When the news of the Land of Grass securing an absolute victory against Konoha swept back into the country, the imdiate reaction of the nobility and the wealthy rchants wasn't bursts of wild joy. It was terror—a deep, visceral dread that left their entire bodies trembling.
They understood the hidden depths of Konoha far too well!
When had Konoha ever deployed an army against a minor nation only to suffer such catastrophic losses? Word on the street was that only three individuals managed to crawl back alive, leaving an army of a thousand slaughtered on the field—and even the Head of the prestigious Hyuga clan had perished there.
Looking back at their own Land of Grass, though they had successfully held the line during the first wave, it was an incredibly pyrrhic victory. Their shinobi forces had suffered devastating casualties, leaving their total active deploynt at under two hundred n.
How could a shattered vanguard like that ever hope to withstand the Hokage's inevitable second, furious onslaught?
Therefore, this victory felt less like a triumph and more like a fleeting nightmare. And behind the veil of a nightmare, an even more brutal reality usually awaited.
Retaliation, national annihilation, absolute liquidation... all sorts of grim scenarios flashed through their minds, relentlessly eroding what little remained of their composure.
Consequently, on the very night the intelligence arrived, countless grand manors blazed with lamplight as servants scrambled in panic. Gold, silver, and fine silks were hastily packed into bundles, and chest after chest of hidden treasures was hauled out of underground vaults and loaded onto carriages.
The imdiate thought dominating the minds of these nobles and wealthy rchants was to flee the Land of Grass and seek asylum within the Land of Fire.
After all, that prosperous and stable territory was a beacon of safety many yearned for, and even the Daimyo of various minor nations viewed it as an absolute lighthouse of civilization.
However, the immigration ban issued by the Land of Fire's Daimyo traveled even faster: any foreign entrant looking to cross the border had to surrender thirty percent of their entire net worth.
One had to realize that those choosing to move their entire households to the Land of Fire at a ti like this were, without exception, the core nobility of the Land of Grass.
Otherwise, who would willingly abandon their lifestyle as local absolute rulers to migrate to the Land of Fire? The Land of Fire lacked many things, but it certainly did not lack entrenched nobility or filthy rich rchants. The wealth, minor lineages, and social status of these Grass nobles would amount to absolutely nothing there.
Previously, even if their local living conditions were slightly subpar, everyone in the region coddled and flattered them. This psychological satisfaction and emotional validation were sothing that raw wealth or luxurious living conditions could never truly replicate.
Yet, once they arrived in the Land of Fire, they would have to swallow their pride and beco the ones bowing and scraping to others. But for the sake of sheer survival, they felt they had no choice.
A few slamd their teeth together, preparing to accept this exorbitant price to buy their lives.
Coincidentally, on that very sa night, ninjas from Takigakure knocked politely on their doors.
They were impeccably well-mannered—they hadn't co to plunder, nor had they co to threaten. They were simply dropping by to pitch their services.
Standing at the doorways wearing their Takigakure headbands, the ninjas inquired in asured, peaceful tones: "Do you require escort services? The Land of Waterfall and the Land of Grass are now formal allies, and our forces guarantee your absolute safe transit."
They presented official docunts, patiently explaining the terms: the Daimyo of both nations had officially ratified a cooperative treaty.
Any citizen of the Land of Grass migrating to the Land of Waterfall would only be subjected to a re ten percent asset tax.
Those holding noble titles would be granted equivalent plots of land, while those without titles but possessing imnse capital could directly invest their wealth to secure peerages.
As for exactly when the Daimyo had agreed to this?
When the two sovereigns had t, or when this specific treaty had been signed, was completely irrelevant. The authenticity of the docunt didn't matter anymore.
To these highly perceptive, wealthy individuals, the rapid rise of the Land of Waterfall in recent years was no secret—its economy was booming, its public safety was rock-solid, and its hidden village was exceptionally powerful.
More importantly, it offered viable avenues for social mobility, and its upper echelons weren't choked by an overabundance of entrenched, wealthy nobles looking to suppress newcors.
Aside from the current local infrastructure being a bit less developed, it was practically a paradise compared to the Land of Fire. And when compared to the Land of Grass, it felt very similar, if not noticeably better.
As the proverb went, better to be the beak of a rooster than the tail of a phoenix. Instantly, many decided to pivot on the spot. Since they were forced to leave anyway, it made far more sense to head to the Land of Waterfall—especially when it ant keeping an extra twenty percent of their wealth.
Of course, not every wealthy rchant or noble chose to alter their trajectory. Among them remained a small handful of stubborn traditionalists who viewed the Land of Fire as their absolute, unshakeable dogma.
They firmly believed the Land of Fire was the ultimate lighthouse, the undisputed strongest nation in the shinobi world, and an indelible faith in their hearts.
Even if they had to bleed their fortunes dry, even if they had to crawl on their hands and knees, they would drag themselves to the Land of Fire.
While stating it that way carried a hint of hyperlogic, a small faction of extre loyalists transford it into reality.
Thus, the first wave of migration carriages set out before dawn. Kakuzu stood at the edge of the border bridge, personally logging and collecting the transit fees, the smirk on his face never fading for a second.
He knew exactly what those carriages contained—not just jewelry and currency, but the accumulated comrcial lifeblood of the Land of Grass built over decades.
Naturally, he didn't lose sight of the grand design. Securing the nobility was rely the introductory phase.
Once the wealthy elite had completely evacuated, the local administrative order would disintegrate by tomorrow, marking the perfect window for the Land of Waterfall's factories to initiate their mass recruitnt drive.
Occasionally, Kakuzu found himself wondering: was Abura Shisui's ultimate goal in orchestrating this entire campaign truly just a simple thirst for vengeance against Konoha, or a tactical move to divert the incoming threat eastward?
From where he stood, the deeper implication seed to be using this war to completely shatter the local stability of the Land of Grass, transforming it into an incredibly hostile wasteland.
By doing so, he could systematically drain a sovereign nation of its entire human and material capital to reinforce the foundations of the Land of Waterfall.
One could only conclude that, short of explicitly claiming the physical territory, this strategy was practically indistinguishable from an absolute annexation of the Land of Grass.
Three days later, the departure of the nobility and wealthy rchants felt as though the main supporting pillars of a grand roof had been abruptly yanked away.
The urban centers were the first to collapse into disarray. The marketplaces fell dead silent, shops closed their shutters, and grain prices spiked three tis in a single day.
While the remote, isolated farmlands could still manage a baseline self-sufficiency, the common folk living along the fringes of the major cities were gripped by absolute panic.
Though they possessed currency in their hands, they found themselves completely unable to purchase food because the nobility had already swept up and evacuated the regional grain reserves beforehand.
Even the commoners who possessed private grain stores at ho felt a deep, lingering dread. They feared their lifelong friends and neighbors might turn on them to rob their stores, and they feared even more the day Konoha's main army arrived for a brutal punitive raid.
They worried whether the Grass Village shinobi would begin launching forced requisitions, plundering what little food they had left just to feed the remaining military.
Within a re handful of days, chaotic elents began to rapidly manifest. Incidents of open assault and robbery on the public streets surfaced, and many young won were dragged away in broad daylight.
Fortunately, the Head of the Grass Village, Negishi Kusanagi, already possessed a contingency protocol ready to deploy—one that had, in absolute reality, been ticulously mapped out by Shisui from behind the scenes.
Way back when the rchants and nobles were first preparing their departures, the military leadership had issued a mobilization directive under the explicit authority of the Daimyo, targeting the villages and townships situated along the vulnerable borders first.
The directive strongly advised them to migrate to the Land of Waterfall as quickly as possible, or at the very least, gather their households and move toward the reinforced urban centers.
To ensure compliance, they even circulated reports that the outlying borders had beco profoundly unsafe. Of course, this wasn't re propaganda; it was an absolute tactical fact.
Though the Land of Grass had secured the opening battle, there were still plenty of predatory forces eyeing this vulnerable territory. Furthermore, in Shisui's grand design, there was never any intention of preserving this physical land to begin with.
Unfortunately, when the mobilization orders dropped, very few among the common folk were willing to listen. Those who flatly refused to abandon their ancestral lands could be found everywhere, particularly among the elderly.
Their mindsets were deeply conservative; they believed that the mont they severed their ties to their physical fields, they would beco rootless weeds, or worse, risk being reduced to actual slaves.
Shisui chose not to employ brute force. He had long understood that a person's fundantal core beliefs were the hardest thing to alter through coercion, so he adjusted his strategy to an entirely different vector—a thod that systematically bought out their ti and leased their labor through raw economic incentive.
As the old proverb went, the world hustles and bustles entirely for the sake of profit.
The common people simply hadn't been shown a definitive vision of the future yet.
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