"What are you talking about?!"
Tsunade, Jiraiya, Koharu Utatane, and Homura Mitokado had never expected Neji Hyuga's speech to be so explosive, treating Sand Village from the perspective of someone who was already the Hokage.
What they found most intolerable was that this was a perspective they had never even dared to consider.
Ever since Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha founded Konoha and Hashirama Senju became its Hokage, Konoha had primarily taken it upon itself to defend and protect its villagers. It had never initiated a war, though it would take active measures when faced with external threats or for its own security and development.
Hashirama Senju's most foolish act had undoubtedly been distributing the tailed beasts among the major shinobi villages.
Beginning with Hashirama Senju, the Hokage faction had rarely considered proactively dealing with the other four shinobi villages. Of course, that was also because those four villages were poor and not worth conquering. Konoha simply taking care of itself was already its greatest victory.
But ever since Hashirama Senju's death, Konoha had no longer possessed the absolute strength needed to sweep aside the other four shinobi villages. All that remained was an eternal balance, which also shaped the Third Hokage's passive, defense-oriented policy.
The impact of this passive policy ran extremely deep. The ruling team educated by the Third Hokage all carried the belief that peace had to come first. Even when Sand Village launched the Konoha Crush Plan and harmed Konoha's shinobi and civilians, they still did not want to go to all-out war with Sand Village. They merely wanted to smooth things over and have Sand Village make a token gesture of submission to Konoha.
What shocked Tsunade, Jiraiya, Koharu Utatane, and Homura Mitokado was that if Neji Hyuga had just become Hokage, then acting as