Naruto, aspiring to become a well-known figure in the ninja world

It was a rare period of good weather without a sandstorm, and there were obviously more Sand Village villagers taking to the streets than usual.

Although it ranks low, Sand Village is one of the five permanent members of the ninja world after all, and its population and market are still much stronger than those of small ninja villages.

Ye Cang, who possesses the Shokuton Kekkei and is known as the "Hero of the Sand Village", walks on the street, wandering aimlessly, cherishing this hard-earned peace.

Image: "Ye Cang", Location: "Images/1719372836-100404979-111823448.jpg"

In the ninja world, the more "heroic" a ninja is, the more bloodshed he or she witnesses, and usually, the ending is not very good. Konoha's hero White Fang chose to commit suicide, and Sand Village's hero Ye Cang also ended up with a beautiful back pierced.

"The ninja world has started to become chaotic again recently."

Not long ago, Ye Cang was assigned by the village to go to the Hidden Mist Village to carry out a confidential mission. Just as he was about to leave, news of the internal strife in the Hidden Mist broke out, followed by the statements of Konoha and Kumogakure, and the release of the "Kumigakure Treaty"...

Each piece of news is enough to cause quite a stir in the ninja world, yet they break out frequently during this period of time.

Not long after the Third World War ended, Ye Cang seemed to see the shadow of war breaking out again.

But because of the thunderstorm in Kirigakure, the village's order to send her to Kirigakure to carry out a secret mission was withdrawn, allowing her to have the leisure to stroll through the streets of Sunagakure today.

In a cruel village like Sunagakure, the entertainment options available to everyone, from the elders to the common people, are very limited.

On weekdays, Ye Cang relieves stress by reading.

As a ninja, he cannot experience a different life, but he can when reading. Calm down, enter the world of the book, experience the different lives of the characters in the book, and let his spirit come into contact with the beauty in it.

In this way, I feel much more relaxed.

There have been a lot of good books in the Sunagakure Bookstore recently, among which "Yimu" is the most special publication that Ye Cang thinks.

It is not a long or medium-length story, but is composed of interesting short stories, covering the humanities and interesting stories of various countries and villages.

Exquisite, small and beautiful, it captured the minds of ninjas like Ye Cang.

For example, Ye Cang found the front pages of "Yimu I" and "Yimu II" particularly interesting. They involved the most powerful ninja village in the current ninja world, Konohagakure, which also had many conflicts with Sand Village.

This kind of documentary, about the secret stories that happened in other ninja villages, was exposed before his eyes, and Ye Cang had no way of resisting such pleasure.

For example, the villagers of Konoha would actually leave their money when they were attacked by gangsters, the advisor of the Konoha Hokage was just an ordinary Chunin, and the dirty things that the Konoha Anbu did in secret... These stories that have nothing to do with war are all presented in humorous and witty words.

The intelligence department of Sunagakure will not record these things, nor is it able to record them. It is precisely because they have no military connotations that they can be serialized in publications and read by these ninjas from other villages.

"If you count the days, the new issue release date at the end of Yimu II has already passed. Add in the shipping time... I can buy the latest issue today!"

The transportation in Sand Village is not well developed, so the delivery time may be a little later than that in other countries. Ye Cang can accept all these. As long as she can see "Yimu", she has the patience to wait!

Soon, Ye Cang arrived at the largest bookstore in Sand Village.

The place was packed with people.

Unlike other countries and villages that have a wealth of entertainment facilities, in Sunagakure, reading is the only form of entertainment for many people in their lives. Among the five major ninja villages, Sunagakure is probably the second most culturally advanced, except for Konoha.

A village that is materially poor but spiritually rich.

"Boss, has the latest issue of Yi Mu arrived?"

"It's been a long time since I arrived. It's been several days."

"Eh? You're here so early? I thought it would be like the previous days, several nights."

"I heard that the bookseller opened up a relatively safe trade route and hired ninjas to escort the books, so the books were delivered early. It is said that in the field of cultural books, the entire ninja world should try to achieve unified sales so that everyone can see the books at the first time. Villages have borders, but books have no borders."

When Ye Cang heard the content of this conversation, she couldn't help but stand in awe.

If she remembered correctly, the publisher of "Yimu" was the official publishing house of the Land of Fire, which was a hostile relationship for them in Sunagakure.

It is even possible that with the strong interference of Konoha, the sale of "Oki" to the Sand Village would be banned, but Konoha did not do so and allowed "Oki" to be sold to the hostile village.

“The village has borders, but books have no borders…?”

"How noble! As expected of Konoha, the Land of Fire."

Ye Cang sighed sincerely, and his hostility towards Konoha unconsciously decreased a lot. Although Sunagakure and Konoha had fought many wars, and they had a great feud during the Third War, even with such a relationship, as an enemy, he could still say such words... It's really good.

"It would be nice if there were no wars in the Ninja World. Then, I could go to Konoha without any burden, to the village where the Ninja World culture is most prosperous, to look at the shops there, read the books there, and get to know Gojo Kegetsu who became an advisor as a Chunin."

"Unfortunately, there is no if."

His hero is my enemy. Ye Cang is undoubtedly Konoha's enemy!

"Boss, give me the third issue of Yi Mu!"

"Here you are! It's Lord Ye Cang. I can't charge you for this book. I'll give it to you."

The system of Sand Village is cruel, but not as distorted as that of Kirigakure. People are not divided by "caste". In Sand Village, heroes are heroes and are worthy of respect.

"Thanks, boss."

Ye Cang held the brand new unopened copy of Yi Mu and went to a relatively quiet beverage store to sit down. After opening the package, he turned to the first page.

[There is a Ichiraku Ninja Tool Shop in Konoha]

[A wandering villager in Konoha's Sand Village. Like the villagers of Konoha, he washes his swords for the Konoha Ninja Tool Shop in his spare time to earn a living...]

"Eh? It's actually a story about us, Sunagakure?"

Ye Cang quickly accepted this setting and did not seem surprised.

There are ronin everywhere, and Sand Village is no exception. Every year, a considerable number of people cannot stand the cruel environment of Sand Village and choose to escape. Among them are civilians and ninjas, who escape to the outside of the village and become ronin.

[…Konoha's Shuriken, wash seven times! ]

[An unnamed minister from the Kingdom of Wind said...]

After seeing the man who was expelled from his village being expelled for not washing the shuriken twice, Ye Cang sighed deeply, and the credibility of the story increased a bit.

This is indeed what people who leave the Sand Village would do, but it is definitely not out of dishonesty!

It was probably because he was too poor in Sand Village. Because there was a shortage of water in Sand Village, he couldn't bear to use more water, so he washed less than twice.

But putting that aside, would Konoha actually rinse the shuriken seven times with water? It was so rigorous... I'm afraid that's not all, the kunai was also rinsed seven times with water.

Ye Cang recalled what he had seen and heard on the battlefield of Konoha. It was also a fight between Genin, but when it came to hand-to-hand combat with kunai and shuriken, the weapons of Konoha were indeed sharper and more durable than those of Sunagakure.

“Is it really because of the seven times of washing with water?”

"Even the ministers of our Wind Country have expressed their opinions?"

Ye Cang was skeptical about this.

In her opinion, "water washing" is more of an attitude towards ninja tools. It is a small test to test the store clerk's character and never pass off inferior goods as good ones.

The decisive factor in whether Konoha's ninja tools are sharp or not does not lie in how many times they have been washed, but in the skills of the blacksmith behind them and the subsequent polishing by the ninja tool shop.

Ye Cang immediately found the highlight.

After all, "Yimu" is just a story written by an ordinary person, who may not know much about the world of ninja. It is possible that he confused water-style ninjutsu with water washing. In fact, when it comes to polishing ninja tools, it is actually the water-style ninja who is responsible.

Washing it seven times with water and then putting it on the shelves is just the final step in the ninja tool shop.

Ye Cang thought so, but he couldn't help but feel envious of Konoha. Let alone other things, just the amount of water used... I really can't imagine if they, the Sand Village, also use a lot of water to wash ninja tools to make them sharper...

That's really crazy.

There is also the attitude of the owner of Ichiraku Ninja Tool Shop. If every businessman in Konoha Village is as rigorous as the owner of the Ninja Tool Shop, then Konoha's business scope would really be... The boss is rigorous, the customers are honest, and the village dares to let ordinary villagers speak. It's no wonder that Konoha can stand at the top of the ninja world.

Ye Cang was still not satisfied with what she read, and the next few articles were all of the types she liked. It was unknown how long it took before she finally woke up from the ocean of desire.

"Oops, I was so engrossed in watching that I almost missed the meeting at the Fengying Building."

Ye Cang quickly closed the book and quickly shuttled across the rooftops of the Sand Village buildings, and soon arrived at the Kazekage Building.

Before I opened the door, I seemed to hear the sound of arguing coming from the inner room.

"Are you crazy? Don't you know that water in our Sand Village is precious? And you actually proposed to use the water to wash the sword in your hands?"

"Humph, what does it have to do with you conservatives? This is the share for us liberals!"

"What about the liberals' share? Aren't they all village resources? I will never allow such a ridiculous policy to be proposed!"

Due to the lack of internal resources, the internal struggle of Sand Village is very fierce. In terms of the "Kage"'s voice in the village, it is even inferior to the Mizukage.

Unlike Kirigakure, Sand Village has no ninja clans or elder forces. Instead, there are various factions that split due to resource shortages and different development concepts for Sand Village.

The conservatives represented by the first generation of Sand Village, the militant faction represented by the second generation of Sand Village, and the reformists represented by the third and fourth generations of Sand Village... Whenever they encountered issues related to resource allocation, they would argue fiercely.

Granny Chiyo is semi-retired, and the reformists represented by the Fourth Kazekage Rasa hold most of the say in the Kazekage Building.

Today, a motion proposed by a reformist elder is as follows:

[Now Kirigakure and Konoha have formed an alliance to develop the economy. Now that World War III has ended, war will definitely not break out quickly. We in Sand Village should also keep up with the tide of the times and take advantage of these years of peace to develop the economy and fix internal affairs.]

[Cut the military budget to build roads, divert water, and learn the systems of advanced ninja villages]

Volume 81: Yunyue is Yunyue, Mumeng is Mumeng

The militant elder slammed the table and asked: "Cut the military budget?"

"What a joke! The Iwagakure Village has been eyeing us covetously for a long time. If they knew that we, the Sand Village, have cut our military budget, those monkeys might take the initiative to start a war again!"

"So we need to form an alliance! Form an alliance!"

A deep gloom appeared in the eyes of the Sunagakure reformist elder.

Alliance, this is the strategic approach determined from the beginning.

The original plan was to find the Kirigakure Village and form an alliance with it, so that the Kirigakure ninjas would fight against the Iwagakure Village together. As a sacrifice for the alliance, Ye Cang was offered to the Kirigakure Village. Ye Cang was transferred to the Kirigakure Village under the pretext of carrying out a secret mission, and whatever happened after that... would have nothing to do with the Sand Village, and Kirigakure would arrange everything.

But just when this secret transaction was about to start, the Hidden Mist Village was exposed.

The Fourth Hokage Yagura, who had agreed to a cooperation, seemed to have suddenly become a different person. He directly refused to contact their envoys and turned to form an alliance with Konoha.

This is... Konoha!

In the ranking of hostility with the Sand Village, Iwagakure ranks first and Konoha ranks second. Given this, it is impossible to form an alliance with the enemy's friend.

From this perspective, there is only one village left in the ninja world for them to form an alliance with - the Hidden Cloud Village.

"The Kumogakure is also filled with hatred towards the Iwagakure. The Third Raikage died at the hands of Ohnoki. As long as we make good use of this hatred, the Iwagakure will have to turn around and deal with the Kumogakure, and the pressure on us in the Sandgakure will naturally be reduced."

The words of the reformist elders triggered deep reflection among the many elders present, and more and more inspirations were sparked:

"We can follow the example of the Treaty of Mugiri and establish a military alliance with Kumogakure. This way, the defense pressure on our border can be reduced. If those monkeys from Iwagakure attack us regardless of everything, we can have Kumogakure send reinforcements or break into Iwagakure."

"If we can't take care of each other after the end, even if Iwagakure wants to invade our Wind Country again, they will be afraid."

"In this way, the money used for military construction can be used for other purposes."

According to a political scientist from the Fire Nation who wishes to remain anonymous:

The more a village spends on military construction, the less money it spends on people's livelihood construction. The less money a village spends on economic construction, the less gross domestic product it has. The less gross domestic product it has, the less it spends on military construction...

In this way, they fall into an infinite vicious circle. The reformist elders deeply agree with this concept, and the method to jump out of the vicious circle is also very simple -

That is an alliance! It is equivalent to transferring the cost of the village's military construction to other villages, thereby sharing the pressure of national defense and village defense.

The remaining money will be used for people's livelihood construction and to expand the village's gross domestic product. If you think about it carefully, their Sand Village has quite a lot of local specialties. Gold and chakra metal buried in the desert waiting to be mined, rich desert beast meat...

It's just because the village is so poor that a huge amount of money is spent every year on maintaining the ninja tools that are eroded by wind and sand. There are also a series of military expenses such as maintaining puppets, subsidizing ninjas, and building ninja schools.

If this part of the expenditure is used for the economic development of Sand Village in the long term, I can’t imagine how rich Sand Village will be in the future!

With a piece of cloth on my head, I am the richest in the ninja world!

Some free and hedonistic elders who advocated lying down, turning the Sand Village into a permanently neutral country, giving up participating in the disputes in the ninja world, completely abolishing the Sand Village military system, and allowing the Sand Village to develop with economic construction as the center also nodded repeatedly.

"It would be best to use all the funds for economic and people's livelihood construction! We in Sunagakure should have done this long ago!"

"The first step is to buy water so that every villager in our Sand Village can use unlimited water, instead of the current situation where everyone is fighting tooth and nail for their share!"

"After that, we will wash the ninja tools seven times by hand and export them to various ninja villages as trading commodities. These are absolutely top-quality products and will definitely sell out."

"Mad! You're unreasonable!"

"I protest!"

"Alright... stop arguing." The Fourth Kazekage Rasa, who was sitting on guard, said, "As usual, let's vote by raising our hands."

"Proposal: Form an alliance with Kumogakure and cut part of the military construction budget to use it for people's livelihood and economic construction"

As soon as Luo Sha finished speaking, the prominent elders in the village began to vote in the most traditional way by raising their hands.