I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

"..."

Despite his indifferent expression, Nishino kept slurping his noodles, ignoring the young man.

Such a cold attitude naturally made the young people feel somewhat unhappy.

But he didn't dare say anything more, bowed, and left.

—Ugh… I’m so busy… mopping the floor, boiling water, cooking, doing laundry… all I do every day is such boring work. How long am I going to have to endure this before I get a promotion…?

The young man grumbled inwardly about the recent events.

Just as he was filled with self-pity... in the blink of an eye! A large hand holding a cloth handkerchief reached out from the side and covered the young man's mouth and nose!

"Ugh...!"

The sudden change caught the young man off guard. With his mouth and nose completely covered by a cloth, he instinctively took a deep breath in shock.

Instantly, an extremely strong, pungent medicinal smell filled his mouth and nose.

Oh no!

Knowing the gravity of the situation, he immediately held his breath.

However... it was too late.

"Sorry, please take a nap for a moment."

A familiar young male voice reached the young man's ears, sounding as if it came from afar.

Everything was dark; nothing was visible in my field of vision.

—That voice is…?!

The moment this thought arose, the young man's consciousness was completely interrupted.

……

Nishino eats very quickly.

No sooner had the young man left than he finished the whole bowl of buckwheat noodles, leaving not a drop of soup.

After eating and drinking his fill, Nishino sat back in his original spot, in the corner where the light didn't reach, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes to rest.

However, he was no longer as immovable as he had been moments before.

He would occasionally lift his eyelids to glance outside the cell, his mind far from at peace, as if he were waiting for something.

However, every time he opened his eyes, all he saw was a quiet, deserted corridor.

Gradually, impatience and disappointment crept into Nishino's expression.

The frequency with which he opened his eyes also decreased.

Suddenly, just as the disappointment on Nishino's face was about to reach its limit, footsteps approached from afar outside the prison.

"!"

The moment the sound of footsteps reached Nishino's ears, he straightened up and looked up—a familiar figure came into view.

"Nishino-kun~ Good evening~~"

My grandson waved to Nishino through the gap in the fence with a grin.

"...My grandson, you actually came."

Nishino's thick eyebrows twitched at the corners of his raised eyes, his expression stiff and complex.

"Of course I'll come~ I told you, right? I won't lie to you this time~~"

Having said that, my grandson bent down and took the key to the prison door from his pocket...

"I brought the cell key and your sword."

……

……

A while ago—

"...Jun."

A sound came from afar.

"...Wild Lord".

The sound gradually drew closer.

"...Nishino-kun."

A familiar voice.

"Nishino-kun!"

White light shone into the pitch-black world.

"……Um?"

As Nishino regained consciousness, he slowly opened his eyes.

"Nishino-kun, you're finally awake! You were sleeping so soundly!"

Half-asleep, Nishino looked out of the cell in a daze, following the sound.

Once he saw the person's face clearly, his sleepiness vanished instantly.

"My grandson...!"

A tense atmosphere instantly formed, leaving no room for jokes.

Nishino, who had personally created this atmosphere, had a livid face, and a distorted shadow appeared on his handsome face.

As he cast a hateful glance at my grandson standing outside the cell, he blurted out, as if a dam had burst:

"What are you doing here? Get out of here!"

Faced with Nishino's disdain and insults, my grandson remained calm, neither getting angry nor showing any dissatisfaction.

"Oh dear~ Nishino-kun, don't get so angry, calm down~~"

"I have no desire to see or hear the voices of traitors who betray their country and collude with the enemy."

Nishino interrupted him before he could finish. His voice was strong and clear, and when he said the phrase "traitors who collude with the enemy," the disgust in his voice was unprecedented.

However, even though Nishino scolded him mercilessly, my grandson still acted as if he hadn't heard a thing.

"Hmph...treason and collusion with the enemy, huh...?"

My grandson, a strange smile playing on his lips, slowly squatted down.

"Nishino-kun, I can't stay here any longer, so I'll keep it short~~"

"Just as Rakshasa said before, I am indeed a spy planted within the Shogunate by the Fa-ju Party."

"However... this isn't entirely my 'true form'~~"

As soon as my grandson finished speaking, Nishino paused in surprise.

"...Huh? What did you say?"

Meeting the astonished gaze from Nishino, my grandson smiled slightly, then half-closed his eyes and, in a slow and reverent tone, recited a Chinese poem:

"The rice in the fields and ditches rots, and every village bows its head in vain, filled with sorrow. The lotus, though a noble and seemingly heartless creature, emerges from the water with a smile of beauty."

As soon as my grandson finished reciting the poem... no! It was only after my grandson had just begun reciting the first part that Nishino's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinholes.

This poem... Nishino is extremely familiar with it.

To be precise, anyone who knows even a little about the earth-shattering events that occurred 24 years ago will be familiar with this poem.

Swish, swish, swish... the hakama skirt rubs against the ground.

In his anxiety, Nishino didn't even bother to get up. He shuffled to the cell door on his knees, gripped the bars tightly, and pressed his face against them. As he stared intently at my grandson's smiling face, he spoke slowly and deliberately, with an incredulous tone:

"You...you're a member of the Big Salt Party?!"

The poem my grandson just recited was written by that great leader who, as a scholar, created an immortal legacy—Ōshio Heihachirō!

The humble and open-minded Ōshio Heihachirō aspired to study Confucianism from a young age in order to eradicate his own shortcomings and improve his academic literacy.

By chance, he discovered "Shenyin Yu" by Lü Xinwu, a Confucian scholar of the Ming Dynasty, and learned about Yangming's philosophy for the first time through it.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, he began to study Yangming's philosophy of mind and gradually cultivated a profound understanding of Chinese studies.

Although Yangming's philosophy is highly idealistic, it is a pragmatism that prioritizes moral conduct—the so-called philosophy of "unity of knowledge and action."

Based on this, the salt industry developed and closely integrated it with reality, making it a useful discipline for society.

Therefore, the ills of the corrupt feudal system were exposed in irredeemable ugliness everywhere in the cities and countryside, which forced him to take a political interest.

They deeply respected the peasants who were powerless in the face of natural disasters and were suffocated by feudal taxes and rents, and at the same time felt boundless sympathy for them.

Da Yan knew all too well that the heavy feudal taxes and rents exhausted the farmers and led to the abandonment of farmland.

They also understood that the existence of privileged merchants led to the commodification of the rural economy, resulting in the bankruptcy of the rural natural economy.

Farmers find it difficult to maintain their ability to reproduce under double exploitation.

Therefore, Ōshio Heihachirō opposed both corrupt officials and businessmen, and hated those "gentlemen" who were unaware of the suffering of farmers.

So he wrote this famous anti-Chinese poem, the one my grandson just recited: "Fields are muddy, ponds and ditches are rotting, villages bow their hands in vain sorrow. The lotus, though a gentleman, is utterly heartless, yet its red beauty emerges from the water with a smile."

The poem means that prolonged rains caused the rice to rot due to flooding in the fields, leaving the villages with nothing but regret. The lotus, though a symbol of purity and virtue, is too heartless, showing no concern for the farmers' suffering and only caring about blooming its beautiful flowers.

Ōshio Heihachirō deeply resented the corrupt politics of his time. He satirized the decadence of officialdom by saying, "The 'Rise-up Coin' (money) comes in three denominations: a large one-hundred-ryo, a medium one-fifty-ryo, and a small one-ten-ryo."

Privileged merchants were also targets of Ōshio Heihachirō's opposition.

Whether they were townspeople or farmers, all ordinary people living in the lower strata of society had suffered hardships to some extent.

Ōshio Heihachirō, who loathed privileged merchants, never hesitated to use his pen and spittle when cursing them.

He denounced privileged merchants as "traitors to the people" and "vagrants," saying they were birds of a feather with the officials. He pointed out that "the townspeople (merchants) under the city walls are obsessed with luxury, indulging in wild dances, tea parties, haiku, and cuju (ancient football), decorating their homes, collecting rare and precious items, dressing up their wives, and entrusting all their business to their assistants."

Twenty-four years ago (in 1837), Ōshio Heihachirō, having grown fed up with the corruption of the shogunate, led his students, officials, townspeople, and farmers who were willing to follow them in launching the famous "Ōshio Heihachirō Rebellion".

During the Edo period, Japan adopted a strict national policy of "separation of soldiers and farmers".

Soldiers are soldiers, and farmers are farmers; they should never be confused.