Matters to Communicate

[Tier-Group 3, First-Floor Hall, the Six-Party Meeting]

"The matters requiring approval from the lords of Musashi, Sō, Ke, and Sumō respectively are, first, that the Library-City Dungeon is to be an independent dungeon-city belonging politically to no country, and second, that food, farm tools, timber, and other supplies are to be sold to the Library-City Dungeon. Are those two points acceptable?"

Marie summed up the contents of the conference.

"Food is not to be requisitioned, but bought?"

So said Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami.

"Promises that won't be kept anyway are a waste to make. We have no power to compel. As it happens, we have the large and small gold coins confiscated from Tsukuba Naiyaku-no-jō, so let's put them all to good use in the interval before we harvest rice this autumn."

Since rice can circulate as currency, if rice can be mass-produced there's no problem even without coin.

"How large will this year's harvest be?"

"We've prepared seedlings with a target of a thousand chō of paddy planting. At this dungeon, by the fixed-rate tax method that always sets the yield per tan at one koku, with four-to-the-lord and six-to-the-people, the assessed yield is ten thousand koku and the land tax four thousand koku. After deducting fiefs like Kishimura and the salaries we must pay, the surplus will probably be only a thousand or two thousand koku, I'd think."

In the Edo period, newly opened paddies often had their land tax waived for several years, but at the Library-City Dungeon the paddies themselves are provided by the dungeon, so the land tax is collected from the very first year.

"Ah, deciding the assessed-yield rating breeds quarrels and is the seed of uprisings, so treating it all as inferior field is at least easy to grasp. Sō included, ordinarily no one has the leeway for such generous terms."

"Being a dungeon, we can economize on expenses. And with the fixed-rate method, there's no need to measure each harvest; we need only survey, from atop the tower, the area of fields, paddies, and homestead plots village by village, and that suffices."

"And when it comes to a million chō?"

"The assessed yield is 10,000,000 koku, so the land tax is 4,000,000 koku. If half is paddy and the yield per tan is one koku five to, the rice harvest comes to 7,500,000 koku."

It's an everyday thing for the survey register to list paddy while in fact commercial crops are grown, and the land tax is paid with rice bought in.

"Four million……"

"About half the salaries will be converted to cash, and the farmers sell their rice and eat wheat and tubers, so the rice flowing into the market will be around 5,000,000 koku, I'd say."

Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami could only fall speechless now.

"Next: within the range visible from this dungeon, that is, Sumō is impossible, but anywhere else, we can communicate directly with the Library-City Dungeon by wireless, well, by that sort of 'contraption,' without sending a messenger. We can lend you this wireless set. Since it is only a prototype, I expect it will break down often."

"The Lord of Sumō would surely want one without question, but it can't be used in Sumō?"

"It must be within the range visible from the Library-City Dungeon."

"Might the Oda house (小田) borrow one? They're not a lord of the east, but still."

"Of course that's quite all right. The Oda house (織田) does love new things, doesn't it. It'll be some time yet, but once it's completed, let's hire an adventurer to deliver it."

"Lastly, the matters that require no approval from the individual countries: that the Library-City Dungeon will accept immigrants, and that the five highways will be improved in turn."

"No objection."

"As for immigrants: Asura are free as a rule; humans must bring food or endure bad rations until the next harvest; Beasts are treated the same as humans, but those requiring hard-to-supply foodstuffs such as meat must, regrettably, be refused; Pretas are refused as a rule; Devas and the Hell Realm we'll consider when the time comes. That's how it stands."

"Once cockscomb can be mass-produced, I'll bring the tanuki clan along. They'll be useful in all sorts of ways."

"As for the highways: work on the one to Iruma begins at once; after that, the Nakayama road to the northwest and southeast, then Oda Castle (織田城) to the east, and lastly the northeast, as far as Yūki at the northern tip of Sō."

"I look forward to the day the highway reaches Oda Castle (小田城)."

"Along each highway we'll station a knight order as a measure against pirates, but recruiting and training a knight order will take some time."

"Well, that can't be helped."

"With that, the first Six-Party Meeting is concluded. You are all welcome to return at once, or to lodge here a few days before returning."

Among the envoys, some, like Nyūdō Daizen-no-suke, hurried home in great haste, while others, like Takahashi Tsushima-no-kami, did some shopping and went home with souvenirs.