Looking at the small bowl of gruel on the ground in front of him, Ogata let out a long sigh.

Muttered softly:

"I really want to eat meat......

Although Ogata is a samurai, he actually has a hard time.

In terms of living standards, they are not as good as some peasants.

Although the samurai were the ruling class in the Edo period, there were many different ranks.

The highest-ranking samurai is, of course, the shogun.

In the Edo period, the nominal leader of the country was the emperor, but in essence, the supreme ruler of the country was actually the Tokugawa shogun.

The samurai, who were one rank lower than the shoguns, were the daimyo of each domain.

The so-called "feudal domains" can be understood as the fiefs of the vassals, and the high-ranking samurai who ruled over these feudal domains were called "daimyos".

During the Edo period, the "shogunate system" was pursued.

Shogunate system – a system established by Tokugawa Ieyasu in which the shogunate and the feudal kingdom were jointly ruled.

Under the shogunate system, the shogun was the supreme ruler of Japan, and the shogunate was the highest organ of power in the country.

The shogunate ruled over feudal states throughout the country. The rulers of each feudal domain were daimyo and loyal to the shogunate, which imposed a system of alternate pilgrimages to them.

The daimyo still had a great deal of independence, and they had administrative, judicial, military, and tax powers in their domains.

To use a figurative analogy - the shogun is similar to the Chinese Zhou Tianzi and is the lord of the world.

The daimyo of each domain was similar to the princes who were divided by Zhou Tianzi, and had a high degree of autonomy in their respective fiefdoms.

The shogun directly controlled a quarter of the country's land.

The other three-quarters of the land was given to the daimyos.

Even lower than the daimyo were the samurai who did not have fiefdoms.

Even the samurai who did not have fiefdoms were divided into quite a few ranks.

Ogata is a low-level kind of low-level samurai.

Ogata was a lower-ranking samurai of the Hirose Domain.

The Hirose Domain was a feudal kingdom in the Izumo region, a small feudal domain with a small fiefdom and no presence in the whole country.

Ogata can only receive 50 kokuroku per year.

Stone is a unit of volume.

The so-called annual salary of 50 koku means that Ogata receives 50 koku of rice from the feudal domain every year.

And 1 stone of rice is about enough for an adult man to eat for 1 year.

It sounds like Ogata's annual income is very high, and the rice he can receive every year is enough for 50 adult men to eat for a year.

However, in fact, Ogata's income is so low that he may not be able to support even a family of three.

Ogata also needs money to buy daily necessities such as firewood, rice, oil, and salt.

So he had to exchange his salary, which is this pile of rice, into money.

If you exchange rice for money with a merchant, you will inevitably be depressed by the merchant.

In this way, it is difficult to feed a family of three with 50 stone rice.

However, because Ogata's parents died, he was the only one left in the family.

Therefore, if you live alone, 50 koku is still enough for Ogata to survive.

It's just that it won't be too nourishing.

Ogata can only eat gruel for three meals a day.

If you don't eat gruel in one meal, Ogata may starve to death......

Struggling to make ends meet—this is how Ogata's life as a low-ranking samurai is portrayed.

Even if Ogata is rich, he can't eat meat.

Because in ancient Japan, meat was not eaten at all.

You can't buy meat even if you have money

In ancient Japanese recipes, the only thing that was used to get involved with meat was fish-based seafood.

It wasn't until more than half a century later, after the opening of Japan at the end of the Edo period, that Japanese people began to eat meat.

……

……

From moving the chopsticks to putting down the chopsticks, Ogata's mouth only opened 4 times.

It only took 4 times to open his mouth and finish this small bowl of gruel.

The warm gruel went down to the stomach, and the originally torturous feeling of fasting slowly dissipated.

Although there is no longer a feeling of fasting, there is no feeling of fullness either.

After eating, he fell into a state of idleness.

It's the Edo period, the end of the 18th century.

Naturally, there wasn't much entertainment for Ogata.

Even if you want to have some fun, there are still plenty of enjoyable things to do to spend the night in this day and age.

But these pleasant things, without exception, require a lot of money.

Ogata, who has four walls and can only rely on gruel for every meal, naturally can't have the money to live a rich "nightlife".

Ogata, who had nothing to do, simply hugged the only two valuable things in his house, his two knives, and sat in a corner of the room, staring at the empty home, in a daze.

After inexplicably traveling to the Edo period, Omi fought 3 swords in a row, and his nerves were in a state of high tension, and he didn't have time to think about other things.

Now that I'm home and have nothing to do, the nerves that had been tense have gradually relaxed.

As soon as his nerves relaxed, all sorts of strange thoughts popped up in Ogata's mind.

"Why did I suddenly travel back in time to the Edo period of Japan......

Ogata muttered in a low voice that only he could hear.

Before traveling back in time to the Edo period, Ogata's memory was frozen in the scene of him reading a book in his study.

Ogata is a fond of reading, especially history books, and is interested in European history.

Although he loves European history, he also has an understanding of Japanese history.

Ogata only remembered that he was reading a book in the study, and suddenly felt a little sleepy, so he closed the book and lay down on the table for a nap.

When he opened his eyes again, he came to the Edo period, became Ogata Itsei, and competed with people in the Sakakibara Sword Museum.

Ogata doesn't even know if the era he is living in is the Edo era of Japan on Earth.

The era he is living in now is the Edo period in Japan on another earth—and it's not impossible.

However, according to the memory in his mind, the historical trajectory of the era in which he is now living is completely consistent with the historical trajectory of the Edo period of the earth.

It was Tokugawa Ieyasu who won a great victory in the Battle of Sekigahara and opened the shogunate in the Edo area, which brought Japan into the Tokugawa shogunate period.

This year is the first year of Kuanzheng, and it is 1789.

Not long after the "Great Hunger of Heaven", which caused countless deaths and injuries, passed.

The current shogun in power is the eleventh shogun who has just been on the throne for a long time - Tokugawa Iesai.

All the historical memories that Ogata Hara brings to Ogata are exactly the same as the Japanese history that Ogata learned from books on Earth.

Judging from all the information that is known so far, the era in which Ogata is now is probably not the Edo period of a parallel world.

But this conclusion is not absolute.

After all, there may be some events tomorrow that are completely different from the history of Japan as recorded in the books of the earth.

How did he travel through time, how did the system in his brain come about, and whether the era he was in now was the Edo period in a parallel world—Ogata gave up after thinking about it for a while.

Because these questions are all questions that you want to break your head, you may not be able to think of a question that is natural.