Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its character belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I make.
Chapter 145: Political Reform
Everything in Konoha was going well, especially after the war ended and this positive impact brought something new to this village.
Thanks to stability and peace, the new market open like a mushroom after the rain, the trade volume had increased to a level that nobody had predicted and new business were opening across the village at a pace that kept merchants busy.
But not every village shared in that prosperity and for some the aftermath of the war brought problems of a different kind especially a village that lost to a war.
Sunagakure felt it the hardest, their Daimyo had lost confidence in them after the war and had begun quietly pulling missions away from their village, redirecting them straight to Konoha instead.
There was nothing Sunagakure could do about it because the decision rested entirely in the hands of the man holding the purse strings and protesting openly would only make things worse. So they endured it, watching their income shrink while Konoha continued to grow.
That changed when Konoha made a move that nobody in the world had ever seen before except Kumogakure, who got a gist after Raiken forced them to spread rumours about Fire Daimyo.
The Fire Daimyo was arrested, his corruption exposed publicly for every noble and every commoner to see ,and he was executed for it without delay. The evidence laid bare before the nobles or Daimyo could even protest, itwas impossible to argue against it and Konoha had made sure of that before making a single move.
The silence that followed was unlike anything the political circles of the elemental nations had ever experienced. Not even a single Daimyo stepped forward to speak about it and not even one voice of protest rose from them. They sat with the news and could not find the words because what had just happened, had broken something they had all quietly agreed would never be broken.
The principle had always been simple. You touch one, you touch all. It was the unspoken agreement that had kept every Daimyo safe from the villages beneath them regardless of how they behaved, because any village that moved against its lord would find itself facing the combined weight of every other lord in the nations. It was a chain and it had held for generations.
Konoha had broken that chain in a single day and it happen just after they crushed all other villages making their voice become stronger than before and the moment it broke, villages that had spent years grinding their teeth in silence finally found their backbone.
Sunagakure moved first, they confronted their Daimyo directly, presenting evidence of misappropriated funds and threatened to expose everything if the stolen mission revenue was not returned immediately and if they dare to withhold mission they would retaliate. The Daimyo, who had grown comfortable under the assumption that his position made him untouchable, found himself looking at shinobi who no longer believed that to be true.
Kumogakure followed shortly after with a similar confrontation, their grievances running even deeper given how aggressively Raiken when dealing with them during the war. So Raikage put all this grievance directly to Lightning Daimyo.
Although compared to 3 other villages, their daimyo were good to them even after they lost the war.
Daimyo and nobles who understood geopolitics knew exactly what had happened, the execution of the Fire Daimyo had not just removed one corrupt man from power, it had sent a message to every other man sitting in a similar seat. The protection they had enjoyed was conditional and Konoha had just demonstrated what the conditions actually were.
INSIDE THE HOKAGE OFFICE
"The reports from Suna came in this morning," said Sakumo, setting a scroll onto the table. "But after next week, their Daimyo won't be given us any mission."
Raiken glanced at the scroll without picking it up.
"He had nothing to negotiate with," replied Raiken simply. "Once the Fire Daimyo fell, every noble in the nations had to recalculate and the smart ones moved quickly."
"And the ones who are not so smart?" asked Sakumo.
"They will watch what happens to the smart ones and then move even faster," said Raiken.
Sakumo leaned back slightly and looked at the map spread across the side table, the various territories of the elemental nations marked with the kind of detail that only came from years of careful intelligence gathering.
"There are still those in the noble circles who believe this was an overreach," said Sakumo. "That Konoha has stepped into territory that should not belong to a shinobi village."
"Let them believe it," said Raiken. "What matters is what they do, not what they think."
Sakumo was quiet for a moment before speaking again.
"The Democracy proposal is going to cause more noise than the execution did," he said. "Handing economic governance to the civillian population especially commoner is not something anyone in power is going to accept quietly."
Raiken looked at him with a calm expression.
"The nobles were never going to accept it quietly, that was never the goal," said Raiken. "The goal is to make sure that by the time they find their voice, the structure is already in place and the people it benefits are already defending it themselves."
"You are giving power to people who have never held it before," said Sakumo carefully.
"Yes," replied Raiken. "And those people will protect it because it is theirs. No noble army has ever been able to hold ground against people defending something they genuinely own."
Sakumo exhaled slowly and picked up the scroll from the table, reading through the details of the report again as if looking for something he might have missed the first time.
"Unfortunately, I need to reject it," said Sakumo
"Why?" asked Raiken.
"Because of the education," replied Sakumo while looking directly at Raiken. "Shikajin had told me although the idea is quite good but the people who were chosen are not educated enough to govern this land."
Raiken paused for a while because he planned to put his people beside the President and those commoner whol hold the title are just a puppet there, but now they find out the flaw he need to change it to plan B.
[DING! 1000 stars donated]
[Rex: Although the host have won the war but he was stupid.]
[Message Subscriber Mint: I agreed with you, how can he put someone uneducated to hold the sit of power.]
Raiken dismissed the floating message and told Sakumo his idea.
"Hokage sama, those commoners are to become a face only and I suggest we put Nara Shikajin beside the new president or the new leader," suggested Raiken.
Sakumo paused for a while before looking back at Raiken.
"We still need the Daimyo system, this is the identity of our Land Of Fire," said Sakumo. "But your proposal, I will ask Shikajin about it."
Currently there is a puppet Daimyo after the previous Daimyo were executed. For some reason Sakumo feel the Feudal system still need to be in place.
While Raiken who come from Modern society believed more with Democracy.
The Democracy system, as it was being called in the early documents, would give the civilian population the power to govern themselves economically, something no village in the elemental nations had ever attempted before. It would not be clean and it would not be fast but it would belong to the people who lived inside it and that was the only thing that had ever made any system worth building in the first place.
P/S: Should I change the word of elemental nation, I find in wiki, it said elemental nation and for some reason didn't like it.
Extra note: There will be about 2 or 3 more war, the first war with Madara and the second war with Otsutsuki, before the ending.
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There is 30 advanced chapter on my patreon.
Chapter 171: Absolute Peak
Chapter 172: I Come To Bargain
Chapter 173: Madara Peak
Chapter 174: History
Chapter 175: Fraud Zetsu
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