Chapter 432: The Grand Finale
"How do you feel?"
Amamiya Kenichi walked through the Land of Water with Konan.
The entire Land of Water was now under his control. Although some extremists from the Land of Water occasionally caused trouble, they were not particularly difficult to handle.
"Hmm. It seems the daily lives of the people here haven't changed much, but..." Konan looked at the villagers around them.
The people here were living normally and did not seem to have been greatly affected by the war.
But strangely, their moods seemed relaxed. Many smiled as they spoke. The joyful expressions of the adults and the happy laughter of children made Konan feel much better as well.
"This is the annual tax schedule for the Land of Water."
Kenichi casually handed her a document bag.
The heavy document bag left Konan somewhat bewildered after she received it.
Wasn't it supposed to be a tax schedule?
Why was it so thick?
"What taxes does a person from the Land of Water have to pay from birth?" Kenichi sat on a nearby railing and muttered to himself.
It sounded like a question, but also like a statement.
Konan's hand trembled involuntarily.
She seemed to understand what Kenichi was about to say.
"No tax is required at birth. But afterward, a Nutrition Tax must be paid in order to receive maternal care. Then there is an annual Population Tax. If someone wants to test for ninja aptitude, an additional Testing Fee is required. If they cannot become a ninja, they must start helping their family work."
"Buying seeds requires Seed Tax, Land Use Tax, and Land Maintenance Tax. Even watering one's own field requires paying a Water Pipe Depreciation Tax."
Kenichi's lips curled into a sneer.
As one of the Five Great Nations, the Land of Water should theoretically have had a relatively good standard of living for its people.
However, this "good" was more like a carefully calculated kind of good.
The people's living standards were tightly controlled by the daimyo and the Kage. Their lives were not great, but they were not so bad that they could no longer survive either. They had just enough to eat and keep living, just enough that they would not be forced into rebellion because they had no other options.
Combined with the military deterrence of ninja, even if someone became dissatisfied with the world and wanted to change it, an ordinary genin would already be a difficult opponent for them to handle.
Heh.
After Kenichi occupied the Land of Water, he obtained the tax forms from the daimyo of the Land of Water.
When he first saw them, his expression had been the same as Konan's. He had never expected the tax items alone to form such a thick stack.
The fee for each individual tax item was not very high.
But once all those scattered payments were added together, they became a terrifying figure. This was especially true for farmers engaged in agricultural work, who could barely save much money each year.
"Even so, those greedy bloodsuckers still weren't satisfied. They even hired people to cause trouble and released pests, forcing these struggling people to use their savings to hire ninja, thereby creating missions."
Kenichi looked at a family of four busy in the fields, his gaze distant.
He had once been very curious.
Were there really that many missions in the ninja world?
Did people truly need ninja to find a cat?
Did they even need ninja to help harvest crops?
For most people living in poverty, such tasks would usually be done by themselves, or with mutual help from others in the village.
Those were all perfectly normal things.
But in the ninja world, everything changed.
Harvesting sweet potatoes and similar tasks became missions, turning into pieces of paper posted in each village's mission center.
If a person ate well and dressed warmly every day but still failed to gain weight, it was not because of some external factor. It was because there were too many parasites inside them, sucking away too much blood.
Of course they could not grow fat.
The ninja world had already formed a complete ecosystem.
The daimyo ruled ordinary people.
The Kage and the daimyo held equal status in name, but the Kage possessed more real power.
The daimyo were responsible for creating various pretexts to madly extract wealth, then exchanging that money for the Kage's military protection.
Under this system, unless the Kage decided to act, ordinary people could do nothing at all.
Even a genin at Sasuke's level was a dimension-reducing blow against ordinary people.
An ordinary person could not tell whether the opponent was a clone, nor did they have any way to counter a genin's Ninjutsu attacks.
Although the Great Fireball Technique was often mocked as a Ninjutsu that never killed anyone, for ordinary people, it was a terrifying technique that could leave no ashes behind if its power were increased even slightly.
That was not even mentioning higher-level Ninjutsu.
Under such cruel rule, ordinary people naturally could not resist.
They could only submit to the system and live difficult lives.
It was not surprising that a serious illness could directly push them back beneath the poverty line.
The most terrifying part was that this system had formed very quickly after the ninja villages were established.
Even after three Ninja World Wars, the situation in the ninja world had not changed at all.
The Naruto manga told the story of bonds and struggles among a group of ninja.
But what about ordinary people?
Who cared about them?
They were only background figures in the manga.
"..."
Konan fell silent.
She thought of her past with Yahiko and Nagato, the original purpose behind the Akatsuki's founding, and Yahiko's once shining eyes and somewhat childish dream.
"This world is sick, and I have brought the cure," Kenichi said.
In Konan's eyes, Kenichi's figure began to overlap more and more with Yahiko's.
At that moment, she seemed to truly see her friend Yahiko reappear in this world.
Kenichi narrowed his eyes.
This crazy world did not belong only to ninja.
It also belonged to ordinary people.
If Kenichi himself did not have the system, he would merely be an ordinary person.
Should ordinary people simply live numbly like this?
"My name is Konan," Konan said.
Kenichi froze.
Of course, he knew Konan's name.
But Konan had never introduced herself to him so proactively before, so Kenichi had always addressed her by her organizational codename.
"My name is Amamiya Kenichi," Kenichi replied with a slight smile.
It seemed Konan had understood his meaning and was willing to cooperate with him more deeply.
That was a good thing.
Konan's talent was excellent, especially her Paper Person of God Technique.
That was truly amazing.
Six hundred billion explosive tags had been turned into an ocean by her alone.
Who could withstand that?
Kenichi even suspected that this had something to do with Konan's ability. Otherwise, what kind of concept was six hundred billion explosive tags?
Even if Kakuzu joined the Akatsuki and worked until he was coughing blood every day, he might still not earn enough for that terrifying amount.
Explosive tags were not especially cheap.
Even at three hundred ryo per tag, that was an unimaginably frightening sum.
Even if the wholesale price of explosive tags could be slightly cheaper, it could not possibly be that much cheaper.
Yet Konan had mentioned six hundred billion explosive tags.
That was truly frightening.
"Leader... I will mention this matter to the leader later. Perhaps our cooperation will become closer then," Konan said.
She glanced at Kenichi and hesitated for a moment.
In the end, she decided to let Nagato decide whether to tell Kenichi his name.
"Hmm. Thank you."
Kenichi continued walking with Konan toward the location she had chosen earlier, passing through several villages along the way.
The people in these villages all seemed to be in good spirits.
"I'm curious. What exactly did you do?" Konan could not help looking at Kenichi again.
She was curious about what Kenichi had done.
Why did she always feel that these people seemed so happy?
"Actually, I didn't do much." Kenichi scratched his head.
Although he was good at research, he truly did not know how to formulate tax rules. After all, specialization existed for a reason.
So Kenichi had simply summoned the tax officials from the capital of the Land of Water, held a simple small meeting with them, and proposed his ideas. After that, he had them revise the tax system as quickly as possible.
Of course, to prevent those scoundrels from fooling him, Kenichi implanted parasites in them.
That also made them work wholeheartedly for him.
"This is the tax policy of the current country called the Land of Fire."
Kenichi handed a very thin document bag to Konan.
Konan accepted it blankly and looked at the document bag in her hand.
It was very light.
And yet very heavy.
"Most redundant tax items have been removed. The current taxation is very normal," Kenichi casually explained.
A portion of the Land of Water's taxes had originally been supplied to Kirigakure as military expenditure, and a large portion had been kept by the daimyo himself.
Only a very small portion had been used for public infrastructure.
Even then, the daimyo had still not been satisfied.
That beast had continued collecting "taxes" from certain companies and wealthy individuals to support his lavish lifestyle.
Kenichi had even seen a pure gold toilet in the daimyo's bedroom.
"So..." Konan compared the two document bags.
It was such a light thing.
But for some reason, at that moment, it felt so heavy in her hands, as if the entire Land of Water were pressing down on it.
"So, it is equivalent to every household spending less..."
Kenichi gave her a more understandable explanation.
As Konan listened to those weighty figures, she felt a little dizzy.
She even swayed while walking and nearly fell.
She suddenly understood why these people were smiling so happily.
After all, the heavy burden on their shoulders had suddenly been lifted by a great deal.
"But will this affect the ninja village?" Konan noticed a problem.
"No. In fact, military expenditure will not take up too much. If a country's military expenditure ratio is very high, then either that country is currently at war, or that country intends to start one," Kenichi said, shaking his head.
Like a certain lighthouse country in his previous life, military expenditure generally only accounted for 3.2 percent of GDP.
Konan did not quite understand, but when she heard that there would be no major impact, she became even more surprised.
If there was no impact, then just how much burden had Kenichi reduced for the people of the Land of Water?
"In fact, managing a country is not easy. It is very difficult for one person to manage everything," Kenichi said with a sigh.
The Land of Water did not look large, but it had a considerable population.
So many accumulated matters falling onto one person every day was truly torturous.
Moreover, preventing corruption was even more difficult.
Fortunately, Kenichi had his own special methods.
During this period, he had Koyuki Kazahana separately summon the governors of various towns in the Land of Water to the capital for performance reviews. Along the way, he had the Anbu collect information on their political achievements.
He would deal with some, keep the capable ones, and then let them receive blessings.
After receiving blessings, these individuals would be unable to engage in corruption.
Because of that, Kenichi was confident that the Land of Water would develop better and better in the future.
This template could also be applied to larger territories later.
With the parasites, the physical fitness of these governors would also improve, which could be considered a benefit.
"This terrible world should also usher in its grand finale," Kenichi sighed.
"Let's go. I'll check the base's location," Konan said, exhaling a long breath.
Although she did not know how Kenichi would manage things in the future, at least for now, he was doing very well.
"So, what should our attitude toward the Land of Water be now?"
Meanwhile, in Konoha's new Hokage Tower, the argument continued.
"If the other party is truly willing to be incorporated into Konoha's territory, I think we should find a way..." Utatane Koharu expressed her opinion.
"But what if Amamiya Kenichi is lying?" Mitokado Homura hesitated.
The fact that the Heavenly Demon was Amamiya Kenichi was somewhat surprising, but was this information really true?
If it was a lie, Konoha might be besieged by the other ninja villages.
Even the daimyo of the Land of Fire might react strongly.
Tsunade pinched her brow.
Just as she had expected, they were still trapped in this endless debate.
However, there was no choice.
This matter concerned the entire ninja village.
Although she was the Hokage, she had to consider it carefully.
Tsunade looked out the window, feeling somewhat weary.
She regretted agreeing to become Hokage.
This position truly was not meant for humans.
If she could, she still wanted to be the Tsunade who lived freely.
The Tsunade who, upon hearing this news, could charge straight into the Land of Water without hesitation and beat Amamiya Kenichi half to death.
But...
Tsunade truly felt what it meant to be unable to act freely.
Some things were genuinely difficult to decide when one had to care about the consequences.
The more burdens one carried, the harder it became to move.
"I hope Jiraiya's journey goes smoothly... I..."
Tsunade gritted her teeth.
She thought of the night before Jiraiya left, when they had talked all night.
She had even made a bet with him on whether he could return alive.
And she won.
.....
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