Armchair Politics

"By the way, Lady Tsunade said she wanted to meet the people in the Chat Group," Katsuyu said.

"You really told Tsunade about the Chat Group directly? The Sage of Six Paths is still monitoring the Ninja World from the Pure Land. Aren't you afraid he'll find out too?" Richard asked.

"Why should I be afraid? I may not be his match, but I'm not someone he can push around whenever he wants. The three of us didn't survive until now because Kaguya and her sons were merciful," Katsuyu said indifferently.

Got it. In other words, these three living fossils were not to be messed with and weren't afraid of the Sage of Six Paths. Richard blinked in understanding.

"Fine, I don't mind. If she wants to meet me, then let her. Right now?" Richard asked.

"Mm, I'll summon her over now," Katsuyu said.

Richard only felt energy surge through the slug beside him, and then a blonde, busty woman appeared some distance away. Calling her a girl didn't seem quite appropriate, though. Tsunade was no longer young, but with the Yin Seal, she could maintain the appearance of a woman in her twenties until the day she died.

"Big, big, big..." Tsunade seemed to have been in a casino just moments ago. Having been reverse-summoned here, she had yet to react.

She had long since exiled herself for many years, spending her days drinking and gambling. She was no longer the Princess Tsunade who had once been renowned across the Ninja World as one of the Three Sannin.

Though the Three Sannin was not exactly a flattering title. It had been the name Hanzo gave the three of them after Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru joined forces against him and lost during the Second Shinobi World War.

Of course, Tsunade regained her senses in an instant.

She looked around and confirmed that this was Shikkotsu Forest. Then she looked at Richard, dressed in a green robe, and asked Katsuyu beside her, "Katsuyu, who is this? Do you have a new contractor?"

Katsuyu gently reminded her, "Lady Tsunade, have you forgotten? I told you about the Chat Group more than two months ago."

"Ah, the Chat Group. I remember now. That's what you mentioned when you asked me for the Ninjutsu and Sealing Techniques collected by the Senju Clan, right?" Tsunade said in sudden realization.

After saying that, she moved closer to Richard as if to inspect him carefully. At the same time, she said, "So this young man is someone from the Chat Group? Someone from another world?"

Richard took an inconspicuous step back. "Young man? I'm much older than your grandfather."

"You..." Tsunade thought he was provoking her and was about to get angry.

"Lady Tsunade, it's true. Even if Hashirama were alive today, he would still be younger than Lord Richard," Katsuyu said.

"Fine. I thought you were a handsome young man, but I didn't expect you to be so old," Tsunade said with some disappointment.

"Then what business does this old gentleman have in the Ninja World?" she asked.

"I'm here to have fun. Didn't you want to meet someone from the Chat Group? I happened to have money and free time, so I came over." This Princess Tsunade was really bored. She had probably been a ninja for so long that gathering intelligence had become instinctive.

"Oh? I thought you were interested in my family's inherited Ninjutsu?" Tsunade continued.

"I am somewhat interested, especially in Sealing Techniques. Space-Time Ninjutsu would be fine too," Richard said.

"What if I refuse to give them to you?" Tsunade asked with a half-smile.

"Then forget it." Richard raised a brow. The Ninja World was huge, after all. If nothing else, Konoha had Sealing Techniques too.

"Tch, do you know the history of the Ninja World?" Tsunade abruptly changed the subject.

"I know the general situation." Richard nodded.

"Then what do you think of the current Ninja World?" Tsunade asked.

"What do you mean?" Richard did not quite understand what she meant.

"For example, how long do you think the current peace in the Ninja World can last?" Tsunade asked.

"Tch, you people are really both incompetent and addicted to playing at grand schemes. Your average level of education is pathetic, yet you insist on rambling about lofty principles—love and peace, individuals and nations, clans and villages, villages and countries, and so on," Richard mocked.

Though she did not fully understand his words, Tsunade grasped the general meaning. Wasn't this guy mocking them for always dwelling on unrealistic things?

"Are you looking for a fight?" Tsunade was furious.

"Fine, I'll answer you seriously. Around ten years or so. Once the next generation grows up, the war will continue. Don't you already have an answer to that question yourself?" Richard said carefully.

In fact, even without the Akatsuki, the Fourth Shinobi World War would still have broken out. Naruto's generation would have grown up, and the major ninja villages would have recovered.

There would be too many new ninjas and not enough resources, so war would break out again. It was that simple. After a war, win or lose, at least the number of ninjas would decrease, leaving enough resources for those who remained. The victorious nations could even plunder the resources of the defeated ones.

It was such a simple principle, yet there were plenty of idiots in the Ninja World who did not understand it. The smart ones could see it clearly, but they lacked the power to change the situation and were swept along by hatred. They could only struggle in pain. Tsunade before him was one such example.

"Is there any way to change all this?" Tsunade asked blankly.

"Then let me ask you first: do you agree with the statement that ninjas are tools?" Richard had never seriously considered why the Ninja World was so tragic. After all, he did not live in the Ninja World. What did it have to do with him?

But having come from a country where everyone in his previous life was a political pundit, he was not afraid even if this was an impromptu discussion. If nothing else, crushing the people of the Ninja World intellectually would not be a problem.

And just like that, one question left Tsunade silent.

As Princess Tsunade, someone who had received a formal ninja education, she had been taught from childhood that ninjas were tools. But her emotions told her that ninjas were people with feelings and thoughts.

"I don't understand..." Tsunade tried to organize her words, but in the end, she seemed unable to turn the suffocating feeling in her heart into language.

"Let me ask another question. If ninjas are tools, then who uses those tools? The Kage of a village, or the Feudal Lord?" Richard continued. You self-proclaimed smart people love thinking, don't you? Then think. I won't stop until I make your CPU smoke.

Tsunade fell into thought again.

Take your time thinking. Ninjas themselves were a tragedy. The conflict between personal emotions and their role as tools; the conflict between clans and ninja villages; between ninja villages and Feudal Lords; between great nations; between great nations and small nations; between ninjas; between ninjas and civilians. Go ahead and think about it.

Richard felt that he had nothing left to do here.

Tsunade pondered deeply, and the more she thought, the worse she felt. When she turned her head, she found that this guy was actually so relaxed, as if nothing had happened. No, she could not be the only one suffering.

"Since you can raise these questions, you must have studied the Ninja World's situation in depth, right? What solution do you think there is for this?" Tsunade asked.

"No, I haven't studied it in depth. I'm not that idle," Richard retorted.

"You..." Tsunade was speechless. When people were speechless, they really became speechless.

"Teach me, and I'll give you a copy of every Sealing Technique my family has collected," Tsunade offered.

"Is that so? Deal." Richard considered it, then agreed.

Then he began to talk politics. Who wasn't a master of empty rhetoric?

"If you want to solve the Ninja World's current situation, you first need to understand one concept: what is the primary contradiction in the Ninja World today?" Without waiting for Tsunade to answer, he continued on his own.

"It is the conflict between ninjas and ordinary people. Don't interrupt yet. Let me finish." Seeing Tsunade open her mouth to speak, he said it directly.

Tsunade closed her mouth again and gestured for him to continue.

"You'll definitely think, what kind of conflict could there be between ninjas and ordinary people? How could that be the Ninja World's primary contradiction?

"But in truth, this isn't limited to the Ninja World. In every world—pay attention, every world—with supernatural beings, the primary contradiction is between the extraordinary and the ordinary. The worlds of all the current Chat Group members are the same.

"This contradiction can lead to several possibilities.

"First, when the extraordinary overwhelms the ordinary, you get a situation like my world, where extraordinary beings occupy the upper levels of the ecosystem while ordinary people are relegated to the bottom.

"Second, when the ordinary overwhelms the extraordinary. Feng Baobao's world is the representative example. The extraordinary people in her world are completely suppressed by ordinary people. Ordinary people occupy the upper ecological level, and the will of the state crushes the Outsider community. Similar worlds include the martial arts worlds of Lin Feng and Wan Wan, as well as Xia Mi's Dragon World.

"Of course, if Xia Mi wanted to, she could now suppress the entire world by herself and occupy the very top of the ecosystem.

"Third is a situation like the Ninja World. The extraordinary has clearly already overwhelmed the ordinary. Ninjas have already suppressed ordinary people, yet you have not completely occupied the top of the ecosystem. The Feudal Lord class still remains at the top as well.

"We won't discuss the other possibilities. We'll focus on the third one—the Ninja World's situation.

"After the ninja class rose to power, it did not push forward in one go and completely overthrow the rule of the Feudal Lord class, establishing a social system led by ninjas.

"You simply stalled halfway, replacing the former samurai class. But compared to samurai, you were too great a threat to the Feudal Lords—so great that they felt their lives were in danger at any moment.

"But in terms of force, they were certainly no match for you. They could only domesticate you ideologically, then divide and win you over, manufacture conflicts, and set you against one another. Only then could they sleep peacefully."

"So the source of the ninjas' tragedy today is the Feudal Lords?" Tsunade frowned.

No, it was Kishimoto's fault. He did not understand politics and drew whatever nonsense came to mind. That was why Naruto had as many plot holes as a sieve. Richard thought to himself.

Now that the Ninja World had become a real world, he could only come up with a logical inference. Whether others agreed with this logic or not, he had enjoyed the rant.

"No, it is ordinary people represented by the Feudal Lord class, along with all sorts of schemers jumping about within it," Richard said.

"Then what should be done now?" Tsunade asked.

"Nothing can be done unless you can unify the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara once had a chance to do that. But Senju Hashirama gave up. Not only did he give up, he also stopped Uchiha Madara from doing it," Richard said.

Tsunade: ...

Tsunade had never imagined that the boomerang would come back and strike her own granduncle.

She had always felt that her granduncle had done nothing wrong. He had ended the Sengoku era and brought peace to the Ninja World.

But after analyzing it this way, had her granduncle been wrong? Was Uchiha Madara right instead? That realization hurt her more than death.

"And what kind of mindset did Senju Hashirama have when he distributed the Tailed Beasts among the Five Great Shinobi Villages? Was it really just to make the Five Great Shinobi Villages deter one another?" Richard continued stabbing without giving Tsunade a chance to catch her breath.

"Isn't that right? The Five Great Shinobi Villages deter one another and maintain long-term peace?" Tsunade asked.

"Did they manage to deter one another?" Richard twisted the knife again.

Tsunade: ...

"The theory of deterrence through balance makes sense, but why did he think the Tailed Beasts could create deterrence?"

Richard did not deny the theory of deterrence through balance, which puzzled Tsunade. She had thought he did not approve of it.

"Only when both enemy and ally, even everyone else, can be dragged down into mutual destruction can deterrence be created for all. When the Five Great Shinobi Villages each possess such a trump card, lasting peace can be formed. Peace will endure until their respective deterrent capabilities are broken," Richard continued.

"Isn't that a little too extreme?" Tsunade asked.

"Extreme? Not at all. If you don't have the ability to perish together, why would anyone fear you?

"Don't think I'm talking nonsense. There are two worlds in the Chat Group with exactly this situation. Five great countries deter one another, especially the top three, which all have the ability to drag the entire world into mutual destruction. That mutual deterrence has kept both worlds generally peaceful for sixty or seventy years."