Naruto Online: Hyuga Branch Family? Let's go all out!

Chapter 156 The Kingdom of Wind Prepares for War

The land of wind is covered by desert, and its people can only make a living by gathering in a few oases and on the edge of the desert.

This topography means that the Land of Wind has virtually no arable land, making it impossible to develop large-scale industries.

After all, large-scale industries generally require a lot of water, especially the paper industry, which consumes an enormous amount of water.

But ordinary people and officials can't live without paper either. If you use bamboo or wooden slips instead of paper, the damage to the environment will be even more severe.

As a result, the Land of Wind has always been a major importer of food and paper.

The import targets are major grain-producing countries: countries with fields and rivers.

However, in the past two years, the daimyo of the Land of Wind suddenly discovered that his trading partners had changed.

The land that exports grain and paper is no longer the land of fields and rivers, but the land of fire.

He tapped on the table, and the lord of the Land of Wind summoned his Minister of Commerce. Pointing to the data on the paper, he asked, "What's going on here? Didn't we previously import grain and paper from the Land of Fields and the Land of Rivers? Why has it suddenly switched to the Land of Fire?"

"Oh, that's because food and paper are cheaper in the Land of Fire!" the Minister of Commerce hurriedly replied. "The same rice costs 140 taels per catty in the Land of Fields, but only 100 taels in the Land of Fire. The same goes for paper; 1500 taels for 10,000 sheets in the Land of Rivers, and 1200 taels for 10,000 sheets in the Land of Fire. Of course, we'll buy from whichever is cheaper!"

"How could this be?" the daimyo asked, puzzled. "The Land of Fire is separated from our Land of Wind by the Land of Rivers, and the Land of Fields is clearly the closest to the capital. Along the way, the Land of Fire should have consumed more resources for transportation, food, and supplies. How come the Land of Fire, with its longer journey and higher resources, has lower prices?"

"This..." The Commerce Minister scratched his head; he didn't know either.

Daming stroked his chin, his face full of worry.

He was happy to buy cheaper food, but he wouldn't be happy if the food was supplied by his enemy.

After all, businessmen need to make money.

They can make a profit selling grain to the Land of Wind for 60 taels per catty, so the price of grain they sell in the Land of Fire will only be lower.

In the era of cold weapons, grain prices represented war potential.

If you're eating 140 taels of grain per jin on one side and 100 taels of grain per jin on the other, which side will give out first? Need I say more?

Moreover, the Land of Fire is powerful not only in terms of food, but also in terms of paper.

Paper was also a war reserve material during wartime. Not to mention that various battle reports, intelligence, and documents required a lot of paper to record, the explosive tags, a unique weapon in the ninja world, also needed to be made of paper.

The fact that paper is cheap in the Land of Fire proves that their explosive tags are also cheap.

With the same amount of money, the Land of Wind can produce 5000 explosive tags, while the Land of Fire can produce 8,000.

Moreover, what Daimyo saw in the documents was not just grain and paper.

Salt, sugar, oil, vinegar and other daily necessities, sand shovels, hoes, bricks and other construction supplies, and even luxury goods such as perfume, tea, porcelain and silk were all purchased by the Land of Fire.

Some industries are even only made in the Land of Fire, such as perfume.

Skip over the large amount of data above, and then take a look at the summary.

In the first half of this year, the total value of goods exported by the Land of Wind was 124 billion taels, while the value of goods imported was 776 billion taels!

Outrageous?

Even more outrageous is that these are just the numbers I was able to compile!

The political system of the Land of Wind is not much different from that of the Land of Fire. The control of the Land of Wind daimyo over various regions is only slightly stronger than that of the Land of Fire daimyo back then, but not by much.

Therefore, the data he can collect may only be one-tenth of the total data.

Therefore, the actual figure for this trade deficit is much larger!

Daimyo's face immediately darkened.

This is the blood of people from a country with crazy minds!

We work hard all year, and all the money we earn is taken by the people of the Land of Fire. Not only that, but the money we earned last year, the year before last, and even the year before that was also taken away!

What does this mean?

This is equivalent to the country's national strength regressing by three or four years!

Although the analogy is not entirely accurate, the situation is roughly the same, or perhaps the reality is even more severe.

For example, farmers in the Land of Wind might find that after a year of hard work farming, the final bill is that farming their own land is more expensive than buying land from the Land of Fire.

What's the point of farming then?

There's also the iron smelting industry. The iron smelting industry in the Land of Wind was originally quite developed. After all, the puppetry techniques in Sunagakure required a lot of metal parts, and with joint research and development, the quality improved.

But now, it's cheaper and you can get more iron ingots from the Land of Fire than you can forge them yourself!

Would iron merchants still have the incentive to smelt iron?

If merchants who smelt iron have no incentive to smelt iron, the steel production of the Land of Wind will decrease. In peacetime, they can still make a living by relying on the steel of the Land of Fire, but what if the Land of Fire cuts off the supply if war breaks out?

Restore production?

It's not that easy to recover.

The iron smelting workers had no work and had long since changed careers. The iron smelting equipment hadn't been used or maintained for months and had long since rusted. In addition, the workers and residents next to the factory would occasionally pick up parts and wires. When you wanted to start the machine, you found it was broken and didn't even know what was wrong!

The same situation applies to other industries such as papermaking, tea picking, cloth weaving, aquaculture, agriculture, and aquaculture.

All these industries combined will evolve into one situation.

In other words, all the merchants realized that the cost of manufacturing their own products was extremely high, so they decided to simply buy them from the Land of Fire and abandon their own businesses.

The only industry left in the Land of Wind is mining.

Is there a solution to this situation?

Of course there are ways. For example, imposing tariffs on foreign goods, raising them to a level where they are more expensive than domestic goods, would keep domestic goods in the cheaper category, thus protecting domestic businesses.

However, as mentioned earlier, the political system of the Land of Wind is similar to that of the Land of Fire.

His orders only worked within Wind City; no one in other cities of the Wind Kingdom paid him any attention.

Moreover, even within the capital city, his words carry little weight.

Because under the political system of ruling the country under the rule of the daimyo, those who could engage in cross-border trade and import and export trade were basically high-ranking officials and nobles.

Even if they weren't nobles, they were still relatives of nobles.

Of the 100 taels of grain sold, I wonder if the merchants from the Land of Fire actually received 60 taels, and the rest probably ended up in the hands of the nobles.

If you raise tariffs, you might just be blocking your brother-in-law's and sister-in-law's path to wealth.

Raising tariffs today could lead to drowning tomorrow!

Daming flipped through the documents, agonizing for a long time, but couldn't come up with a way to break the deadlock.

It wasn't that he was stupid, but that his opponent used a perfectly legitimate and open strategy, relying on national power and institutional superiority.

As for him, if he wants to get things done, but countless people are holding him back, it would be a miracle if he could even manage it!

After much thought, Daming could only come up with one solution.

Go to war!

If we destroy Konoha and conquer the Land of Fire, then all the previous problems will cease to be problems.

Even if they can't win the battle, a draw would still allow them to force the merchants of the Land of Fire to raise prices through negotiation.

Setting grain prices so low is detrimental to the struggles of the people of the Wind Kingdom!

"Go and invite the Third Kazekage to Fuuto for a meeting!" Although the Daimyo had made up his mind, whether or not they could fight depended on the situation in Sunagakure.

Three days later, the third-generation Kazekage, Kazusa, concealed his presence and entered Kaze City, where he met the Daimyo of the Land of Wind in a secret room.

"Your name!" He Sha knelt on one knee and bowed.

He was a proud man, but even so, he had a deep respect for Da Ming, who had devoted himself to the country and whose hair began to turn gray at the age of thirty.

"No need for formalities, get up!" The daimyo's tone was somewhat dejected.

Over the next three days, he read even more documents, and the more he read, the less optimistic he felt about the future.

He discovered that it wasn't just the Land of Wind that was suffering.

The Land of Wind is not a neighboring country of the Land of Fire, so the impact is still relatively minor.

Moreover, the Land of Wind is a large country, so even if problems arise, it can hold out for longer, while the Land of Fields and the Land of Rivers, the two neighboring countries of the Land of Fire, have long been unable to hold on.

The Land of Fire did not send troops; instead, it used commercial means.

Merchants dumped large quantities of cheap grain from the Land of Fire into the territories of the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fields.

The Land of Fields is clearly a country that grows crops, but they don't understand how to develop high-yield crops and they don't know about the existence of chemical fertilizers, so their grain prices are even higher than what they buy. Where can you go to reason with that?

The result of farming being more expensive than buying grain was that many landowners in the Land of Farming went bankrupt. Although their homes were overflowing with grain, ensuring they wouldn't starve, people can't live on just food; they also need meat, clothes, shoes, and medical care.

The merchants from the Land of Fire weren't done with their schemes yet; they've started recruiting in the Land of Fields.

If the landlords go bankrupt, won't their tenant farmers and serfs be out of work?

Their lives were already quite ordinary. They would work hard to cultivate a piece of land for a year, but 90% of it had to be handed over to the landlord, leaving them with only 10%, which was not enough to support their families.

Despite being a well-known grain-producing area in the ninja world, people still starve to death every year.

But now, the merchants from the Land of Fire have arrived, and hope has arrived!!

No land to farm? Come work at our factory!

Ten thousand taels a month, isn't that more than what you earn farming?

Farmers in the Land of Fields don't care much about national or familial righteousness. As long as they can make money and won't starve, who would want to be a farmer?

No, they weren't peasants, they were serfs!

Moreover, the merchants from the Land of Fire don't care about any indenture agreements signed between serfs and landlords. Your whole family just came with me and went abroad. Where will he find you then?

The daimyo and landowners of the Land of Fields are certainly not happy to see this situation. All our people have gone to work in the Land of Fire. Who are we going to exploit?

Although farming is no longer profitable, at least it can still produce some income.

Now that everyone has left, the land is completely uncultivated, and there's absolutely no output!

But there was nothing they could do, no matter how unwilling they were.

Because there are no ninja villages in the Land of Rice Fields!

Every time a merchant from the Land of Fire comes to recruit people, he's always surrounded by Konoha ninjas. You have to swallow your anger no matter how unwilling you are!

Even if there are ninja villages, there's nothing they can do. How can a small country possibly fight against Konoha?

In just one year, nearly half of the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fields had fallen into ruin, with 30% of their land being bought up by merchants from the Land of Fire.

These are minor issues. The major issue is that millions of people have left the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fields and entered the Land of Fire.

The departure of large numbers of people has resulted in vast uninhabited areas in the land of rivers and fields.

The once bustling village has now become a ghost village, overrun by all sorts of animals.

This trend shows no signs of slowing down; on the contrary, it is growing stronger every day.

At first, it was the merchants who took the initiative to recruit people, but now it is the slaves, farmers, and tenant farmers of the land of rivers and fields who are voluntarily packing up their belongings and leaving.

Unfortunately, the daimyo of the two small countries, the Land of Fields and the Land of Rivers, dared not stop it.

The daimyo was so jealous that he wanted to grind his teeth to dust at the thought of the national strength that millions of people could bring.

Unfortunately, he could only watch helplessly, unable to do anything about it.

The Land of Wind simply cannot support so many people!

"My lord, why did you summon me here?" Seeing the lord's angry and frustrated expression, He Sha thought for a moment, "I don't think I've offended this lord recently."

Then the daimyo suddenly spoke up: "How has Sunagakure developed in recent years? How many ninja do you have?"

"Reporting to the Daimyo, our Land of Wind did not participate in the First Shinobi World War. Although we suffered heavy losses in the Second Shinobi World War, we were fortunate to withdraw without damaging our fundamental strength. In the years since then, a large number of new ninjas have been trained, some genin have been promoted to chunin, some chunin to jonin, and two newcomers have already shown their talent and have reached the level of elite jonin!"

"The current Sand Village has six elite Jonin, eighty Jonin, 1500 Chunin, and nearly 6000 Genin!"

The lord nodded in satisfaction; this quantity was already quite good.

During World War II, the Land of Wind had fewer than 3,000 ninjas, but they were easily defeated by Sakumo Hatake with only 1500 men.

The current numbers are almost three times those of World War II, so I believe we won't be fighting as miserably as we were during World War II.

"If I asked you to launch an attack on Konoha, how much success could you achieve?" the Daimyo asked sternly.

"An attack on Konoha?" Gosa's eyes lit up. He immediately said, "After World War II, Konoha didn't train a large number of ninjas, and its system remained unchanged. Therefore, its strength shouldn't have changed much since World War II. Moreover, according to intelligence, something seems to have happened in Konoha; the former White Fang of Konoha, Hatake Sakumo, committed suicide!"

"Sakumo Hatake committed suicide?" The daimyo's eyes lit up. "Is that Sakumo Hatake, the one who killed our general last time?"

"That's him!" He Sha nodded. "Furthermore, intelligence indicates that Tsunade hasn't appeared at Konoha Hospital for a long time, suggesting a possible falling out with Konoha's leadership and her departure from the village. Therefore, if war breaks out, the only Konoha powerhouses we'll have to deal with are Orochimaru and Jiraiya!"

"In terms of top-tier combat strength, we have the advantage!"

"In terms of high-level combat strength, Konoha has around 150 Jonin, which is more than us. However, we have the advantage of terrain, plus puppet techniques and poison techniques. Moreover, Konoha's Nine-Tails Jinchuriki has recently passed away, and a new Jinchuriki has not yet matured. Our Jinchuriki, on the other hand, can go directly to the battlefield. All things considered, our high-level combat strength is also balanced!"

"In terms of basic combat strength, Konoha has around 4000 regular ninja, while we have 7500!!"

"At the top, we have the advantage; at the upper levels, we are equal; at the bottom, we have the advantage. Even if Konoha forcibly conscripts clan ninjas, there will be at most a thousand people. Once a war breaks out, the troop strength ratio will be eight thousand to five thousand, giving us the advantage!"

"Victory is assured in this battle!"

"Hmm!" The daimyo nodded. "Then I order you to return immediately and prepare for war. How long until we can send troops?"

War is not something that can be acted upon the other side simply by issuing a command; the allocation of resources and the recall of personnel all take time.

There are instances of wars starting without any preparation, and then Yixing was captured and sent to study in the Oirat Mongols.

He Sha silently calculated for a moment, then looked up: "Two months!"

"Two months, exactly August!" The Daimyo nodded. "In August, the desert is unbearably hot. The Konoha ninjas, pampered and spoiled, are not suited to such an environment. The advantage is indeed on our side. So, let's launch our attack on August 11th. I will issue a decree on August 10th, declaring war on Konoha!"

"Yes!" He Sha clenched his fist excitedly.

Apart from Hiruzen Sarutobi, who disliked fighting, no ninja would resist war.

Because of the unique nature of the ninja profession, it is difficult for them to receive high-level missions during peacetime.

For example, the evaluation criteria for an A-level mission is the possibility of encountering ninjas.

But they're always on missions within the country during peacetime, so where would they find ninjas?

During wartime, a mission that involves encountering a genin or chunin is considered an A-rank mission, while a mission that involves encountering a jonin is considered an S-rank mission!

High-level missions are really plentiful!

If you're lucky and strong, becoming rich overnight from a single war is not a dream.

Moreover, it is extremely difficult for ninjas to advance in peacetime. Only one or two people might advance in a single Chunin Exam, while three or four might advance in two Chunin Exams a year.

For the large number of genin, this is even harder than taking the civil service exam; there simply aren't enough spots available!

It's even harder to get promoted to Jonin. There aren't any high-level missions for you to do, so how can you get promoted without making any contributions?

But in war, leveling up is very simple: kill a Chunin and you become a Chunin; kill a Jonin and you become a Jonin.

No frills, just pure skill!

Ordinary ninjas enjoy war, but the Third Kazekage, Gossa, enjoys it even more.

Because the five Kazekage of the five great ninja villages are all very famous, such as the professor of ninjutsu, the strongest spear, the bloodline limit, the strongest water release, and so on.

He has absolutely no fame. In fact, if you ask someone outside the village what the Third Kazekage's name is, nobody will know!

This war is the perfect opportunity to make a name for yourself!

(End of this chapter)