Chapter 289: Ishiro's Offensive

Chapter 289: Ishiro's Offensive

After the Nine-Tails Rampage ended, according to the original story, the ninja world would have a relatively long period of peace.

Although the situation in this life was vastly different from the original, the fact that the ninja world had changed from a "one superpower, many strong powers" situation to a "contention of many powers" was still the same.

Therefore, Ishiro guessed that the ninja world would still have a period of peace. At the very least, under his leadership, the decision of war and peace for Iwagakure was his to make.

And what Konoha needed at this time was time to lick its wounds; they would not proactively start a war.

Although the Mist often made moves that defied common sense, after their strength was greatly damaged, they couldn't stir up much trouble either. Moreover, Orochimaru, who had set up his base in the Land of Grass in the original story, seemed to be quite fond of the Land of Whirlpools this time.

It was believed that with Orochimaru blocking the way, the Mist wouldn't be able to cause too much of a stir.

And with the Akatsuki pulling the Land of Rain into its sphere of influence (which is how outsiders viewed the Amegakure incident), the Sand's wariness of the Akatsuki deepened. Despite having the natural barrier of the desert, Rasa did not dare to completely ignore the Akatsuki and launch a war.

The only one left was the Fourth Raikage. His actions were equally uncontrollable. Ishiro expressed that he would make no predictions.

But no matter what, there would most likely be a relatively long period of peace in the ninja world. Ishiro planned to do something while taking advantage of this peace.

After Ogura Saki was promoted to Elite Jonin, Ishiro took Riori Uzumaki, Akino Atsumi, and Kiyoshi Ishizawa on a trip to the capital of the Land of Earth.

Ishiro planned to chat with the Daimyo. This was also considered the first formal visit of Ishiro as the Fourth Tsuchikage to the Daimyo.

The Daimyo was very satisfied with Ishiro as the Tsuchikage and received him with great ceremony.

Even Ishiro's three Genin disciples were treated seriously by the Daimyo's vassals.

After the banquet, Ishiro began to discuss the purpose of his trip with the Daimyo.

"Daimyo, I wonder how the incident of the three Jonin who infiltrated your entourage was handled?" Ishiro asked.

The last time, when Ishiro's and Ikura's disciples competed, the Daimyo had come to watch, but there were three Jonin of unknown origin among his entourage. This matter had made the Daimyo very worried.

Afterward, Iwagakure and the Daimyo's guards conducted an investigation together. The results of the investigation pointed to some high-level officials in the capital. After that, Iwagakure did not participate further.

"It has been completely resolved. Tsuchikage, you need not worry," the Daimyo said.

"Good." Ishiro nodded and continued, "Daimyo, in these years, the village has developed very quickly. Especially, we have made some achievements in the research of various ninja attributes, and many of the village's shortcomings have been compensated for."

"So, I would like to train a batch of guardian ninjas for you, Daimyo, to prevent such situations from happening again. I wonder what you think?"

The Daimyo was stunned. This was a good thing! So he said, "I wonder how many guardian ninjas the Tsuchikage plans to train, and to what level will they reach?"

Although the Daimyo was not clear about the specific strength of ninjas, he was very clear about distinctions like Jonin and Chunin, and also valued these titles.

"I heard that the Daimyo of the Land of Fire plans to form a Twelve Guardian Ninja. Naturally, you, Daimyo, cannot fall behind. So I plan to also train twelve Jonin for you."

The Daimyo was overjoyed and asked, "Does the Tsuchikage have a plan?"

Ishiro nodded and said, "I have an idea. The growth of a ninja requires a certain amount of talent, and also some luck. So we can't just train twelve people."

"You, Daimyo, can select a hundred children with ninja talent and send them to the village. We will do our best to cultivate these ninjas. After at least two Elite Jonin or twelve Jonin emerge from among them, I will return the people to you."

The Daimyo was very happy and asked, "But how should we select the children?"

Ishiro smiled and said, "I will send ninjas to select them together with your people, and incidentally select some ninjas with special talents for the village."

This was Ishiro's true purpose. Talents for things like space-time ninjutsu and gravity ninjutsu had too high requirements. The base from which Ishiro could screen was too small. If this scope was expanded to the entire Land of Earth, the chances of winning the lottery would be much greater.

Moreover, the number of people Ishiro would select would not be large, so Ishiro believed that the Daimyo would not object.

Sure enough, hearing Ishiro directly state Iwagakure's needs, the Daimyo was very happy, didn't mind at all, and directly agreed, adding that he would bear the full training expenses for these ninjas.

With the matter of training the guardian ninjas, the Daimyo's goodwill towards Ishiro became even higher. So Ishiro began to propose his own ideas.

"Daimyo, I came this time for another matter. Do you know about the recent incident in the Land of Rain's Village Hidden in the Rain?"

"I know, I know. I heard that Hanzō of Amegakure died, and now the leader of the village seems to be called Akatsuki?" the Daimyo replied.

Ishiro nodded, then shook his head, saying, "Hanzō is indeed dead. The Land of Rain has now been incorporated into the Akatsuki's sphere of influence. The leader of the Akatsuki is named Yahiko, and the person the Akatsuki sent to Amegakure is named Nagato."

Ishiro explained it to the Daimyo according to the understanding most ninjas in the ninja world now had of the Akatsuki.

"Our Land of Earth and the Akatsuki were allies before. Do you remember, Daimyo? A few years ago, at the Chunin Exams, we allied with the Land of Wind, the Land of Rain, and the Land of Rivers. The Akatsuki is the hidden village of the Land of Rivers."

"Oh, oh, so it's them. I remember, the Land of Rivers has a very cheerful ninja, I think his name was Yahiko," the Daimyo recalled.

"That's right, it's him. Yahiko is a very good person, and we have been good friends for many years. This time, the Akatsuki has given a part of the Land of Rain's territory to our Land of Earth," Ishiro said, taking out a map and beginning to explain to the Daimyo.

The Daimyo looked at the small, narrow piece of land Ishiro pointed out, somewhat stunned. The high-ranking officials beside the Daimyo were also whispering among themselves.

Since the Warring States period, the map of the ninja world had not changed for a long time. Iwagakure's territory had neither increased nor decreased. Ishiro's sudden move left everyone a bit stunned.

Before they could recover, Ishiro continued, "Daimyo, our relationship with the Akatsuki is very good, but if we are too close, conflicts will arise between the two sides. So, I plan to use this territory to trade with the Land of Grass for another piece of land."

The Daimyo was stunned, then nodded. This didn't matter. Then he asked curiously, "I wonder where the Tsuchikage plans to trade for?"

Ishiro pointed to the border between the Land of Grass and the Land of Waterfalls and said, "Trade for this position, to open up a channel of communication with the Land of Fire."

"Hiss~~" No matter how slow the Daimyo was, he understood at this moment. Ishiro had his eyes on the Land of Fire.

No, that's not right. All past Tsuchikage—hmm, all past Tsuchikage, Kazekage, Raikage, and Mizukage—had their eyes on the Land of Fire. But this Fourth Tsuchikage, Ishiro, was the most aggressive. He was going to take action, to directly make a move on the Land of Fire's territory, and not just aim for war reparations as before.

The Daimyo thought for a moment and said, "Tsuchikage, are you confident?"

Ishiro shook his head and said, "I don't plan to start a war. I plan to do business with the Land of Fire."

"Although our strength has been brought much closer to the Land of Fire's in these few years, the sheer size of the Land of Fire is too large for us to swallow. Moreover, the strength of the Land of Wind and the Land of Lightning is not weak now; they won't just watch us grow stronger."

"What I want is a trade route. I will use the convenience of commerce and proactively propose not to station troops there, so as not to overly provoke Konoha. Konoha has suffered a great loss of vitality now. If we don't proactively start a war, at most they will just shout a few times and won't get serious."

"Compared to the Land of Fire, our only advantage is our trade route. We have a trade route that runs through the entire Land of Earth, and we also have fixed trade routes with almost all surrounding countries. We also have a water trade route with the Land of Lightning."

"The Land of Fire, on the other hand, has been in turmoil for many years, with bandits and rogue ninjas running rampant internally. In this respect, they definitely can't compare to us. We can plunder the Land of Fire economically."

The Daimyo could understand Ishiro's meaning. Because of Ishiro, the Daimyo had long since felt the benefits brought by the trade routes.

After thinking for a moment, since Ishiro had said Konoha wouldn't dare to fight, then let's give it a try. At worst, they could just trade it back.

With the Daimyo's endorsement, the next steps were easy. The Daimyo just sent a minor official to make a trip to the Land of Grass, and an exchange agreement was reached with the Daimyo of the Land of Grass.

The Daimyo of the Land of Grass was not dissatisfied at all; on the contrary, he was very happy. Being sandwiched between two great nations, and repeatedly serving as the main battlefield of the Great Ninja Wars, the Land of Grass had long been suffering.

Now that the Land of Earth wanted to bypass the Land of Grass and make direct contact with the Land of Fire, this was the best possible news. What's more, the Land of Earth did not take it by force but exchanged it for an equal amount. The Land of Grass had not lost out.

Thus, the situation in the ninja world was once again stirred up by this operation of Ishiro's.

Rasa and A both thought that Iwagakure was about to go to war with Konoha and both began to make battle preparations.

Konoha, even more so, held more than ten high-level meetings in a row. If Iwagakure was going to go crazy like the Mist, the balance that Hiruzen had previously predicted would no longer exist.

This gave the Konoha higher-ups a feeling of impending doom.

However, what the Konoha higher-ups were waiting for was not Iwagakure's army, but a personal letter from the Daimyo of the Land of Fire.

"Ishiro wants to trade with us and has promised that the path between the Land of Grass and the Land of Waterfalls will only be a trade route. Iwagakure will not station a large army there. Everyone, what are your thoughts? Speak up," Tsunade said to the Jonin at a meeting of all of Konoha's Jonin.

Originally, this was something she could have decided after discussing it with a few old-timers, but this time the situation was different.

Because of Ishiro's previous actions, Konoha had mistakenly thought a war was about to begin and had conducted war mobilization early. All the Jonin had been informed of Iwagakure's abnormal movements.

So now that Iwagakure had suddenly made a major reversal, Tsunade had to explain it to all the Jonin.

The numerous Jonin looked at each other, not knowing how to speak, but many found that there was a trace of relief in everyone's eyes.

Seeing this look, Tsunade sighed. She knew that this war could not be fought, at least Konoha could not proactively start it.

If Ishiro had explained the situation from the beginning, then the Konoha higher-ups could have exposed Ishiro's ambition and mobilized everyone to take the initiative to attack, or at least conduct a large-scale military standoff to force Iwagakure to make concessions.

But the situation was different now. Everyone was not very dissatisfied with the current situation; at least it was much better than a full-scale invasion by Iwagakure.

"Since Iwagakure isn't attacking us, we shouldn't proactively attack them."

This was the thought of most ninjas. Although they didn't say it, Tsunade and the other high-level officials could feel it.

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