Chapter 73: Temporary Worker
A wakizashi is a type of short sword, typically about one and a half shaku in length, evolved from the “tachi” of the Heian period.
In classic Japanese historical dramas, the iconic samurai pairing of “daisho,” meaning a long and a short sword worn simultaneously on one side of the body, includes the short sword as the wakizashi. However, unlike how it’s depicted in later Japanese dramas as being solely for seppuku, it was more often used in close-quarters combat and was a combat weapon.
This item was still a novelty during the Japanese Warring States period. The gradual popularization of pairing a long sword with a katana and a short sword with a wakizashi began during this time, and it wouldn’t become a complete standard until the Edo period. Oda Nobunaga was an “eccentric” who pursued fashion and trends, always staying at the forefront of style, which is why he carried one.
Now, this gorgeous and beautiful wakizashi, more like a work of art than a murder weapon, fell into A Man’s hands.
She happily stroked the exquisite and ornate scabbard a few times, then lightly drew out a section to admire the snow-patterned blade. Without hesitation, she slanted it through her belt and equipped herself. It was just right for her height of just over a meter. She also mused that she should be fashionable too; the short-handled axe was too crude and no longer suited her current status, so she could just throw it away and replace it with a long katana to match the wakizashi.
At the same time, her impression of Oda Nobunaga greatly improved. While repeatedly drawing and sheathing the wakizashi, she hiccuped and exclaimed hazily, “Hic, Oda Nobunaga is truly a good person! I shouldn’t have called him a big fool behind his back before!”
“He’s alright, I suppose. People are generally alright.” Yuan Ye also had a good impression of Oda Nobunaga. People who are proud are usually alright. Although Oda Nobunaga had his flaws, he was considered quite good among the lords of the Japanese Warring States period; at least he couldn’t be called despicable.
Of course, this is his personal opinion. In reality, whether Oda Nobunaga was good or bad is up to the public to decide.
As the two of them discussed Oda Nobunaga, Yuan Ye took the opportunity to remind A Man to keep it a secret and not to spread Oda Nobunaga’s schemes around, lest it ruin the overall situation. After waiting for a while longer, the ox cart convoy finally ambled over.
A Man dismounted her horse and climbed onto an ox cart, carrying her leather wine bag. It seemed she intended to drink her way back to Nagoya Castle. Yuan Ye glanced at her, shook his head, and directly called A Qing over to report her, asking A Qing to find a way to confiscate her wine bag.
He also needed to find a way to cure her drinking habit, as A Man was very important to him, and he didn’t want her to become a drunkard.
Their group set off again. Yuan Ye rode his horse for a while and saw that Maeshima Shichiro had automatically taken A Man’s previous position, hurrying the ox cart convoy along. He waved to him, “Lord Maeshima, please take a break. There’s no need to rush so much. Traveling too fast is not good for the injured.”
Well, those unlucky townspeople were actually bringing their elderly and young, and walking behind the ox cart convoy, showing no intention of scattering. Yuan Ye felt that the management of the ox cart convoy needed to be relaxed further to give them a chance to escape.
He was even wondering why these people hadn’t fled yet.
They had already been quite lax before, with no one watching them at all!
Maeshima Shichiro was quite obedient, as Yuan Ye’s words made sense. After a slight hesitation, he turned his horse and followed him. Yuan Ye hadn’t really paid much attention to him before, only thinking that he was honest and diligent in his work. So, he casually asked, “I haven’t had a proper chat with you, Lord Maeshima. Are you a supported vassal of Lord Kazusa-no-suke?”
“Lord Yuan Ye, please just call me Shichiro. There’s no need to be so polite.” Maeshima Shichiro was slightly younger than Yuan Ye, around eighteen or nineteen years old. He maintained a humble demeanor and said with a slight embarrassment, “I am not a vassal of Lord Kazusa-no-suke. I just work at Takeuchi Manor.”
“Oh, Lord Maeshima is not a vassal of the Oda Family?” Yuan Ye was truly surprised. He had always thought Maeshima Shichiro and Okuruku Kiyobee were a pair, both members of the old guard of retainers.
Maeshima Shichiro lowered his head slightly, saying with embarrassment, “Not yet. For now, I am only working as a subordinate official and have not had the opportunity to receive Lord Kazusa-no-suke’s permission to officially become his vassal.”
“So that’s how it is…” Yuan Ye had been in the Japanese Medieval Period for several months now, and his common sense had gradually increased. He could barely understand that Maeshima Shichiro was a temporary worker.
Generally speaking, samurai in the Japanese Warring States period could be roughly divided into three types:
The first type is attendant retainers, who are directly supported by the lord.
For example, pages like Maeda Toshiie are attendant retainers of Oda Nobunaga. They receive annual salaries, rice stipends, and occasional rewards from Oda Nobunaga each year. They have no worries about food and drink, stay by Oda Nobunaga’s side daily, and directly obey his commands. If he says to kill someone, they kill them.
The second type is local powerful families and local warriors. These individuals, whether large or small, have their own fiefs.
Generally, daimyo lords like Oda Nobunaga do not need to give them any money; instead, they must pay money and rice to Oda Nobunaga to fulfill various feudal obligations. However, they only nominally recognize Oda Nobunaga as their “adoptive father” and become a non-blood-related member of the Danjō no Chū family. They retain considerable autonomy. Throughout Japanese history, it was this group that frequently engaged in gekokujō, patricide, and rebellion.
The third type is rōnin, that is, samurai without a lord.
For various reasons, such as the decline of their family, the death of their previous lord, or internal family conflicts, they cannot stay within their own families and do not have their own territories. They can only try to find a “lord” to serve to earn a living. However, employment is a two-way choice, just like in the modern era, you can’t become a civil servant just because you want to; you have to pass an exam, and the government must be willing to hire you.
Therefore, many masterless samurai wander around, seeking employment to earn a living. However, finding a livelihood is not easy, and they still need to eat while searching. So, they can only work as temporary workers, that is, subordinate officials, earning a little money to eat, while hoping that through diligent work or battle achievements earned through desperate efforts, they can gain permission to officially become retainers, become civil servants, and thus have a stable income for life without worry.
This is the situation for Maeshima Shichiro. He wants to become a retainer of Oda Nobunaga, but Oda Nobunaga doesn’t think highly of him. However, he still needs to eat, so he can only work odd jobs for Oda Nobunaga for now and figure things out later. He can leave at any time and go elsewhere to take civil service exams and freely seek a lord, without any feudal obligations or legal constraints.
Yuan Ye’s mind raced as he understood this, feeling a slight embarrassment. He didn’t want to lose his freedom, be constrained, or kowtow to others, and he wasn’t short of money. He had always refused to become a retainer of Oda Nobunaga, yet Maeshima Shichiro, who wanted to kowtow, couldn’t get in. This gave him a strange sense of awkwardness.
Perhaps this is the legendary “one man’s honey is another man’s poison”!
He quickly offered a few words of comfort, stating that Maeshima Shichiro had performed excellently in assisting him during this period and was very capable, and would surely succeed in finding employment in the future. He promised to praise him highly when he next met Okuruku Kiyobee, and then quickly changed the subject, asking about Maeshima Shichiro’s background. To his surprise, he discovered that Maeshima Shichiro was from a branch family of the Niwa Family and was a distant relative of Niwa Nagahide. The Maeshima Family was a branch of the Niwa Family, similar to the relationship between the Shimo-no-Isshiki Maeda Family and the Aragiko Maeda Family. The Maeshima Family had branched off from the Niwa Family a long time ago, so long that they had even changed their family name.
However, upon reflection, this was not surprising.
The local powerful families of Owari, even those like the Maeda Family who came from Mino as pioneers, had lived in Owari for seventy or eighty years. Other families had lived there for a hundred years, or even two or three hundred years. With generations spreading out and intermarrying over so many years, it was possible that any two samurai, upon closer examination, would be distant relatives with some blood connection.
In other words, 99.9% of the samurai in Owari Province, regardless of whom they served, had a connection to the local powerful families.
Owari was originally the Owari of the powerful families. Yuan Ye hadn’t really considered this before. If Oda Nobunaga wanted to control all the local powerful families in Owari Province and implement the “separation of soldiers and farmers,” the difficulty would be even higher. He wondered what method he would devise.
Maeshima Shichiro didn’t have such complex thoughts, constantly overthinking things. He was pleased to receive Yuan Ye’s praise and hesitated for a moment, thinking that Yuan Ye’s gentle personality and polite demeanor made him seem like a good candidate for a lord. However, he was too unfamiliar with Yuan Ye and too young, and his skin was quite thin, so he couldn’t quite decide if Yuan Ye needed retainers. He didn’t presumptuously recommend himself, but his heart began to itch.
He had been looking for a lord for a long time and truly didn’t want to work as a temporary worker anymore.
…………
Yuan Ye, while worrying about the future development of Owari, chatted with Maeshima Shichiro. It took nearly a whole day before they finally returned to Nagoya Castle. To his surprise, he found that those unlucky townspeople were still obediently following behind, with seemingly none having escaped.
He was utterly perplexed but had no choice. He took out some money again, rented a piece of land in the castle town, and let them settle themselves, then left them alone. No one was watching them, and it was in a bustling market town. Surely they would run away now?
He had done his utmost and no longer worried about these people. He then went to do his primary job, arranging for the injured to be placed in the special area assigned to him, strictly enforcing hygiene control to minimize the possibility of wound infection and inflammation, thereby reducing the mortality rate, and in the future, he could collect more money from Oda Nobunaga.
As he was directing his subordinates busy there, A Man sauntered over, tugging at him vigorously and whispering in his ear, “I just heard some news, it seems something else has happened!”
When she returned, she found Nagoya Castle quiet, not looking like it was celebrating a great victory, which she found strange. After all, she had planned to take the opportunity to get some more drinks. So, without waiting for Yuan Ye’s orders, she went to inquire with her drinking and eating friends and discovered there was indeed something going on. She immediately ran back to report to Yuan Ye.
Yuan Ye was silent for a moment. He had just returned and hadn’t even settled in, and something else had happened?
How could he be so unlucky?
Fortunately, he knew that the situation in Owari was complex and it was a turbulent time, so any accident was normal. He wasn’t too disappointed.
He remained calm. After finishing the task at hand, he turned and took A Man aside, asking, “What happened now?”
“Yamaguchi Noritsugu has rebelled!” A Man stated the key point directly, sighing.
“Tell me from the beginning, who is Yamaguchi Noritsugu?”
“He is an important retainer of the Danjō no Chū family and the lord of Narumi Castle.” Although A Man gambled and loved to drink, and was a wild child, she was a competent ninja. She immediately explained to him, “Narumi Castle is the frontline defense against the Mikawa Family and the Imagawa Family. But last night, Yamaguchi Noritsugu rebelled, killed a large number of his subordinate officials previously assigned by Oda Nobuhide, and has officially announced his allegiance to the Imagawa Family.”
This is…
Yuan Ye had never heard of this person before, and now he inexplicably jumped out to cause trouble. At this rate, when would he be able to go home and develop?
He quickly took out a map and looked at it, discovering that Narumi Castle was indeed in a crucial location, blocking the main traffic route from Mikawa Province to Chita District. It was also a large castle and one of the hubs for the Danjō no Chū family to control Chita District.
He cursed again, lamenting that after the death of the “Tiger of Owari,” Owari Province had become chaotic. The Matsudaira Family launched a surprise attack, the Kiyosu Oda Family came to take advantage, and now the Imagawa Family had also arrived, directly instigating a frontline general to rebel, pushing the frontline all the way to the Dongjin Ye and Dongmu River area, not far from Atsuta.
However, he couldn’t control such historical events. Moreover, he had participated in two battles and seen thousands of deaths, and had become somewhat accustomed to it. The initial fear of death that a modern person would have was gone. After cursing, he said calmly, “So, there’s another fierce battle?”
Fine, let’s fight. Ancient people aren’t afraid of trouble, so why should he, a modern person, worry? Oda Nobunaga, while celebrating his great victory, was also thinking about how to confine the local powerful families, yet his own head was about to be chopped off. He wondered what he was feeling right now.
