In this era, at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, Wanjin was about to enter the harvest season.

The rice fields looked like a gilded scroll painting, the plump, drooping ears of rice stacked in layers, dyeing the levee into amber waves. As the breeze swept by, ripples of golden light shimmered over the fields, and the rustling sound carried the unique sweetness of new rice, drifting through the humid air.

Just from this scene alone, it was clear that Wanjin would undoubtedly enjoy a bountiful year.

It had not been easy. First, they endured two consecutive years of various natural disasters. Then, a large number of old soldiers were resettled into the countryside, replacing the positions of aristocratic Samurai. Iron farming tools were made common, intensive seedling cultivation and composting techniques were widely promoted, and infrastructure projects were organized during the farming off-season. This year, land yields were contracted to each household; after four years of effort, the long accumulation was finally paying off, and the results could be seen at last.

The process was certainly arduous, with countless troubles big and small. From Harano on down, countless people had exhausted their efforts—even blood was shed, even sacrifices made—but in the end, it was all worth it. The largest group on the Chita Peninsula was slowly becoming prosperous.

Moreover, the agricultural taxes in Wanjin weren't high, most land use rights had been allocated to individuals, and miscellaneous annual tributes of all sorts, like bamboo or feathers, were no longer levied. The burden on those in agriculture was greatly reduced, and a wave of joy swept across the Chita Peninsula.

In the midst of this jubilation, "exchange students" from Yakushima Island were also brought over from afar. Harano greeted them warmly, worried they might not be used to the heat, so specially installed "earth air conditioning" in their dormitories and classrooms, so they could study in relative comfort, separated by age into one, three, or even five-year terms for learning in the coming period.

Incidentally, Harano also set up "Ainu language" classes in Wanjin, employing intelligence officers recalled from Yakushima Island and these "exchange students" themselves as teachers, offering instruction to the public and continuing to train "foreign language" talent.

There would be no shortage of dealings between Wanjin and the Ainu in the future. It was best to prepare early.

Ah Man had also wanted to return and applied actively, but there were so few who could act as "troublemakers" in such a distant place that Wanjin simply couldn't spare anyone else. She had to be resigned to stay there a while longer.

However, as Wanjin's first batch of "junior high students" (who had skipped grades, mostly in their twenties or thirties) graduated, Harano sent her a new team to help her teach the Ainu and raise their technological level—indeed, the Ainu were rather weak, with an overall technology level possessing a certain prehistoric air. Some tribes even resembled matrilineal clans, and their mindsets were so odd that cooperation was cumbersome even if one wished to work together.

They also measured and mapped the southwestern part of Yakushima Island, looked for mineral resources and such, and prepared for possible road construction and port building in the future—planning ahead.

The expansion and preparation of the Wanjin Army was also proceeding smoothly. The best were chosen from the best: Over two thousand outstanding young men selected from the workshops all completed recruit training and were assigned to their various units. Paired with over seven hundred enthusiastic elements picked from the militia system, the total strength of the Wanjin Army grew to more than 5,600 people.

The Wanjin Navy had not stopped developing either. There were four additional Great Anzai Copper Ships, three of which had completed test voyages and all training items, attaining initial long-range combat capability. In addition, there were more than 140 auxiliary vessels such as Customs Ships and small fast boats, as well as more than twenty specialized vessels like horse boats.

Everything was advancing according to plan. Wanjin had stocked up all its strength, just waiting to strike a powerful blow at the right time.

Harano had done all that could be done—clear goals, making every effort to enhance their own strength and secretly weaken the enemy. Yet as the old saying went, "Those who prevail in war are those who plan the most in the temple," whether this held true or not would be tested in real battle.

Now, he was just waiting for trouble to erupt on the Ise Peninsula.

......

The Chita Peninsula and the Ise Peninsula faced each other across the sea. As the Chita Peninsula approached harvest, so too did the Ise Peninsula need to prepare for autumn harvest—but unlike the celebration on Chita, here the atmosphere was much heavier.

"What's going on here?"

Yasuda Katsushi was a Magistrate of the Hokitate Family, mainly responsible for collecting annual tribute from the villages of Shangmu Village and Ikeno Village in the Rokurei District.

Of course, as a Personal Guard Warrior of the Hokitate Family, he didn't handle specific menial tasks, only coordinated with local Magistrates or similar grassroots figures. Normally the other party would proactively approach him in accordance with protocol, but this year, at the time to confirm delivery deadlines, not a single village showed up.

He felt something was off. These two districts were the Hokitate Family's core territories. He could hardly believe anyone here would dare refuse tribute—that would just be suicide—so he left the castle to see for himself in the countryside, and was shocked by what he found.

He'd heard before that the bamboo had bloomed, which could mean a disaster, but thought it would be like a few years ago: typhoons arriving early, wave after wave sweeping the land, leaving no time even for early harvesting. But after being nervous for a while, he saw the weather had been favorable all year—if anything, the summer was hotter than usual, but no sign of calamity after all.

He was inclined to think it a rumor. After all, everyone said bamboo blossoming brought disaster, but there were hardly any who had seen it for themselves—just old tales passed down, muttered by elderly farmers. Maybe... it was merely coincidence?

Most people in the Hokitate Family thought as he did. When the bamboo first flowered, some were worried and a few began to stockpile grain, but the weather stayed perfectly normal to this day. The panic soon faded away, and those stockpiling were now laughed at by the others as cowards.

But as autumn harvest neared, Yasuda Katsushi entered the village and saw chaos—the rice panicles had headed as usual, but many of the ears were empty, with shriveled, puny, and dark-colored grains that looked completely different from healthy, full ones.

There were quite a few such panicles: out of every hundred plants, twenty or thirty were affected. Some ears were even deformed, filled only with fluff, never forming grains at all.

Yasuda Katsushi stripped more than ten plants; he was stunned, at a complete loss, turning to the village Magistrate and the old farmers following behind and shouting angrily, "Speak! What on earth is going on here?! Why are the ears like this?!"

The people behind the Magistrate trembled, faces ashen. Even the Magistrate looked dazed, mumbling, "We... we don't know, sir. Before... before, everything was fine. Early in summer there was a bout of rice locusts. We checked each leaf, even replanted, but after that it was all right.

Besides... besides, locusts only eat the leaves. The grain heads... the heads shouldn't end up like this."

He truly had no idea. Such things had never happened before, or at most, rarely. Sometimes a few panicles were empty, said to be from some tiny insects that sucked the juices from the stems, but such pests had never appeared in such numbers, never damaged so much of the crop. This very field was the best tended and not the worst off; in other paddies more than forty percent of the heads were empty. Some were even stranger: the panicles grew into scallion-like tubes.

"You don't know? How can you not know?! It's surely because you didn't take good care of it!" Yasuda Katsushi stripped another ear, still unable to make sense of it, but he certainly wasn't going to take the blame.

This was a Hokitate "direct farm," and every grain harvested must be handed over to the Hokitate Family. By the inspection standards of these times, a fixed quota of 320 koku was required from this field—yield or no yield. If he failed to meet this, it'd be his fault, unless those above agreed to a reduction for the whole manor. If not, he simply had to scrape together 320 koku of rice from this paddy for the castle.

At least, until the Family Head or other high-ranks of the Hokitate spoke, he wouldn't dare say, "That's how it is; whatever comes is all there will be."

If he handled this badly, the commoners would be fine and ruin would fall on him instead.

The village Magistrate understood this too, but disaster was a hard fact and there was nothing he could do. He could only plead, "Sir, we really have no idea... This year... This year, could we perhaps…"

"No! Three hundred twenty koku, six to and two gō! Not a single grain less!" Yasuda Katsushi wouldn't budge, not even if he wanted to go back and report to his superiors. Besides, he'd seen incidents like this during other annual tribute collections. These unruly peasants always claimed they couldn't deliver enough, but if you steeled your heart and hung a few at the village gate, fear would spur them to find a way to round up the grain.

As for how they survived afterwards…

They could eat wild greens and fruit—the peasants always managed. If a few died, it didn't really matter.

Yasuda Katsushi was a veteran tribute collector, and it seemed to him that even with disaster, it wasn't a big problem. He barked at the Magistrate and the villagers, "As agreed—the direct farm's quota must be filled. If it's not enough, you'll make up the difference yourselves."

The villagers looked even more despairing. In addition to farming the "direct farm," every household had a plot of their own—large or small, fertile or poor—but those fields were also stricken by disaster. Scraping together enough tribute was hard enough as it was; to make up the shortfall for the "direct farm" seemed impossible.

And they too needed grain to eat. Even if they didn't get to eat any rice themselves, they owed past debts and interest to the temple, had to repay "ox rice" borrowed for spring plowing, and needed money from sales for daily necessities. Just growing rice required so much effort that tributes like feathers, wood, and fish glue included in the quota could only be compensated with more rice…

There were simply too many expenses draining the rice. If the villagers handed over what little they had to cover the deficit, they couldn't survive themselves.

The village Magistrate's face flickered between emotions. Once an old Ashigaru, a fierce look flashed in his eyes; he nearly blurted out harsh words. Yet this was a small village, he was only a member of the Lang Faction, and looking at Yasuda Katsushi's two swords—and the squad of armored Ashigaru with him—he could only kneel with the others and plead in misery, "Lord Yasuda, please… Have mercy… We'll be over a hundred koku short, and the people really can't scrape together that much. This year, it's truly not their fault…"

Yasuda Katsushi wasn't entirely heartless. He hesitated, then lowered his voice, "I'll speak to Lord Hirado when I return—maybe a little can be reduced. But the castle needs rice and money badly, so not much can be written off. The rest... the rest, you'll still have to make up."

After a pause for thought, he added in a low voice, "If there's no other way, you can compensate with coarse grains."

Recently, prices for buckwheat, beans, and taro had risen sharply in the Rokurei District. It was rumored that someone by the sea was buying up these grains, as well as large quantities of bean oil, taro spirits, and other rural goods. In light of these villagers' misfortune, Yasuda thought he would do them a favor: he'd petition his superiors to allow them to make up some of the tribute with beans and taro, which would be rendered into oil or wine and then sold by the sea. It shouldn't cost much—perhaps they'd make a small profit even.

This was the last of his mercy. For without rice, what would the Samurai eat? How would they support the Lang Faction and Ashigaru? How would they fund armor and weapons?

Without force, these lands could not be defended and would soon fall to others, so...

The annual tribute must be collected; everyone must pay!

Yasuda Katsushi finally threw out, "You know the consequences if you come up short. Do as you see fit," then turned to leave with his men. Behind him, the village Magistrate and the villagers looked even more despondent, staring into the fields in a daze.

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