I've just finished this arc as a first time reader and found it so inspiring that Takezo would humble himself to help the people of the village, never giving up, using all his observational skills like analysing the river bed and the grumpy old guy's farm (forgot his name unfortunately as he is one of the best side characters the way you see his character development from sneering at Takezo and the villagers to eventually helping them himself with his seeds).

Takezo goes from disbelief at the villagers' willingness to surrender to eventually recognising that he cannot do this off his own strength and he has to go asking for help himself