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Chapter 78 – Disaster Preparedness

The year Showa 4 (1929) began.

Right at the start of the year, Tokita—my butler and the de facto head of Phoenix Investment Trust—departed for America to carry out massive stock sell orders.
I’m scheduled to meet up with Tokita again locally sometime during the summer.

As for me, I’m devoting myself to work in Japan.

Even though I’m still a young girl, for some reason, I’m working.

By now, none of the family finds it strange that I speak up about matters concerning the Ootori family or the Ootori Group.
On the contrary, they’ve come to see it as normal.

There are probably all sorts of things they could say about making a child work, but it’s like they’ve accepted it as just how things are.

“I miss my onii-sama.”

“What are you talking about?”

Shizu responded sharply to my heartfelt words.
I gave her a sulky look, but she just returned a cold stare.

“Huh? No, I mean—I wasn’t saying I want parental love or anything, but just a bit of warmth from a relative, you know? Seriously.”

Without thinking, I slipped into language from my previous life.
With Shizu, there’s no need to put on airs anymore, which is nice and easy—but as time goes by, I feel like her attitude toward me is getting increasingly casual, or maybe just careless.

That aside, just as Shizu and I always talk like this, today as usual we’re hard at work in one of my other rooms—effectively my office.

And what we’re so busy with is preparing for the natural disasters that are going to happen.

In 1930, there will be a “bumper crop famine”; in 1931, a major crop failure in Tohoku and Hokkaido; in 1932, another poor harvest; in 1933, another bumper crop famine; and the final blow comes in 1934 with a massive crop failure in Tohoku.
The price of rice will rise, and farmers, especially in the Tohoku region, will suffer terrible hardship.

To make matters worse, silk cocoons—one of the most important sources of income across Japan, including Shinshu, southern Tohoku, and northern Kanto—will face a sharp decline in overseas demand due to the 1929 Great Depression.

Then, in 1935, nylon will be invented in America, and from 1936, silk exports, which had been used to make pantyhose, will catastrophically collapse.
The price of silk will crash, and sericulture farms will be devastated.

Someone once said, “Japan only has rice and silk.” And both of those are about to be hit hard.

This will be a catastrophe equivalent to the Great Depression for Japan.

And on top of that, Tohoku will also suffer the Sanriku offshore earthquake on March 9, 1933, which will trigger a massive tsunami.

And the earthquakes won’t stop there: the Tottori earthquake in 1943, the Tonankai earthquake in 1944, the Mikawa earthquake in 1945, the Showa Nankai earthquake in 1946, and the Fukui earthquake in 1948—all major quakes are lined up.

This is no time to be blindly charging into a world war.

Even though all the earthquakes aside from the Sanriku one are still more than ten years away, I can’t just do nothing when I know they’re coming.
Especially since there are only four years left until the 1933 quake.

But before that, I have to do something—anything—about the brutal combination of bumper harvests and crop failures.

That’s because it’s one of the major causes that led Japan as a whole down the wrong path.

Fortunately—or perhaps I should say, thanks to my foresight—I had talked to Great-Grandfather years ago, and as a result, the Rice Control Law and the Autonomous Rice Management Law were both enacted in the fall of last year, 1928.

In my previous life, the Rice Control Law was enacted in 1933, and the Autonomous Rice Management Law in 1936.

The former was a law to stabilize rice prices, while the latter required producers to store a fixed amount of rice as a form of forced reserve.

And the background behind these laws getting passed was, at least in part, the things I had done and asked others to do—they had a small influence on politics.
Because Japan’s industrialization and modernization had progressed just a little bit faster than in my previous life, the government had come to accept policies aimed at ensuring a stable food supply for non-agricultural workers and reducing the gap between agriculture and industry.

Still, the poor harvests of 1924 and 1925, and the memory of the Rice Riots, were surely still in the back of the politicians’ minds.

However, these laws immediately drew backlash from rice dealers.

After all, rice prices in this era—just like in the Edo period—were determined by the market.
And yet, the government was now demanding that supply and demand be balanced while maintaining high prices.

So at this point in Japan, passing any further laws would be extremely difficult.

Unless we create something much stronger than rice dealers—like powerful agricultural cooperatives—it would be impossible to protect poor farmers in particular.

And since agricultural production accounts for more than half of Japan’s total output at the time, and the majority of the population are farmers, agricultural productivity must be protected as much as possible.

But there’s only so much that can be done.
I had tried bringing up the idea of the government buying rice at fixed prices or forming agricultural cooperatives, but Great-Grandfather shut it down immediately.

Full-scale price control was politically impossible.
It would be seen as socialist and dangerous.

Even agricultural cooperatives—though loose associations might be accepted—strong, centralized ones were viewed in the same light.

And despite that, since the end of World War I, both the political and business worlds in Japan had been tending to neglect agriculture.
The only things they loudly advocated were improving food self-sufficiency and expanding agricultural output.

The main reason was that they were promoting and pushing for the advancement of heavy industry.

They expected that eventually agriculture—both its output and its labor force—would transition into other industries.

And from the government’s perspective, there was no desire to carelessly pour national funds or political effort into a sector that was expected to shrink and decline in the future.
But even the Ootori family couldn’t speak too boldly on the matter.

We had been promoting industry by developing and producing heavy machinery and tractors, and those had gradually started to spread around 1928.

That was the result of our aggressive marketing efforts—like giving salesmen catalogs when selling ammonium sulfate, holding test-driving events, and so on.

From the perspective of landowners and moderately wealthy independent farmers, the cost of a tractor and the labor to operate it was cheaper than maintaining many tenant farmers and agricultural livestock like oxen and horses.
On top of that, the number of people complaining was significantly reduced.

In fact, they could nearly manage farm work entirely on their own.

So, the relatively small-sized tractors—far smaller than American ones—being produced at Komatsu Works, which had effectively become part of the Ootori Group, had started to spread rapidly.
Even though wet rice cultivation required more manpower than wheat farming, it still paid off in the end.

Thanks to that payoff, the cars we were importing and selling as knockdown kits were also selling well.

Not because they were essential for daily life, but because people wanted to brag about “my car” to others.
That very desire to outdo the neighbors and surrounding communities is exactly why sales were strong.

Domestic car production was also just a step away from full-scale mass production of small passenger cars.

While Ootori was focusing not only on knockdown production but also on the development of industrial vehicles, Matsuda—into which we had heavily invested—was moving forward with the development and production of three-wheeled vehicles.
Meanwhile, DattCo., which has no connection to us, was also working on developing four-wheeled vehicles.

As for heavy machinery like bulldozers, the machines Komatsu Works began producing based on imported models—as commissioned by Ootori—had started to be delivered little by little.

It seemed Komatsu still lacked some of the necessary technology, but since Ootori had Torasaburou grand-uncle leading various efforts, we were able to cover those gaps and get early mass production up and running.

Since it’s said that one bulldozer can do the work of a hundred laborers, the demand for manual laborers dropped, and the machines were very well received by construction contractors.
Keen-eyed contractors were eager to get their hands on them, and when Komatsu started crying out that they couldn’t meet the demand, we poured in funds for equipment investment without hesitation.

On the other hand, because heavy machinery also led to a decrease in employment, it wasn’t very well received by the government.

Truly, “when one side is raised, the other falls.”

Still, public investment itself leads to job creation, so on that front, the machines were relatively well received.

After all, we weren’t just donating to the Seiyuukai (Friends of Constitutional Government Party)—we were even “donating” to the national budget.
It would be a problem if that didn’t buy us some goodwill.

What I had them push for was coastal protection projects.

In particular, we showed research materials developed by Ootori’s university and general research institute, highlighting the danger of tsunamis in complex coastal terrains.

While large-scale efforts were impossible, construction of several trial large-scale seawalls in particularly dangerous areas was approved.

Among them, the project in Kamaishi was especially prioritized, as the government recognized the potential severity of damage there.

These projects were scheduled for completion in 1931, and I hoped they would help teach the importance of disaster prevention.
Ideally, I’d want protective measures for the entire coastline—but we can’t spend money we don’t have, and it’s not something Ootori can unilaterally do.

That’s why we framed it as an awareness campaign—getting the government and local authorities to help spread knowledge about the threat of tsunamis.

But I heard the results haven’t been very promising.

Meanwhile, we also tried advocating for paved road construction, emphasizing its importance as a form of public investment and vital social infrastructure.
But all we got in return was, “So you’re no different from Hara Takashi?”

Because the focus was on developing the underdeveloped Tohoku region, Hara Takashi—still active and energetic—took a strangely personal interest in supporting us.

Ironically, that ended up backfiring.

However, for the Ootori family, deepening ties with Hara Takashi and other previously distant politicians and some military figures from the Tohoku region was a meaningful gain.

After all, Ootori had traditionally been aligned with the Choshu faction and had kept a distance from the old enemy territories.

And as Ootori, we had to keep looking ahead and make moves accordingly—this infrastructure development was part of that vision.

“In spring, let’s go to Kansai.”

“During spring break?”

“Yes. Not just Kansai—we’ll visit Ootori’s bases of operation and the companies outside Kanto that we’ve become involved with. I want to see them at least once.”

“But the Honored Retired Master is no longer of the age to travel much…”

“Because of who we’ve gotten involved with, we’ll have Torasaburou grand-uncle come with us. He knows many people. Well, part of it is also for showing my face.”

“Shall we also include Mr. Suzuki?”

“Yes. Have him make appointments with everyone we need to meet.”

“Understood.”

Shizu bowed respectfully.
And with that, my spring schedule was set.

Rice Control Law
A law that sets maximum and minimum prices for rice in commercial transactions and places rice imports and exports under a permit system.

Rice Autonomy Management Law
A law that controls surplus rice by requiring producers to store a fixed amount of rice as mandatory reserves, as determined by a management committee.
In cases where the market price falls below the official minimum price, agricultural cooperatives autonomously regulate surplus rice.

Rice Riots
1918 Rice Riots.
A riot incident that broke out in Japan in 1918 due to a sharp surge in rice prices.

Suzuki Shoten suffered considerable damage as a result.
Well, refer to a textbook or something for details.

Same as Hara Takashi
Hara Takashi was a politician known for pork-barrel politics. He focused on infrastructure development, such as road construction, primarily in his hometown (Iwate Prefecture).
While he did solicit bribes from the business world, it’s said that most of the money was used for such public works.

However, he was also criticized for investing public funds in projects of questionable necessity—people asked, “Who’s even going to use a road like that?”

Hara Takashi was born in 1856, so he would have been 73 years old in 1929.