Chapter 76: Can’t Wrong Myself!
“Lord Hiyoshi!”
As soon as Yuan Ye got up in the morning and walked out of his room, before he could even stretch, two little maidservants, about seven or eight years old, were kneeling in the hallway, bowing to him and greeting him. While respectful, they also seemed a little scared, much like Yayoi when they first met him. These two little maidservants were chosen from the eighty-nine “unlucky townspeople” he had foolishly bought. There were five in total, now managed by Yayoi, the “Head of the Inner Court, Manager of the Inner Residence,” and they were not familiar with him at all. He guessed that he had slept in today, and Yayoi had other things to attend to, so she had them waiting here.
However, speaking of these eighty-nine “unlucky townspeople,” he felt like crying!
It had been several days since he returned from Nagoya Castle, and he hadn’t had a moment’s peace. To settle these eighty-nine “unlucky townspeople,” he had been extremely worried, even having to write a long letter to Oda Nobunaga to borrow a piece of wasteland so he could build makeshift shelters for these people, giving them a temporary place to sleep. Fortunately, he had fought two battles with Oda Nobunaga and their relationship was quite good; otherwise, he wouldn’t even know where to put these eighty-nine people.
Other tasks included treating their illnesses and expelling parasites, organizing them into groups for baths to eliminate lice, buying them replacement clothes, comforting their frightened and uneasy emotions, creating simple personal files for them, and assigning them work based on their abilities and physical strength. In short, it was a mountain of trivial matters. He had been busy for several days until he was almost numb.
This was truly asking for trouble. Hiring people would have been simpler and more convenient, but instead, he bought a group of “the old, weak, sick, and disabled.” A Man had been mocking him for this all along, but he didn’t regret it…
At least, he regretted it slightly less than he didn’t.
After all, he still wanted to be a decent person, and to be a decent person, one had to have principles. He had seen innocent people about to be sold to mine ore or sold as prostitutes. He had to extend a helping hand within his capabilities and try to do some right things, even if A Man thought it was incredibly stupid. He had to do it.
It’s just that…
To have principles, one had to pay a price. His expenses had suddenly soared. The household had gone from seven people eating to nearly a hundred. If he didn’t have a considerable amount of money on hand and his soy sauce workshop wasn’t making a lot of money, he could have declared bankruptcy by now.
Because of this, A Man had been mocking him again these past two days, thinking he had too much money to spend. It was a simple matter of giving each person a handful of beans, but he insisted on feeding everyone, which was pure waste and incredibly foolish. She had even whispered to A Qing, within Yuan Ye’s hearing, to keep a close eye on their donkey, lest it kick his head again, because otherwise, he would only get dumber.
Yuan Ye endured this as well. After all, he had only just adapted to this era and his “common sense” was still insufficient. He sometimes made mistakes and was still dependent on this wild child, A Man. He could only wait until he could navigate this unfortunate era with ease before he would severely discipline her bad habits!
In short, transmigration was too difficult. Maintaining basic human decency was already hard, and he even had to put up with being provoked. This was truly not a job for humans!
…
As Yuan Ye had just woken up and his mind was still unclear, he saw the two little maidservants and started contemplating how he would deal with A Man, this wild child, in the future. He didn’t even tell the two little maidservants, “There’s no need to be so formal.” He had given up. These eighty-nine “unlucky townspeople” had now all become his family retainers, meaning household servants. They immediately offered him grand courtesies upon seeing him. If he repeatedly refused, he would have nothing else to do all day but say, “There’s no need to be so formal.”
He pretended not to see them and groggily went to wash up. The two little maidservants, as if afraid he would run away, followed him closely, nervously helping him pour water and hand him cotton cloths. The new “Head of the Inner Court,” Yayoi, also arrived soon and personally served him breakfast.
After washing his face, Yuan Ye felt much more awake. While eating, he casually asked, “Where is A Man?”
Yayoi, rolling up her sleeves, carefully helped him serve food and said softly, “Sister A Man left early this morning with some people. She said she was going to buy some vats and also bring back a few carts of bean cakes.”
Oh, right. He seemed to have mentioned it to her yesterday. Did she leave that early?
Yuan Ye had been busy in the laboratory until late last night and was groggy this morning, forgetting to assign A Man any tasks. Now that he remembered, he felt a little embarrassed. This wild child, A Man, had a lot of bad habits and would babble about all sorts of nonsense when she had nothing to do, which was very annoying. However, she was competent when it came to work. Assigning her tasks was very reassuring. He shouldn’t be too stingy and didn’t necessarily have to severely discipline her in the future.
He mentally gave A Man another point, considering letting her off the hook in the future and not punishing her as much. After finishing his meal, he was about to put down his rice bowl and leave, but seeing the two little maidservants still cowering to the side, he hesitated and then instructed Yayoi, “The house will be renovated soon, so there’s no need for them to be constantly cleaning. You can also teach them to read when you have time… Also, pay more attention to the food at the workshop. Don’t listen to A Man’s nonsense. Make sure the portions are sufficient, and add more salt. It’s okay to eat brown rice when there’s heavy work. We don’t need to save this little bit of money.”
There was a precedent for this; food must be prioritized.
Kaka gave 15,000 in food subsidies to Kongshu, serving them big fish and meat. As a result, Kongshu attacked, jumping down like dumplings before the vehicles even stopped, charging forward one after another, each performing six strikes per second, with afterimages trailing each strike, making the people of Gwangju scream in agony.
Yika Ka cut the soldiers’ food expenses to 3,000. They ate kimchi and radishes for every meal. As a result, when the soldiers attacked, six of them coordinated to climb through a regular first-floor window. Each of them moved as if under a slow-down spell, taking 178 seconds to even get half a left leg inside. An eighty-year-old man could have climbed faster.
This was a precedent. No matter what you save, you cannot save on food expenses. Even if your subordinates are now workers and not soldiers, you absolutely cannot listen to A Man and do something like giving each person a handful of beans a day, as long as they don’t starve.
Yayoi was now somewhat of a figure, managing the dozen or so women in the kitchen responsible for cooking. This was part of her duties, and she immediately nodded lightly and said seriously, “Yes, Lord Saburo, I understand.”
Yuan Ye thought for a moment and felt there was nothing else to do at home, so he got up and went to check on the soy sauce workshop.
The workshop was expanding, and it was no longer suitable to be in his own yard. Fortunately, he had written to Oda Nobunaga to borrow a piece of wasteland, so he moved the workshop there. They were now building walls to enclose it.
As soon as he went out, A Qing silently followed behind him. He didn’t pay attention and headed straight for the workshop. After a brief inspection, he found no problems. He instructed the Momoi Brothers to continue working diligently, brewing soy sauce as they worked, and to find A Man if anything was missing. Then he ran back home and buried himself in his laboratory.
His “Life Improvement Plan” had been ready for a long time, but Oda Nobuhide suddenly died, and Owari began to be in turmoil, preventing him from starting its execution. Now that Owari had temporarily recovered peace and there were no personal safety issues, he naturally had to quickly improve his living conditions. He couldn’t even brush his teeth, which was too miserable.
He stayed inside for another day. When it got dark, Yayoi called him out for dinner, but he asked to wait a bit longer. He tinkered with it for three days. By the time the soy sauce workshop resumed production, he had completed the first improvement: he had purified coarse salt into refined salt using the soy milk drenching method.
He breathed a huge sigh of relief, feeling that he no longer had to eat yellowish salt that, upon closer inspection, shimmered with strange, colorful reflections and was clearly overloaded with heavy metals. He shouldn’t become an old man prematurely. He used to think that Tenjūbei, who was bald, was over fifty, but later he found out that the old fellow had just aged prematurely and was actually only in his early forties.
Yayoi’s father, Jikuro, was the same. He always thought he was in his early forties, but in reality, he was only thirty-three.
Therefore, he strongly suspected that the coarse salt in the Japanese Medieval Period had major problems, with heavy metal contamination to an absurd degree, almost like poison. This was why he prioritized purifying the coarse salt first, so his own family could eat it, to avoid the tragedy of not being killed by enemies but dying from eating salt.
Of course, this purification technology might also be useful in the future. If he moved to the seaside one day and could develop salt fields, this snow-white refined salt could be considered a high-end product and would likely make a lot of money.
After dealing with refined salt, he tried to deodorize soybean oil again, but failed. Deodorizing soybean oil was not feasible in the 16th century due to the lack of equipment and compounds. The bean smell could not be cleaned up at all. So he turned to look for peanuts, but after asking around, no one had seen peanuts. It was estimated that they had not yet been introduced to Japan at this time. In the end, he had no choice but to select from the oils available on the market at the time.
First, he tried sesame oil, but felt the taste was somewhat off and he wasn’t used to it. Stir-frying with sesame oil wasn’t very good either, as it easily burned the bottom of the pot. He tried other rare oils like apricot kernel oil, cocklebur seed oil, and fish oil, but none were suitable. Finally, he was forced to rack his brains and concocted a blended oil using sesame oil, green mustard seed oil, and sesame oil. The taste was finally a bit like peanut oil from later generations, and it was barely considered acceptable.
With salt and oil sorted, vinegar was already available, and he was producing soy sauce himself, so there was no shortage. That left spiciness. However, he couldn’t find chili peppers. But he had Sichuan peppercorns, which are medicinal materials, and sumac also has some spiciness, so he could make do with them.
Cookware like iron pots and shovels was even easier. After all, he had money now. He could draw up designs and have the blacksmiths forge them for him, so he didn’t have to worry too much.
With food mostly resolved, the next items were toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, toilets, and showers. And since summer was approaching, he also needed to quickly draw up designs for central air conditioning and prepare for its construction…
In any case, he had spent more than half a month doing nothing but tinkering with these daily necessities from later generations. After all, ancient times were truly terrible. He didn’t know how other transmigrators managed to live happily. He couldn’t stand it at all. He couldn’t get used to food being either roasted or boiled, couldn’t get used to squatting in dry toilets, and couldn’t get used to Yayoi always wanting to come in and add hot water while he was bathing…
In short, there were many things he couldn’t get used to, so he wanted to transform this place into somewhere he could live normally, even if it meant spending some effort and time.
That’s how people should be: adapt to the environment, change the environment, and pursue a better life with their own hands!
Moreover, since he was unlucky enough to transmigrate to the Japanese Medieval Period, he certainly couldn’t mistreat himself!
