"So, where around here can I buy medicinal herbs? I want a place with a decent selection!" Originally, he just meant to ask a quick question, but after chitchatting with Ah Man, who's a pro at dragging things out, for half the day, he still hadn't found out where to get the herbs. Harano was already starting to get annoyed.
"Buying herbs, huh? Honestly, I'd never really paid attention to that. Usually, people don't buy them; everyone just goes and picks some wild ones to get by." Ah Man finished his food. Even though she thought he was a bit of an idiot, she was doing her best, scratching her face while thinking for a while before finally saying, "It's not really doable around here. Most likely you'd have to go to Shimazu to buy them."
Shimazu?
Harano remembered this place. Ah Man had mentioned it before and even drawn it on the map. But after carefully researching and secretly comparing it to the map on his phone, he discovered that the port no longer existed in the future. Maybe it was silted up by nature, or maybe modern Japan had filled it in during land reclamation—either way, the natural little bay was gone. He'd always thought it was just some tiny backwater and never really bothered to care.
He quickly asked, "Is it a bustling place?"
"Of course it's bustling!" Ah Man answered without hesitation, "That's where the Oda Danjo Chonosuke Family made their fortune! If it weren't for Shimazu, with just that tiny Shoban Castle, how could Oda Nobuhide—a nobody who was just the Family Head of a minor Intermediate Magistrate clan—have dominated Owari for so many years!"
"Oh?" Hearing talk of the Oda Family, Harano got interested right away. He quickly poured her a cup of tea and handed over the bowl. "Here, tell me all about it."
Ah Man raised her bean-shaped eyebrows—this is what she liked about Harano, always treating her like a real "talent," which made her feel pretty damn good.
In a great mood, she took the tea, first slurping a mouthful, smacked her lips, then started slowly, "Alright, since you wanna hear it, I'll tell you—but this might take a while!"
Oda Nobuhide's old man was called Oda Sanmaru Hideyoshi, and his home base was Shoban Castle in Kainishi District, Owari Province.
According to my grandpa, back then the Shoban Oda Family wasn't all that. Maybe just a bit stronger than the Hosokawa Family now—barely had the income equivalent of a ten-thousand-koku fief. Their whole livelihood depended on the favor of the Qingzhou City main branch, but Oda Sanmaru Hideyoshi was damn sharp. My grandpa said he was a first-rate talent in his generation."
She slurped another mouthful of tea and paused, her expression becoming a bit more serious. "Maybe forty years ago or so—uh, don't quote me, I wasn't born yet, just repeating what Grandpa said. He always talks crap when he's drunk…
Anyway, like forty years ago, Oda Sanmaru Hideyoshi saw the potential in Shimazu next to Shoban Castle, and also noticed the Court was just an empty shell, totally useless. Taking advantage of the Qingzhou main clan's infighting over succession, he bribed and recruited local bigwigs from Shimazu, plus some rangers and river pirates, and started a rebellion in Shimazu. He drove out—or maybe just killed—the Magistrate the Court appointed there. Either way, same result. Then he claimed he was pacifying the unrest, and before anyone could react, boom, just took Shimazu for himself!
Stuff like that was pretty common, honestly. The world was getting more chaotic by the day, everyone was killing each other. But Oda Sanmaru Hideyoshi was different—he had real management skills.
Grandpa said he set down rules in Shimazu: all business folk were to trade fairly, no bullying, no forced sales, no fighting in the Town, and then he wiped out all the riffraff, rangers, bandits, and river pirates nearby. He told villagers and fishermen not to rob merchants or ships. To open up trade routes to Danao and Sangming, he even sent his wife to become a nun and got himself a new wife from over there with a big fat dowry. In the end, he made Shimazu the top trade port in Ise Bay—only a little less famous than Kaido Town."
Who knew a tiny port that had vanished in modern times would have a story like that? Harano pressed for more: "What happened after that?"
"After that, Oda Sanmaru Hideyoshi kicked the bucket." Ah Man had a real gift for words. After hanging with Harano these days, her accent was starting to sound like his, and she was picking up all sorts of new slang.
"He died?" Harano asked, surprised. "How did he die?"
"They say it was illness, but actually…" Ah Man raised her bean-shaped eyebrows and threw him a "you know what I mean" look. "These Warrior Clans, right? They don't wanna split their territory, but they love having a ton of kids, so inheritance fights break out. The old guy changed wives and had a new legitimate son—supposedly his favorite kid—so bam, both he and the new baby died all of a sudden.
His oldest legitimate son, Oda Nobuhide, who was sixteen or seventeen at the time, didn't even put on a proper funeral before taking over. That led to a fight with the main family in Qingzhou City.
The main branch said he got his position the wrong way, that he should be stripped of it in accordance with his old man's will. He yelled back that the main family was meddling in their branch's succession, trying to swallow them up. That feud lasted more than a year, until the Qingzhou Oda clan finally gave in and sent him a daughter in marriage—a white-flag truce, you could say."
Harano nodded slowly, but Ah Man wasn't done and eagerly added, "That's also why Oda Nobuhide was so shameless, almost willing to sell his own ass to pull off the surprise attack on Nagano Castle… Actually, who knows, he might really have done it. Otherwise, Imagawa Shitoyama wouldn't have doted on him so much, or let him bring a whole bunch of Household Retainers into the city just because he pretended to be sick.
Yeah. So, that's why he was dead set on launching that raid on Nagano Castle."
She finished and gazed at Harano with anticipation, hoping he'd ask her to explain further so she could show off some more, but to her surprise, Harano only pondered for a second before catching on: "It's for the Atsuta Port south of Nagano Castle? He wanted to connect Atsuta and Shimazu by land?"