Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 4: Uncultivated Plains
曰本中古世代一共经历过三个武士政权：镰仓幕府（1185-1333年）、室町幕府（1336-1573年）、江户幕府（1603-1867年）。

Every time there was a change of regime, there would be a great turmoil that affected the whole of Japan, with corpses everywhere, blood flowing, and a large number of people dying. In history, these periods are commonly known as "turbulent times."

Now Yuanye seemed to have traveled through time to a troubled time. He frowned for a moment, trying hard to recall his limited knowledge of Japanese history.

At the end of the Kamakura shogunate, conflicts intensified between the ruling Hojo family and the Japanese emperor and local samurai groups. At the emperor's call, samurai groups from all over the country rose up in arms to defend the king. After a huge battle and the death of a large number of people, they overthrew the rule of the Kamakura shogunate.

Later, the leader of the samurai group, Ashikaga Takauji, established a new shogunate in Muromachi, Kyoto in 1336 AD, and took office as the Shogun. He began to fight with the court nobles and samurai led by the future Emperor Daigo, forming a confrontation situation of "Japan's Northern and Southern Dynasties" with the Kyoto court in the north and the Yoshino court in the south coexisting.

It was not until 1392 that the third shogun of the Muromachi shogunate, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, ended the confrontation between the "Northern and Southern Dynasties" and Japan barely achieved nominal unification.

However, under the situation of long-term confrontation and struggle between the Northern and Southern Dynasties, low-intensity wars continued, the authority of the Japanese emperor was constantly weakened, and the shogun (leader of the military family) living in Muromachi naturally became the de facto ruler of all of Japan. He sent his relatives and meritorious officials to serve as "guardians" of various fiefdoms, mastered the local administrative and military power, and gradually undermined the Japanese emperor.

As time passed, in 1467 AD, over the issue of succession to the Ashikaga shogunate, the core forces of the Ashikaga family, the "Three Kanrei and Four Michiko", fought again in the Kyoto area, which was known in history as the "Onin War" - in 1467 AD, 16.1 troops of the Hosokawa faction and 11.6 troops of the Yamana faction (including a large number of Kishu, the data in "Oniki" is extremely inflated) launched a desperate duel in Onin, Kyoto, and the great turmoil affected the whole of Japan.

The result of this great turmoil was that both sides suffered losses and were destroyed together.

The Shogun Ashikaga family and its core forces, including the three regents, the Hosokawa family, the Hatakeyama family, the Sasaki family, and the four official families, the Yamana family, the Isshiki family, the Akamatsu family, and the Kyogoku family, all declined one after another within ten years. The original ruling system of the Muromachi shogunate was close to collapse, and the actual power of "guardian" of each family in the local area was usurped by "shugo dai" or local powerful families.

From this point on, Japan was essentially filled with separatist forces of all sizes that turned a deaf ear to the central government's orders. In addition, these separatist forces also engaged in bloody fights within themselves for territory, population, and power.

This was probably the beginning of Japan's Warring States Period.

"Sir, are you...are you okay? Did I say something wrong?" Yayoi saw that Yuanye suddenly lost his mind while asking questions, not eating or talking, frowning, and his expression looked quite serious. She couldn't help but get a little nervous and quickly reflected deeply, but she didn't find what she said wrong, so she could only ask in a low voice with some panic.

Yuan Ye came back to his senses, smiled gently at her, and said perfunctorily: "Nothing, just thinking of some things in the past."

"Yes." Yayoi lowered her head obediently and responded softly, not daring to ask any further questions.

"Hurry up and continue eating!" Yuanye put some untouched brown rice into her bowl. He was not used to brown rice, and the quality of the rice itself was not good. It had a hard texture and was difficult to chew.

Well, Japan generally grows fast-growing rice at this time. It is planted during the rainy season and harvested before the typhoon season arrives, otherwise it is very likely that most of the year's work will be in vain.

This is not an era of pursuing taste.

Yayoi was a little scared and suspected that Yuanye had some bad intentions, but the man in front of her was of noble status and was her father's savior. Her mother had repeatedly reminded her to be careful in serving and never to offend the nobleman. She couldn't just drop the bowl and run away, so she could only stammer out her thanks and leave everything to fate.

She was obviously overthinking it. Yuanye was not such a beast as to have any evil intentions towards a ten-year-old girl who was obviously malnourished. If there was such a person, he would absolutely support shooting that guy with a close-in defense gun in ten minutes - at 160 yuan per shell, he was willing to donate 100 shells, or 200 shells would be fine, and the bill would be put on the Shanghai people, who had money.

Yuanye was just subconsciously expressing goodwill in his unstable state of mind, trying to get more words out of him. After he finished playing with the brown rice, he asked, "I came from the west and am not familiar with the local area. Whose territory is Hibitsu Village?"

Yayoi had already pulled the rice to her mouth, but when she heard him ask, she quickly put down her bowl and chopsticks and replied, "My Lord, it's the Arako Maeda family."

"The Arako Maeda family?"

"Yes, sir," Yayoi replied respectfully, "Maeda-sama has granted Arashi Castle 2162 kan and 700 mon, and the seven surrounding villages are under the jurisdiction of the Arashi-Maeda family."

Yuanye recalled that during the Warring States Period in Japan, the territory seemed to be calculated mostly by the "kanko system", and the "seki system" was not popular, which was not quite the same as in the game. That means that the Arako Maeda family can collect agricultural products worth 2162 kan and 700 wen in taxes every year?
Of course, 2162 guan should be a rough estimate, and it is very likely that it was estimated a long time ago and is not accurate. The actual income should be higher than this. Even if the head of the family is a little more unruly, various extortions should be able to squeeze more out of the farmers.

If we change it to the "Shigao System", 2162 kanwen, based on the data in the game "Taikoku 2", would be about 2500 to 3000 shi?
It's not very high, and can't be compared with those daimyo who have hundreds of thousands of stones. Maybe he is a local noble family?

However, the family name is Maeda...

Could it be the future “Kaga Hyakumangoku” Maeda Toshiie?
The dog in “Monkey and Dog”?
Yuanye immediately asked, "What is the full name of this Mr. Maeda?"

"It's Lord Maeda Kuratomi Toshiharu." Yayoi really knew him, probably because he was a direct descendant of the feudal lord.

Yuanye hesitated again, Maeda Kuratori Hariharu?

Yes, at that time the Japanese had common names, and the format of names was "family name + common name + given name", and before that it was "clan name + surname + family name + common name + given name", unlike modern Japanese who usually use the simplified "surname + given name".

Among them, the clan name indicates the beginning of the bloodline, or comes from a place name, such as Soga, Izumo, Nabari, Katsuragi; or comes from immigrants, such as Qin, Han, Song, Goguryeo, Sui, Han; or comes from occupations, such as Hattori, Nakatomi, Torikai; or comes from the bestowal of the Japanese emperor, such as Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara, Tachibana. The surname is used to distinguish the status, generally granted by the court, from the earliest ancient surnames, such as Zhenren, Gong, Minister, County Princess, Sa, Village Master, etc., slowly evolved into a unified "eight-color surname", from high to low status: Zhenren (exclusive for the Japanese royal family), Chaochen, Sukune, Kisun, Michishi, Minister, Ren, Inaoki.

However, as the surnames of the Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara, and Tachibana clans all became court officials, surnames gradually lost their function of distinguishing between high and low status in Japan and fell into disuse. By the Muromachi period, no one would use them in daily life except in ceremonial occasions such as ancestor worship.

The family name usually comes from the location of the family home.

During the Heian period, the power of the Fujiwara clan, as the regent, reached its peak. From the imperial court to local officials, all came from the Fujiwara clan. At a glance, all the nobles were Fujiwara clan members. If you called out "Fujiwara-sama" on the streets of Heian-kyo, at least twenty people would respond.

So, in order to distinguish each other, they began to call each other by the location of their residences, for example, Ichijo, which means the first street in Heian-kyo.

If the location of the mansion changed, the name would also change accordingly. In addition, the marriage system in the Heian period was influenced by China, from "visiting wife marriage (husband and wife and children do not live together, the husband regularly goes to his wife's house for sex)" to "wife-taking marriage (husband builds a house and marries his wife, and the couple and children live together)". Naturally, the names between father and son due to the mansion became the same, and gradually turned into "family names" and were passed down from generation to generation.

For example, this Maeda Tibetan Toshiharu. In ancient Japanese, Maeda and Nitta are synonymous. It is very likely that his ancestors came to Owari Province for some reason, opened up a new field and built a city, and then happily named the place "Maeda". Naturally, his family name became "Maeda", and it has been passed down from generation to generation since then.

Now they live in Arako Castle and still use Maeda as their family name. It should be that "Maeda Town (Castle)" was abandoned for some reason, and the family name was not changed after they moved.

As for the common name and given name, they are used by others to address you and to refer to yourself respectively, which is similar to the ancient China.

For example, Zhuge Kongming, whose surname is Zhuge (the Ge family moved to Zhucheng, so Zhuge is his surname), given name Liang, and courtesy name Kongming. If you travel back to the Three Kingdoms period, it would be very rude to call him "Zhuge Liang" directly. You need to call him "Kongming" or "Master Zhuge". Only he can call himself "Liang".

The situation was the same in medieval Japan. The "common name" was similar to the Chinese "character", which was used by others to address them. It usually came from childhood names, official titles in the court, or Buddhist names. It was determined by age and status and could be changed at any time. The "name" was the name used to refer to oneself.

Therefore, Maeda Kuranto Toshiharu, Maeda is the family name, Kuran is the common name, and Toshiharu is the given name.

If you want to mention him, you can either call him "Maeda-sama" or "Karato-sama", similar to "Mr. Zhao" or "Mr. Director" in later generations; or if you are close to him and are his elder or his status is far higher than his, you can also call him by his childhood name, such as "Ranmaru" or "Inuchiyo", similar to "Little Egg" or "Dog" in later generations. Never say "Maeda Toshiharu", which is almost contemptuous and the hostility is quite clear, and it will most likely lead to a fight.

As for surnames, they evolved from family names in modern Japan and had not yet been shortened to that extent.

Of course, there is another point. At that time, the phenomenon of "impersonation" in Japan was very serious. If we only look at the common names, there may be eight Iga-no-kami, six Higo-no-kami, and tens of thousands of Shin'emon, Saemon, Uemon, Hyoemon, and Emon-no-jo. After all, there are only so many official positions in the court, and it is unrealistic for every samurai to be given one. At the same time, many people are vain, and are afraid of being looked down upon by others, so they pick up official positions commensurate with their current strength and force themselves to take on common names, or they forcibly flatter their ancestors and then "inherit" them as common names.

The same is true among the common people. Japanese civilians are not qualified nor have the conditions to have a family name. They usually just come up with random names, and there are also many cases of impersonation.

For example, Jubei is obviously an impostor. Most likely, he became a member of the Jiazilang Party and felt that he had some status and was no longer an ordinary sakuren (a tenant farmer with a certain degree of personal freedom). He changed his name on his own. It is impossible for him to be in the official military establishment of the Japanese imperial court.

On the other hand, the name Jikuro is more honest. At first glance, you can tell that it means "the ninth child born to Jiro", which is quite consistent with the traditional naming customs in rural Japan at that time.

These were all things that Yuan Ye remembered when he was a child while watching "The Clever Ikkyu". He was curious about why the big stupid samurai in the story was called "Shin'emon", such a strange name. He was also curious about how a little monk dared to kick the Shogun into the pond. He looked up information and finally found out that Shin'emon was a common name for others to call him. His full name was Ninagawa Shin'emon Shinto, and the little monk Ikkyu was the biological son of the Japanese emperor. Because of the dispute between the Northern and Southern Dynasties, he was forced to become a monk since he was a child to prevent him from being supported by the Southern Dynasty to compete for the throne. Therefore, he could kick the Ashikaga Shogun's butt without worrying about getting his head chopped off.

This shows that watching cartoons is still useful. If I hadn’t looked it up out of curiosity back then, I probably wouldn’t even understand what the little girl Yayoi said now.

Yuanye felt a little more at ease. At least when he interacted with other warriors, he could address each other without any problem. He wouldn't accidentally "insult" others and get stabbed in the back for no reason.

Seeing that Yuanye was silent again after asking questions, Yayoi felt that this adult was distracted. After hesitating for a moment, he asked cautiously, "Sir, I wonder what you... and that adult should be addressed as?"

She had wanted to ask this for a long time, and she took this opportunity to ask it.

Yuan Ye came to his senses and felt that safety was the most important thing in this situation. Exposing one's foreign identity would be very dangerous. After a moment's hesitation, he smiled and said, "Our name? He's sick, you don't have to worry about him. As for me... um... my name is Nohara Saburo Iehara.

His hometown is located in the Central Plains, and the place name contains the word "野", so his uncle gave him a name with the word "野" in it. Now it is just right to use it as the family name - Nohara, and using this family name can also prevent being accidentally classified into other families. In his impression, there seemed to be no one in the Warring States Period in Japan with "Nohara", that is, a family with "uncultivated plains" as the name, which should be able to avoid a lot of trouble.

Sanlang was given this name because he was the third child among his uncle's brothers and sisters, so he took this name as a common name.

As for how far home is…it’s thousands of miles away, four or five hundred years, how can home not be far away?

Therefore, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and safety comes first. He planned to use this name during his stay in medieval Japan.

(End of this chapter)