"The war is already over. Do we really need to push our conflict with the Sand Village to such an extreme?"
At this moment, a measured voice spoke up.
It was Namikaze Minato.
Seeing the atmosphere growing heavy, he finally expressed his own view. He was now the Fourth Hokage. His thinking would play a decisive role in shaping Konoha's strategy and development going forward. He had been elevated to the Hokage position with Hiruzen's full support, and Hiruzen had been deliberate about nurturing him and delegating authority to him.
"What I mean is that peace has arrived. Even if we do not know when the next war will break out, at minimum we do not need to be creating conflicts with the Sand Village right now." Minato noticed every eye in the room settling on him and scratched the back of his head slightly.
"Our village's current condition cannot sustain another round of war."
"Every other village is in the process of post-war recovery. We need to direct our energy toward the same thing so we can close the gap."
"That way we will be prepared for whatever unexpected developments might arise."
"Because of the counterfeit medicines, the village's current financial situation is relatively stable. We do not need to be overly concerned."
But before Minato could finish speaking, Danzo's voice cut through with cold and sullen weight.
"Not unworthy of being the Fourth, I suppose. Your ideology is genuinely identical to the Third's."
"Do you think the Sand Village, and specifically the Fourth Kazekage, is a pacifist like you? Developing at the same rate, the Sand Village with the Land of Rain's resources flowing into it will grow at a pace Konoha simply cannot match in the short term."
"Furthermore, based on my intelligence, the Sand Village's population birth rate currently far exceeds every other major hidden village. If this continues for another few years, the Sand Village will comprehensively surpass us across every dimension. When that day comes and war breaks out, we will find it even harder to stand against them."
"Right now, even if the Land of Wind's Daimyo has convinced the surrounding nations to stay quiet, the Sand Village's military expansion is an undeniable fact. But they do not dare push further because any continued expansion would confirm every suspicion about their ambitions in the outside world's eyes and would finally force the other villages into a united front against them."
"At that point it would not be a question of whether the Hidden Stone Village, the Hidden Cloud Village, and the Hidden Mist Village wanted to ally with us. It would be that if they did not, all of them would find themselves in the Sand Village's sights one by one."
"Not taking advantage of this window, when the Sand Village does not dare provoke trouble openly, to suppress them as much as possible, and instead simply letting them develop in peace."
Danzo paused.
"I will say it plainly. In my eyes, you were not the best candidate to become Hokage."
The moment those words left his mouth, everyone in the room changed their expression.
"Danzo. Watch your words," Hiruzen said, his eyes narrowing.
"I am simply expressing my position. He is the Fourth Hokage now. He has no need to take my words to heart."
"There is nothing more to discuss. I can see the Fourth's attitude clearly enough. There is no point continuing this conversation."
With that, Danzo stood up directly and turned to leave.
His words today had naturally been delivered with the awareness that the facts had already validated the accuracy of his judgment and foresight. The Sand Village posed a genuine and serious threat to Konoha.
"It is all right. Everyone simply has different perspectives. He is worried about the village. I understand that," Minato said with an easy smile, watching Danzo leave without any apparent irritation.
"Minato. What do you intend to do?" Jiraiya, who had a fairly thorough understanding of this particular student of his, walked over and asked directly.
"I am planning to pursue diplomatic outreach between Konoha and the Sand Village, to ease the tension between the two villages." Minato's expression shifted as he spoke.
Everyone present could hear that Minato did not genuinely want to befriend the Sand Village. He had other intentions in mind.
"First, establishing contact and building goodwill with the Sand Village can guarantee that at minimum the village will have sufficient time to develop and recover over the coming period."
"Second, understanding the opponent more thoroughly. To be honest, although the Sand Village was Konoha's primary opponent in this war, and I have personally engaged their Kazekage several times in battle, I still cannot say I have a complete picture of him. And the Sand Village's own development-related policies and systems are worth Konoha studying seriously."
"I have reviewed the various regulations and structural changes the Sand Village has implemented since the Fourth Kazekage's rise, particularly in the medical field. I think they are genuinely worth referencing."
"Only by fully grasping comprehensive information about the Sand Village from every angle will we have genuine confidence in dealing with them if the day comes when we find ourselves in opposition."
"Third, establishing a certain degree of diplomatic relations would elevate the competitive dynamic between the two villages in ways that are also beneficial for our ninja and future generations."
"The difficulty is enormous. The Sand Village may not have any desire to improve relations with us. This war alone has pushed the relationship between our two villages to an extreme low point. And the matters involving the Uchiha clan and the Hyuga clan, combined with the current instability within the Uchiha clan, if that information were to be released by the Sand Village..."
Koharu interjected immediately.
"Which is why it needs to be handled gradually and carefully," Minato explained.
"This thinking of yours is dangerous. Done well, it could genuinely function as a viable strategy. But if it goes wrong, it carries enormous risk for the village." Tsunade cut sharply to the heart of the problem.
"Increasing exchange between the two villages would not only allow us to understand the Sand Village better. It would equally allow the Sand Village to become more familiar with us. Intelligence flows in both directions. We would not necessarily come out ahead."
"Feign weakness to buy time," Jiraiya murmured to himself, stroking his chin.
"Let us try it first and see how it develops. If it genuinely does not work, we can think of other approaches. In any case, although I do not believe the Fourth Kazekage is a peacefully-minded ruler, our options in the current situation are genuinely limited. Compared to maintaining an openly adversarial relationship, I still think attempting to ease tensions is the better path."
"Of course, once any diplomatic relationship is established, we must maintain heightened vigilance across every dimension simultaneously, while quietly laying out targeted plans and operations in the background."
Minato finished speaking.
Everyone began turning the feasibility of this approach over in their minds.
Knock knock.
But at this moment, a knock at the door interrupted the room's train of thought.
"Come in," Hiruzen called.
An Anbu operative pushed the door open, looked at the assembled figures inside, and delivered the report.
"Intelligence from the ninja we infiltrated into the Land of Wind's diplomatic envoy visits to the surrounding smaller nations. Our operative discovered that with the assistance of Land of Wind labor and related personnel, large-scale construction is underway throughout the country's interior. Factories are being built."
"Factories?"
"Correct. Pharmaceutical factories," the masked Anbu operative confirmed.
Tsunade narrowed her eyes upon hearing this.
The realization hit her almost immediately.
"So that is it. The Sand Village has been reaching cooperation agreements with other forces, providing complete pharmaceutical production chains to everyone as a way of undermining our counterfeit medicine's competitive position. Once these nations have self-sufficient production capacity, the market will no longer need to rely on our resources at all."
Tsunade drew a sharp breath.
This was genuinely a case of killing one thousand enemies while accepting eight hundred losses to yourself.
"Find out immediately. How many nations have already reached cooperation agreements with the Sand Village? How many pharmaceutical factories are being built across these countries? Go quickly."
Tsunade waved her hand urgently and directed the Anbu operative.
"Understood."
The Anbu member acknowledged the order and moved immediately.
"This is not only about striking at our industry. By seeding pharmaceutical factories throughout the ninja world, the Sand Village has effectively created a distributed network of vested interests across multiple nations. Most critically, they moved first. If we now go to these same nations to discuss cooperation, we no longer hold any advantage. Any forced deal we try to make would simply be trading at a loss."
"Furthermore, these nations have already had a portion of their available capital taken by the Sand Village. When we approach them afterward, whatever price any remaining willing party could offer would likely be significantly lower."
Shikaku's mind raced through the implications and his expression shifted visibly.
The part that struck everyone hardest was that they had not anticipated the Sand Village would hand over what had been its core asset until this point, doing so with such decisive completeness in the name of competition.
Simply extraordinary decisiveness.
"It is probably already too late to catch up," Shikaku said.
"And this is also a trap," he added, looking between the Third and the Fourth Hokage.
"What do you mean?" Hiruzen asked.
"The other side has seized the initiative and the situation is already set. Going forward, the Sand Village is betting on whether we in Konoha dare to destroy the pharmaceutical factories built in other nations. If we do, we protect our own interests to some degree, but in practical terms we would also be absorbing losses on behalf of the Sand Village."
"If we do nothing, the Sand Village has already collected a sum of money beyond imagining and we in Konoha can only watch as pharmaceutical resource value collapses across the market and this entire industry chain's worth is ground down without limit. If we act, Konoha becomes the villain. Our reputation with other nations drops sharply. It destroys our relationships with those countries. And it paradoxically helps the Sand Village consolidate its market position."
"In theory, whether we act or do nothing, we lose."
"This is a dead end with no winning move."
Shikaku's words dropped into the room and left it in complete silence.
...
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