Heaven knew that he, the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, was the most peace-loving person in the entire Shinobi World.
Of course, his love of peace had absolutely nothing to do with the Sage of Six Paths.
It was purely because war burned through money far too quickly.
Besides, it would be a good thing if ninjas could find a few more ways to make money on their own, so they would not have to reach into his treasury every year.
Heaven knew just how large a portion of the Land of Fire's tax revenue was allocated to Konoha each year.
Especially over the past two years. With the war underway, military expenditures had been multiplying. Every time he opened the account books, he felt as though his blood pressure had doubled along with the figures.
If those ninjas could truly figure out a way to support themselves without fighting, then for him and for the Land of Fire's treasury, it would be an immensely good thing.
Unfortunately, the Daimyo never followed that line of thought any further. He only saw the most immediate layer of it: if ninjas could earn money themselves, he could reduce the amount of funding he had to provide.
But once the door to ninjas generating their own income was truly opened, he never considered what lay behind it.
This was also something Shinichi had always believed about this world: the Shinobi World did not lack powerful individuals; what it lacked were true strategists and leaders with vision and perspective.
Whether they were the Daimyo of the great nations or the Kage of the Five Great Ninja Villages, the way they approached problems was inferior even to a small nation from Shinichi's previous life.
What were ninjas? At their core, ninjas were soldiers.
And what was a ninja village? At its core, it was an instrument of state violence.
That fundamental nature dictated that ninja villages had to remain financially dependent on the state.
That was why, at least nominally, the Kage were the Daimyo's subordinates, because the Daimyo controlled the purse strings.
But once ninjas possessed an independent, stable source of income and no longer relied entirely on the Daimyo's financial allocations, that relationship would be overturned at its foundations.
The guns would be in the ninjas' hands, and the money would also be in the ninjas' hands.
Then… what use would there be for the Daimyo?
A military's finances must never become independent!
In Shinichi's previous life, within his previous nation, thousands of years of Dynastic rise and fall had already engraved this iron law into its very bones.
Once a force possessed arms, resources, industries, supply chains, and taxation, it would inevitably replace the existing rulers.
The powerful clans and private armies of the Han Dynasty, the regional military governors of the late Tang, and the warlord regimes of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period all pointed toward the same conclusion: once an instrument of violence gained an independent source of revenue, it ceased to be anyone's subordinate.
And in the Shinobi World, that logic was even more naked than it had been in his previous life, because ninjas were not ordinary soldiers; they were extraordinary individuals wielding supernatural power.
The strength of a single Jonin, or even a Chunin, was enough to destroy a massive army composed of ordinary people, while a Kage-level powerhouse could determine the outcome of an entire campaign.
They themselves were already the strongest armed force in this world. If they were also allowed to control an independent source of revenue, the authority of the Daimyo, built on financial allocations, would become worthless overnight, leaving only a paper-thin title.
By that point, would the Daimyo still be able to sit leisurely in his courtyard, admiring the autumn leaves?
That was a question he had probably never seriously considered.
When Shinichi's industrial empire eventually spread across the land, and Konoha's finances completely shifted from dependence on Daimyo funding to self-sustaining operations, the Daimyo might finally realize just how much irony was contained in the seal he had casually stamped onto that congratulatory letter today.
Konoha, inside the Hokage's office.
Danzo Shimura sat on a sofa to one side, holding a neatly organized briefing document and flipping through its pages at an unhurried pace.
After the campaign against the Land of Lightning, this man who had lurked for years in Konoha's shadows as the Darkness of the Shinobi and leader of Root seemed finally to have remembered that he also held the position of Hokage advisor.
Coincidentally, both Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane were away commanding troops, so the gap left in the Hokage Building's daily operations was quietly filled by Danzo. He gradually stepped out of the shadows and into the open, taking on the role of assistant and advisor.
By now, the various ninjas and staff members coming and going through the Hokage Building had gradually gone from being surprised at the frequent appearances of this once rarely seen elder advisor to accepting it as normal.
"The preparations on the society's side are nearly complete."
Turning to another page of the briefing, Danzo spoke in a calm tone. "Not only has the Daimyo's side sent an official notice stating that the chief butler Sosho will personally attend the ceremony, but the ninja villages of the surrounding smaller nations have also begun moving after catching wind of it. Takigakure, Kusagakure, and Yugakure have all sent representatives. Even that old man, Hanzo, couldn't sit still anymore and says he'll send people to witness the society's birth."
Although the Shinobi World War was still raging throughout the Shinobi World, with the great nations fighting one another in chaos, the ninja villages of the smaller countries caught in between had always adhered to an unchanging survival principle.
Offend no one and take no side.
Even when the great nations treated their territories as battlefields and slaughtered one another on their lands, the official stance of these countries and their ninja villages remained silent.
They neither dared protest nor express opinions, afraid that a single wrong statement would cause the next fire to burn them instead.
Yet at a time like this, sending people to Konoha to attend the society's founding ceremony was itself a subtle statement. At the very least, in the eyes of outsiders, they had already made a certain judgment.
If one had to point to the reason, it was because Konoha's display of strength in this war had simply been too terrifying.
Whether against the Village Hidden in the Cloud, the Village Hidden in the Sand, or the Village Hidden in the Mist, it had achieved overwhelmingly dominant victories, and at the center of it all was always the same name, Shinichi Higashino!
In the Shinobi World, the strong were ultimately respected above all else, and strength spoke louder than anything.
Even the most opportunistic fence-sitters would instinctively edge closer to your side as long as you displayed enough power.
Not to mention that they had left themselves plenty of room to maneuver.
Strictly speaking, the Ninja Way Origins Research Society was a civilian academic organization registered under Konoha. It was neither an institution directly under the Hokage nor a representative of Konoha's official position.
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