After Konoha passed the resolution to receive and shelter Sunagakure's ninja, it did not act immediately. Only several months later, when the Sand Shinobi remnants in the Land of Wind could no longer hold out, did it begin the evacuation plan.
Although Sunagakure had been breached, Sasori of the Red Sands had ordered its ninja to scatter and flee once he realized the situation was beyond saving. As a result, there were still nearly ten thousand Sand Shinobi throughout the Land of Wind.
Of course, while there were over ten thousand Sand Shinobi, the vast majority had been trained at various outposts. They did not hold much loyalty toward Sunagakure; they obeyed its orders mainly because those were the military commands of the Land of Wind.
Now that the Daimyo of the Land of Wind had signed an agreement with Kirigakure, these Sand Shinobi were panic-stricken. Most had already dispersed, and some had even surrendered to Kirigakure.
Kirigakure accepted anyone who came. To put it bluntly, these ordinary Genin and Chunin were merely cannon fodder. Whoever occupied the Land of Wind and paid them was the one they obeyed.
After all, rather than professional ninja, they were more like soldiers with formidable strength, and they had never had much connection to Sunagakure in the first place.
Even Sunagakure could not possibly force them to keep fighting Kirigakure when their parents and relatives were already living in territory occupied by the Mist Ninja.
In the end, only seven or eight hundred ninja truly still cared about Sunagakure and regarded themselves as its ninja.
However, all seven or eight hundred of them had been personally trained by Sunagakure. They could be called its true elite, and not one of them was below Chunin level.
After occupying the Land of Wind, Kirigakure had