"So that was it. Chairman Hyodo of the Black Emperor Society... What a bunch of monsters and fiends."
Under the Sharingan's hypnosis, Butler Kurosaki and Young Master Toshio naturally offered no resistance as Uchiha Naruto took control of them.
The young master named Toshio knew nothing no matter what he was asked, but the silver-haired old butler knew every detail and spilled all the inside information.
This was Uchiha Naruto's first time hearing of either the Black Emperor Society or Chairman Hyodo. He had Toshio take out his phone and search, but there were almost no traces of them online, only a few rumors of uncertain authenticity.
Only through Butler Kurosaki's account did Uchiha Naruto gain a rough understanding of how the Hyodo Family had risen to wealth.
The Hyodo Family had been ordinary merchants during the Edo period. Their real rise had come after the Meiji Restoration.
Among the peers granted titles by the imperial court after the Meiji Restoration, aside from the court nobles and domain lords who already held hereditary offices and stipends, one-third had come from commoner or lower-ranking samurai backgrounds.
Those granted peerages for their achievements fell into two groups: military nobles and major merchants who had contributed to commerce and industry rather than earning military distinction, such as Shibusawa Eiichi, known as the "father of Japanese industry."
The Hyodo Family's ancestor had poured his entire fortune into backing the army fighting to overthrow the shogunate, then gone into the lucrative business of trafficking Japanese women to the South Seas to sell their bodies. He had earned vast amounts of foreign currency for the empire and ultimately received a title for his contributions, joining the lowest ranks of the peerage.
After the war, the United States occupation forces had focused on suppressing the leading financial