Uchiha Kagami

The Uchiha Clan was dissatisfied with Senju Tobirama.

After Senju Tobirama took office, he not only restricted the Police Force's authority but also moved the Uchiha Clan's territory several kilometers east, closer to the river.

On the surface, the Uchiha Clan had gained more land, but in reality, this meant they were now farther from the center of power.

The Uchiha naturally had plenty of complaints.

They had done everything they could to integrate into Konoha, only for this to be the result? Was this how they were going to be treated?

The Uchiha tended to take things to extremes.

Besides, Senju Tobirama really hadn't handled this matter fairly.

As a result, the Uchiha Clan's dissatisfaction with the Second kept growing.

Seeing his clan's current attitude toward the village and the Second, Uchiha Kagami was anxious, though he kept it to himself.

"What's wrong?" Uchiha Kagami's wife, Masako Uchiha, was a dignified, elegant, gentle, and generous woman.

Masako came over and knelt beside Uchiha Kagami, who was sitting in the courtyard watching the stars. Leaning against his shoulder, she said softly, "I can't help with your ninja business, but sometimes, talking about things can make you feel a lot better."

Uchiha Kagami put his arm around Masako and fell silent.

Most of the men in the Uchiha Clan were ninja. Only a few women with outstanding potential were given special training. The little girl Rou Uchiha, for instance, had a great talent for Fire Release. The clan had sent her to the Ninja Academy after helping Senju Tobirama with the school's reforms.

But all their goodwill had earned them was Senju Tobirama's distance, being pushed away from Konoha's center, and a reduction in the Police Force's authority.

Could Uchiha Kagami tell Masako about all this?

He couldn't.

Masako Uchiha hadn't taken the Uchiha name after marrying him. She'd been born with it.

Uchiha Kagami could only manage a faint smile. "It's nothing. I just have another mission tomorrow, so I won't see you for a long time again."

Masako's eyes immediately reddened, but she gathered her courage and said, "Then we can turn in early tonight."

Uchiha Kagami nodded, picked Masako up, and carried her into the bedroom.

The next day, Uchiha Kagami went to the Hokage Office.

"Lord Hokage, you wanted to see me?"

Senju Tobirama looked at Uchiha Kagami and said quietly, "I have something I need you to do. If you do it well, the reward won't be much. If you do it badly, a lot of people will curse you. Are you willing to accept?"

Uchiha Kagami answered without hesitation. "I am, Lord Hokage."

Senju Tobirama's lips lifted slightly. Then he shook his head. "I'll have my assistant go over the details with you. If there's anything you don't understand, you can discuss it with my assistant through the Ninja Scroll."

Uchiha Kagami bowed respectfully and agreed.

Senju Tobirama signed a sheet of paper and handed it to Uchiha Kagami.

Uchiha Kagami took it and was startled after just one glance.

"Th-this... Lord Hokage... Is it really a good idea not to have the jonin build that bridge, but to arrange for ordinary people to do it instead?" Uchiha Kagami asked, quite reasonably.

Senju Tobirama sighed inwardly. As expected, that's what anyone would think first...

After Senju Tobirama solemnly explained that Uchiha Kagami really was expected to gather ordinary people for the job, Uchiha Kagami nodded and left.

But when Uchiha Kagami put up the recruitment notice, he found that things weren't going as he'd expected.

He was at a loss right away.

There were too many applicants.

The project was supposed to take only three hundred people, but more than a thousand had applied. Uchiha Kagami was a mild-mannered person. He could kill an enemy with one strike, but when it came to his own people, he just couldn't be so ruthless.

He'd thought there'd be no need to contact the advisor Lord Tobirama had assigned him, but now...

Uchiha Kagami took out the Ninja Scroll used for communication and wrote down the problem he'd encountered.

Soon, he received a reply on the scroll. The instructions were so detailed, they practically walked him through how to hire people. Uchiha Kagami couldn't help but marvel.

As expected of Lord Senju Tobirama's advisor. Their thinking was incredibly clear.

After that, Uchiha Kagami approached the ordinary people and asked whether any of them knew construction, hydraulic engineering, or drafting.

As it turned out, two old men had worked in construction. However, drafting required specialized tools, and Uchiha Kagami didn't have any, so he couldn't ask them to demonstrate on the spot.

Next, Uchiha Kagami had the applicants organize themselves by household. Anyone who belonged to the same family as someone else was to choose one representative. That person could have technical skills or physical strength, but larger households were less likely to be selected.

The main population of Konoha consisted of the big clans, but there were also plenty of ordinary people.

In fact, the ninja clans themselves had relatively few ordinary people within their ranks.

That meant they needed a large number of ordinary people to serve them.

Before Konoha existed, the big clans could only offer ordinary people protection in exchange for most of the harvest they'd spent the year growing.

It was safe to say that no one who had any other choice would choose that arrangement.

The ordinary people would toil all year to farm and clear their land, only for the ninja to take more than half without lifting a finger.

The worst part was that even when the clans claimed to offer protection, they often couldn't guarantee the ordinary people's safety. Before Konoha was established, aside from the Uchiha and Senju Clans, most groups needed ordinary people to provide them with food and resources but couldn't keep them safe.

That was because those clans simply weren't strong enough.

Konoha had solved this problem perfectly.

The clans no longer had to protect ordinary people. Instead, they served the village, and the village gave them the resources they needed.

That saved a lot of trouble.

It had to be said that Konoha's founding had set a good example for the other countries on the continent.

No wonder the other countries had all gone on to establish ninja villages of their own.

But this had created a new problem.

Compared to the few thousand ninja in a village, there were certainly far more ordinary people.

And in the years since Konoha was established, the village had welcomed just about every ordinary person who came.

As a result, Konoha often didn't have enough land for all these ordinary people to farm and feed themselves.

That left many people without work.

Solving this problem wasn't difficult. One way was to clear more land.

But that would be hard, because ordinary people who came to Konoha would rather starve here than venture out into the dangerous world beyond.

The other solution was to increase productivity.

Whether it meant raising the land's output or launching a project like this one, which would give hundreds of households the means to earn a living, either approach would boost productivity.

But this method was never going to be sustainable.

Because there was no money.

A bridge took more than ten kilograms of gold to build. If they wanted to transform Konoha and launch an infrastructure boom...

Even with the more than two hundred kilograms of gold Yuya had stashed in the Sealing Scroll, it still wouldn't be nearly enough.

If there were a gold mine... Yuya might be able to use it as a starting point to spur Konoha's development.

But it was like starting a business. The first pot of gold might not be that important, but you still needed one.

More than two hundred kilograms of gold...

It really wasn't enough.