If he really had to pay three thousand Kan, his payroll would explode—he flat-out wouldn't be able to pay the rest of his men.

Oda Nobunaga was also a notorious big spender. For his loyal Samurai like Ikegami Keisuke and Maeda Toshie, their annual salary was usually four or five hundred Kan—never more than a thousand. If it ever went above a thousand, he might as well just hand them some land, so they could make and spend money on their own.

And historical figures like the "monkey" were even more stingy. For example, when Yamana Ichitomu had just joined the monkey, his annual stipend was only twenty Kan. He couldn't even afford a decent horse, and it took Endo Chiyoda secretly selling her dowry and doing business on the side just to outfit him with a good horse and gear—he finally caught the monkey's eye at the Kyoto grand review.

Harano didn't buy it either way, and had zero faith in this so-called "Genius Military Advisor." Once he realized Minoh had pulled itself together again, he just glanced at the intel and threw it aside.

Unity was good, anyway. The longer Minoh fought Oda Nobunaga, the better. After all, once Oda Nobunaga took Minoh, he'd start expanding westward per his alliance with Matsudaira Ieyasu, and the first stop to the west of Owari Province would be Ise Province.

Harano couldn't really recall which year Oda Nobunaga captured Inaba Castle—his memory for history wasn't that good. But he vaguely remembered that Nobunaga struck soon after taking Minoh, so it probably wasn't more than a few years away.

So he had to make his move before Oda Nobunaga took Minoh. Like a game of Go, he had to seize the crucial spots first—at the very least, occupy the area where Ise Province bordered Owari Province, to box in Oda Nobunaga instead. If he didn't, he'd be back in jail again.

If you gave the enemy the benefit of the doubt—even including however long the actual fighting might last—by next year… no, wait, it's already spring, so it'll be this year. After this year's autumn harvest would be the final deadline at the latest—it couldn't drag out beyond next year.

Time was still a bit tight. When Harano got back to New Wanjin Port, he didn't get any rest—instead, he rushed to check how things had gone with all the orders he'd left during his time garrisoning Matsukura Castle.

After checking around, things seemed alright. Wanjin was on a rapid upswing; government was clean, work was efficient, and his previously pent-up "mischief" had all been carried out to the letter. Progress had been huge.

With the help of the Wanjin Navy, Wanjin had set up relatively stable trade routes with small coastal warlords and Earth Warriors on the Ise Peninsula. They were actively delivering Wanjin goods—like refined salt—to their doors. At the same time, they were aggressively buying up all the cats' owls, frog legs, wasp nests and such "Witchcraft Supplies" Harano needed. Someone even got clever and invented a "distribution model."

Want to get more salt, dyed cloth, and porcelain at rock-bottom prices?

Sure! Three owls gets you an extra koku at the low price. Otherwise, twenty wasp nests or a hundred frog legs will do—so hurry and buy them up from inland!

At the same time, they also bought up fine ramie cloth as well as premium linen and cotton at high prices. After all, hardly anyone in this world would turn down a good deal, and Wanjin people were happy to place orders and pay a deposit. That was enough to tempt the local warlords—who'd ruthlessly drag farmers off their fields to soak and strip ramie.

Or, they'd forcibly convert some grain fields into cotton fields, hoping for a bigger cotton harvest and a tidy profit from Wanjin buyers next year.

This "acquisition campaign" had been running for over half a year already. The Witchcraft Supplies in storage were piling up—so much so that frog leg kabobs and frog stew had become trendy snacks at the Wanjin night market. Arrow-making, beeswax production, and honey reserves had skyrocketed. The costs were also considerable.

Yeah, buying up these "Witchcraft Supplies" was really to sabotage the enemy on the sly—but they weren't useless. As soon as they could cross Ise Bay at an angle, pickled frog meat could be brought back and eaten as long as the weather allowed. Wanjin needed beeswax for casting cannon molds; they were short on this, so buying extra was a win.

Honey was an excellent antibacterial and anti-inflammatory—keeps for years without spoiling—hugely strategic. Wanjin had always kept some as an emergency medicine. It could also be sold as sugar, boosting public happiness.

But even so, Wanjin still couldn't absorb so many odds and ends. Even if nothing would go to waste by stockpiling, it tied up cashflow and hiked extra costs, and reselling things like white ramie cloth to the Kantou and Northeast Region was pure money-losing business. It was basically sold at cost price, and Wanjin had to subsidize shipowners and traders for freight. If it weren't for Harano's call to action, those shipowners and merchants wouldn't want to touch this business at all.

Half a year in, Wanjin had lost a ton of money. If Harano, as the first-generation head, hadn't insisted with iron will, this bizarre operation would've been dead in the water ages ago.

This counted as the Seven-Injuries Fist—if he couldn't beat the daimyo and warlords of the Ise Peninsula to death, at least they'd need three to five years to recover. For now, even Wanjin itself was seriously winded, with rising financial strain.

Endo Chiyoda and Maeshima Shichiro had both tried to talk to him, indirectly asking whether he'd stockpiled enough by now, hinting it was time to stop; but Harano wouldn't listen. He was racing against time, and was willing to pay the price—so instead he started shaking down the interior for cash again.

First, he wanted to issue bonds—basically borrowing from the people to turn things around. But Wanjin's Paper Currency had fragile credibility and just never caught on. There was no precedent to bond sales, and a little interest wasn't enough to tempt people who could just hoard a few pieces of gold at home instead. Bonds just weren't moving, so he switched to selling land instead.

Of course, he was selling only land-use rights—twenty, fifty, or a hundred years max—transferring them to individuals, including farmland.

He had a whole batch of land seized from Samurai and warlords—previously rented to regular farmers for cultivation, collecting both rent and taxes. Now he didn't want any of that. He'd just keep nominal ownership, but sell to the farmers themselves (installment plans were fine), raising funds fast and boosting food output—plus it'd increase their buying power. Growing your own land versus working someone else's—that's a world of difference, as history has already proven.

This was on par with China's "housing reform"—making the common people pay for the houses they already lived in. Harano was just copying the model. He didn't dare set rents high anymore, either—too many broke farmers meant he'd be dangling from a rope! So, might as well scrape up every last coin out of the Wanjin people for a quick cash infusion, consequences be damned.

It couldn't be helped. The Japanese were just like the Chinese—super thrifty. If they had ten Wen, getting them to spend one for daily use was already a miracle. Unless you offered some hard, tangible benefit, you'd never empty their pockets, let alone get them into debt.

All at once, Wanjin was thrown back into chaos. Land was an eternal obsession in any era, and Wanjin people got excited all over again—locking themselves inside divvying up land, everyone pulling out cash. In effect, they were splitting the cost with Harano for all those owls, frogs, wasp nests, ramie cloth, and so on.

Harano truly went all out scheming for the Ise Peninsula. Now it was just a matter of whether there'd be any payoff after autumn harvest.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.