The Uchiha Clan's Current Problems! (Please Follow, Monthly Tickets, Recommendation Tickets)

The Uchiha Clan's Current Problems! (Please Follow, Monthly Tickets, Recommendation Tickets)

"Bai Ye, which faction do you belong to?"

Uchiha Tetsu and Uchiha Setsuna argued for quite a while before finally realizing something was off.

What they said was useless. They needed to hear Bai Ye's own thoughts.

Part of what he said leaned toward the Radical Faction, yet some of it also benefited the Conservative Faction.

It was somewhat ambiguous. Although Bai Ye had finally expressed his stance, and the two elders as well as the Moderate Faction all found his suggestions reasonable, it would have been even better if he could be more specific.

"I don't belong to any faction. I just believe that whether you're the Conservative Faction or the Radical Faction, what you need to do now is reform internally. You also need to change externally. At least in my view, if no one had been targeting the Uchiha clan behind the scenes, the clan would never have ended up like this. We must drag out whoever is behind it and deal with them."

Would constant compromise work?

Not at all!

The Third Hokage might restrain himself, but Danzo definitely would not. He would only slowly wear down the Uchiha clan's strength.

Once the Uchiha clan realized its strength was constantly being eroded, the clan would probably start stirring. Wouldn't that still lead to the night of the clan's extermination?

So, if they wanted to prevent the Uchiha clan from being exterminated, the most important thing was to deal with Konoha F4, led by Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo.

"How should we reform internally? And how should we change externally?"

A flash of excitement crossed Uchiha Fugaku's eyes. At last, someone had offered a useful suggestion.

Unlike before, when the Radical Faction and Conservative Faction had no solution beyond arguing.

"First, the Police Force. From now on, whenever there's a problem, we should just smooth things over. There's no need to offend people over trivial matters. It isn't our business anyway. Even if it gets escalated to the village, at most we'll be accused of incompetence. If they want to remove the Police Force's responsibilities, then let them remove them. I doubt they'd dare, since no one would be willing to take over this mess!"

Bai Ye truly could not understand why the Uchiha clan insisted on holding onto this hot potato. They could just slack off from now on.

"But if we do that, won't the conflict between the village and the Uchiha clan become even worse?"

Uchiha Fugaku started worrying again, making Bai Ye roll his eyes.

Sure enough, Fugaku really was not suited to be clan head during this period.

Having him as clan head was practically destroying the Uchiha clan.

"Let me ask you something. Does the Uchiha clan pay the Police Force, or does the village pay them?"

"Our Uchiha clan pays them internally."

The Police Force members received salaries. During the Second Hokage's time, the village had paid for them. But after the Second Great Ninja War, the Third Great Ninja War, and the Nine-Tails' Rampage—

The village claimed that it was facing financial difficulties and needed to recover after several wars, so it did not have enough money. They approached Uchiha Fugaku to discuss whether the Uchiha clan could pay the Police Force internally.

At the time, Uchiha Fugaku had been thinking about how they had just gone through the Nine-Tails' Rampage.

Since many people had seen the Sharingan in the Nine-Tails' eyes, quite a few had claimed that the Uchiha clan was preparing to rebel.

In order to stop them from talking, and because he felt the expense was not much for the wealthy Uchiha clan, he thought it would be fine for the clan to pay it themselves.

Thus, the expense that had originally been borne by the village became the Uchiha clan's own responsibility.

"Look, the village doesn't spend money on us anyway, so why should we be so responsible toward it? You people were just too concerned with morality before. If we stop caring about morality, then this matter has nothing to do with us, doesn't it?

"We've already handled things to this extent and become a group everyone in the village hates. Why should we keep doing this? The village gets all the benefits, while every disadvantage is borne by the Uchiha clan. How can that be acceptable? So in my opinion, the first step in resolving our current predicament is to just give up!"

That was right!

The best thing to do was give up!

The village did not pay them anyway, and doing their jobs only earned them bad reviews. Then people would go complain to the village.

The village would pacify the residents, scold the Uchiha clan, and gain the residents' goodwill. After being scolded, the Uchiha clan would still be resented by the villagers. Hiruzen Sarutobi took all the benefits, while the Uchiha clan bottled up its anger. Wasn't that exactly why they would rebel?

Who did not want to be respected?

Every day, people nagged at them and pointed fingers. It was no good to handle matters fairly, and no good to handle them unfairly either. Fine, then nobody should play anymore. They should just stop trying!

"I agree. Elder, although I'm part of the Conservative Faction, I really don't want to put up with this crap anymore. Every day, either this person curses me out or that person accuses me of being incompetent!"

Quite a few people among the Conservative Faction behind Uchiha Tetsu strongly agreed as well.

After all, they had worked seriously, hoping to change the villagers' impression of the Uchiha clan.

Yet no one had expected this to be the outcome.

Of course they were unwilling to accept it.

"But if we do this, it'll be hard for me to say anything to the village afterward."

Uchiha Fugaku was at a loss.

Once they did this, he understood that he would most likely have no room to maneuver with the village afterward.

"What the hell are you afraid of? Look at how the village is treating the Uchiha clan right now. What's wrong with us doing this?"

Uchiha Setsuna frowned and looked at Uchiha Fugaku with displeasure. He had once considered Fugaku a very capable clan head, but seeing how he handled matters now made him increasingly dissatisfied.

Why was he so indecisive whenever it came to making a decision?

"Clan Head, I think you shouldn't make a decision just yet. I still have more to say. Can we discuss it after I'm finished?"

Bai Ye knew that Fugaku's indecisiveness had surfaced again.

On one hand, he wanted to change the Uchiha clan's current internal situation and hoped to be tougher.

On the other hand, he feared that his toughness would widen the rift between the Uchiha clan and Konoha, eventually causing an outright conflict between the two sides.

His constant hesitation between those two choices was what ultimately led Uchiha Fugaku to die alongside the entire clan.

"Alright!"

Uchiha Fugaku considered it for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

"Then let me first explain my views on the relationship between the Uchiha clan and Konoha based on what I said earlier. You can all go back and think it over afterward.

"We've already discussed the Police Force. Now let's talk about the second issue: the Uchiha clan's external problems. This is also the sharpest and most urgent problem that must be resolved!"