Chapter 4 Daily Cultivation
"This day was really like a punishment! I finally managed to get through it!" Kiryu Wanshu Maru let out a deep breath, quietly watching that teacher leave the large room. After waiting for a while, he estimated that Okawa Nobumasa had already walked far away, and then stepped out with a light pace.
Look at the sun, it's just lunchtime. With his personality, how can he bear the custom of only eating two meals a day? So, several years ago, he quietly advocated for the small surnames to take the lead in opening up a new habit of three meals a day. The effect was not very good, as expected. The small surnames of the Kijiraga family still stubbornly insisted on the traditional two meals a day, which made him very headache. For this reason, he spent a lot of brainpower to persuade them, such as eating more can grow taller and stronger, and will become a better warrior in the future. Even so, some small surnames chose to refuse.
Having two meals a day is not unique to the samurai, in Japan, such a poor country, there are only a handful of people who can eat their fill all year round. Having two meals a day to save food has been a tradition for thousands of years. Except for a few agricultural developed areas like Kinai, many remote countries like Mikawa still retain the traditions of hundreds of years ago. In addition, the annual tribute collection of Sansei and Nomin is very strict, and there are countless types of miscellaneous taxes that have never been heard of before. The tyranny of taxation is almost several times that of the Ming dynasty, and it can be described as a brutal regime.
However, even so, the warriors who were the ruling class did not live a happy life either. Both the warriors and the farmers faced the problem of having difficulty getting enough to eat. The powerful samurai families could still rely on collecting annual tributes to maintain their daily meals, enjoying good days with rice, pickled radish, and fish soup. But for the lesser daimyos and jige (lower-ranking samurai), life was much more difficult, and in order to survive, they had no choice but to put aside their dignity and work together with the farmers in the fields.
They can't eat white rice for the whole year, so they envy those who can eat white rice every day. In order to ensure that they too can eat white rice, they dare to confront the landlord and even the national master. Although this is very ridiculous, it still exists. As for the peasants, they are even more miserable. After paying the annual tribute, they sell the rice and exchange it for miscellaneous grains to make do with eating. Most peasants have never eaten the rice they grew in their lifetime.
In ancient Japan, there was an almost abnormal obsession with planting rice. He couldn't understand why they insisted on planting rice at all costs. Although the rice produced in Japan was fragrant and delicious, it didn't make sense to forcibly require farmers to plant rice regardless of the land conditions. Moreover, through his observations, he found that this era's Japan not only lacked farming techniques but also lacked the use of oxen and fertilizers, resulting in consistently low grain yields. In some impoverished areas, even one stone of grain was difficult to harvest per mu of land.
What's even more bizarre is that this is a country where meat has been prohibited for nearly a thousand years. Since Emperor Tenmu issued an edict prohibiting the consumption of cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys, and chickens, every summer a fishing moratorium was established. Buddhism then flourished, and according to Buddhist teachings, eating meat would lead to falling into the animal realm. To avoid falling into the animal realm after death, people stopped consuming four-legged animal meat. Later, Shintoism absorbed many of Buddhism's rules, considering eating corpses a filthy act. The Emperor, as the representative of the gods in human society, further prohibited meat consumption.
Originally, the samurai didn't care about this decree either. The initial samurai were just the armed guards of the Fujiwara family's estate, guarding the manors in the country for their noble masters. It wasn't until the Genpei War broke out and Minamoto no Yoshinaka made a fool of himself in Kyoto that the samurai realized how unsophisticated they had been before. In order to follow the trend, they also started prohibiting meat consumption, but fish and seafood were excluded, making it unrealistic for them not to eat any meat at all.
Kira Yoshinori's food was absolutely unconventional and against the rules of the samurai in this era. A small piece of roasted wild boar meat with soy sauce, a carp over one palm long carefully stewed with scallions, ginger, and vinegar, paired with a bowl of miso soup and fragrant white rice, managed to escape the distress of salted fish pickled radish-style rustic cuisine. Of course, he was also considered by the lower classes to be indulgent and would suffer divine punishment.
In this era, even the most luxurious martial artists wouldn't eat such dishes. Not to mention they didn't want to eat it, even if they wanted to, the chef wouldn't make it. These dishes were all made by him forcing the Kiryu family's chefs to learn from him. Those few chefs had their heads cracked open but couldn't change Kiryu Matsuomaru's mind. In order to be loyal, those chefs could only recite the names of gods and Buddhas with tears in their eyes, making dish after dish of "impure food" for the master's household.
Fortunately, Kira Yoshinaka's actions were very secretive, and apart from his confidants, Shigenaga and the chef, only a few of the Mito crowd knew about it. Even Yamamoto Kansuke was not entirely clear, probably he would have suspected something, but Kira Yoshinaka would never admit it. In an era when everyone ate pickled radish with mixed grains and rice, eating such food was absolutely shocking. If this matter were to be leaked out, the reputation of him and the Kira family would be ruined.
So the loyal vassals of the Sō clan strictly fulfilled their duty to keep secrets, and in private they gathered all those who knew about it, signed a secret oath, swearing to God that they would never reveal this secret for eternity, nor would they inform their descendants in any form... In the case of Kira Yoshinaka being unaware, a piece of dark history had already been buried.
After having a sumptuous lunch, as usual he would have half an hour of rest time. Woken up early by Yamamoto Kanbei, after this half-hour nap he was able to recover, and then he had to rush to the main camp to practice martial arts. This was the result of Yamamoto Kanbei's consultation with ōkōchi no Mitsune. In the morning, he studied cultural subjects, and in the afternoon, he studied military tactics. If there were special circumstances, other arrangements would be made.
In Japan, the so-called "Hyōhō" is not a military tactic for marching and fighting, but rather an art of bravery and ferocity, an art of attacking and killing. In short, it refers to the art of swordsmanship. Practitioners of Hyōhō are also known as "Kenshi" or "Sword Saints". The most skilled practitioners are called "Kensei" or "Sword Sages". Among them, the greatest is Tsukahara Bokuden, a legendary swordsman who has remained undefeated for over 40 years and is revered by countless warriors as a senior master.
Kirishima Manzumaru's martial arts training came from Yamamoto Kansuke, which is based on the Kyōto-ryū of the medieval period, and incorporates new Tōdō-ryū and traditional Kagura Shinto-ryū sword techniques. Compared to the old-fashioned emphasis on etiquette in Kyōto-ryū, it leans more towards the style of Tōdō-ryū, emphasizing a strong and fierce attack that can defeat the enemy with one blow, thoroughly overwhelming the opponent in terms of momentum and power.
For this unorthodox new sword technique, Kirishima Manzoumaru had always been skeptical, wielding his heavy wooden sword to chop at the thick tree trunk again and again, muttering to himself: "What school is this? It's definitely not Kyohachi-ryū or Katori Shintō-ryū, and why would he be a Shinmei-ryū? Isn't this Tsukahara Bokuden's school?"
