Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 249 The Fruit is Ripe
The Kitabatake clan was in dire straits, unable to muster sufficient troops, and their frequent harassment efforts yielded little success. They could only watch helplessly as the Wanjin army built a small, gray-blue volcanic ash cement city, whose defensive system became increasingly complete.

Because the city is located on the eastern coast of the Kasuga Plain, Haruno named it "Kazu Port," regardless of the fact that there was already a Kazu Castle built along the river in Kasuga County. Anyway, he wasn't good at naming things, so he simply named the future administrative center of Ise Province.

With things having come to this point, the Kitabatake clan was increasingly unable to make up their minds to launch a full-scale attack. They had mobilized for half a month, and their forces were only one or two thousand more than the Wanjin army. Their morale was also quite unstable. The thought of the casualties if they forced an attack on the Shikazu defense line was enough to make one's scalp crawl.

Even if they win, the Kitabatake clan will likely be crippled. Moreover, the two sides have engaged in numerous sporadic battles over the past two weeks, and given the fighting strength demonstrated by the Wanjin army, the more they fight, the less confident they become.

At this time, Japan's traditional typhoon season also arrives, with temperatures suddenly dropping and frequent rainfall, turning the land into a muddy mess. It is during this period that Harano changes his mind and is willing to fight the Kitabatake clan in a fair fight. It is likely that the two sides will end up rolling around in the mud, making it difficult to determine a winner.

The situation became increasingly awkward. The Kitabatake clan was unable to launch a full-scale attack and was not confident that they could destroy Wanjin in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, Wanjin was facing increased shipping risks during the typhoon season and was almost cut off from reinforcements, so it retreated even further.

Both sides continued to endure, and another month passed.

In the context of medieval warfare, a month is not much. In those times, besieging a fortified city often took at least six months. However, the famine in Ise was getting worse. Paying the annual tribute had driven many commoners into bankruptcy. Moreover, many people discovered that this year, not only were the fields damaged, but another important food source for commoners—various dried fruits from the wild—had also suffered a strange and widespread reduction in production. Meanwhile, the number of rats had increased dramatically.

These days, even rats are starting to compete with people for food. Many ordinary people originally hoped to find some food in the wild in the autumn, but after searching and searching, they found that their families might not even survive the winter, let alone complete the spring planting next year, and their mood began to despair.

Everyone in the Kitabatake family now knows that disaster relief is needed, at least to ease the situation in Ise Province. But knowing is one thing, being able to do it is another. Who should be in charge of disaster relief?

Should the Kitabatake clan provide unified disaster relief, or should its samurai and noble families provide relief separately?
The powerful clans were generally unwilling to cooperate on matters that required real money. Back in the day, Oda Nobunaga wanted to repair the roads in Owari to revitalize the economy, so he sent people to urge him every day. After half a year of urging, not a single powerful clan was willing to cooperate; they were all complaining about the difficulties.

The powerful clans of Ise and Owari were roughly equal in strength, so it was impossible for them to open up their entire fortunes willingly.

However, the Kitabatake family was reluctant to use their own money for full disaster relief. What if the local samurai or powerful clans embezzled all their reserves and distributed them to the common people?
Furthermore, if all the grain is used for disaster relief, how will we support the inevitable major battle that will take place in Hejin?

The Kitabatake family had considered purchasing grain as an emergency measure, since they had made some money from Wanzu this year. However, the "empty ears disease" affected a wider area than expected, with the entire Ise Peninsula basically affected. Grain prices surged after the autumn harvest, and there was even a phenomenon of hoarding. Even with high purchase prices, they could not buy much grain in a short period of time.

In previous years, after the autumn harvest, the price of grain was usually only six or seven hundred mon per shi (a unit of dry measure). However, in just over a month, the price of grain in the Ise Peninsula has risen to more than two kan (another unit of dry measure) per shi. Even the grain prices in the Kinki region have been affected, with prices rising across a wide area. Even the prices of miscellaneous grains are very high.

Yes, it's all Haruno's fault. He bought owls and frogs at high prices. There were also clever people on the Ise Peninsula who bought cheap salt quotas from the Kinki region in exchange for the Wanzu people. They played the trick of buying and selling, which caused a large-scale reduction in production in the Kinki region this year, just not as severe as on the Ise Peninsula.

For longer distances, no one dares to transport heavy goods like grain by land, otherwise it would be giving money away to the powerful clans along the way. Even if they know that transporting grain to Ise this year will definitely make a fortune, there are still very few people who dare to do it.

As for taking the sea route...

The Wanjin navy wasn't just for show; if anyone dared to transport grain, Haruno would dare... Directly robbing would damage their reputation, and Wanjin had always supported free trade and was cracking down on river pirates. They couldn't be river pirates themselves, but they could intercept and forcibly buy it; they couldn't let the grain flow into Ise. In the end, the Kitabatake clan went through all that trouble, but even with money, they couldn't buy much grain. Only their in-law ally, the Rokkaku clan, gave them a batch of miscellaneous grain to tide them over, but that was all. The Rokkaku clan was busy fighting with Azai Nagamasa, and they didn't even have enough grain for themselves.

The local area suffered a disaster, and there was not much food input from other places. Furthermore, the Harano clan came over and forcibly confronted them, causing the Kitabatake clan of more than 6,000 people to not only start to live off their reserves, but also to conscript a large number of miscellaneous soldiers and foot soldiers with their own dry rations to serve as transport teams and construction laborers. As a result, the disaster in Ise intensified, and the quantitative change led to a qualitative change, which finally exploded and turned into a famine.

Yes, Aman also played a part in this. She actively directed the "survivalists" to spread rumors in Ise, saying that the Kitabatake clan would fight a major battle this year and would collect two more batches of "military rations." She also imitated the howl of a fox and retrieved books from the belly of a fish. Based on the stories that Harano had told her in the past, she instructed her subordinates to do all sorts of strange and supernatural things, fearing that the world would not be in chaos.

Some villages were originally prepared to endure the famine and flee, but after being instigated and stirred up by the "survivalists," and seeing how many people were causing trouble, they also took the opportunity to start an uprising. They wanted to at least get some grain from the local powerful families and even the Kitabatake family so that they could hold out until the wild vegetables sprouted next spring.

The five districts of Kitabatake were in complete chaos. Samurai were running around suppressing the rioters, but as soon as one problem was solved, another arose. Just when they had defeated a village in the east, another village in the west started to rebel.

Many commoners began to band together for "samurai hunts," since they might not live to see the next spring anyway, so they decided to fight the samurai to the death!

After the typhoon season, Harano did nothing, and the Ise samurai had already turned into a mess with their people. The number of "Ikki" (rebel groups) was growing and growing, and they were completely out of control.

While the commoners were no match for the samurai in a direct confrontation, they were familiar with the local terrain and were adept at ambushes and sneak attacks. In fact, they had close ties with the local powerful samurai clans and could easily find insiders, resulting in several incidents of breaching local samurai homes and powerful clan towns.

With flames of war rising behind them and the proportion of unruly civilians and rioters increasing, the Kitabatake clan's main force, which was blocking the Wanjin army in Rokujin, finally couldn't hold out any longer. Several transport teams were robbed, each time more blatant than the last. Even though those "rebels" were not strong enough to steal much, it was still not a good sign.

Moreover, morale in the army was becoming increasingly unstable. Kitabatake Tomonori wasn't a lunatic like Oda Nobunaga; he had never implemented the "separation of farmers and soldiers." His followers were usually scattered across manors and villages to farm. Now that the rear was in chaos, they were worried that their homes would be robbed and had no desire to confront the Wanjin people in this desolate place.

The situation was even worse for the conscripted foot soldiers. Their families were starving, but instead of letting them go back to find food, they were forced to stay here to prepare for war with the Wanjin people, digging trenches and building fortifications...

They wouldn't dare to directly mutiny, since the Samurai Party has a military advantage and they don't want to die in vain, but they can escape.

Many foot soldiers and even some of the royal guards began to desert their positions. At first, they would sneak away in three or five nights, but gradually it developed into whole teams going out to carry out missions and never returning. There were even cases of low-ranking samurai being surrounded and killed, and foot soldiers fleeing en masse.

By late autumn and early winter, the Kitabatake clan could no longer hold out. They hadn't fought a major battle and hadn't lost many men, so they gave up on the idea of ​​trapping the Wanjin army there. They abandoned the defenses that had been built up and took the initiative to retreat to the area around Nojin Castle to besiege the castle, hoping to free up some troops to wipe out the growing number of "Ikkyu".

After they left, Yuanye stopped practicing his "turtle kung fu" and finally slowly poked his head out, harnessed a horse to Chebao, and began to sweep the surrounding area.

He has already established himself in Ise, and Ise is ripe for the taking; it's time for him to reap the rewards.

(End of this chapter)