After finishing the drawing, she said, "This is the melon pattern, commonly seen in Echizen. Many families associated with shrines in Echizen use melon patterns, such as melon snow wheels, melon corner cuts, double melons, two-sided melons, four-sided melons, ringed melons, vine melons, wisteria melons, silk wheel peeking melons, sword melons, sword melon squares... Anyway, many families in Echizen use the melon pattern as their family crest.
The Oda Family moved from Echizen to Owari, so in ceremonial occasions, they often used the square melon pattern and the two-sided melon pattern. Oda Nobuhide also used it, but he preferred the butterfly pattern of the Taira clan. He wanted to sever ties with the main branch of the Oda Family at Kiyosu and denied their lord-retainer relationship. It made sense because his second wife was a daughter of the Tsuchida Family, who were recognized as descendants of the Taira clan."
Yuan Ye squinted at this "melon pattern," noting that it resembled a four-petaled flower. He couldn't see any resemblance to a cross-section of a melon and said perplexedly, "What does this have to do with Oda, the fool?"
"Hold on!" Aman drew a five-petaled melon on the paper, "This is the new family crest of the Oda Danjo Chonosuke clan, created by the fool you admire so much, or rather, his personal crest—the Five Melon Patterns.
That fool just wanted to be different. While other clansmen used four-petaled melons, he insisted on using five-petaled melons. And then this fool would ride around Nagano Castle's town, creating chaos. People would hide immediately on seeing this crest to avoid being knocked over by him.
So, often you would hear children shouting, 'The Five Melons are here, the Oda Five Melons are here, run!' Over time, people naturally started calling him the Oda Fool."
Yuan Ye was utterly confused, unable to grasp this ancient joke.
Aman was laughing heartily and, noticing Yuan Ye's confusion, said unhappily, "You're really no fun. Can't you understand this? Say 'The Oda Five Melons are here' faster, with more urgency and emphasis."
"Oda's 'ah ah ya kou' are here... Oda's 'ah ya gou' are here... Oda's 'baka' are here?" Yuan Ye said a few times before he realized, utterly speechless, "Just because he changed his family crest, he became the fool?"
He originally thought the "Owari Fool" had some hidden meaning, like being wise while pretending to be foolish or having a strange destiny, only to find out it was a pun...
Japanese humor is really odd. They even can laugh at this. If this kind of pun were played on China's internet nowadays without a "dog head" for preservation, people would be beaten to death with sticks!
Aman waved his hand and laughed loudly, "It's not just because of this little thing, mainly because he was already a fool. You haven't met him. If you saw him once, you'd also think he's a big fool, a big idiot.
This guy often roams around Owari with a few attendants (close attendant) and the Returning Horse Group (often referred to as an equestrian guard group). The year before last, I ran into him at Tsubaki Shrine with Grandpa. Guess what he was doing?
He was simultaneously dancing and singing, acting like Owakamaru, even treating everyone present to drinks! Haha, you should have seen it. That fool was really a clown. Dressed as a woman, he actually looked pretty, just too tall to be graceful. Otherwise, he'd make a lot of money selling his body."
Owakamaru is Minamoto no Yoshitsune's childhood name, a tragic figure from the late Heian Era of Japan. Many Japanese folktales are based on him, including plays and even modern TV dramas, depicting the story where he, dressed as a woman, fights the Broken Monk Musashibo Benkei. That's the story Aman is referring to here.
Yuan Ye was naturally aware of Minamoto no Yoshitsune's fame in modern Japan and imagined "Oda Nobunaga dressed as a beautifully cross-dressed Owakamaru, wearing female attire with exposed thighs, coquettishly gathering people for a drinking spree." For a moment, he also felt a shiver—this is a scene he had never seen in the 21st century, so wild!
But...
"Having an interest in plays, enjoying singing, that's just personal hobbies, isn't it?" As a modern person, Yuan Ye could understand personal quirks or unique personalities. He even knew a university professor whose hobby was making clothes for dolls and action figures, and no one around him found it odd.
"That's not all!" Aman enthusiastically continued to spill the beans, "He also hangs out all day with river pirates and mountain bandits, often running to the Kawamata Group and the Hosokawa Faction. Someone once saw him swimming naked in the Changliang River, and his butt is very white."
Getting too close to social drifters?
A lord and bandits?
At least it's not a princess and bandits...
Yuan Ye couldn't help but ridicule in his heart as Aman continued, "And he's also a spendthrift like you... cough, he spent a whopping 160 kan on an iron cannon, carrying it around all the time, firing it whenever he felt like it. He even recruited a bunch of attendants who would spend their days causing trouble, hitting each other with bamboo sticks, all very comedic."
"Buying weapons and increasing the number of household retainers, what's wrong with that?" Yuan Ye still didn't get it.
Aman sneered, "It's okay to have more attendants and fool around, he's wealthy enough to handle that, but that iron cannon of his often caused trouble. Not only did it kill one of his retainers' horses—which was fine, he could afford to compensate—but during a test fire, it even killed a retainer his father assigned to him, causing a huge uproar in Nagano Castle. Many retainers clamored to have him arrested."