Suruga Fief is both a substantial territorial reward and a vulnerable frontier in the struggle around Toranaga. Its transfer to Yabu restores him as overlord, but the competing claims of lordship remain visible to villagers, while the concentration of Ikawa Jikkyu’s forces makes the fief a place of immediate military and political danger.

A Reward in the Contest for Power

Toranaga publicly promises Suruga and Totomi to his vassal Yabu, describing the two provinces together as worth three hundred thousand koku. He also confirms Yabu and his line as overlords of those lands and Izu. The grant is presented before an army of samurai: the declaration draws a thunderous acclamation, and Yabu is visibly elated. For Omi, the reward carries a further prospect, since custom would make Yabu’s heir inherit the lands.

The transfer gives Yabu an immense stake in Toranaga’s cause, but it does not make authority simple. The fief’s political value rests not only in its revenues and territory but in the loyalty attached to its overlordship—and in who can actually impose decisions there.

Authority and the Burden on Villagers

The uncertainty is made concrete in a conversation among villagers. One recalls that Toranaga had reduced their taxes to four parts out of ten and calls him their liege lord. Mura answers that Yabu has been given back Izu, Suruga, and Totomi and made overlord again; when asked who, then, is their lord, he insists that Yabu’s authority has not changed. His practical conclusion is blunt: if Yabu raises the taxes, they will pay more.

The exchange distinguishes formal hierarchy from the villagers’ immediate exposure to rule. Toranaga may remain the liege lord and may have granted tax relief, but Yabu’s restored local power determines what people expect to owe. Suruga’s political settlement therefore appears from below as an unresolved question of whose command governs daily life.

A Province Under Military Pressure

Suruga is also the concentration point for a threat to Yabu’s restored position. A report reaching Yabu says that Ikawa Jikkyu has massed ten thousand men in the province, ready to sweep across the borders. The force turns the fief from a prize on a grant into a potential invasion route, making its borders and Yabu’s control of the territory matters of immediate security.

The report touches a personal grievance as well as a strategic danger: Yabu reacts to Jikkyu’s name with anger and a desire for revenge. Suruga thus gathers political reward, military vulnerability, and private enmity in the same landscape.

Covert Action and Narrative Significance

A separate scheme against Jikkyu reaches into his household in Suruga. Yabu’s advisers recall an earlier proposal to use money placed in the hands of the right cook to eliminate him. They have since found a connection through Mura: a relative has become the best cook in Jikkyu’s household. Two hundred coins have already been advanced, with five hundred set as the full price. Yabu objects that he is too deeply in debt to raise the balance, only to learn that the money has already been set aside from a thousand foreign coins that went missing before the strongbox was officially counted.

The evidence establishes the covert arrangement and its intended target, not its outcome. Its presence alongside the report of Jikkyu’s ten thousand troops makes Suruga more than a line on a land grant: the province is where rival power is assembled, where rule bears on ordinary households, and where political conflict reaches into a lord’s private service.