The Most Troublesome Thing in the World / Uchiha Shingen Takes Action

Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Shingen also saw the newcomers.

Sarutobi Saizo.

The head of the Sarutobi Clan walked very quickly; Inuzuka Suzu had just finished giving her instructions when he was already near the group.

Naturally, they heard everything they said.

"Elder Ling, are you being so unwelcoming to me?"

"You heard it and you still ask?" Inuzuka Suzu looked annoyed. "Honestly, I hate men who are persistent and clingy."

"I am rivals to Clan Chief Fugaku, so it's only natural that I would make the same move," Sarutobi Saizo. "But even for Elder Murasaki's sake, you can't be so biased."

He had a smile on his face, but his heart was pounding.

He came straight over after leaving the Aburame Clan, and that's when he saw this scene.

If Hyuga Murasaki were to side with Uchiha Fugaku, then the Hyuga ninja could basically forget about getting a vote.

How did Uchiha Fugaku Hyuga Clan to convince the Hyuga clan?

It's just a Police Force, is it really that important? What could be more crucial than clinging to the Hokage's coattails?

"What favoritism? I wouldn't have voted for you anyway." Inuzuka Suzu waved her hand. "You should be grateful for the support of the Aburame Clan!"

"Elder Ling, aren't you going to listen to what I have to say?"

"No need!" Inuzuka Suzu refused Sarutobi Saizo without hesitation. "With your stinginess, what good stuff could you possibly offer? I'm not interested in you, I've had enough of you!"

These words Sarutobi Saizo unable to maintain his smile.

He gave everyone a deep look, then turned and left.

Chapter Thirteen: The Most Troublesome Thing in the World

The election for Hokage assistant has taken many people by surprise.

Sarutobi Saizo and Nara Shikaku were evenly matched, and there were no instances of other players being merely there for the sake of competing.

The main variables lie with the Hyuga Clan and Inuzuka Clans.

Sarutobi Saizo to the Aburame Clan, but he couldn't even step into the Inuzuka Clan family's house. The Inuzuka Clan made it clear in the most direct way that they did not support Sarutobi Saizo.

The Hyuga Clan did not give a direct answer to the two candidates from the Hokage lineage. Their reply was, "We warmly welcome your visit. We have received your request and have immediately begun to study it. We will provide feedback as soon as we have formulated our opinion."

It was long, tedious, and perfunctory.

As the largest ninja clan in the Jonin Council, the Hyuga Clan's attitude, on the surface, seems to have completely muddied the waters.

The Hokage faction believes this is a strategy of waiting for the right price.

If they don't give up their share of the benefits, they won't get the Hyuga Clan's vote.

Some people scoffed at it.

In their view, the Hyuga Clan was not a variable at all. This ninja clan, which was always nimble, would definitely choose the one with the best chance of winning in the final vote and launch a full-scale attack. Their current actions were just a pretense.

The Hokage lineage does not need to share profits.

This group mainly comes from the Ino-Shika-Cho Clans.

As is well known, the main business of the Three Races Alliance in the Land of Fire is medicine, especially health care products that are used for physical recuperation.

However, among these three clans, only Akimichi Clan uses Yang Release, while the other two use Yin Release. As for whether their health products are the best in Leaf Village, there's no need to even ask a question mark.

The health supplements produced by the Hyuga Clan are the best in Leaf Village. Using the same medicinal materials, the health supplements made by the Hyuga Clan are a whole grade higher. Once the Hyuga Clan enters the pharmaceutical market of the Land of Fire, the products of the Three Clans Alliance will be immediately squeezed out. From then on, the Hyuga clan will reap the rewards Hyuga Clan the Three Clans Alliance will only get the scraps.

It is absolutely impossible for them to the Hyuga Clan.

Inuzuka Clan is indeed a variable, but it's just Inuzuka Clan, so the impact isn't significant. As long as Aburame Clan is kept under control, the odds of victory still belong to the Hokage faction.

The Three Clans Alliance believed that the Aburame Clan could share a portion of the profits from the medicinal herb supply, and recommended that the Aburame Clan manage Leaf Village's forestry resources.

It's just supplying medicinal herbs; to put it bluntly, it's still working for the three tribes, which is acceptable.

With medicine as their powerful weapon, the three-clan alliance is incredibly wealthy and has always thrived in Leaf Village.

Until this year, they started having to pay money to the Uchiha Clan.

However, considering that the funds obtained will be used to expand production capacity, it is acceptable, and we are willing to cooperate more.

Therefore, the three-clan alliance did not actually dislike the Uchiha Clan. Among the Hokage lineage, the one who disliked them the most was Sarutobi Clan, especially Sarutobi Saizo.

This time, all the variables are aimed at him.

Hyuga Clan didn't directly indicate that he would receive some votes, Aburame Clan estimated that it would be a 50/50 split between him and Nara Shikaku. However, Inuzuka Clan directly blocked him from entering, right in front of the Hyuga Clan and the Uchiha Clan!

Sarutobi Saizo did not consider Uchiha Fugaku to be a formidable opponent, because if Uchiha Fugaku's votes were enough to threaten the Hokage's faction in the first round of voting, the entire Hokage faction would vote for either him or Nara Shikaku in the second round.

The combined vote of the four clans was invincible in Leaf Village's elections; they never lost the Hokage vote.

Unless the votes from all the other four clans are pooled together to vote for one person, the Hokage faction cannot be defeated.

The one who will ultimately be the Hokage's assistant is him.

Nara Shikaku wouldn't really compete with him, after all, this guy himself didn't want to be the Hokage's assistant, and the position of Jonin Council leader is also very important, he can't let someone take advantage of the situation.

Sarutobi Saizo did not dislike Uchiha Fugaku, but he disliked the Uchiha Clan.

Whether it was his unruly behavior in the face of the Hokage's faction or his involvement in arms dealing and finance, Sarutobi Saizo could not tolerate it.

Selling ninja tools and Explosive Tag to outsiders—isn't that treason? The village's military supplies are so scarce; if they cared about the village, they should sell them to it at a low price.

And the interest rate for loans to the Hokage faction is the same as outside? What kind of nonsense is this!? The village has so many other places where it needs money, the Hokage Building should cut funding for the Police Force and use that money to support the development of the Hokage faction, instead of giving it to ungrateful bastards.

That so-called Money Exchange Traders Association is a corrupting force and should be banned!

How can a bunch of money houses handle something like this? It should be Leaf Village and the Daimyo's Court's doing it. The Uchiha Clan possesses this technology but doesn't share it with the village; their intentions are sinister! If the Sarutobi Clan had this technology, they would definitely hand it over to the Hokage Building to operate!

The Hokage's assistant must be someone with a sense of responsibility.

By the way, this can be used as an important point of criticism during the speech. If even the ninja clan has to pay interest, then ordinary villagers must be exploited even more severely. Who knows how many families outside the village will be torn apart?

He, Sarutobi Saizo, will not allow such filth to exist; he will surely set things right!

He missed the days when Shimura Danzō still alive. Back then, everyone was honest and well-behaved, and no one dared to cause trouble except for the Uchiha Clan.

With this in mind, Sarutobi Saizo went home to prepare his script after completing the first round of campaigning.

After the Inuzuka Clan, Uchiha Fugaku visited Aburame Clan, but did not visit anyone else after that.

Shimura Feilian didn't run away anywhere; he stayed in every family of the Shimura Clan, building relationships. In his view, maintaining the existence of the Shimura Clan was more important than anything else.

This is the current situation.

In the Hokage's office, Nara Shikaku handed over the materials he had collected over the past few days to Namikaze Minato.

The Tenten of the New Year, and many people slept in at home.

But Nara Shikaku left early and arrived at Namikaze Minato.

"Thank you for your hard work, Nara Shikaku- nii." Namikaze Minato smiled and took the materials from Nara Shikaku's hands.

The two were old acquaintances, with Nara Shikaku being slightly older.

"Don't give me such a troublesome task, Minato..." Nara Shikaku said with great distress, "Being the class representative of the Jonin Council is troublesome enough."

"Besides you, I have no one else I can ask for help." Namikaze Minato grinned mischievously. "I'm sorry for taking away your time to take care of Shikamaru."

He patted the materials in his hand and said, "It's so thick, I can't finish reading it in a short time. Why don't you tell me about it first?"

"Sigh..." Nara Shikaku's expression was one of utter disgust, but there was nothing he could do.

"There's really no way around it; there's nothing more troublesome in this world than your friend becoming Hokage..."

Chapter Fourteen: Uchiha Shingen Begins His Operation

Today is New Year's Day, the first day of the new year, and the weather is great.

On this auspicious day, Uchiha Fugaku was at home preparing his manuscript.

In order to allow their clan leader to prepare his manuscript in peace, the members of the Uchiha Clan decided to gather together to create a quiet environment for him, so as not to disturb him and affect his performance.

As a result, the area around Uchiha Fugaku's residence was filled with clansmen.

Uchiha Fugaku was deeply moved by the sincere love and care shown to his clansmen.

So he locked himself in his study and wouldn't go out.

Uchiha Mikoto wanted to get him a pot of tea, she had to knock on the door first.

And it takes forever for the door to open.

The room reeked of ink.

Knocking on the door again, seeing her husband's still unsatisfied expression, Uchiha Mikoto couldn't resist.

"Honey, you could have opened the door. Shingen won't be here at this time!"

"What does this have to do with Shingen? I'm doing this to think things through better." Uchiha Fugaku stubbornly insisted, blocking Uchiha Mikoto's view of the desk with his body. "Speaking of which, where did Shingen go?"

He needs to go out to run some errands.

"Outrageous! How could he run off to play by himself at such an important time?" Uchiha Fugaku said sternly. "When he gets back to the village, remember to tell me immediately. I'm going to give him a good scolding."

"Okay." Uchiha Mikoto rolled her eyes at her husband.

What a coward! All I said was that your handwriting isn't good, and you're so obsessed with saving face.

"Oh right." Uchiha Mikoto remembered something else; she had almost forgotten about it.

She took out an envelope.

"Yes, Shingen asked me to give this to you before he left."

"He's in such a hurry; he's still too inexperienced. He needs to be more composed." Uchiha Fugaku accepted the envelope with satisfaction, feeling pleased.

That confirms it; they're no longer in the village. You can open the door now.

With the door closed, the smell was a bit too strong.

"You'd better open the door quickly, it hurts my nose every time I knock!" Uchiha Mikoto said irritably, then turned and left.

Looking at his wife's graceful back, Uchiha Fugaku blushed.

We might do some exercise tonight, as a way of celebrating the New Year.

He was very satisfied with his eldest son's recent behavior and felt he had to reward him. So he decided to let his son go to Shisui's house tonight and not have to come home!

As the family's situation improved, his enjoyment of life also gradually increased.

Having made his plans for the evening, he went back to his study, tidied up the works on the table, put these treasures into his collection box, wiped the table clean again, opened the envelope, and took out the letter.

As he looked at it, his expression turned serious.

"It's come to this..." After reading the entire letter, he placed it on the table and began to draft his speech.

Meanwhile, Uchiha Shingen had already entered a city in the Land of Fire.

This city is located in the heart of the Land of Fire and belongs to the Daimyo's Court. It is the highest-level city directly governed by the Daimyo's Court through a system of laws and decrees.

The Land of Fire has a typical temperate monsoon climate with four distinct seasons and extremely high vegetation coverage, also exhibiting characteristics of a deciduous broad-leaved forest climate. With such an environment, the Land of Fire, based on its strong agriculture, boasts cities that rank first in the Hokage world in terms of both population size and the proportion of urban population in the total population.

In the early Warring States period, cities were small, merely castles inhabited by nobles of varying ranks. As the states continuously annexed each other during the Warring States period, their territories expanded, cities grew in size, and populations increased.

By the late Warring States period, this region had developed from a place where "though the cities were large, none exceeded three hundred zhang in size, and though the people were numerous, none exceeded three thousand households" to a place where "cities of a thousand zhang in size and towns of ten thousand households were seen one after another."

The population of the largest city in this region is the highest ever recorded for a city in the entire Hokage world. The city's prosperity and development promoted the flourishing of handicrafts. In addition, its location in the center of the continent, which allowed it to communicate with other countries, also fostered a highly developed commerce.

The city that Uchiha Shingen entered was once the capital of a country in the late Warring States period, and it was conquered by the Uchiha Clan.

Today, its population is only greater than it once was.

The Land of Fire today has about a thousand cities with administrative offices, and even the smallest cities have several thousand households. Among them, 150 cities have a population of over 10,000. This city is one of the largest, with 100,000 households. Assuming five people per household, the population is about 500,000.

The headquarters of the Money Exchange Traders Association is located here.

The person in charge of the Uchiha Clan is Uchiha Shingen himself, but he doesn't usually come; instead, he delegates the task to a client.

The client is also from the Uchiha Clan, but he doesn't work as a ninja.

There are many such members in the Uchiha Clan. For example, the Uchiha Xinhu couple do not work as ninjas and are very interested in doing business.

As soon as Uchiha Shingen entered the city, the people in the association already knew. When he walked through the association's gate, a group of people were already waiting there.