The room was silent for a few seconds before Eikichi continued.
"Why would they choose that boy to possess so much wealth?"
"Even if he's a front man, why would they choose him?"
"The answer is that they want to earn as much money as possible as soon as possible before retiring."
"The boy is just the scapegoat in case they are discovered first."
"I even think they're planning to get rid of him when this is all over."
"If they can convince the boy, the Kawada family could get the lion's share of this pie."
Eikichi said all this with complete certainty, and Toichi almost believed him.
"Are you kidding?"
"What if the Ichihara family finds out?"
"I'm sure the Ichihara family has this young man under surveillance," Toichi said.
In Toichi's mind, it was impossible that the Ichihara Ichihara family would leave a large business in the hands of a young man.
But Eikichi thought differently and suggested another path to follow.
"If they can't get close to the young man, the Kawada family can make a huge profit by stealing the company's merchandise."
"With so many stores open, they must be moving a large volume of products."
"Those products in large quantities are worth a lot of money."
Eikichi's words made Toichi think about the information written in the document he had read.
According to this document, Kozue Ichihara left the Ichihara compound in his teens to follow a samurai whom he took as his master, and in a separate note, Eikichi wrote his doubts about this samurai.
"Are you saying that samurai doesn't exist?"
"Yes," Eikichi replied.
"That old samurai was a wandering samurai for most of his life, and we don't know what he did after working with Tetsui Ichihara."
"And if the samurai existed, Kozue Ichihara's apprenticeship must surely have been a facade."
"This young man must have been intentionally hidden from the Ichihara Family for many years so they could easily sever any connection."
Eikichi's words sounded reasonable and credible to Toichi.
"It's possible," Toichi said.
"But we don't know many things"
"First I'll try to find out everything I can on my own and I'll let you know."
"If my Kawada family benefits from this, you will receive your reward."
Eikichi smiled from ear to ear upon hearing what he wanted to hear.
After all, he came all this way wanting to get something.
"Thank you very much, young master Toichi," said Eikichi, bowing slightly in respect.
But although he seemed calm, inside he was euphoric.
The man could already imagine the wealth he would receive.
Toichi simply nodded and said goodbye.
As Eikichi withdrew and a maid guided him towards the exit, Toichi became lost in thought.
He couldn't deny that he was tempted by what they had just brought him.
But one thing he learned from his father is that he should not make decisions with his mind clouded by greed.
Furthermore, although he had numerous subordinates under his command, he did not believe they could handle this.
Given the possibility that the Ichihara family, or even a similar force, was involved in this, none of his men would be able to stand up to them.
'Should I involve the family?'
The amount of wealth involved in this operation was so great that Toichi was reluctant to involve anyone else, but he knew that it was possible that he might not achieve anything on his own.
Therefore, he went to seek advice from his father.
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.
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Toichi was lucky.
Her father was at the Kawada family compound and she was able to meet with him alone in his office shortly after.
"Is this real?"
"Is there really such wealth waiting to be taken?"
Kazushi Kawada looked at his son with puzzlement.
Although he believed his son wouldn't joke about something like this, he was reluctant to believe what was written in the document and his son's theory.
After all, who would believe there was a huge fat sheep ready to be slaughtered?
The Ichihara family is involved, so that fat sheep is, in relation, a wolf in disguise.
When his father asked him, Toichi paused to think for a moment because the truth was that he hadn't had time to confirm what Eikichi had brought him.
Upon hearing this from his father, the man showed a hint of disappointment, but quickly nodded and said he would send someone to confirm the news.
When Toichi left his office, Kazushi shook his head at the naiveté of the young men.
He had thought his son was ready to take his place as head of the Kawada family, but it seemed he needed to mature a little more if he could be deceived so easily.
Calling his butler, he ordered an investigation into this Eikichi guy.
This guy tried to deceive his son, and Kazushi planned to teach him a lesson.
This guy not only planned to deceive his son, but he also wanted to create an open conflict with the Ichihara family.
Although the young man in the report had stayed away from the Ichihara family for many years, the Ichihara family could still use this as an opportunity to create problems if anything were done to him.
Although his Kawada family wasn't afraid of the Ichihara family, it would be a nuisance to face them.
Being somewhat curious about the young man, he also sent someone to investigate Tetsui's son.
What he didn't expect was that his butler would bring him a surprise.
The topic that his son had brought to him was not false.
A huge amount of wealth was in the hands of a young man, and he was simply using it to open shops.
This was a total waste in Kazushi's opinion, and he believed his son's words that the Ichihara family was laundering money.
Kazushi instinctively wanted this wealth for himself.
With all this wealth, Kazushi could already imagine how much his family would grow.
Not only could he make his family stronger, but he could also catch up to the Daimyo and even surpass him.
After all, with money you could do many things.
But he quickly cleared the greed from his mind and remembered that they would come into conflict with the Ichihara family.
While it was reasonable for the Ichihara family to want to keep their business low-profile, that doesn't mean they could easily get something out of it.
Therefore, he stopped thinking about obtaining this wealth for himself and went to call a meeting of elders.
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Two days later, Kazushi was sitting in the head chair at the table in the Kawada family meeting room.
A few elders from the Kawada family were unavailable at the moment to attend the meeting, but most were here and Kazushi believed that was enough for now.
"Kazushi, why have you called us?" said old Yusuke.
The elderly Yusuke had a lot of influence in the Kawada family, and the others did not interrupt him.
Instead, everyone looked at Kazushi and waited for a good reason for him to call them so suddenly.
"Please forgive me for calling you so suddenly, but something has come up that could greatly benefit our Kawada family."
Kazushi's words aroused the curiosity of the elders present, and they allowed him to continue.
"Everything written in this document has been verified by trusted subordinates..." Kazushi said as he handed the document to the nearest elder, who began to read it curiously.
"...and if our Kawada family manages to profit from this, the gains will be considerable."
As Kazushi finished saying this, the old man who had received the document had his eyes wider open as he read the report.
"Is it really confirmed that it's real?" the old man asked.
Another old man beside him took the documents from him to read them, but he didn't care and continued looking at Kazushi to wait for his answer.
"Yes, I personally visited one of those stores here in the capital and in the nearest city," Kazushi said.
"If all the stores in the rest of the cities in the Land of Fire are similar, we're talking about over a billion Ryo worth of merchandise alone."
The exchange between the two men caught the attention of the other elders, who were now intrigued by the reason why Kazushi had called this meeting.
One billion Ryo?
The Kawada family was already wealthy enough that small amounts of money, not large enough, would not attract their attention.
But seeing old Atasuke react like that, and the wealth involved in this matter, this was something they couldn't let pass.
Especially when they saw old Manabu next to old Atasuke react in the same way.
Now everyone was waiting to see what would happen and whether the amount listed by Kazushi was real.
"Is this real?"
"What are we waiting for? Our Kawada family must act now before other families find out."
"Wait, don't be hasty."
"Yes, first we need to investigate the situation further."
Soon, all the elders at the table had read the report about Kozue Ichihara and the enormous wealth she apparently had in her hands, and the reactions were varied.