The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 298 Straw Raincoat Dance

After leaving Kanazawa Castle, a drizzle began to fall from the sky, and dark clouds covered the Kaga Domain like a big pot lid.

The good thing about rainy days is that there are no more wanderers to bother the Catholics.

Chiyoko was walking on the path outside the city wearing a conical hat. Occasionally, three or two passers-by who were trying to avoid the sudden rain ran past her.

Everyone was in a hurry and no one noticed the mixed-race woman who was fleeing and the cross on her straw raincoat.

"Brother will definitely survive. Go to Baishan and have a cup of hot tea. You'll catch a cold if you rush in the rain."

If you catch a cold, you can die. Chiyoko's mother died from a relapse of typhoid fever.

"Old lady Iori should still be alive, right? Mother said we can look for her when we get to Kaga."

The road became winding and was about to reach the mountainside. The volcanic ash underfoot was thick and sticky, and Chiyoko's light steps became heavy.

The rain covered the dense cedar forest in white and chased Chiyoko from the foot of the mountain at an astonishing speed.

Chiyoko stopped, carrying a wicker box and stepping on layers of volcanic ash. The gray sky and the carefully cultivated rice fields in the valley were now covered with dust and lifeless.

Half a month ago, a volcanic eruption occurred in Baishan.

Gray smog obscured the sky, and hundreds of people in the Kaga domain were killed or injured.

This place seems to be a place abandoned by the gods.

She climbed up the ridgeline with difficulty.

Finally arrived at Baishan Village.

Chiyoko's mother grew up here. She said before her death that her hometown was a bright, comfortable and convenient place in her mind.

But now, the village in front of Chiyoko seemed so dark, so narrow, and so dirty.

Thatched houses stood in a haphazard arrangement on the edge of the cliff, with no walls around them. The whole village was quiet and contemplative, with branches of willow, elderberry, and mountain pear trees sticking out from the courtyards.

In this small village with only more than a hundred households, Chiyoko met the old woman Iori.

Iori is sixty years old this year and looks energetic. Her messy hair covers her forehead, and there is not a single wrinkle underneath.

"You really don't look old at all. You look younger than the ladies in Osaka Castle."

Chiyoko admired it sincerely.

"Miss Chiyoko is joking."

In the early years of the Kan'ei era, Iori's husband worked as a village official.

Village officials have great power in rural Japan. They are responsible for collecting more than half of the annual tribute and rice (old taxes in Japan) from villagers. In the process, they can often take advantage of the situation and leave two bags of medium rice in taro bags (straw bags woven with rice straw) for their own families.

The old village official was now ill, slumped beside the stove, his cloudy eyes fixed on the mixed-race girl who had suddenly broken in, but he could see nothing.

"It's Xun's daughter and that red-haired barbarian's daughter! We need to hurry to Miyako Wharf and take a boat out to sea!"

Iori almost leaned close to his wife's ear and roared with all his strength.

After a while, the old village official nodded with difficulty, put his hand back to the stove, and returned to his own world.

I heard that old lady Iori has a son who is about the same age as Chiyoko. He became a monk at an early age and now I don’t know where he is practicing in some famous mountain or ancient temple.

"What a kind and loving family."

Chiyoko held a bowl of steaming vegetable porridge in her hand and couldn't help but sigh.

Chiyoko heard her mother say that everyone in the world is born happy like the people of Osaka.

Most of the people my mother knew - more than 84% of Japan's population was farmers during the Shogunate era - had only eaten rice a few times in their lives.

In mountainous areas such as Hikari (a mountainous area in western Japan), only landlords and village officials could sometimes eat rice.

Farmers below the middle peasant level mainly feed on mixed vegetable porridge, a kind of food cooked with wheat, corn, barnyard grass and chopped dry leaves and radishes.

For most farmers in the country, rice made from barnyard grass is considered a delicacy. The only things farmers can usually eat are dumplings made from acorn flour or poisonous mistletoe.

Chiyoko licked the mixed vegetable porridge carefully. Although the meal was not delicious, it was the best food that old lady Iori's family could come up with.

"Thank you so much! Thank you so much!"

Chiyoko finished the vegetable porridge in one breath, knelt on the worn straw mat and bowed repeatedly to the old woman.

"What are you thanking me for? Xun and I are good friends. He once took me to Osaka and we ate white rice!"

Iori said as she looked towards her husband who was sitting by the fire.

"Miss Chiyoko, if you had come to Hakusan at this time last year, you might have been able to eat delicious rice!"

Chiyoko stood up and looked out the window. The beautiful mountain pass was so deep that she couldn't see the bottom.

She didn't know whether it was fear of heights or the cold, but goose bumps appeared on her skin, she was shivering all over, and her teeth were chattering. At this time, the old woman brought a cup of hot tea, and Chiyoko said, "I'm so cold!"

The old woman quickly took her hand and walked towards the stove.

"Your raincoat is soaked through. Come over here and warm yourself by the fire. Come on, let's dry your clothes."

Iori's husband was sitting cross-legged by the stove. Chiyoko walked closer and saw that he was an old man with bruises all over his body, looking like a drowned ghost.

Even the pupils of his eyes were yellow, as if they were rotten.

He looked towards Chiyoko sadly.

There were piles of paper bags and herbs around him, and it could be said that he was buried among them.

Chiyoko witnessed the monster in the mountains and stood there blankly, unable to imagine that this was a living person.

Iori explained with an embarrassed look:
"Isn't that scary? Miss Chiyoko, it's been like this since last year. It looks really ugly, but he can't move anymore. Please just be patient."

Before Chiyoko could react, she heard the old woman continue:
"The doctors at Kaga Domain refused to treat him, so I found a monk and he prescribed medicine, and that's why he's still alive..."

Chiyoko nodded politely and hesitantly extended her cold hand towards the stove.

"I'm sure Miss Chiyoko has also heard that the General is going to march westward to attack the Ming Kingdom, and our Kaga Domain will have to send 1 soldiers. The Domain Lord has shifted the burden onto the heads of our common people ()."

Iori sighed heavily, his thin body curled up on the straw mat, and in the firelight he looked like a mountain goblin.

"Over the past two months, taxes have been rising, and many new taxes have been introduced. Eighty percent of Baishan Village's grain this year has been handed over to the village officials!"

Chiyoko put down the teacup, feeling dizzy. She had never imagined that her mother lived in such a difficult place.

She hesitated for a moment, then took out two gold coins from the wicker box and handed them to old woman Iori.

The old woman waved her hands quickly: "Miss, Miss!"

"That's enough to pay two years' tribute! I really don't deserve your expense. I'm so sorry."

She held Chiyoko's wicker box and accepted the gold coins after some hesitation.

"I'm so sorry for not treating you well!"

"Just now when I was climbing the mountain, I saw a lot of rice covered with dust. It's a volcanic eruption. Can't the feudal lord give some relief?"

Iori put down the wicker box, stared at the stoneware cup in Chiyoko's hand, and smiled coldly:
"Reduction? If the tax can't be paid, the villagers' wives will be taken hostage and subjected to waterboarding, or put in straw raincoats—like the one Miss Chiyoko is wearing—and burned to death."

"The feudal lord and the family elders loved to watch the villagers rolling around on the ground in their straw raincoats after being burned. They called this the 'Skirt Raincoat Dance'."

Straw Raincoat Dance

The figure of Iori's wife gradually became blurred in front of him, and he could only hear her nagging.

"Fortunately, the village is next to a volcano. The villagers sift out fine volcanic mud and give it to the monk in exchange for a reward to offset their taxes. The old monk has a close relationship with the feudal lord..."

Chiyoko suppressed her dizziness and echoed the old woman.

"Ah? Monk, what does a monk need volcanic mud for?"

"It can make their beauty last forever. Even a face that's hundreds of years old can be as charming as a twenty-year-old boy..."

Chiyoko could no longer see Iori's mother's face, and suddenly her mother's urgent voice rang in her ears:

"Aqian, hurry up! Leave here! Go to Miyako Port, your brother is still waiting for you."

Chiyoko struggled to stand up from the straw mat, stammering like a drunk:

"I, I'm about to leave..."

Suddenly, her head was held down by a pair of large, calloused hands, and her body fell limply.

"Iori..."

"Miss Chiyoko."

Beside the stove came Iori's mother's nightmarish whispers:

"The old monk's immortality doesn't come from the volcanic mud on Mount Baishan..."

The old village official who had been silent all this time opened his cloudy eyes and reached out to feel around among the straw mats. After a long time, he finally touched the sleeping Chiyoko.

"So tall! Is she really only fifteen? A half-blooded giant from Osaka Castle. Old woman, if we offer her up, will the old monk reward us with double the gold coins?"

"Old man! Of course she would. She's twice the size of the Japanese girl, so she'll definitely need twice as many gold coins!"

Note:
1. Hon-common people: During the Edo period, small farmers who owned land and paid annual tribute to their lords were called Hon-common people.

(End of this chapter)