Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 245 A Uprising

Katsuji Yasuda didn't rush back. He spent a few more days visiting the surrounding villages and farms and found the situation to be far from optimistic. Insect infestations were a common occurrence, and even the small village he had visited initially had relatively mild damage due to its fertile soil.

He became increasingly worried as he looked at the situation, after all, the situation in Ise Province was not good either!

The thirteen districts of Ise Province are dotted with mountains and strongholds. Not only are there small daimyo who occupy their own territories, such as the Nagano family, the Kobe family, the Seki family, and the Chikusa family, but there are also a large number of small powerful clans with messy vassal relationships and several "adoptive fathers." There are very few honest and obedient ones.

Kitabatake Tomonori, the de facto head of the Kitabatake clan (who abdicated but did not relinquish power), was naturally unwilling to accept this. Since the time of Oda Nobuhide, the "Tiger of Owari," which was a few years after Harano had fallen on hard times, after stabilizing the five southern districts of Ise Province, he attempted to unify the eight northern districts. However, after so many years, he had only managed to take over the Nagano clan, not completely eliminate it. Kitabatake Tomonori's second son became the adopted heir of the Nagano clan, making the Nagano clan a vassal, but the internal resistance within the Nagano clan never stopped.

There are also external threats. The Miyoshi family, the dominant power in the Kinki region, is becoming increasingly powerful and has a strong desire for expansion. After occupying Yamato Province, it is said that they have also developed a covetous interest in Ise Province and may launch a fierce attack on Ise Province from west to east at any time.

The eastern province of Owari is not peaceful either. "Oda the Fool" has suddenly risen to power. Even though he is currently actively expanding his territory to the north and his attention has been temporarily drawn to Mino Province, the neighbor is getting stronger and stronger, which is very unsettling just to think about it.

The southern province of Shima is also not peaceful. The Kuki family is slowly becoming active, and there are signs of unification there, which could very well become a major threat.

In short, although we don't know who our future adversary will be, a major battle is almost inevitable. Preparations cannot stop; if they do, the enemy will take advantage of our weakness. And just then, we're hit by a pest infestation, causing widespread crop yield reductions—some by 20-30%, others by more than half. This…

Katsuji Yasuda's headache grew as he thought about it, and the initial pity and compassion he felt for these common people suffering from the disaster slowly disappeared.

The common people are having a hard time, and the samurai are having a tough time too. Otherwise, if the enemy were to invade, how could these common people possibly fare well?

It's unclear how large the insect infestation is, whether it's only affecting Ise Province or the entire Ise Peninsula. If it's affecting the whole peninsula, then the situation might be a little better.

He sighed all the way back to Okawachi Castle with his men.

Okawachi Castle is located on Mount Kasuzu and is an important stronghold for the Kitabatake clan to control the Kasuzu Plain and even the two surrounding counties. As soon as he arrived near the castle gate, he saw a large group of foot soldiers rushing out, led by several mounted samurai. They turned a corner and headed northwest along a side road.

Slightly puzzled, Yasuda Katsuji asked a familiar samurai as he entered the city, "Lord Mizuki, what has happened?"

The samurai casually remarked, "A village in Nagamizu has collectively evaded paying tribute, and Kono and his men are going to capture those guys."

"Escaping tribute?"

"Probably..." The warrior wasn't a follower of the system and only knew a little bit, but he still spat, "A bunch of ungrateful lowly people. They fled over the mountains during the famine a few years ago. We kindly took them in and gave them land. But this year they ran away again, the whole village ran away together. We should have just killed them back then."

Upon hearing this, Katsuji Yasuda remembered that a few years ago, when there was a typhoon, the Kasuzu Plain was blocked by the Ise Mountains, so although it was flooded for a while, the damage was not too severe. Some refugees from other places fled here to find food, and the Kitabatake family got a group of people for free. They took advantage of them to clear some wasteland and build a number of small villages, turning them into serfs. As a result, these people started to run back.

Last time they forcibly crossed the mountains to escape the famine, nearly half of them died along the way...

Yasuda Katsuji understood after a moment's thought and asked, "Was the disaster in Nagamizu very severe?"

"I don't know," the samurai said casually, but after thinking for a moment, he hesitated and said, "It should be alright, right? I heard that selling hemp cloth over there is very profitable this year, they should be doing well, right?"

The area around Changshuijin is hilly with poor soil quality and is relatively barren. However, it has mountains and wetlands, making it very suitable for growing and retting hemp. I heard that the leaders who were sent there to oversee the reclamation all managed to smuggle thousands of bolts of hemp cloth to the seaside and made a small fortune. Their arduous job turned into a lucrative one.

Yasuda Katsuji had also heard the rumors. He shook his head, asked no further questions, and went straight into the city. He then walked up the mountain road and found his superior, Hirado Tobei, at a samurai's hut halfway up the mountain. He reported the disaster situation, hesitated for a moment, and even though he had little pity left, he was still afraid of trouble. So he pleaded for the villagers: "Lord Hirado, should this year's annual tribute be reduced a little?"

"talk later!"

Hirado Tobei was one of the chief administrators of Ōkawachi Castle, holding a position somewhat similar to that of Niwa Nagahide of the Oda clan. He was in charge of the finances of the Kitabatake clan. The Kitabatake clan's strategic situation was becoming increasingly tense. On one hand, they had to fight openly and covertly with the minor daimyo and powerful clans of the eight northern districts, and on the other hand, they had to guard against a sneak attack by the Miyoshi clan. The financial pressure was also very high. A few years ago, the Ise Peninsula had suffered a disaster, which caused considerable losses. They had just recovered a little when another disaster struck. He was also finding it hard to cope.

Moreover, historically, the Miyoshi clan did indeed attack the Kitabatake clan. It was only because the Miyoshi clan collapsed during the fighting that Oda Nobunaga was able to take advantage of the situation and easily conquer Ise Province.

Ise Province is also a large country with a tax of nearly 300,000 koku, not much worse than Owari or Mino... at least not now. Owari's tax of over 500,000 koku was due to later development; now it's only around 300,000 koku. In fact, when Harano first arrived, Owari was even less than Ise, with only 260,000 to 270,000 koku. Therefore, Hirado Tobei wasn't wrong to be wary. At this point, he really didn't dare to reduce the annual tribute casually; he would at least need to consult Kitabatake Tomonori again before making a decision.

Katsuji Yasuda didn't say anything more. He knew about the actual difficulties, but... he was always a little uneasy if the annual tribute wasn't reduced.

But he couldn't say anything more. Sometimes there's nothing he can do but let the common people suffer. Who told them to be born lowly because their ancestors were so disappointing!

It's not his fault!
Yasuda Katsuji went back to prepare for the autumn harvest. He gathered his low-ranking officials and servants and gave them detailed instructions. He also re-armed the squad of foot soldiers assigned to them. He felt that collecting the annual tribute this year would be a big problem. Getting those lowly people to collect the annual tribute would be difficult without hanging dozens of people. There was even a possibility of armed resistance. So he had to be extremely careful.

As he had predicted, the order to reduce the annual tribute was issued a few days later, but it was only a symbolic reduction. For example, the directly managed land that should have paid more than 320 shi of grain was reduced by about 9 shi, while the rest still had to be paid.

However, the situation was better for Katsuji Yasuda. The two villages he was in charge of were located on the Kasuga Plain, where the land was fertile and irrigation was convenient. Even if the common people here suffered from disasters, their harvests were relatively high. Even though they were unwilling to pay for the losses themselves, under the threat of death, they gritted their teeth and thought of ways to borrow some more from the temples or mortgage their children to the monks. They were still able to raise enough money for the time being.

As for what to do when the interest accumulates... well, we'll have to wait until next year!

For ordinary people, as long as there is a way to survive, they can endure it and will not really fight to the death. So after Yasuda Katsuji hanged one or two troublemakers in each village, he persuaded them with soft words for a while and actually collected all the annual tribute he was responsible for. It is estimated that when it is evaluated later, there will be no problem in getting a "certificate of gratitude". If he accumulates a few more, it is not impossible for him to obtain a piece of Zhixing that belongs to him in the future.

However, when he returned to Ōkōchi Castle after visiting village after village, he found the atmosphere along the way to be more tense. At the same time, mounted samurai were passing by one after another on the road. Ōkōchi Castle was demanding that the various clansmen gather together and recruiting miscellaneous soldiers and foot soldiers from nearby villages.

He quickly stopped a mounted warrior and asked, "What's going on now?"

The messenger, completely disoriented from riding, reined in his horse, glanced at him with a dusty face, and finally recognized him. He said wearily, "Oh, it's Lord Yasuda. Um... do you have any water?"

"Yes!" Yasuda Katsuji quickly had someone bring him water.

The samurai had lost his water bottle somewhere. He was parched from riding under the scorching sun in late summer and early autumn. He grabbed the water and gulped it down. After a while, he sighed, "A rebellion has broken out in Shimogura County. A lowly commoner named Tsugomaru led a group that killed Lord Mito and his men. They also ambushed the people sent by Kiriyama Castle. Now, several villages and more than ten towns in that area are in turmoil. My lord has requested that our Okawachi Castle go to provide support."

The term “一揆” originates from Mencius’s “Li Lou II”, which states, “The distance between places is more than a thousand li; the time difference between generations is more than a thousand years. Yet, when they achieve their goals and act in China, it is as if they are in perfect harmony. The actions of the sages, both past and present, are based on the same principle.” This roughly means that although the time and circumstances are different, the actions of the sages are exactly the same. Later, the term “一揆” came to refer to “the same principle”.

In Japan, "Ikkyu" also came to mean "to unite and act together." In other words, when a group of people agreed to achieve a certain goal, they could be called "Ikkyu shoguns." Peasant uprisings such as resisting taxes and corvée labor became "so-and-so Ikkyu."

Now, the "Shimogura Uprising" broke out in Ise Province. Some commoners in Shimogura County, unwilling or unable to pay their annual tribute, killed the samurai who were collecting the tribute. The uprising escalated, inspiring neighboring villages to also collectively resist taxes and corvée labor.

The Kitabatake clan had established themselves in Ise Province during the Nanboku-cho period of Japan. They built more than half of the major cities in Ise Province. Over the years, they certainly encountered peasant uprisings, but given the relatively good natural conditions on the Ise Peninsula, it was quite rare to see peasant uprisings of such a large scale and such rapid development.

At the same time, the Kitabatake family was very experienced in dealing with such matters. They knew that such things could not wait. If there was even the slightest delay, the "rebellion" would immediately swell several times or even dozens of times. Therefore, the first thing to do was to mobilize all the surrounding forces to surround and kill all the unruly people in Shimogura County.

At this critical moment, we absolutely cannot allow chaos to erupt; we must make an example of one to deter others!

Overall, the Kitabatake clan's upper echelons handled the situation well, and Yasuda Katsuji couldn't find any fault with it. He was immediately relieved, bid farewell to his colleague, and continued back to Okawachi Castle. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he should volunteer for battle. How could a bunch of scoundrels who had played with hoes since childhood and didn't even have a suit of armor possibly defeat heavily armored samurai? This kind of battle achievement would be a piece of cake. Even though he was just an ordinary magistrate who usually didn't go to the battlefield, he could easily lead a few of his followers to kill and scatter hundreds of scoundrels.

He was tempted. He had already completed his mission and had nothing else to do at the moment. It would be great to earn some more credit for free. But as soon as he returned to Okouchi City, he heard some bad news.

In the southernmost part of Shimogaki County, in Kamimizu County, an uprising broke out. There were two groups of people, one in the east and one in the west. The local garrison only managed to disperse the western group, while the eastern group fled into the Ise Mountains and showed signs of turning into mountain bandits. They began to rob people everywhere, taking advantage of the mountainous terrain, and attempted to coerce more people.

The Kitabatake clan could not allow this to happen, and it needed to be dealt with quickly as well. Ōkōchi Castle had no choice but to urgently dispatch another wave of troops to Kamimi District to assist the local samurai in exterminating these troublemakers as quickly as possible.

Now Yasuda Katsuji no longer needed to consider whether to go or not. He was also being selected and began heading south with the team. However, after only a few days, just as they entered Sangsui County, someone suddenly caught up from behind and delivered new orders.

We urgently returned to Kasuga County. A large enemy force had suddenly appeared in the coastal area and had begun to land, seemingly preparing to attack Ōkōchi Castle!
Hurry back to provide assistance!

(End of this chapter)