CHAPTER 334: CHAPTER 235: EARNING MERITS_2

These two men were the big bosses of the famous pirate group in Owari, the "Kawamata Group." Before Oda Nobunaga became the Family Head, he often hung out with them—he learned iron cannon skills from them, exercised by swimming together, and even in the ninja squad formed by Nobunaga, many members originally came from the "Kawamata Group."

Now that Nobunaga’s territory had expanded and his control over the Kawamata region grew stronger, the "Kawamata Group" had fully sided with the Oda Family. Hosokawa Shigekatsu, Maeno Nagakane, and others officially became Nobunaga’s personal attendants—of course, they’d been considered retainers before, but as vassal retainers, the kind of household retainer that comes from local powerful clans submitting to the daimyo; they weren’t really Nobunaga’s direct forces, or even the Oda’s forces at all. After all, these frontier clans had always played both sides and were common retainers of both the Oda and Saito families.

They had an old friendship with Nobunaga, and Nobunaga, being a loyal and nostalgic man, knew they couldn’t handle strict military discipline. So he didn’t assign them to the regular ashigaru units—instead, he organized them into a separate army, and sent Mi Jiulang, a grassroots warrior, to manage them.

Or, one could also say that Nobunaga assigned the wild samurai like Hosokawa Shigekatsu and Maeno Nagakane to Mi Jiulang as Yoriki Warriors. In the future, these men could also address Mi Jiulang as Lord. At most, it’s just that Mi Jiulang is a penniless upstart with no family background and can’t afford to support so many people for now, so it’s still Nobunaga who pays their stipends.

Harano looked at these three people and couldn’t help but smile, admiring Nobunaga’s stubbornness—Nobunaga really didn’t want the Owari landed clans to become too dominant. From early on, he planned to raise a batch of outside and grassroots samurai to balance things out. He had stuck to this for many years, and now, results were finally showing.

At the same time, Harano was also quite satisfied with Mi Jiulang’s current situation—after he secretly killed the "real monkey," he forcibly became Ningning’s unofficial teacher, making sure she wouldn’t be married off at eleven or twelve. As a result, Mi Jiulang wasn’t able to follow the monkey’s old path, didn’t marry the Asano family’s adopted daughter, didn’t gain the secret support of the Asano clan, one of Owari’s old powerful families—so he missed out on strong followers like Asano Nagamasa, had limited funds, and wore a clearly secondhand suit of armor, looking quite shabby.

Hmm, in history, Kinoshita Fumijiro’s capital for getting started was Ningning’s dowry; otherwise, he couldn’t even put together a proper set of armor for battle, let alone recruit a large group of retainers to establish his own force.

This was something Ningning herself said. After she became the "Lady Mother," she quarreled with the monkey in the Owari dialect, and once sarcastically told him to return her dowry.

According to the maid who watched at the time, the monkey flew into a rage but couldn’t do anything about it—he was completely in the wrong and almost suffocated on the spot.

Compared to Kinoshita Fumijiro, Mi Jiulang wasn’t developing well—at least, you could say he was missing a leg. To top it off, he didn’t even get the Kinoshita surname, which came from Kyoto and had higher status—Nobunaga found him a young widow from a ruined family, and he inherited the Nakamura Family name. Now Mi Jiulang’s full name was Nakamura Yajiro.

Of course, even though Mi Jiulang was "missing a leg," Harano still didn’t look down on him too much. After all, he had Nobunaga’s strong support behind him, and his other "leg" was still outstanding.

For example, among the people Nobunaga assigned to him, Maeno Nagakane was excellent in martial arts, skilled with iron cannon and naval warfare, brave and deadly in combat, while Hosokawa Shigekatsu was both wise and courageous—he even defended a castle and defeated Tokugawa Ieyasu. When attacking the Mouri Family, he bought up all the grain around Tottori Castle at high prices, causing the garrison to run out of food and achieving the feat of "thirst-killing at Tottori"—he was a famous general with well-known military exploits.

Later on, while still sick, he pacified all of Shikoku Island in just three months and forced Chosokabe Mototada to submit.

Of course, it wasn’t all his own work, but in Shikoku, he used both force and negotiation, all kinds of divide-and-conquer and tempting tactics. His performance was nothing short of excellent.

This guy was even good at internal administration—while serving as City Lord of Ryuno Castle in Harima Province, he managed to raise Ryuno’s annual harvest from 3,200 koku to 53,000 koku—a rise of 1,800%, basically turning Hosokawa Castle into Nagano Castle.

This was a result that three generations of Maeda Toshimasa hadn’t managed—he really had a knack for governance.

Compared to Takeda Hanbei, that so-called "genius military advisor" hyped up by later storytellers, Hosokawa Shigekatsu was actually the real strategist behind the "Oda grassroots samurai group" typified by the monkey. In fact, in history, Takeda Hanbei and the monkey weren’t even affiliated at all, not even part of the same group. During the monkey’s early rise, Hosokawa Shigekatsu’s contributions could be ranked number one.

So, with Nobunaga’s strong backing and these grassroots wild samurai from a pirate background supporting him, even without Ningning and the Asano family, Nakamura Yajiro might still carve out his own success.

In fact, without Ningning and the Asano family, he could still reach the monkey’s historical heights.

Harano didn’t underestimate the "lame monkey," hosted a banquet for them, and even chatted amiably with Maeno Nagakane and Hosokawa Shigekatsu to get acquainted.

When three rounds of drinks had gone by and five flavors of dishes were sampled, and these three had had their fill, Harano finally asked about their task.

Mi Jiulang did not conceal anything—Nobunaga had told him to go find help from the Wanjin Army if needed, so that’s why he made a detour to visit Matsukura Castle. At once, he respectfully said, "I was just about to inform Your Lordship. Our lord has sent us to sway the powerful clans around the Kisogawa River. I’m afraid this will cause Your Lordship some trouble, so I ask for your guidance and assistance."