Chapter 242: Aizha Ka and A Man
Wanjin was implementing a disguised “Household Contract System,” and while everyone was jubilant, A Man was furious.
After nearly a year, she had completely integrated into the Ainu community. According to Ainu customs, she had painted her large mouth with purple pigment. Moreover, because she had always been very concerned about her status and identity, she used the deep purple that only women of high prestige in the tribe could use, so dark it was almost black.
At the same time, she was also draped in a black-brown cub bear hide, with the bear’s head resting on top of her own head. This was also a “bear-head garment” that only elders of high prestige among the Ainu could wear, serving as a symbol of status and position.
She had even given herself an Ainu name, “Aizha Ka,” which directly translated to “person with wisdom,” or simply “wise person.”
Now, any Ainu person who saw her knew that her status and position were absolutely extraordinary, at least on par with a “tribal chief.” A Man deserved this treatment; she personally led the Zhai Er Tribe in an attack on the Kakizaki family’s immigrant village, killing all the samurai and followers, and then transported the commoners who had been deceived back to Wanjin to settle.
Indeed, most of the adult males in the Zhai Er Tribe were hunters, excellent material for soldiers. However, the people of the Zhai Er Tribe lacked combat experience. A Man, a half-baked “veteran,” was considered a “famous general” in this wild land. Coupled with her shamelessness, she naturally seized command.
Subsequently, she led the Zhai Er Tribe to successfully ambush the Kakizaki family’s retaliatory force, killing over thirty samurai and followers on the spot and capturing more than seventy.
The facts proved that when the technological level of weapons was similar, and there was no disparity like bone arrows and stone spears against iron armor and steel knives, on Ezo Island, samurai could not defeat Ainu hunters. At least in small battles of a hundred people, Ainu hunters held a significant advantage. Even in archery duels, which samurai prided themselves on, when the Ainu hunters obtained good bows and arrows, the Kakizaki family’s samurai suffered heavy losses, sometimes being shot dead without even knowing where the enemy was.
Perhaps in a formation with spears, the discipline of the samurai followers would give them an advantage, but they couldn’t find an opportunity for direct engagement and lost confusedly.
Then, A Man led the Zhai Er Tribe… to flee.
Indeed, the winter on Ezo Island had ended, and it was time for the Zhai Er Tribe to switch from a hunting mode to a gathering mode. They should have left the valley for the riverside. Moreover, the Zhai Er Tribe had only about a thousand people in total, with only two hundred to two hundred and forty combat-capable adult males. They couldn’t fight the Kakizaki family head-on. Decades ago, when suppressing an Ainu rebellion, the Kakizaki family could mobilize five to six hundred people, and now, if they went all out, mobilizing two to three thousand would not be a problem.
In any case, A Man fled, lengthening the distance between the enemy and themselves, and constantly moving, allowing the Zhai Er Tribe to sneak attack the Kakizaki family’s immigrant villages at any time, while making it difficult for the Kakizaki family to deliver a fatal blow to the Zhai Er Tribe.
The Kakizaki family also wanted to retaliate, but their main method was to prohibit all villages and trading posts from trading with the Zhai Er Tribe, denying them salt, iron, and cloth. However, the Zhai Er Tribe had already latched onto Wanjin’s strong support and didn’t care about this at all.
After the news spread, many Ainu tribes were also inspired. After all, they had been oppressed by the Kakizaki family for decades, subjected to deceptive acquisitions, inferior goods sold as quality, and arbitrary land seizures, and had long harbored a deep resentment. Seeing someone take the lead, coupled with the Kakizaki family’s heightened vigilance, began to be wary of all Ainu tribes, and the frequency of friction between the tribes and the Kakizaki family suddenly increased.
A Man was naturally very pleased about this. She was here to stir up trouble, and the more chaotic the situation, the better. She spared no effort, actively traveling and contacting people, wanting to form a great Ainu alliance, gather several thousand young and strong individuals, and cripple or destroy the Kakizaki family in one fell swoop.
If she could cripple the Kakizaki family and drive them out of the Matsumae region, her mission would be considered completely accomplished, and she could return to Wanjin to continue enjoying a good life.
But imagination is always beautiful, and reality is always harsh. Before long, she deeply understood a strange remark Yuan Ye had once made: this world is truly a makeshift stage!
She had originally thought that if she rallied them and provided some provisions, weapons, and armor, the Ainu would eagerly fight the Kakizaki family. However, tribal leaders are not always wise, crowds are not always rational, people’s personalities are always bizarre, and even the Ainu themselves do not consider themselves a single nation; everyone else besides their own tribe is an outsider.
A Man scurried about for over a month, using both threats and inducements, but couldn’t persuade these tribes to unite. She could only barely gather them to discuss the current situation. However, when the “leaders” of these tribes met, they all wanted to be in charge. Furthermore, the nature of these “leaders” was varied: some Ainu tribes had an “elderly rule,” where the old people made the decisions; some had a “chieftain system,” where the strongest made the decisions; and some even had witches making the decisions, ruled by primitive religion. Gathering them together was like a chaotic dance of demons.
After two days of “alliance meetings,” A Man felt like killing them all. She felt that it was not unjust for them to have been beaten all the way to Ezo Island; there were very few capable individuals among them.
“Aizha Ka, don’t be angry. Have some water first!” A young girl, a little over five feet tall, with a pretty face, chestnut curly hair, wearing an otter-skin skirt with a cotton kozode, and a light red mouth painted with pigment, brought A Man a full cup of water and said gently.
This girl was named “Imyi,” a common name meaning “flower bud” or “budding flower.” In terms of meaning, it could be translated as “little flower.” She was the youngest daughter of the old hunter Zha Ping Nong. Because the old hunter owed A Man a black fox fur and refused to give it to her after multiple requests, A Man “captured” his daughter to settle the debt.
Of course, they were actually people sent by the Zhai Er Tribe to take care of A Man’s daily life. Besides Imyi, there were three other young girls, all of whom A Man had requested. After all, she felt that with her status, she should have maidservants, and naturally, she should be provided with them.
In terms of personal treatment, she would never compromise herself, even in a “savage” tribe. She would enjoy what she could enjoy.
She was not like that fool Yuan Ye, who wouldn’t enjoy blessings. If she were the ruler of Wanjin, she would have ordered every household in Wanjin to offer her a young girl to work for free. Unlike Yuan Ye, who was always lost in thought and didn’t understand how to bully men and women.
If they couldn’t act tyrannically, bully men and women, and indulge in pleasure, wouldn’t their struggles and deaths be in vain?
However, she couldn’t win against Yuan Ye, so she could only reluctantly behave herself.
A Man was still cursing those “tribal leaders” in her mind when she suddenly realized that the Zhai Er Tribe, which she had previously considered a “barbarian tribe,” was actually relatively advanced and civilized among the Ainu. She was momentarily stunned and subconsciously took the cup, only realizing when it was at her lips, and asked, “Has it been boiled?”
Having been with Yuan Ye for so long, and with him emphasizing it several times, she now only drank cooled boiled water and no longer drank water indiscriminately as before.
Imyi immediately replied, “It was boiled and then cooled. You’ve said it several times, and we’ve all remembered.”
A Man then drank the water with relief and asked, “What’s for lunch?”
“My father sent some bear meat. We can either boil it or roast it.”
A Man looked pained. The Ainu diet was either boiled or roasted, and sometimes they were too stingy to even add salt, making it bland. She had been eating like this for so long that she was starting to wish for death.
She quickly asked, “The iron pot? Didn’t I ask someone to send an iron pot last time? Stir-fry something for me… anything will do, even wild vegetables! I can’t stand eating so much meat anymore; even my excrement smells terrible.”
Before, they were fighting, then the tribe migrated, and the temporary camp had poor transportation, so daily necessities couldn’t be delivered. But now that the situation had stabilized, she felt it was time to improve their living conditions and immediately requested that the rear send them daily necessities like iron pots, soap, toilet paper, and seasonings. Calculating the time, they should have arrived.
“Iron pot?” Imyi thought for a moment and hesitated, “I think there is such a thing, but how is it used?”
A Man was speechless. She furrowed her Dou Dou eyebrows and sighed, “I’ll teach you!”
She gathered Imyi and the other young girls and led them to the earthen stove—this stove was built by her teaching them. Then, she rummaged through the supplies sent under the guise of “emergency supplies,” found the blended oil, soy sauce, and vinegar “invented” by Yuan Ye, along with star anise, fennel, and other spices, and began instructing these “savage girls” on how to cook.
She herself did not cook; how could Lord A Man do such a thing? However, having followed Yuan Ye for a long time and seen him teach many people, coupled with her excellent memory, her instruction was very successful. When some home-style dishes were ready, she watched Imyi and the other girls taste them with exclamations, speaking to her in admiring tones. She couldn’t help but sigh, thinking they were truly a group of ignorant fools.
However, as soon as she thought this, she tilted her head and saw her reflection in the water vat, finding the expression eerily familiar. Looking again, the scene felt very déjà vu, as if she had seen it somewhere before. After a moment of thought, with her excellent memory, she finally recalled it.
Damn it, wasn’t that the expression on Yuan Ye’s face? A sense of utter powerlessness? Could it be that when he was teaching her, teaching Yayoi, A Qing, and others, he also thought they were a bunch of ignorant fools in his heart?
A Man was annoyed for a moment, but then she thought that given Yuan Ye’s personality, he wouldn’t be that kind of person. It was probably unavoidable that he thought they were ignorant, but calling them fools was unlikely. However…
She then thought about the time she spent teaching the Zhai Er Tribe people how to build dams for fishing, build vehicles, help them improve their tents and clothing, guide them in preventing parasites, brewing fruit wine, and even assisting with childbirth… and many other miscellaneous things. The more she thought about it, the more familiar it became.
At the time, she hadn’t felt anything, not even pride, as these were common knowledge in Wanjin. She only felt that the people here were truly ignorant and backward. But thinking about it now, did Yuan Ye also see them this way back then?
Even the private complaints of Imyi and the other young girls were similar.
Imyi and the other Ainu girls thought she was too pampered, insisting on drinking boiled water, washing her hands before eating, changing clothes when possible, and even secretly using paper to wipe her backside. They believed that if she were thrown into the wilderness, she wouldn’t survive three days, which was almost identical to how they had secretly complained about Yuan Ye behind his back.
Since they were taught by Yuan Ye, and Yuan Ye had changed almost all their living habits, as well as the living habits of the Wanjin people, who taught Yuan Ye to possess this powerlessness of a pioneer unable to adapt to a backward lifestyle?
Yes, that expression was not pride, nor disdain; he was simply unable to bear it, feeling immense pain, not knowing when it would end…
It was exactly the same feeling she had living in the Ainu tribe now, filled with all sorts of powerlessness and unbearable situations.
Yuan Ye must have come from a place with a better life, a place many times better than Owari. That place couldn’t be Kyushu Island; life on Kyushu Island wouldn’t make Yuan Ye wear that expression. Such an expression would only appear when there was a significant generational gap, a gap large enough.
So, where did Yuan Ye come from?
A Man lost her appetite for a moment and began to ponder this question. However, after thinking for a while without any leads, she temporarily gave up.
This was not an urgent matter. Regardless of where Yuan Ye came from, he was now her family. Even if Yuan Ye wanted to kill the Emperor, she would be willing to follow him—those high officials and nobles never cared about the lives of commoners like them. Following Yuan Ye, at least Yuan Ye could allow most people to live like human beings.
Then the Ainu should also live like human beings, at least survive. But the Ainu leaders were all ignorant fools. Driving away the Kakizaki family would clearly benefit all of them, yet these people argued endlessly and were unwilling to unite, essentially beyond saving.
A Man didn’t know what to do for a moment, thinking of writing a letter to ask Yuan Ye. But after thinking for a while, her gaze gradually shifted to Imyi and the other young girls.
The old generation couldn’t adapt to the new era, and defeating the Kakizaki family in a short period was unlikely. It would require the new generation. Perhaps she should arrange for a batch of Ainu international students.
Given how loosely organized the Ainu were, it might not be impossible for them to integrate into Wanjin.
