A Small Change

One month after the New Year, the Wetland Bridge project was completed. However, since it was not yet summer in the wetlands, the fruit trees had not yet blossomed, so the bridge was not yet of any practical use.

In the second month of Year 16 of Konoha, the southern part of Konoha was leveled and reorganized. Over the course of three months, the south side of the village had been transformed into the cleanest and most orderly street in all of Konoha.

Senju Hashirama walked along the road in the southern part of the village. His wooden sandals clicked against the stones; it was actually a bit hard on his feet, but he didn't mind.

He looked with a sense of wonder at the streetlights lining the road, the various signposts, and the shops on the ground floors of the buildings...

Although many of the houses were not yet fully occupied, it was foreseeable that once the housing issue was resolved, the number of ordinary people could potentially double in the next twenty years.

With more ordinary people, there would naturally be more support for the shinobi.

Senju Hashirama felt a bit smug. His disciple truly had real talent. While it wasn't in terms of combat ability—Senju Hashirama himself already stood at the pinnacle of the Shinobi World in that regard—even so, the changes in Konoha over the last six months surpassed everything that had happened in the previous sixteen years combined.

Take the southern part of the village, for example. Would you believe that such a beautifully leveled and planned road was something Yuya had just told the workers to pave while they were at it?

The materials had all been scavenged from the cliffs on the north side of Konoha.

Although it felt a bit disrespectful to the Hokage Rock, the stones from those cliffs were indeed quite useful.

Furthermore, the roads in Konoha used to be muddy everywhere. Now, there were drainage ditches on both sides of the road, covered with lids. This was the first time Senju Hashirama had ever seen such a thing, but the moment he laid eyes on it, he understood exactly what it was for.

In truth, when Konoha was first built, no one had even considered the issue of sewers. Otherwise, Yuya wouldn't have needed to bother with these drainage ditches; he could have just installed manhole covers, making the entire road wide, flat, and smooth. Unlike now, where these ditches posed a bit of a problem—if nothing else, in his past life, leaves and cigarette butts were always falling into them.

The world of Naruto had cigarettes, so there were definitely cigarette butts, and naturally, leaves. It wouldn't be surprising if shuriken or kunai ended up in there, too.

It was a pity there were no sewers; otherwise, he could have just installed a few dozen pounds of manhole covers.

With these drainage ditches here, who knew if someone in the future might try to drift through them?

Ahem, getting sidetracked. Senju Hashirama saw the changes in the south of the village clearly. Fortunately, he hadn't driven Yuya out of Konoha due to suspicion, but had instead given him the opportunity to showcase his abilities.

Looking at it now, wasn't this quite impressive?

What made Hashirama feel it was even more impressive was that because of the changes in the south, people in other areas were starting to get restless.

Those in the south are just a bunch of ordinary people! If ordinary people can enjoy such good housing and roads, while we noble shinobi are still walking on mud paths! How can we stand for this?!

Senju Tobirama waved his hand grandly, "I have already mastered this so-called economics! Just watch, I will resolve this situation with lightning speed!"

Then, construction began in three different locations simultaneously. One week later, the renovations were finished, and when Senju Tobirama looked at the ledger, he saw that twenty-five million ryo had vanished, and he was so angry he fainted on the spot.

Yuya was speechless regarding this. You have to consider if the conditions are the same before you copy someone else's homework, right?

If you mobilize the initiative of these shinobi clans, aren't they just a bunch of ready-made tools?

If Yuya had done it himself, the clans might not have ended up with much money, but Konoha's treasury would certainly be stuffed to the brim. At that point, the clans wouldn't even understand the difference between cash and supplies, and would likely still think they had made a huge profit.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option now.

But it didn't matter. Yuya felt that the benefits he gave them now weren't without purpose.

It served to numb the nerves of these clans, ensuring they wouldn't be suspicious the next time something similar happened.

The current situation in Konoha was that the various shinobi clans held all the power in the village's institutions.

However, this was a common ailment in every nation. The fact that only shinobi were qualified to hold power wasn't even a hidden rule; it was laid out plainly for everyone to see.

Yuya didn't think there was anything wrong with this rule. Shinobi were the ones who truly risked their lives to protect the village and fight battles; it was only fair that they held the corresponding power.

It was just that, perhaps because of this, the vast majority of the leadership focused all their attention on the shinobi.

They didn't pay much mind to the ordinary people.

In fact, ordinary people were also capable of creating value.

Moreover, compared to shinobi, there were far more ordinary people. If they were made to serve the shinobi, the vast majority of ordinary people would not even fall into that category of service.

And those who were ignored might spend their entire year looking at nothing but the rice seedlings in their own fields.

This was a devastating blow to the motivation of ordinary people.

In the early stages, they might be satisfied just to have a relatively peaceful environment after the chaos of war, but once things stabilized, facing a future they could see the end of at a glance—while they wouldn't exactly "lie flat"—they certainly wouldn't have any motivation.

Therefore, Yuya had a second path for development.

That was to build factories.

They didn't need high-end technology; they could be textile mills, food processing plants, or simply various high-tech facilities.

If Naruto could turn Konoha into a technological metropolis utilizing the technology of the Shinobi World decades later, there was no reason why such technology couldn't exist at this point in time.

However, research projects burned money like water. Even if Yuya wanted to pursue them at this stage, Senju Tobirama would certainly disagree.

Just by mentioning a draft that required an initial investment of at least one billion ryo, Yuya had made Senju Tobirama's head start buzzing.

Senju Tobirama finally understood: this kid Yuya seemed to have no concept of money.

He could just casually toss out a number as massive as one billion ryo.

That was the total tax revenue of Konoha for several years.

Well, one could only say that if the village wasn't developed, the village's economy could never be good.

Senju Hashirama's health had been getting better lately, but the smile on Uzumaki Mito's face was becoming increasingly rare.

In private, Yuya had once asked Hashirama if there was any way to delay the arrival of death.

Hashirama told Yuya with great nonchalance that such a method did exist, but he was unwilling to use it.

The method was simple: just find someone else to fight, much like his previous skirmishes with Madara Uchiha, and sustain an injury—preferably a severe one.

In this way, the constantly devouring cells within his body would have a new target; their instinct for survival would drive them to migrate toward the wound to consume the decaying old cells and various external cells.

This should grant him a few more years of life.

However, Hashirama had no intention of doing so.

The Shinobi World had finally achieved peace with such great difficulty; if he were to go out and stir up trouble now, that peace would surely vanish into thin air in an instant.

Hashirama had spent his entire life wishing to end a world filled with chaos, disorder, and war, and he had succeeded. Therefore, even if it meant death, he could never personally destroy everything he had longed for.

Yuya could only remain speechless at this.