Niwa Nagahide and Maeda Toshie, carrying Oda Nobunaga's earnest instructions, set out immediately. They split up to prepare gifts and each gathered their household retainers to head for Wanjin to rendezvous. After doing a quick inspection and making arrangements, they boarded a customs ship at the dock and began sailing south along the coast, searching for Harano along the way.
Sailing was boring and the two, with nothing to do, just sat idle in the general's cabin. Meanwhile, Maeda Toshie was still struggling to process the situation—Harano, who used to be penniless and shamelessly freeloading in villagers' homes, running his "black clinic," somehow managed, in less than three years' time, to land himself a princess. From now on, if others wanted to be respectful, they could even address him as "Lord Yehua."
This was an upgrade speed like a rocket's—good enough to be made into a kabuki play and sung about for a hundred years.
