CHAPTER 315: CHAPTER 225: GO DO SIDE MISSIONS

The Wanjin fleet also lingered for nearly ten days around Ota Port, territory of the Satake family, before once again hugging the coastline northwards. By now, however, the course had gradually shifted toward the northeast.

The next stop was the Soma family.

The Soma’s domain was tiny—or to put it another way, in the sparsely populated northeast region of Japan, the land controlled by the Soma family seemed a bit undersized. In fact, its area was only about the same as Owari, but this place would become pretty famous in later generations.

In later ages, this was around Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture—aka the place where Japan spent years dumping nuclear wastewater to gross out the entire planet.

Of course, in the Japan Middle Ages, nuclear power stations weren’t a thing, so it was perfectly safe here; there was no risk of a fish climbing aboard to chat with Harano, and certainly no chance of a Godzilla showing up to blast the Wanjin fleet sky-high with its laser breath.

After several days at sea, Harano led the Wanjin fleet to small Onahama Port, under the control of the Soma family.

Onahama Port sat at the mouth of the Abukuma River, with Soma’s seat of power, Odaka Castle, not far behind it. Since all of their neighboring clans were more powerful and their own domain was relatively small, the Soma family valued trade much more than their neighbors, striving to get more resources just to survive.

As a result, they actually welcomed the intimidating Wanjin fleet, offering special treatment. The area was relatively poor, with pretty average produce—the only things of note were pig iron, timber, and sea salt.

Yep, the coastline here was broad and gentle, with vast muddy flats perfect for building salt pans, and a climate great for sun-drying salt. It was one of the major salt-producing regions in the Japan Middle Ages. On top of that, the Japanese had only fully migrated here about 400 years ago, so the area was still relatively undeveloped and rich in forests—century-old timber everywhere. A great river, born in the mountains, flowed nearby, iron fields had been opened up, and the quality of the iron sand was outstanding.

Honestly, the Soma family’s goods kind of overlapped with Wanjin’s—a hidden competitor. Fortunately, Wanjin’s craftsmanship was miles ahead, so in the future they could treat this place as a raw materials depot, hauling pig iron and timber back for processing.

The Wanjin masters scouted around, didn’t sell much, but didn’t leave disappointed. On the contrary, they saw a lot of potential here and eagerly signed some contracts.

Mostly barter-style procurement contracts; the Mutsu Region lacked cloth and grain—a bit odd, because local rice production was actually decent, but the Soma family had been getting stomped on by the Date family for years, so they’d been on the defensive and were constantly burning through supplies. So some Wanjin masters—especially the freshly minted merchants—were tempted: buy grain and coarse cloth from the Nongwei Plain and bring it here in exchange for various raw materials.

Before, this would’ve been a bad deal, since Wanjin had their own iron mine, were expanding their iron fields, and had a glut of iron—the price almost crashed. But after opening up so many new markets and getting new orders for all their workshops, raw material prices shot back up.

Iron prices in particular were back to about seventy percent of normal levels, looking set for further increases. So the contracts were, for now, more of a trial run—better safe than sorry.

If one day orders are maxed out and Wanjin’s iron price shoots for the moon, plenty of the masters might be sweating buckets—so you can’t be too careful.

Plus, sea transport is dirt cheap. Sailing a thousand li by sea costs way less than hauling a hundred li by land—as long as water thieves don’t rob you, shipping costs for these raw materials are pretty much negligible. Same as in modern times, but even crazier—shipping a container 10,000 kilometers by sea costs only a little more than trucking it 100 kilometers by road.

Like, Argentinian beef can cross the Pacific and still tank the price of beef in China—it’s almost as cheap as local stuff.

Harano also took action, assigning folks from the "state-owned factory" to proactively make contacts and purchase premium timber to drag back to New Wanjin Port for shipbuilding. He also bought up coarse salt, planning to bring it back and process it into refined salt by recrystallization, ramping up output to crash the salt markets elsewhere and monopolize another juicy business.

Otherwise, relying solely on those few sun-drying factories in the middle of Chita Peninsula would never get the job done—and cost isn’t a problem either. Salt prices in the Mutsu Region were dirt cheap, with a long history of exports. Even more, 30% of the Soma family’s income came from selling salt. Bulk-buying and processing it at Wanjin cost nearly the same as sun-drying it themselves.

The Aoyu Region was a treasure trove in ancient times. Aside from being underdeveloped, everything else was better than Chita Peninsula—there were even gold mines. Honestly, Harano had the worst luck—every clan he visited had either a gold or silver mine, but Chita Peninsula had nothing but iron ore to its name.

It really is true—comparisons make you miserable.

Harano also liked the Soma family’s gold. He worked hard to pitch them some matchlock guns, even held a live-fire demo for the local bumpkins, and did all he could to talk them into shelling Date with iron cannons. Consider it a great leap forward in the popularization of firearms in the Japan Middle Ages.

Weapons sales were still a hugely profitable business in those days. Harano made off with another batch of gold before reluctantly setting sail again, continuing along the coastline northeast.

Beyond the Soma family was the Date family, but at this point, Date’s power base hadn’t moved to the Sendai area yet—their residence wasn’t at Sendai Castle or Sendai Port just yet.

Date didn’t have anything particularly special—armor and rice were their specialties, and Wanjin didn’t need either. The samurai stationed at Sendai Port, though, were very interested in Wanjin’s high-quality iron cannons and thought their Family Head would love them, so they bought a few. Harano didn’t actively market more, lest the Soma family get suddenly wiped out—like Onahama Port, which later got swallowed by the Date family.

He actually preferred things along the coast to stay a little chaotic. In the Satake–Date–Soma triangle, he’d already decided to support the weakest player: Soma.

At the very least, he couldn’t let the entire region be gobbled up by the Date family—not to mention, he’d already coaxed out several generations’ worth of gold from the Somas.

He didn’t linger in Sendai; after a brief rest, he moved on. Next up was the Oosaki family, but their sliver of coastal land was just wasteland, not even a proper port. Harano simply dropped off a few "life-saving group" observers in the local fishing villages and moved on—no chance for big trade with Oosaki for now.

After the Battle of Oshu, the Oosaki family also got absorbed by the Date family. Harano had wanted to help them hang on a bit longer, but it couldn’t be done.

After Oosaki came the Kasai family, who would also get annexed by Date eventually. Here, Harano managed to sell another batch of goods and even used the Kasais to get in touch with the inland Ashina Family, signing a contract to provide cheap gunpowder and iron cannons—making less profit, but all for the noble cause of "opposing Date hegemony."

You don’t know till you go—when you get there, it’s a shock. Most people focus on Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi when reading about the Warring States, but the reality is that the Date family was pretty darn fierce. They single-handedly beat up all their neighbors until nobody dared raise their head. Not good—one guy dominating things would ruin Wanjin’s business, so Harano had to give a helping hand.

Once Kasai business was wrapped up, Harano set sail again, this time nearly due north. Soon enough, he reached the Nanbu Family territory—"the tip of the seahorse."

This was the easternmost and northernmost tip of Japan Honshu Island. Although Nanbu’s domain was huge, the land was thinly populated, and, like the Dates, they didn’t get along. They were rivals for control of the Aoyu Region.

The Nanbu Family also had a fairly powerful navy to maintain their trade with Korea and Yakushima Island.

Harano took his time along the way, mostly stopping while the Wanjin merchant ships did business. By now, news of the Battle of Izu had reached the Nanbu region. Although the Nanbu navy wasn’t thrilled to have this outsider showing up to claim a share, they were at least ten times more cautious than the Satomi navy and had no intention of brawling with the Wanjin fleet.

Still, the Nanbu navy stubbornly blocked up the Tsugaru Strait, absolutely refusing to let the Wanjin navy enter this linchpin area in force.

Harano observed the Nanbu’s naval power for a while and figured they could mobilize at least two or three hundred ships. All the little islands in the strait were crawling with Nanbu sailors, and the hydrography and topography were so complex that the Wanjin navy couldn’t figure it out right away. Harano wasn’t about to go hot-headed and try blasting his way into the Nanbu front yard.

Right now, he was short on ships and at a disadvantage. No need to rush—he could always come back later.

So Harano stopped at the Nanbu’s place and had no plans, for now, to push through the strait to the north side of Honshu. Out there lay territory of the Ishiyama Honganji Temple, whose power dwarfed the Satomi navy two or threefold. With the current strength of the Wanjin navy, going there wouldn’t likely end well anyway.

This "sales expedition" ended here, but the results were substantial—Wanjin had acquired a bunch of new markets, taken in a flood of new orders, and secured sources of raw materials. That was enough development to last for a while.

On his command, they switched to a side quest. The fleet turned east toward Yakushima Island.

Yakushima Island, future Hokkaido, was where the people he needed could be found.