Translator: Flowingcloud Editor: Arocks141
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TERMS/THINGS TO NOTE:
A few positions that might come in handy when reading this chapter:
Dainagon (Major Counselor)
Chunagon (Middle Counselor)
Shobanshu (Followed the lead of the shogun.)
Also take note of these measurement units:
Cho, Kan, Koku, Shaku, Sho, and Tan
Mon (Japanese currency)
Yongle Tongbao (Chinese currency)
Kandaka System (A type of system measuring rice production.)
Matter of the Yield and Money
April, 21st year of the Tembun era (1552), Kitsuki-no-Oyashiro, Izumo
If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁
“Kingyukurimyujon” (T/N: Supposed to be gibberish.)
How are you?
I’m Tama, a miko apprentice of the Kitsuki-no-Oyashiro. No not rabbit. 1
Did you know? Kitsuki-no-Oyashiro in Heise-era Japan is called Izumo Grand Shrine. I’m a bit embarrassed, but I didn’t know.
Time passed quickly. Even as I thought I had only just reincarnated, I was already five years old. I’m really three years old though. (TL: Refer to glossary.) 2
Since last month, I have been training as a miko apprentice at Kitsuki-no-Oyashiro.
I glossed over being a miko, but in reality, we’re something similar to hostages to the Izumo regional administrators.
As expected of the latter days of the Sengoku period to present an infant who’s still wetting their bed as a hostage! I can’t sleep there, nor am I admired.
How did it come to this? I can’t comprehend……
Well, one thing different from an ordinary hostage, normally, I believe there should be an exchange between houses, but in my case, it was an exchange between a house and the grand shrine.
In this case, the grand shrine is a hostage to all the regional administrators. 3
I received some post as the Kitsune-no-Oyashiro’s deputy senior priest.
By the way, is an assistant senior priest that important? For positions like a Dainagon or Chunagon, there were deputy dainagons, so a deputy senior priest might be something amazing. Maybe. 4
“Princess, you occasionally do say words of uncertain meaning. Haru does not understand.”
“Nuu, kuruchunai. Yokiniwakyarahe.”
My tongue still can’t function well, and continuing my baby play with rave reviews……
“Yes, yes. Let’s go for a stroll.”
“Yus, for a bit!”
Last year, my mother of this world, Momo-san, passed away last year. Momo-san came from one of the Izumo regional administrators, the Kitajima House’s branch, and became the concubine of my father Amago Haruhisa.
Having lost my guardian of this world, I lost control and broke into tears from my stupor, and bothered the surrounding adults.
I thought that my mental age had passed thirty, but it seems like I regressed into an infant within these three years.
It’s absolutely not because my previous mental age was low. It’s not I say!
See, you know how the saying goes? The mind is influenced by the body. My infant regression was also due to that.
I’ve gone off-topic.
According to my mother’s will, it seems like she requested my father for me to be entrusted to the Kitsuki-no-Oyashiro.
That was in line with the Amago house’s policy of intending to control Izumo, to win over the bunch of regional administrators, and to aim to strengthen their controlling power of the Western part of Izumo, so I ended up with becoming a miko apprentice.
If I were to explain it in-depth, one hour wouldn’t be enough, so I will omit it.
Well, to put things bluntly, the Amago house was established when my great-grandfather, Amago Tsunehisa, supplanted his lord, drove the governor—the Kyogoku family—out of Izumo, and occupied the province, so the independent powers—the temples and shrines, local feudal lords—did not really listen to the Amago. 6
Very Sengoku period-like.
The Amago clan took over the province by supplanting the lord, however this time, it is our relatives that are rebelling.
It’s not even funny because it’s the son of my great-grandfather who is rebelling.
Also, in the Battle of Aki Province’s Yoshida-Koriyama Castle, the Amago clan will lose to the Ouchi and Mori, and when the unifying force declines, the people of the land will be alienated and invite the Ouchi into Izumo saying, “Please take down the Amago.” 7
This is what will be known in history as the First Battle of the Gassantoda Castle.
However, after seeing that the Gassantoda Castle was too strong and could not be taken down easily, the masses changed sides to the Amago who was alienated and this time, betrayed the Ouchi. It resulted in an amazing feat where the Amago returned to being the master.
One way or another, the Amago was in a position that controlled Izumo, however, their control was not firm. The current state of the clan is that if they showed the slightest sign of weakness, the feudal lords of the land would make light of the Amago.
To make matters worse, it seems like the Shingu Force were getting extremely arrogant. 8
The territory of Izumo was in this sad state, but Houki, Mimasaka, and other provinces, whether they be directly or indirectly ruled, could easily tell our state. 9
Fortunately, not before long, my father Haruhisa may be appointed as the shogunate’s Shobanshu to protect Izumo, Aki, and Houki. 10 There were rumors like that.
If that’s the case, this added authority would work effectively to some extent for the Amago clan, so the clan’s hoping that movements of the disturbing elements within and outside of the province would slightly quiet down.
Well, there are those who appear and be like, “Protection, wus that? Can you eat it? Let’s eat it! Hyaha!” I was one of those people.
Because everyone can see and understand what my great-grandfather did, if they underestimate him, they’ll be eaten alive.
There’s a difference between a sakayaki (the remaining part of the top knot) and mohawk, but is it my imagination that I feel like both of them are pretty much the same thing in essence?
Yup, must be my imagination. Let’s leave it at that.
Thus, I headed to the grand shrine as a hostage, and my father Haruhisa gave me a dowry.
(T/N: Might want to refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_units_of_measurement if you’re confused about any measurements mentioned in the following passages.)
The land given to me was 50-cho (~5,455m^2) large, a place called Hishine Village, east of the Kitsuki-no-Oyashiro. To put it in modern terms, it’s roughly the same as 50 hectares. A simple calculation would be 500m x 1000m.
In this period, the amount of rice eaten by one person in a year is roughly one-koku, and one-koku is roughly 180 liters. And then, the size of a rice paddy needed to harvest one-koku of rice is roughly one-tan.
One-tan is roughly 20m x 50m wide. In other words, one-cho is 10-tan, thus the dowry I received is 500-koku.
But unfortunately, not all of this 500-koku would be mine.
Naturally, the farmers who take care of the fields have to eat or else they’d die.
I received the harvested rice they pay as tax. Only then will the rice become mine.
The tax rate of the Amago clan is 6 (Lord): 4 (People), so my share would be 300-koku.
I often hear of 4 (Lord): 6 (People), but I feel like that’s only possible for daimyos that can make money from other industries, on top of their government system working smoothly.
Isn’t 50/50 good? In places like Satsuma, I’ve heard that it’s 8 (Lord): 2 (People). As expected of the Demon(鬼) Shimazu. Truly a savage(鬼畜). 11
Then, the rice received as payment of tax needs to be converted or else I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on money. 12 The price of rice goes down when there’s an abundant harvest, and becomes high when there’s a bad harvest. Also, if war continues, it goes up, and depending on the region, there is some variation more or less, but here the conversion is two-koku for one-kan. 13 In other words, if I completely liquidated my rice, I would be able to secure a cash income of 150-kan.
If I calculated the merchant’s selling price of the rice, which is two times the cost price, then one-koku is one-kan, one-to is 100 mon, and one-sho is 10 mon. 14
Assuming that 10kg of modern Koshihikari is 6,000 yen, then 6,000 x 18 = 108,000, so it can be understood that one-kan is worth roughly 100,000 yen (960 USD).
In other words, one mon of Yongle Tongbao (a type of Chinese currency used in Japan in the Edo period) is equivalent to 100 yen! 15
These are just rough calculations, but I feel like they approximately match. Moreover, it’s not like I can apply everything to modern prices.
Well, it’s the common info dump.
Coincidentally, if you take the Hojo clan of Sagami who used the Kandaka system as an example, they levied a tax of one-tan per 500 mon. If it’s 50/50, then it’ll be just perfectly one-tan:one-koku, but a certain extent of measurement error is allowed. 16 It was very easy to understand the amount of rice harvested in this era and a good usage of the system.
Or I would like to say. How is it like in the Sengoku period where there was no denomination under 100 yen……
- Flowingcloud: She’s referring to the Usa (Rabbit)-Jingu. Kitsuki means ‘fox’ in Japanese, so they’re both named after animals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa_Jing%C5%AB
- Arocks141: Japanese aging systems age my brain.
- In the raws, the author decides to use the term ‘大社’ which is only used for IMPORTANT shinto shrines. Thus, I have decided to use the term ‘grand shrine’ to identify the differentiation between this and normal shinto shrines.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dainagon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%ABnagon - Kyogoku clan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%8Dgoku_clan [/note\]
Even though the Amago’s and Kyogoku’s parent family, the Sasaki clan, were the same. My great-grandfather is amazing. 5Sasaki clan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasaki_clan
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Province
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshida-K%C5%8Driyama_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cuchi_clan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%8Dri_clan - The Shinguto, which I decided to name the ‘Shingu Force’ for the sake of easy understanding, was an elite military group under the Amago clan.
https://sengokujidai.org/characters-and-clans%e3%80%8c%e4%ba%ba%e7%89%a9%e3%83%bb%e6%b0%8f%e3%80%8d/events%e3%80%8c%e5%87%ba%e6%9d%a5%e4%ba%8b%e3%80%8d/shinguto%e3%80%8c%e6%96%b0%e5%ae%ae%e5%85%9a%e3%80%8d/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dki_Province
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimasaka_Province - Tl;dr version is that it’s an important position: https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/title/Shobanshu.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsuma_Province
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimazu_clan - This is not necessarily true. One can easily form a misconception here, since rice was used as currency at this time for many, especially for huge trades. For daily usage, you would use money currency, but for huge trades, oftentimes rice was more powerful of a currency than actual physical money.
- Kan is an ancient Japanese currency measurement method: https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/history/Kan%20(An%20Unit%20of%20Weight%20and%20Currency).html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_mon_(currency)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongle_Tongbao
- https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/history/Kandaka%20Sei%20(system%20of%20measuring%20the%20amount%20of%20rice%20production%20based%20on%20land%20size).html
The Kingyukurimyujon part might refer to King Crimson. A Stand (imagine a personal punch ghost) with the power to erase time. From the outsider perspective, it seems as if time has been fast forward instead.
So MC used it to refer that he flashforwarded in time
A baby’s attempt at stating King Crimson huh..
I wonder if that’s the TL placing the joke or authors onomatopoeia which the TL suffered and turned into English letters