[Inside the Hokage's Office]
Aoba was rapidly flipping through the various documents submitted by the Land of Grass.
From national finances and military affairs to population figures.
They basically covered every aspect of state affairs. Even though these documents had already been filtered and divided up layer by layer by several Hokage secretaries, Aoba still felt a headache looking at the pile placed in front of him.
The main reason was that the group of ministers from the Land of Grass were just too useless. All they had needed to do was compile the various kinds of information from their own country and send it to the Hokage Building.
In the end, that bunch of wine-soaked good-for-nothings did nothing except indulge themselves. When it came to state affairs, they knew nothing at all.
No wonder they had managed to ruin a perfectly good country like this.
Looking at the mountain of documents in front of him now, Aoba even had the urge to sneak away.
However, just as this thought rose in his mind, a resentful voice immediately sounded from beside him.
"Aoba, you're not thinking of finding an excuse to slip away and dump all this work on me alone, are you?"
Shizune, who was also looking through various documents, only glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and saw right through Aoba's thoughts.
You could only say that Aoba really was worthy of being Lady Tsunade's disciple. Every time he wanted to find an excuse to sneak off, the look on his face was always exactly the same.
"How could that be. How could I possibly bear to let Shizune-nee work herself to death all by herself."
Having his thoughts called out directly by Shizune, even Aoba couldn't help feeling a little embarrassed, thick-skinned as he was.
"Hehe! I hope you really mean that."
Seeing that he had given up the idea, Shizune withdrew her gaze.
Seeing this, Aoba suppressed his embarrassment, but another thought surfaced in his mind.
"I feel like going on like this isn't a solution either."
"Hm? What do you mean?"
Shizune looked over again, confusion showing in her eyes.
With his left hand supporting his right elbow and his right hand pinching his chin, Aoba frowned and said, "From now on, Konoha's territory will only get bigger and bigger, and there'll be more and more things to handle. Relying on just this handful of people in the Hokage Building right now, there's no way we can keep up."
"Then what should we do?", Shizune asked curiously.
Aoba's expression turned serious, "Konoha has already taken the Land of Grass. That means we need to change our way of thinking. We can't keep managing Konoha in the form of a ninja village anymore."
After saying that, he fell into thought again.
Shizune didn't speak, instead waiting seriously for what would come next.
After a short period of thinking, Aoba quickly came up with a plan, "It's time to reform Konoha's administrative positions too. We can't keep using such a vague position as Hokage secretary. Instead, we should change to department ministers with much clearer divisions of labor. Likewise, the staff under each department minister should be expanded and graded as well."
"In that case, the work gets distributed level by level. Even though the process becomes a bit more troublesome, it really would be a lot easier," Shizune nodded, expressing her agreement.
"Then do we need to convene another jonin meeting and pick out a group of people?"
Aoba shook his head, "We can't only choose from among the ninja. Konoha has quite a few ninja now, but there aren't many who have the ability in this area. It'd be hard to fill all those vacant positions."
"Then how do we choose?", Shizune asked again, "Judging by your expression, you already have an idea, right?"
"Of course it's…"
The corner of Aoba's mouth lifted into a strange arc, "Exams!"
"Exams?"
"That's right, exams."
Aoba nodded seriously, "After the situation in the Land of Grass stabilizes, we'll organize an exam in Konoha and within the territory of the Land of Grass, aimed at all residents, just like the Chunin Exams."
"As long as a resident has no official record of illegal activity, they can participate. Those who pass the first exam will then be interviewed by a professional team. After passing the interview, suitable positions will be assigned based on their overall scores."
"Of course, this is only the preliminary stage. There are definitely many details that can be optimized, and the village's educational system also needs a certain degree of reform. We can't have only the ninja academy as the sole school," Aoba continued to add.
The ninja academy could be considered a military academy. Naturally, there also had to be ordinary schools.
Before the ninja world was even unified, exam-oriented education was already about to begin.
Aoba kept talking about Konoha's future plans, speaking fluently and at length.
Shizune listened with great interest from the side, and there was noticeably more light in her eyes as she looked at him.
And right at this moment, a knock on the door interrupted his explanation.
Aoba didn't feel dissatisfied because of it and directly said, "Come in!"
An ANBU wearing an animal mask walked in. Without any hesitation, he stated his purpose.
"Hokage-sama, the daimyo's envoy has arrived."
"Oh?"
Aoba hadn't expected the daimyo's envoy to come this quickly. It seemed that the Fire Country daimyo really was in a hurry.
"Where are they now?"
"They've just entered Konoha and are heading this way," the ANBU ninja answered truthfully.
"Alright, I understand," Aoba nodded.
The ANBU ninja quickly left the office.
"Shizune-nee, looks like I'll have to trouble you with things here for now," Aoba spread his hands helplessly.
"..."
And Shizune, looking at the mountain of documents piled in front of her, suddenly felt like there was no meaning left in life.
———
On the other side.
On the road from the daimyo's residence to Konoha Village, the daimyo's envoys rushed at full speed, finally arriving at Konoha as fast as possible.
Regarding Konoha's unauthorized launch of a war, the daimyo was extremely angry. The moment he learned of the news, he dispatched envoys to Konoha to demand an explanation, and bestowed upon them a token symbolizing the daimyo's authority.
The purpose was to go and question whether the newly appointed Aoba even wanted to keep his job. If he didn't, he should hurry up and step down so someone else could take over, or else the daimyo's residence would simply send ninja to take over Konoha's affairs directly.
Clearly, the Fire Country daimyo was genuinely furious.
Konoha's actions undoubtedly violated the agreement between him and the other daimyos. When the time came, the other four great nations might very well join forces to pressure him. Even if the Fire Country was powerful, it still wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure of four great nations.
So he was filled with dissatisfaction toward Konoha for stirring up trouble for no reason.
And daimyos often lacked a clear understanding of ninja strength.
With a wave of his hand, the daimyo directly dispatched several former Guardian Ninja as envoys.
'Why say former Guardian Ninja?'
Because these people had once fought a major battle against another faction of Guardian Ninja for the sake of their own ideals.
After losing, they feigned death to escape and remained hidden behind the scenes ever since.
After learning of these people, the Fire Country daimyo not only did not settle accounts with them, he had even secretly supported them all along.
Because the ideal these former Guardian Ninja had insisted on back then was that the Hokage was an unnecessary existence. They believed that real power over the ninja should be held by the Fire Country daimyo, and that the Fire Country should have only one sun, the daimyo.
Hearing such political ideas naturally made the Fire Country daimyo very happy.
It was just that because of these ideas, they had become what was known as the radical faction.
One of them was even the most radical among the radicals, Kazuma.
And it was precisely because Konoha's new Hokage had acted so boldly, completely disregarding the daimyo, that he was thoroughly enraged.
That was why he recalled Kazuma and had him serve as the leader of this mission.
It was all to give this generation's Hokage a good warning.
To make Konoha understand that the Fire Country daimyo did not have only Konoha as an option.
If you don't want to be Hokage anymore, then let Kazuma take the position.
So who exactly were these Guardian Ninja?
First, the one at the front was the leader of the radical faction, Kazuma.
Then there were the beautiful kunoichi Fuka and Fuen, the Earth Release user Fudo, and Kazuma's biological son, temporarily brought along, Sora.
And Sora was far from simple as well.
Although he had previously only been a trainee monk at the Fire Temple, he was the biggest trump card of Kazuma's operation this time.
He even believed that with just the five of them, plus the daimyo's written order, they might be able to directly take over Konoha's rule by force.
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