CHAPTER 322: CHAPTER 230 ENDURANCE_2

The Asai Family is nothing to be afraid of. They’re an internally fractured power with no real cohesion—easily crushed at a whim!

Once Harano figured out the Asai Family’s internal situation, he couldn’t help but look down on them a bit, then immediately tossed the matter from his mind.

Whatever, the Asai Family has no future, nothing to do with him, and isn’t useful to him either. Let Oda Nobunaga deal with it himself. Anyway, according to history, Oda Nobunaga swallowed his pride in this situation, so let him bear it now too.

......

Although Oda Nobunaga is an "Oddity," with strange tastes and a rebellious streak, as a Sengoku Daimyo, he’s actually quite competent—he can tolerate a lot when necessary.

The Head of the Family Elder who watched him grow up betrayed him, but he managed to hold back and not kill him. He even kept him around with a hollow title to support him.

When powerful clans like Katsuyori Shibata assisted in rebellion, he magnanimously forgave them. Not only did he spare them from extermination, he even gave them high positions.

When both his elder and younger brothers rebelled, he could look the other way. For two attempts from his younger brother, he just put him under house arrest—of course, the younger brother still died. People say Nobunaga sent an assassin, but there’s no proof. Maybe it really was sudden illness or depression.

As for his mother, who loathed him and wanted to strip his inheritance, he just locked her up—didn’t really mistreat her. Even when Harano jumped ahead and seized Chita County, Nobunaga didn’t ignore it and storm across the Dagao River to punish Harano for being unruly. Instead, for the sake of stability and a steady gunpowder supply, he married a sister off to him.

Oda Nobunaga has always been someone with clear goals. To achieve them, he’ll tolerate what others can’t. Now, to restrain the Rokkaku family and prevent them from causing trouble while he attacks Minoh, he’s swallowing his pride again—this isn’t the Oda Nobunaga from the history books, the one who would kill any bird that wouldn’t sing. If he only followed his impulses and slaughtered his way through, he wouldn’t have survived this long.

After a night brooding at home, Oda Nobunaga, just as Harano expected, agreed to the new terms from the Asai Family. He even agreed when the Asai Family insisted on holding the alliance meeting in the wilds outside Matsuba Castle.

If the alliance were in Komaki-yama Castle, Oda Nobunaga would obviously be the lead, but the Asai Family refused to come—they wanted Nobunaga to go to them. In a sense, this demands equal footing, making it clear that Nobunaga shouldn’t expect to call the shots afterward.

Or perhaps, some in the Asai Family purposely wanted to torpedo the alliance, repeatedly testing Nobunaga’s limits, hoping he’d finally snap and kick them out for good.

From a historical standpoint, this kind of behavior is basically asking to die, but the Asai Family went and did it anyway. During all this, Asai Nagamasa seemed totally indecisive, swaying whichever way the wind blew—first sending personal attendants to apologize and make nice, then dispatching envoys to hurry the Oda Family to Matsuba Castle, like some sort of lunatic.

Rumors even began swirling around Komaki-yama Castle, saying Asai Nagamasa had already decided to assassinate Oda Nobunaga during the alliance ceremony, hoping to curry favor with the more important ally, the Asakura Family.

Oda Nobunaga acted like he heard or saw none of it; even with his mood completely ruined, he still set his jaw, black-faced, and brought Harano and Matsudaira Mototaka along, insisting they had to see this alliance through.

You have to admit, Oda Nobunaga is stubborn as hell. If he decides to do something, he’ll go all in, shame be damned. Just like in history, he once sucked it up and bowed to a wealthy merchant under Honmonji Temple just to get enough gunpowder.

Harano himself didn’t care—Nobunaga was the one after Minoh. He was only there because his vow forced him to play along, letting Nobunaga run wild. Matsudaira Mototaka remained dutiful and honest—whatever Nobunaga said, he did, not seeing anything humiliating about rushing to form an alliance.

All three houses could probably pound the Asai Family into the ground by themselves, but here they were, proactively groveling before them. What can you say? The world is truly bizarre—a giant stage set where anything absurd can happen.

However, one thing’s for sure: Oda Nobunaga ended up holding a massive grudge against the Asai Family. It’s almost certain that later, he showed no more mercy—insisting on butchering Asai Nagamasa, his brother-in-law and son-in-law, and wiping the Asai Family out to the last. It all started here—truth be told, the Asai Family really was something, burning through all of Nobunaga’s patience in one go. Otherwise, with Nobunaga’s usual temperament, even after the "Beans in the Bag" incident, Asai Nagamasa might not have died.

Now Harano had lost interest in Asai Nagamasa—he just wasn’t much of a partner, so he tagged along to watch the spectacle. And spectacle there was! During the alliance talks, the Asai Family started up with more nonsense, insisting the marriage could go ahead, but not with Lady Ichi.

The reason? Lady Ichi’s reputation was bad, as her biological father, Oda Nobuaki, had broken a "Sacred Oath before the gods," making him cursed by the divine. His descendants would die terrible deaths. Many household retainers in the Asai Family opposed Asai Nagamasa marrying such a girl, fearing her curse would bring disaster upon the Asai Family. Never mind that Lady Ichi was Nobunaga’s cousin and favored foster daughter—Lady Ichi meant a lot to him. During Nobunaga’s lowest days, Oda Nobuaki, his uncle, was his staunchest supporter; without him, Nobunaga might have croaked long ago.

So now, being insulted like this, Nobunaga was on the verge of exploding. He was willing to marry off Lady Ichi purely to show his sincerity, to secure a reliable ally in the Kinki region and ensure the Minoh campaign could go smoothly—he’d put up a hell of a dowry, only to have all that goodwill chucked out the window.

But now he was riding a tiger—no matter if he kept gulping down the humiliation or flat-out broke off, both were bad for him. So he ranted and raved behind closed doors to his heart’s content. Fortunately, Asai Nagamasa realized Lady Ichi’s unique importance to the Oda Family. Determined not to let the local nobles sideline him, and wanting Nobunaga as a powerful ally, Nagamasa finally stood up for himself, forcibly suppressing opposition and demanding no one but Lady Ichi as his bride.

The marriage talks dragged on for nearly three days, with endless little dramas, before they barely hammered out the basics: Lady Ichi was still young, so they’d just get engaged and consider the actual wedding in a few years. In the meantime, Asai Nagamasa would divorce his current wife and send her off to become a nun.

The son, though, could stay—he’d count as Lady Ichi’s adopted child.

What a load of absolute nonsense. Harano was once again astounded. Even after nearly a decade in this era, some things still struck him as totally surreal.

But with the betrothal settled and the alliance a foregone conclusion, everything else started going more smoothly. Nobunaga and Asai Nagamasa vowed to their respective guardian deities to watch each other’s backs, united in purpose from now on.

Specifically: the Asai Family would do everything they could in Omi to tie down the Rokkaku family and convince the Asakura Family to stop supporting the Saito family. In return, Nobunaga would marry off his most beloved foster daughter, and after cleaning up the Saito family, would help the Asai Family handle the Rokkaku family.

All in all, a mutually beneficial arrangement!

Once the alliance was inked, the Asai Family noisily marched back the way they came, and Nobunaga finally had his hands free to fulfill the wish of his father-in-law, Saito Dosan, preparing to retake Minoh.

First order of business: take out the traitor in Owari, the Inuyama Castle Lord, Oda Nobuaki!