I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

What kind of place would allow him to openly compete with many people?

A certain type of building, common in Edo-period Japan, had a name that seemed to come alive and automatically popped into Qing Deng's mind.

Sword Hall!

Since the Minamoto clan successfully usurped the emperor's power in 1192 and established the first samurai government, the Kamakura Shogunate, the samurai class has been the ruling class in Japan for over 600 years.

For more than 600 years, Japanese society, like that of China, has been divided into four classes: samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants.

In China, the scholar-official was a member of the scholar-official class.

In Japan, the term "shi" refers to a samurai.

Although the two types of taxis are not quite the same, their status is the same—both are ruling classes and privileged classes that are above farmers, merchants, and artisans.

In China, there's a saying: "Of all professions, only studying is noble."

In Japan, the saying goes, "All other professions are inferior, only samurai are superior."

After Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Edo Shogunate, the third samurai government in Japanese history, in 1603, the Edo Shogunate enacted laws to stipulate many privileges that were only available to the samurai class, who were part of the ruling class, in order to highlight the nobility of the samurai's status.

One of the important privileges possessed by samurai was the "right to carry a sword".

"Martial prowess" is one of the most important attributes of the samurai class.

Therefore, in order to highlight the nobility of the samurai and their "martial" attributes, the Edo Shogunate stipulated that only samurai could carry swords, and that samurai must carry swords when going out.

Samurai typically carried two swords, one long and one short, at their waist.

The longer one is called a "katana," which is the main weapon used in combat.

The shorter one is called "Wakizashi" (pronounced like "Kyozashi"), and it is a secondary weapon used in sword fights.

The right of samurai to carry swords made the sword a symbol of samurai, and at the same time, it led to the flourishing of swordsmanship.

The Edo period was a time of great development for Japanese swordsmanship.

Hokushin Itto-ryu, Shinto Munen-ryu, Kyoshin Meichi-ryu... these famous schools all originated in the Edo period.

The flourishing development of swordsmanship naturally led to the proliferation of sword schools.

There were no fewer than dozens of sword-making halls in Edo alone.

If you want to fight others fair and square, there's no better way than joining a popular kendo club.

Learning swordsmanship at a sword-fighting academy will bring two major benefits, killing two birds with one stone:

1: It can maximize the effectiveness of his cheat.

2: He can also learn swordsmanship, which will enhance his self-defense capabilities.

One of the main reasons Qing Deng almost got killed tonight was that his swordsmanship was... just too poor.

Hara Tachibana Aoto was someone who had little interest in swordsmanship.

In his 18 years, he never went to any sword school to learn swordsmanship, only learning "Tachibana-ryu" from his father.

The so-called "Orange Stream" refers to several sword techniques developed by Qing Deng's father before his death, which were purely for practical combat.

Although the number of sword techniques is small, they are all extremely practical in combat.

However, "Orange Style" is not a formal school of martial arts. It is more than enough to deal with ordinary people who do not know any martial arts, but it is helpless against those who have real skills.

Therefore, Qing Deng, who currently only knows the "Orange Style"—a rudimentary martial art—is basically "unbeatable by anyone except ordinary people."

Although Qing Deng has inherited the memories of his previous life and now possesses powerful unarmed combat skills, no matter how powerful his unarmed combat skills are, it is extremely difficult for him to gain the upper hand against an enemy wielding a sharp blade.

The best way to deal with an armed enemy is to also be armed.

If one possessed formidable swordsmanship, one would not have fallen into such an embarrassing situation as tonight, where one was almost killed.

After thinking about going to the sword school to learn swordsmanship, Qing Deng immediately thought of a second method that might have a cheat-like effect—to challenge the school!

He challenged one sword club after another, and fought against one sword club after another.

However, the idea of ​​challenging the other team had barely popped into Qing Deng's mind when he dismissed it.

He must have lost his mind to go and challenge the club.

Challenging a school is always a thankless and arduous task, regardless of the era.

There are probably less than one in ten fencing gyms that would allow challengers to come and ask them for advice. This is because accepting challengers is far more detrimental than beneficial to a fencing gym.

Defeating a challenger provides very limited prestige bonus to the sword club.

However, if they lose, they will lose face badly, which will have a very negative impact on recruiting new apprentices in the future.

No sword master with a clear head would do something like sabotaging his own livelihood.

Even if Qing Deng does find a few sword clubs willing to accept challenges, he may not be able to spar with many people.

Because there are many rules governing challenges in this era.

One of the rules is that if you lose, you will be considered to have failed the challenge and will be immediately expelled from the sword-fighting hall.

Given Qingdeng's current swordsmanship level, if he were to challenge someone else's school... this would probably only result in the following scenario—he couldn't even defeat the first apprentice they sent, and was then kicked out of the school, only managing to fight one person from beginning to end.

Therefore, challenging someone to a duel is not only inefficient but also likely to offend people, resulting in a thankless task.

After organizing his thoughts, Qingdeng set a clear goal in his mind: to go to the sword school and learn swordsmanship!

Having identified his target, Qing Deng jumped up from the ground and, panting from doing more than 50 push-ups, shouted to Jiubei, who was still in the kitchen:

"Kyubei! Come here for a second!"

"Hey, here it comes."

Kyubei strode quickly out of the kitchen and walked up to Aoto.

"After deducting necessary expenses such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation, how much savings do we have left? I want to go to a sword school to learn swordsmanship! With our current savings, which sword school can I go to learn at?" Qing Deng asked Jiu Bingwei succinctly.

Chapter 7 Kiryu Kazuma

"Learn swordsmanship?"

Kyubei blinked a few times, looking puzzled.

"Young Master, why do you suddenly want to learn swordsmanship? Haven't you always been uninterested in swordsmanship?"

"The 'Expel the Barbarians' faction is so unreasonable and despicable, so I've decided to start practicing swordsmanship seriously from today onwards, so that when they try to ambush me again, I can utterly defeat them," Qing Deng said, half-jokingly.

Hearing Qing Deng's words, Jiu Bingwei was stunned for a moment, then his face showed excitement.

“Young Master, well said! That’s the kind of ambition we need! That’s what a warrior should be like! That’s right! That’s how it should be! Please wait a moment, I’ll go get the account books and money.”

Kyubei turned and quickly ran towards the back room.

In no time at all, he returned to Qingdeng's side.

When he returned to Qingdeng, he had an extra account book, an abacus, and a bag of money in his arms.

Aoto looked at the bag of money in Kyubei's hand with a touch of sadness—the bag wasn't very bulging, but it represented all of Aoto's family's savings at the moment...

Hara Tachibana Aoto doesn't know how to do accounts, so the family's money and account books are usually managed by Kyubei.

Kyubei moved the low table that was placed in the corner of the hall over, spread the account book on the low table, placed the abacus next to the account book, and then quickly began to calculate the accounts.

Before long, Kyubei stopped using the abacus, then opened the money bag containing all of the Tachibana family's savings, and took out some silver coins and a large string of copper coins.

“Young Master…” Kyubei chuckled awkwardly, “After deducting necessary expenses such as food, clothing, and lodging… we only have 11 mon of silver and 6000 mon of copper coins left to use.”

In Edo-period Japan, three currencies circulated in the market: gold, silver, and copper.

1 tael of gold ≈ 64 copper coins ≈ 6400 copper coins.

Upon learning that the family only had so little money at their disposal, Qingdeng's jaw nearly dropped to the ground.

Is this all the money you have?

“Young Master…” Kyubei sighed deeply, “The family’s remaining wealth… has basically all been used to pay off debts…”

Hearing Kyubei's words, Aoto's lips twitched involuntarily.

—It's true what they say, even a hero can be brought down by a penny...

After silently reflecting on this in his heart, Qing Deng let out a long sigh.

"Sigh... Oh well, less money is fine. Kyubei, which is the best kendo school we can afford to send me to with our current savings?"

The original owner of this body was not interested in swordsmanship, so he didn't have much information about sword-making schools in Edo. Therefore, Aoto had to ask Kyubei for help.

"Oh dear..." Kyubei looked troubled. "Young Master, you've stumped me... I don't know anything about sword clubs. I can count the number of sword clubs I can name on one hand..."

“I thought so too…” Qing Deng sighed softly, “There’s nothing we can do… I’ll ask some of my friends later…”

"Ah!" Kyubei suddenly slapped his forehead. "Young master, I remember now, would you like to go to the Senjiya and ask?"

"The Thousand Things Shop?" Qing Deng raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

“It’s a job placement agency,” Kyubei said. “Young Master, our family is short of money lately, so I was thinking of finding some work that I can do to supplement our income. That’s how I learned about this job placement agency through an introduction.”

Qingdeng: "A job placement agency?"

Edo, as the ruling, political, and economic center of the Edo Shogunate, was the largest city during the Edo period.

As the largest city of that era, Edo naturally attracted young people from all over the country who harbored dreams of getting rich quick.

A large number of young people came to Edo to work, but in that era there were no convenient things like newspapers or the internet, making information exchange quite difficult. It would be quite difficult for one person to find a job in this city of one million people.

Thus, employment agencies, which specialize in helping people find jobs, came into being.

During the Edo period, the vast majority of employment agencies were privately run. In Edo alone, there were more than twenty employment agencies of varying sizes.

"Kyubei, I'm looking for a sword-making school, not a job."

“Young Master, let me finish.” Kyubei shook his head. “That Thousand Jobs Shop can not only introduce jobs, but also sword-making schools. That’s one of their important selling points.”

"Oh?" A look of interest immediately flashed in Qing Deng's eyes, and he subconsciously leaned towards Jiubei.

"I don't know the specifics. I only know that the Thousand Jobs Shop can not only help people find jobs, but also help those who want to learn swordsmanship in Edo to find suitable sword schools."

“Hey… Thousand Things Shop…” Qing Deng Mosuo stroked his chin. “Can you introduce people to sword-fighting clubs… Sounds good.”

"Okay, it's decided!"

Qingdeng clenched his right fist and gently tapped his left palm.