Owari Yumeki Golden Day.

During the Battle of Sekigahara, it's said that Ishida Mitsunari released smoke signals and flares three times, urging Kobayakawa Hideaki to come down the mountain. In the end, Kobayakawa Hideaki was only forced to descend after being hit by a barrage of cannon fire from Tokugawa Ieyasu.

A smoke signal or a loud noise can serve as a signal. Smoke during the day and fireworks at night are simple methods that work.

The yurt was quite simple: four logs buried one meter deep in the ground, with an observation post built on top. A roof wasn't even necessary. That was the responsibility of the samurai who would take over the post station in the future; Shichibei was only responsible for having it, not for decorating it.

I'm just a wage earner, how could I have so much of a sense of ownership?

Oda Nobunaga conquered the land, could he give me half of it? If he could make me the chief steward of the Nobi and Obi provinces, that would be a stroke of incredible luck for the Kawamura family.

However, the stables and longhouses where people live need to be constructed a little more carefully, since horses are precious, and since Mino and Owari experience snowfall in winter and temperatures can drop to minus five or six degrees Celsius, this insulation work is even more necessary.

In rural areas, houses are built using traditional, authentic methods: wooden planks or stacked logs are laid on both sides, and finely sieved soil is filled in the middle. No tamping is needed; simply filling the space is sufficient. These wooden plank and earthen walls provide both insulation and warmth. In summer, windows can be opened, and in winter, the windows can be sealed with wooden planks to prevent drafts and keep the indoor temperature above freezing.

It's fine whether it's for horses or people to live in. Of course, it's mainly for horses, since horses are more expensive than people.

Longhouses are even easier to build. A wooden frame is built, the roof is thatched, and the walls are made of wheat straw as "steel bars." Mixed with red clay, the straw is directly pasted onto the wooden planks, and a bricklayer can smooth it out.

If there's no bricklayer, Shichibei can plaster it himself without any problem.

The farmers who came to perform the mandatory corvée labor service changed midway through the year. It's estimated that when they joined Nobunaga's forces, their village headman negotiated with Nobunaga and agreed that the mandatory service would only be for fifteen days a year. He was a smart man, able to protect the interests of his own villagers.

I wonder if he's like the old village chief in "Seven Samurai," full of the cunning and scheming of a small farmer.

After more than a month of construction, all four post stations within the Owari territory were completed. With the work half finished, Shichibei asked Niwa Nagahide for money to buy alfalfa and to hire ships to transport the alfalfa to the various post stations.

In addition, ingredients such as salt, beans, bran, and wheat need to be purchased by Niwa Nagahide himself, or he can ask Shichibei to procure them from Tsushima. In short, as long as you have money, it will be fine.

If the money is right, I'll work my ass off for you; that's only fair.

Niwa Nagahide was quite generous with the money, signing the invoice and asking Shichibei how many days it would take to gather the horse feed. "It won't be long," he replied, "just rent a few small horses from Boss Ito, and he can get them all here in two days."

Upon hearing the reply, Niwa Nagahide nodded slightly, adding that there was plenty of time. What? You're going to take on Saito Tatsuoki as soon as the road is repaired, before spring even arrives?

Since he had already completed his military service for next year and had lost Kawamura-ya's horse, Shichibei wasn't curious about what kind of war he would be fighting next year.

"Shichibei, come with me to Kai." Niwa Nagahide's answer was completely unexpected for Shichibei.

25. I laugh at Xin Xuan's lack of strategy and Xing Long's lack of wisdom.

Kai!

Oh, Shichibei can guess what it is. It's about Oda Nobutada getting engaged to Takeda Shingen's daughter, and Suwa Katsuyori getting engaged to Nobunaga's adopted daughter.

After Nobunaga pacified Inuyama Castle and unified Owari, he had established close ties with his uncle-in-law, Toyama Kagetoshi, and his brother-in-law, Toyama Naokane. Indirectly, this also brought him into contact with the Takeda clan, who controlled most of Shinano Province.

Following his basic political strategy of befriending distant states while attacking nearby ones, after winning over the Asai clan in the north, Nobunaga now intends to win over the Takeda clan in Kai. In this way, apart from the insignificant Hida in the north, the entire Mino region will be surrounded by Nobunaga's and his pro-Nobunaga forces.

At that point, they'll be left with no one to turn to for help, and can only wait to die.

Historically, after Saito Tatsuoki's defeat, he chose to flee to Nagashima, which shows that he really had nowhere to go and no decent non-Oda forces around him.

Wait a minute, Oda Nobukiyoshi is quite clever. He fled to the Takeda clan in advance, which is tantamount to paving the way for Oda Nobunaga. Well, there's no deep-seated hatred between the two sides to begin with, and Oda Nobuyoshi even led the Inuyama clan's retainers to serve Nobunaga.

By the way, Oda Nobuyoshi has changed his name to Tsuda Nobuyoshi, mainly to emphasize the master-servant relationship. Only members of the Oda clan recognized by Nobunaga and those who belong to the same lineage can use the Oda surname.

But what should I do there?

You don't want to buy a horse?

Excellent. Shichibei was convinced by Niwa Nagahide's words; they struck a chord deep within him. After Oda Nobunaga finished his official business, Shichibei still needed to return to Tsushima to continue his horse-riding business; he couldn't do without horses.

If you want to buy horses in large quantities, you either have to wait until May or June next year to find horse merchants heading south, or you have to go to the Takeda clan. Many ranches in Shinano are now under the control of Takeda Shingen. Only the Takeda clan can boast such a vast empire of horses.

Furthermore, it's not time to go to Kai now; the mountains between Kai and Shinano are currently blocked by heavy snow. We'll wait until February or March after the New Year, when spring has arrived, before heading to Shinano. The round trip will take about a month, after which we'll finalize the marriage arrangements with the Takeda clan. Then, in May or June, when the roads are open in summer, we can complete the wedding and establish a marriage alliance between the two families.

I wonder if Nobunaga will have to spend several thousand kan to send his niece to the Takeda clan to forge an alliance.

As long as this money isn't squeezed from us small merchants, it's fine. Takeda Shingen is the kind of person who won't act until he sees a clear benefit; a few thousand kan (a unit of currency) won't be enough to bribe him. Unless Nobunaga releases a huge amount of gold, this marriage alliance is in jeopardy.

In the eighth year of Yonglu, it is the spring month.

In the winter month, Shichibei finished Nobunaga's official business and, on his way to Nakano, arranged all the necessary supplies for the journey. He then returned home and spent a fulfilling New Year's celebration. It wasn't until February that he was ordered to lead a group to Kai to pay homage to Takeda Shingen.

Kato Nobutaka from Atsuta naturally came along, bringing more than thirty men with him. Clearly, this old fellow shared the same idea as Shichibei: after Nobunaga had swept away all the tribute horses, he planned to use this mission to completely fill the gap.

The seven or eight family members of Kawamura-ya and more than a dozen employees were also mobilized. Last time, Nobunaga gave them all copper coins, which were in small pieces. Since they didn't have horses, they could only carry them to Kai by manpower.

The Tsushima Gyuto Tennosha, being one of their own, exchanged twenty gold coins for Shichibei, which came to just over a hundred kan. The gold in Owari was rather "wet," with a lower gold content than the gold issued by the Imagawa and Takeda families.

Fortunately, gold was used as a form of currency by weight in those days, and when they arrived in Kai, the Takeda family had plenty of goldsmiths to refine the gold.

Nobunaga dispatched two hundred soldiers as escorts, traveling along the Kiso Road, the very place where Minamoto no Yoshinaka had made his fortune. The Kiso clan had long since submitted to the Takeda clan, and Kiso Yoshiyasu, having received news of this before the new year, also sent men to welcome the Oda clan's party.

To be honest, the Nakasendo or Kiso-do is not a particularly easy road to travel. At this time, the snow had not melted, and soldiers still had to shovel snow to get through some sections. Fortunately, the Kiso family helped, otherwise it would have taken ten days to half a month just to get to Kiso-Fukushima.

Once they entered Suwa, everything became much easier. Takeda Shingen had relatively strong control over Suwa and had already taken the Suwa-no-miya family under his thumb. In addition, with the need to send troops to the Oku-Shinano region, the streets of Suwa were well maintained, and the snow had long been cleared away.

The one sent on the mission to Takeda was naturally Niwa Nagahide. If it weren't for him, probably no one would have thought to bring Shichibei along. It took a full sixteen days to reach Tsutsumizaki Castle; the journey was truly difficult.

"It really is a flat castle." Shichibei carefully examined Tsutsuzaki Castle; the castle indeed didn't have much defensive strength.

There were moats, but no stone walls were erected. Some of the limestone walls had peeled away, likely due to the heavy summer rains in the Kai mountains. The castle couldn't be repaired daily, so it was left as it was. More importantly, no small keep or large watchtowers were built at the gates or key locations.

Without even a single local defensive stronghold, both Nobutora and his son Shingen were certainly very confident in themselves. They were certain no one could reach the Takeda clan's main castle, and thus left this poorly defended Taira Castle to govern the entire Kai province.

Like Komakiyama Castle, Tsutsuzaki Castle also had a castle town, but it was very small, mainly because it lacked waterways to connect it with the outside world. This greatly limited the size of the castle town, and its main commercial customers were limited to the retainers of the Takeda clan.

No wonder, Takeda Shingen could only resort to ruthless exploitation of the common people, or fight with Uesugi Kenshin for control of the town in front of Zenkoji Temple. Even a trading hub like Suruga Prefecture ultimately failed to thrive; his ability to make money was inferior to Nobunaga's.

Upon entering the city, they first informed Shingen, though Shingen would not immediately summon the Oda clan's delegation. After all, the Takeda clan was now allied with the Imagawa clan through marriage, while the Oda clan was the Imagawa clan's mortal enemy; such a relationship was quite delicate.

It's likely that Takeda Shingen and Takeda Yoshinobu had already begun to clash, and internal strife within the Takeda clan was not far off.

Given this situation, Oda and his party were taken to the residence of Inuyama Tessai, who lived below the castle. This Inuyama Tessai was none other than Oda Nobukiyo. In the military world, the only options after losing a castle were either suicide (seppuku) or becoming a monk; this was generally considered the rule. When he fled earlier, Shichibei had been watching; now, he seemed to be in good health.

Niwa Nagahide didn't shy away from Inuyama Tessai and directly asked him about the situation of the Takeda clan and whether it was possible to form a marriage alliance with Takeda Shingen.

Imagawa is truly weak and incompetent, not a wise and powerful daimyo. Suruga is a wealthy land, rich in gold and convenient for trade, and should belong to a virtuous person. In the past, that virtuous person was Imagawa Yoshimoto, which was fine, but now...

Haha, Takeda Shingen thought he was quite virtuous, but Hojo Ujiyasu probably didn't think he lacked virtue either. How did the Hojo clan manage to invade Suruga Province when the Imagawa clan was fighting amongst themselves?

We're all in this together; everyone knows that cooperation is temporary, while profit is permanent.

You all talk, Shichibei has gone out to find a horse. Unless Takeda Shingen and Takeda Yoshinobu suddenly become filial sons and decide to use the heads of the Oda family as a sacrifice, the area around the castle should be quite safe; it's not a big deal.

There are only two streets outside the city, just a few steps apart, and no one sells horses there.

What's going on? Shichibei really wanted to ask, but the absurd thing was that the Owari-accented Japanese and the Kai-accented Japanese were completely incomprehensible to each other. Especially the local dialects of the Kai mountains, which sounded like bird language, and of course, the other people thought the same about Shichibei.

What are we going to do? We don't speak the language, and we can't even find horses in the market. We've gone through all this trouble, crossing mountains and rivers, and now it's all for nothing.

Dejected, Shichibei returned to Inuyama Residence and saw Kato Nobutaka also returning with a look of anxiety. Needless to say, he must have encountered setbacks everywhere, just like Shichibei.

Spread your hands, close your eyes, kick your legs, and lie down.

When in doubt, one should simply sleep it off.

It wasn't that Shichibei had a good attitude; it was that Shichibei felt that since Niwa Nagahide had brought them here, they couldn't just sit idly by. Since they couldn't buy them themselves, once the marriage agreement between Oda and Takeda was finalized, Shingen would naturally arrange for someone to sell the horses.

Business in Kai Province is not thriving. Shichibei and Kato Nobutaka both came with cash. It would be foolish not to make money when there is an opportunity.

After lying in bed for two days, Niwa Nagahisa finally received permission to enter the castle to pay his respects to Takeda Shingen. What they discussed is unknown, but the castle sent several people with less pronounced accents to receive the Oda clan members.

As the clouds parted and the sun shone through, Kato Nobutaka grabbed the man and immediately asked about horse prices in Kai and Shinano. Shichibei, however, was in no hurry. This time, he had an advantage: they were armed merchants. With Nobunaga's two hundred foot soldiers, plus a dozen samurai from the Niwa clan as guards, they were unlikely to encounter bandits or river pirates.

If one can make a profit from this buying and selling, then the trip will not have been in vain.

Last time in Hubei, the commerce there was so prosperous that almost every industry had a de facto monopoly. Kai is different. There are only a handful of merchants in Kai, which is not enough to make a difference. They can neither form a powerful commercial guild nor produce any flagship products.

Hubei even has specialty stores for mosquito nets, what about Kai?

The samurai from Kai naturally boasted about the abundance of gold and the quality of timber in Kai-Shinobu, but Shichibei remained unmoved. They then added that their horses were renowned throughout Kanto, the finest steeds.

And then what? Shichibei didn't want to know something that everyone already knew. Didn't your Grand Steward ever think of developing any special products? These days, daimyo are exhausting all means to "develop" their territories. Everything that could potentially be used to raise money for soldiers has been developed accordingly.

You can't just say that's all Jiaxin has, can you? It's useless to keep repeating the same thing.

Shichibei looked every bit the womanizer, as if he'd seen it all before. This immediately silenced the Kai samurai who had come to greet him. Kai was a poor country; the small Kamanashi River Plain could only produce wheat and rice. The entire country couldn't even produce silk, and was so poor that people called it a mountain monkey.

"Gentlemen, don't you know the principle of living off the land and water?" Shichibei felt this was wrong. They didn't even have food to eat, so why weren't they using their brains?

“Of course! My lord has controlled the water and built dams, increasing the paddy fields by thousands of kan.” One of the samurai greatly admired his lord, Shingen, and his eyes even sparkled.

Good grief, you didn't sleep with Shingen, did you?

"No, no, no, I don't mean that. Specialty products. For example, ramie from Echigo, tea from Tōtōmi, paper from Izu, and cast pots from Sagami..." Shichibei sat up and began to give these Kai samurai a proper lesson.

"Well..." These are all neighboring countries, so they have naturally heard of them.

"Not a single one?" Shichibei scratched his head, asking the question that seemed to have a deeper meaning.

"Yes, yes, there's horsetail!" A Kai samurai, as if grasping at a straw, called out a name.

Oh, this thing. Horsetail is used as a medicinal herb in China, but it's not commonly used. It's a perennial herb. The stem is green, tubular, hollow, and segmented; the leaves are reduced to scales. Due to its rough surface, it can be used to polish wood, bone, bronze, and other artifacts.

"Night Voyage Ship - Utensils": If a knife is rusty, wipe it with horsetail grass.

Slightly boiling horsetail grass in water and then using it to polish swords has excellent rust-removing properties. This was essential in Japan and was one of the must-have items for samurai families during the Warring States period.

But this thing is not only produced in Jiaxin. It likes to grow in shady and damp places under forests on hillsides, and is easy to grow in riverbank wetlands, streamsides or weedy areas.

If you want to use them, just go to the foot of the mountain or the riverbank and pick a couple; there's no need to travel all the way to Kai to buy them. If this can be considered a specialty product, then Kai is truly impoverished.

I laugh at Takeda Shingen for his lack of wisdom and Sanada Yukitaka for his lack of strategy; they possess the world's greatest treasures, yet they know not how to utilize them.

"Have you ever thought that the waxy residue left after cooking the fruit of the wild lacquer tree can be used to make candles?" Shichibei was quite helpless; many things were just missing that one crucial step.

They knew that the fruits of those miscellaneous trees contained wax, and they knew that candles were a good thing, but they just couldn't figure out the process of using them.

"Huh?" The Kai samurai were all stunned.

"Never mind, just pretend I didn't say anything." Shichibei didn't come to help Takeda Shingen get rich; he mainly wanted to learn about the products between Kai and Shingen.

"Please explain in detail!" A Takeda samurai suddenly crawled forward on his knees and grabbed Shichibei's hand.

"Hmm?" Shichibei frowned. "That's a bit rude of you."

"I am Yonekura Gorobei Nobutsugu. Please do not hesitate to teach me." Yonekura Nobutsugu immediately let go of his hand and bowed his head to apologize to Shichibei.

"Alright..." Shichibei simply poured out all the random things he knew to Yonekura Nobutsugu, who listened with rapt attention.

Upon returning to the city, Yonekura Nobutsugu reported to Takeda Nobukatsu about the handover and conversation with the Oda clan members that day. Takeda Nobukatsu was puzzled when he heard about wooden candles, wondering what they were.

Unable to make a decision for the time being, Takeda Nobukatsu naturally took Yonekura Nobutsugu and went to report to Takeda Shingen.