out of the Matsumae region, then her mission will be completely over, and she can return to Wanjin to continue enjoying her wonderful life.

But imagination is always beautiful, while reality is always harsh. Before long, she came to a profound understanding of a strange saying that Yuanye had once said: This world is really a bunch of amateurs!

She originally thought that if she raised her voice and provided some food, weapons and armor, the Ainu people would be overjoyed to fight the Okizaki family. However, tribal leaders are not always wise, people are not always rational, people's personalities are always varied, and even the Ainu themselves do not consider themselves a nation. Apart from their own tribe, everyone else is an outsider.

Aman ran around for over a month, trying both threats and inducements, but he couldn't persuade these tribes to unite. He only managed to get them together to discuss the current situation. But when the "leaders" of these tribes gathered for a meeting, they all started to want to be in charge. Moreover, the nature of these "leaders" was quite varied. Some Ainu tribes had "gerontocracy," where the elderly were in charge; some had "chieftainships," where the strong were in charge; and some even had witches in charge, with primitive religious rule. When they were all together, it was a chaotic mess.

After two days of the "alliance" meeting, Aman was already thinking of killing them all. He felt that it was no wonder they were beaten all the way to Ezo Island, since there were very few capable people among them.

"Ayzaka, don't be angry, have some water first!" A girl who was a little over 1.5 meters tall, with a pretty face, chestnut curly hair, wearing an otter fur skirt with cotton sleeves, and with a light red mouth painted with paint, brought Aman a full glass of water and said gently.

The girl's name was "Imiyi," a rather vulgar name meaning "flower bud" or "budding flower." A more literal translation would be "little flower." She was the youngest daughter of the old hunter Zhapinong. Because the old hunter owed Aman a black fox pelt, and Aman had repeatedly asked for it back without success, Aman "captured" his daughter to settle the debt.

Of course, the people sent by the Zhaier tribe to take care of Aman's daily life were actually Imia and three other girls. Aman had asked to come, since she felt that she should have maids as she was of a certain status.

As for personal treatment, she would never compromise herself, even if she went to a "savage" tribe. She would enjoy what she could.

She wasn't that idiot Yuan Ye, who didn't know how to enjoy his good fortune. If she were the ruler of Wanjin, she would have ordered every household in Wanjin to offer her a young girl to work for her without pay. Unlike Yuan Ye, who was always thinking about something and didn't understand anything about bullying men and women.

If they can't act like tyrants, bully men and women, and indulge in pleasure, then wouldn't all their fighting and dying have been for nothing?

But she couldn't go against Yuanye's wishes, so she could only reluctantly behave herself.

Aman was still cursing those "tribal leaders" in her heart when she suddenly realized that the Zhair tribe, which she had previously thought was a "barbaric tribe," was actually quite advanced and civilized among the Ainu people. She was momentarily stunned and subconsciously took the water cup, only realizing what she had done when she brought it to her lips, and asked, "Has it been boiled?"

She had spent so much time with Yuanye, and Yuanye had repeatedly emphasized that she now only drank cooled boiled water and wouldn't drink water as readily as before. Yimiyi immediately said, "It's boiled and cooled down. You've said that several times, and we've remembered it."

Aman then drank his water with relief and asked, "What are we having for lunch?"

“My father sent over some bear meat. It’s fine to boil the bear meat or roast it.”

Aman looked pained. The Ainu people's food was either boiled or roasted, and sometimes they didn't even bother to add salt, so it was tasteless. She had been eating like this for so long that she was starting to feel like dying.

She quickly asked, "Where's the iron pot? Didn't I have someone send an iron pot over last time? Cook some...any kind of vegetables, even wild vegetables are fine! I can't eat meat like this anymore, even my poop smells terrible."

There was fighting before, and then the tribe moved. The temporary camp had poor transportation capacity, and supplies couldn't be delivered. But now that the situation has stabilized, she felt it was time to change her living conditions. She quickly asked the rear to send her some iron pots, soap, toilet paper, seasonings and other daily necessities. Calculating the time, they should have arrived by now.

"An iron pot?" Imi thought for a moment and hesitated. "It seems like there is such a thing, but how do you use it?"
Aman was speechless. She squinted her eyebrows and sighed, "I'll teach you!"

She gathered the girls, including Imi, and took them to the earthen stove—the very stove she had taught them to build. Then she rummaged through the supplies that had been delivered under the guise of "emergency supplies," finding the blended oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and spices such as star anise and fennel that the wilderness had "invented." She then began to instruct these "savage girls" on how to cook.

She herself doesn't cook, so how could Lord Aman possibly do such a thing? But she's been following Yuanye for a long time and has seen him teach many people. He also has a very good memory, so his teaching is very successful now. After some home-style dishes were prepared, she watched as the girls, including Yimi, tasted the food and were all amazed, speaking to her in a very admiring tone. She couldn't help but sigh, thinking that these were truly a bunch of ignorant fools.

But just as she was thinking this, she tilted her head and saw her reflection in the water tank, realizing her expression seemed familiar. Looking at the scene again, it felt incredibly déjà vu; she seemed to have seen it somewhere before. After a moment of contemplation, her excellent memory finally brought it back to her.

Damn it, isn't that the expression on Yuanye's face? There's a sense of utter helplessness in it? Could it be that when he was teaching her, Yayoi, A-Qing, and the others, he also thought they were a bunch of ignorant idiots?

Aman was annoyed for a moment, but then she thought that Yuanye was probably not that kind of person. She would probably think they were ignorant, but it was unlikely that she would call them stupid. But...

She thought back on all the things she had done during this time: teaching the Zhaier tribe how to build dams for fishing, building vehicles, helping them improve their tents and clothing, guiding them on how to prevent parasites, brew fruit wine, and even induce childbirth... and so on. The more she thought about it, the more familiar it seemed.

At the time, she didn't feel anything, not even proud. After all, these were common sense in Wanjin. She just thought the people there were really ignorant and backward. But now that she thinks about it, did Yuanye also think of them that way back then?

Even the private complaints of girls like Yimiyi were similar.

The Ainu girls, including Imii, thought she was too delicate. They insisted that she drink boiled water, wash her hands before meals, change her clothes whenever possible, and even secretly wipe her bottom with paper. They believed that if she were thrown into the wild, she would definitely not survive more than three days, which was almost exactly the same as what they had secretly complained about in the wilderness back then.

They were taught by Yuanye, who changed almost all of their living habits, and even the living habits of the Wanjin people. But who taught Yuanye, that makes him feel so powerless as a pioneer unable to adapt to a backward way of life?

Yes, that expression wasn't smug or contemptuous; he just couldn't take it anymore, felt immense pain, and didn't know when it would end...

It felt exactly the same as her current experience living in an Ainu tribe—filled with helplessness and unbearable suffering.

Haruno must have come from a place where life was much better, far better than Owari. That place shouldn't be Kyushu. Life in Kyushu wouldn't have made Haruno show that kind of expression. There must have been a significant generational gap for that kind of expression to appear.

Where did that wilderness come from?
Aman lost his appetite and started thinking about the problem, but after a while he couldn't figure it out, so he gave up for the time being.

This is not an emergency. No matter where Yuanye comes from, he is now her family. Even if Yuanye were to kill the Emperor, she would be willing to go with him. Those high-ranking officials and nobles never cared about the lives of ordinary people like them. By following Yuanye, at least most of them could live like human beings.

The Ainu should at least be able to live like human beings, or at least survive, but the Ainu leaders are all ignorant fools. Driving away the Kakizaki family would have been beneficial to all of them, but these people are arguing and arguing and are unwilling to unite. They are basically beyond saving.

Aman was at a loss for what to do. She thought about writing a letter to Yuanye, but after thinking for a while, her gaze gradually turned to the girls like Yimiyi.

The old folks can't adapt to the new era, and it's unlikely they can defeat the Kakizaki family in a short time. They need a new generation. Maybe they should bring in a batch of Ainu exchange students.

The Ainu people are so loosely organized, it's not impossible for them to integrate into Wanjin.

(End of this chapter)