"Naruto: My Ninja Skills"Chapter 177: Settling the World's Affairs (Part 2)
What did "no face" mean? Lord Shimizu didn't care about that at all, because he'd always been an exceptionally clear-headed person... Once he became daimyo of the Land of Fire, how could he possibly lack face?
Success was success, regardless of the process or methods involved.
However, at this moment Lord Shimizu wasn't dwelling on this point, because he'd already realized why Yūshin was speaking this way.
"Has the plan changed?"
"Not exactly—it's just that the plan I described to you earlier wasn't comprehensive. In reality, it was missing the final step."
Yūshin was quite honest. At this stage, he wasn't afraid of Lord Shimizu backing out—otherwise the sunk costs would be too high. Moreover, he hadn't deceived him by claiming the plan changed due to circumstances... The daimyo was a very rational person who could figure these things out himself.
Shimizu Kiyosuke shook his head, a bitter smile crossing his face:
"I knew it couldn't be that simple... Which part was the plan missing?"
"A part that's genuinely necessary, but you needn't worry—it won't affect the overall situation... Well, it's the part where you need to 'risk your life.'"
Shimizu Kiyosuke: "..."
"What do you mean? I need to risk my life, but I shouldn't worry?"
Where exactly was the logic in that statement?
"Let me put it this way—one sentence will help you understand why you need to engage in battle: persuading the Senju Clan is difficult, but 'persuading' the Enshi family is easy."
"Mm, you mean that when it matters, I need to rely on myself?"
"Correct."
Yūshin then explained his "daimyo battle plan."
Shimizu Kiyosuke indeed didn't fly into a rage. After brief consideration, he said:
"Generally speaking, daimyo possess neither courage nor command ability. If battles don't involve ninja participation, then under normal circumstances, whichever side has more participants will achieve victory."
"But you've also limited the battlefield scale—both sides combined would be at most a thousand-man engagement..."
"So, do you have some weapon that can guarantee victory? After all, the combat rules require that even Explosive Tags cannot be used."
You had to say Shimizu Kiyosuke's mind was quite sharp.
Yūshin smiled:
"Of course there is."
Speaking thus, he produced a storage scroll.
In this world, when two ordinary inventions combine, they sometimes produce surprising effects where one plus one exceeds two.
Like airplanes and ships.
Or Apple and pen.
Thus some materially impoverished but intellectually creative desert comrades one day suddenly discovered a magical natural phenomenon.
The outer diameter of a certain specification gas canister could fit perfectly inside the inner diameter of a certain cast iron sewer pipe—the two matched with seamless precision.
And so a magical weapon was developed... the gas canister mortar.
Never mind accuracy and range—just look at the explosive payload of a gas canister. How could it not be fierce?
Without considering propellant and warhead explosive quality, this thing had even lower technical requirements than matchlock firearms.
Lord Shimizu stared at this contraption with complete bewilderment.
An iron pipe—quite thick, admittedly.
An iron canister with a thin iron tube welded to its rear, the tube's tail sporting four crude fins.
Honestly, as a standard native, Lord Shimizu truly lacked experience, but instinctively he knew this wasn't some epoch-making weapon... It was far too crude.
The thin iron tube contained propellant—actually just black powder, meaning this thing was equivalent to a skyrocket.
The canister's internal explosive had a different formula, containing at least white sugar.
The explosive fuse atop the canister was actually just a friction igniter, equivalent to a match...
The four tail fins lacked fluid dynamics design and could only ensure the warhead flew forward.
Honestly, this thing's technical content was far below foreign comrades' standards—at least their explosives used chemical fertilizer, and their warheads contained detonators.
But for ordinary people, this thing was already sufficiently powerful... Was there a difference between being blown fifty meters versus twenty meters, between being blasted into mincemeat versus three to five pieces?
Shimizu Kiyosuke looked at Yūshin with an expression that seemed to say "Are you perhaps mocking me?"
"Fire a few rounds—fire a few rounds and you'll understand."
Yūshin didn't explain. He directly pulled the daimyo away from the keep, found a secluded location, and after playing for an hour...
Let's put it this way: when Shimizu Kiyosuke returned, his face was positively glowing.
Truth be told, given suitable conditions, many people enjoy handling explosives—even just setting off firecrackers brings great joy.
Indeed the plan had changed. Lord Shimizu was now full of ambition, prepared for armed seizure of power.
"Now the problem is ensuring the Enshi side has no ninja participation..."
The daimyo's concerns had shifted direction.
"The security inspections will be very strict. The Hyūga, Uzumaki, Aburame, and Inuzuka—these four ninja clans will serve as referees to ensure the Enshi family doesn't use chakra. Once they detect such intentions, the Enshi family definitely cannot become Land of Fire daimyo."
Yūshin provided reassurance. Regarding matters between daimyo, ninja would definitely choose to remain uninvolved—no one would stake their clan's reputation on this.
"So you're saying I'm guaranteed victory?"
"That's not quite right either. Once you're on the battlefield, danger exists only theoretically for you, but this doesn't mean the Enshi family can't harm you."
"Of course, rather than worrying about the Enshi family, you'd be better off worrying about improper operation causing you to blow yourself up."
The safety of Yūshin's contraptions was beyond hope.
"'Settling the sovereign's worldly affairs'—either you settle your opponent and become Land of Fire daimyo, or you settle yourself and help your opponent become Land of Fire daimyo... Regardless, you'll establish great merit for the Land of Fire's unification."
Under Yūshin's words, the confidence Lord Shimizu had just gained was instantly extinguished by half.
"Sigh, if I'd known earlier, I shouldn't have abandoned the surrender plan."
"Actually, there's still a guaranteed victory strategy..."
"How so?"
"Duel the opposing daimyo one-on-one. You're a robust young man in your twenties; he's an old codger in his fifties. You'd absolutely crush him... Even in a pissing-into-the-wind contest, you'd win. Unfortunately, he might not agree to single combat."
"...Why do I feel like you're quite pleased about me going to battle and fighting desperately?"
"Illusion—just an illusion."
...
Yūshin's strategy was excellent, and the prepared weapons were good too, but the problem was Lord Enshi was cowardly beyond measure.
He completely lacked the courage to take the battlefield.
But Yūshin wasn't afraid of delays either. After all, once ninja learned Lord Enshi was too cowardly to even enter battle, they held him in considerable contempt.
Such a person becoming Land of Fire daimyo? Hah—the vast majority wouldn't be satisfied.
You could say the Enshi family had lost all popular support.
Tobirama Senju couldn't persuade him, but he never had Hashirama step forward... Tobirama loved his big brother and couldn't bear to see him humiliated before a worthless daimyo.
With one side refusing to engage, this matter temporarily stalled.
But soon the situation welcomed a turning point. While Lord Shimizu certainly didn't lack courage, the Land of the River Source's civilians were hopeless—even after the daimyo exhausted his family fortune, he only recruited a 200-man force, barely reaching the qualifying threshold for combat.
Tobirama Senju felt something was amiss about this. In chaotic times, human life was worth less than dog life—if Lord Shimizu was willing to pay, how could he fail to recruit 500 men? This little trick of showing weakness was somewhat insulting to his intelligence.
However, Lord Shimizu's side didn't care about Tobirama's intelligence at all—they only needed to care about Lord Enshi's intelligence.
Upon hearing this news and confirming that Lord Shimizu could only bring 200 men to battle, Lord Enshi completely abandoned his previous cowardly demeanor and even became aggressive... Lord Enshi decided to participate in battle.
In fact, if he wanted to become Land of Fire daimyo, this was his only path.
So he'd take it—with two-and-a-half times the military strength, how could he lose?
This only showed that wars in this world were basically fought by ninja. This Lord Enshi, and actually Lord Shimizu as well, both lacked necessary understanding of warfare.
But Lord Shimizu didn't care—he only needed to "fire cannons and blast the hell out of them." High technology versus cold weapons—what was there to fear?
Once both sides confirmed their "battle intentions," the remaining matters were easily handled. With ninja assistance, they quickly arranged the battle's time and location... The ninja were all too happy to provide such assistance—they'd do this work even if they had to pay out of pocket.
That day, numerous ninja gathered outside the "battlefield"—they wanted to observe this "unprecedented battle."
Yūshin was naturally present as well. Among the spectating ninja, he even spotted quite a few dejected-looking Uchiha ninja, demonstrating this battle's attraction for ninja... Basically any ninja without missions had come here.
Theoretically, the impending battle was very serious.
But in reality, it was extremely unserious.
If not for wanting to avoid being too conspicuous, Yūshin would have wanted to sell tickets on the spot, along with peanuts, sunflower seeds, and eight-treasure porridge.
Around nine o'clock in the morning, both sides began forming battle lines one kilometer apart.
On Lord Enshi's side, despite having only 500 men, the ratio of archers, spearmen, and sword-and-shield troops was very balanced—clearly the result of expert guidance.
However, expert guidance was useless since the expert couldn't personally take the field.
After Yūshin saw their military formation, he immediately relaxed... Excellent—the enemy had no catapults.
Compared to this side, Lord Shimizu's formation appeared much thinner, but he favored a retro style. The army's core consisted of twelve large war chariots, but ridiculously, the chariots lacked motive power and could only be pushed by human strength.
Neither side had cavalry, because cavalry was a high-tech military branch impossible to train in a short time... As for normal times, hah, ninja were ten thousand times more useful than livestock.
Of course, Lord Shimizu's use of chariots without even draft horses might have been due to concerns about startling the animals.
The "war" was presided over by Tobirama Senju—Hashirama still hadn't appeared... Touching, truly an absolutely wonderful little brother.
After both sides made their appearances, they began ceremonial music and fanfare.
After the fanfare concluded, the two daimyo each delivered completely nutritionless speeches before their formations.
Logically, these preliminaries should have been boring, yet surprisingly, the ninja watched with great interest... Yūshin quickly understood the ninja's mentality—they were watching cricket fights.
Too bad they couldn't open betting pools.
Next, ninja from the four clans stepped forward, meticulously inspecting both sides' lineups, then quickly pulled out over a dozen people from the Enshi forces... Truly dishonest.
After confirming everything was correct, Tobirama declared the battle begun.
The ninja immediately cheered, then were instantly astonished... The Enshi army, despite possessing absolute numerical superiority, actually remained stationary in defense, making the numerically inferior Shimizu army come attack them.
Absolutely rotten—many ninja began cursing.
So what about Lord Shimizu? Lord Shimizu didn't disappoint everyone. He ordered his own "grand army" to begin the assault.
Human-pushed carts, neither fast nor slow.
But the foremost chariot suddenly fell into a pit trap.
Cheating—definitely cheating.
Someone suggested that intelligence about the battlefield location had been leaked to the Enshi family.
Certainly reconnaissance ninja had discovered the traps beforehand, but they wouldn't report to either side... Yūshin also felt indifferent—the more underhanded methods used, the uglier it appeared.
Lord Shimizu had no choice but to advance while probing the way.
If this battle had anything praiseworthy, it was that soldiers on both sides were 100% armored.
Gradually, Lord Shimizu's army closed to within 80 meters of the Enshi forces. The Enshi archers began drawing their bows... This was already within optimal archery range.
With a volley of arrows, screams rang out from the Shimizu army.
Fortunately, most people's armor played its role, and the few unlucky ones hit by arrows suffered only superficial wounds.
Something that surprised the ninja happened again. Facing wave after wave of arrow volleys, the Shimizu army actually stopped... Were they just standing there getting rained on? This wasn't how you demonstrated courage.
But the next moment, the chariots shed their camouflage, each cart revealing two black, gaping tubes... With eleven chariots remaining, the single-salvo projection capacity was 11×2.
Under the ninja's puzzled gazes, the Shimizu forces, braving the arrow storm, stuffed tailed iron canisters into the tubes.
These "mortars" were almost all firing at close range horizontally, so when loading shells into the barrels, soldiers were essentially slamming them downward—otherwise the firing pins below might not activate.
Bang, bang, bang...
After muffled sounds, came muffled whistling as iron canisters flew toward the Enshi army.
In fact, these weapons' strike effectiveness was quite poor—the Fūma Clan weapons manufacturers should have been sent to military tribunal.
Because some "gas canisters" exploded before leaving the barrel.
Some exploded before hitting the ground.
Some didn't explode at all.
But none of this mattered—a mere 80 meters was particularly suitable for direct engagement.
Eventually, one "gas canister" landed directly in front of Lord Enshi, and then...
Boom!
Do you know what kind of psychological trauma a fifty-something-year-old experiences from taking such a massive blast?
At minimum, it's medium-rare damage.
Actually, this single round of strikes was already sufficient—Lord Shimizu had definitely won.
However, he ultimately had never personally fought wars, lacked experience, and was particularly ruthless to himself at crucial moments.
He'd clearly witnessed barrel explosions and knew Yūshin spoke truth—these weapons could easily cause self-injury...
Yet he still ordered a second round of loading.
Then a third round.
Each cannon had three spare rounds, and he fired them all—if there had been more, he'd have continued firing.
The ninja were all stunned—wasn't blowing enemies half-cooked enough? Did they have to be fully cooked?
All you could say was...
Truly worthy of a daimyo who could get along with Lord Yūshin.
He understood the art of finishing blows.
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