SKM – Chapter 29

Translator: manshiro, ShimizuA    Editor: Arocks141   Proofreader:    TLC:

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Arc 2 – Tenth Year of Eiroku Era, Tenka Fubu

Late March, 1567

To create family registers, addresses were a necessity, however there was no need for great detail in regards to it, so she kept it simple.

First, she split the village in four “wards”. These wards were further split into four “districts”. The 1st district of the 1st ward would be the northernmost eastern section. The 2nd and 3rd districts would be to the south and west of it. This naming scheme was to be applied until reaching the 4th district of the 4th ward all the way in the south west. ¹

In this way, each village would be split into a uniform four wards and sixteen districts. Having a uniform structure would make management much easier.

 

Furthermore, in order to give each village something characteristic, Shizuko had each of them produce something special.

The village producing hemp would be called “Asamachi (Hemp town)”. The village producing Miso would be called “Misomachi (Miso town)”, the one producing honey “Mitsumachi (Honey town)”, and the one close to the mountains “Takemachi (Mushroom town)”.

Shizuko’s village would be called “Motomachi (Origin town)”. The meaning behind this name laid in Shizuko’s village being the origin of the skills being spread to the other villages.

It should be noted that there was no deeper meaning in putting a “town” in the names other than that it sounded good to Shizuko.

From the start, Shizuko didn’t really care about any distinction between village or town, as long as the guidelines for identifying them were made according to a consistent set of rules.

Finally, she set up signboards so that messengers and the like would be able to find their way around.

By doing this, she succeeded in reducing the number of mistakenly delivered messages and lost people to a minimum. The villagers also got lost less frequently in other villages, establishing a shared perception of space and sense of time to a large degree, which would be vital for the exchange of information.

 

However, things only went well until that point. In order for the people to truly share a common sense of time, an enormous amount of work was necessary.

After all, dates and weekdays only became part of daily life in the Meiji era. Before that, timekeeping was all over the place.

For example, the main calendar used during the Sengoku era was the Senmei calendar.²

However, due to the Kageyukouji family, who were in charge of keeping the calendar, dying out, confusion about the calendar popped up in Kyo and the surrounding areas and people started using private calendars..

Upon entering the Edo era, the astronomical observatory (the government office tasked with conducting astronomical observations) built a calendar based on astronomical observations.

 

As Shizuko would only need a system to work with the Oda clan and the other villages, sharing a common date would be enough, so she simply used the New Year as the starting point, making it the first day of the first month.

Fully aware that it wouldn’t be understood right away, Shizuko nonetheless made calendars to synchronize the villages.

Additionally, she introduced a seven day week and tried to model the calendar as close as possible to the modern Gregorian calendar.

 

For time, sundials would have to be enough. The people of this era only had a rough grasp of time on the scale that it is morning when the sun rises, noon when it is at its highest and everything after sunset is night. But this would bring troubles when trying to arrange meetings. For example a meeting at the village chief’s house at night after the day’s work was done would completely depend on each individual’s perception of evening if the sunset wasn’t visible. This would lead to a lot of waiting for people, decreasing efficiency. In that regard, a sundial would allow all people to act on a common, objective measure of the time.

While it has the downside of not working once the sun has set or if the weather is bad, it would help with “getting used to it”. As a first step before coordinating meetings in the evening, people could get used to sharing a common perception of time and get a feeling for the passing of a fixed unit of time.

As such, Shizuko decided to ignore the disadvantages accompanying this approach.

 

Originally, she wanted to have a bell rung at fixed time intervals, however Nobunaga wouldn’t allow it.

His reason for it was: “Won’t you need a Temple to ring a bell? I won’t allow that.”.

Having those words thrown at her, Shizuko remembered and thought that Nobunaga truly was an atheist through and through.

It wasn’t hard to imagine his rage to flare up like a blaze if she were to intend to build a temple.

 

Wondering whether there was nothing that could be done, Shizuko gave a detailed report to Nobunaga about it. As a result, she found out something unexpected.

Nobunaga did not in fact hate religions such as buddhism in itself.

What he did hate with a vengeance were the depraved monks who translated worthless dribble into japanese and then behaved as though they had done some great good for humanity, fed the peasants their shallow ideologies, and lusted after meat, women, and riches which were forbidden to them.

As such, he thought that  if Shizuko were to build a temple near her village, they would come flocking like starving rats.

 

With that point in mind, employing a countermeasure would be easy.

Shizuko didn’t want to build a temple, but a facility which could be used to ring a bell.

Therefore, she asked Nobunaga for permission to build a shrine instead. Of course, not only a shrine, but also a facility for a bell, something like a terakoya (temple school?), lodging facilities, a crematorium, as well as a small field for growing non-glutinous rice.

Nobunaga’s answer to this proposal was “I still have some small questions about it, but the content is fine, so I will allow the construction.”. Having received permission for the time being, Shizuko was relieved.

At the end of his letter however, a line was written which made her expression stiffen again.

 

“I have some other doubts as well. I will create an opportunity to clarify them, so keep your schedule open.”

 

Unable to do anything but sigh at this predicament, Shizuko decided to lay them aside for the moment.

 

The calendars were posted at each village’s bulletin board and village chief’s house, as were the sundials.

They were also installed in other places people tended to gather at.

 

After all this work, she finally could use a circulation board for her communication network.

Shizuko had become more than aware of just how much trial and error people must have put in to create the modern systems of years, weekdays, time, addresses, phones and emails.

 

The first week after she started using the circulation board, the villagers were hesitant and confused by the new system, but eventually came to understand how useful it could be to coordinate a large number of people. After that things went smoothly. The peasants readily accepted one new idea after the other.

And while even now misunderstandings of 1 or 2 hours could happen, things like mistaking the date became rare.

The best thing however was the newfound ability to disseminate information to many people at once using the circulation or bulletin board.

The change from “mouth to mouth” to “looking at the bulletin board” also helped a lot by removing the telephone game effect of changing the information due to people transmitting information based on their own interpretation. ³

Yet, Shizuko was still anxious, so she visited each village multiple times.

Was the communication network being used correctly? Was the information interpreted correctly? She couldn’t easily shake off these fears.

When she understood that her changes in the villages all did in fact work as she had intended, Shizuko let out a sigh as though a weight was falling off her shoulders.

 

——————————————————–

 

Shizuko handed the original family register over to Nobunaga, keeping only a copy for herself.

By doing this, manipulations can be discovered easily by comparing copy and original. It does however use up twice the amount of paper and makes it necessary to take care in keeping both versions synchronized. In terms of actual operative administration, all changes of a year would be noted on wooden slates and transferred to paper once a year. On that occasion it would also be compared to the original in Nobunaga’s hands to see whether anything but the new entries was manipulated.

As it would allow him to grasp the growth of the village and to root out spies, Nobunaga was interested in the idea and allowed her the use of large amounts of paper.

Of course, he also added a strict order to limit the paper usage as much as possible.

 

“Hmm, so this is a family register. It certainly makes it easy to see who lives where at a glance.”

 

Kimyoumaru was lightheartedly reading the copy of the family register which was completed after many hardships.

Seeing the piece of work she had put her whole hearted effort into being treated this slovenly made Shizuko feel somewhat despondent.

However, since the family registers and address didn’t exist in the Sengoku era to begin with, Shizuko came to accept it..

 

“Well yeah. From the start, it’s a document that manages the branching of families with the village chief at its roots. So treat it with care. If you handle it carelessly, the lord’s wrath may come upon you.”

 

“That sounds scary. Oh right, before I forget, let me ask you something. Sorry but, can you sell me some charcoal?”

 

“Charcoal? I’m okay with it, but for what?”

 

His word made Shizuko tilt her head in puzzlement

 

Shizuko temporarily stored the lumber from Nisaku’s village, dried them, and turned them into charcoal.

The reason why she got out of the way making a storage for lumber in the corner of the village was not just to make charcoal for fuel, but she also wanted to make wood vinegar.

Wood vinegar can be used as a substitute for pesticides, as chemical fertilizers, and in some cases can also be used to purify water..

However, those effects were only understood after a scientific analysis. In the olden days, the wood vinegar as a waste product of charcoal making was simply dumped in the forest.

Ironically, thanks to dumping that waste, the tree growth was accelerated and the river’s water purified.

 

As an agrochemical, it can be used for pesticide, accelerate compost fermentation, and deodorant for garbage disposal/waste treatment. In usage for life improvement, it can be used as a bath additive for deodorization, sterilization, and disinfection.

However, wood vinegar has different components, and in some cases, it may be mutagenic, which damages the genes of some microorganisms.

Since it also requires a certain amount of care in handling, one can’t expect too much of it. It is best to think of it as nice to have if it works out.⁴

 

“Your charcoal doesn’t produce smoke at all. The shape is also uniform, so it’s perfect. The charcoal I have smokes a lot when burned and is misshapen.”

 

(That’s because it’s in an incomplete combustion state, isn’t it…)

 

You can’t make good charcoal by just throwing dried wood into the fire.

Even if it looks pitch black, it’s only because of oxidation, not carbonization.

The two have similar appearances, but the inside is different.

The charcoal Kimyoumaru used may be just burned wood reused as charcoal, or a crude product where corners were cut during the charcoal making process.

 

“Yeah, go ahead.”

 

Shizoku gave her acknowledgement. She still has some charcoal surplus, so she thought it would be alright to sell Kimyoumaru some.

 

—————————————————–

 

A little later in April, Shizuko climbed the mountain to harvest a certain something.

 

“Well well, today we’re going to harvest the spring shiitake mushroom…no one else is here though.”

 

It was the spring shiitake mushroom. In fact, shiitake mushrooms can be harvested in spring and autumn, and are called haruko(spring child).

Since there are very few mushrooms that sprout in the beginning of spring, haruko was enjoyed as the taste of spring.

“Oh, it’s growing nicely. Well, after I was scolded by Aya-chan I quickly expanded the field… so I think this is passable.”

Shizuko initially intended to cultivate it for her personal consumption only, so the cultivation ground was rather sloppy.

The sunlight exposure wasn’t optimal and there was no fence around it so wild boars ate part of them. Therefore, although there was a large amount of logs, only a hundred and a few dozen could be harvested.

Only after a lot of explanation from Aya, added with an order to “increase shiitake mushroom production” from Nobunaga, did Shizuko finally understand that shiitake mushrooms were a luxury item.

Things went hectic after that. She received a large amount of logs, then built the place to line them up, cutting the surrounding trees to adjust the sunlight, and installed fences so wild boar can’t come in.

Thinking that it wouldn’t be good to pack them too densely together, she decided to divide it into several blocks.

 

Putting the people of Kinoko village aside, Shizuko had three blocks of shiitake cultivation.

One was a bit farther, but since the mushrooms were packed densely there, wild boars would often come and try to eat them.

Most of the time fences were enough to deter them, but it would be troublesome if they broke the fence by forcing their way through, so she put some logs outside the fences as decoys.

 

“This one is no good… this one is still too small, this one is ok.”

 

Not all shiitake mushrooms had grown nicely. Some went bad, some were too small to be picked yet.

She plucked all the ill mushrooms and buried them. As for the harvestable ones, she put them into a shoulder bag made from deer skin.

 

Although dear skins kept accumulating from the deer she hunted, they were unusable without tanning them first.

There are various tanning methods with the modern mainstream method being chrome tanning. However, this method needs a wide variety of chemicals, so the only realistic choices were white tanning using rapeseed oil or vegetable tanning using tannin won from plants. As rapeseed oil also had other uses, Shizuko went for using vegetable tanning here.

To tan the hides and turn them into leather, they would have to be put in a tank containing vegetable tanning solution for over half a year.

During that time, the concentration of tannin needs to be gradually increased during that time.

But, although vegetable tanning takes a lot more effort than chrome tanning, the produced leather is more robust and plastic (deformable), making it suitable for molding it into shapes.

As such, it’s suited to make things like bags out of it, like Shizuko had done with her shoulder bag and rucksack.

The major advantage of a bag is that it leaves your hands free.

While irregularly shaped objects can be wrapped just as well with Furoshiki, you always need at least one hand to carry the item.

Therefore, a rucksack which leaves your hands free is much more convenient when climbing a mountain than a Furoshiki.

 

As she was harvesting mushrooms, she heard the rustling of leaves behind her.

When she turned around, she saw Kaiser, Wittmann and König.

Having found her, the three got close to her and started rubbing their bodies against her while requesting her to pet them.

At the same time however, they were overly on guard about the surroundings.

 

(…? Ah, maybe someone or something invaded their territory…?)

 

After coming to that realization, Shizuko looked around. Of course, she couldn’t see anyone.

Yet from the wolves’ reaction it was obvious that someone must have entered the mountain.

So they must have come here to drive them out and found Shizuko while doing that.

 

Shizuko pulled a wooden slip from her shoulder bag and wrote a message for Aya on it with charcoal.

Its content was “Signs of an intruder on the mountain. Send soldiers as precaution.” She tied it to König and then gave him an order using hand signs.

The command seems to have been understood as König nodded once before turning back on the way they had come.

 

With Kaiser and Wittman in tow, Shizuko headed for another Shiitake field.

Wild vegetables could be found on other mountains as well, and it is unnecessary to go this deep into the mountain just for them. As such, Shizuko reasoned that the Shiitake fields as the unique fields of this mountain were the goal of the intruder.

Dried Shiitake mushrooms were a major export from Ming. Bringing back even a single basket would allow you to obtain a sizable amount of money.

 

Arriving at the second Shiitake field, Shizuko first checked the surroundings.

However, there was no trace of anyone invading the field with lots of full grown and still immature Shiitake mushrooms growing on the logs.

 

(The second field is fine. Which means, the third field a little further away from here…?)

 

Shizuko headed to the third Shiitake field. Its environment was best suited to grow Shiitake, but a little bit too far from the village.

Stealthily following her were Kaiser and Wittmann.

When they were almost at the third field, Kaiser let out a low grumble.

Understanding that there really was someone here, Shizuko snuck closer.

 

Then they reached the gate in the anti-boar fence.

The gate was supposed to be tied close rudimentary with vines, but those were cut cleanly by a sharp blade.

Shizuko collected some plants in the vicinity, tying the door close with it, jamming in a stick to block it.

After closing the only entrance and exit, Shizuko went along the outer circumference of the fence and observed the situation, hoping that her tempering with the gate would serve to buy her some time.

 

(If you play with fire, you get burned. I’ll just observe from afar)

 

Muffling the sound of her footsteps, Shizuko observed the interior of the Shiitake field. Doing so, she spotted something moving in the back of the field

Perhaps letting down his guard, that individual was talking to himself.

 

“….what a strange place. Why are felled trees arranged like this? And these are…”

 

Sunken in deep thought, the owner of this voice didn’t notice the low growls of Wittmann and Kaiser at all.

After ordering them to be quiet, Shizuko once again looked around.

She noticed something on the fence close to her. An Omiyari, a spear with a very long blade.

To let go of his weapon, that person must either be confident in their skill, or a total idiot.

Thinking so, Shizuko let her eyes search the area. Luckily, there is no sign of anyone but the singular intruder.

Seeing as Kaiser and Wittmann showed no further reaction, it was safe to say that he was alone.

 

(It’s about 5 to 6 meters long… huh?)

 

Looking closer at the spear, she saw something engraved in the blade’s fuller (the groove in the center of the blade)

And just as she felt that she had seen that pattern before, loud voices sounded from far behind her.

 

“Shizuko-dono——!!! Are you safe——!”

 

It was Niwa’s voice. At the same time, the sounds of dozens of feet as well as the faint rustling of armor could be heard.

He had probably brought quite a few soldiers with him after hearing of an intruder.

Of course, since Shizuko could hear it, so could the intruder too.

 

“Hm!”

 

Reacting to the voice, the bent over intruder snapped upwards.

There was no agitation visible in the person as he turned around to pick up his spear.

In that instant, Wittmann let out a loud howl.

 

“WHA-EH-HUH!”

 

Rather than barking like a dog, the howl was a resolute roar delivering an ultimatum.

In contrast to dogs, wolves rarely howl.

This is due to the fact that they instinctively understand that howling more than necessary will make them stand out and expose them to danger.

Other than warning their pack, or if they have a habit of doing so like the Japanese Wolf, wolves basically stay silent.

Therefore, the reason for the gray wolf Wittmann to howl is to declare to their opponent that “I’m your opponent and will hunt you down”, as well as to signal their pack to start the fight.

Seeing this, Shizuko stepped in front of Wittmann.

While Shizuko was the leader of the wolf pack, her desire to protect Wittmann and Kaiser was stronger than that.

So, even though she understood that it was reckless, she stepped forward.

On the other hand, surprised by the sudden wolf howl from his side, the intruder took up a stance reflexively and stopped.

And what he found in front of himself was a trembling Shizuko with her hands spread out as well as two giant wolves with bared teeth.

It seems like this scene was too unexpect for the intruder, causing him to panic.

 

“Wha, Wha, Wha! What are–!”

 

The intruder didn’t get out any more words but that.

With a thump, several arrows embedded themselves at his feet.

“Don’t move.”

Having finally arrived, the Oda soldiers including Niwa had completely surrounded the fence.

1. Arocks: To be honest, if I was Shizuko, I’d go for the American system over the Asian ones. After all, it’s easier to just divide the villages in a grid pattern and name it like it’s a coordinate.
2. manshiro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanming_calendar
3. Arocks: Just how high were the fking literacy rates for Bulletin Boards to work?!
4. Arocks141: And there’s the agro knowledge I was missing from this series.