The Nation of a Hundred Clans’ first large-scale factory was running at full speed.
Ninja and ordinary workers alike were busily working when one of the supervisors raised his voice.
“Mu-sama has issued an order.
We need huge quantities of refrigerators and washing machines.
The factory is going to operate twenty-four hours a day.”
“What?
Supervisor, we need rest!
If we keep going nonstop, we won’t even have enough chakra left to work.”
One ninja immediately protested.
“Relax.
Starting tomorrow, a large number of additional workers will arrive.
You’ll be reorganized into three shifts.
Eight hours per day, two days off every seven days.
The rest days will rotate between teams.”
He paused, then grinned.
“And Mu-sama said that if we hit the production target, everyone’s pay this month will be doubled.”
The entire workshop erupted in cheers.
For ordinary workers, factory wages were already much higher than farming.
Now they were getting double pay.
Naturally, they threw themselves into the work like their lives depended on it.
The ninja were no different.
Their salaries were already higher than those of ordinary workers, and with the bonus their income would effectively triple compared with the original rate.
That was far better than taking an outside mission, working one dangerous day, then spending several days waiting around for another assignment.
Even before the bonus, factory work already earned them more than ordinary missions.
There was no reason not to be happy.
Agriculture itself had also changed dramatically.
From the beginning of the country’s founding, Uchiha Mu had been determined to mechanize—or rather, shinobize—as much labor as possible.
Fields that once required large numbers of farmers and cattle could now be handled over enormous areas by a few Earth Release and Water Release ninja.
The workers freed from agriculture could then enter the factories.
Everyone had a use.
Nobody needed to sit around idle.
Of course, there were advantages and disadvantages.
The money Mu had accumulated earlier had been flowing out like water.
Fortunately, Kakuzu had returned intelligence together with nearly five hundred million ryo.
All the inventory Mu had previously provided had sold out.
Kakuzu’s new message was simple: produce as much as possible and seal every finished product into scrolls for transport.
Mu’s nearly empty treasury recovered in one enormous gulp.
The factories could keep hiring.
For ninja who were weak, unsuited for dangerous missions, or simply unwilling to risk their lives outside, these jobs had become extremely attractive.
Still, refrigerators and washing machines alone weren’t enough.
Microwaves and other electrical products would come next.
Mu was already prepared for future profit margins to shrink.
After all, nearly half the current profit came from installing electrical infrastructure itself.
Electricity fees would become a continuous source of income afterward.
Daimyo were massive consumers, so charging them could be mostly symbolic.
Nobles, however?
Not one ryo less.
Mu intended to take the largest share of the dividends from electricity.
If he didn’t make that money, someone else eventually would.
By the time Naruto’s generation appeared in the original story, electrical appliances already existed.
Technology might have begun taking off as early as Orochimaru’s youth.
“Five hundred million?!”
Uzumaki Keiko covered her mouth as she stared at the money and the intelligence that had been transmitted back.
Even the entire Uzumaki Clan didn’t possess that much wealth.
“Yeah.
Research, production, and sales are finally connected into a complete chain.
Next comes inventing more things.”
Mu was in an excellent mood.
He was already preparing all kinds of electrical appliances.
At the same time, he also planned to drag every last ryo out of the former Daimyo of the Land of Waterfalls and Land of Frost, both of whom now lived comfortably in the city.
They had plenty of money and had even learned to refine chakra, but they simply weren’t spending fast enough.
The Nation of a Hundred Clans was changing almost by the day.
The city had already expanded into a third ring.
Population remained the greatest restriction on further development.
Unlike the other hidden villages, whose economies centered around taking missions, Mu’s country was building industries.
Canned meat factories.
Explosive tag factories.
Those were only some of the facilities he’d opened recently.
Explosive tags could already be sold during peacetime to replenish the treasury.
The underground black market paid slightly less, but it could convert inventory into money quickly enough.
Once war eventually began, prices would multiply several times over.
That would be when the real money came in.
Overall, Mu’s development strategy currently followed two directions.
First, make everyday life more convenient and solve the problems wealthy nobles were willing to pay to solve.
Second, prepare for the shinobi wars of the future.
As the saying went: once the cannons fire, gold flows by the ten thousand.
While Mu seized the opportunity to expand, the Five Great Nations finally realized what was happening.
Uchiha Mu had made the Daimyo and nobles of the Land of Fire happy, then used their distribution networks to make an enormous amount of money.
Only then did the hidden villages discover that this game could be played too.
Naturally, they also wanted to make their own money.
Relying on the mood of a Daimyo for funding was miserable.
Money you earned yourself was different.
The problem was that they didn’t know what to make.
Some of the villages had originated largely from ninja clans, while others hadn’t.
Either way, the traditional methods ninja understood for making money were accepting missions or taking things by force.
If you told them to manufacture products, the first ideas that came to mind were things like explosive tags.
People were already producing those.
Daimyo and nobles didn’t desperately need them either.
Most importantly, the market price was already established.
They had none of the pricing power refrigerators and washing machines currently enjoyed.
Konoha, however, did come up with ideas.
Senju Tobirama gathered the Ino-Shika-Cho clans along with several ninja clans that already possessed family businesses.
Hashirama didn’t understand this sort of thing at all, so he handed the entire matter to Tobirama.
In Tobirama’s eyes, Uchiha Mu was an even more troublesome existence than Uchiha Madara.
He had never imagined that the Uchiha Clan—the clan he believed he understood best—could produce someone like this.
Mu had awakened the Mangekyo yet remained relatively low-key.
Inside the country he founded, he treated people warmly.
He had even established a ninja academy system.
Those were all obvious strengths.
So what was Tobirama supposed to do?
Copy him, naturally.
Konoha had vast resources, but it also had vast expenses.
The Land of Fire had never deliberately withheld its funding, yet there was no such thing as having too much money.
Tobirama wanted the clans with existing businesses to expand into the broader Land of Fire market.
They readily agreed.
The reason they’d never done it before was simple.
They would have been doing all the work only for outsiders to reap the benefits.
The capital was far away, and they couldn’t station large numbers of ninja there just to protect business interests.
Now, with the village supporting them, things were different.
They would have to surrender a portion of the profit, but that contribution also demonstrated loyalty to the village—and the larger scale meant they would still earn more overall.
Medicinal herbs.
Barbecue restaurants.
Flower shops.
Mu’s inventions had also inspired Tobirama in another direction.
If Lightning Release could be used to create these products, what about Water Release?
As a born researcher, once he finished arranging things with the clans, Tobirama immediately planned to begin experimenting.
He also intended to establish a ninja academy modeled directly on Mu’s system.
There was a ridiculous amount of work ahead.
As for copying an Uchiha?
The evil old Senju bastard felt absolutely no guilt whatsoever.
He couldn’t allow all that money to flow into Uchiha Mu’s pocket.
He had to stop Mu somehow.
Otherwise, the Nation of a Hundred Clans would eventually become one of Konoha’s greatest enemies.
Iwagakure and Kumogakure were still negotiating with their Daimyo.
Kumogakure was also raiding smaller countries.
Iwagakure had begun thinking about how to make money independently as well.
But making soldiers and fighting wars was their specialty.
Business?
If they had understood business, the nobles wouldn’t have been the ones making all the money in the first place.
Their efforts were doomed to accomplish little.
Human beings were naturally short-sighted creatures.
Thinking long term required actively suppressing immediate desire.
How many corrupt officials or tax evaders sat there calmly calculating the possibility that they might be arrested years later?
Most cared about what they could gain right now.
Sunagakure’s Kazekage, meanwhile, had no choice but to negotiate with his Daimyo while selling construction sand to Uchiha Mu’s country.
Even though Mu was the chief culprit behind their current funding crisis, what else could they do?
This kind of economic warfare wore down a village even more mercilessly than ordinary combat.
Sunagakure’s growth had already stalled.
Before starvation began appearing inside the village, the Kazekage had to find a solution.
Otherwise, the entire village might collapse overnight.
That was something he would never allow.
As for the ninja academy system, Konoha was the only other village preparing to copy it.
Perhaps the others simply didn’t have Sharingan.