There was a lot of things discussed at the meeting, including Iwagakure's possible involvement once Kumogakure went on the offensive, even though intelligence so far reported silence from the longtime rival, but here Suna would be a great counterbalance.
The last great village had been written off - the emerging civil war in Kirigakure, though not yet in a hot phase, would occupy them for at least a couple of years, and the survivors would not have much time for big fights, they would have to hold their territory.
In spite of the fact that they started in the morning, the meeting dragged on into the night, interrupted only by a few breaks to eat and freshen up, and to my surprise, Daimyo held himself with dignity and even sometimes offered quite useful things, showing an excellent knowledge of the situation in the country, although in military matters he preferred to rely on one of his retinue, who turned out to be not just a court official, but the deputy commander of the army of Ho no Kuni and a very competent man, who had been in that position since the Second World War.
Previously, without touching the issues raised, I naively believed that military operations were conducted solely by the forces of the great villages, not affecting especially ordinary people and the result was already a redistribution of territories and resources, but only the discussion of the actions of samurai in the service of the Daimyo Ho no Kuni and the involvement of troops to ensure the security of territories, directly conflicted with these beliefs.
But everything turned out to be far from that simple and only remoteness from the top of the chain of command in the last war, did not allow me to see the whole picture of the fighting.
Naturally, not only strategic military tasks were involved, but Sakumo also did not forget about diplomatic relations with small countries that were allies of Konoha and immediately appointed ambassadors to negotiate and make sure that they were ready to support our forces, setting a framework of requirements that Konoha agreed to meet.
Predominantly, these tasks were entrusted to S-ranked fighters of appropriate reputation, supported by a couple of jonins.
I was given the task of visiting the Sand, given recent events with the Kazekage's very positive personal attitude and the just recently completed artifactual fresh water storages, filled almost completely, which will serve as a very good incentive to be friends with us - the necessary regular maintenance of them can only be carried out by the creator or an experienced Uzumaki.
Yes, and the missions that Konoha is forced to abandon will be very useful in Suna, allowing us to fulfill the alliance agreement and not lose most of our regular customers, whose geographical location has become a big disadvantage in the current situation.
Hatake hadn't forgotten about the Rain Country, assigning the ambassadorial functions to a trio of Sannin.
Such an impressive team was necessary not so much for the sake of their fame and impression on Salamandra, as for the safety of the ambassadors themselves - the intelligence did not miss the appearance of another shinobi capable of fighting at the level of Hanzo, leading a fairly strong organization that joined Amegakura and effectively doubled the available forces, promptly putting the report on the Hokage's desk in a few days, and then the heads of clans were aware of it, relying on their own sources of information.
I've got more interesting stuff on patreon (+ 200 chapter)
patreon.com/Chill76