Harano had nothing more to say.
Alright, it turns out the Japanese Middle Ages feudal lords knew how to squeeze people even harder than capitalists. On top of all kinds of exorbitant taxes, they also directly conscripted peasants for labor to work the land, pocketed all the profits for free—are their hearts so black that they don't even reflect light anymore?
Harano shook his head, looked toward the dry fields away from the small Tajii River, and asked, "What about the upland fields? Aside from the fifty-fifty split with the government, is there anything else to hand over?"
"No, but most of the dry fields don't yield much. If you convert it into rice, it'd be even less. After paying the annual tribute, there's hardly anything left." Yayoi—maybe because her father was a low-ranking magistrate in charge of overseeing the village's crops and tribute—was quite clear about this. "Besides that, every year our village still has to pay feathers, fish glue, lacquer, lacquer seeds, bundles of rice straw, hemp, hemp seeds, dried radish, dried turnip, bean paste, bamboo, timber… and some other things I can't remember right now. I'm sorry, sir."
The more she listed, the quieter her voice grew. Even though she was only ten, even though she was just a child, talking about all these things felt like a heavy mountain was pressed down on her chest, making her unavoidably downhearted.
Harano was left even more speechless, silently at a loss, and for the moment lost all interest in probing into the folkways of the Japanese Middle Ages.
Roughly calculated like this, the working people of the Japanese Middle Ages toiled all year round, yet the wealth they earned from their labor only amounted to about 20%, maybe even just 10%. This was something he'd never expected.
He'd only read in books that the burden on peasants was heavy in the feudal era, but had never imagined it was this bad. It truly fulfilled the saying: "Those who farm have no rice to eat, those who weave have no clothes to wear, living worse than a dog."
However…
How could Japanese peasants be so tolerant? More than 80% of their wealth is taken away, and there still hasn't been a rebellion? If it were Huaxia, collecting taxes to this extent, someone would have long since called for revolt; never mind the lords or the emperor, even gods and monsters would get dragged out and decapitated!
Anyway, he couldn't accept this—no matter who it was, if they tried to exploit him like this, he would definitely rebel!
He bit back the urge to blurt out, "How have you people endured this long?" After all, he was just a traveler through time and space, not planning to start a revolution in Japan.
He just silently glanced at the little girl before him, her expression dark, face sallow and thin. He didn't want to bring up the painful topics that would upset her, so he switched to a lighter subject, and began to ask her about farming practices in the Japanese Middle Ages.
Yayoi, after all, was still a child; her attention shifted quickly, and she soon perked up again. Perhaps she'd grown numb to life as hard as a dog. She started to explain in detail how their village tilled the land—currently, the Japanese Nongwei region used an unconventional double-cropping system.
Early rice was planted before the Meiyu Season began. As the season ended, another batch of rice was sown. At the same time, the upland fields were planted with buckwheat, various beans, radish, turnip, and a small amount of taro, according to the season. Then, both the paddy fields and dry fields needed to be harvested before the typhoon season started in July. When the typhoons died down in mid-August, they'd rush to plant a second crop of buckwheat and beans, along with another batch of turnip and radish. After this harvest, farming stopped and everyone hunkered down for winter.
Mm, buckwheat isn't actually wheat; one's from the knotweed family, the other's a true grass. The names just sound similar, but they're really unrelated crops. Compared to wheat, buckwheat isn't as tasty, but its advantage is it grows fast—barely two months from sowing to harvest—making it a great supplement after the typhoon season. So in the Japanese Middle Ages, buckwheat was also an important crop.
The tradition of eating buckwheat noodles for New Year in later Japan probably traces back to this. In Huaxia's middle school language textbook, there's an essay called "A Bowl of Spring Noodles," and the noodles it mentions are actually buckwheat noodles.
While listening, Harano pondered over what he learned, enriching his knowledge for survival in this unfamiliar era. He couldn't help but repeatedly praise Yayoi for knowing so much and being so capable, which made her increasingly shy. Her mood brightened as she seemed to temporarily forget about the hardships discussed earlier.
She quite liked chatting with Harano, always feeling he was different from other Samurai, though she couldn't say exactly why.
Maybe it was that Harano was willing to praise her, willing to joke with her, willing to treat her as a person?
She couldn't explain it, she didn't understand, she only knew Harano was a very good Samurai lord, not like the other coarse, uncouth Samurai.
The two of them just chatted idly all the way home.
Yayoi's mother, Ahei, was still baffled. While cooking, her daughter and their distinguished guest had both disappeared, leaving only an injured man quietly sleeping by himself. Now seeing them return together, she finally put her mind at ease and quickly invited the guest for a meal.
The food was still as meager as ever—brown rice, radish, and bean paste as staples. But after just hearing about the crushing burdens on Japanese Middle Ages peasants, looking at this meal again, and at the sallow, thin, chick-like Yayoi and her equally jaundiced-faced mother, Harano was struck by a twinge of guilt. He honestly barely managed to open his mouth to eat.
Originally, he'd planned to stay with Yayoi's family for a while longer: one, to learn more about the current era and prepare for the unexpected; two, to let his dumb son recover and see if he might wake up on his own. But now, seeing how impoverished they were, unable even to afford enough food, and with himself not having a single coin to contribute—if he continued to eat for free like this, it felt almost like a crime.
If Yayoi's family went bankrupt, he and that dumb kid wouldn't even know where to go.
So, he thought his survival plan would have to be adjusted a bit—it was best to hustle up some money, at least enough to secure basic food and clothing!