Aoto himself did not expect that the reward he received this time would be so substantial, directly increasing his family salary by 400-koku!
In the strictly hierarchical Edo Era, it was very easy for one's status to fall, but extremely difficult to rise.
If a samurai committed a significant error, at best their family salary would be reduced, at worst they would be stripped of their samurai status and demoted to commoners.
To increase one's family salary, one had to achieve extraordinary accomplishments.
However, since the establishment of the Edo Shogunate, Japan had maintained peace for almost three hundred years, leaving samurai with virtually no opportunities to achieve merit.
The lack of opportunities to gain merit has directly resulted in little to no change in most samurai families' salaries.
Three hundred years ago, when the Edo Shogunate was first established, whatever the family salary was, it remained the same to this day—a common phenomenon.
