More spoilers from the webnovel raws - Agriculture/Aquaculture + Economy stuff

I will be posting spoilers about the upcoming battles/wars & political stuff tomorrow as there are a LOT of them (the novel spans over a period of 11 years) & it's pretty dense.
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Okay so in the latest chapters of the manga, Shizuko has succeeded in growing white rice. This is named Owari rice (named for the regions she grows it in) & because of its demanding needs, she isn't able to quite mass produce it yet. As a side, she grows an inferior (but still tasty) & easier to grow variety of white rice that is named Gifu rice (also for the region its grown in). Owari rice becomes a high demand luxury good for the nobles & royalty while Gifu rice is grown for the commoners (Shizuko sets up an exchange system so people who grow 1 kg of Owari rice can trade it for like 5 kg of Gifu rice). Oda has to limit the amount of Owari rice in the market because merchants are just stockpiling it as a luxury item & not as a food (kinda like what they do with Shitake mushrooms).

Eventually, Owari rice is able to hit mass production so Oda starts to slowly increase the amount being sold so the price doesn't crash. Owari & Gifu rice become the major backbones of Shizuko's powerbase.

She also introduces aquaculture & fishing to her territories. The people aren't familiar with certain seafoods (such as octopus) so she introduces ways to cook & eat them. Hidenaga (or another noble - the manga might change this) questions the need for aquaculture when they can just fish for marine products. Shizuko asserts that this would only allow the nobility to have access to them & by mass producing them, the profits would circulate much more thoroughly amongst the common folk & the economies as a whole. Shizuko makes sure to implement naval safety regulations (such as fishing hours & a life ring) & eventually takes a step back from managing everything when the facilities become self-sufficient. She funds entrepreneurs who start experimenting with aquaculture
(ie: people have developed a taste for sea cucumbers -> they know about aquaculture -> they wonder if they can do the same with sea cucumbers & start making their own attempts)
& this generates even more profits.

Shizuko also strikes a deal with the madames of brothels, having them register & setting up clinics for them while allowing them to self-manage. I think she provides basic workers' rights for them & other minor stuff to improve their image (since they are currently the most independent & important female workforce at the moment). The madame agrees to it since it's beneficial for her, but is wary of Shizuko because she can't see how deep her ambitions go.

Shizuko also tries to improve things for women by giving childcare benefits, setting up daycares for working mothers & employing widows/divorced women at her textile factories. Mitsuo's wife is one of the first to support these ventures & eagerly becomes a working mother.

Shizuko eventually has to leave her starting village (distantly managing it through a series of proxies) & the leaders of the village deeply thank her for all she's done for them. Currently, under Shizuko's orders, they're experimenting with hydroponics (although they don't quite understand how it works - just that it works).

Shizuko also starts hemp farming & implements a rural superstition about how its fruit is a blessing from the gods to encourage the people to eat it as a vitamin supplement every day. She sets up another exchange system with the farmers (where she processes it for free) as she needs the remaining materials to create bioplastic. The bioplastic works as tires for wagons & as panels for her greenhouses - which allow her to finally start farming.....

Pepper & cocoa. (Along with other tropical crops. Oda becomes quite fond of the mango & nicknames it "jewel melon". He has a habit of giving weird nicknames to Shizuko's stuff.) She has them transported at a very expensive fee (courtesy of Frois & his missionaries) via sea & by using primitive vivariums, but half the ships are lost at sea (average) & half the seedlings rot by the time they arrive (also typical). She barely manages to successfully grow pepper & cocoa (which take her years to get to fruiting maturity). The rough chocolate & chocolate gateau she produces become a new addiction of Oda & his nobles (they almost come to blows over the last slice of cake).

Also the main trades she does with Frois is a cure for scurvy (essentially a Vitamin C-heavy preserved packet), which is marketed as something of a holy remedy that only the Catholic Church possesses (& its ingredients are secret/known only to the church & Shizuko), along with pearl farming. Frois at first rejects the pearls since vanity is a sin & whatnot, but Shizuko frames it as "professing the beauty of the Church to nobles" as she wants him to sell it to nobles to boost his own standing & the Church's influence (so he can get her more rare goodies). Frois concedes, but runs into a bit of an issue since the pearls in demand are silver & Shizuko's pearls are white (can't be changed since this is dependant on the species of oysters used). So the price is a bit lower than expected but remains high & stable since half of them get lost at sea anyway.

So he's able to get her even more rare crops & livestock (like merino sheep, angora rabbits, the dodo & the Ostrich) along with Arabian warhorses & other horses that went extinct in modern times. Oda & Kenji take a fondness to the horses because of their imposing aura & hugeness. Her mansion is basically 1/2 a zoo at this point. She even tamed a flock of crows (because they eat her garbage & will warn her of intruders/drive them off for her).

Frois also gets addicted to the futon & kotatsu that Shizuko gifts him, even writing in his letters to home that priests who come to Japan must accumulate a lot of virtue in order to resist such devilish temptations.

In Shizuko's city, she sets up a police force with dogs (wild dogs that got their leader beaten by Shizuko's wolves & now submit to her) & popularizes cats in Japan in order to reduce the pest population (cats being exterminated were one of the reasons the Black Plague got so bad). Cats are feared in mainland Europe as being familiars of witches, but sailors value them highly for their abilities & refuse to trade them. Shizuko has to pay a high price to have the ships breed their cats while docked in port (since they're not able to sail until the kittens are born). Oda & his 4 heavenly kings become particularly infatuated with the different cat breeds (Shizuko catches them hiding the kittens away in their kimono sleeves) with each person having a different preference. A cat is also gifted to the Emperor & he becomes a total cat butler, writing a cat diary about it that becomes famous in the future as a historical document.

Noihime catches Oda fawning over his pet cat & finds it pretty amusing.

The cats get along fairly well with the wolves & show no fear towards them. Katsuzou also loves playing with them. Saizo, Kenji & Katsuzou wind up with a habit of lazing about in the greenhouses because of how warm they are.

And now....slaves.
Shizuko spends a lot of time meeting different slaves at port city markets & asking them about their culture in order to preserve history. A lot of Aztec/South American slaves refuse to talk but she's able to make progress with the North American slaves & garners their attention via her new pet eagle (a gift given to Oda but he had no need for it so he gave it to Shizuko instead). They tell her stories about their customs & beliefs & she thanks them & gives corn in return (also because she wants to compare her corn to the native's corn). They are pleasantly surprised by this & say their farewells & thanks to her as though it's obvious they'll meet again, unafraid of whatever fate might befall them.

Shizuko also runs into a work issue - glassblowing. In fact, her workers fail multiple times for a long time to make any glass. She does eventually succeed, but the investment was high & she decides to finally get some European craftsmen slaves in order to speed up the experimental stages (seriously, the glass one took forever & actually became a contention point for anti-Shizuko nobles to grab onto).

She decides on Jewish slaves, as Jews were the most common slaves in the market (this is before the African slave trade blew up) due to being heavily persecuted by Christian Europe. They were forced to change Hebrew names to Christian ones but were still discriminated against. They were barred from most careers except that of bankers & debt collectors, which made people dislike them even more. And to top it off, they'd wind up as debt slaves since people would refuse to pay their loans/bills to them.

Shizuko ends up picking up a bearded uncle (translator, wine maker), a brother sister duo (blacksmith brother & uhhh, I'm not sure what the sister does) & a mixed race girl (labeled as a "witch" aka an apothecary & also a bastard child). They've all been screened by Ashimitsu beforehand to make sure that they're not spies. Shizuko promises them a steady wage & 3 square meals a day along with basic workers' rights if they work diligently & effectively. The Uncle takes the initiative to ask her if (a) she minds that they're Jews (she doesn't care) & (b) if she would rename them. Their old Christian names cause them too much pain as both Christians & other Jews scorned them for this. They no longer feel too connected with the Jewish community so they no longer want their Hebrew names either. She gives them all Japanese names (which I can't translate for you but the mixed girl is named Autumn Leaves).

Oda takes a slight interest in the mixed girl because of her unique appearance but that's about it (literally just the amount of interest he takes in anything Shizuko does).

The Uncle ends up befriending Keiji & they discuss things while drinking sake together. The Uncle starts up his own wine venture (not for religious reasons but because he just misses drinking it), although he fails at first because Japanese grapes have a different sugar content than European ones. His first successful rose wine is well received by Shizuko's men, although they prefer sake so it's mostly sold as a novelty gift to Europeans.

Ashimitsu misses beer so he starts making his own (but in secret) & has Keiji, Katsuzou & Saizou taste test it with him. Shizuko finds out about this illegal moonshine & makes them drink ALL of it or else. The Uncle slyly replies that he at least notified Shizuko about his winemaking in advance & paid the proper liquor taxes instead of dodging them. The beer quad end up totally hungover the next day.

Speaking of liquor, the sake that Shizuko produces is well received, much like Owari rice, as the sake of the time was unrefined & basically called "muddy sake". It too becomes a luxury good of the nobles. Ashimitsu spread beer & the after work culture of getting fried/grilled snacks & beer amongst the common folk.

Shizuko also establishes the 5 day working schedule, holidays, discounts & travel brochures in her cities. This boosts the economy & motivation of the citizens. At her textile factories, she also introduces fabric swatch books & brochures to advertise the different colors of silk/cotton fabric available. (The poor manager nearly has a heart attack when Oda himself comes to supervise).

There's other stuff but that's related to political stuff & also my hands are tired. >.>

Oh yeah - Shizuko's longterm (like DECADES LONG) plan with Oda is to establish a colony on Australia, targeting it for the farmlands & its vast mineral resources, as the spice trade can't be relied on indefinitely since people will eventually figure out how to grow them themselves. Minerals & metals however, will ALWAYS be necessary & Japan will forever have a severe lack of them unless they depend on imports. She insists that they maintain a good relation with the natives there & that it won't be an issue since they just need to avoid their holy lands. Oda is fascinated by the idea of essentially creating his own mini Japan from scratch.