CHAPTER 241: CHAPTER 173: ENTERING ANOTHER TURBULENT AUTUMN

Oda Nobuhiro’s life is like a tragedy with a flair for comedy.

Back when he was a young City Lord of Anxiang City, he had his moments of high spirits and ambition, too. But after Anxiang City was taken, he became a prisoner of the Imagawa family, and everything changed. When he was eventually exchanged back with Tokugawa Ieyasu, he basically disappeared from everyone’s sight, becoming the best synonym for "loser." When he finally tried to pull himself together and get back on stage, he realized that all his tragedies came from his own incompetence—he couldn’t take a hit to save his life—even his failed rebellion was worse than his half-brother, Oda Shinsei.

He secretly colluded with Saito Yoshitada—or maybe it was Saito Yoshitada secretly tempting him—in hopes of striking during the grain shipment transfer from Qingzhou City, seizing the city by surprise, and then joining Saito Yoshitada to attack Oda Nobunaga from both fronts. That way, he could leapfrog into becoming a local power, or maybe even take over as the new Family Head of the Dan Zhengzhong family.

In the end, even when he led his Household Retainers and the Lang Faction to revolt inside the city, he couldn’t even manage to startle Oda Nobunaga. Sawaki Tengyou, the acting City Guardian of Qingzhou City (originally the City Guardian of Nagano Castle, and foster father of Sawaki Ryoji), led a handful of Household Retainers to mount a counterattack. Nobuhiro’s Household Retainers and Lang Faction just scattered to the winds, totally collapsing. He himself simply ran for his life, vanishing without a trace.

When Harano saw the new report the next day, he couldn’t help sighing that this guy really had reached a new level of uselessness. Ambitious but useless—he could even turn a rebellion into a full-blown joke.

If someone has to live like Oda Nobuhiro, it’s better to just off yourself and be done with it.

And with Oda Nobuhiro’s joke of a rebellion ending in failure, the Saito army turned around and headed back to Minoh without hesitation. Looks like Saito Yoshitada was fine with the plan falling through, wasn’t about to risk everything to force a river crossing, and couldn’t care less about saving face. They just sauntered home again.

Or maybe, working together with Nobunaga’s illegitimate older brother’s rebellion was his main goal in coming at all. Now the main goal’s accomplished, and having disgusted Oda Nobunaga—the guy who’d dared to disgust him—he’s satisfied for now and going home to wait for the next opportunity.

This time, Harano came all the way here and ended up just watching a farce, but he felt like Owari had entered another period of restless times—Saito Yoshitada isn’t especially famous in later generations, so Harano didn’t know much about him, but he does seem to be an even bigger schemer than his dad, Saito Dosan. With this guy eyeing Owari from Minoh like a tiger, things around here definitely won’t stay peaceful.

But with the battle over, seeing there was nothing left to do, Harano just bid his farewells and returned straight back to New Wanjin.

Only, before he’d even warmed his seat at New Wanjin, Ah Man showed up with the latest news. Not that she thought any of it mattered—she just tossed it onto his desk, then told A Qing to give her some more money on the spot. Reason being, "The old man isn’t easy to support, spends money like water, and already burned through the last bit of support payment, so needs a top-up." Ah Man’s monthly salary was managed by A Qing—after all, she had a notorious track record of drinking and gambling like mad. Even though she’d matured a bit these days and wasn’t as wild as before, they still didn’t dare let her hold onto too much cash.

At this stage, if she needed money for anything, she had to ask A Qing and explain why, or just fish some coins out of Harano’s pocket for emergencies.

Harano didn’t bother about how the sisters managed their grandpa. He just picked up the news excerpts, glanced at them, and said with mild surprise, "Oda Nobuhiro actually didn’t die..."

Oda Nobuhiro raided Qingzhou City... If you could even call that a raid. After flopping at his "surprise attack," he fled to a temple outside Shoushan City, planning to shave his head and become a monk to escape trouble, but of course that was useless. As soon as Oda Nobunaga returned to Qingzhou City, he hauled him back. Still, for Niwa Nagahide’s sake, he didn’t kill him, just confiscated his lands and stripped him of "guardianship" over all his kids. Especially his daughter Ah Take, who was promptly adopted as Nobunaga’s foster daughter, becoming a direct member of the Dan Zhengzhong family—Ah Take being Niwa Nagahide’s lawful wife, meaning Niwa Nagahide was now Oda Nobunaga’s son-in-law.

Reading these latest excerpts, Harano felt his eyes pop open for the umpteenth time—these days you can even snatch someone else’s daughter? As expected of Japan’s Warring States—there’s nothing too weird around here...

But by that logic, doesn’t that make him... Niwa Nagahide’s uncle-in-law?

And Niwa Nagahide is around the same age as Maeda Toshie, Monkey, and the like, all really close friends. So doesn’t that mean he’s also... Monkey’s elder?

For a moment, his thoughts spiraled out—suddenly feeling his status level up several notches. Meanwhile, Ah Man, under the banner of "supporting the elderly," managed to pry a few silver coins out of A Qing’s hands—worth a good few kan, enough to live wildly for days. Satisfied, she stashed them in her pocket and tossed out, "Keeping useless trash like that around doesn’t matter, dead or alive, who cares."

Harano gathered back his wandering thoughts, nodded slightly. Indeed, anyone who can turn a rebellion into slapstick just isn’t worth worrying about dead or alive. On the other hand, it shows Oda Nobunaga can’t be called a tyrant right now—he’s still at the mutually beneficial stage; with family elders and even his own brothers taking turns to rebel, and he still hasn’t killed a single one. By the standards of the era, that’s a pretty open-minded guy. Makes it easier for Harano to do business with him too.

Turning this over in his mind, Harano flipped through the rest of the messy news—local prices, harvests, troop deployments—routine stuff, nothing that stood out. So he told Ah Man, "Send a team over to Minoh. We need to start keeping tabs on Saito Yoshitada’s movements."

Harano felt that Oda Nobuhiro’s rebellion was just Saito Yoshitada’s "warm-up exercise," and for a long time to come, Wanjin Army’s main opponent would be the Minoh army under Saito Yoshitada, plus all sorts of his underhanded schemes. Minoh had to be added to the surveillance network.

At least until Saito Yoshitada dies, anyway—though Harano couldn’t for the life of him remember when that was, nor how he died. He only vaguely recalled that the guy croaked before the Battle of Okehazama, since after Okehazama, Oda Nobunaga went from defense to offense against Minoh, started invading big-time, and the enemy by then seemed to be Saito Yoshitada’s son, Saito Ryuko—a total good-for-nothing who apparently got taken down by Nobunaga in short order, letting Nobunaga swallow up Minoh and fully seize the Nongwei Plain, which became the great granary fueling his march on Shangluo and his bid to rule the land.

Ah Man didn’t object outright to Harano’s order, but scratched her head in trouble, hesitating, "We don’t really have many people to spare right now. Should the ’Life-saving Group’ start recruiting again?"

The Life-saving Group was Wanjin’s current "Eastern Depot" (domestic surveillance) and "Ninja Squad" (military intel) rolled into one. With manpower tight and most of the focus on territory-building lately, hiring had all but stopped. But now there’s new trouble, and Harano didn’t hesitate, saying, "Keep recruiting. Make up a list of whatever staff and resources you need, let me take a look, and if there’s no problem, you got it."

This was proper business. Ah Man’s bean-sized brows shot up, and she accepted the order immediately: "Got it! I’ll get right on it when I get back."

"And don’t just stew on it by yourself." Harano paused for a moment, then asked, "How’s your grandpa... Izumi Hichiji senior’s injury doing? Think he’d want to come back to work?"

"You want the old man to get back to the grindstone?" Ah Man was surprised for a sec, then got it, but hesitated: "His injuries are about eighty percent healed, and he’s pretty familiar with Minoh. But... forget it. He’s so old, got hurt for real this time, now half-crippled. I’d rather he just lived out his days quietly in New Wanjin."

After a pause, she added, "Or if he wants to drink himself to death, that’s fine too—I’ll just get a huge tub of booze and bury him in it when the time comes."

A Qing, sitting quietly to the side, looked up with a chilly, calm stare—seems she cared too. Harano was forcibly rendered speechless for a bit—excuse me, what the hell is "buried in a wine barrel" supposed to be?

Is it for preservation? Or maybe some top-secret Life-saving Style medicinal wine technique?

He took a few seconds to process before hurriedly waving his hand: "That’s not what I meant! I’ve got no problem with the old gentleman retiring in New Wanjin. We’re not starving for food here, we don’t need him slaving away anymore. I just thought that if he wanted to do something, maybe he could work as an advisor."

"Advisor?" Ah Man was confused. "What kind of bird is an advisor?"

"It just means he doesn’t have to do anything physical or exhausting—just give a suggestion or two on the important stuff when needed—a kind of... position?" All Harano wanted was to tap the old man’s deep river of streetwise knowledge. No need for fighting anymore. He’s got iron cannons now—anyone steps out of line, just blast ’em.

Ah Man more or less got it, rubbing her chin and thinking a bit: "Does he get a monthly salary?"

"Yeah—same rate as you and your sister."

Ah Man nodded at once. "Okay, I’ll ask him about it later!"

Harano was just tossing it out there—hell, even in modern times, this old guy would be retired. He didn’t want to force an old man to work, so he reminded her again: "If he doesn’t want to, just leave it. Everything else as usual."

"Got it."

Ah Man responded casually, got up, and went off to find the old man and ask how he felt. She figured grandpa’s health wasn’t as bad as it looked anyway—might last another ten years easy. Maybe he could make himself useful again, and leave some inheritance for her.

With her gone, Harano checked over other paperwork, making sure everything had run smoothly while he’d been gone from New Wanjin. The subordinates handled their jobs great—didn’t need him micromanaging like, "move the ridge five inches south" for no reason—so he left the office and went to his quarters to rest.

His home was really quiet during the day. After all, he’d only married one wife so far—who turned out to be a total pushover, always wishing she could bury her head in the dirt and play ostrich, absolutely incapable of making much noise. So well-behaved it’s un-princess-like.

Of course, who knows what princesses are like once they’re married off to other families? Maybe that’s just how princesses were in this era—not too spoiled. Someday, he planned to do a little research on the topic—"On the Princesses of Japan Warring States Period." Maybe when he got back to modern times, he could even publish a world-class paper and score some course credit.