Ch66. Daimyo and Kages

Reminded of the issue of ninja vs. Samurai, Ren leaned his back on a tree trunk behind him while holding his mug half-full with hot chocolate in both of his hands as he looked toward the sky with a small frown on his lips.

He would need to bring Hinata and Ino to the capital city one day and spend at least a week there with them. That would be very 'educational' for them and allow them to see some real-life examples of how things truly work in this world. Their worldview did not spread much beyond Konoha's walls, and Ren wanted to rectify that.

People in his previous life oftentimes didn't realize just how massive the Elemental Nations were.

It took Naruto's team three days of running to get from Konoha to Suna. And ninjas who use chakra can run pretty fast. The distance between Konoha and Suna was something like two to three thousand kilometers? Ish?

The villages were nowhere near each other as far as normal people were concerned. It's just ninjas who could cover such distances relatively easily due to their chakra mojo.

Naturally, the countries were also massive. Especially the Five Great Nations. They had hundreds of millions of people. Sure, the final number of the populace was not publicized, and even if it was, Ren doubted it would be all that precise.

The Land of Fire most likely had over a billion people. It was truly a humongous country. Some people in remote villages could go their entire lives without ever seeing ninjas.

It was also easy to forget that this was not a peaceful world. Just a few decades ago, these lands were all divided and under the control of various warlords who constantly fought with each other over territories. 

That was the Warring States Era.

When the Hidden Villages formed and put their considerable weight behind one warlord candidate in the area, it helped them to seize the reins quite quickly, elevating their family to the status of a proper Daimyo. 

This was especially effective for Konoha as their weight came in Hashirama and Madara-sized proportions.

And once the Konoha and the Land of Fire formed? The other ninja clans got the same idea and grouped up into their own villages while the warlords from around their areas tried to get their support.

It was a big part of why the villages had their own partial independence and autonomy. That was the first thing the Hidden Villages asked for from the warlord they helped elevate into the position of Daimyo. Technically, the Hokage served the Daimyo. In reality, the Daimyo did not interfere much directly in the ninja affairs.

The Elemental Nations, as they were right this moment, formed only seventyish years ago, and there was a lot of blood and slaughter involved.

And since then? Three Great Ninja wars. Within the same century. A century that was nowhere near its end. Everybody and their mother knew that another great ninja war or two would happen before the century was up.

Ren wryly smiled. It sounded ridiculous. So, no, the issue was very much not solved. This world was still not peaceful, and the rulers knew it.

Each Great Nation had two to three million samurai. But they were not like the modern armies. Not all of these samurai belonged to the Daimyo. Rather, in a true feudal fashion, nobles had their own samurai forces to protect their territories.

Just like the Daimyo had his own. It didn't really feel that unified to Ren. Sure, theoretically, all samurai should obey the Daimyo. But in practice? The samurai were sworn to be loyal to the noble they served while said noble was sworn to the Daimyo himself.

Of course, the upside was that the Daimyo did not need to upkeep all the millions of soldiers by himself. The noble families did it for him while he only had to upkeep the forces directly under him, lessening the financial burden on his coffers.

The number of soldiers also sounded like a lot. Two to three million samurai. A massive armed force. But with how big the Land of Fire was? They were scattered all around it, protecting important cities and forts while also having to police the populace. It could even be argued that the country still did not have enough samurai to cover the duties that needed to be performed.

Naturally, both the Daimyo and the nobles poured a sizable amount of their budget into their samurai forces. It was their biggest expenditure. Because they did not trust ninjas. At all.

The whole power dynamic was wonky. The samurai had the numbers, but they were straightforward fighters lacking in quality and deadliness. Unlike ninjas, they did not use ninjutsu. They trained only their bodies and sword skills. This made them somewhat ineffective and inferior to ninjas when it came to combat.

The closest ninja Ren could compare them to was Gai if he was obsessed with swords. The problem is that not many people can keep up with Gai's insane training schedule. So, most samurai found their limits after reaching a similar combat potential to a Chunin-rank ninja, finding it almost impossible to break through their limits afterward.

Of course, there were exceptions, and every Great Nation had at least one samurai on the level of S-rank combatant. Jonin-equivalent samurai were already rare enough, though. These were the 'generals' of individual forces. If a noble had two jonin-level samurai under him, he could count himself lucky.

Funnily enough, despite only having more or less twenty thousand ninjas, Konoha had more Jonin-ranked combatants than the country's collective samurai forces. And it definitely had more S-rank combatants, too.

Unfortunately for Konoha, the zerging tactics were a thing, but the village could still be a legitimate threat. It just... most likely wouldn't survive a civil war with its Daimyo. At best, it would be a mutually assured destruction.

That's why Rasa went after Konoha instead of trying to rebel against his Daimyo, who was suppressing his village. It just wasn't a viable option.

The nobles and the Daimyo were also not stupid. They had witnessed how one man, one ninja, the fabled Hashirama Senju, changed the world and warped it to his will due to his strength.

The only reason why he didn't conquer everything was that he was an idiot with his head up his asshole. Lucky them, right?

The nobles were acutely aware that some other incomprehensibly powerful ninja could emerge one day and deprive them of their power. Not even a million samurai would help them if such an individual was unfriendly.

And so, they had their own ways of keeping ninjas in line. While Ren believed that Danzo had a hand in the demise of the Senju clan, quite a few of their deaths were most likely because nobles hired promising Senju ninjas to do dangerous missions for them, secretly trying to get them killed.

Oh, the missions probably made sense and seemed important, but Ren would eat his boots if the intent behind them was not to get the poor sod who was half-forced to accept the mission killed.

The ninjas' job was to kill, fight, and die for the village and the mission. Not many people looked into it, and even if they did, it wasn't as if one noble was doing this. They were smart about it. They ordered one hard mission with a high chance of death, and once it succeeded, they would give the village several smaller missions. Then, some other noble would do the same. Then another and another, and so on it went over a long period of time.

The whole thing seemed like the ninjas having unfortunate incidents during very dangerous missions rather than deliberate acts of sabotage.

Ren's lips involuntarily turned into a sardonic smile. The Great Ninja Wars were not exactly world wars in the correct sense of the word, either. The non-shinobi forces of the nations were not deployed beyond defense.

It was exactly as the name implied. These wars were only between the ninja villages. The samurai stayed holed up in their forts or cities, intending to defend if the borders were breached, but they wouldn't do anything beyond that.

Just like the ninjas had their hidden border outposts where they tried to prevent infiltration by foreign ninjas, the samurai had massive forts in key locations that were supposed to defend against an invading army.

That's where most samurai were stationed during war time. They did not really fight in the Great Ninja War. Hashirama succeeded. He brought partial peace. The 'civilian' side of the Five Great Nations? They knew the Great Ninja Wars happened. They could feel it in the economy. But they were not exactly in a war themselves.

It was pretty much only the ninjas who were in all-out war, as the samurai and the nobles watched from behind. As for the civilians from Nations located between the Great Five? Sucks to be them. These countries became the battlefield for the ninja wars. And their people were just unlucky to be born there.

Even the wars themselves were not exactly natural occurrences. The villages were very far away from each other. They could easily sustain themselves and have enough mercenary gigs from their local populace if there was no outside interference always fucking things up.

It took Ren a bit of digging, but it was not that hard to notice. The nobles occasionally gave the village missions that would deliberately undermine another village or cause strife. They loved to say it was in the name of their country's security or some other bullshit like that.

For example, the Wind Daimyo loved to send his missions to Konoha these days, a village several thousand kilometers away, instead of giving the money to his own Hidden Village. Fully knowing that Suna and Konoha were allies. Fully knowing this would drive Suna desperate and sour their relations with Konoha.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, could totally create another Great Ninja War. If Konoha and Suna's alliance broke, Iwa was definitely going to pounce.

The Wind Daimyo was not stupid. He understood this. Makes one wonder what his real aim is, eh?

But even if it resulted in a war, why should he care? He would not be fighting. His ninja village would fight. Not his forces. And if Suna lost and was destroyed? Well, then he would just continue hiring ninjas from Iwa or Konoha. No big deal.

His samurai would push the Iwa forces out of his country if they did not retreat on their own. Maybe he could even create a new ninja village afterward. One fully under his command this time. Wasn't that just great?

This was just one example of how the nobles interfered and forced the ninjas' hands.

On their own, these missions and small interferences did not seem like a problem. But over time, months or even years, they slowly heightened the tensions between the ninja villages. And the kicker? Ren had the nasty impression that the nobles from various Great Nations worked with each other to create these situations.

Historically speaking, it was nothing new. The nobles used the same tactics hundreds of years ago, too.

Backroom deals were a thing. Imagine two warlords, one having the Senju clan on his lands and another having the Uchiha clan. These clans were a threat to their rule. So, hiring them to fight for an objective and deepening that hate while weakening both clans sounded like a reasonable way of spending money.

It was dirty politics at its finest. The Uchiha and the Senju clans were not special in this regard. Every clan experienced this to a certain extent. And when the villages were formed, the nobles did not stop with these games. Instead, they did their best to pit the villages against each other with money.

And Ren did not begrudge them their passive-aggressive approach. They were not wrong. Their fears were justified. From the viewpoint of a ruler, he could see that they could not let ninja villages grow too powerful. Even now, diminished as it was, Konoha could be a problem if it rebelled.

The Great Ninja Wars were an effective way to keep the Hidden Villages down. To keep their strength in check. To ensure the villages' forces were periodically culled whenever they grew more than the nobles were comfortable with.

Most importantly, these wars taxed their economies, but that's all the damage they have done to the Great Five Nations. It was the other, smaller countries that suffered. And that, for the big Daimyos, was a price they were happily willing to pay to keep the ninja villages in check.

Whenever the idea that ninja villages should be given more say in the matters of the country was raised, the nobles only needed to point at the Land of Rain, where Hanzo the Salamander executed the Daimyo and took over the country. It was the only nation fully led by a ninja.

At least, openly. Orochimaru did not count.

And the country was a dump. It was the main battlefield in all ninja wars that have happened so far. Because with Hanzo at the helm, the country lacked in diplomacy, trade, and other small civilian details that could help it to plead their case to the Daimyos of the Great Five.

The ninjas did not care, and the Daimyos did not want to help them. In fact, letting the battle occur on their lands was a low-key way to give a warning to other overly ambitious ninjas. To show them what would happen if they tried to take over a country. That the Daimyos from other countries would not stand for it.

There was a reason why Orochimaru did not declare himself a Daimyo despite running the Land of Rice Fields and cutting a deal with the original rulers' family.

Ren remembered how the keyboard warriors in his past life jeered at the Wind Daimyo, calling him stupid turd for not supporting his village. That he would get assassinated, and he was just sabotaging himself. That he was a moron.

Ren was one of these people.

But the truth was different. The big Daimyo from the Great Five Nations did not need the ninja villages. They tolerated them because they were convenient. Mercenary forces that could be hired to do unpleasant things for money and even fight wars. The Daimyos did not need to commit their forces to armed conflict with other countries. Instead, they just used the economy and politics to manipulate the ninjas into fighting each other. Problem solved. Their personal peace was preserved.

Let the ninjas fight their wars while we chill!

Ren was quite unhappy that he wasn't born as a noble. They had the system figured out. Ninjas might have chakra, but they were played and manipulated left and right. 

Technically speaking? The Daimyos and the Great Five Nations had peace ever since the Hidden Villages formed. There has been no armed conflict between countries since that time. All the conflict was pretty much between ninjas nowadays.

But of course, this was Ren's 'modern' sensibilities and mindset speaking. Someone might say that ninjas would definitely notice such manipulations and wouldn't stand for it.

Except, no. For them, this was their way of life. How they were raised to live. How they were taught to think. Their very mindset prevented them from seeing the foolishness of their ways.

They served the highest bidder. They did not look at the long-term ramifications of their actions. They just did missions for money. This is how ninjas lived and survived hundreds of years ago during the Warring States Era, and this is how they live and survive even to this day.

And that was not going to change anytime soon. They were fighters. Not politicians. Not merchants. But killers and warriors.

It was like watching a Japanese historical drama and seeing a samurai willingly commit seppuku, gutting himself because he tripped and unfortunately, fell on the Lord's daughter, touching her chest in the process.

It was a complete accident, but he felt like his and her honor had been besmirched. His solution to fix it? No. It wasn't to apologize and beg for mercy. He would rather kill himself.

To a modern person, that made no freaking sense. That person sounded like a crazy moron. But to the people in that era? That's how they lived and thought.

Ren's issues were very similar. It's not that the ninjas or the people in this world were stupid. They just had different views on many things. To him, the ninja way of life was utter bullshit. It was stupid, foolish, counterproductive, moronic, stupid, and did he mention that it was also foolish?

Well, it was foolish!

But to the natives, this is the only way of living they had ever known. It's the way of living they were taught as children and the way of living they will teach their children.

Honestly, Ren didn't even blame the nobles for taking advantage of ninjas. They kind of deserved it.

Sadly, the politics and traditions involved kind of locked the world in a status quo where neither side, be it ninjas or the nobles, could stop doing what they were doing. It would literally take somebody strong enough to destroy entire villages to stop it.

Now that he thought that, Ren started to wonder if Naruto was indeed the chosen one.

But, nah. The kid who he saw sneezing into his ramen before eating it with a grimace because it would be a shame to waste it was supposed to save them all?

They were doomed.