Tian Ce

After the border situation had been dealt with, it was time to turn to the villages scattered around Tsukimiura.

There were twenty-five villages, large and small.

Dongfang Mao had originally intended to use a conciliatory approach with the landlords in these villages.

After all, their influence ran deep in the countryside. The slightest misstep could spark a peasant uprising, which would be extremely troublesome to deal with.

But with the pacification army from the Land of Rice Fields bearing down on them, there was no time left for Dongfang Mao to proceed gently.

He had no choice but to take the simplest, most heavy-handed approach: sending Yasuke and Kyuzo to lead the New Martial Army in putting down the villages by force.

Faced with the sudden arrival of the army, the villages reacted fiercely and organized resistance.

However, the forces these villages could muster consisted of no more than the landlords' retainers and a handful of incited villagers—barely a hundred people in all.

They were dressed in rags, and the weapons in their hands were nothing more than farming tools like hoes and shovels. They were no match for an army.

How could a rabble like that stand against the well-trained New Martial Army?

The battle was never in doubt. In the blink of an eye, the resistance was crushed completely.

Once the resistance had been cleared away, Dongfang Mao was left to decide what to do with the landlords.

Perhaps some of them were genuinely charitable people, but time was short, and he had no time to investigate each one.

So he cut through the knot with a single stroke: confiscate their estates, take them and their families to the execution grounds in each village, and put them on public trial before sentencing them to death.

Fortunately, these landlords did not die unjustly. They had preyed on the locals, lent money at extortionate rates, squeezed them dry, seized their property by force, and committed countless other misdeeds.

Unlike the townspeople of Tsukimiura, these rural farmers were almost all completely illiterate.

The landlords had only ever cared about exploiting them. Why would they bother teaching them to be loyal to the country or devoted to the Daimyo?

In the farmers' minds, neither the country nor the Daimyo was a meaningful concept. They thought only about how to survive.

That was also why Dongfang Mao had been able to turn the group of refugees he found in the Desolate Village outside the city into the New Martial Army so smoothly.

Besides, the drought had been severe in recent years, and many farmers had reaped nothing at all.

The landlords had only become more ruthless, squeezing them dry and seizing their fields, driving many families to ruin.

So when the landlords were brought to the makeshift execution platform at the village entrance, every onlooker glared at them with bloodshot eyes, gritting their teeth in fury.

Rancor was etched into each gaunt face. They could hardly keep themselves from rushing forward and tearing their enemies to pieces.

The villagers' fury stood in stark contrast to the public trials of the city magistrate and the three great clans in Tsukimiura.

Back then, the execution grounds had been nearly silent. The crowd had shown little resentment or hatred toward those being punished.

In fact, most of the spectators had been dragged from their homes by the New Martial Army and forced to attend. At the time, that had left Dongfang Mao feeling rather unsure of himself.

When Dongfang Mao, still in the city, heard how the villagers had reacted to the public trials, he was first startled, then overjoyed.

After so many days of frantic work, he had finally received some good news.

Dongfang Mao couldn't help but sigh inwardly. Country folk really were the best—simple and honest.

Unlike these city people, every one of them was always thinking of ways to make trouble for the brilliant and mighty Grand Governor. They were simply rotten to the core!

Without hesitation, he immediately ordered Luzhen, the Minister of Finance, to allocate a supply of money and grain and send it to the villages.

It would provide relief to the villagers, who were on the verge of running out of food.

At the same time, he ordered the Ministry of Finance to remeasure the land in all the villages.

Once the land had been properly recorded, he introduced a new land policy.

All land would be placed under the ownership of the Grand Governor's Mansion, abolishing private land ownership.

Farmers could rent land from the Grand Governor's Mansion and pay rent annually.

The renter's name would be recorded on the land registry.

The person registered, along with their direct relatives in their household, would have priority when renting the land.

The poll tax and other miscellaneous levies were abolished and folded into the land rent. Rent would be assessed uniformly according to the land's area and quality.

Dongfang Mao then established the Village Administration Bureau and dispatched twenty-five Village Supervisors. Each was assigned three constables from the New Martial Army and one tax officer from the Ministry of Taxation. They were sent to the villages to maintain order and encourage farming.

They would explain and publicize the policies issued by the Grand Governor's Mansion, preventing the villagers from being misled by troublemakers.

They would coordinate village affairs and audit taxes and grain levies.

Within each village, the villagers would also elect a village head, who would be given official status.

The village head would assist the Village Supervisor in managing village affairs and resolving disputes among the villagers.

The three parties—the village head, Village Supervisor, and tax officer—would also monitor and restrain one another to prevent abuses of power.

After all that, Dongfang Mao assigned a large number of laborers from the Labor Camp to the villages to build roads, connecting them to Tsukimiura and making travel easier, so the Grand Governor's Mansion could strengthen its control over the villages.

They would also dig irrigation canals to guard against drought.

After Dongfang Mao's orders were issued, the villagers were initially disbelieving, their eyes full of wariness and suspicion.

They thought those powerful people had come up with yet another way to make their lives miserable.

But once the relief grain arrived and several short-term policies had been put into effect, the villagers wept with joy.

Many even went to the Village Administration Bureau of their own accord, knelt in a row, and kowtowed again and again.

They did not really understand the relationship between the Grand Governor's Mansion and the Land of Rice Fields.

But they didn't care. All they knew was that at last, an official had come who wasn't simply there to exploit and oppress them!

After learning more about the Grand Governor's Mansion, many people also heard that the Grand Governor's New Martial Army was made up of refugees.

Before they had become refugees, those people had been farmers like them, tilling the fields every day.

Before long, a great many young men in the countryside volunteered to enlist in the New Martial Army.

The number of recruits looked to be several times greater than the number recruited day after day in the city.

This left Dongfang Mao grinning from ear to ear.

These farm boys had few problems to begin with, and they wouldn't feel much of a divide between themselves and the New Martial Army. They were practically ideal recruits.

Dongfang Mao made his decision on the spot and accepted them all.

Of course, even enlistment had to follow the rules.

Before joining, they would all have to visit Fujikichiro at the Department of Propaganda and experience the power of a grievance meeting first!

While things were thriving on Dongfang Mao's end, news of Tsukimiura finally spread beyond the region.

It was the biggest news since the end of the Second Ninja World War.

In the thousand years since the current order of the Ninja World had been established, no one had ever dared to escalate a conflict into a war aimed at seizing cities and territory.

To challenge a country so openly was truly enough to leave people dumbfounded.