Owari Yumeki Golden Day.

What a huge city that must be!

The new city for all people is naturally large, and since the general decree has already been issued, it cannot be disobeyed. To protect their territory, they must tighten their belts and proceed.

Seeing the expressions on their faces, Niwa Nagahide nodded inwardly. The amount he had given was indeed enough to wear them down. After all, he had also added his share to these five households. Niwa Nagahide remained outwardly calm, simply clinking glasses with everyone and urging them to drink.

During the meal, he mentioned that he was new to the area and would rely on everyone in the future. The others replied that Aizu was nestled deep in the mountains and they had nothing decent to offer, asking for their forgiveness.

Speaking of this, Niwa Nagahide smacked his lips, "It's quite rare." In the past, when he was enfeoffed in Omi, Wakasa, or Echizen, all places near large lakes and seas, he could eat his fill of sashimi. Now that he's moved to Aizu, it's hard to find fresh sashimi anymore.

What a pity! Sashimi is such a delicious dish!

Touching his belly, Niwa Nagahide suddenly felt that he was getting old. He was almost fifty years old and he couldn't even satisfy his appetite.

While Niwa Nagahide plotted to annex the five powerful lords, Oda Nobukatsu didn't harbor such malicious intentions. He simply consulted his three elders on how to win over the hearts of the western lords and weaken the eastern lords, so that he could mediate between the east and west and maintain a balance.

The rivalry between East and West in Japan has a long history. The Genji of Bando defeated the Taira clan of Kansai, and the songs about the Genpei War are still sung today.

Oda Nobukatsu would not move the capital to Kanto. The Oda clan's stronghold, due to the geographical environment in which they rose to power, was located in the Kinai region and Nobi. Currently, Nobi was guarded by his own clansmen, his brother-in-law, and his fuyo, among others, and two core factions were established there: Takayama Shigetomo of Nagoya and Nobuoka of Kano Tsuda.

If necessary, both men could gather an army of more than 10,000, or even 15,000, and enter and besiege their own cities to buy time for mobilization within the capital region.

It can be said that the feudal lords surrounding the Kinai region were all hereditary rulers since the time of Oda Nobunaga, and their loyalty was among the highest. However, the situation was less certain for the lords of the eastern provinces, as Oda Nobukatsu had neither a great deal of favor with them nor much authority over them.

The reason we don't have the opportunity now is because there isn't one. If there were an opportunity, the Eastern Kingdom might very well cause trouble.

The three men who managed to stand beside Nobuo were certainly not fools. Takikawa Yutoshi immediately spoke up, arguing that Oda Nobuo's reign as Taira no Shogun aligned with a certain subconscious societal understanding of the Genpei transition.

The Ashikaga clan of the Muromachi Shogunate was the origin, while our Oda clan was the Taira clan. So, the change of the old and the new is a natural principle. In terms of status, thanks to Oda Nobunaga's de facto paving the way, Oda Nobukatsu's lineage had become very noble, making him a de facto pillar of the Taira clan.

Moreover, it is the kind of noble bloodline that can be passed down through the lineage of Heian and Qingsheng, with a clear and complete genealogy. Not only is he qualified to serve as Grand Chancellor, but he is also the head of a military family.

In other words, Oda Nobukatsu is now both the Grand Chancellor and the de facto head of the samurai class, making him invincible.

Kiyoyasu Ataka immediately chimed in, "That's absolutely right. Right now, the pillars of the court and samurai families are, in fact, you, Nobuo. There's no need to worry about any conflicts between them anymore. How to win them over or how to suppress them are all trivial matters."

As long as you further consolidate your position as the highest pillar of the Kō and Bō families, there's no need to engage in any factionalism or confrontation. You, Nobukatsu, have military achievements, having killed three lords with a million koku of land. The entire Hojō clan was sent to heaven, the Ryūzōji clan became monks living in Kyoto, and the Shimazu clan was also severely weakened, at one point only allowed to retain the province of Satsuma.

With such formidable martial prowess displayed, even if you were a tyrant, people would only respect you and fear you because of your power. Unless you are truly beyond redemption, the situation might resemble the image of a "little father" in some later dictatorial countries: a loving father on the surface, a strict father on the back, a cake in one hand and a big stick in the other.

Although Nobuo has done a lot of bad things, he still knows that important national affairs should be discussed with senior ministers and trusted confidants.

Even if it's not ultimately adopted, at least this attitude can be salvaged. If things really go wrong, it's enough to mend the fence after the sheep are lost.

Up to this point, Ataka Kiyoyasu is unaware that Nobukatsu had forcibly taken his stepmother, Kaihime, into his harem. It's best he doesn't know; it ensures harmony between ruler and subject.

Hijikata Yuhisa shared this view. Although the three came from different backgrounds and had different political ideologies, they were similarly determined to maintain the stability of Nobukatsu's regime. For all three, the greatest benefit would be for Nobukatsu's regime to become more stable and to be passed down for a long time.

Takikawa and Hijikata each received a territory of 75,000 koku in Sagami Province. Although Ataka Kiyoyasu did not receive any, he was transferred to Nishisanuki Province with a fief of 50,000 koku. This was a considerable reward for a pirate daimyo.

It seems there's still a chance to climb higher, as long as Ataka Kiyoyasu doesn't kick the bucket and continues to serve Nobukatsu. If Nobukatsu is appeased, even 100,000 koku wouldn't be difficult.

"Then what should we do?" The idea of ​​building Osaka Castle was Nobuo's own, and everyone agreed with it.

What needs to be done to further enhance the prestige of Grand Chancellor Ping?

"The matter of requesting a divine title for the late emperor is the most important task at present," Kiyoyasu Ataka immediately mentioned.

"Yes, that's right!"

If this crucial matter at hand isn't handled well, what else can be accomplished? Although Oda Nobukatsu verbally requested the court to bestow a divine title upon him, he was too distracted by his succession as Grand Chancellor and the grand funeral arrangements for Nobunaga. After the funeral, he would have to arrange for two to three hundred feudal lords from across the country to come to Kyoto to offer New Year's greetings.

One thing after another happened. The power was suddenly transferred. Although Nobunaga had already publicly designated Nobukatsu as his eldest son, there were still many procedures to go through.

Immediately, someone was dispatched to draft a memorial and submit it to the emperor, publicly explaining the matter. The imperial court had already agreed to the deification of Nobunaga. After all, Nobunaga was the first ruler since the Great Rebellion of Ōnin and Bunmei to completely unify Japan and bring peace to the land.

This achievement alone is enough to make Oda Nobunaga a god. Furthermore, Nobunaga's generosity towards the imperial court is well-known; he even sent 20,000 koku of land.

The imperial court not only had more money to spend, but the standard of living also rose sharply. Even many activities and ceremonies that had been suspended began to be held again because of the increased income.

Ceremonies and rituals are things you can't hold when you're starving. Now that you're well-fed and clothed and have extra money, you use money to flaunt your noble status and illustrious lineage. The grander the ceremony, the more elaborate the scene, the more it enhances the atmosphere and displays your class.

Xinxiong also loved grand occasions; when he held his father's funeral, he organized an army of 130,000 and monks of 40,000.

The imperial court responded swiftly to Nobukatsu's petition, directly asking whether he desired greater authority or a Daimyojin (a powerful deity). The answer was either: authority leaned more towards Shinto, while Daimyojin leaned more towards Buddhism. However, in Japan, due to the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism, this distinction had become somewhat blurred.

For example, the names Atago Gongen and Atago Myojin are sometimes used interchangeably. The same is true for Hakusan Gongen and Hakusan Myojin.

What should be written? After much thought, Nobuo personally picked up his brush and wrote a note that read "May the Great Japan last forever," which he then sent into the inner palace. The meaning was already quite clear, and the imperial court naturally understood.

Damn God!

The next day, the imperial decree was proclaimed, and Nobukatsu, upon accepting it, ordered the construction of the Tenchō Shrine for Oda Nobunaga in Azuchi. At the same time, news of Nobunaga's deification spread throughout Japan in a short time, including to Shichibei, who was at that time surveying the mountains and rivers to understand the situation regarding the development of tea plantations.

Chapter 611 Planting Mulberry Trees, Raising Silkworms, and Producing Local Silk

Will Kumamoto build the Tenchō Shrine?

Takatora Todo leaned on a nearly straight wooden stick he had just picked up and gazed in the direction of Kyoto. He was referring, of course, to Shimogumi, which means lower temple or shrine. Nikko has Toshogu Shrine, Shizuoka has Toshogu Shrine, and even Edo originally had Toshogu Shrine; any additional ones were considered Shimogumi.

"No need, it's not our turn to fix it first." Shichibei patted Todo Takatora's hand imperceptibly, and took the stick from his hand.

"You, you..." The first sound was one of doubt, and the second sound was the realization that his hands were empty.

"The Azuchi site isn't finished yet. We'll see what the emperor thinks after it's completed." Shichibei was already old-fashioned and didn't care about this or that.

In Japan, it's become increasingly rare for people to be posthumously deified, so many procedures are less familiar. Perhaps Oda Nobuo wanted complete control over the worship of Tencho Myōjin, who was both his father and a deity, which would also strengthen his rule through moral and public opinion.

"That's true." Since they were getting down to business, Tōdō Takatora couldn't care less about the stick anymore.

"Send someone to deliver the jade beads immediately." However, the sacrificial offerings must also be sent.

For a powerful feudal lord like Shichibei, it would have required at least 120 gold coins. It's similar to how feudal lords in the Han Dynasty offered tributes of gold for imperial sacrifices.

"Understood." Todo Takatora quickly ordered a fast boat to go to Kyoto.

Returning to the mountains before us, the main plains of Higo are on the seaward side, though they can't really be considered entirely flat. They are more accurately described as plateaus formed by tectonic plate movement, with each layer pushing and lowering the other. However, because the plate movement was so intense, the pushing plates were so large that from our limited perspective, they appear to be plains.

Even the so-called flatlands have small hills, which could be considered hills. They could also be considered low mountains and hills, like Mount Kinpo, which is not far northwest of Kumamoto and has an elevation of 666m.

The relatively flat land has mostly been developed; now the focus is on these sloping areas. Of course, a better approach would be to move mountains and fill in the sea, hollowing out the slopes and filling the near-shore beaches with earth and rocks to create so-called "new fields."

Just like Tsushima, where we started, it was a major town with convenient land and sea transportation. A hundred or so years later, it will be several kilometers from the coast, all of which will be newly reclaimed land and roads.

There was no other way. During the Edo period, the country was at peace, and the population continued to grow, exceeding 30 million. The only option was to reclaim land from the mountains and the sea. However, the mountains couldn't be those without water, because agriculture couldn't be developed without water. Therefore, the construction of terraced fields had to be tailored to local conditions; it wasn't something that could be done simply by pointing to a slope and saying you wanted to build.

The other day, Shichibei and Tōdō Takatora discussed this matter. Tōdō Takatora stated that agriculture and weaving are the foundation of the nation, and according to Shichibei, developing cash crops is not a problem. Even if these sloping lands are not used to grow sweet potatoes and beans, they can still be used to plant mulberry trees and raise silkworms.

There's no controversy about "plowing"—whether it's planting beans, wheat, or rice, anything that can fill your stomach is good food. That's undisputed. However, "weaving" has actually evolved.

Originally, weaving mainly focused on silk weaving, which involved planting mulberry trees, raising silkworms, harvesting cocoons, drawing silk, and spinning it into silk fabric. By the Ming Dynasty, cotton textiles began to appear widely on the list of rural household handicrafts. This was likely due to the promotion by the Ming court and the objective needs of human survival during the Little Ice Age.

Shichibei's initial idea of ​​weaving was homespun cloth from rural households; Japan didn't even grow cotton anymore, using kapok to weave cloth. Our neighbor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was known as "Kapok Fujikichiro," wasn't he?

But Takatora Todo's idea was to plant mulberry trees, raise silkworms, and produce raw silk. If it was indeed difficult to develop paddy fields on the hillside, then he would try to introduce mulberry trees and encourage rural areas to produce more silk in addition to farming.

Even during the Qing Dynasty, Japan still imported raw silk from China. Japan imported both finished silk products and raw silk. The reason why Echigo's ramie could so reliably provide military funds for the Uesugi family was due to Japan's scarcity of textile raw materials.

Even in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, when the Japanese textile industry began to compete with British merchants for the Chinese market and also undermined China's national textile industry, a considerable portion of the cotton used by Japan came from Shandong and Henan provinces in China.

However, cotton is a crop that is extremely demanding on soil fertility. In the thirteen colonies of North America, cotton was grown using a three-field or even four-field system. Early cotton plantations covered a vast area, and it was perfectly normal for the land to be left fallow for two or three years after planting a single cotton crop to allow it to recover.

Planting mulberry trees, compared to cotton, is in some ways more suitable for Japan's national conditions. After all, Japan's flat land has been planted with rice wherever possible. Not only were other crops sacrificed, but one could even say that livestock farming was almost entirely abandoned, with 99% of the effort devoted to rice cultivation.

Otherwise, Japan wouldn't have been able to support 35 million people with such a small land area before industrialization. That's an impressive population, considering that France's population around 1860 hovered around 40 million.

Consider the geographical situation in France and Japan; the two are worlds apart.

It's no wonder that if Japan's population were placed in Europe, it would be a top-tier power. In the agricultural era, that might truly have been the case.

Therefore, the two men's argument reached a considerable degree of compromise: Shichibei believed that tea trees and wax trees should be planted, while Tōdō Takatora believed that mulberry trees should be planted first, and then silkworms should be raised.

No problem, no problem at all. There are so many barren mountains in Higo. Turning these barren mountains into a treasure trove depends on the actions of our generation.

The population of Japan today is completely different from that of later generations. Currently, the western provinces are more populous than the eastern provinces. The Kanto and Ōshu regions are sparsely populated, a situation that didn't completely change even during the Meiji Restoration. Some Ōshu domains, with a rank of 200,000 koku, had a population of just over 100,000 (excluding samurai), less than 200,000.

Half of Japan's population is concentrated in the Kanto region, with Tokyo as its main center. This situation only fully developed after World War II, when Japan's economy experienced rapid growth.

At this time, the population of Japan was most dense in the Kinai region, as can be seen from the distribution of Japanese manors in the 10th century. Looking at the distribution of manors in the 12th century, we can see that large-scale manors had already appeared in Echizen and Kaga, as well as the Nobi Plain and the Tsukushi Plain centered on Dazaifu in northern Kyushu.

By now, Higo's total population is definitely over 600,000, and may even be more. On the other hand, Musashi, which Ieyasu went to, had 690,000 koku of rice, but its population was probably only 400,000 to 500,000.

In the agricultural era, the level of land development and the resulting natural carrying capacity were crucial factors. Unless one followed the example of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which forcibly gathered over 600,000 samurai and their dependent families, along with the population serving the samurai, in Edo—half the country supporting one city—it was impossible for such an abnormal population distribution to occur.

A population of over 600,000 was necessary for Shichibei to carry out comprehensive industrial development. This would prevent these people from migrating to mines or other territories with new farmland. After all, in the eyes of Shichibei, the de facto feudal (slave) owner, human resources were precious, and every person was a form of wealth.

Not only the direct population tax, but also the value generated by this human labor could be exploited by Shichibei to nourish the Kumamoto Castle behind him.

Tea trees were transplanted from the Kinai region, and privet seedlings could be obtained from Suo and Nagato, or from Zhejiang in the Ming Dynasty. Mulberry seedlings were much easier to find, as they were available all over Japan. Wherever silk was produced, mulberry trees were planted.

Simply encouraging people to plant trees and mulberry trees is useless; anyone can talk the talk. Of course, giving money directly is also unnecessary, as that doesn't fit Japan's national conditions.

According to the national conditions in Japan, Shichibei would go to the district governors of each district in Higo Province to deploy the specific work on the first five-year plan for Higo Province. Then, the district governors would summon the local landowners, lords, and magnates to inform them of the thoughts and intentions of the feudal lord, Kawamura Nagayoshi.

They then further disseminate the information, advertising the complete success of the project. In fact, the land and forests were often in the hands of these people. The knowledge and power gained by the samurai were, in essence, merely the right to tax the land; the actual ownership of the land still changed hands among the nominal owners.

Working with them is much easier than directly ordering farmers to change land use or diverting their attention to growing crops they are not familiar with.

Farmers everywhere are the same!

To put it in a rather unpleasant little story, a tenant farmer heard from someone about using a chessboard to pay off gambling debts. On the first day, one grain of rice was given in the first empty space on the chessboard; on the second day, two grains; on the third day, four grains; on the fourth day, sixteen grains, and so on, until finally, even if all the rice in the world was gathered, it would still not be enough to pay off the debt.

So he said to the landlord, "I will work for you as a long-term laborer. On the first day, you can give me one grain of rice; on the second day, two grains; on the third day, four grains, and so on."

On the seventh day, the tenant farmer starved to death.

The lowest-level farmers have no way of having a long-term vision or future plans. They must focus on the present and have a reliable and secure way of agricultural production. If you tell them that they've been growing rice and soybeans for decades, and then tell them to set aside a third of their people to start growing tea, mulberry, and wax trees, see if they're anxious or not.

Compared to the lowest-level self-cultivating farmers and tenant farmers, the owners of manors and estates have a greater desire for money and are more capable of taking risks and making investments.

Convincing the landowners and estate owners is tantamount to convincing the peasants at the bottom of society. They will then have various means to facilitate the exchange and increase of crops.

How can we persuade them?

Spending money like water.

Kawamura no Nagayoshi is a renowned figure, the owner of Kawamura-ya, the number one trading company in Japan. He is known to everyone in the Japanese business world and was the first general manager of the Japan Federation of Industries.

Do you think we'd cheat you if we asked you to grow something? Just this offer alone is enough to convince half the owners and farmhouses. The other half are still debating whether it's worthwhile to allocate manpower or change the use of the sloping land for sweet potato cultivation. We're offering a 30% deposit upfront, with the remaining 70% due upon delivery.

The golden-yellow coin came to pay the deposit, a fair deal for everyone, young and old.

It's enough to sway the actual controllers of these lands, or those with strong influence or prestige in the countryside. Connecting directly with individual farmers is too costly; directly engaging with landowners and estates is much simpler.

Let's get started.

This matter still requires the cooperation of the Kawamura family, as the Kawamura family itself does not have the ability to manage large sums of cash. They can only act as intermediaries, borrowing money from the Kawamura family to complete this task.

There were to be formalities involved, including writing out IOUs and debts. To outsiders, this seemed completely unnecessary—wasn't Kawamuraya also under the control of Major General Kawamura? But Shichibei, who already had the idea of ​​separating Kawamuraya, didn't see it that way.