Chapter 16 - Since I was reborn as Saito Yoshitatsu, I'm aiming to hand over the territory to Oda Nobunaga and live longer!
1536 (Tenbun era, year 5)
TL: YuinaAuthor's Note:
The third chapter was a bit difficult to understand, so I asked Kana to draw a relationship chart.
I hope you will check it out as well. Thank you very much for your support.
(T/N: Don't worry, you should have already seen it in chapter 3.)
Chapter 16: Performing Public work for the Sake of all
Suburb of Inoguchi [1], Mino Province
This year, I was assigned some lands, so I had to do various things such as regular patrols to better supervise my territory, in addition to the time I spend studying and training.
It's crazy. I had to develop new local special products, and my responsibilities and workload were slowly increasing. I think the number one immoral occupation in the Warring States period is surely being a feudal lord.
However, since I was entrusted with this job, I had no choice but to do it, so I decided to go to the village I went to visit last year.
Although the snow already started melting, it was still too early for rice planting, or perhaps it was still affected by last year's floods, the fields were in a little worse shape than the last time I saw them.
"I'm sorry you had to come all this way. And thank you very much for taking Shinshichi and the other two to work for you and for providing them with a substantial stipend."
Yahei, the village head, came to greeted us and bowed. The people behind him also bow their heads, I realized once again that I had become a lord, albeit in name only. It was up to me whether I would treat them nicely or give them a hard time.
"Please look up. Everyone's doing their best. How about the matter that we discussed before?"
"Yes, when we put the rice seeds in the salt water you gave us, they were really divided into two groups: those that sink and those that float. Which made them easy to sort out, and so we were able to focus on the sunken seeds."
"I see. If you forget to wash it with water, it will not bud, so be careful."
"Your manservant almost forgot to wash them, and so I was beaten up by my wife."
All the people of the domain burst into laughter. They were less pessimistic because the collection of annual tribute was not so strict, and because we took in children who had not been able to eat well in the village.
I knew about this saltwater selection method because all the patients I had coming from a farming family were using it. I couldn't use hot water to sterilize them because I didn't know what was the right temperature. Nowadays, the Saito clan did not have enough room for trial and error concerning rice. Salt water selection is carried out in order to gradually improve the quality of the seed rice by separating the heavy seeds from the light ones, also preparing for next year's.
"From today, you'll have to work as a substitute for the annual tribute. Now, let's start with dredging
The first thing we need to do is dredge the river.
It simply consists of removing sediment from the bottom of the river. I decided to do this knowing that the water level will drop as the river bottom gets deeper. I also arranged for this to be carried out in various places other than here. When the snow melts completely, the water level will rise, and it'll become impossible to do this, so now is our only chance.
It reminded me of a lesson I had in elementary school about the three rivers in Gifu Prefecture and Mr. Derek, it's the first time I'm recalling them in over 25 years.
I really wanted to build a dike around the new stream, but dikes can be dangerous if the soil is not properly consolidated. If you can't make it high and solid enough, you will have to go deeper by dredging the soil at the bottom of the river.
This time, I remembered that they had to carry the stones and soil by hand (I had nearly forgotten the experience of carrying that heavy basked on my back), so I had a woodworker in the mountains make a wooden wheelbarrow and a dredging tool that looked like a baseball bat. Although woodworkers don't settle in one place very often, there are many woodworkers in Mino because there are many good quality trees here. I gave them models of both the wheelbarrow and the large baseball bat, so they made quite a few.
The workers were first divided into three groups: the first group that had to carry the stones from the riverbed to the wheelbarrow, the group that took the wheelbarrow to the bottom of the embankment, and the group that sorted the stones by size at the bottom. The large stones will be used as reinforcement for making solid dikes later on. The medium-sized stones would be used to throw at the enemy during sieges of nearby forts. Finally, the smaller ones will be returned after the dredging is finished.
The amount of stones alone was quite large and the process was time-consuming, but they managed to move a significant quantity of them over the next few days.
Next, several people used the large dredging tool to remove the sediment. The removed sand and soil was carried down by a wheelbarrow. The earth and sand was brought from the mountains, so it could be spread over the fields once it was dried and processed.
This was done over a wide area, including the area under Ogaki Castle town, and the capacity of the Nagara River's water supply was increased. I don't know about the Nagashima area where I can't do anything, since those lands are not under my supervision.
As it demanded a lot of hard labor, I needed to regularly extend the budget. In addition to that, they were working in place of paying the annual tribute, so there seemed to be no particular complaints. For those who were sweating a lot, I fed them dried plums. The plums are already mass-produced to supplement the soldiers in the battlefields. There would no problem if I used a few.
In January, the river bed became a little deeper.
I wonder if it will make a great change in five year or so. At least, I hope so.
The problem is that the tools wear out quickly. Because they were made of wood, the wheels of the wheelbarrows were quickly worn down and became rickety. Even so, the work speed has increased dramatically, and there is no choice but to make more of them. However, it would cost a lot of money. That's why, I thought I need rubber, which can be used to make tires.
The water level had risen due to the melting of the snow, and I made use of the extra labor days to instruct the workers to cut the hemp that grows naturally.
The fibers were cut into small pieces and made into nonwoven fabric in the paper workshop, in order to make surgical gowns, caps, and masks.
High heat was needed to work the fibers, so I even made iron. The hemp fibers, which are quite fine, melt at just under 250 degrees Celsius. I even made replacement ones, being careful not to ignite them.
I am fully aware of how unreasonable these demands may sound. This is only possible because Mino has many good blacksmiths.
Now I need some gloves. I can't make rubber gloves, so what should I do? I already know that animal leather gloves are no good because they don't convey the fine sensations at hand. I'm stuck. I really need rubber. I'll need it for other things, too, so I'll have to think about some solutions. Come quickly, Portuguese, I can't wait for six more years.
Author's Note:
Fourth-grade elementary school students in Social course or integrated learning "Kiso Nagara Ibi San River Renovation Project".
There are many titles for this course, it is about a flood control project by a hired foreigner in the Meiji era named Derek.
In 1982, Gifu Prefecture's Life Science Magazine also published a supplementary reading of the Social Studies, so I thought of making it a memory of that time.
The process of making a nonwoven fabric is basically similar to that of making paper, but it takes more time and effort to make it into a proper cloth.
I think that only surgical tools and some gauze will come out.
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