Chronicles of The Hardships of Komachi in The Sengoku Era

The results of the trial harvest were excellent.

The villagers, who were frightened at first by their appearance, are enough to flatten their dishes with us after they know the flavor.

Sweet corn and pumpkins are highly sweet vegetables, so I guess they looked like a treat to the villagers.

But this time it is not just a trial harvest, but a book harvest that needs to be dedicated to Nobunaga.

I have not given much of my harvest to date, so I needed to give it up early to regain my trust.

"Are you going to see the museum again in a hard to move outfit..."

This time, there are four kinds of vegetables dedicated to Nobunaga: sweet potatoes, pumpkins, sweetcorn, and tomatoes.

Summer potatoes are not yet enough to harvest the book, but it's not a bad idea to get a taste of the crops you've tried and dug.

With that in mind, I decided to add it to this offering.

Unlike trial digging, pumpkins are finishing heavenly sun-dried, and sweetcorn and tomatoes were harvested that morning.

Put them on a large trolley made of wood.

Originally towed with cattle, cattle couldn't even use the only cattle in the village because they are a fine workforce.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to pull with manpower.

"Kinzuku, thank you Tagoku -"

Shizuko speaks to the two towing instead of the cow. The two replied by thumbing up to the voice.

Shizuko, of course, taught the hand sign, but surprisingly the villagers (the men of) liked it.

When the two of them finish preparing the trolley tow, Shizuko walks out to their pace.

The matter of the visit had already been communicated to Nobunaga through Kasei Mori.

However, Shizuko was pretty freaked out inside because the reply at that time was "looking forward to it".

"I'd like someone to take my place."

With that said, I turned to Kanezuku and Tango, but they distracted me brilliantly.

After an unexpected sigh, Shizuko looked up at the depressingly sunny sky.

"It's gonna be hot today."

Seeing a blue sky with no clouds, she groaned with a potpourri.

After hours of walking into the castle town, explaining to the castle gatekeeper and getting him inside, he finished all kinds of preparations, dressed in his attire, and waiting dozens of minutes between the glances of no one, Nobunaga finally showed up.

We're talking about a harvest today.

Nobunaga tells Shizuko, who is bowing his head.

"Show me what you've achieved. Raise your face."

In response to the words, Shizuko said as she raised her face.

"Today we invite you to enjoy the fruits of the harvest and the cuisine that we use."

"Cooking..."

"Yes, please"

Attention to nearby people and ask them to carry the crops they serve and the dishes they use.

Shizuko didn't miss that Nobunaga reacted slightly the moment she saw the dish.

(Nobunaga likes rare things. And while people of this age, people who can think flexible enough to understand the globe. If you have never seen a dish, it should also show a certain interest…)

"Let me explain"

After bowing his head again, Shizuko talks as he touches the harvest piled in front of him.

"There are three items to offer today. The first is pumpkin, the second is corn and the third is tomato. Finally, the harvest is still a sweet potato, but today we want you to know the flavour and add it to your offerings."

"Oh my God... it's all in shape I've never seen"

When they see the offerings, the warlords surround them.

But when Nobunaga raised one arm, the twist stopped for a moment.

"Go on."

"Yes, and it's a dish...... first simmer pumpkin and venison miso, boiled corn, sweet potato and miso rice balls, please shake only the salt and eat the tomatoes"

"Ho... this corn and all, the shades are close to gold that just shines. But let's start with this pumpkin."

That said, I took the chopsticks and put the pumpkin and venison stewed in my mouth.

I also thought I didn't have to look at it, but is Nobunaga indifferent around there?

Or has the poison been seen beforehand? With that in mind, Shizuko waited for Nobunaga's next word.

He had chewed normally, but suddenly when he stopped it, Nobunaga slowly put the chopsticks down.

He also looked like he had no heart or face in a hurry.

As he was sweating from his face, Shizuko was in a hurry, too, of course, under his ministers around him.

"Dear Hall! No way, Shizuko, poison me!

"Wait!"

I mistakenly assumed that Hideyoshi in a hurry poisoned the dish and grabbed Shizuko, but I heard him stop it on the verge.

Of course, the Lord of Voices is Nobunaga. I was looking at Shizuko with an unusual and serious look.

"Oh, the hall? Is that...?

"This food has a texture I've never tasted before. Yet it has teeth and is really good. The faint sweetness also adds flavor. It's good, it's really good."

That's what Nobunaga said as he caught his mouth and grinned.

Understanding that the poison was a mistake in his face, his servant strokes his chest down relieved.

Then Nobunaga silently flattens all the food.

Nobunaga said he was indifferent to food, but he still tasted and ate what was novel.

When the chopsticks are slowly placed in the basin, Nobunaga turns to Shizuko.

"It was delicious indeed. And that's all I can offer, so I guess it's an abundance."

Shizuko strokes her chest down relieved by Nobunaga speaking with a grin.

"But... bye"

But for a moment, Nobunaga, whose face changed immediately, asks Shizuko with a staring expression.

"Why not rice? Unlike crops, rice is also an important supply. I don't suppose the rice is produced because of the condition of the person. Tell me why. I don't think so, but not because it's a rare food?

During the Warring States, there were many wars in the winter, also because after the peasants producing rice had finished farming.

Unlike vegetables, rice is an important commodity for war.

How to secure more rice was an important point in the war.

"… Before you and your staff, I would like to give you some reasons for this, although I fear a lot."

"I don't care, say it"

After bowing his head once, Shizuko spoke looking straight at Nobunaga.

"In order for the Hall to achieve the unification of the heavens and the earth, it is necessary to carry out the" Tomikuni Forceps "."

"A rich soldier?

Shizuko nods small at Nobunaga's words.

"Fostering the economy and industry and strengthening the military," he said.

However, Shizuko went on to say the words even more after saying them only slightly more strongly.

"To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single country that is capable of being a rich strong force"

Moment after moment, Nobunaga's face changed.

Shizuko's words, depending on how he takes them, mean that no great name, even a general, has been able to carry out a rich army.

In other words, Nobunaga will be among them.

Naturally, the face of his subordination also changes, but Nobunaga held him still with his hands before they could say anything.

"Go on."

"... Let me tell you something first, I'm never going to make fun of the Hall. However, let me state the facts as facts."

"I don't mind. But if you say so, do you have a plan to make the rich strong?

From Nobunaga, who gives a sharp look and asks Shizuko, she felt that she would not forgive herself without it.

Unexpectedly the temper drowned a bit of sweat, but Shizuko retightened her mind so as to get rid of it.

"Of the rich strong, the strong can be achieved by augmenting armaments through military reform. But first of all, the rich countries...... that is, we need to try to strengthen our national power. As a first step, we need to stabilize the civilian base of life."

……

"The crops that we dedicate this time can also be grown on lean land. It can be cultivated in less time. Which means it's possible to grow it next to rice."

Cultivation of rice is basic, so it cannot be removed.

But if we can't grow anything other than rice, the peasants will lose what they eat when they don't make it.

There, even lean land grows crops become important.

(Summer potatoes, in particular, are highly reproducible and grow if even lean land does not have the wrong procedure. So even beginners are relatively easy to raise. That's also why it was widely cultivated as a measure of hunger since the Edo period)

Moreover, Shizuko made varieties that were varietally improved by modern science, rather than by the traditional then satsumoto.

Sugar potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, sweet corn and sugar cane are all resistant to pests and diseases and rarely have to worry about withering.

"It's nutritious, and it reduces child mortality from malnutrition."

If child mortality drops, that alone means more farm work force.

There is a difference in the foundation between a country where only half a hundred children are born and only half are adults, and a country where 90% grow to adulthood.

Force strength, of course, as well as rice and vegetables produced in farming.

"Increased crop production through effective methods. the accompanying nutritional improvement of the civilian population. Make them happen and become rich countries. And by bringing up children steadily, we will increase the number of soldiers in the future. Now we can make a strong man."

The moment she finishes saying it, the dry sound of the fan echoes around.

"Brilliant! I didn't know you put that much in your calculations for farming. Your abilities, I did let you see them."

Nobunaga speaks as he gives his static child with a rising fan.

Since all the warlords who saw it bowed their heads, Shizuko also rushed to bow his head.

"Raise your face, Shizuko"

"Yes."

On Shizuko's forehead, who slowly raised his face, Nobunaga lightly hits the tip of the fan.

Not knowing what it meant, she couldn't understand Nobunaga's actions.

"The speed at which your head spins, the way your liver sits without distracting from me, is inside. It's a shame to keep you a woman."

"Ha ha..."

"Again, you belong to me. When you leave me, it's only when you die."

Releasing the fan from Shizuko's forehead, Nobunaga continued his words with a thin grin.

"What should I do... you know what I mean?

Shizuko nodded forcefully as she tightened her face to the words.

Nobunaga's statement has no such content as "If I betray you, I will kill you" as it did when we first met.

I'm purely thinking of using Shizuko, that's how she felt.

That's why Nobunaga asked what Shizuko should do.

(More than I can go home, I survive this warring age......!

There is nothing you should do but work under Nobunaga's command.

We have to survive the Warring States era more than we know how to return.

In addition, Nobunaga is not the only one who thinks about using women as subordinates in these times.

I could therefore also say that Shizuko had no choice but to work for Nobunaga.

Shizuko, who understood it again, meant it small in her heart.

"Yes! Gather about fifty peasants."

"Ha!"

"Shizuko, I will attack Mino. I entrust you with a new territory. Use the villagers you've gathered there to create enough productivity to support Ozhang."

"Ha!"

Shizuko recalls history as she bows her head.

(It is true that Nobunaga became the great name of the two kingdoms of Ozhang and Mino two years later in the Ten Years Later (1567)... from which we were expanding our territory with furious momentum, so we need to strengthen our productive forces by then)

The world deserved the name of the Warring States era, and there was always a war between some people.

But soldiers going to war usually have many peasant land samurai.

And the war casualties were still leading to a decline in rice productivity.

(In July of the eleventh year of Yonglu (1568), Ichikaku Memorial Day (Yoshiaki Fukuri) approached Nobunaga and began Shinnoku in September of the eleventh year of Yonglu (1568)... three years from now? Hmm, I guess it's time for Ise invasion that I have enough array)

Even when peasants are driven out into war, they create enough productivity to make up for it.

I was convinced that was the challenge Shizuko should address.

(You should rotate in succession and also do bifurcation. The fields should be turned into seedlings and seedlings instead of seeding them directly. Frame-wielding tools for full-blown planting, rotary field grass mowers for weeding, grain shedding machines used to handle and turn mowed rice ears. Using them alone will dramatically increase your productivity!

Honestly, there was too much to do and my eyes seemed to turn.

But more than that, she was sweeping her hopes that she would be able to use the vast farmland.