Sontoku Ninomiya

As told before his appointment as agricultural advisor to Shogun Tokugawa Ienari:

Part I - Distant Memories

They said we were rich. That we owned land. But was it ever true? I've never known, for I had grown up in poverty. My earliest memories were in his fifth year, a flood struck their land. The Kami had been angry and in return, I had to grow up with little more than was enough to feed him for a day.

The lands recovered over time, as the rice grew, the flowers returned and the rains once more blessed the land. But for my family, our debts remained. Misfortune however, would only continue for his family. Father, a once able bodied farmer, contracted an eye decease. I wanted to help the laborers at the river embankment works, but they said I was too young. So instead I made straw sandals, barely able to obtain enough food for our family of five, with my sick father. But father would not survive long, for his end would soon come to pass.
 

This left me alone, with no other choice but to wake up early every morning to gather firewood and during every waking our make straw sandals. A meager living, but one that secured rice on the table.
 

Part II - An Ambition

Mother. She was dead. There was no cremation, no Kaso. My family would not afford it, they had barely afforded enough rise to survive, let alone enough to buy fish. I looked at the Hayaoke, that had been built by the carpenters over the last days. Although I could not see my mother, I pictured her hands towards her face, making the final meditation. The soil in which she was buried, I knew it to be blessed by Kami. All soil was, for it was the core of Tenka, all the land under heaven. The land blessed and protected by our great shogun, Tokugawa Ienari. I would need to study hard now, without a father nor a mother. My uncle had made a vow to take care of me and I would use it to the best of my abilities. The art of soil, that of understanding the Kami, would be my strength. I always dreamed far beyond my little village west of Edo. The land of Tenka held much to witness and wherever he would go, the blessed soil of the Kami must be respected. The art of soil was finer than any other and soon my attention would be turned away from my mothers coffin, towards the soil he stood on. My dream yet lived.
 

If the Kami allow it, I would change the Tenka forever, one day. I felt it down to my bones, as of if they had answered. The feeling was strong, just as determined as the rising sun on the horizon. One day, I will make sure the soil of the Tenka is tilled as it was always meant to be.
 

Part III - To Grow From Nothing

Uncle was not a kind man. He did not allow me to study at night, thinking it a waste of lamp oil. With no other way to obtain lamp oil, I planted rapeseeds on top of the earthen embankments, extracting the seeds to make lamp oil. In addition, when the men were finished on the rice farm, I snuck around the farm, finding rice seeds, which he planted inside of the irrigation ditches. 

The harvest was a success, a whole bale of rice. My reputation amongst his family would improve and I got to live with an older cousin instead. There I came to help with rice farming and it was an even greater success, we made a surplus of five bales of rice that year. This would finally get me the attention of the village headman, a more distant relative named Ninomiya Shichizaemon. I would be employed there too, managing to secure a surplus of twenty bales of rice.
 

This would finally lend me enough coin to rebuild my father's old homestead and I did so without hesitation. From that day on, my world changed. I let farmers and laborers use his soil in return for rent and thus my income quickly grew.

Part IV - Prosperity Through Labour

It was not the end. The Hattori family was in deep debt and needed a man who could solve their finances and deep debts. It was not easy, but my five year plan not only re-payed their debts but landed them a surplus, as is well known in the local Odawara Daimyo. Lord Tadamasa of Odawara entrusted me deeply with reforming the local farming regulations, as well as instituting the Gojo-Ko, a system for lower interest rates for farmers. At the behest of Lord Tadamasa, I was tasked with becoming the village head of Sakuramachi. Once more I grew the local economy from my initial two-hundred rice bales and fifty koku to 1330 bales ten years later, alongside two-thousand koku. The Kami has blessed me for many years and now I am ready to serve Edo, to finally reform Nihon under Tokugawa Ienari to a rule in line with the will of the Kami, to a rule which respects the centrality of the farmer to all rule in the world.