CHAPTER 232: CHAPTER 164: MY SISTER CAN’T MARRY FOR NOTHING!

As for the marriage alliance with the Oda Danjo Chonosuke family, overall, Harano was quite satisfied.

The main thing was that Princess Dog was a much better choice than he had expected. He really hadn’t thought Oda Nobunaga would send over such a soft pushover, someone who’d probably accept being thrown directly into the Cold Palace without protest—so easy to bully that all his precautionary measures turned out to be unnecessary.

So the main problem brought by this alliance actually became Princess Dog’s entourage of accompanying attendants.

The primary duty of these people was to serve Princess Dog, ensuring her safety and daily life. The staff included everything from Samurai and Lang Faction to Grooms and Coachmen, from Chefs and Tailors to Maids and Maidservants—basically, whatever you could think of.

Theoretically, these people all became part of the Nozawa family. The Samurai brought as part of the dowry were, in effect, household retainers; Harano could even assign them to follow him into battle—just like when Nongji married into the Oda Danjo Chonosuke family back then: the renowned Minoh military general Ando Shouji had been sent to accompany Nongji and genuinely fought several battles alongside Oda Nobuhide.

But, you wouldn’t even need to use your ass to guess—there had to be Oda Danjo Chonosuke’s spies among them. Even if they weren’t spies, their hearts would still lean toward the Oda Danjo Chonosuke family. Otherwise, what’s the point? No one’s going to give away a princess for nothing without at least this benefit.

In the Japan Middle Ages, Daimyo absolutely loved marrying off princesses, largely because it meant they could send over a group like this, making sure the relatives by marriage leaned toward their own side and could secretly keep tabs on their movements.

Take, for example, Asai Nagamasa, the "Hawk of Omi," who married Princess Ichi. At a time when Oda Nobunaga seemed unstoppable, he suddenly betrayed them—nearly closing the doors and trapping Nobunaga—largely due to the Asai Family’s repeated marriage alliances with the Asakura Family, which left them with loads of retainers loyal to the Asakura. With all those internal connections, their power was so strong that even Asai Nagamasa didn’t dare ignore them, forcing him into a decision that looks unbelievably stupid through the lens of history—the Asai Family, just like the Tokugawa family, were Oda’s allies (at least nominally). But one ended up following Oda all the way to founding the Edo Shogunate, while the other family died out, utterly destroyed. How do you even reason with that?

As for why Asai Nagamasa failed to "trap the dog in the cage," it was also due to his marriage alliance with the Oda Family. Just as he was about to cut off Oda Nobunaga’s retreat, the household retainers accompanying Princess Ichi immediately noticed and reported to Nobunaga, leading Nobunaga to turn tail and run, making it to the Minoh border before finally turning back to fight the Asai-Asakura coalition—and so he suffered almost no real losses.

For this reason, the Edo Period even produced a pretty entertaining kabuki play about it: "Beans in a Sack."

Rumor has it that Princess Ichi sent Nobunaga a sausage-shaped bean sack, tied at both ends, filled with beans. Everyone else was baffled, but Nobunaga took one look and instantly realized it was a warning from his sister—he understood he was about to be attacked from both sides. So he decisively retreated and escaped danger.

Now Harano was enjoying the same treatment as Asai Nagamasa—a princess from the Oda Family in his house. But as for this softie princess, he didn’t mind; he could easily support her. The household retainers, Lang Faction, and house servants that came as an Oda bonus—he didn’t want a single one of them, even though he was desperately short on manpower.

After all, he didn’t even want to recruit new household retainers. How could he allow a bunch of cut-rate retainers to set up their own cliques on his turf?

Not even under the flag of the princess!

But New Wanjin and the Oda Danjo Chonosuke family were still in their honeymoon period, so it wasn’t suitable to send these people packing—it would be a real slap in the face to Oda Nobunaga. So, after the wedding, the first thing he did was meet with three of these Samurai, offered a few warm and comforting words, and then enthusiastically suggested he’d like to give Princess Dog a small village as a private estate and villa, coaxing them and their Lang Faction to go take charge of building the village—effectively quarantining them, and getting some use out of them to boot.

As for the remaining house servants—maids, maidservants and the like—they had all sorts of random skills nobody could really use, but it would be awkward to be too obvious about it, so for now he just kept them around in the estate, monitoring them discretely and slowly dispersing them over time—as long as they didn’t get their hands on any confidential information, nothing else mattered. Harano had no plans to sneak attack Oda Nobunaga, so he wasn’t worried about them sending secret "bean sacks."

Princess Dog didn’t care about any of this either. Aside from her two maids, Ah Zhong and Ah Xia, who had grown up with her, she wasn’t familiar with the rest of her entourage at all. As long as Ah Zhong and Ah Xia stayed by her side, she barely noticed anything had changed. Plus, she really was that soft; as long as Harano didn’t mistreat her, she was perfectly content. She was still quite young, married off as part of a political alliance like a duck being pushed onto a perch, not understanding much. But living here with Harano, she was genuinely happy.

This honestly relieved Harano. He didn’t have any real feelings for Princess Dog—at least not right now. Strictly speaking, the two of them were basically strangers; feelings don’t just magically appear. Still, he didn’t want to harm an innocent kid, so he was willing to put in some effort to make sure she could live a bit better.

Now that she was truly happy, Harano could relax and put his energy back into work.

The recovery of Wanjin’s production didn’t worry him; Endo Chiyoda and the others were handling things well and increasingly acted like real civil officials. Harano’s main role was drawing up contingency plans, preparing for a future with more residents—like making arrangements to set up a few more specialized civilian departments and so on.

So during this period, he mainly took advantage of the steady trickle of islanders coming to join them, building a small shipyard near the New Wanjin docks and starting to experiment with building ships himself. The only problem was, his previous field of study had nothing to do with shipbuilding, so he wasn’t much help; the islanders’ shipbuilding skills were crude as hell. After much tinkering, the shipyard could only produce a few fishing boats in the small early boat style. As for building actual warships, he’d have to find a "Chief Engineer" somehow.

Only then could some of Harano’s bigger plans have a shot at becoming real. Otherwise, it’d just be empty talk. Of course, such specialists weren’t easy to find—at least not around Ise Bay. He sent Ah Man out to look for one and came up empty, so he just added it to his mental to-do list and focused on stockpiling decent shipbuilding materials, so that if and when a "chief" showed up, he wouldn’t be short of lumber.

Other than this, he also spent a lot of time at the barracks; after all, this was the root of New Wanjin—without this army, he was nothing at all.

The Wanjin Army’s discipline was as strict as ever. The soldiers were kept on a tight leash—over five hundred of them (with a few wounded and new recruits coming in), nothing but constant drills. After fighting a few battles, Harano had new ideas, and for his long-term plan, he set up a training squad specializing in political education for the troops. He knew that relying solely on harsh discipline was not enough—political training might work better.

Of course, there was no way he was relaxing discipline. Even some of the mid-ranking officers had gently suggested that he didn’t have to keep the troops so strictly contained—it might snap and backfire. But he still refused to budge—human nature being what it is in East Asia, the moment there’s the slightest loophole in the rules, people start picking at it until it becomes a hole you could drive a hundred-ton truck through in three to five years.

Correct an excess with another excess—if that made him a "bad guy," so be it. If there was no decapitation today for breaking discipline, tomorrow folks would be out there raping and pillaging at will, and there’d be soldiers casually taking a few chickens home from the villages even while carrying out orders. He’d fought with Oda Nobunaga several times—never once were there no Lang Faction and Ashigaru running amok, even auctioning off loot openly in the camp. He did not want to see his own army end up like that mess.

If it did turn out like that, there’d be no fixing it.

If he tried, odds are it’d be his own head rolling!

So he thought it over for ages and decided there’d be absolutely no compromise on military discipline—not a single inch, not even if it meant getting rid of another thirty-odd men. But it wouldn’t hurt to balance strictness with a little softness—play up "Love Wanjin-ism," push more political education, hold more activities to boost honor and morale, and encourage the troops to obey discipline of their own accord. Maybe that would work better.

Anyway, he planned to try it out for a while and see. After all, he’d never been a real soldier, knew jack about the military, and could only learn on the job, making up his own rules as he went along.

With how busy he was, life quieted down, no one came to beat him up, and autumn and winter passed quickly. He reached his third year after being stranded in this era; New Wanjin was steadily growing. But just as he’d expected, the more things he wanted to work on, and with every workshop expanding, plus spring plowing coming up, the manpower shortage was once again biting him hard. No matter what he tried, there just weren’t enough people to go around.

Once again, he started to stew over it, not knowing where to dig up more labor. Some days, he even wished Imagawa Yoshimoto would quit with his internal turf wars, hurry up and head west to Shangluo and get himself killed, so he could hand over the Chita Peninsula already. Other days, he’d ponder how the neighbors seemed to have so many tasty prospects; maybe he could tempt their people over with food and money—would that count as violating an alliance oath?

Several days in a row, he racked his brain for all kinds of dirty tricks, cooking up one wicked scheme after another, head pounding from lack of people, when Ah Man suddenly sent an urgent intelligence report—something had happened in Minoh; the Saito father and son were fighting!

To be precise, it was Saito Dosan and his illegitimate eldest son, Saito Yoshitada, who were at war. Saito Yoshitada was ruthless as hell: he had already butchered two of Saito Dosan’s legitimate sons and planned to do in his dear old dad too, not to mention Saito Dosan had already lost Inaba Castle. Minoh was a mess.

Both sides were busy summoning allies, getting ready for a showdown to decide who was the true lord of Minoh.

Harano was stunned. Who would have thought that just before spring plowing, something this wild would happen? The Saito family really lived up to their reputation as the Viper Clan—the father was literally getting gutted by his own little viper son. While he was marveling at this perverse father-son relationship, Oda Nobunaga’s messenger showed up right after the intel, requesting that the Nozawa family fulfill its alliance, assist the Oda Danjo Chonosuke family in aiding their other ally, and stand by them as promised.

Ah yes—can’t let the little sister marry for nothing. If the brother-in-law’s heading out to save the father-in-law, then the brother-in-law’s in for some military action, too.