Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 55 - 30: Is it Donkey to Donkey Attraction? _2

Chapter 55: Chapter 30: Is it Donkey to Donkey Attraction? _2

Harano and Ah Qing didn’t really get along, and he also felt it was unnecessary, but safety came first—after thinking it over, he couldn’t just go with his temper, so he didn’t say anything more, tacitly agreeing to the plan.

So, Tao Liulang led the donkey and took the lead, Jing Qilang carried a bamboo spear, Harano sat in the donkey cart, and Ah Qing guarded them with a stick. The whole group set out like they were heading to the Western Heaven to fetch the scriptures.

It really was pretty much just like heading to the Western Heaven—the road was fucking hard to walk. Who knows what the Hosokawa Family was doing here, they hadn’t even bothered to properly fix the roads in their territory. The dirt path was sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, full of potholes, making it even harder than the road to Nagano Castle—Harano’s butt hurt from being bounced about so much.

In ancient times, traveling was really tough work. No wonder the ancients didn’t like leaving home, unlike us modern people, eager to go out on trips all day like maniacs—if there’s no holiday, we hop online to curse and whine about it.

Bouncing around the whole way, Harano couldn’t even sit steadily in the donkey cart, being jolted up and down, back and forth—the mood for admiring unspoiled scenery was long gone. Just as he was about to complain, the little monkey on Ah Qing’s shoulder suddenly sprang up, screeched piercingly in the direction of a nearby hill, eyes wide and bared canine teeth gleaming.

Harano shivered and grew instantly alert, reaching for his bow and nocking an arrow, peering towards the small hill. The slopes were full of scraggly trees—just a bit of green in early spring, mostly still a hazy gray.

He scanned keenly a couple of times but didn’t notice anything particularly odd. Tilting his head, he asked Ah Qing, "What’s up?"

"There are people over there." Ah Qing was also on guard, her Copper Ring Stick already transforming into a Static Form Glaive, her gaze cool and fixed on the woods. She waved her hand, and the little monkey immediately leapt from her shoulder and shot up a tree to keep watch from the top. This time, though, it didn’t screech anymore, just stayed at the treetop for a while before returning to her shoulder, making a few gestures.

"Two men, with bows, they’ve already walked off," Ah Qing tilted her head for a glance and explained quietly to Harano. Then she twisted the glaive’s blade, inverted it, and screwed it tight back into the Copper Ring Stick, looking like she reckoned the danger had passed, no fight coming.

Harano looked at the little monkey—he hadn’t expected it to be such a useful tool. His eyes immediately filled with admiration; he quickly dug out a rice ball to reward it and made up his mind to improve its meals when they got home. Then he glanced once more at the woodland and asked Ah Qing, "Were those bandits?"

Ah Qing didn’t respond—she hadn’t caught those guys, so how would she know if they were bandits? But suddenly remembering her relationship with Harano had changed, she hesitated, then lowered her gaze and replied coolly with a redundant statement: "They might be, or they might not."

Harano reacted too—it really didn’t have to be bandits. Maybe they were just a couple of villagers moonlighting as hunters, out in the hills looking to catch some wild game for cash; when they saw him, the fake Samurai, in the distance, they hid, afraid he’d use them for archery practice.

Of course, that didn’t mean there was no danger— even if they were hunters, they might not mind pulling a quick robbery if the opportunity arose. Maybe they’d been sizing up the group as potential easy prey, thinking about whether to launch an ambush and snatch some loot. They must have realized they’d been spotted, lost the element of surprise, and immediately slipped away.

In chaotic times, with law and order in ruins, anything goes and any kind of person could be found. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

In these days, it’s damn hard to tell good folk from bad ones—no such thing as a peaceful journey!

Once the danger passed—well, maybe it wasn’t even danger, but it was gone anyway—they got going again, continuing on to Hosokawa Castle.

Harano, jolted into alertness, perked up again. But for the remainder of the journey, nothing happened—everything went completely smoothly, and they entered the domain of Hosokawa Castle without a hitch.

Taking advantage of a climb up a dirt mound, Harano gazed from afar at this town that no longer exists in modern times.

Hosokawa Castle had a moat—depth unknown, but not wide, maybe just about the width of two rooms.

The city walls, from a distance, seemed to be built mainly of thick, round logs—kind of wild and primitive. There were only three low arrow towers on three of the corners, with the fourth corner halfway done. Above the gate, the guardhouse looked like just a basic frame—a total hack job.

And since it was early spring, with warming weather and rising damp, the fortress walls seemed to be sprouting green moss, spreading here and there—splotches of green against the brown wood, looking ugly as hell.

As for area—about thirty-five rooms east to west, twenty-five rooms north to south. That made it a rectangle, around 3,500 square meters, just half the size of a football field—and that includes the moat! The usable area would be even smaller. For something called a "castle," Hosokawa Castle looked more like a wooden fort.

Looking at it, Hosokawa Castle and Nagano Castle really were worlds apart. Nagano Castle had been built by a powerful Daimyo, as the beloved youngest son’s residence, with no expense spared. Hosokawa Castle, on the other hand, was put up by a local gentry family with limited means—just in sheer size, you could see the gap. Altogether, Hosokawa Castle looked ramshackle, like an unfinished wooden construction project—a beggar among castles, without a hint of dignity.

Honestly, it probably really was "unfinished"—it might just stay like that forever, who knows.

According to the Records of the Expedition of Owari, Maeda Castle was abandoned for some reason around 1532 (probably an earthquake caused the Odai River to change course, actual cause unknown). The Maeda Family then split up, and Maeda Toshimasa’s branch had been living in Hosokawa and building this castle for less than ten years. On top of that, these past years, Oda Nobuhide kept waging war, forcing the Maeda Family to support him constantly with troops, sapping their strength and making it impossible for them to build anything substantial. Awkward pace and shoddy work—maybe this really was it for the place; nothing unusual about that.

Looking at it like this, Oda Nobuhide’s habit of picking fights with all his neighbors seemed suspiciously like a way of wearing down the powerful local families of Owari. Though who knows if these local bosses had figured that out...

Maybe they had. Ah Man had once mentioned that all the local gentry across Owari’s eight counties were just waiting for Oda Nobuhide to kick the bucket. The Oda Danjo Chonosuke house had no shortage of infighting, either.

Harano gazed at Hosokawa Castle in silence for a while, then turned his eyes to the surroundings.

A little castle like Hosokawa Castle obviously didn’t have a town. Outside the castle was of course Hosokawa Village: judging from the number of houses, it was three or four times bigger than Hibi Village. The fields, though, were just like Hibi Village—no proper irrigation system. The rice paddies were only along both banks of the Odai River for easy water access; the dry fields much the same—orderly at first, then growing more chaotic as they stretched towards the hills.

What was different from Hibi Village was that, on the low hill northwest of Hosokawa Village, there was a "Grand Mansion": perched on high, with a large wooden-and-stone gate, and thickly built walls like a small fort. Inside stood a Dobao Pagoda, sweeping eaves and a spire stabbing the sky—quite refined and splendid. Overall, except for lacking a moat and arrow towers, it looked even grander than Hosokawa Castle itself.

This should be the Hosokawa Guanyin Temple—this time, Harano didn’t need to ask anyone, because he remembered that pagoda. This tower survived into later ages, and its architect was supposedly the same guy who designed Azuchi Castle, though Harano forgot his name. He’d seen this pagoda in plenty of advertisements and on TV—the general look was the same.

Sure enough, the Hosokawa Guanyin Temple survived into modern times, located out in suburban Nagoya City. It had been renovated into the Priest Temple attached to Tenman Shrine—its old gate and high walls were gone, so it didn’t look much like a little fortress anymore, but it still preserved over twelve hundred Enku Buddha statues. It counts as one of Nagoya’s less-famous little sights.

Harano stood atop the dirt mound, observing and thinking. After looking his fill, he finally turned and descended.

Finally here. Let’s go—time to meet the local big shot, Hosokawa Castle’s City Lord, Maeda Toshimasa. Who knows what kind of person he’ll turn out to be!