Planning

"What is it?" Hyuga Mirai asked curiously.

"The merchant guilds we directly or indirectly control in the Land of Fire, Hot Spring Country, Grass Country, Land of Rice Fields, and Land of Iron have been approached for loans twenty-seven times. The total amount involved is 730 million ryo."

Was something like this worth telling him? It was only a little over 700 million ryo.

Hyuga Mirai thought about it. If it were merely about money, Android 18 would not have brought it up. Since she had told him anyway, it meant the matter had reached a level where he needed to know.

"Is there a problem with the borrowers or where the money went?"

Android 18 pulled up a video and said to Hyuga Mirai, "There were four borrowers in total: Konoha’s Tsunade, Orochimaru, you, sir, and Uzumaki Ayaka. However, according to footage tracked and monitored by the satellites, all the loans were taken out by Konoha’s Tsunade alone. She merely used the appearances and identities of you and the others."

"Heh, that woman."

When Hyuga Mirai saw Tsunade transformed into his appearance, her imitation of his mannerisms was actually somewhat convincing. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Forget it. Leave her alone. It’s only 700 million ryo anyway. Consider it bad luck."

As soon as Hyuga Mirai finished speaking, Android 18 continued.

"Sir, Konoha’s Tsunade only borrowed from merchant guilds connected to us. Before taking out the loans, she also gathered a great deal of intelligence."

After saying that, Android 18 pulled up more surveillance footage. It showed Tsunade’s actions from many angles, including scenes of her gathering intelligence and using the Transformation Technique to infiltrate places.

"…Android 18, are you sure that’s Tsunade and not Jiraiya disguised as Tsunade?" Hyuga Mirai asked in confusion. Of course, he could tell that it was Tsunade herself, but when had that drunken fool started doing reconnaissance work?

"Jiraiya is drinking in Hot Spring Country, sir." After speaking, Android 18 pulled up footage of another white-haired man drinking himself senseless.

Hyuga Mirai scratched his head, feeling as though the roles of those two had suddenly been reversed. Maybe Tsunade would summon a toad and start writing novels the next moment.

"Don’t worry about her for now. At this rate, she’ll never trace anything back to us. I still have other matters to deal with. As for the bill, send it directly to Konoha."

The only merchant guilds that could contact Hyuga Mirai directly were the Uzumaki Company, Hundred Herbs Company, Yasunori Trading Company, and Kado’s Shipping Company. These Four Great Merchant Guilds basically represented clothing, food, transportation, and entertainment.

As for the others, they had merely been acquired by those four merchant guilds during their expansion. Although Hyuga Mirai did not know how Tsunade had found them, trying to trace him through this route would be less efficient than simply asking Sara.

Aside from keeping an eye on the Land of Wind, Hyuga Mirai was mainly occupied with improving the Orbital Weapon Station. Once he perfected the manufacturing blueprints, he could hand them to Android 18 and have her produce it.

This planet still held many unexplored secrets: the controllable magnetic-field plan formed by the Dragon Vein, exploration of the Pure Land, and more. Hyuga Mirai had yet to fully control even the Five Great Nations and the surrounding small countries, while farther away lay places like Mount Myoboku and the other Three Great Sage Locations.

The other side of the planet was almost entirely uninhabited. The war-torn Ninja World occupied barely half of its territory. If Sunagakure had any pioneering spirit, it would discover and obtain far more resources.

The same was true for Iwa-nin and Kumo-nin, but those idiots had their eyes fixed on Konoha, constantly thinking about taking a bite out of the meat before them.

"Space Capsules can be manufactured as well. This is a product capable of overturning the Ninja World. Although civilians still can’t afford something this expensive, the basic economy can be improved first."

After thinking for a while, Hyuga Mirai decided to first connect the southwestern regions of the Ninja World, including the Land of Wind, River Country, Land of Birds, Bear Country, and Land of Demons.

Other than the Land of Wind and Rain Country, which were special cases, the other small countries had already been almost completely swallowed up by the Hundred Herbs Company and Yasunori Trading Company. On the surface, Sara was also constantly handling relations as a diplomatic representative of the merchant guilds. The Queen’s abilities had somewhat exceeded Hyuga Mirai’s expectations.

He had talked Sara into leaving mainly to better transform Rōran, but he had not expected her to perform so well. Matters negotiated by her had a success rate of over ninety percent.

After learning this, Hyuga Mirai directly assigned the eight members of Snake Squad to follow Sara. One team protected her openly, while the other helped her deal with troubles in secret.

The power of River Country, Bear Country, and Land of Demons had nearly been completely controlled by Hyuga Mirai. Although the Land of Demons had no Daimyo and revered the Miko, the new generation of Miko was still young, so most affairs of the Land of Demons were handled by the Miko’s trusted attendants.

Because of the Yomi incident, power in the Land of Demons would not be concentrated in one person’s hands until the Miko came of age. However, that gave Sara room to display her abilities.

The greatest responsibility of the Land of Demons was sealing demonic creatures and preventing them from escaping and endangering the Ninja World. Under such circumstances, the Miko’s faction only cared about the creatures, while the lives of ordinary citizens were secondary.

As long as no one set their sights on the demonic creatures, the Miko’s faction would not care about outsiders. Furthermore, Yasunori Trading Company could bring benefits to the people of the Land of Demons. Under Sara’s persuasion, the company also promised that if the creatures broke out, it would send experts to assist the Miko in dealing with them.

Sara also had Snake Squad demonstrate their strength. The Sage Arts used by these four people possessed tremendous destructive power and visual impact. Having been modified by Hyuga Mirai, they could perfectly merge with Natural Energy like the Three Snake Princesses. After receiving training from Orochimaru for some time, all four of them now possessed the strength of Special Jonin on the surface.

After witnessing the strength of Snake Squad’s members, the people of the Land of Demons considered it briefly before accepting Sara’s proposal.

To them, sealing demonic creatures was always the foremost priority. The previous Miko had perished together with Mou Ryō in order to seal the creatures. If the creatures broke out again, having some extremely powerful outside support would be the best possible outcome.

Living constantly under the threat of demonic creatures had made the Miko’s faction care little about power in the Land of Demons. They were far more worried about another outbreak.

As for Bear Country, the power of its Daimyo was not even comparable to that of a noble in the Land of Fire. Although it had Hoshigakure and Ninja who called themselves Hoshikage, its military strength was average, and its number of Ninja barely approached a hundred.

Under the impact of all manner of flourishing goods, power in Bear Country quickly fell. Basic necessities such as clothing, food, housing, and transportation were topics people could never avoid, even for Ninja who possessed extraordinary strength.

The will of Hoshigakure’s Ninja was not much stronger than that of Konoha Ninja. After seeing electronic entertainment, quite a few of them became addicted to it.

A Daimyo’s authority came from control over land and military force. However, once Ninja developed, a large portion of that authority was divided away. In terms of military strength, the Samurai under a Daimyo’s command were simply no match for Ninja.

The explosive growth of Ninja strength caused wars to become frequent throughout the Ninja World. The Daimyo system had been passed down for nearly a thousand years, and Ninja did not dare overthrow the Daimyo through strength alone. The Uchiha Clan might have dared to do so, but their old rivals would never allow the Uchiha to act that way.

It was not until Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha joined forces to establish the One Village One Nation system, binding these highly destructive Ninja within villages and turning them into national military organizations. The establishment of a Ninja Village required the Daimyo’s assistance, but the Ninja’s strength gave the villages great independence. Aside from being unable to achieve economic self-sufficiency, Ninja Villages basically possessed every attribute of independent nations.

The only means Daimyo had to restrain Ninja Villages was economic pressure. As long as Ninja did not dare cross that line, the relationship between Daimyo and Ninja Villages would always remain one of superior and subordinate.

However, the emergence of Yasunori Trading Company directly used its overwhelming economic power to seize from the Daimyo the economic authority used to restrain Ninja Villages. The villages simply had not realized that the master above them had changed. Once Yasunori Trading Company made it clear, the Daimyo would become figures with titles but no real power.

They would retain only the honor of being a nation’s rulers, without any authority whatsoever. Even the economic methods they took pride in seemed utterly laughable before a capitalist creation like Yasunori Trading Company.

As for Rain Country, Hyuga Mirai chose to set it aside for the time being. He would develop Rain Country only after gaining control over the Land of Wind.

In a country where it rained year-round, aside from some fisheries, there was no source of food production. That environment meant all grain and supplies had to be imported. Hyuga Mirai wanted to know whether Konan and Nagato would compromise for the sake of changing Rain Country, or abandon the country and continue carrying out their plan.

Nagato’s plan was to gather all the Tailed Beasts and create the Ten-Tails to intimidate the great nations, making them afraid to start wars easily and thereby achieving peace.

His plan did not conflict with improving Rain Country’s environment, but some sacrifices would be necessary. After all, there was no such thing as a free lunch. To change this nation that had wept for so long, something would inevitably have to be given up.

At the Capital of the Land of Wind, Rasa and the Daimyo had been negotiating for three consecutive days. On the final day, both were extremely irritable, but neither side yielded.

Rasa believed that he was doing this for Sunagakure and the Land of Wind. If Daimyo Manor would not provide funding, could Sunagakure not find its own solutions?

The Daimyo directly produced the contract signed between the Land of Wind and the First Kazekage, stating that it did not say Sunagakure could resell the Land of Wind’s resources. Furthermore, Daimyo Manor had not failed to provide funding. Sunagakure was simply incompetent and had lost to Konoha in the Previous war.

The Daimyo of the Land of Wind even slammed the table and shouted angrily at Rasa that since Suna-nin were so useless, he would consider handing some of the easier missions within the Land of Wind to Konoha Ninja.

Since Suna-nin were so useless, there was no need to maintain such a large number of Ninja. He might as well cut some of them and give the surplus funding to the more capable Konoha Ninja!

Upon hearing this, Rasa clenched Gold Dust in his hand in fury. If not for the One Village One Nation system restraining him, he would definitely have slaughtered this foolish man.

Ignoring his own children to take care of outsiders?

Rasa was ultimately unable to persuade the Daimyo of the Land of Wind, and he also received a message from the village.

First update.