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Volume 2 Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3 : Battle for Takenaka Hanbei!

In human society, there is this known as 「Friendship」, and the philosophy behind this term exists in the Sengoku era as well. As for Nobuna, who considers herself a logical person, the Onmyouji Takenaka Hanbei was a source of many a great headaches for her. Hence, as long as the Onmyouji Takenaka Hanbei will continue to guard the Mino province while serving under Mino’s current daimyo, Saito Yoshitatsu, Nobuna will be unable to conquer Inabayama Castle, and the rest of the province along with it.

If this situation persists, then Nobuna will have no choice but to bow her head and accept Azai Nagamasa’s marriage proposal in exchange for reinforcements. If this occurs, then no matter how Nobuna tries to conquer the world, the conquered lands and their rewards will all be the property of Nagamasa instead of her, just like the fame for achieving something so monumental.

However, should Nobuna capture Mino on her own, the forces of Owari’s Oda clan will have surpassed Azai Nagamasa’s forces in the Northern part of the Omi province. If that’s going to be how things are going to turn out, then even if Nobuna refused Nagamasa’s marriage proposal, a balanced alliance between Owari and Northern Omi would still be possible.

This is precisely the reason for the reward Yoshiharu wants to obtain at all costs: 「The cancellation of the marriage between Azai Nagamasa and Nobuna」. That is all there is to it.

No matter how much one must compromise to conquer the world, Yoshiharu does not want Nobuna to marry someone who doesn’t love her at all. His wish is that this idiot Nobuna could live her life freely according to her ideals, no matter the time and place. Not just as a Sengoku era daimyo. Oda Nobuna herself needs to pursue her dreams as an ordinary person, but more importantly, she needs to pursue her happiness as an ordinary girl. If not, the Nobuna that Yoshiharu knows right now will no longer be Nobuna anymore.

Though that pretty-faced playboy Nagamasa had said 「There should be a limit for selfishness. In the end, you are just a brat with no sense of responsibility. 」 Yoshiharu simply scoffed at that and replied:

「I don’t mind being a brat; I don’t mind sharing dumb opinions with everyone, but right now my feelings are clear, and I will always do everything in accordance with them. 」

「 Even if Nobuna hates me or calls me a reckless idiot, I will definitely stop this marriage by any means necessary. Just you watch! 」

「….Inuchiyo was thinking the exact same thing. 」

「Our current objective is to find ways to get close to Takenaka Hanbei and persuade her to join the Oda clan. To put it simply, it’s the Pull-Outstanding-Talents-Like-Her-Over-To-Our-Side」
Plan, or the so called 「Head-hunting」for short! 」

「….Good luck with that. 」

And that’s about it for the recaps of the most recent happenings.

Going back to the present, the current location is Kinkazan in the Mino province. Located at the foot of Inabayama, part of Inokuchi. Yoshiharu went there together with Inuchiyo dressed as vagrants so that they could sneak into the town more easily without running the risk of being discovered.

In fact, Nobuna had not granted them permission for this mission, but they’ve snuck out on their own to try to accomplish their own mission: attempt to persuade the genius tactician Takenaka Hanbei to leave Saito Yoshitatsu and join Nobuna’s side.

Yoshiharu did not want to waste his time by obediently going to Nobuna and ask her for permission to try and convince Hanbei to join them, because there was quite a huge risk that Nobuna would shoot the entire plan down, saying something along the lines of:「No way. It’s impossible for a monkey like you to try and sow discord in the enemy ranks without screwing it up! 」and would definitely try to stop them from going. If she did that, then things would only get more complicated that they needed to be.

The reason Yoshiharu and Inuchiyo managed to even reach Inokuchi is ultimately thanks to the aid of Goemon and her Kawanami Group members.

After going into the town, the first thing this undercover Monkey-Dog tag team intended to do was to go to the teashop going by the name「Ayuya」located by the Nagawagara River.
Just as Goemon’s report said, the teashop 「Ayuya」 here is hosting a Takenaka clan recruitment exercise, which seemed to be in a full swing at the current moment.

Finally, it is also almost time for Takenaka Hanbei to move to Inabayama Castle to officially take up her role as a strategist serving the Saito clan. During all the ceremonies associated with it, she’s definitely going to be bringing her own retainers here and plan to recruit more of them for herself as well.

「After dressing up like a vagrant and becoming one of Takenaka Hanbei’s retainers, I will use my fiery passion and speech capabilities to convince her to join the Oda Clan. So perfect, it’s really a flawless plan that absolutely cannot fail! 」

「….Yoshiharu-san, but we don’t have extra cash to go to tea shop. 」

「Leave that to me! 」

Yoshiharu’s current monthly wage was 33 kan. Although such a shabby wage is fitting for an officer like Yoshiharu, a big part of why it was only so little is because Nobuna was notorious for her stinginess with finances.

However, since Yoshiharu is an experienced player of all the Sengoku era strategy games, he had his own ways of making money in case they needed more of them. As a result of asking Goemon to sell rice in various places, Yoshiharu’s pockets were rather deep at the current moment, all for the sake of their mission.

Originally, if anyone wanted to do business outside of Owari, they would have to pay a tax at the border.

A good example of it is if one wanted to transport rice from Owari to Mino. In order to pass through the border, such a person would have to pay a certain amount of taxes to Saito Yoshitatsu’s officials taking care of the border tax collection.

The only Daimyos in the Tokaido area who made an effort to develop commerce and abolished this tax system were the former daimyo of Mino, Saito Dosan, and the current Daimyo of Owari, Oda Nobuna. Most of the Daimyos of other provinces still use border taxes as a main source of income for the lands they were in control of.

Also, since the taxation cost isn’t cheap, originally this kind of re-selling behavior would not be profitable at all, no matter how one looked at it, but the Kanawanami Group aren’t ordinary decent law-abiding merchants. They would never even think of going through the border gate, instead choosing to sneak in using routes that only ninjas and bandits know of. That way, they never needed to bother themselves with paying taxes even once.

Using this method, Yoshiharu managed to earn a small fortune by smuggling rice between the two provinces right under their authorities’ noses.

In contrast, the innocent Inuchiyo had suffered from starvation. After being exiled by the Oda clan, Inuchiyo escaped to the mountains where she had to get by all by herself. Thanks to that, in order to fill her stomach during her journey, she had no choice but to became a little bit wild to adapt to her new surroundings.

The reason why Inuchiyo has a flat, washboard-like chest is probably due to the fact that she had to eat mostly Five Leaf Aralia soup, which was definitely lacking in protein, ever since she started serving under Nobuna, and her life in exile certainly didn’t help it either. When Yoshiharu learned about that, he immediately went all 「 Aww, you poor thing! 」and cried despite Inuchiyo using all her strength to pinch his cheeks with a radiant smile on her face.

But now, because of his small fortune, Yoshiharu might be able to surpass the crowd of poor ronins and gain the top position in the Takenaka clan for himself. If things will go exceptionally well, this interview will definitely leave a good impression on the Takenaka clan officials.

Since it is an interview, Takenaka Hanbei herself might just be observing the ronins from an unseen location, so while they are in the teahouse they’d need to eat as much as they possibly can in order to catch her attention at all costs.

「Alright, Inuchiyo! Don’t hold back today, eat all you want until your belly bursts open! It’s my treat! 」

「I don’t… I don’t need to worry how much it costs? 」

「I’ll handle it, wahahahaha! Although we couldn’t enjoy such meals to our heart’s content in Kiyosu, I happen to have a personal stash of extra money precisely for such occasions. Keep it a secret from Nobuna for me though, okay? 」