During the period between Gao Shisheng's "soothing the orphans and widows" and Hasegawa Mototada's "teaching his son to become famous", the Zhuangsho sent a group of people rushed to Nagata Village in the rain.

Nagata Village is said to be a village, but it is better to say that it is the residence of the Nagata Mori family, a private village, and the entire village stands in a field of plaster, covering a wide area, no less than ten towns.

Gao Shisheng and others got off the country road and turned onto the dirt road in the field. The road surface is still relatively compact, and the ditches on both sides have obviously just been dredged recently, and there is no siltation of river mud, resulting in flooding of the road.

On both sides of the roadside are paddy fields where rice is grown. Hit by the torrential rain, large swaths were planted in the rainwater, mixed with algae and unburned paper boat strawmen, soaked and rotten. Artemisia made a dummy, which means wrapping sins and evil spirits in the body of the straw man, and then placing the grass man in a small boat, setting it on fire and letting it float away with the river or ocean current, so as to ward off plague and calamity.

Nagata Village is divided into two parts, with fields on the left and shoin on the right.

The village of the Nagata family is similar to the kanshiki of the Kamakura samurai family, and it is also divided into three directions: outside, table, and oku, and the outward is the place where the village people live, and the place where the people of the village live and receive guests. Okuxiang, also known as Lixiang, is a place where the owner of the house and his family rest and live at night.

It's just that the Nagata Pavilion is larger, and the entire village is enveloped and protected by a wall.

The dirt road in the field is intricate, not facing the gate of the village, but going around to the southeast corner of the village, and then turning a few corners, turning over the ditch and the earth barrier, in order to come to the position of the main gate, the gate of the village is facing the country road in the north, in order to prevent thieves, the road is specially built like this.

In the paddy field outside the door, a group of brown-clothed men were braving the wind and rain, dredging the ditch for the master's house, and saw Gao Shisheng and his party leading horses over, and one of them wore a hat, like a middle-aged man dressed as a steward.

Gao Shisheng passed by this section of the country road when he went to work, and when he happened to meet with the sedan chair of the Asahina family, when he stopped on the road, he also looked at this large-scale village from a distance, but he did not expect it to be the residence of the Nagata family.

The front of the courtyard is built with two portals, one is the main gate, the gatehouse of the "high screen type", the hanging mountain is high, the eaves of the bucket corner are connected by the porch of the middle courtyard along the road, and the main houses in the courtyard are all over the house.

The Nagata family, like Seto Kasahisa, were wealthy money lenders who mainly engaged in "dokura borrowing".

The houses inside and outside the village are surrounded by stucco walls. One of the rice bags, the two-story building, the three-story warehouse, the main fire prevention of the earthen warehouse to build a big house, and the ordinary low wooden long house is very different, plus the building is tall, Gao Shisheng subconsciously stopped, looked at a few more times.

Beizhuang Manjiro spoke to the steward who greeted him: "We came here today and have something to see your parents." ”

There is a small side door on the side of the main gate, Gao Shisheng is the head of the village, the position is not high, but he is also the Fenggong of Junfu, no matter how sloppy the steward is, he does not dare to lead him through this small door, the middle-aged man in charge nodded, and politely invited: "Zhuangtou, please come with me." ”

Gao Shisheng felt that this person was familiar, so he asked, "Venerable, have you and I ever met?" ”

The middle-aged steward didn't dare to say anything, and replied: "Zhuang Tou's words are serious, how can the villain and a house slave dare to say the word 'respect'." After a pause, he said: "On that day, when the young gentleman of my family went to the village and apologized to the two officials from the county, the villain also went with his entourage, but his status was humble and he had no chance to enter, and he had been waiting in the distance outside the door. ”

Gao Shisheng remembered that when the Nagata Mori clan came to the village that day and apologized to the two Lang officials, Yamauchi Tongju and Matsugami Torture, he seemed to see a group of people waiting by the village road outside the village.

Kitazhuang Manjiro stepped forward and added in a low voice: "This is not a slave, but also a member of the Nagata clan. ”

Gao Shisheng knew in his heart that the gentleman's Ze would be cut in the fifth generation. Although the same surname is Changtian, I am afraid that the steward is only a distant relative of the Shu clan, and the status is not high, otherwise he would not be dressed shabby and do the chores of taking care of the village for the main family.

Most of the farms are gathered and lived, except for slaves, slaves, and langdang, the most people who live in the village are "clansmen". But just as there is a difference between the concubine and the concubine, the status and treatment are very different. The same is true of the Gao clan in Yuanjiang, the relationship between Gao Shisheng and other families is called the same clan and the same clan, which is really close to each other, and the master is divided from the top and bottom.

Those who are closer to their own family have a higher status; If you are farther away, your status will be much lower.

Many impoverished "clansmen" are said to be blood relatives of the same clan, and in fact their status is similar to that of servants and vassals, and even inferior to the Lang Party, and they are more close to and loved by them. Only by renting the land of the "parents" can they barely make ends meet, and the rent tax will not be reduced or reduced because of kinship, and they have to repair houses and repair ditches for the "parents" during the slack time, and even act as Lang Party disciples and go out with the army.

When the Gaoshi Shengjun Mansion replaced his own brother as a parasiter, he had two concubines of the same clan who were in charge of accompanying him, serving his ordinary food and life, and his status was no different from that of a slave.

The steward in front of him is already a good life, at least he can manage the village for the "parents", rather than being managed and supported by others.

The main entrance leads to the cloister, and you will find a large courtyard with stables and warehouses on the left, and rows of earthen houses built against the wall on the right. The horse could not go from the main gate, before entering the door, there were servants who took it from the small door and led it into the stable, Gao Shisheng and others went up to the corridor, and the steward summoned two young maids to come out of the side school, help him untie his coat and hat, and hang it under the porch to dry.

Others don't have such a good treatment, so they can only help each other untie the rain gear to hang.

Fu went back to the house, took out a stack of towels, and asked everyone to wipe the rain, Gao Shisheng stretched out his hand to stop the maid who wanted to wipe the rain for himself, took the towel cloth from her hand, and said with a smile: "I'll come by myself!" ”

The maidservant girl was very surprised to see him behave like this, covered her mouth and chuckled, as if to say how could there be such a strange nobleman, looked deeply, bowed, and walked backwards back to the school.

"Subai" is a woman's etiquette. Men bow down with their hands on the ground and bow their heads, while women usually only need to fold their hands in front of their knees and bow down, which is called "subai".

Seeing that the maid dared to be so frivolous and noble, the steward pulled down his face, only considering that outsiders were present, it was not easy to have a seizure, Gao Shisheng did not notice this, but looked at the right side, the multi-story earthen house where the slaves and maids and disciples lived.

The earthen house is simple, the outside of the wall is not smeared with chalk, and the gray and yellow mud embryo is mixed with black soil and washed away by the torrential rain, which is very ugly.

The autumn rain is cold, most of the earthen houses are closed doors, the bamboo and wooden windows are put down, the loess and wood and stone are piled up outside to prevent being swept away by the wind, a ditch is dug in front of the door, covered with wooden boards, the partition leaks a hole, domestic sewage and rainwater are dumped and excluded from here, and now it is overflowing, all kinds of dirt are constantly fluttering along the water flow, and eventually they will be blocked by the iron fence of the flood outlet, blocking the water flow.

When the earthen house was built, the problem of difficult drainage was taken into account during heavy rains, so the foundation was raised very high, but there was no need to worry about water backing up.

At the end of the earthen house on the right, there is a watchtower. It was Gao Shisheng who saw the large earth warehouse outside the courtyard, higher than the gatehouse, and there were people on the top floor, I don't know if they were busy working, or they were patrolling and guarding against thieves.

On the edge of the corner of the big house built by the earth cang, there is a public toilet, and there is an inconspicuous small shrine next to it, dedicated to the god of grains. The god of grains is the god of toilets, and almost everyone will worship it, and the breadth of worship is even more than any well-known god and Buddha in the world.

Go over the inner door wall and enter the watch room.

On both sides of the gate are two two-storey aisles standing opposite each other, the upper floors of which are the same as the watchtowers on the wall of the gate. The oars are also used for lookouts and preparations, and there are rectangular narrow mouths on the four sides of the platform wall. It can be seen from afar, and it can also shoot arrows and fire iron cannons. It can be seen that the head of the Nagata family not only has money but also spares his life, and if there are really thieves to commit it, he can't resist the first gate, and he can also refuse to accept the inner door.

Along the road, you can also see that from time to time there are useful sticks to change guards, and several of them are still carrying an iron cannon behind them, which is a rare thing, and the eastern country is not as good as Kansai, limited by financial resources and the price of iron cannons, as well as high attrition.

The number and proportion of the number of people who used iron cannons in each daimyo army were very small.

In a wealthy merchant in the countryside, he saw several iron cannons at once, which really surprised Gao Shisheng.

It's just that I don't know if it's the Kunitomo Tube, the Sakai Tube, or the Shikoku Awa Gun with the most equipment in the Miyoshi family's military forces.

This kind of tight internal and external defense can be said to be no less than the fortress of ordinary wealthy families, and it is many times stronger than the two-way mansion of the village.

The outer house is smaller than the front yard, and it is still connected by corridors and houses, leading directly to the "nine palace houses" in the middle. The structure is similar to the two rooms in the inner courtyard of the village, which are specially used for the wealthy to live, and are not only spacious, but also the tallest houses on the outside.

As the name suggests, the "Nine Rooms" means that there are nine separate partitions with different functions in the entire hall house, decreasing in order, and there are seven rooms, five rooms, three rooms, and two partition rooms.

The guest rooms in the inner courtyard of Hirayamaso are five rooms, while the one in which Gao Shisheng lives in himself has only three rooms, and the Hasegawa family is a two-partition house.

The longhouse where Aoki Daizen and others live together, if you have to say it, it can only be regarded as one room.

Unlike the Heping Lodge, there is a bamboo forest planted in front of the house in the main hall of the village, while the Nagata family has dozens of mulberry elm trees planted near the hall and on both sides of the courtyard, lotus flowers are planted in the courtyard pond, and the green carp are fat and large, which does not look like it is used for ornamental purposes at all.

Depending on the purpose, the wood planted in the garden is naturally different.

The bamboo forest planted by Zhuang is for the pastime and enjoyment of the wealthy warriors who come and go, and why the Changtian family planted mulberry elm, Gao Shisheng can guess a thing or two.

Since it is not for leisure and self-entertainment, it must be related to the "agricultural book", mulberry leaves can be raised silkworms, mulberries, elm money, lotus roots, and even green carp can also be fished out and eaten - at present, this kind of green and yellow is not received, and when it suffers disasters, many poor people rely on it, and these four things are hungry to survive.

With the wealth of the Changtian family, but still making room in the courtyard, and also planting these two types of trees, Gao Shisheng also didn't know how to evaluate, saying that it was good to be careful and calculating, and to say that it was stingy and contemptible to say that it was bad.

The slaves and maids on duty in front of the palace house, seeing that the steward brought the guests to come, knelt down and saluted, and when the people approached, they opened the door of the entrance and invited them in.

The steward who led the way led the people into the main hall and said, "Please wait a while, and I will go to find my parents." When he went out, he commanded the maid kneeling beside the door: "Distinguished guests, serve tea and soup quickly." ”

There are entrance doors on all four sides of the hall for easy access. The house is supported by thick pillars, a row of long lampstand candles are placed on the left and right sides of the wall, eight couches are laid horizontally on the floor, a central hall shelf, and a fixed low-legged lacquer table is placed on the side, with a three-legged vase, an incense burner, and a tea set. On the wall behind the shelf there is a picture scroll of Buddha statues, and autumn chrysanthemums are inserted in vases.

There is a cloud frame on the very edge, on which there is a sword, the knife is not known in the sheath, but the scabbard is inlaid with gold and silver, it is very extraordinary.

Kitano Manjiro said: "When I used to play with Gonnosuke, I heard him say that his eldest brother likes to collect family treasures, and this Taidao is specially entrusted to go to Kuwana County in Ise Province and buy it from the master of the sword, and the Kuwana Right Guard Captain Fujiwara Village is worth 10,000 dollars. ”

Gonnosuke is the common name of the Nagata Mori clan, and Fujiwara Muramasa is the second-generation head of the Kuwana Muramasa swordsmith clan who built the "Demon Sword Muramasa" to restrain the Tokugawa shogun's family.

He is also a world-famous swordsmith, and many of the famous swords collected by the sword hero general Ashikaga Yoshiaki are from Fujiwara Muramasa.

Gao Shisheng nodded and didn't speak, but he didn't think so, because there were too many Muramasa knives.

At that time, trade was often carried out between Kuwana Prefecture and Mikawa Province in Ise Province, and swords flowed into Mikawa Province in large quantities as a specialty of Ise, and even spread to the entire Tokaido.

As a very practical weapon, the Muramasa sword was widely used among the samurai, and even the ashigaru was equipped with the Ise Muramasa sword, and according to the "Tale of Mikawa", the battle kill rate of the Mikawa samurai at that time was quite high, including the fact that the knife was too sharp, so the injury rate during training was also very high, obviously these were due to the fact that the Muramasa knife was too sharp, and if you didn't get it right, you would hurt yourself.

In the peaceful Matsudaira clan, it is not surprising that people from generation to generation have died because of the "Demon Sword Muramasa".

However, this does not mean that the price of the Isemura Masa knife is low, if it is really from the Captain Kuwana Righte, the Isemura Masa Knife is worth more than 100 gold, how can it be bought for only 10,000 dollars.

From the hand of "Seshu Kuwana Sumimi Uemon Captain Fujiwara Muramasa", it's just boasting and coaxing people who don't have knowledge.

Note: There is no tea set in the three feet, but rather a candlestick.