Naruto: Starting from Eating the Gold Fruit

Chapter 44 What's going on?

After settling the huge matter of the Four Nations Alliance, Tobirama Senju confidently handed over the village affairs to Yua and went to the front lines.

Of course, he also took Hiruzen Sarutobi and Kagami Uchiha with him when he left.

When Yuya went to see him off, he felt for some reason that Uchiha Kagami was being overly polite to him.

There was even a faint hint of...

What does "respect" mean?

What's going on?

Uchiha Kagami, you're more than ten years older than me; I could call you uncle.

Although Yua found Uchiha Kagami's attitude puzzling, she would not change the arrangements for the Uchiha clan.

After the water plant was built, the Uchiha clan could earn several million taels a year just from water fees alone.

The Uchiha clan would collect the water fees themselves, hand over a portion to Konoha as taxes, and keep the rest for themselves.

However, this has resulted in a shortage of staff at the water plant.

The Uchiha clan used to have a bunch of hooligans wandering around the clan compound every day, but now almost everyone wants to split into two shadow clones to work.

However, this doubles the level of fatigue.

Hmm... Overworking can really kill people, so let's forget about it.

With the water plant completed, the recruitment news that Youya had been promoting to Konoha merchants also came to fruition.

A small ninja clan has arrived in Konoha.

They heard that people from Konoha had come, so they provided them with land and food and settled them on the spot. However, the food was not given for free and had to be returned, although it would be returned in three to five years.

Basically, this policy isn't very attractive; it won't appeal to people unless they're truly desperate to survive.

Unfortunately, there are indeed ninja clans in the small countries surrounding Konoha that are struggling to survive.

There are over a hundred people in the clan, but only three are ninjas, and their strength is at most equivalent to a Chunin in Konoha.

Basically, if you continue to stay outside, you will inevitably become someone else's slave.

In order to survive, this clan of more than one hundred people came to Konoha.

They just hoped that Konoha would feed them first, as promised.

Youya was naturally very happy.

Although he knew that the conditions he offered were not for families that were truly struggling to survive, commoners would not come.

But now we have the first one, don't we?

Once there's a first one, there will definitely be a second one.

Youya was very satisfied.

Moreover, Youya's notification actually had a second purpose.

However, this purpose is a bit too dark.

Konoha is located in the inland part of the Land of Fire.

Because of its abundant local resources, no one in the Land of Fire is driven to the brink of starvation. Although they are exploited severely by the daimyo, they are not driven to the point of being unable to survive.

This is also why Youya did not target these people.

If they really target the people of the Land of Fire, the daimyo of the Land of Fire won't allow it; their land and mineral resources also need to be mined.

It's not the time to turn against the Daimyo of the Land of Fire yet; Konoha doesn't have that capability right now.

Upon seeing this news, those families who could no longer survive, and those who had traveled a long distance to Konoha, would surely have exhausted their resources, including the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled along the way.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to persevere on such a long journey.

In other words, the first batch of more than one hundred people who came to Konoha were all young and middle-aged laborers.

Regardless of gender, what Konoha lacks most right now is people.

Although these hundred-plus people are a drop in the ocean, they are enough to fill the gap in a steel plant.

Hmm... as for other places...

Then I really can't do anything about it. If you really want to say something, what Yuya can guarantee is that he will prioritize filling the manpower of his own factories and shops. As for the factories and shops that you ninja families and merchants own, then I really can't do anything about it.

Yu Ya calculated that even in an era where human life was as cheap as grass, and ninjas graduated at eight and went to the battlefield at nine, even if children entered factories at ten, it would still take ten years to become a generation.

If Yuya could eliminate poverty in Konoha within ten years and ensure that every household could eat meat, then who would want their child to go to a factory at the age of ten?

There are advantages to having a small business.

However, Konoha is indeed too small a place.

There are too few people. No matter how many methods we have, if no one comes to Konoha to dedicate themselves, there's nothing we can do.

To attract others, besides offering bribes, then...

It seems there's only one other way.

—Bribery is definitely out of the question. People lured here are only after the benefits, and Yuya would rather share those benefits with the people of Konoha than with these outsiders who come to reap the rewards.

The other method is...

public opinion.

In the nineteenth year of Konoha, as the war between Konoha's front lines and Kumogakure entered a fierce, head-to-head phase, various rumors began to circulate across the ninja continent.

So what if Konoha is incredibly wealthy? So what if the people of Konoha eat meat every day? So what if Konoha has the strongest fighting power in the ninja world, unmatched by any other village…?

These are all facts, but what follows is different.

Claims like "The air in Konoha is sweet," "The moon in Konoha is rounder than in their XXX village," "Going to Konoha will make you rich and help you get married," and "Going to Konoha will make you a superior person" began to spread like wildfire.

Moreover, unlike previous announcements which circulated among ninjas, this time the main method of dissemination is to spread only among civilians.

By the time the villages realized what was happening, it was already a year later.

In the nineteenth year of Konoha, Yuya upgraded various factories, mainly raising the level of wastewater treatment to the highest standard.

After all, Konoha Village is small. In the past two years, in order to seize profits as quickly as possible, they could only expand their scale without regard for the consequences, and sewage treatment was also a problem.

However, this has made some people unwilling.

I used to earn 100 yuan a day, but after the sewage treatment, I can only earn 50 yuan a day.

This was the first time You Ya had allowed his secretary to forcefully push through a policy.

And from this moment on, Yua, whom everyone thought was Tobirama Senju's mouthpiece, officially entered the view of everyone in Konoha Village.

In the late summer of Konoha Year 19, the Cloud Village declared they needed to go home to harvest wheat and requested a temporary truce. Tobirama Senju slapped them across the face, saying, "You think you can harvest your wheat? You're dreaming! I was just worried about those earth-style bastards from Iwagakure ambushing us during the pursuit."

Now that I don't have that worry anymore, what am I afraid of?

Harvest wheat? Go harvest it in hell!

Unlike the previous two years, Konoha did not retreat. Instead, it advanced directly, crossing the Land of Iron and arriving in the Land of Lightning.

The daimyo of the Land of Lightning panicked. He had never cared how much stuff was broken since the previous battles had been fought within the Land of Fire.

But now Konoha has invaded the Land of Lightning...

Those would be the treasures of their Land of Thunder!

No, we absolutely cannot continue fighting.

During his advance, Tobirama Senju discovered a place within the Land of Lightning.

That day, Tobirama Senju originally intended to go to the river to drink water and take a bath.

After taking a bath, Tobirama Senju suddenly had a whim and practiced some Water Release techniques. It was at this moment that he discovered some golden sand-like substances emerging from the riverbed he had destroyed with Water Release.

When Tobirama Senju dived down to take a look, although each individual was very small, there was no doubt that what was exposed beneath the riverbed, where the riverbed had been broken, was gold sand.

So, what's below...?

There must be a gold mine.

Moreover, judging from the golden sand exposed here, the gold mine below probably contains a considerable amount of gold.

Tobirama Senju was excited and ordered Kagami Uchiha to return within three days and bring Yua here.

Uchiha Kagami received the order.

However, when he returned to Konoha, he saw people gathered in front of the Hokage's office, holding up banners with slogans such as "Strongly protest the closure of the textile factory!" and "XXX owes wages! Pay up!"

Uchiha Kagami was completely bewildered.

what's wrong?

(End of this chapter)