The village where we stopped briefly, like most other Japanese villages, does not have a formal name. Like most other areas in the Crescent Continent, the people here just use the simple word "Mula" to call their hometown. And this word means village in Kazuto language.
The village next door is simply called the neighboring village or "that village". This statement is understood by locals but often confused by visitors from outside. Therefore, over time, some common names have been derived from local industries or landform features.
The village where the group of people are now is simply called Hot Spring Village.
Thanks to the local rice production and the famous hot springs, the size of the village and the lives of the people here are relatively better. Not everyone in rural areas lives a hard life. People always make the mistake of simplifying a complex group into a single stereotype. For example, Zhangzhou is generally poor and thinks that everyone is too poor to afford rice. . But a small village is like a miniature country, with its own class divisions of rich and poor.
The richest person in Hot Spring Village is probably the hotel owner here, because the roof of his house is made of tiles that are only used by people in the city instead of thatch that is more common in the countryside.
The poets of Xinyuezhou in the past once wrote a poem such as "The pottery is exhausted in front of the door, but there is no tile on the house" - the potters have been burning pottery all their lives, but they have never been able to use beautiful and durable tiles on their roofs. It can be paved with thatch.
It is common everywhere that working people at the bottom cannot afford the goods they produce. For farmers who grow rice, yellow rice is their daily ration. Only ordinary people in Taizhou, where the production is abundant, can eat rice more often, and it is usually only brown rice. .
Therefore, even if the area of the hotel itself is not considered, the solid wood building materials used and the exquisite tiles on the roof are already a status symbol.
Most of the owners of hotels in Crescent Continent are relatively well-known in the local area. Because this country lacks a Rigal-style adventurer culture, civilian class travelers are not common here - or in other words, they live in hotels. Civilian travelers were uncommon.
Even when traveling, most civilians stay in ruined temples or borrow free places such as local firewood sheds for a night's stay. Those who spend money to stay and eat are either wealthy businessmen traveling with their families or young people traveling. Children of nobles, these people have higher pursuits in food and other aspects.
In the end, any business will actually rely on the connections you have established - this is actually very intuitive when analyzed in detail.
Take rice, for example.
Although Wenquan Village produces grain, its priority is to supply the Chinese in Pingshan County. The best polished rice and white flour are tribute rice given to the Chinese, while the next best quality is used by sergeants. Eating rice itself is a symbol of status. In this strict class country, even if you have silver in your hands and want to buy rice from farmers, most people will be afraid that the amount they hand over is not enough and they will be punished by the nobles and refuse. Attempt to report.
Therefore, one must have connections, either close ties with local nobles or tax collectors, and be able to obtain a certain share of rations through negotiation and bribery. Only by opening up various connections can stable grain rations be obtained.
In addition, all kinds of etiquette also need to be paid more attention to. Kazuto samurai have a great privilege called "rudeness" - if a commoner lacks etiquette towards a samurai or a countryman lacks etiquette towards a sergeant, it will be considered offensive. Then the high-ranking person has the power to draw a sword and kill the opponent in the street without being questioned.
This privilege is rarely used by people nowadays, but even so, if the main customers of the hotel are nobles, the servants and chefs still need to learn the corresponding etiquette and strive to serve the noble gentlemen comfortably.
Training requires costs, and you need to have contacts who know the correct etiquette, as well as the nobles' information on catering, incense, and even the softness of the tatami mats and beds in the room. It can be said that if you only have money but no relevant knowledge, even if the hotel is forced to open, it will eventually close down due to various problems. Therefore, the owner of a hotel that has existed for a long time must have quite intricate connections. To a certain extent, he will have a status similar to that of the world squire of Rigar in the local village. He will be respected by the locals and will consult them when problems arise.
Power is a formidable force because it can easily tempt people into abuse.
Even a country scholar like Lao Qiao, who is currently at the bottom of the horse-riding samurai class, has a status that allows people in the hot spring village to obey directly.
If Lao Qiao is an evil nobleman, if the girl from a farmer's house he likes asks for service, the farmers will not be able to resist; and if he asks the farmers to hand over supplies such as rice, there will be no such thing here. There are people who are qualified to refute him.
If the peasant at the bottom dares to refuse, he can directly use the "rude beggar" to draw his sword and kill him.
The only right given to the peasants was to send someone to the nearby home of a samurai with a higher rank than Lao Qiao to report the incident. Since the food was handed over to the Chinese in Pingshan County, the samurai had to report it to Pingshan County first. Order, after the decision is made over there, people will be sent to deal with it.
And the handling here will involve many complicated struggles - for example, if the farmers refuse to give Lao Qiao the rice that will be delivered to the magistrate of Pingshan County, then they have committed the crime of being rude to the nobles and should be beheaded. and Lao Qiao occupied the rice of the Chinese in Pingshan County. As a rural scholar, he offended the Chinese, and logically he should be killed.
So which of these two crimes should be calculated first? At the time when the report through the bureaucracy was processed again, Old Qiao, who might have been impatient, had already drawn his sword, killed the farmer and left. If he had killed someone but not taken away the grain or only taken away a small part, This matter may end up like this.
Because pursuing it is very consuming of manpower and material resources.
In the end, it was the working people at the bottom who suffered the most serious losses during the conflict. Although the Chinese in power would be disgraced if something like this happened in the territory, they would usually try their best to save their face. But in the end, the most they could do was to let the villagers who had committed the crime be punished. The scholar went to the mansion and knelt down to apologize.
Apologizing to the lord, not to the peasants he beheaded.
As for why, it was of course because it was not a mistake for a privileged samurai to kill a peasant. Since it's not a mistake, then the apology is inexplicable, right?
The existence of power is such a terrifying force. It is not a physical weapon or a strong body that can be recognized by the naked eye, but it has more power than the real thing. Based on such characteristics, it is not surprising that when they come to a small country inn where there are relatively few samurai, the owner will try his best to serve them well.
The presence of Ziyun warriors' children all over the place will give people the illusion that there are many warriors. However, even though there has been peace for many years now, the warrior class in Crescent Continent is indeed a bit too extensive. Compared with the total population of the country, it actually accounts for less than one percent.
Although the annual salary required by this one percent of the population is as high as 30% of the national income, Xinjing still has to support them in line with the idea of raising troops for a thousand days and using them for a short period of time.
Warriors were basically deployed wherever people could be released, and in many places there was even overstaffing. There were seven or eight tax collectors alone. They collected the goods once yesterday and came again today. The people at the bottom are miserable but have no power to resist. Reports to the top are often detained and thrown into the dust. Even if they can be delivered to the officials, how can they guarantee that the people at the top are really clean?
Reporting may not necessarily bring about good results, even if it is just to hope that the other party will not be too oppressive when collecting taxes. Once the grassroots executors are reported to the upper level and the farmers find out about it, the farmers will often face brutal revenge.
The lives of the majority of the people, whether they are rich or miserable, all depend on the good and evil thoughts of those in power. The people's livelihood of the territory is closely related to the Chinese people responsible for management. Under a terrible noble governance, the nobles will often live a hedonistic life day and night, while when you go out of the city and look out at the village, you will see that "thousands of acres of fertile land have been abandoned." "Contradictory phenomenon.
Peasants who cannot afford to pay taxes often end up fleeing into the mountains and forests to become bandits and can only live by robbing beings weaker than themselves. From this point of view, Pingshan County is obviously more stable than other places in Zhangzhou.
Although this may not be due to Torataro's father, the Iwakura Prefectural Magistrate, it is simply because Ryunosuke's original struggle consumed the strength of the noble clan within the prefecture, and the direct lineage of the newly appointed magistrate has not yet been able to develop and grow. At present, It's just that greed can be satisfied.
It is so ironic that the warriors who were supposed to protect the people suffered setbacks and vitality during the internal fighting, but instead made the people live richer.
Sitting next to the propped-up paper window during breakfast time, looking out at the children playing with paper pinwheels, the young master even stopped using his chopsticks, and his favorite dessert seemed a bit bland.
"Are you tired? Your hands still hurt." The Luoan girl sitting opposite asked, but Yajiro just shook his head.
What he saw during his journey south for several months made the young master of the Qingtian family become more and more introverted from being proud of his status as a warrior and swordsmanship, and he also began to question the meaning of the class he belonged to.
He no longer blindly believes in the values he followed in the past, but like most young people, he also has the tendency to try to achieve the kind of imaginary "change" by completely denying his past self.
One of the evidences is that Yajiro began to learn Lamani and asked Henry and even Mira for advice more often, and even often deliberately did things that he was not good at.
He is contradictory - our white-haired girl, who although she is the same age but has experienced more things, noticed this keenly. She was also in this stage, and she wanted to break away from her past self. But rushing for quick results often has disastrous consequences.
It's just that unlike himself, who met his teacher when he was only 11 years old, the young master has certain achievements and is older, which also makes him more stubborn.
A few words can't make him stop this practice immediately. He can only take time to change slowly, bit by bit.
After arriving at the hot spring village, she refreshed herself and soaked in the famous hot springs. After a good night's sleep on a decent bed and feeling full of energy, Mira's morning meal was brown rice sprinkled with shredded seaweed mixed with sesame oil. , served with pickled radish slices and miso soup. The food served by Kazuto is mainly light as always. Although it is not bad once you get used to it, you will sometimes miss the Rigal-style food with a higher proportion of meat and fat.
Torataro and others were about to part ways at this point. As the son of Pingshan County Magistrate, he was recognized by his coat of arms as soon as he arrived at the hotel and was treated like a distinguished guest. This fulfilled Mira's wish that she no longer had to look at this stinky guy. Young Master. And with the hotel owner taking good care of him, he decided to stay here until Ah Hui's condition improved.
Torataro came to tell them about this just now, and told Sakura in a serious manner that she no longer needed her care. In view of her meritorious service in taking care of her, he gave her a higher remuneration than the previous verbal agreement. Then he gave the oiran 5 taels of gold and walked away with a proud look on his face, making her dumbfounded for a moment.
All this was obviously done for the Luoan girl who was strict with him and the old pharmacist Jian Ye who was on another table next to him and left the cave before - look! What a reward you guys are missing out on.
This kind of behavior is obviously very important to Torataro, even though he doesn't like this young man very much. After showing off, he walked away, took a long step and once again pulled the thigh that he had strained before, groaned and limped back. The look is very embarrassing. It's a good thing that he can return to this energetic state.
After all, a resentful noble prince is still within his family's sphere of influence, which means a lot of trouble no matter how you think about it.
After parting ways, the group will continue to go south, but before that they still have a lot of things to deal with. Traveling all the way and fighting in the cave not only damaged weapons and armor, but also some items such as clothing and shoes needed to be replaced. Rations, new water storage equipment, and various non-staple food and condiments need to be replenished. This must be coupled with the Rigal carriage purchased from Ryunosuke and his party. The horses pulling the carriage require a lot of food and grass, and some parts of the vehicle itself also need maintenance and repair.
After all, the Ronin Group is still a Ronin Group. Even if Ryunosuke and his party know the goods and buy a carriage, they may not know how to maintain it. Therefore, this carriage is actually loose and worn in many places - and this is why the sage, Narumi Lao Qiao and others are not here at the moment. They had breakfast early and ran to check the carriage and the horses pulling it. .
"I'll go take a look too." After breakfast, she put the tableware on the plate according to Kazuto's habit and waited for the servant to come and take it away. Mira said this and got up and planned to run to take a look, but at this moment there was a sound outside. The sound of hurried footsteps.
"Crack-" The door was violently opened with a sound, and before the people in the store could get angry, the sweating villagers shouted loudly: "Where is the shopkeeper, my son, they went to the swamp-" "
The linen clothes of the short man with dark skin were stained with blood. Judging from the bright red color on it that had not yet oxidized, it was obvious that it had been stained just now.
