Aside from puppets like Zang Sanlang, anyone capable of becoming the leader of a village was generally no worthless fool.
As one of Kirigakure's core forces who had attended the first Five Kage Summit, Bai Ze had been exposed to the workings of the center of power since his youth! How could a leader like him fail to see the root of the Mist Ninja's current predicament?
The reality was that from the very beginning of his tenure, Bai Ze had conducted a deep and thorough on-site investigation of the Mist Ninja village!
Thus, he understood better than anyone that the Land of Water's deeply entrenched problems could no longer be strategically redirected without provoking civil war... To prevent the nation's strength from being further depleted, the Third Mizukage, who had risen to fame in his youth, had no choice but to adopt relatively moderate reforms.
It was not that Bai Ze lacked confidence in winning this internal war of division...
It was simply that once civil war broke out, the forces of other great powers hidden behind the comprador class would inevitably seize the opportunity to interfere further in the Mist Ninja's internal affairs!
If that turned the Land of Water into a target for all, Kirigakure did not possess Konoha's foundation for taking on four enemies alone... What awaited them could only be even more brutal exploitation and persecution. Even the next Mizukage might end up becoming a puppet installed by foreign powers!
Therefore, if Bai Ze wanted to save his own ninja village, he could only lie low in secret and proceed gradually...
However, as the situation changed, the openly erupting Second Shinobi World War allowed the Mizukage to vaguely glimpse a historical window that came only once in twenty years!
More precisely, as the conflicts among