The Yonezawa Basin in the Ou region of Northeastern Japan, known as the Snow Country, has finally ushered in the most comfortable summer of the year. The mountains around the basin can no longer see any white snow, and are all green.

At this moment, Uesugi Tsunakatsu, the lord of Yonezawa Domain, stood on the castle tower of Yonezawa Castle, a shabby little town located in the southern part of the basin, and looked around. What he saw was also an illusion of wealth... The Yonezawa Basin is certainly wealthy.

Yes, although the climate here is cold, the snowfall in winter is even more terrible. The snow is enough to bury a house! But the melted snow can also fully nourish the snow in the basin, making the Yonezawa Basin a rich place rich in rice.

Township.

In addition to the sweet and delicious Yonezawa rice, Yonezawa Kuroge beef is also a rare delicacy. The meat is soft, tender and plump, and it also has beautiful frosty oil flowers. It is definitely a rare and delicious meat in Japan.

However, these two specialties are not of much value to the Uesugi family, a famous samurai family that rules the Yonezawa Basin. Japanese nobles in the Edo period did not like to eat meat, and it was difficult to sell any beef. However, no matter how delicious Yonezawa rice is, the output

It's just that little. The Yonezawa clan's stone height is only 300,000 koku. Although through a series of self-deceptive reforms, it claims to have an actual output of 510,000 koku, this is just an excuse to increase the intensity of exploitation.

The standard for farmers in Japan to pay tribute rice is six to the public or four to the public or five to the public and five! In other words, if a farmer works with his face facing the loess and his back to the sky for a year, the theoretical output must be paid 50% to 60%...

. And Japan is not a country with a small population and a wide land. It has many mountains and few plains, and the land suitable for reclamation is very limited. So if you really have to pay 50% to 60% according to the actual output, how will the farmers live?

Therefore, Japanese farmers also have to pay some expenses and hide the yield of their fields as much as possible so that they can have more food.

And when this kind of thing happens to "benevolent kings" with large territory and few retainers, such as those close lords of the Tokugawa family, most of them turn a blind eye and turn a blind eye.

But the farmers in the Yonezawa area were unlucky. They met the Uesugi clan, a famous samurai family who was in decline... When Uesugi Kagekatsu was the boss of the monkey family, he was a famous man worth 1.2 million koku! As a result, in the Battle of Sekigahara

The middle station was in the wrong team and was severely beaten by Tokugawa Ieyasu, whose salary was reduced from 1.2 million koku to 300,000 koku. Under such circumstances, Uesugi Kagekatsu wanted to be the "best employer" and refused to lay off employees.

He took all 6,000 retainers with him and moved to the vast Yonezawa domain to live a hard life.

Divide 300,000 shi by 6,000, and each family has exactly 50 shi...A 40% discount on the actual income is 30 shi. If it is divided equally, it will be enough, but the problem is that it is impossible to divide it equally!

There are also superiors and inferiors in the samurai class, so how can we practice egalitarianism? Moreover, there are many necessary expenditures in the domain's finances! From time to time, the shogunate will give some work to the feudal sects below, and also come up with a particularly expensive interrogation system.

, the lords, heirs, and important ministers of each domain still have to travel between Edo and the main domain! Without these necessary supports, how much income can the Yonezawa domain have to support 6,000 retainers?

This is not 6,000 people, but 6,000 samurai families. How can we afford to support them if we don’t increase exploitation?

Therefore, the Uesugi family, a famous samurai family, no longer needs the reputation of benevolence and love for the people, so they exploit it with all their strength! Through hard development (actually inspecting the land), the stone height has been raised to 510,000 stone! The annual tribute collected every year has also reached 30

More than 10,000 koku... But no matter how hard the Uesugi family tried, they could not get rid of the title of "the most poor feudal lord in Japan"!

Japan is the poorest!

The Uesugi family, a famous samurai family, once owned the Sado Island gold and silver mine. The extremely wealthy Uesugi family had been famously poor for three generations during the Keian period of the Edo period!

Three generations are the poorest in Japan!

How poor is the Uesugi family? So poor that they don’t even have debts... What is considered poor without debts? It depends on the situation. The Tokugawa clan has no debts now, and Tokugawa Iemitsu still has 6 million left.

With two years of savings, he also lent a lot of debt to the feudal lords below, so he was certainly not poor.

But the situation of Uesugi Tsunakatsu, the third generation lord of the Yonezawa clan, who has no debts, is completely incomparable with Tokugawa Iemitsu... He has no debts because he is the poorest in Japan, so no one is willing to lend to him!

This is like being on the blacklist of dishonest people since he was born, and his Huabei quota will always be zero. How poor he must be!

Uesugi Tsunakatsu, who never dared to expect to be in debt in this life, finally withdrew his gaze from the rich countryside of Yonezawa Basin, sighed softly, and then heard one of his nicknames say: "My Lord, lunch is ready

, it’s the same as yesterday’s dinner and lunch, still rice, natto, green vegetables, pickled plums...and Yonezawa Kuroge beef.”

Too poor! Tsusakatsu Uesugi sighed. Because he was poor, he, the feudal lord, never had any good food. Almost every meal was a "Wagyu set meal"!

Even when he went to Edo to visit the shogun, he had to bring Yonezawa rice and pickled Kuroge Wagyu beef, and he even said he loved the food of his hometown...

The younger one said again: "My lord, Takeda Genzaemon is here."

Hearing his name, Uesugi Tsunakatsu actually laughed: "Haha, this poor guy Takeda is here again!"

The man who came turned out to be a poor man! And he also came from a poor family. His Miao name is Takeda and he was born in Koshu. He was the great-grandson of Takeda Shingen, the Tiger of Koshu who always opposed Kenshin during the Warring States Period. His name was Takeda Shinji.

.And Genzaemon is a "common title for pretending to be an official", which is a title used by samurai to increase their status.

Although Takeda Shinji comes from a famous family, he is just a sergeant with a salary of 1,000 koku now. He cannot brag too much. He can only pretend to be a gatekeeper. Even if he brags, he will be so miserable!

It is precisely because Takeda Shinji was so miserable that Uesugi Tsunakatsu particularly liked him - look, the descendants of Takeda Shingen, who once fought life and death with Kenshin Gong, are so poor... Japan

Could it be that the lord of the First Poor Domain, Tsusakatsu Uesugi, was in a bad mood?

No matter how poor he is, he is still the Lord of the Yonezawa Domain!

So Uesugi Tsusakatsu immediately asked someone to prepare another "Wagyu set meal" and some rice wine, so that the unscrupulous descendants of Uesugi and Takeda could drink wine and eat Wagyu beef, and then brag about their ancestors together.

But when Uesugi Tsunakatsu saw the sneaky look on his good friend Takeda Shinji's face, he was a little stunned.

What bad thing did Takeda do again? Why does he look so nervous?

"My lord, see you, Takeda Shinji!" Takeda Shinji's voice was a little low, as if he was suppressing it on purpose.

"Oh, Takeda Genzaemon, what's wrong with you?"

"My lord, please step aside. I have something important to tell you."

Important matter?

Takeda Shinji was in charge of intelligence work in Yonezawa Domain - because the Takeda family still had a lineage that was granted the title of Gao by Tokugawa Ieyasu and served as an official in Edo. In addition, Hoshina Masayuki's adoptive mother, Kenshoin, was the daughter of Takeda Shingen

, due to this relationship, several members of the Takeda family also served as retainers under Masayuki Hoshina, so Takeda Shinji was relatively well-informed.

Uesugi Tsusakatsu dismissed the people around him, and then looked at Takeda Shinji.

"My Lord, His Highness has passed away!" Takeda Shinji immediately reported the big news.

"What? Dead?" Uesugi Tsunakatsu frowned, "Is there a funeral then?"

You have to go with the family to hold a funeral! There is no money!

"My lord, the shogunate decided not to announce the funeral secretly and concealed the death of Lord Iemitsu for three years!"

Fortunately...Uesugi Tsunakatsu breathed a sigh of relief. We won't have to worry about it in three years!

"Lord," Takeda Shinji said in an almost fanatical tone at this time, "the world is going to be in chaos! The opportunity to restore the homeland of Lord Kenshin and Lord Shingen is coming!"

"Nani?" Uesugi Tsunakatsu didn't seem to understand, "Takeda Genzaemon, what did you say?"

"Lord, the world is going to be in chaos! The opportunity for the Uesugi family and the Takeda family to revive is coming!" Takeda Shinji said urgently and quickly, "Emperor Kobuin will fight back to Japan soon. The Uesugi family and the Takeda family will return to Japan soon."
Chapter completed!