Ah Hu felt it was a bit absurd. These days, even an unremarkable theater owner dared to use the Lord as a selling point—that seed a bit fake. That’s why she asked. But Princess Dog looked unbothered, pointed to the side, and laughed, "Lord Saburo is already here, he’s in the private box next door."
Ah Hu was shocked—it turned out it was true. But she imdiately put on a sorry face and said, "Then, do you want to..."
Princess Dog quickly shook her head and smiled, "It’s really crowded over there now. I’m fine here." After a pause, seeing Ah Hu didn’t really get it, she pointed again to the audience seats below the box and patiently explained, "A lot of old Wanjin people ca today, many of them have been following his lordship for six or seven years. They all have to go next door to pay respects—Lord Saburo is chatting with them."
Ah Hu followed her gesture and took a look at the seats below, finding that these people weren’t just ordinary spectators. Judging by their clothes, at the very least, they were all pretty well-off. Sure enough, it was a bunch of "old Wanjin"—she’d picked up that word in just over a month. Most of these folks were the ones who started out with Harano; at worst, they were from the earliest batches that Harano spent money to bring back when he was still in old Wanjin—all seasoned insiders.
Usually, this lot was also the group doing the best in New Wanjin nowadays. At the very least, each was now a supervisor of so workshop, a technical backbone, or a savvy business owner.
Of course, there were many from those early batches who didn’t make it, but those people had naturally faded into the crowd already. They wouldn’t show up here and had no more standing to put their faces in front of Harano.
Ah Hu found herself wanting to befriend these "old Wanjin people," but it wasn’t convenient for her to go over, which left her a bit regretful.
......
Harano really was next door, receiving so of his "old subordinates"—all the old Wanjin people had worked for him before. Even if they’d only dug ditches, they were digging for him. Most of these people hadn’t fought wars for him, or even been directly commanded by him, but they still loved starting sentences with "Back in the day when I did xxx with Lord Nozawa..." and pretended to be his "old guard."
This Hirajima Yoshichiro in front of him was exactly that kind. Harano had Maeshima Shichiro buy him out of Atsuta port as a household servant back in the day. But since he was just too short, even after working faithfully at the workshop, he never got picked for the army.
When his years of service were up, he earned his personal freedom, then left the Iron Workshop. By learning his craft and being hardworking, he took out an interest-free loan from Harano, hired a few helpers, and opened a private ironware workshop specializing in farm tools. Then, he started calling himself an "old Wanjin."
He honestly deserved the title—his workshop had grown pretty big and was now fairly well-known in New Wanjin. He’d gradually branched into manufacturing weapons, armor, and iron cannons, and was now one of the leading bosses among the private iron workshops in New Wanjin.
This ti, he specifically found Uozumi Hikoshiro and got his hands on a ticket to the premiere only because he heard Harano was coming to watch the show—just for a chance to show his face to Harano and offer a suggestion. Otherwise, going through official channels, it was nowhere near as easy to get in front of Harano these days—on dostic affairs, he’d be lucky to see Endo Chiyoda. By the ti any suggestion reached Harano, it would likely just be a line of insignificant text.
After queuing for what felt like forever, he quickly greeted Harano and then, very carefully, put forward his suggestion. Harano was a little surprised after hearing it, and pondered, "So you want to sell your stuff yourself up north in the North Land? Not planning to sell to Wanjin anymore—thinking of canceling the old contract?"
The Wanjin economy right now was run mostly by "the governnt (Harano)"—any profitable business like textiles, salt, porcelain, gunpowder, ironware, etc., was all in the hands of the "Wanjin governnt." Ordinary folks had no way in. Private workshops either did the jobs the "governnt" couldn’t be bothered with, or picked over the leftovers from the state-run governnt.
The sa went for outside business, since Wanjin’s exports mainly depended on Atsuta port, which was controlled by the Oda Family. Without Harano’s backing, just the "customs ship taxes" would ruin small rchants, and the big Wealthy rchants placed their orders straight with Wanjin anyway. So the small workshop owners normally sold directly to the "Wanjin governnt," who would then take care of outside sales.
This trading thod had been going on for years now, and Harano had actually given the workshop owners plenty of hidden perks. He hadn’t expected soone to raise objections out of the blue.
Alone on the side, Ah Man, who’d just been pestering Ah Qing for pocket money, imdiately looked over when he heard this, sized up Hirajima Yoshichiro from head to toe, looking all suspicious and wary, as if wondering if this guy might be plotting rebellion.
The more he looked, the more likely it seed—today he dared keep Harano from pocketing the markup, maybe tomorrow he’d be starting a coup. Maybe they ought to arrest him and interrogate him later...
Hirajima Yoshichiro noticed Ah Man’s "Living Yama" glare and imdiately started sweating. But after hesitating a bit and rembering that in all these years, except for chopping heads during the Wanjin Army days, Harano had never killed a single commoner, he finally mustered up the courage and stamred, "Yes, sir. Um... Your contract is good, but... the iron price in Wanjin is just too low now. Even Lord Endo’s purchase price is low... so I... we..."
Ah Man sidled over and asked, "But you guys are still making so profit, right?"
Hirajima Yoshichiro swallowed and said in a small voice, "There’s still so profit, but after more than a year... we’re almost not making any at all."
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