I Was a Swordsman in Ancient Japan

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

muttered softly:

"I really want to eat meat..."

Although Ogata is a samurai, his life is actually miserable.

In terms of living standards, it is not as good as some farmers.

Although samurai were the ruling class in the Edo period, there are actually many levels of samurai.

The most senior samurai is naturally the shogun.

In the Edo period, Japan's nominal national leader was the emperor, but the actual supreme ruler of the country was actually the Tokugawa shogun.

The samurai who are lower than the shogun are the daimyos of each domain.

The so-called "fans" can be understood as the fiefdoms of vassals, and the senior warriors who rule these domains are called "daimyo".

In the Edo period, the "Shogunate System" was practiced.

The shogunate system - a system established by Tokugawa Ieyasu by the shogunate and the vassal state.

Under the shogunate system, the shogun is the supreme ruler of Japan, and the shogunate is the country's highest political authority.

The shogunate ruled feudal states across the country. The rulers of each vassal are daimyo, who are loyal to the shogunate, and the shogunate implements a system of alternating visits to them.

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

To use an image metaphor-the shogun is similar to the Chinese Zhou Tianzi, who is the lord of the world.

The names of the feudal vassals are similar to the feudal princes who were enfeoffed by Zhou Tianzi, and they have extremely high autonomy in their respective fiefdoms.

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

The other three quarters of the land were all enfeoffed to daimyo.

Even lower than the daimyo are the samurai who have no fief.

Even warriors without fiefs are divided into quite a few ranks.

Ogata belongs to the lower-level samurai.

Ogata is a junior samurai of the Hirose Domain.

The Hirose Domain is a feudal state in the Izumo area. It is a small feudal domain with little presence in the whole country.

Ogata can only receive a salary of 50 shi per year.

A stone is a unit of volume.

The so-called annual salary of 50 shi means that Ogata can receive 50 shi of rice from the feudal mansion every year.

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

At first glance, Ogata's annual salary seems to be very high, and the rice he can receive every year is enough to feed 50 adult men for a year.

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

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

So he had to exchange his wages—that is, this pile of rice—into money.

If you exchange rice with merchants for money, you will inevitably be lowered by the merchants.

After going back and forth like this, it is difficult to support a family of three with 50 shimi.

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

So if one person lives alone, the salary of 50 shi is still enough for Ogata to survive.

It’s just—it’s just that I can’t live too well.

Ogata basically can only eat gruel for three meals a day.

If you don't eat gruel every now and then, Ogata may face the danger of starving to death...

Struggling on the line of food and clothing-this is the portrayal of Ogata's life as a low-level samurai.

Although even if Ogata was rich, he would not be able to eat meat.

Because ancient Japan did not eat meat at all.

You can't buy meat even if you have money

Among the ancient Japanese recipes, the only fish-based aquatic products were the only ones that had anything to do with meat.

It will be more than half a century later, after the founding of Japan at the end of the Bakumatsu period, that the Japanese will gradually start eating meat.

...

...

From moving the chopsticks to putting down the chopsticks,

Ogata opened his mouth only 4 times.

After only opening my mouth 4 times, I finished this small bowl of gruel.

After eating the warm gruel, the tormenting feeling of hunger slowly dissipated.

While you no longer feel hungry, you don't feel full either.

After eating, Xu conveniently fell into a state of doing nothing.

This is the Edo period, the end of the 18th century.

Naturally, there are not many recreational activities for Ogata to entertain.

Even if you insist on having some fun, you can still find many pleasant things to spend the night in this era.

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

Ogata, whose house is desolate and who can only rely on porridge for every meal, naturally cannot have the money to go to any rich "nightlife".

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

After inexplicably traveling to the Edo period, Ooi competed in three sword fights in a row, his nerves were always in a state of high tension, and he had no time to think about other things.

Now that I am home and have nothing to do, my nerves that have been tense have gradually relaxed.

As soon as his nerves relaxed, various strange thoughts emerged from Ogata's mind one after another.

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

Ogata murmured in such a low voice that only he could hear clearly.

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

Ogata likes to read, especially history books, and is very interested in European history.

Although I love European history, I also have a certain understanding of Japanese history.

Ogata only remembered that he was reading a book in the study, and suddenly felt sleepy while reading it, 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 and became Itsuki Ogata, competing with others in the Sakakibara Sword Gym.

Ogata didn't even know whether the era he was living in now was the Edo period of Japan on the earth.

The era he is in now is a parallel world, or the Edo period of Japan in another earth-it is not impossible for this kind of thing to happen.

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

It was Tokugawa Ieyasu who won the battle of Sekigahara and opened the shogunate in the Edo area, bringing Japan into the era of the Tokugawa shogunate.

And this year is the first year of Kanzheng, which is 1789 if it is replaced by the AD.

Not long after the "Tianming Great Hunger" that caused countless deaths and injuries.

The currently reigning shogun is Tokugawa Iezari, the eleventh generation shogun who has just ascended the throne.

All the historical memories brought to Ogata by "Original Ogata" are completely consistent with the history of Japan that Ogata learned from books on Earth.

Judging from all the known information so far - the era that Ogata is in now should not be the Edo era in a parallel world.

But this conclusion is not absolute.

After all—maybe something will happen tomorrow that is completely inconsistent with the history of Japan recorded in the books on Earth.

How did I travel through time, how did the system in my brain come from, and whether the era I am living in is the Edo period in the parallel world? After thinking about this question for a while, Ogata decided to give up.

Because these questions belong to your thinking about it, you may not be able to think of a reason for it.