"Blessings of the Main God! Honored Chief Priests! These eleven artisans from the Western Sea Wa Tribe are all 'Master Artisans' of outstanding skill. They respectively possess ten Western Sea skills urgently needed by the Kingdom: smithing, papermaking, lacquer-making, pottery-firing, carpentry, vehicle-making, house-building, carving, hemp-spinning, weaving and dyeing... Most especially this aged one-armed blacksmith, Tetta Mune-yoshi—he is a top Master Blacksmith hard to find even in the Western Sea!..."
"Oh?! Praise the Main God! Good! The Kingdom does indeed urgently need excellent blacksmiths to forge weapons and armor, and excellent carpenters to build ships... As for making 'vehicles'? Are those the two-wheeled ritual implements pulled by horses, which His Majesty revealed through Divine Revelation?..."
"Yes, Chief Priest!... The cartwright Kuruki Sadakichi can make two-wheeled vehicles that can be pulled by horses or oxen. On repaired dirt roads, the load of these two-wheeled 'horse carts' and 'ox carts' can reach at least 'twenty times' that of a laborer's small one-wheeled pushcart, and their endurance is extremely long. They are a military and state weapon for land transport!... Look, this pair of horned breeding beasts are the four-footed plow beasts, 'oxen,' that His Majesty specifically asked for! Their strength is second only to the huge Bison of the north, yet their temperament is far gentler than Bison. Not only can they pull carts and transport grain, more importantly they can plow fields and increase yields..."
"...! There is actually such an important weapon for transporting grain? And such enormous, docile beasts?! Using carts to transport grain, raising oxen to pull carts or plow fields... Good, good! Losanda, this time you have rendered a great service!..."
The Zheyang Ship moored in the harbor, and dusk deepened into night, lighting the bonfires for the evening feast. Hundreds of Samurai split themselves among a dozen