Naruto: Yes, Uchiha-sama.

Chapter 168 The conflict between Iwagakure and Kirigakure threatens to plunge the ninja world into chaos. Uchiha Makoto prepares to fan the flames and start the fight!
The next morning.

Uchiha Makoto officially embarked on his journey home.

The leaders of Konoha were summoned again to hold a grand farewell ceremony for Makoto Uchiha and his group.

Makoto Uchiha spotted Tobirama Senju in the crowd at a glance. Last night, he went to Hashirama Senju's house for his last meal before parting ways. Tobirama Senju didn't appear in front of Makoto Uchiha all night. His dinner was delivered to Tobirama Senju's laboratory by Mito Uzumaki.

Uchiha Makoto, of course, knew that Senju Tobirama was deliberately avoiding him, which was truly petty. All he had done was cause Tobirama a lot of trouble.

"Tobirama, I thought you weren't coming."

"Hmph, now that you're leaving Konoha, I'll give you a proper send-off with drums and gongs. Don't ever come back again!"

"Ha, how could that be? My son's wife is still in Konoha, and she's due to be born this year!"

"Don't force me to fight you in front of so many people!"

Uchiha Makoto greeted Senju Tobirama with a smile.

The same applies to Tobirama Senju.

Then the two of them huddled together and whispered to each other.

Outsiders who don't know the inside story might actually think that the two of them are incredibly close, but in reality—if either of them suddenly dies, the other will definitely laugh wildly while carefully examining the other's corpse to prevent any risk of resurrection.

as usual.

Makoto Uchiha provoked Tobirama Senju with just a few words.

Tobirama Senju harbored deep resentment.
That night, I was clearly at home. Why did I back down when facing Madara Uchiha? Even if the atmosphere was strange, Madara Uchiha should have been the one to leave!

My momentary mistake allowed that naturally evil Uchiha brat, Makoto Uchiha, to take advantage of the situation. My brother's granddaughter absolutely cannot marry Makoto Uchiha's son! Absolutely not!
The brief exchange between the two ended quickly, with Uchiha Makoto subtly giving Senju Tobirama the middle finger as a farewell.

He then formally bid farewell to Hashirama Senju, Madara Uchiha, and the high-ranking officials of Konoha Village.

Regarding Makoto Uchiha's departure.

There was joy, regret, and numbness.
At this point, Uchiha Makoto returned to his loyal Akatsuki village with his subordinates!
As the New Year holidays end, a brand new year begins.

As soon as his vacation ended, Makoto Uchiha returned to his office of light and shadow.

However, due to the limitations of the ninja profession.

The ninjas in Akatsuki Village have always found it difficult to look away from the ninja world and consider the bigger picture. They are a bunch of mindless, man-eating machines.

Akatsuki Village is involved in many industries, so many things can only be done by Makoto Uchiha himself.

However, Uchiha Makoto wasn't actually a professional; he just knew how to copy others' homework. When faced with extremely professional problems, he would only seek help from real professionals—a layman could lead an expert, but should never interfere with the specific micro-management; he didn't want to be like Chiang Kai-shek.

In short, Akatsuki Village was thriving, and while the Realm of All Things pleased Uchiha Makoto, it also plunged him into an incredibly busy workload.

Exhausted, Makoto Uchiha sighed as he entered the Akatsuki village's meeting room.

Xiaoren Village Meeting Room.

The conference room was filled with people, including ninjas and ordinary people. Ninjas were a minority, while the majority of ordinary people were experts carefully recruited by Uchiha Makoto from various industries.

Makoto Uchiha's ambition was definitely not simply to establish a ninja village composed of ninjas; what he wanted was the ultimate form of an organization—to establish a nation!
The assembled experts submitted a well-prepared plan, which covered a wide range of areas, including agriculture, industry, education, science and technology, transportation, the judiciary, and public security. Of course, this was only a summary; the actual content was not revealed at all.

Makoto Uchiha only needs to know the general outline; he doesn't have that much time to read the whole book.

The traditional ninja clan representatives were even more perplexed. Life had indeed been difficult in the past, but if they had to deal with these things every day, they'd rather go and kill people. They all complained that the summary was far too long.
They instinctively felt that writing so many words must make a lot of sense. Since you wrote so many words, they would listen to you!
"I think the village's development strategy should focus on some key areas, such as education, and we still need to increase investment in it."

"Let's continue to expand enrollment."

Uchiha Makoto paused, then looked at the ninja representatives in the meeting. Seeing that they had no objections, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The reason why the ninja clans didn't object much is simple—this expansion of recruitment doesn't refer to the traditional ninja education.
Although the students recruited by Makoto Uchiha this time were also receiving ninja training, the professional teachers hired by Akatsuki Village taught them more industrial knowledge. While they did have some ninja knowledge, it was very superficial.

These students weren't even considered ninjas in the eyes of the ninja clan, but Uchiha Makoto still gave them the title of ninjas—that's called identity recognition.

Although some old-fashioned ninja clans considered such behavior an insult to ninjas, the clan leaders genuinely felt it was unnecessary to argue with Uchiha Makoto over such a trivial matter as naming, lest it cause unpleasantness for everyone.

The reason why Uchiha Makoto wanted to do this was quite simple.

A massive amount of capital has been poured into investing in factories, and with more factories, more workers have been recruited, but now there isn't enough manpower. The number of skilled workers cannot keep up with the rapid development of the industry.

Akatsuki Village needs to quickly develop a group of workers with industrial knowledge and basic ninja skills to fill this gap. Graduates can go directly to Akatsuki Village or work in factories that cooperate with Akatsuki Village. This can be seen as pointing out a way for children from ordinary poor families in this era to survive.

This also expanded the influence of the ninjas, since they were also granted the title of Genin by the Akatsuki.

Having discussed this important topic of education...

Uchiha Makoto, on the other hand, focused his attention on the more important four aspects of clothing, food, housing, and transportation.

Even the representative of the ninja clan craned his neck to come closer.

Clothing, food, housing, and transportation are not only related to their lives, but they can also be very profitable!

The Akatsuki Village's financial pillar, salt tax, is based on food. In the ninja world, even ninjas cannot go without salt!
As for clothing, the Akatsuki Village fought to the death with the nobles of the Land of Fire over the conversion of rice paddies to mulberry fields, all for the sake of profit in this industry.

During the Industrial Revolution on Earth, many countries started with the textile industry, which also gave rise to the infamous Enclosure Movement, where sheep ate people!

In the bloody accumulation of capital, this is hard to avoid, and of course, Uchiha Makoto didn't want to do it.

Before transmigrating, he had no extraordinary powers and was limited by the productivity of agriculture, so he couldn't grow more food in the fields and could only do this. Now that he has transmigrated to the ninja world, he is still doing the same thing. Hasn't his transmigration been in vain?
As for housing, although houses aren't valuable in the ninja world—ninjas can easily build decent houses using Earth Release—real estate still needs to be developed. We can artificially assign value to them, like diamonds. Laborers without mortgages won't lack the desire to dedicate their youth to Akatsuki, and they'll need to have four or five children too. People always need motivation!

If things go smoothly, all that's going to happen is expenses for Akatsuki Village right now. Even though road construction can indeed promote development, in terms of investment alone, the return on investment is a long way off.

Therefore, it is never too much to attach great importance to the four aspects of clothing, food, housing, and transportation.

Uchiha Makoto's biggest concern was naturally food; he wanted to establish a grain company to ensure the Akatsuki village had adequate food reserves.

Controlling food means controlling everything; this principle needs no further explanation.

Once the problem of hunger is solved, any future business issues in the other three areas will no longer be a problem. However, establishing a grain company and ensuring grain reserves are crucial, as these involve grain and land. Once these two are connected, things will become extremely complicated. Currently, the vast majority of land in the Land of Fire is in the hands of the insects, which means that the power over grain actually belongs to them. To touch their land and grain is to touch their lifeline.

The last time Makoto Uchiha killed an entire noble family for land, this has already stung the insects' nerves.

This method might work once, but it's not too bad.

But if they continue to use this method, the insects will really fight the Akatsuki to the death.

At this stage, Akatsuki Village can't afford to completely break ties with them.

And expand outwards.
The Land of Rice Fields does have large tracts of fertile land. If it were to rely on the strength of ninjas to seize fertile land, it would indeed be feasible. The Daimyo of the Land of Fire probably wouldn't mind cooperating with Uchiha Makoto again and entering a honeymoon period.

However, the daimyo and nobles of the Land of Rice Fields are not pushovers and will inevitably rise up in resistance, leading to war. This puts Hashirama Senju in a difficult position in Konoha.

Think about it.

Uchiha Makoto still intends to solve the problem in a more peaceful way—by finding a way to increase food production.

The key reason why Earth has greatly increased its grain crop yields is that it has mastered the technology of fertilizer production, a technology that does not yet exist in the Ninja World.

It's definitely too late to start investing in developing technology from scratch now.

It seems that technological testing is not feasible for the time being.

Uchiha Makoto had no choice but to turn his attention to ninjutsu.

If it were Wood Release, Hashirama Senju might be able to accelerate the growth of food.

But in the end, he was just one person, and the Wood Release he possessed was ultimately limited in its impact on the entire Land of Fire and even the entire ninja world.

"Gentlemen, do you have any good ideas?"

Uchiha Makoto posed the question to the elites present, and after some discussion, an expert in the field of agriculture stepped forward.

"Lord Guangying, I can roughly understand what you mean by fertilizer. However, such technology has not yet appeared in the ninja world. The Land of Fire mainly improves soil fertility through composting, which can effectively increase food production. I think the fertilizer you mentioned serves the same purpose."

soon.

Another person in the room stood up and added.

"If 'not composting' refers to feces, then something comes to mind."

"The Water Country has a series of affiliated islands, some of which are not made of rocky land at all, but of bird droppings. For hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years, countless seabirds have lived and bred around these islands. The droppings that these birds have consistently excreted around them have, over time, formed bird droppings islands."

"Locals don't go near these bird droppings islands much."

"When I went to the Land of Water for research, out of curiosity, I saw those bird droppings islands with my own eyes. They were truly spectacular!"

"???"

Uchiha Makoto's eyes widened as he realized that the problem troubling him seemed to be solvable.

He remembered that there was a magical kingdom on Earth.

The country is called Nauru. It was once an extremely wealthy country. In the mid-70s, around 1975, Nauru's GDP per capita had reached $35700.

How wealthy are they?

It is four and a half times the GDP per capita of America back then, making it the country with the highest per capita income in the world.

The reason this small country is so rich is bird droppings!
An alarming amount of bird droppings!
To the untrained eye, these bird droppings are completely useless, but to the experts, they are gold—huge phosphate mines!

Uchiha Makoto was somewhat of an expert.

He knew that these bird droppings could be used as fertilizer after simple processing.

"I really think these bird droppings islands should belong to Akatsuki. Anyway, the Land of Water doesn't like these islands either."

"Moreover, Akatsuki and the Land of Water also have a fishing dispute, so we can take this opportunity to work with Konoha, the Land of Water, and Kirigakure to resolve this matter."

Uchiha Makoto was quickly calculating in his mind.

And on the other side.

Iwagakure Village.

The First Tsuchikage's face was terrifyingly grim, his eyes were bloodshot, and he looked anxiously at the room in front of him.

That's the emergency medical room at Iwagakure Village Medical Center.

Every ninja who entered the emergency medical room was on the verge of death, with one foot already in the grave.

The First Tsuchikage had been sitting outside the emergency room for a day and a night, and now he gave off a low-pressure vibe, with everyone passing by instinctively showing respect.

Finally, a medical ninja emerged from the emergency medical room.

"How is the situation? Is Wu injured?"

"Lord Tsuchikage, Lord Mu's injuries are severe. He has barely survived and will need further observation. Even if he pulls through, all of Lord Mu's skin has been burned away by the high temperature, and he will probably need to rely on special medicine and bandages to survive for the rest of his life."

"What about the other ninjas? How are they doing?"

"The ninja who escaped back with Master Wu was lucky; his burns weren't too severe, and his high fever has subsided. He should wake up this afternoon."

"I see."

The First Tsuchikage breathed a sigh of relief, but his expression still betrayed his anger.

Wu was a junior whom he valued and promoted highly. He was exceptionally talented, had a calm personality, and was the best successor to the Second Tsuchikage.

A mission turned out like this, and all the survivors were sent to the emergency medical room. Even now, the First Tsuchikage doesn't know what happened!
This debt must be repaid in blood; this is not over yet!
(End of this chapter)