War Needs a Plan

The Land of Lightning was rich. So many cows had gone missing, and no one would notice for a while.

A didn't even know his family's cows had been stolen. Ever since Zhengyi had shouted it out that day, his title had become popular among the Cloud Ninja: Number One Taijutsu Master of the Ninja World.

Well.

I'm still a long way from matching Father.

Hahahaha~~~

The camp at night.

"Zhengyi, I'm handing you command of the Konoha forces on the Kumogakure front."

Zhengyi was lying in a hospital bed, recovering, when Orochimaru suddenly approached without a sound, lifted the tent flap, and walked in.

That was terrifying.

If he'd been Kakashi, he might've—

Wait. What had his teacher just said?

He was handing him command of the Konoha forces on the Kumogakure front?

Commanding an army was a man's dream, the ultimate romance, but... if he made one mistake and Kumogakure broke through, he'd be a sinner to Konoha. In the Pure Land, Hashirama and Tobirama would hang him up and beat him.

"But..." Zhengyi was under tremendous pressure. Every life was on his shoulders.

"No refusing. That's an order."

Orochimaru had already arranged everything. As long as Zhengyi wasn't an idiot, it would be fine.

Zhengyi only had to handle the day-to-day affairs of the ninja forces.

Orochimaru didn't want to waste time on unnecessary matters, such as dealing with the Konoha Ninja forces' day-to-day affairs.

"If there's anything you can't handle, come find me."

After informing Zhengyi, Orochimaru left without another word, showing no sense of responsibility.

Apparently afraid that the Cloud Ninja might overrun the Konoha camp, he took Mitaraishi Anko to his nearby laboratory.

There were nearly two thousand ninja on the Kumogakure front.

Now, the responsibility for feeding and housing nearly two thousand people, and keeping them alive, rested on Zhengyi's shoulders.

And he was still recovering from his injuries.

Although Zhengyi was only a Chunin, he'd done plenty of dirty work for Orochimaru. He even had some connections in Root. Who would dare slight him?

He was usually kind to everyone, and among the ninja, his reputation was every bit as good as Minato's.

As it happened,

Jiraiya was the Konoha commander on the Iwagakure front, and he wanted his student to make a good impression.

Orochimaru was the Konoha commander on the Kumogakure front, and to make Zhengyi's future work easier, he was happy to hand him credit.

And so, two people as warm as the sun appeared in Konoha, one after the other, that year.

"Was that your doing, Orochimaru?" On the Iwagakure front, Jiraiya thought his old friend had no interest in becoming Hokage.

But! He could give Orochimaru anything he wanted, except the position of Fourth Hokage.

The Child of Prophecy could only be Minato.

Compared to Minato, no one else was good enough.

The only Kage Level fighter on the Kumogakure front had gone off to conduct experiments.

Zhengyi had a massive headache.

His teacher had dumped everything on a mere Chunin like him. He really did have faith in him.

With two thousand troops at his command, Zhengyi was still a little fired up.

Looking at Orochimaru's "shoddy" deployment map, he felt Konoha needed to make a move.

At this rate, the Konoha camp would fall sooner or later.

So!

Zhengyi launched a fierce offensive, concentrating Konoha's advantages to attack the enemy's weakest point.

Konoha's previous commanders had shown no tactical sense whatsoever.

They had the Hyuga Clan and the Inuzuka Clan, two top-tier reconnaissance families, and still managed to fight this badly?

What had Konoha's commanders even been doing?

He'd thought he wasn't up to the task, but after a few days of fighting Kumogakure, he felt he wasn't so bad after all.

Inside the meeting tent,

Zhengyi, seated in a wheelchair, proposed the "One Point Two Sides" tactic.

What was the One Point Two Sides tactic?

One point: choose the weakest point in the enemy's entire defensive line.

Two sides: concentrate superior forces to attack that point, while surrounding it from at least two directions to prevent the enemy from escaping or receiving reinforcements.

If he were Hiruzen Sarutobi, he'd concentrate his forces on defeating the weakest enemy first—the Sand Ninja—and force them to make peace with Konoha so he could fight the other ninja villages.

But unfortunately, he wasn't the Hokage.

He didn't even have the nerve to tell Hiruzen Sarutobi, "You'll regret this."

Why could a Chunin like Zhengyi command Jonin, even elite Jonin?

Because he wasn't teaching ninjutsu. He was teaching them the "algorithm" for winning wars.

The Shinobi World's battles were either skirmishes or large-scale assaults, with no strategy whatsoever.

So Zhengyi gave the Jonin present a lesson.

Anyone who could become a ninja had to be smart. They just lacked formal education.

If Zhengyi's ideas made sense, they could understand them.

"Who knew you could fight a war like this?" Aburame Shibi sat at the very end of the row, waiting for Zhengyi to assign him a task.

The Aburame Clan could use insects to scout.

"Hyuga, use your Byakugan to open up a path for Konoha."

"Inuzuka, I need you to determine how long ago the enemy passed along these routes by tracking how long their scent has been scattered."

"Yes!" Xn

Aburame Shibi looked expectant. What about me? What about me?

"All right, meeting adjourned."

Aburame Shibi: "..."

One day, in the early hours of the morning, A had an idea and decided to lead the Cloud Ninja in a surprise attack while Konoha slept.

Who said the Cloud Ninja were all brainless brutes?

See? They could use their brains, too.

A was pleased with his brilliant scheme.

"Killer B! One Tailed Beast Bomb." The Cloud Ninja forces met no resistance on their way to the area near the Konoha camp. Once they arrived, A had Killer B fire a Tailed Beast Bomb.

Even though he admired Zhengyi,

this was a battlefield.

If Zhengyi died in Killer B's Tailed Beast Bomb, all A could do was regret it for a moment before celebrating their victory.

Killer B transformed into the tailed beast, and a Tailed Beast Bomb powerful enough to shake the mountains began to form.

The purple-black sphere tore through the night sky with a shrill, destructive howl and slammed into the Konoha camp.

A few seconds later, the orderly camp had been replaced by a scorched crater, wisps of smoke rising from it.

Around the crater, flames crackled against the wood as thick smoke billowed upward, blending with the dust that still hung in the air.

"Why is there no sound?"

A was a little confused.

He'd expected at least a few survivors to scream in agony.

"Let's go take a look."

"Where is everyone? Why isn't there a single person from Konoha?"

A and the Cloud Ninja were completely stunned by the empty camp, which held not a single corpse.

They searched all around, but couldn't find any trace of Konoha.

A sent sensory ninja to search the area. They found that Konoha's defenses were extremely thin. The two thousand ninja who had once guarded the towns of the Land of Fire and kept the Cloud Ninja from taking a single step forward had dwindled to around four hundred, scattered across their positions.

What did this mean?

A was baffled, but as someone who would one day become Raikage, he was also quite cautious.

Konoha's strange maneuver had unnerved him.

Fearing it was a trap, he didn't dare launch an attack recklessly.

He only dared to make a small probing move.