This was a conspiracy, an operational plan.
Proposed by Minato, executed by Shikaku, coupled with the coinciding schemes of Danzo and Onoki, it caused Kumogakure, with its strongest momentum, to suffer a crushing defeat.
It all began with a suggestion Minato made during a Jonin Meeting.
Two months ago, Iwagakure, Kusagakure, and Kumogakure formed an alliance to attack Konoha.
The combined forces of Kusagakure and Iwagakure, twelve thousand strong, launched their assault from the direction of the Land of Grass; Kumogakure's eleven thousand attacked from the Land of Rice Fields.
However, due to issues of interest distribution and mutual trust, Kusagakure and Iwagakure were passive in their offensive.
Not only did they initially position five thousand frontline combat troops as logistics far in the rear, but the main force of seven thousand on the frontline also largely adopted a posture of feigning attacks without actual action… a state of stalemate.
Given this situation, Minato proposed redeploying some personnel from the defense line against Kusagakure and Iwagakure, concentrating them in the Land of Rice to engage Kumogakure in a decisive battle.
After dealing with Kumogakure, they would turn to face the combined forces of Kusagakure and Iwagakure.
This was almost the only method to break Konoha's current predicament, but in practice, it was nearly impossible.
The Kusa-Iwa alliance, harboring the thought of letting Kumogakure take the lead while they reaped the benefits later, adopted such a passive offensive posture.
But if the enemy's strength couldn't inflict losses on them, they wouldn't mind seizing the fruits of victory before Kumogakure.
To redeploy forces from the Land of Grass's direction to concentrate and eliminate Kumogakure, they first faced the risk of insufficient defensive strength, allowing the Kusa-Iwa forces to launch a large-scale offensive all the way to Konoha Village.
Secondly, if Kumogakure received intelligence that Konoha was concentrating its forces against them, they definitely wouldn't advance as recklessly as they were now.
Instead, they would engage in a war of attrition and stalemate, waiting for the allied forces of Iwagakure and Kusagakure to break into Konoha.
Therefore, Minato proposed covert operations to prevent the enemy from detecting their movements.
But saying it is simple; doing it is difficult.
The Land of Grass lies northwest of the Land of Fire, while the Land of Rice Fields is directly north, separated by the Land of Waterfalls and the Land of Frost.
Covering such a long distance, even at full speed for shinobi, would take a day and a half.
For a large force to march, it would be impossible to conceal from enemy intelligence operatives.
If they transferred within the Land of Fire, they would have to take a detour, increasing travel time.
With more time, the Kusa-Iwa allied forces would definitely spot flaws in Konoha's defensive deployments.
Faced with such difficulties, the plan to secretly concentrate forces in the Land of Rice Fields and quickly deal with Kumogakure before the Kusa-Iwa alliance could react seemed almost impossible to execute.
But the man known as the 'Konoha Strategist', Nara Shikaku, found a way.
He had the Genin responsible for logistics on the Land of Grass's defense line disguise themselves as frontline regular troops, replacing them in the frontline defenses. The replaced regular troops then disguised themselves as the logistics Genin and returned to Konoha, later heading to the Land of Rice Fields' defense line with the logistics supplies.
Worried that too many new faces appearing on the frontline at once would arouse suspicion from the Kusa-Iwa alliance and expose the plan, and because of the numerical difference between regular and logistics troops and the large number of personnel to transfer, Konoha could only proceed in batches.
To ensure that after gathering forces, they could crush Kumogakure before the Kusa-Iwa alliance reacted, he didn't send the first batch of redeployed personnel to the frontline immediately. Instead, he stationed them far in the rear, waiting for all units to assemble.
Simultaneously, he had Danzo adopt a posture of using guerrilla tactics to buy time, yet appearing to retreat steadily due to the overwhelming disparity in forces, thereby provoking Kumogakure into even fiercer attacks.
Finally, after two months,
Konoha redeployed three thousand five hundred personnel from the Land of Grass's defense line.
At the same time, due to continuous victories over two months and the intelligence gap, Kumogakure was lured by Danzo into an ambush site.
It was a large canyon, surrounded by mountains… a terrain highly suitable for ambushes from a military perspective.
However,
This place was vast. To set an ambush here, one would need at least forces comparable to the enemy's.
From Kumogakure's perspective, Konoha only had six thousand defending against them, and many had died in the two months of war.
Even if the enemy wanted to ambush here, they wouldn't have enough troops.
Based on this judgment, and the contempt for Konoha bred from two months of continuous victories, they didn't conduct thorough investigations before pursuing into such terrain.
Thus, when an equivalent number of Konoha's Shinobi, armed with war machines, appeared on various mountaintops bombarding Kumogakure indiscriminately, Kumogakure was stunned.
For a time, it even turned into a massacre with zero casualties.
If it weren't for Killer B promptly transforming into his Tailed Beast Form and using a Bijudama to blast open an escape route, they might have been completely annihilated.
In this battle, Konoha's nine thousand faced Kumogakure's ten thousand (there were losses from two months of war).
Konoha killed three thousand of the enemy, suffering less than five hundred losses themselves, achieving a great victory.
But a local victory couldn't resolve this crisis. Konoha needed Kumogakure to withdraw from the war to change their current predicament.
Danzo led the pursuit and soon caught up.
Because behind the fleeing Kumogakure's forces, the allied forces of Iwagakure and Kusagakure appeared.
Five thousand in total.
But these five thousand from Iwagakure and Kusagakure weren't there to help Kumogakure; they were there to attack them.
Even before the war started, Danzo had told Hiruzen: Compared to a powerful Konoha, they feared a powerful Kumogakure more.
If Kumogakure won this war, after absorbing the fruits of victory, Kumogakure would become even stronger.
No, forget the future.
Just the distribution of spoils after this war's victory would inevitably lead to conflict between the two sides.
Did Iwagakure and Kusagakure truly think Kumogakure would tolerate their plan of letting others do the work while they enjoyed the results?
Don't be naive.
That was merely a temporary expedient by Kumogakure to get the alliance to move.
Both Iwagakure and Kusagakure understood that given Kumogakure's aggressive nature, once they truly breached Konoha, war with them would begin.
Kumogakure not only had strong military power, but its Shinobi also excelled in Lightning Release and swordsmanship, which strongly countered Iwagakure, skilled in Earth Release.
In a fair fight, Iwagakure would almost certainly not win.
Although Danzo's earlier attempt to persuade Iwagakure to withdraw from the alliance failed, his argument about the threat from Kumogakure had an effect.
Onoki's rich experience allowed him to see through Sunagakure's last-minute intervention in the war as Danzo borrowing a tiger's skin to act big. Naturally, he could also see Kumogakure's threat to Iwagakure.
Konoha was moderate. Since its founding, it had never actively attacked other Shinobi Villages, and its Shinobi on missions were low-key. Their strength merely created business competition pressure for Iwagakure.
But Kumogakure was very aggressive, rapidly expanding its military; its blatant ambitions were obvious.
If Konoha were destroyed, Kumogakure would become the undisputed strongest in the Shinobi World, with no one able to stop them.
Onoki didn't want to see this, and neither did Kusagakure, nor any other Shinobi Village in the world.
Therefore, from the very beginning, the Kusa-Iwa alliance never intended to sincerely cooperate with Kumogakure.
Their feigned passive offense, transferring five thousand regular troops to logistics, served two purposes: first, to reduce Konoha's defensive pressure, allowing them more energy to engage in mutual attrition with Kumogakure; second, to use these five thousand troops to stab Kumogakure in the back when both Kumogakure and Konoha were weakened from fighting.
But plans couldn't keep up with changes.
Danzo, to execute the plan of secretly crossing the river and deceiving the world, continuously led his forces in guerrilla warfare while constantly retreating.
Onoki was also deceived.
Worried that Kumogakure would defeat Konoha's defenders effortlessly and seize the victory, he abandoned the plan of letting Kumogakure and Konoha weaken each other and acted early, preparing to help Konoha.
As it happened, this coincided with the final phase of Konoha's plan… Kumogakure's rout.
Though there was no prior agreement, the enemy of an enemy can easily become a friend.
The three forces reached a temporary agreement to encircle and annihilate Kumogakure at the border between the Land of Rice Fields and the Land of Fire.
But Kumogakure was too strong.
They had many elite Shinobi; the village's Shinobi were generally powerful and possessed extremely strong will.
Even in such a desperate situation, they didn't give up. Instead, driven by the will to survive, they erupted with combat power surpassing their previous levels.
The Two-Tails and Eight-Tails Jinchuriki simultaneously transformed into their Tailed Beast Forms to clear a path, carving a bloody trail through the heavy encirclement.
But to hinder enemy pursuit, the Third Raikage stayed behind alone to hold the rear and was killed by Minato.
Unlike in the original work where the Third Raikage held off the enemy for three days and nights, finally exhausting his stamina and chakra to death, here the Raikage only held out for half an hour.
Because Minato had learned the Rasenshuriken.
In the original work, Minato spent three years developing the Rasengan and, due to his early death, never developed its advanced form.
But because of Ryuji's influence, Minato witnessed two advanced forms of the Rasengan in Roran and gained inspiration, mastering the Rasenshuriken.
The Third Raikage possessed peerless offensive power, comprehensive super-strong defense, and speed beyond ordinary reaction.
The Allied Forces' area-of-effect attacks couldn't break through his Lightning Release Armor's defense. Individual attacks that could break the defense couldn't hit him, and attempts to encircle and intercept were broken through by his godly speed and peerless attacks.
He was quite a pain to deal with.
But Minato's speed was even faster, and the Rasenshuriken could also break his defense.
Although Minato lacked matching defensive capabilities, his nervous system reaction far surpassed his opponent's.
The two engaged in an intense battle on the battlefield, with Minato ultimately winning through superior combat awareness.
With this battle, the 'Yellow Flash' became famous throughout the Shinobi World, recognized as the undisputed fastest in the world.
...
"What were the losses on all four sides?"
After hearing the information from the intelligence personnel, Ryuji hurriedly asked.
In the original work, because the Third Raikage held the rear for three days and nights, Kumogakure's Shinobi suffered almost no losses and all escaped back to their village.
But now, with the Third Raikage only holding for half an hour, they definitely couldn't have escaped as smoothly as in the original.
"After the Third Raikage died, Konoha and the Kusa-Iwa allied forces started fighting each other."
Hearing this unexpected answer, Ryuji felt speechless.
'This was clearly a perfect opportunity to cripple Kumogakure and achieve victory. How could they start infighting before even securing victory?'
'Did Danzo start pulling some shady maneuvers again?'
But upon second thought, it seemed quite normal.
Iwagakure and Kusagakure stabbed Kumogakure in the back to prevent it from growing too powerful and becoming a threat to them.
After this battle, although Kumogakure wasn't crippled, it was severely weakened and couldn't pose a threat to them in the short term.
Konoha, from start to finish, aimed to break the siege of facing double their numbers and win this war.
After this battle, Kumogakure could no longer participate in this war. Konoha's priority now was defeating the allied forces of Iwagakure and Kusagakure.
After this encirclement battle, the remaining Kusa-Iwa's Allied Forces numbered less than three thousand, while Konoha had about six thousand left… twice the number of Iwagakure and Kusagakure.
If they could devour these three thousand troops here, then returning to the main frontline in the Land of Grass, Konoha's forces would shift from disadvantage to advantage.
Any leader with strategic vision would choose to eliminate these three thousand troops at this moment.