Hokkaido, Tokachi Plain.
This was the largest continuous stretch of farmland in the Japanese archipelago. Unlike Honshu's patchwork paddies carved up by mountains, the horizon here ran straight as a ruler.
A convoy of black Mercedes-Benzes tore down National Route 38.
On either side, the freshly thawed black soil stretched to the edge of sight. The distant Daisetsuzan range still wore its crown of snow, glittering cold and sharp under a sky so blue it looked transparent.
The view was monotonous, yet vast enough to steal your breath.
Telephone poles were few. Houses were fewer. All you saw were windbreaks and circular silage towers rising from the wasteland like giant totems.
"If I didn't see the road signs, I'd think we were in the American Midwest."
Amy pressed her face to the window, her breath fogging the glass. She stared at the empty wilderness with a mix of fear and excitement.
"It's so big… big enough to make you feel like an ant."
Satsuki sat on the other side of the back seat, a thick land survey report open on her lap.
"This is Tokachi."
She turned a page, the paper snapping crisp in the quiet car.
"43 degrees north latitude. At this latitude, you get some of the most fertile chernozem soil on earth. Plant a seed, and this land will grow grain like it's furious."
The convoy turned onto a freshly graveled private road.
Tires crunched over stone.
Ahead, a row of massive silver-gray domed buildings rose from the empty plain, jarringly out of place. That was "S-Farm Base 1," newly built by Saionji Food Corporation.
The cars rolled to a stop.
The moment the door opened, a biting wind rushed in, thick with the smell of damp earth and unmelted snow.
Two rows of employees in "S-Farm" uniforms were already lined up by the warehouse.
At the front, Hayakawa, president of Saionji Food, stepped forward and opened the door.
"Young Lady, thank you for the long journey."
Beside Hayakawa stood a broad, sun-darkened man in his fifties. No suit for him — just a grease-stained baseball cap and eyes sharp as a hawk's.
Kohei Otsuka, S-Farm's chief technical consultant. Also the "madman" the mainstream agricultural world had blacklisted for his radical mechanization ideas.
"Mr. Otsuka."
Satsuki ignored the mud, walked straight to him, and offered her hand.
"Looks like you've settled in."
Otsuka pulled off his glove, revealing a palm thick with calluses, and shook her hand.
"Money solves problems."
His voice was rough, pure Hokkaido gravel.
"As long as the funds are there, there's nothing to settle into. Miss Saionji, the 'toys' you gave me are all tuned up."
He didn't bother leading the way. He just raised the walkie-talkie on his chest and thumbed the button.
"Everyone, open the warehouse."
With a dull roar, the hangar's rolling door rose.
As the shadow lifted, the steel beasts inside came into view.
Amy gasped.
Ten brand-new John Deere 8850 heavy tractors, painted industrial green.
These American monsters — V8 turbocharged engines, tires taller than a man — almost never appeared in Japanese fields. They sat there quiet, exhaust stacks aimed at the sky like an armored battalion at rest, radiating a suffocating kind of beauty.
Behind them: matching hydraulic reversible plows, precision seeders, even a combine harvester big enough to eat a house.
"Is this… what we're using to farm?" Amy stared up at the giant rubber tires. The Kubotas she knew suddenly looked like children's toys.
"These aren't farm tools," Otsuka said. "They're weapons."
He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket but didn't light one. Just held it to his nose and inhaled.
"In Japan, a normal farmer uses a 20-horsepower tractor. It takes two full days to plow one hectare. This monster has 370 horsepower."
He pointed to the drivers already in the cabs, earmuffs on.
"It does the same job in two hours."
"One machine, one driver, does the work of a hundred farmers."
Satsuki walked to Otsuka's side and studied the machines.
"This is the first secret to how Saionji Food will slash prices to the floor."
She turned to face the vast black wasteland they'd leveled and joined together.
"Economies of scale."
"The reason Japanese produce is expensive is simple: the land's too fragmented. Everyone guards their tiny plot. Low efficiency. High cost."
"But here, I bought three thousand hectares and stitched them into one canvas."
She drew an arc in the air with her finger.
"Here, agriculture isn't a craft at the mercy of the weather."
"It's industry. It's an assembly line. It's standardized production."
"But…" Amy pushed her glasses up, frowning. "Machines alone aren't enough, right? I've heard fertilizer and seeds in Japan are crazy expensive. That's where the cost really is."
"Good question."
Otsuka scooped up a handful of fertilizer pellets and held them out to Amy.
"Little girl, know what this is?"
"Fertilizer?"
"Diammonium phosphate." Otsuka let the pellets fall back to the ground. "Buy this at a regular ag supply store and it's five thousand yen a bag."
"Because that's the price JA sets."
His tone turned mocking, layered with years of hatred for the Agricultural Cooperative.
"In this country, farmers are slaves to JA. You have to buy JA's overpriced seeds, JA's overpriced fertilizer, and use JA's high-interest loans to buy machinery. Layer after layer of exploitation. Of course the potatoes cost a fortune."
"But—"
President Hayakawa cut in smoothly, producing a customs declaration from his briefcase.
"This batch was bought direct from the U.S. and Canada through Saionji Trading's overseas channels."
He tapped the numbers on the page.
"Landed cost is 40% of Japan's market price."
"That's the second secret."
Satsuki picked up the thread.
"De-JA-ification."
"We don't go through bloodsucking middlemen. We have our own fleet, our own logistics, our own procurement."
"From seed to fertilizer, feed to pesticide — S-Farm runs on a closed loop completely outside Japan's existing agricultural system."
Otsuka looked at Satsuki, his expression complicated.
When Hayakawa first came to him, he hadn't believed it. He didn't think anyone would dare challenge JA's authority on Japanese soil.
But then the ships came. Vessel after vessel of cheap imported fertilizer filled the warehouses. Then these John Deere giants roared onto the farm.
And he believed.
This girl, barely in her teens, was really going to topple the pyramid.
"Mr. Otsuka."
Satsuki met his eyes.
"I don't want ordinary potatoes. I want potatoes at half the market price."
"With these machines and these raw materials — can you do it?"
Otsuka grinned, showing smoke-stained teeth.
"Half?"
He raised his walkie-talkie and hit the button.
"Everyone, start engines."
"Rumble—!!!"
On command, ten heavy tractors roared to life. Black smoke belched from the exhausts. The scream of giant turbines ripped across the plain, and the frozen ground trembled underfoot.
It didn't sound like farming. It sounded like an armored division going to war.
Otsuka turned in the deafening noise and shouted over it:
"Boss, you're underestimating industrialization!"
"Not half! One-third! I guarantee it!"
He swept his hand down.
The steel torrent moved. Giant tires crushed hard frozen earth. Hydraulic plows bit into the winter-sleeping soil and peeled up waves of black.
They formed a long serpentine line and advanced across the boundless black land, carving dark scars into the white snowfield.
The sun sank west.
Gold-red light spilled across the Tokachi Plain.
Satsuki stood on the field ridge, wind tangling her hair. She didn't speak. Just watched the machines working in the distance.
She bent down and scooped up a handful of black soil.
It was damp and fertile, smelling of life and, unmistakably, money.
She opened her hand and let the soil sift away on the wind.
In the distance, the giant mechanical shadows stretched long across the black earth.