Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, a week had gone by.
At noon that day, Rinjin was leisurely sipping tea in his office when a young man with a goatee burst in, leading a large group of ninja-dressed individuals.
Faced with this aggressive crowd, Rinjin calmly set down his teacup and looked at the young man leading them.
"Gentlemen, this is the Municipal Ministry. How may I help you?"
Hearing this, the goateed young man smiled politely, reached into his ninja pouch, pulled out a scroll, placed it on Rinjin's desk, and introduced himself:
"Lord Kaza, hello. My name is Yura, and I currently serve as an advisor to Fourth KazekageRasa.
I tried to schedule a meeting with you before, but you declined.
Please forgive this unannounced visit.
This is an official order from the Fourth Kazekage."
Hearing this, Rinjin smiled as he reached for the scroll and unrolled it openly on his desk.
The scroll was brief. It began with lavish praise for his outstanding contributions to the village.
Then the tone shifted—as recognition for his achievements, he was being promoted to a high-level village position, though the specific title wasn't specified.
Finally, there was the Fourth Kazekage's massive seal.
Seeing this, Rinjin squinted and glanced at the young man before him—polite on the surface but arrogant underneath—and smiled calmly.
It seemed the Fourth Kazekage had also set his sights on the Municipal Ministry's big cake.
This move of apparent promotion but actual demotion was executed quite well.
However, jackals would always be jackals, and the Eighteen Seats would always be the Eighteen Seats.
Even if suppressed by force, these jackals that Rinjin had tamed into huskies would only tear the house apart.
To truly control them, you needed not only forceful methods but also to keep them well-fed and united as one.
Without Rinjin's feeding, the Fourth Kazekage would definitely taste what it felt like to be bitten by his own people.
And that time wouldn't be long.
Thinking this, Rinjin stood up with a smile and patted the composed Taida on the shoulder.
"Well then, I'm off to enjoy my retirement. Work hard, young man!"
With that, Rinjin took the scroll and walked out of the office without any hesitation.
It's easy to invite a god in but hard to send one away—if they wanted him back, it wouldn't be so simple~
Watching Rinjin leave the office without any resistance, Yura felt relieved but also strangely puzzled.
He didn't want to escalate things!
As the newly appointed Fourth Kazekage's confidant, his orders were to smoothly take over the Municipal Ministry.
The Ministry's power wasn't as great as some high-level positions, which made it the perfect target for the Fourth Kazekage—not powerful enough to cause major backlash, but extremely wealthy, perfectly reducing Rasa's burden.
However, Kaza's attitude was quite suspicious.
Didn't this guy care at all about the results of several years of hard work?
Unable to figure it out, Yura decided not to overthink it.
Soon he directed the others who'd come with him to clear out the office.
He looked down on all this expensive, luxurious furniture.
In his view, money spent on such furniture would be better given to the village to improve villagers' lives.
"Lord Yura, what should we do with this huge bookshelf?" a ninja asked.
"Sell it. If it won't fit through the door, tear the door down too—sell everything!" Yura waved impatiently, then looked at the composed Taida nearby.
"Oh right, you—go report to the basement intelligence processing team!"
The so-called intelligence processing team was actually just the paper shredding room, responsible for handling trash.
Hearing this, Taida said nothing, nodded steadily, and headed toward the door.
Just then, Yura's voice rang out again.
"Stop! Give me that folder you're holding—you don't need it!"
Hearing this, Taida nodded obediently, handed over the folder, turned and left the office, grinning slyly to himself.
Just wait. After offending Lord Kaza, this kid and his master behind him would get their comeuppance.
I'll be waiting to see the day you roll up your bedding and get kicked out of this building.
In the office, Yura flipped through the folder, quickly scanning it, his lips gradually curling into a mocking smile:
"Hah~ Only one thing to do per day, and it's arranging fishing trips with people. What a parasite—good riddance!"
Over the next few days, the newly appointed Yura, eager to make his mark, drastically abolished what he saw as the completely worthless "Eighteen Seats."
While completely overhauling the Municipal Ministry, he overturned many of Rinjin's policies.
Abolishing the Eighteen Seats also meant overturning the distribution system Rinjin had left behind.
Rinjin's distribution system had actually been quite simple:
He led the Eighteen Seats in establishing factories, with all expenses borne by the Eighteen Seats.
The Municipal Ministry, as a public department, automatically held shares.
Twenty percent of factory profits were turned over to Sunagakure.
The remaining eighty percent was divided into ten parts, inherited by the Eighteen Seats.
Here, it was the seats themselves that inherited, not the people sitting in them.
This meant the seat itself was what mattered most.
And the problem lay exactly in this point.
Yura's unilateral abolition of the Eighteen Seats was done with the intention of turning over all profits to the village.
But the initial construction costs of those factories had all been borne by the Eighteen Seats members.
So the dismissed Eighteen Seats began reclaiming their respective investments—tearing down walls, selling land, evicting people.
Some even moved away the processing machinery.
Suddenly, massive unemployment hit.
Yura at the Municipal Ministry had tried to stop all this, but when people shoved factory ownership contracts in his face, he couldn't say a word.
He could deploy ANBU for forceful suppression, but he wasn't facing civilians—he was facing the middle class that formed the village's foundation.
It could be said that behind each of the Eighteen Seats lurked countless, densely woven networks of interests.
Civilians began experiencing massive unemployment.
That wasn't all—as large numbers of factories belonging to the Eighteen Seats shut down, the village's water, electricity, and food supplies began experiencing problems.
People accustomed to coming home each evening and turning on electric lights discovered that the previously magical little switch no longer worked.
People used to bathing every few days found that water prices had skyrocketed to the point where they could only afford to drink, not use it.
Villagers accustomed to cheap food discovered that prices for both imported grain and local dates were rapidly soaring.
Hyperinflation had begun~
Villagers accustomed to high living standards suddenly fell back to their original state.
Those progressive ninja who had supported the village taking over the Municipal Ministry could no longer make a peep.
To maintain income, the Fourth Kazekage came up with an idea:
He planned to negotiate with Amegakure, using raging sandstorms as an excuse to raise the purchase prices of raw products.
In short, he planned to increase the prices of minerals and specialty products exported to the Land of Rain.
Amegakure's response was quite interesting:
The Amegakure representative stationed in Sunagakure stated:
Since you've been hit by sandstorms, just keep those things for yourselves.
Oh, and this year the Land of Rain has reduced rainfall, so water fees need to go up a bit more.
Pay the water fees within three days—we need the money to worship the River God, otherwise the River God will make the canals run dry~
Sunagakure—the storm had truly arrived.
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