Owari Yumeki Golden Day.

Oh, yeah, what's wrong?

We'll split the profits 50/50. You grow half of what you want, and sell it to me by weight.

Huh? Isn't this just a perfect opportunity? Shichibei subconsciously rubbed his hands together like a fly. Although our two families both serve Oda Nobunaga and have some connections, this alfalfa isn't something we can only sell to you.

With so many samurai families around Komakiyama Castle, which one didn't need alfalfa hay for the winter? Shichibei was confident that as long as he could bundle it up and take it to the castle, there would be plenty of markets for it.

Horses are a warrior's second life on the battlefield. Whether it's feasible to charge into battle on horseback is another matter, but it's absolutely possible to escape on horseback.

Which samurai wouldn't want his horse to be well-fed and well-cared for, so it could accompany him into battle?

The key point is that most of Japan's wars occurred after the autumn harvest and before the spring planting. This period was the off-season for farming, and with the harvested grain, it was the perfect time for war. Ideal for war, but the horses had no food.

Even in the dead of winter, no grass grows in the fields.

This somewhat shrewd demeanor actually made Kato Nobutaka think that Shichibei had the makings of a businessman. He had thought that the Denma River Village family, which was going downhill with each passing year, was in a sorry state, but he didn't expect that this generation was at least not stupid and knew how to bargain.

A deposit, right? That's nothing. Clover is useful to Kato Nobutaka, so he's happy to pay upfront. But Shichibei doesn't want his money; he wants his ship.

I'm leveling the sandbar and need to remove the thatch from it. Could you lend me your small boat and boatman for a few days for free? In return, I can consider selling you alfalfa first, and even have you handle the transportation and sales of half of it.

Atsuta Town is located by both a river and the sea. In those days, how could a thriving trade be achieved without water transport? Whether it was for warfare or freight transport, water transport was the most convenient method of transportation, offering the largest capacity and the lowest cost.

What are the differences between the two?

The difference is that the deposit is included in the future total price, which is essentially living beyond your means. It's just spending future money sooner rather than later, without much benefit. Even after receiving the money, you still need to rent a boat. You can borrow a boat; the boat and the boatman, Shichibei, are free, you only need to be provided with meals.

It's still a saving of money; saving is earning.

As soon as he said it, Kato Nobutaka felt a slight stirring in his heart. This Shichibei had the makings of a businessman. Knowing that he really wanted alfalfa, he made a condition. And it was the kind of condition that wasn't too expensive or difficult to refuse.

He lent his boat and boatman to the Kawamura family, not gave them away. How much was that worth? But Shichibei got the transport capacity he wanted without spending any money, so he won.

"I remember you were engaged, right?" Kato Nobutaka himself also has a daughter.

"Yes." Shichibei has a fiancée.

She was the daughter of a retainer of the Ohashi clan, the head of the four major families and seven parties of Tsushima. Her deceased father probably wanted Shichibei to settle down and survive in Tsushima, so he arranged the marriage before he died.

But he's only eleven years old. This isn't about whether he should get married or not; it's about being worse than a beast.

Even if Shichibei doesn't bring it up, everyone thinks it's too early to discuss it; we should wait until Tenkui arrives before making a decision.

"Has your sister made a reservation with them?" Kato Nobutaka seemed to have a pretty good understanding of the information among his colleagues.

"Not yet..." When her cheap father died, Ai was only seven years old and Shichibei was ten. They were both very young.

It's already good enough that Shichibei was properly assigned; they haven't even assigned Ai yet, and she's already kicked the bucket.

"The ship will arrive tomorrow, I'll be waiting for your alfalfa!" Kato Nobutaka smiled and patted Shichibei on the shoulder.

Just because you're 1.52 meters tall, do you think you're so great? Do you look down on me because I'm only 1.42 meters tall? If it were Nobunaga patting me, that would be one thing. But why is this old man from the same profession patting me too?

Sighing inwardly, Shichibei saw Kato Nobutaka off with a smile. After all, they lent them the ship, which was a favor, so naturally they had to be courteous.

Seeing Kato Nobutaka walk away, Shichibei turned around and called over a waiter, asking him to inquire on the street whether Kato Nobutaka's son had gotten married.

11. Burning the stubble will cause disputes.

That night, the servant returned after finding out the truth and fed the horses with Shichibei. It was common knowledge that Kato Nobutaka's son was already married; there was no way to hide it.

While powerful lords and feudal lords might take many concubines, ordinary samurai families typically only have one wife. Furthermore, they don't procreate frequently; they usually stop after producing two sons—one as heir and the other as a backup.

It got even better in the Edo period; having only one son was enough. After all, the family business could only be one share. If there were too many sons, the family business would have to be divided, becoming smaller and smaller, and one's social class would immediately decline.

Or to put it more clearly, the family name might not be passed down.

Without territory, knowledge, or property to support it, how can a family name be passed down?

The Shichibei family was considered abnormal because they only had one son, so they had many children, resulting in seven daughters, two of whom died young.

Why did Kato Nobutaka ask me if my sister was married? Shichibei suddenly came up with a very outrageous situation, but it wasn't unacceptable in this era.

Kato Nobutaka wants to be my brother-in-law!

If Ai were to marry Kato Nobutaka, she certainly wouldn't be able to become the principal wife; she would inevitably become a concubine. In this day and age, such an arrangement is perfectly reasonable and an ideal way to maintain close ties between the two families.

Others from the same era would probably be happy, but Shichibei wouldn't agree. Marrying someone in their forties at sixteen, and then living a life of widowhood in just a few years—isn't that pushing someone into a fire pit?

No, we have to find a way to marry Ayi off quickly, so she can have a proper and respectable wedding and avoid any more trouble.

In this day and age, any village chief you randomly pick in Owari will most likely become the lord of a province and a castle in the future. It's true, I'm not exaggerating at all. With Oda Nobunaga's large-scale expansion, all the local servants and public servants of Owari will step onto the stage of history. As long as they don't die in battle, almost all of them will prosper.

Just like Tokugawa Ieyasu's Mikawa Five Hundred Cavalry, going back a generation, they didn't even have proper names. In the end, the shogunate widely bestowed the common character "忠" (loyalty) to solve the naming problem. This is also why everyone in the shogunate was named with "忠臣" (loyal retainer) in their names. The coverage rate of "忠" among hereditary lords and Ōmi hatamoto exceeded 70%.

These five hundred riders are just the village chief's territory.

Even if you marry blindly, given the low death rate in Japan's Sengoku period, it wouldn't be a big problem.

He kept this firmly in mind, and the next morning, Shichibei got up and headed to the sandbar at the river mouth. He was desperate for money; he begged God to let him harvest a crop of alfalfa quickly so he could marry off his sister. He couldn't possibly drag his sister off to marry an old man.

The Kato family's boats arrived in the afternoon, seven or eight small boats in total—they were indeed a wealthy family. With these boats, hiring travelers to cut grass on the sandbar and then hauling the grass to the town and villages to sell would be no problem.

Grass is naturally cheap, but human life is even cheaper these days. Without skills, manual labor only earns enough for a day's food. "No work, no food" is the most accurate description of life these days.

In the future, with daily wages, you could work one day and rest three days. But now, with daily wages, you have to work every single day, or you won't even have a rice ball to eat at night.

With many people and boats, after roughly clearing the surface of several sandbars, the first step was considered complete.

Setting fire, setting fire, setting fire is such a wonderful thing!

Because no one was notified in the city across the bridge, someone from the city even came to inquire, thinking something had happened. There's a game called *Mount & Blade* where, to trick the lord into leaving the city, you just need to ask the village chief to set fire to the village below.

A fire broke out, and the lord would surely ask what happened. Upon learning that Shichibei had set fire to the wasteland to plant alfalfa, the man nodded in agreement and ran back to report the news.

Before long, the man came running back and asked Shichibei whose service he had undertaken or whose orders he had received. The sandbars were all unclaimed, and even if they were developed, they couldn't be considered Shichibei's property.

The land lies fallow and no one cultivates it; but once cultivated, it becomes a battleground.

Fortunately, this was a land ceding document bearing the joint signatures of Oda clan elders and officials; otherwise, who knows what kind of trouble might have followed. Upon learning of the document, the man could only scurry back to report.

However, Shichibei mentioned that no matter how much alfalfa was harvested in the future, he would send five hundred bundles to the bridge castle.

I'm not some clueless naive kid anymore. This isn't a society governed by the rule of law. A lot of flies and mosquitoes won't kill you, but they're certainly annoying.

Seeing how obedient Shichibei was, the man even patted him on the shoulder. Damn it, another one who thinks he can just pat me on the shoulder because he's tall. You just wait.

After that, things became much easier. The Kato family's ships and boatmen were returned, and Shichibei didn't need to sow the seeds himself; he could just hire two helpers to do it. As the saying goes, survival of the fittest. This was the first year, so everything had to be done simply and efficiently.

Three to five thousand years ago, ancient people also practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, planting one crop and reaping two, which led to their growth and prosperity to what they are today. Even today, there are tribes in South America that cut down forests, burn vegetation, and migrate after three to five years of farming.

We also need to go back and inquire about something else: how many fishermen are there in Ise Bay? If there are many, then their catch will be plentiful.

At that time, Japan's coastal fishery resources were very abundant. The tuna eaten by the people of Kai was caught in Suruga Bay, and the clam soup drunk by the people of Edo was also caught in Edo Bay.

So the sardines eaten by the people of Owari were also caught in Ise Bay. Without the destructive fishing methods of human netting, the coastal waters at that time truly had fish just by casting the net.

However, Shichibei wasn't very interested in eating fish. Instead, he was thinking that all the unwanted fish could be used to rot and be composted.

Rotten fish and all sorts of seaweed are excellent sources of phosphate fertilizer. Since we can't find islands full of bird droppings, we'll have to produce our own phosphate fertilizer.

To ensure alfalfa grows well, it does need fertilizer. Of course, Shichibei doesn't have the resources to fertilize right now; fertilizer is quite expensive, especially if you buy it. Even if you were to make it yourself, you'd need space and capital.

Everything depends on this crop of alfalfa growing. Only with this harvest of cash can we get things done.

That's why they say even a hero can't do without money; nothing is easy when you're broke. On the other hand, the shop's revenue increased slightly because Shichibei bought ten more packhorses that were currently in use.

The previously tight cash flow has begun to recover.

This naturally put Shichibei in a great mood, and he hummed a tune as he returned to the inquirer's house. He saw Ai settling accounts with a boy who looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old. Upon asking, he learned that the boy was a servant of the wealthy Ito family, and he was there to help confirm the accounts for the gunpowder he had sent to Oda Nobunaga.

12. Purely for making money by promoting the product.

They don't even look as good as me.

This was Shichibei's first impression of Kotake, but he was just a errand boy, what did he need to look like? Perhaps the only thing that was better than Shichibei was that he was now almost 1.5 meters tall.

He had no surname, no family name, just his name was Kotake. He was from Owari and worked as an apprentice in Ito's shop. He had signed a "contract of servitude," meaning he had to work for seven years without a single penny of pay.

This is my fifth year here; I'll have to work for another two years to "graduate." Depending on the situation, Ito's boss might choose to give me a small amount of capital or keep me on.

Wait a minute! Shichibei turned to look at Ai. He's fifteen, you're sixteen, you two aren't childhood sweethearts, are you? Otherwise, how would you know so much?

Hearing this, Ayi laughed, almost bursting out laughing. If you're talking about childhood sweethearts, you should really talk about the teenage guys at the shop; they're the ones who actually eat and live together every day.

That's right, the Kawamura family has seven or eight servants and more than a dozen employees, and the younger ones are indeed all Ai's childhood friends. Logically speaking, Ai and Shichibei are also childhood friends.

Alright, Shichibei inquired about Ito's bill, and it wasn't much. They were all from the Tsushima group, not individual customers, so monthly payments were possible—pure and simple business trust.

It's almost the end of the month, so they sent a young clerk over to confirm the horse fee, and then they'll send someone to deliver it. That's exactly the kind of errand-running work a trainee does. For important matters like delivering money, it has to be the shop manager on duty, the supervisor, or the shop manager.

Scratching his head, Shichibei realized he had one redeeming quality: he wasn't bald. While it wasn't exactly a full head of hair, it at least adequately covered his scalp.

Add one point.

With a chuckle, Shichibei turned and went inside to get a drink of water. Since Ai was settling accounts with someone upstairs, it was naturally Aji who brought Shichibei the water. Shichibei, having nothing better to do, asked Aji if he knew that Xiaozhu.

This stumped Aci. She thought for a moment and said that it seemed that the guy named Xiaozhu had indeed been coming over frequently in the past two years. But it was mainly for reconciling accounts; they had to reconcile them every month before they could clear the books.

Upon hearing this, Shichibei asked Aji, "How much do you know about this Kotake?" Aji simply shook his head, indicating that he only knew that Kotake was a shop assistant at Ito's shop, and that he knew his name but had no other recollection.

Well……

"Never mind," Shichibei thought, finishing his water and not pressing the matter further. Perhaps he was just overthinking it. He still had to check on the alfalfa field tomorrow. Eating and getting to bed early was the most important thing.

Well, it's none of Shichibei's business how many meals others eat, but we ourselves have to eat three meals.

And so we waited and waited, and finally a month passed. As expected, many of the alfalfa plants near the water failed to sprout, while only the well-drained areas in the center of the sandbar saw a large amount of alfalfa germinate and grow. This "large amount" is relative to the current yield per acre, and is completely different from the "large amount" five hundred years from now.

Forget about 5,000 or 8,000 catties per mu, it might not even reach 2,000 catties. And that's with water in it, it's still wet. After it's harvested and left to dry in the field for three to five days, even 600 catties is questionable.

How many bundles of hay can be made from 600 jin (300 kg) of dry grass? Ten bundles.

How many bundles are there in a thousand acres? A mere ten thousand bundles.

If any time traveler were to see this, they would probably burst out laughing on the spot, exclaiming that it was a disgrace to time travelers, and that there was nothing more pathetic than this.

How much is a bundle of grass worth? Thirty coins. A pair of straw sandals costs ten or twenty coins, after all, they are "handicrafts," with added value from the labor involved. A bundle of grass is different; it's purely worth the price of an alfalfa.

The key point is that you still need to hire people to cut and bundle the fruit, and then ship it to Atsuta, Ohashi, or other towns within the Owari territory for sale. You earn pure money from shouting, or rather, hard labor.