Yūshin returned to Kikyō Castle with his harvest.
The elemental chakra blade was indeed an excellent weapon, but after Yūshin tried using it several times, he discovered the thing was simply too long.
Ninja are all accustomed to using short weapons. The longer a weapon is, the greater the control difficulty and learning cost. To unleash the proper power of such a long blade requires certain talent and specialized practice.
Considering Yūshin's level, honestly this weapon was somewhat wasted in his hands, because his usage method was predictable... nothing more than wild hacking and slashing.
If that was the fighting style, then obviously that blunt sword was more suitable for Yūshin.
So, although Yūshin quite liked his newly acquired toy, he was just enjoying the novelty. After playing with it for a few days, he thought it over and ultimately decided to hand it over to Shichimi for use.
Then Shichimi passed it to someone she believed had more exquisite swordsmanship and was more suitable to use this weapon—namely Lan.
Lan's surface injuries had mostly healed, and she was currently undergoing recovery training. As for other aftereffects from forcibly breaking the eye seal, those seemed difficult to completely resolve in the short term.
But regardless, she would soon become an important combat force within the organization.
The blunt sword Reed Sword that Yūshin kept, after the Fūma Clan helped fit it with a handle and sheath, immediately looked like an ordinary longsword.
This thing actually didn't need a cutting edge at all. It looked ordinary, but if an enemy got struck by one blow... one sword strike, heh heh, wanting to lose a portion of body tissue cleanly would be impossible—the enemy would definitely experience firsthand a certain sensation called "dislocated tendons and fractured bones."
In any case, after handling these personal matters, Yūshin carefully compiled the organization's current internal situation. For the sake of future development and combat planning, he once again came before the Land of the River Source's daimyo.
Yūshin and the daimyo were responsible for different things, but since Kiyomizu Kiyosuke was a smart person who never interfered with The Fireflies organization's actions and had no habit of micromanaging, in this atmosphere of mutual respect, Yūshin couldn't possibly ignore the daimyo.
People are like this—if you're willing to give me face, I'm willing to give you face.
Moreover, setting aside official matters, on a personal level, Yūshin also greatly appreciated Kiyomizu Kiyosuke's character. They were similar in age, and currently the two could be considered friends.
This daimyo lord was just like before, living quite comfortably, with no pressure and all happiness every day. Seeing him, Yūshin couldn't help but think of that profound saying... if a person has no dreams, what's the difference from being carefree?
Kiyomizu Kiyosuke was squatting in his spacious but flashy office eating fruit. When he saw Yūshin enter, his small hand holding the bamboo skewer suddenly stiffened.
"Yūshin, you're not here about funding again, are you? Enough already—I can barely afford fruit anymore."
During this period, the daimyo's dealings with The Fireflies organization had been about budget disputes. The daimyo's expenditures came one after another—it was impossible for him not to cry poverty.
But things definitely weren't as exaggerated as Kiyomizu Kiyosuke claimed, and Yūshin couldn't be too forceful with him... Such a reasonable daimyo was very hard to encounter.
So overall, the daimyo had given The Fireflies organization tremendous support. His current living situation was comfortable but not luxurious, with a lifestyle quality that was neither high nor low—perfectly appropriate.
"It's not about funding, but Lord Daimyo, if you're interested, we could also discuss this aspect first—like establishing some special war budget to handle certain emergency situations..."
Yūshin looked at the fruit the daimyo was eating—all fresh and common varieties. This was very satisfying, and his form of address for the daimyo wasn't as distant as at the beginning.
But thinking about how he was busy as a dog while the daimyo here was either eating or sleeping, his extortion became quite justified.
"Just kidding. Isn't the Land of the River Source having emergencies and being at war every day now? The regular budget is the special budget—you don't need to play word games here."
Kiyomizu Kiyosuke pointed to a seat nearby, indicating Yūshin should sit.
Yūshin sat down casually, sighing inwardly. There was no helping it—who told Kiyomizu Kiyosuke to be a ruler with normal intelligence?
It could only be said that Yūshin's skill at making up nonsense wasn't deep enough to confuse the daimyo.
"Although small-scale conflicts continue, the Land of the River Source's overall situation is still much more stable than surrounding regions. The local population has been continuously recovering for a year, and the resulting tax increase probably hasn't been proportionally allocated to military budget, right?" Yūshin said with a smile.
Since he couldn't make things up, Yūshin would present facts and reason.
Kiyomizu Kiyosuke immediately stopped talking. Everyone has the habit of hiding private money—daimyo are no exception.
After blocking the other party with one sentence, Yūshin began discussing the real business:
"Speaking of warfare, we want to change the current situation you just mentioned of 'conflicts happening every day.' The Land of the River Source is indeed developing steadily, but limited by geographical conditions, it will soon encounter bottlenecks.
"Surrounding invasions continue, even with an intensifying trend. Our manpower is limited—sooner or later we'll be exhausted from running around. To prevent the terrible situation of 'ants biting an elephant to death,' we should take the initiative and thoroughly eliminate surrounding hostile forces."
Ah? Expansion again?
Kiyomizu Kiyosuke's limbs went limp, looking utterly hopeless. He seemed to be pondering Yūshin's words. After a while, he finally said:
"Wouldn't this be endless? Even if we annexed surrounding forces, after our controlled area expands, wouldn't our external situation become more complex? The external forces we could directly contact would only increase..."
If the Land of the River Source continued expanding, Kiyomizu Kiyosuke didn't even know who he should surrender to in the future.
Even when his own scale grew to a certain extent, who would still accept his surrender? Yūshin, you've really harmed me.
"Thus we would be kidnapped, because sooner or later our strength won't keep up with expansion speed. Could we retreat calmly then? Impossible—we would completely collapse."
Too reasonable, but this era was like this: advancing might lead to death, but not advancing certainly meant death.
Yūshin nodded—he could understand the daimyo's concerns.
"Indeed, your worries are not unreasonable, so I have an idea... Could we find a force that could form a back-to-back relationship with us during expansion? We don't necessarily need to form alliance or quasi-alliance relations—just ensuring mutual restraint and non-aggression would suffice.
"If so, although our controlled range would expand, we'd change from enemies on all sides to enemies on one side. Though wars wouldn't disappear, we'd no longer be exhausted from running around, and the future would become more controllable."
Changing from multi-front warfare to single-front warfare—one side as the battle line, the other as a relatively stable rear. This way the Land of the River Source's war potential would greatly increase, possibly even sustaining war through war indefinitely.
"Good idea."
Kiyomizu Kiyosuke clapped his hands, thinking Yūshin's strategy was excellent.
"Having ideas alone is meaningless. The problem is how to make it reality... Would such forces be willing to cooperate with us?"
Kiyomizu Kiyosuke fell into thought, then suddenly pushed away the dishes on the table before him, wiped the water stains on the table surface with his sleeve, then pulled out a map from under the table and spread it flat.
He stared at the map for a while, then suddenly slapped his forehead and pointed to a certain location on the map: "How about this force?"
Yūshin saw the daimyo's finger seemed to fall in the desert, and asked somewhat hesitantly: "This place is?"
"Kojii Clan."
"Kojii?"
"The Kojii Clan is a very powerful ninja clan—at least much stronger than us now. But their sphere of influence is mainly in the eastern part of the great desert, with enemies deeper in the desert.
"On one hand, their main combat direction is westward; on the other hand, the desert is very barren, so they need the plains east of the desert as a production base... After all, ninja also need to eat, and you can only grow cactus in the desert.
"This plain area, going further east, consists of some fragmented broken forces. If these broken forces go further east..."
Yūshin's gaze followed Kiyomizu Kiyosuke's fingertip movement—the next answer was self-evident.
"Further east is our Land of the River Source."
The so-called plains region was the later Land of Rivers. This Kojii Clan squatted at the desert's edge, fighting ninja clans deeper in the desert while using the fertile "Land of Rivers" as their logistics base... If so, the Land of the River Source indeed had a basis for cooperation with them.
If The Fireflies organization swept away surrounding forces, it would be very beneficial to the Kojii Clan, as it would make their logistics base basically free from harassment.
Such cooperation had certain feasibility because the foundation wasn't based on rationality and intelligence, but on geographical and geographic factors.
The plains region wasn't the Kojii Clan's strategic offensive direction, but was very important to them. With The Fireflies organization's strength, clearing surrounding scattered forces was already the limit—beyond that, they had no power to expand westward, much less threaten the Kojii Clan.
Yūshin rubbed his eyes, as if seeing the "great trends of the world."
Since the warfare began, heroes had risen everywhere. Senju in the east, spanning states and connecting prefectures for a hundred years; Uchiha in the north, possessing hundreds of elite troops that none could overcome—truly not to be contested with.
The Land of the River Source, a frontier land, yet allying with Kojii externally and controlling various enemies internally, with thousands of miles of fertile fields—truly a heaven-bestowed land.
If the world changed, then command a jōnin to lead Fireflies troops toward Taki and Ame, while personally leading elite forces from the River Source—thus, hegemony could be achieved...
Alright, Yūshin was getting a bit carried away.
He suddenly stood up and said to Kiyomizu Kiyosuke: "Then we should first establish contact with the Kojii Clan. By the way, who is their current clan leader?"
"Let me check. Our Reitō Castle previously had quite a few merchant caravans going back and forth with that area—we still have such general information..."
As he spoke, Kiyomizu Kiyosuke pulled out a small notebook from his chest... From this, you could see that although this person looked very laid-back, he actually couldn't lie down at all.
"Oh, seems to be called Kojii Retto."
Yūshin paused—this name seemed somewhat familiar, sounding like someone who could accomplish great things.
"Good, I'll find a way to contact this Kojii Retto... I'll go personally."
It would be best to secure cooperation with the Kojii Clan before clearing surrounding forces, so The Fireflies organization could eliminate worries about their rear.
In a certain sense, this counted as very formal "diplomatic activity," so Yūshin couldn't possibly sneak off to the Kojii Clan alone and perform a startling scene for their clan leader... although that would be safest.
After careful consideration, Yūshin decided to bring a small squad for a formal visit to the Kojii Clan.
He originally planned to bring a Ino-Shika-Chō team, since the "set" not only looked neat but had stacking attributes. However, as the ninja with the longest detection range in the organization, Yamanaka Keiya was best left in Kikyō Castle to monitor surrounding situations.
At this time, someone volunteered...
It was Lan, who had just recovered to healthy condition.
Although her enhancement direction was different from Yamanaka Keiya's, Lan was also a very powerful sensor ninja.
Lan's subjective participation consciousness was very strong. After consulting Shichimi's opinion, Yūshin agreed to Lan's request.
Thus, the diplomatic squad's personnel were determined: led by Yūshin, with remaining members including Lan, Akimichi Mizuki, and Nara Hideyuki.
...
On the same day that the squad bearing important diplomatic missions left Kikyō Castle, a sneaky figure lurked around Kikyō Castle.
Just knowing his name would make clear why this person appeared here—this ninja was called Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear.
Those who mastered the Earth Grudge Fear secret technique were indeed only a very, very small family, but this didn't mean the Ryo whom Yūshin had previously eliminated was completely alone.
Although adult ninja of this family were often scattered throughout the shinobi world, each doing their own odd jobs, Ryo's long-term loss of contact still aroused certain suspicions.
So this Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear followed the activity trail of his former kinsman and came to Kikyō Castle.
His actions were very cautious. After learning about the frequent changes in ninja and political forces in Kikyō Castle over the past year, he realized his missing clan member had probably met with misfortune.
The evidence was that during his journey here, Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear heard rumors of an anonymous "Scarecrow" monster ninja who had once caused havoc in a certain mid-level ninja clan... The "Scarecrow" described in the news was very much like a user of the Earth Grudge Fear secret technique.
So Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear suspected that clan member had not only been killed, but even the secret technique had been leaked.
He had no idea that the Earth Grudge Fear secret technique had not only leaked, but someone was even trying to "monetize" it.
It was just picked-up stuff anyway—trading it felt absolutely painless.
After observing around Kikyō Castle for a day or two, Ryo of the Earth Grudge Fear decided to enter the city.
It could only be said that hesitation leads to defeat.
Wandering around the city outskirts made him look suspicious.
Yūshin leaving Yamanaka Keiya in Kikyō Castle was an absolutely correct decision no matter how you looked at it.
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