The most profitable, most lucrative industries with low technical barriers that can be quickly monetized have always been tied to the daily necessities of life.
For this, Uchiha Makoto even dispatched shinobi for on-the-ground surveys.
"Kazuma, let's get into the salt trade."
After thinking for a moment, Uchiha Makoto decided to copy that common transmigrator move.
Kazuma: ???
"Salt isn't that expensive, is it?"
"Even the poorest households can afford salt these days."
Kazuma had no idea why Uchiha Makoto suddenly wanted to deal in salt.
But life experience told him this.
In the past year or two, salt has been cheap throughout the shinobi world.
Even if Akatsuki Village got involved, it probably would not make much.
"Nonsense. With salt smugglers everywhere, of course salt is cheap."
As a daily necessity, salt
was monopolized by the authorities in every era. Precisely because of that, salt trading in ancient times became an out-and-out profiteering business.
It was also a major fiscal source for the authorities.
Only this is the shinobi world.
It has its own national conditions.
Uchiha Makoto had already figured out the state of the salt market.
Because in this bizarre Hokage world the classes have ossified to an absurd degree. For generations, even a dozen generations, noble family names are handed down. They are practically Celestial Dragons in the truest sense.
And after so many years of Warring States chaos, the daimyōs of the various countries have long since lost any real grip on their domains.
The daimyōs and nobles simply cling to the same system for their own benefit, standing over the entire shinobi world to suck it dry.
By ordinary logic, this rotten-to-the-core shinobi world should have changed dynasties long ago. Yet this world has shinobi. Any uprising of ordinary people would be mowed down by shinobi like grass.
Shinobi have long served as the nobles' absurdly effective umbrella, so for a thousand years the order of the shinobi world has barely changed.
…
For all these reasons, nobles great and small entrenched themselves everywhere, nibbling away at official authority.
So many years have passed…
the state salt system has long existed in name only.
Nobles at every level openly trafficked in contraband salt, with all sorts of yakuza-like groups acting as their gloves. As a result, the Land of Fire's smuggled salt problem became severe.
In recent years, the large-scale brawls among shinobi clans have further amplified national chaos, turning the salt market into an even bigger mess. Hidden hands were everywhere, and cooked books became common.
Parasites at every level kept scheming to skim as much as possible.
As the shinobi world's wars heated up, all kinds of controls faltered, then collapsed altogether.
Smugglers of every size flooded the field. For a time they were everywhere. The growing chaos made competition cutthroat, and salt prices, incredibly, began a spontaneous race to the bottom, shifting to a model of small margins and high volume. Everyone needs salt, so no one feared they could not sell.
Seeing the survey results, Uchiha Makoto thought he must be seeing things.
This was absurd.
It flatly violated normal economic logic, absurd and abstract on the level of the Crude Oil Treasure fiasco.
All one can say is that the shinobi world has its own national conditions.
But Uchiha Makoto felt this situation was only temporary, caused entirely by the prior chaos across the shinobi world. The great clan wars grew so savage that even the millennial nemeses, the Uchiha and the Senju, could not endure it.
You can imagine…
how rotten the order of the shinobi world had become. It could be said to have lost control entirely.
The vermin had no ability to seize the reins for the time being and all pulled into their shells. They truly feared some shinobi would go blood-mad. And then…
that gave many people the chance to fish in troubled waters. To make money they began to take desperate risks, hoping in this window of chaos to rake in more before the big players could react. Thus they were willing to undercut salt prices to the bone.
Now the era of the shinobi villages has arrived.
The situation is gradually stabilizing.
Hence salt prices will likely rise steadily for a while.
But since prices are this low right now and those smugglers are still squeezing out profits, once he monopolized the trade then even keeping the small margins high volume approach would mean a huge haul. It would simply be another redistribution of wealth, moving the money those vermin made into his own pocket.
So…
as long as he established an exclusive on salt and re-monopolized the market, he would definitely make money. How much would depend on how black his heart was. The blacker, the richer.
Just thinking about it
got Uchiha Makoto excited.
And it did not require much technical skill, only offending a lot of people.
But…
this was, at present, the easiest and fastest way Uchiha Makoto could think of to make money.
Men die for wealth, birds die for food.
"Let's join with the Daimyō, then bring a few of the Land of Fire's great nobles into the re-monopolization of the market. We split the take by proportion. The price of salt can be negotiated afterward."
"But what about all the other salt merchants and smugglers in the Land of Fire?"
"Then make them disappear."
Uchiha Makoto said it without the slightest politeness.
Akatsuki Village now had money and manpower, a very young military group. As for those powerless nobles who would not cooperate, they could be hit hard.
He could not act like the traditional shinobi of the Warring States era and stick to the old rules.
Traditional shinobi almost never touched production or commerce. They conscientiously kept themselves inside the military sphere, rarely asking about politics or economics. The Land of Fire paid for jobs, shinobi risked their lives to complete them, and the only difference was the bonus by mission rank.
But Akatsuki Village had to accelerate its metamorphosis, starting with a change in mindset. Perhaps the shinobi clans would not understand, but it did not matter. They only needed to obey orders.
So what if they broke tradition?
The shinobi world has always emphasized that shinobi must learn obedience, but shinobi are people too. I can follow orders, but you have to let me live well. So long as Uchiha Makoto funded them richly, the clans would do anything.
"Should we inform the Daimyō in advance?"
Kazuma had grown used to Uchiha Makoto's way of doing things and did not object. He simply felt that for something this big they should first discuss it with the Daimyō of the Land of Fire.
"No need. We use the Daimyō's banner to take out a batch of competitors first. Some people might die along the way. I am afraid the Daimyō is a coward and will not dare at the start."
"So first tie the Daimyō to the cart."
Uchiha Makoto slapped the table and decided.
The first thing you do after getting rich is forget your roots.
He was now the Kage of a village.
Akatsuki Village was no longer the hollow shell of before. He now had the strength to fall out with the Daimyō.
On the last tulip deal he had split the profits fifty-fifty with him. The one he should really be thanking was Senju Hashirama.
Now Akatsuki Village would do bad things under the name of the Land of Fire's Daimyō, and the Daimyō would have to carry the blame. He had no choice. If you want to make money, you have to carry the pot.
Konoha could carry the tulip blame, so why should the Daimyō be an exception?
Besides, the Warring States dragged on for so many years.
The Land of Fire's economy had never been great. As long as big money came in, the Daimyō would only grumble a little. Letting him carry some blame was acceptable.
The Daimyō of the Land of Fire had probably long wanted to reconsolidate a monopoly on salt for the sake of tax revenue, but lacked the strength. This time he was actually lending him a hand.
Akatsuki Village had always liked to take the initiative to relieve the Daimyō's worries.
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I have published a new novel. You can check it out on my profile. The title is:
Naruto: Can You Be an Uchiha Without Doing What You Want?
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