CHAPTER 131: CHAPTER 82: JUST TREAT IT AS BUYING PERSONAL ACCIDENT INSURANCE!

Harano’s idea of looking for the monkey was really simple—he was just bored.

He had no money and nothing to do lately, and suddenly remembered the monkey guy, so he thought about finding him and whacking him on the head, hoping to change history a bit—since the monkey was directly linked to the war in Korea, and indirectly with the rise of the Later Jin. If he managed to club this kid into an idiot, maybe he’d save millions of lives!

What a huge merit that would be. With that kind of good karma on his record, who knows, maybe he’d become a sage on the spot and ascend straight back to the modern world. No more stress about being stuck in the Middle Ages of Japan, where any day could be the day he got himself killed.

Unfortunately, he’d time-traveled at the wrong moment. The monkey was totally untraceable at this point, so the dream of ascending had to be put on hold. He could only go check out his future wife, see if he could maybe mess up one of the foundations of the monkey’s future success first.

So the next morning, he took Ah Man and Ah Qing, plus two jars of soy sauce and a box of rice cakes as gifts, and went off to visit Asano Nagasuke at Nagano Castle—okay, maybe the gifts looked a bit dumb, but in Japan they were totally normal. Even five hundred years later, you could still roll up with those. Back in ancient times? That was downright fancy.

It was only a 20-30 minute horseback ride from Takeshige Manor to Nagano Castle, so he just let the horse amble along and asked about the new workshop director, Maeshima Shichiro: "How’s Maeshima doing at the workshop?"

"All normal," Ah Man replied—she’d been running around a lot lately but still kept up with the news at home. "He’s moved into the workshop, lives together with that bunch of ’old, weak, sick, and disabled’ types, works pretty hard, doesn’t steal stuff, hasn’t poked his nose into anything weird. So far, nothing shady, and there’s nobody backing him."

Harano nodded lightly, feeling more than half at ease. If Maeshima Shichiro really was an honest, hard-working guy who was loyal to him—even if he was average at best—after a couple more years, it wouldn’t be a problem to make his employment official.

He told Ah Man to keep an eye on Maeshima for now, but if he checked out, she could leave him be. Then he turned to Ah Qing: "How much extra money did we make this month?"

"Added about 430 kan," Ah Qing replied. She was only a part-time vault guard, the ledgers were with Yayoi, but she roughly knew how much was in the vault.

Harano thought that was decent. Right now, they had enough people, raw materials were coming in, and workshop profits were way up. They were making 430 kan in a month—meaning a guaranteed 5,000 kan or so a year. That was already similar to the annual income of the Hosokawa Family—whose real capacity was six or seven thousand koku, which turned into about 5,000 kan in cash.

Of course, that’s just income, not actual strength. The Hosokawa Family also had seven to eight thousand people—if every single one punched him once, he’d be ground into paste. That population was their real asset, and he was way behind on that front.

But since income was recovering, the finances were getting healthy...

Harano thought for a moment, then asked Ah Man: "Should we be hiring again? Some top-tier guys for our Lang Faction, is it time to start recruiting them?"

He’d been planning this for a while, wanting to hire some muscle to boost their fighting strength. But with only 200-something kan in hand (medical fees from treating wounded soldiers), which was also the workshop’s startup money, he hadn’t dared to use it yet. So he’d put it off till now.

"More fighters?" Ah Man looked unsure—it seemed unnecessary for now. "We don’t really need it at the moment. Oda Nobunaga has already tamed most of the major bandit and pirate groups in the Lower Four Provinces, so the roads are pretty safe now. The handful of small-time thugs left wouldn’t dare mess with people like us, so spending that kind of money seems pointless."

After a pause, she added, "You definitely don’t need it yourself. We live on Oda Nobunaga’s manor—if someone wanted to kill you, they’d have to break in first. Not many in Owari can do that, and even fewer would dare try."

Building up a crack Lang Faction isn’t as simple as just grabbing some random dudes—it costs a ton of money.

If you want Lang Faction to go fight, you can’t have them run in naked, right? At the very least, give them a set of armor. That’s a baseline of 10 kan each.

If you want them to look the part, use better armor with more iron, so they’ll live longer in a fight and have more punch—you’re looking at 16-17 kan minimum, maybe 20 kan for something decent. Add in an array hat, array boots, leg wraps, short knife, bow and arrow, one-room spear, and all sorts of life necessities—25 kan probably still isn’t enough.

And these guys have to eat—a lot. Each one costs another 2–3 kan a year for food. If they train more, they’ll eat even better, and you’ll want to give them bonuses now and then for morale. If things get serious, 2–3 kan per head might not cut it, you’ll need 3–4 kan.

So overall, to fully equip and train a Lang Faction into an elite unit with enough loyalty and bravery to actually charge ahead in battle, you’re looking at a solid 30 kan per person. And hiring just one or two is useless—you need to at least hire a squad. Which means that 430 kan surplus is gone in a flash, and no wonder Ah Man was hesitant.

Harano sighed along with her analysis.

War really is a massive money pit. He used to think 5,000 kan a year was a lot; but in reality, that only arms a hundred or so Lang Faction, and just as "regular house guards." Upgrading them to "Iron Cannon Lang Faction" to keep up with the times would set him back another 7,000–10,000 kan easily.

Seriously, this is so much harder than in Taiko 2, where you just click a couple buttons, no need to sweat about military strength at all. But reality? It’s endless hassle.

Though honestly, even the Hosokawa Family only had a dozen Samurai, maybe a hundred or so Lang Faction, and with Oda Nobuhide lost two battles and almost became paupers—they didn’t even finish building their main castle.

Looks like just barely protecting yourself in chaos really is this hard!

So I can’t slack off—I gotta keep hustling for cash!

Ah Man saw him sighing and figured he’d finally given up on burning money. But to her shock, when Harano finished his sigh, he went on: "In that case, let’s start by hiring ten! It’s okay if it’s hard, we’ll just save up for a year or two. No big rush, it’s not dangerous right now, we still have time."

Yeah, it’s tough—and these ten probably won’t be much use short-term, pretty much just wasting money. But Harano thought it was worth it. What else is he going to do with all those copper coins? He could hardly eat that much himself, so he might as well start converting his trashy coppers into strength for a rainy day.

Ah Man shot him a look of utter disbelief, back to not understanding: "You really can’t wait to burn any bit of money you get, huh? Why can’t you just save a little? You’re not even fighting wars—why do you need so many Lang Faction willing to throw their lives on the line? You’ll never use them! Are you just determined to throw money down the drain?"

You wild kid...

Harano was about to fire back and argue about who’s really in charge here, but thinking of his new persona, he hesitated, dialed back his tone, and gave a big sigh: "I just have this feeling—a premonition, you know—that an even greater chaos is coming. So building up strength will never hurt, even if it’s just a little. So... just listen to me! And don’t worry too much about the money—I’ll figure it out. No way I’m letting everyone go hungry!"

Ah Man had been ready to bicker till they reached a verdict, but seeing him like this threw her. She stared at him suspiciously for a while, hesitated, then didn’t argue, "Fine, it’s your money—do what you want. I just don’t see what use they’ll be... but then, you’ve got a point, things are only getting messier. Worst case, it’s good to have more warm bodies, just in case!"

Oh? That easy to convince her? Back in the day, this would’ve taken a shouting match and wrestling her into it, and then she’d grumble forever, always claiming "I told you so" if anything went wrong—so damn annoying...

So you’re really the type that only responds to a gentle touch, wild child?

Never noticed that before!

Harano just wanted to channel Yuan Bei or Yuan Xuande, get some XP for his new character setup, but seems he’s accidentally found Ah Man’s soft spot. Well... might as well keep bossing her around from here on out!

He thought about it and immediately hammered it home: "I’m clueless about all the fighting and killing stuff, so I’m counting on you! Go pick out some good people, figure out what armor and weapons they’ll need, make me a list, and go buy what we need."

"Fine," Ah Man finally gave up resisting, and so all this busywork just automatically landed with her. "Once I’ve decided, I’ll let you know. Later, we can ask Ah Qing to teach them some martial arts, so they’ll last a little longer in a fight, and at least our money won’t go straight down the drain."

Harano put on his most earnest face—this new persona is really freaking useful—then clapped her on the shoulder: "Awesome, I leave it to you. I trust you! You’ve always been super reliable!"

"You talk crap—I’ve always been reliable, duh!"

Ah Man fired back, feeling a little smug, but also kind of weirded out. These last couple days, Harano had been off somehow—she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. After thinking for a bit, she whispered to Ah Qing, who was sitting behind her: "That second-hand donkey at home... you keep an eye on it, okay? I think there’s something wrong with that beast!"

Other than that second-hand donkey sneaking into Harano’s room every night and ruthlessly kicking him in the head, she really couldn’t figure out why Harano had gotten so weird lately.

But honestly, his new weirdness was kind of pleasant, so... not really a bad thing...

......

All the way, Harano joked around with Ah Man and settled on a "military budget" for each month, planning to slowly raise his fighting capacity each month—just consider it buying accidental life insurance. What else could he do? This was just the start, with only 5,000 kan a year and no way to spend it ahead of time, his finances were tight, he couldn’t get everything at once, so just had to stockpile bit by bit. Maybe in a year he’d see results.

But honestly, he was already doing way better than 99% of Samurai without inheritance rights. Most just had to find a Lord, live on their annual stipend, feed maybe three to five retainers, and hope they’d one day do something crazy on the battlefield and get awarded some fief. Only then did their life start improving.

Harano didn’t chat with Ah Man any further, instead thinking about other ways to make more money, or build up another new industry—one that only he could control, and that even if he died, would die with him. No medieval Japan tech boom, thanks very much. But he didn’t have any ideas yet, and before he could puzzle it out, they’d already arrived at Asano Nagasuke’s house with Ah Man leading the way.

Asano’s place was seriously impressive—even grander than the Kinoshita family’s mansion. After all, it was built right in the Castle Town—it just had that city vibe, made it look fancier. Harano dismounted in front, glanced at the "Asano Family Head" calligraphy on the gate’s nameplate, and, as usual, his mind started to drift off.

The Asano Family... the future "lords of Akashi Domain," the main characters of the "Chushingura" event—super famous in later Japanese history.

This really was fate’s way of playing tricks. Maybe Asano Nagasuke, even totally drunk, would never expect that adopting a random orphan girl would one day let his plain old family become rulers of a whole province, surviving for centuries.

Wonder if that really counts as "good people get good rewards"!