"Are the expenses really this huge?"
The daimyo of the Land of Fire took the ledger from Uchiha Makoto, skimmed it from beginning to end, and frowned. He hadn't expected training shinobi to burn money like this.
"Training resources, logistics maintenance, postwar stipends, condolence funds, weapons and equipment…"
Every single item made the budget vanish like it was on fire. Nearly two thirds were already gone, which meant six hundred billion of the nine hundred billion ryō had been spent.
He had never heard of money being burned at this rate.
"These shinobi will, without exception, loyally defend the daimyo."
Uchiha Makoto added the line at just the right moment. In the future, Akatsuki's shinobi would indeed defend the Land of Fire's daimyo, though who that daimyo would be was not set in stone.
The daimyo fell silent.
Makoto had already put it that bluntly. If he kept nitpicking, he would only make himself look small.
He didn't even want to verify the books. Konoha's shinobi were overwhelmingly strong and Senju Hashirama was unstoppable. At a critical moment, if he couldn't raise a force of shinobi loyal to him, who knew what might happen.
In any case,
compared to Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Makoto was still the very picture of loyalty.
So the daimyo chose to forget the earlier unpleasantness. Since it was already done, he needed to discuss with Uchiha Makoto how to clean up the aftermath. This time there was no Konoha to play scapegoat.
"Your Highness, in a sense this is actually a good thing. The market is a pot of congee right now, with everyone trying to stir it. If it's churned up like this, how is anyone supposed to eat it?"
"Why not take this chance to reorganize the salt market. Produce together, ship together, and sweep out all the riffraff. We can also earn a bit more."
Makoto spoke with a plan already in mind. Right now the great nobles weren't making much, and neither was the daimyo. But once the market was unified, there would be real profits. Everyone knew it; nobody had been able to do it. Now Akatsuki Village was standing up under the daimyo's banner to do what they had all wanted to do. As long as the profit split was agreed, they would stop making trouble.
Akatsuki had no intention of eating alone. Gorging yourself invites disaster. Konoha was only quiet for the moment. The longer it dragged on, the greater the uncertainty.
Makoto planned to take only thirty-five percent of the profits this time as payment for using force to create a monopoly. The remaining sixty-five percent would go to the Land of Fire's people. The daimyo would probably take thirty-five percent, and the top great nobles another thirty. The goal was to unify and monopolize the salt market as fast as possible, covering production sites, raw materials, labor, and sales channels.
Akatsuki would truly need the Land of Fire's people to pull off this web of complexities. At this stage, shinobi could kill, but expecting them to actually run production and operations was far too hard.
Everyone contributes, everyone shares the benefits.
"Do as you say."
The daimyo nodded. He had never intended for Akatsuki to quit halfway. This once-in-a-lifetime chance wouldn't come again. Even if he had to take some risks, it was worth it.
He would work to persuade the great nobles to agree to the salt monopoly. The process might be extremely complicated, but he had confidence. Those nobles were not a single ironclad bloc. They were riddled with contradictions among themselves.
Akatsuki would provide force, chiefly to remove a few obstinate great nobles from the board.
Pull one faction in, strike another. It wasn't all that hard to get this done.
Although it violated ancestral custom—strictly speaking, a daimyo should not let shinobi meddle in the Land of Fire's politics and economy—profit was profit. The ancestors had not faced today's fiscal straits. Keep borrowing from tomorrow like this and those bastards would end up collecting the grain tax ten years in advance.
And Akatsuki had already inserted itself into the economy. Even the daimyo had no good counter.
He certainly couldn't send Konoha to attack Akatsuki. Akatsuki was short on money precisely because it was training shinobi to deal with Konoha.
He had no wish to turn a single bottleneck into a dead end at both ends.
Once they reached agreement,
Uchiha Makoto declined the daimyo's invitation to stay in the capital and returned directly to Akatsuki Village.
…
A few days after he got back,
Makoto received good news. An envoy from the Uzumaki clan had arrived.
He immediately held a welcome ceremony five li outside Akatsuki Village to greet the Uzumaki delegation right on schedule.
"Welcome to Akatsuki Village, everyone."
"You honor us, Lord Light Shadow."
So spoke Uzumaki Shinji.
He was the current head of the Uzumaki clan.
He had come in person to form an alliance with Akatsuki Village.
As for joining Akatsuki,
the Uzumaki had no such thought. They hadn't even joined Konoha. How could they possibly join Akatsuki.
Of course,
it wasn't that the Uzumaki hadn't wanted to join Konoha. It was the Senju who had chilled them. The Uzumaki and Senju had always been the closer pair—partners in life and death as allied clans. Yet when it came to founding a village, at such a pivotal moment, the Senju kicked the Uzumaki aside without even a heads-up and chose to join with the Uchiha to found a village.
Only after everything was settled did they come running to notify the Uzumaki.
"Do you Uzumaki want to join Konoha, founded by the Senju and the Uchiha?"
The rightful partner had been turned into a wronged third wheel, denied even the treatment due a founder. Did the Senju really treat the Uzumaki clan like they were just Uzumaki Mito.
So the Uzumaki refused Konoha the first and second times, planning to test the Senju's sincerity and join on the third invitation, letting Konoha boast of "three pleas to the Uzumaki," and using that to prove the Uzumaki's standing in Konoha.
They wouldn't be founders, but their status would be equivalent. And then… nothing.
"I respect the Uzumaki's wishes. The Senju and Konoha will always be your friends…"
Uzumaki Shinji waited expectantly for Senju Hashirama's reply.
But the letter he received almost made him split apart. It was botched. Completely botched. Hashirama hadn't grasped the Uzumaki's intent at all. If the sky wants to rain and a girl wants to marry, let it be. If the Uzumaki didn't want to join, then so be it.
But that ship had sailed.
The Uzumaki had their pride. They would not swallow their pride now and say they regretted it. How would they stand in Konoha after that.
…
After the formal pleasantries, the two parties merged into a single procession toward Akatsuki Village. On the way, Uzumaki Shinji took the initiative to chat with Uchiha Makoto.
Founding so large a village without relying on a clan was enough by itself to make Shinji sit up and take notice. Makoto was also very young, with limitless prospects.
"Lord Light Shadow."
"Lord Light Shadow."
Makoto walked in front. People bowed and greeted him again and again. Gratitude shone on the faces of the women, and hope glimmered in their eyes. Curiosity stirred in Shinji's heart. Building a powerful ninja village in a short time was extraordinarily difficult, but earning such regard among the common people on that foundation was near impossible.
From commoners, shinobi usually saw only awe and fear.
The moment he entered Akatsuki Village,
Shinji felt a mood permeating the place.
Makoto was forthright.
There was nothing to hide.
The women they had just seen were mothers and elder and younger sisters of students at the Ninja Academy. To strengthen village cohesion and increase the reserve shinobi's sense of identity with the village, Makoto had brought the students' entire families to Akatsuki when he recruited.
With their families in Makoto's hands, he didn't have to fear the reserve shinobi betraying Akatsuki, nor worry they wouldn't give their lives for him.
But settling all these people properly was indeed a headache.
In the Warring States era, wars were constant. Even the Land of Fire's grandees buckled under them, let alone these bottom-rung toilers. They arrived at Akatsuki with their entire households, and every mouth needed to eat.
Makoto figured out various ways to place them.
They were mostly illiterate peasants and housewives, poor and inexperienced. To settle them, Akatsuki had to go big on infrastructure. If a man had a bit of strength and no proper work, he was organized to build roads.
Women without much strength were set to work in the village textile factory. Most were familiar with spinning and weaving. At home, families made their own clothes. With a little training, they became qualified textile workers. The academy uniforms were sewn by their hands.
No one would be allowed to idle in the village. Everyone would work. Two meals a day provided, plus wages, with more pay for more work.
For now the textile factory hadn't reached scale. Textiles and clothing were light industry with thin margins. Without scale, there was no profit. To this day Makoto was losing money for reputation. For a ninja village—a purely military organization—pouring precious funds and resources into this was sheer folly. Without solving the scale problem, it would become a bottomless pit of poverty relief.
But Makoto still did it.
Compared to Konoha, whose foundations were far deeper, even if Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara disappeared, Akatsuki would still be the weaker side. It had to make up for that elsewhere.
Makoto knew full well the First Shinobi World War would be brutal, a meat grinder. The cannon-fodder shinobi sent to the front would either die outright or come back crippled, ending their path as shinobi.
Their futures, and their families', were often the bleakest. Once a family's pillar died, life became punishing, and they slid to the village's margins.
Makoto's current loss-making venture was a concrete statement of the village's stance.
Akatsuki would catch them when they fell.
If you gave your life for the village, you had nothing else to worry about. Your family would still have a secure job and a dignified life, plus a death benefit.
Over time, through daily immersion, the spirit of fighting to the end for the village would seep into every corner of life. Especially among commoner shinobi. They might be weaker, but each would be unafraid of death. Even a small-fry genin could, at a critical moment, pack himself with explosive tags, shout "All for Lord Light Shadow," and carry out a suicide attack to trade one-for-one with your village's jonin.
As for deserting on the battlefield, hm.
In short, raising death-bound soldiers costs money.
Slogans alone are worth nothing.
"Protecting Konoha is protecting your home?"
A line like that might fool an honest kid like Uzumaki Naruto. And Naruto himself belonged to Konoha's very top circle. His father was the Fourth Hokage. His mother was the only surviving clanswoman of Uzumaki Mito, wife of the First Hokage Senju Hashirama. His master was a student of the Third Hokage. He was bound to Konoha by every tie and couldn't run even if he wanted to.
Right now, Konoha and the ordinary shinobi in the village were essentially in a cooperative relationship. Your village is big and lands good missions, so I stay. If you squeeze me dry, I bail.
The big villages at least paid postwar subsidies and death benefits. Slow and late, but they did arrive in the end, so fewer shinobi ran. The small villages had nothing. If you didn't run, what were you waiting for.
After every Shinobi World War, rogue shinobi were everywhere. That was shinobi fleeing village oppression in the end. You pay pennies and expect me to risk my life for you.
Makoto spoke at length, emphasizing the importance of providing a stable job for shinobi families. Who doesn't like a secure post.
"I see."
Uzumaki Shinji nodded, half understanding. As an old-hand shinobi from the Warring States, he couldn't fully grasp the concept, and the business parts were a total mystery. But he could see the village's terrifying potential for war.
When the time came,
the shinobi here would truly fight to the death. Shinobi who were just living in a village could not be compared to warriors with conviction.
"Hmm. Looks like this is a pillar as sturdy as Konoha's. We need to cling to it."
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