Tenshukaku.
This was the core structure of a castle in the Sengoku Period, usually the place where the lord lived and commanded, and also the sturdiest and tallest building in a city.
This Tenshukaku was not tall, only three stories high.
But for a minor lord who only governed six villages, this was a display of grandeur that required him to exhaust his entire fortune to build.
Of course, the so-called "exhausting his entire fortune" meant exhausting the homes of the commoners under his rule and draining the property of the farmers.
"Trash! You are all trash!"
A roar erupted from the main hall on the top floor.
Suda Shigenobu sat on a high platform, his face flushed red, the veins on his forehead looking as if they were about to pop out.
He was in his early forties, short and stout, wearing a slightly ill-fitting hitatare, with a katana tucked at his waist, making him look more like a pot-bellied merchant than a samurai.
But he was indeed a samurai.
He was a low-ranking vassal under the Hojo Clan in the Kanto region, assigned to this territory of poor mountains and treacherous waters.
This assignment originally had no perks.
Until two years ago, when he discovered a secret.
He found that as long as he taxed them ruthlessly, even more ruthlessly, the commoners would actually not resist and would only silently endure it.
Thus, the annual tribute rose from forty percent to fifty percent.
From fifty percent to sixty percent.
Finally, it rose to seventy percent.
It still wasn't enough.
There were corvée labor, military service, poll taxes, transit taxes, taxes on weddings and funerals... every excuse he could think of, he collected.
If he couldn't collect, he would seize people.
If he couldn't catch people, he would burn down their houses.
After two years, his private treasury was piled high with grain and copper coins, but the villages under his rule became increasingly poor and dilapidated.
The commoners either fled or died.
He didn't care.
In any case, the Hojo Clan only wanted military funds; who cared how he collected it?
"My Lord, please calm down!"
Kneeling below was his chief retainer, a thin, withered old man, bowing extremely low with his forehead pressed against the floor.
"The three villages in the west truly cannot pay their taxes. This year's harvest was too poor, and coupled with the previous plague..."
"I don't care!"
Suda Shigenobu slammed his fist onto the armrest.
"Lord Hojo has sent a letter saying that this year we will be mobilizing against the Imagawa Clan, and that every house must prepare military provisions!"
"I only have these six villages under my command, three cannot pay taxes, and there is still one..."
His voice paused, and his expression grew even uglier.
"How is the situation in Shimura?"
Shimura.
That was the village occupied by the toad demon.
The chief retainer buried his head even lower.
"Reporting to you, My Lord... in Shimura, the people sent to collect taxes were driven back again."
"That toad is truly..."
"Trash!"
Suda Shigenobu cursed.
He thought of that damn toad.
Three months ago, that thing appeared from who knows where, occupied the shrine in Shimura, and claimed to be a deity.
At first, he didn't take it seriously.
It was just a demon; finding a few sorcerers to exterminate it would suffice.
He kept a group of idle sorcerers in his city who usually played at being gods and ghosts to fool the commoners, and they should be useful in a critical moment.
As a result, three groups were sent, and all were beaten back.
Those sorcerers were all bruised and battered, claiming that the toad had the blessing of 'fear', and they couldn't fight it at all on its own turf.
He sent samurai next.
The samurai couldn't even enter; the poisonous gas in that marsh could knock people unconscious.
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