Chapter 132: It’s easy to learn bad, hard to learn good!
Yuan Ye attempted to attack the Chita Peninsula for the first time, successfully kidnapping an entire village. He didn’t care what the Takeda Family thought, returned to the landing point, and squeezed onto a ship back to Wanjin.
Overall, the operation was quite successful. The initial strategic concept was completely sound and could be continued. His future territory would be located on the Chita Peninsula.
The New Army’s discipline in actual combat was better than he expected. Not a single person attempted rape or plunder from start to finish, challenging military discipline. This was completely beyond his expectations. He had even prepared to kill a few more chickens to make an example of the monkeys, using bloody heads to make it clear that Wanjin would never compromise on military discipline, and that anyone who violated it would surely die. However, throughout the entire operation, he didn’t find a single chicken; everyone behaved themselves.
Perhaps Japanese people inherently have strong obedience. They quickly surrendered to power and violence. As long as clear rules were set for them and they were beaten hard enough for a period of time, making them understand the pain and that these were things that must be obeyed, they seemed to develop a peculiar collective identity, viewing these rules as natural and just. They spontaneously began to lead the slower ones, forcing newcomers to also obediently act according to the rules everyone agreed upon, their instincts beginning to reject “outsiders.”
This truly surprised Yuan Ye. He hadn’t expected to achieve his goal in just over three months; he thought it would take at least half a year or a year.
He couldn’t quite figure out this strange psychological phenomenon, suspecting it was related to the tendency for people to band together due to frequent natural disasters in Japan. However, it was a good thing. It was like forging a small “furnace.” From now on, as long as he continuously added appropriate “raw materials” into it, qualified soldiers would naturally be produced, saving him a lot of trouble.
Discipline met the requirements, and battle casualties were also excellent. There were zero deaths and zero permanent injuries in the entire operation. Only a dozen people sustained minor flesh wounds from arrows, which were completely insignificant. It could even be considered zero casualties.
The main reason was that the Chita Peninsula was relatively isolated, and the local lords there were quite weak. They were all country bumpkins who had barely even seen a matchlock gun. When over a hundred people rushed forward in a disorganized manner, they collapsed after two volleys from the heavy matchlock guns. Close combat never even occurred, and they fled all over the mountains. Takeda Castle, in particular, immediately fortified itself, not intending to come out and fight again. The victory was effortless.
In short, this operation was excellent in all aspects and could be called a complete success. It was one of the few complete victories Yuan Ye had experienced since falling into misfortune, and he was very satisfied.
After returning to Wanjin, he didn’t rush to organize a second “kidnapping” operation. After all, Wanjin only had a population of six hundred. Suddenly kidnapping three hundred and fifty to sixty people, all of whom were ignorant commoners with debuffs like “fearful” and “distracted,” would surely cause chaos for a while. He needed to digest the situation before daring to trouble the Takeda Family again.
Yes, he didn’t plan to change targets next time; he would continue to raid the Takeda Family. The Takeda Family still had three villages, and he planned to empty them out first. After all, as long as he insisted that the Takeda Family had attacked his merchant ship first, the Takeda Family would have no explanation. This would then be a personal feud between him and the Takeda Family, and it wouldn’t quickly alert the local lords on the Chita Peninsula to gather and gang up on him, nor would it cause the Imagawa Family to intervene too early, affecting his recruitment of manpower.
In any case, he would monitor external reactions while quickly digesting the fruits of his victory.
He still didn’t plan to let this entire village of people engage in farming. The soil in Wanjin was too poor, and it was within Oda Nobunaga’s strike range. It was highly likely that it would be abandoned in the future, making it unnecessary to spend great effort improving the land. He directly integrated these people into Wanjin, forcibly transforming them from agricultural to industrial and commercial populations. The men were first organized into labor teams to continue building houses, and the original labor teams were filled by people selected from the workshops. Then, a batch of people was selected from the workshops to join the barracks, completing another tiered conscription.
The women and the elderly couldn’t be idle either. There was also a lot of light physical labor in the workshops, and they were all required to work. He also took the opportunity to count the number of women of marriageable age, preparing for future organized group matchmaking.
After all, due to the battle at Takeuchi Manor, he still owed many of his subordinates wives. He had to start making amends, at least showing that he would fulfill his promises. Moreover, the current New Army soldiers were all purchased by him, and he was currently using military discipline to forcibly restrain them in battle. If they kept winning, it would be fine, but a crushing defeat could very well lead to a backlash.
Therefore, relying solely on military discipline to suppress them was not a long-term solution. It was better to have them bring their families. With wives and children, they would likely be more obedient. If necessary, they would be forced to fight to the death to protect their families.
Besides, without wives and children, they had no leverage. Unattached people were more terrifying, as history had repeatedly proven. He definitely had to plan ahead. Before, he didn’t have the conditions. Once he had the conditions, his source of soldiers would still be chosen from “respectable families,” the more family members the better, preferably with four generations living together. He would feel at ease using such soldiers, and it would be easier to dismiss them when they reached 35 years old.
It was just that he, the “First Generation Yuan Ye Family,” had worked so hard to get to this point and still didn’t have a wife. He had to endure A Man’s strange, sympathetic glances at his lower body from time to time. Yet, he had to worry about his subordinates’ marriages first, finding wives for them. It felt somewhat unfulfilling, but there was no other way. The first generation was like this; they had to consider everything thoroughly, worrying themselves sick, even having to act as matchmakers. It was truly unavoidable.
He had his own plans. After finally capturing the labor force, he immediately put them to work with fierce intensity. The villagers kidnapped from the Takeda Family were, of course, unwilling. Their ancestors had always been farmers, and they only knew how to farm. Now, forcibly brought to Wanjin by Yuan Ye, they saw the soil was terrible and their hearts sank. They weren’t even allowed to cultivate wasteland, which made them very uneasy. Even though Yuan Ye fulfilled his promise and distributed rations once, they were still not reassured. Some people attempted to escape back to their original villages, regardless of whether they could swim all the way back.
Seeing their pathetic state, Yuan Ye decided to temporarily change the salary distribution schedule from once a month to once every five days, allowing them to choose between grain and copper coins. Only then did the new immigrants’ morale stabilize slightly. They all chose grain and hid it at home, gradually starting to feel that farming yielded grain, and working as laborers also yielded grain, so it seemed similar. Moreover, working yielded grain without being subject to annual tribute, which seemed more profitable. Since the road was so long and difficult to travel back, they decided to just go with it for now. If they couldn’t get grain one day, it wouldn’t be too late to run.
People in this era were very prone to going with the flow. As long as they could survive, it didn’t matter where they were. Thus, before long, these new immigrants began to accept their fate, diligently going to work and receiving their rations every five days, undergoing the first stage of transformation. The only remaining issues were their unsuitability for urban life, lack of time and hygiene awareness, and their excessive laziness at work.
In short, digesting the fruits of victory went relatively smoothly.
Yuan Ye, along with internal affairs “officials” like Endo Chiyo and Maeshima Shichiro, worked for over ten days, handling a multitude of large and small problems. They even managed accommodation, food, water, and sanitation. Finally, the new immigrants were temporarily integrated into the Wanjin system, and Wanjin resumed normal operations. Only then did he have time to shift his focus back to military matters, beginning to summon junior officers and non-commissioned officers to check the homework they had been given: how to capture Takeda Castle with minimal casualties.
Of course, fighting was fighting, but he didn’t intend to occupy Takeda Castle or settle there.
His future territory needed many rivers for him to collect iron sand; the soil also needed to be good for him to produce grain himself, at least for raw materials like beans to be self-sufficient; forest resources needed to be abundant for him to burn charcoal for steel and iron production, and for future shipyard construction; it also needed to be close to the sea, so he could utilize ship capacity to dump goods.
Most importantly, if he went to the Chita Peninsula to claim territory, the local lords, the Matsudaira Family, and the Imagawa Family would surely gang up to attack him. He also needed the place to be defensible, at least not like Takeda Castle, where he would face enemies from three sides in a real battle. He might not be able to defend it. He knew himself well; he was by no means a military genius, and he couldn’t expect to fight in unpredictable, god-like ways. He didn’t have that ability, so it was better to build strong defenses, fight a steady battle, and find a place with natural defenses to settle down.
However, with so many requirements, the place was hard to find. A Man was repeatedly sending out “trainee ninja” to scout the southernmost tip of the Chita Peninsula. He felt that area, surrounded by sea on three sides and facing the enemy on one, would be a good place for a protracted war. However, there were many checkpoints along the way, making travel inconvenient. She currently had limited personnel and couldn’t ascertain the detailed situation there for a while, so it could only be left for later.
Therefore, he didn’t intend to occupy Takeda Castle; he just wanted to break into the castle and see if there was anything valuable inside.
The labor shortage in Wanjin had slightly eased, but the number of people eating had suddenly increased, and his money and grain were a bit tight again. He was starting to want to go further and didn’t plan to just kidnap people anymore.
One could only say that it’s easy to learn bad habits and hard to learn good ones!
After all, for three hundred and fifty to sixty people, if he had to save them up himself, given the increasing difficulty of purchasing people, it would take him at least half a year. Instead, he spent one day going out, used some gunpowder, and kidnapped them all back. It saved money, effort, and time. He was making a killing and couldn’t stop.
Now that he was short on grain and funds again, he couldn’t help but want to see how much wealth the Takeda Family had accumulated over a hundred years as local emperors on the Chita Peninsula. He wanted to spend the Takeda Family’s fortune. Perhaps the Takeda Family should be renamed the “Bamboo Treasure Family.” He felt that swallowing them would be a great tonic. Moreover, he didn’t need to be too concerned about moral factors. It was the Warring States period, and he already had territory. If he didn’t replenish himself properly, he would easily be preyed upon by others. The tragedy of Takeuchi Manor would continue to happen.
Of course, even so, it was a bit shameful. After all, farming was the kingly way, and robbery was not a respectable act. But since he was going to kidnap more people from the Takeda Family anyway, and would do so several more times, trying to break into the castle was a casual matter. It was definitely not wrong to study it early.
However, defenders had too much of an advantage in this era. He and his group thought for several days and felt that without some “black technology,” a forced siege would cost at least thirty to fifty lives, which he couldn’t afford right now. As for capturing the city through clever stratagems, everyone couldn’t come up with any brilliant ideas for a while. After all, they were all new recruits, still within the scope of illiteracy, and the officer corps was not easy to cultivate.
He didn’t lose heart either; his patience was always good. He continued to ask everyone to think hard and strive to come up with a siege plan with minimal casualties. Whoever thought of it first would be promoted to staff officer. Then, he carefully observed the external situation and found that everything outside was peaceful. Oda Nobunaga showed no unusual reaction, likely interpreting his kidnapping as retaliation. Minor conflicts between local lords were not worth his concern. The Takeda Family had already pledged allegiance to the Imagawa Family; if the Takeda Family died, he might even cheer.
Yuan Ye was relieved. The only thing he feared was Oda Nobunaga coming to raid his home right now. He didn’t care about anyone else. He immediately gathered his men, boarded a ship, and headed for the Takeda Family again.
Just like last time, this time he would be satisfied with just bringing back a full ship of people. His demands were not high.
