“But…
Your Highness…
even so…”
“Lord Madara has already placed his trust in Senju Hashirama and accepted the Senju clan’s peace proposal…
and the Uchiha clansmen have accepted it as well.”
Uchiha Makoto said quite a lot.
In short…
the Uchiha clan and the Senju clan had stopped fighting and shaken hands in reconciliation.
That had already become a foregone conclusion.
The more the Daimyo of the Land of Fire listened, the more uncomfortable he became, and his expression grew increasingly grim.
Uchiha Makoto observed the Daimyo’s expression.
The timing was perfect!
He had successfully stoked the Daimyo’s cold hearth into a roaring fire!
“But I absolutely won’t sit around and wait for death!
I can’t just watch helplessly as the Uchiha clan walks into a pit of fire!”
“Your Highness…
since Senju Hashirama wants to win over the shinobi clans and establish a shinobi village, then I can certainly do the same…
To tell you the truth, this is precisely why I left the Uchiha clan.”
“But winning over the shinobi clans and establishing a shinobi village…
sigh…
If only I had enough financial resources!”
Uchiha Makoto raised his neck, tilted his head forty-five degrees, and let his eyes grow moist…
all while stealing a glance at the Daimyo from the corner of his eye.
His meaning was already obvious enough.
Damn it!
Daimyo, hurry up and give me money!!
I know you’ve got quite a fortune!
Watching Uchiha Makoto’s “genuine display of emotion,” his exquisite performance of someone who would gladly die for the sake of his clan, the Daimyo finally smiled again.
He wasn’t afraid of Uchiha Makoto making demands of him.
What he feared was Uchiha Makoto simply accepting his fate.
Because of the Senju Hashirama Threat Theory, the Daimyo had already begun making unavoidable connections in his mind…
Now that the Uchiha clan had made peace with the Senju clan because of Senju Hashirama, what if all the other shinobi clans in the shinobi world also united because of Senju Hashirama, eventually creating a super-sized shinobi village made up entirely of shinobi…
Senju Hashirama, today you want to unify the shinobi world, but what are you going to want tomorrow?
Even Uncle Deng, after cultivating his Invincible Wind-Fire Wheel, knew that “a gang needs balance.”
How could the Daimyo not understand such a principle?
“Hahaha, what’s so difficult about that?”
“I already understand the predicament facing the Uchiha clan.
If you also want to establish a shinobi village, Makoto, then I can represent the Land of Fire and provide you with a sum of funding.”
Hearing the Daimyo’s words, Uchiha Makoto straightened his clothes and smiled as he firmly clasped the Daimyo’s hand…
Finally…
finally…
he had secured the Land of Fire’s Daimyo as his sponsor…
Hmm…
his angel investor!
“Your Highness, the Uchiha clan will never forget the assistance you’ve given us today!”
“I will persist in supporting Your Highness with unwavering determination!”
As Uchiha Makoto spoke, his words struck straight at the Daimyo’s heart…
making the Daimyo feel utterly comfortable, as if his entire bloodline had been elevated.
This young man really knew how to play the game!
The Daimyo likewise clasped Uchiha Makoto’s hand.
Everything was understood without needing to be said.
The alliance between the two was officially established.
Uchiha Makoto needed the Daimyo’s financial support.
The Daimyo needed Uchiha Makoto to serve as his vanguard, doing everything possible to keep the shinobi clans divided and preserve the appearance of the Warring States Period.
After their conversation ended, the Daimyo specifically invited Uchiha Makoto to stay for a meal…
No, for a formal dinner.
Uchiha Makoto gladly accepted the Daimyo’s invitation.
He hadn’t eaten much that day.
He had spent his time in the reception room drinking tea.
The tea really did taste excellent, with a rich fragrance and a sweet aftertaste, but tea alone couldn’t fill his stomach.
Moreover, during this period, in order to reach the capital of the Land of Fire as quickly as possible and meet the Daimyo, Uchiha Makoto had spent the entire journey eating military rations.
The taste of military rations was notoriously awful…
When they were invented, no one had considered the taste at all.
…
Inside the palace.
At the Daimyo’s command, one delicious dish after another was continuously placed in front of Uchiha Makoto.
At the same time, music and dancing began.
Row after row of young women dressed in revealing clothes entered the room and began dancing gracefully.
Uchiha Makoto was a carefree man, and faced with such a scene, he chose to stare openly.
It wasn’t because he was lecherous…
but because the flowers were in full bloom, and refusing to appreciate them would simply seem too lacking in romantic sensibility.
But there was no denying it…
the Daimyo’s life was truly comfortable…
and the food was genuinely excellent (referring specifically to the food here).
The Daimyo of the Land of Fire sat leisurely in the seat of honor and took a light sip of fine wine.
Wine could drive away one’s worries…
Especially on a rainy day, holding a cup of fine wine while quietly gazing at the beauty of nature could bring an incredible sense of relaxation to both body and mind.
“Makoto, if only everyone could be as easy to deal with as you.”
The Daimyo suddenly sighed with emotion.
Ordinary people simply couldn’t understand the feelings he was experiencing at that moment.
Being a Daimyo in the Naruto world was not an easy job.
Although the Daimyo was nominally the leader of the country and held the highest authority in the Land of Fire, a thousand years of entrenched social classes had caused the powerful aristocratic clans of the shinobi world to continually band together for mutual protection, wantonly taking their share of the power in his hands.
By his generation, bureaucratic politics had already become deeply entrenched, to the point where the situation was nearly impossible to control.
Nowadays, aside from handling a small number of major government affairs, he spent most of his time playing games and hunting.
The day-to-day affairs of the Land of Fire were basically handled by the ministers.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to expand the power in his hands.
It was that…
he couldn’t.
When he was young, he had also been ambitious.
He had wanted to break free from the shackles of the tightly bound bureaucratic system, open the windows and let in some fresh air, eliminate all the unnecessary formalities, and breathe new life into the creaking old bureaucratic machine of the Land of Fire…
The Daimyo had had enough of the shadow government.
He wanted a transparent government that belonged to him!
Then…
that very afternoon, the ministers delivered a white paper to him.
The title of the white paper was none other than “Transparent Government”!
What followed was a pile of implementation documents and files stacked into four or five small mountains that he had to process…
filled with obscure and incomprehensible…
clauses.
“…With regard to the implementation of legal provisions, abnormal and irregular situations between the various responsible departments shall fall under the jurisdiction of the administrative department…”
There were also countless memorials that had accumulated over the years…
interspersed among them were…
all kinds of meetings…
Even if the Daimyo worked himself to death, there was no way he could deal with all these matters.
On top of the exhausting government affairs…
when the Daimyo asked about advancing the implementation of the policy to reduce the number of civil service positions:
“Can this policy actually be implemented?”
The ministers under his command could only helplessly spread their hands and reply:
“Your Highness, if you insist that I explain it clearly, then I can only say that, given the current circumstances, taking the overall situation into account, surveying both ancient and modern times, considering the average standards of all departments, and analyzing and summarizing everything, perhaps it can be concluded that, in summary, you may very well discover that although it may not be pleasant to hear, regardless of the circumstances, I’m afraid the prospects are somewhat delicate—and at this stage, that is all we can expect.”
“Just tell me whether it can be done or not!”
“It can and it can’t!”
The bureaucratic system had given the Daimyo a small taste of its power, and it had left him utterly shaken.
In the end…
the Daimyo chose to lie flat.
Fortunately.
After so many years of lying flat, nothing major had happened that could threaten the Daimyo’s position.
In this Land of Fire, which was still essentially an agricultural country, setting aside the issue of shinobi, the ministers only needed to do one thing well.
“Keep the oxen and horses half-dead.”
Unfortunately, times had changed.
The shinobi clans, who had originally focused only on missions and the feuds passed down through generations, seemed to have begun…