Changing the Tea Country

In the days that followed, the Tea Country seemed to return to how it had been before, once again becoming an obscure nobody in the Ninja World.

"The battle flag follows the daimyo; the army's heart belongs to the daimyo."

"Loyalty is the army's foremost virtue."

Such slogans could be seen everywhere at the Guard Corps and Samurai Corps training grounds within the Tea Country's capital.

"Sweat more in peacetime, bleed less on the battlefield."

"From the people, to the people."

These were the mandatory slogans Feng required the Guard Corps and Samurai Corps to shout during their daily training after they had been separated from production and turned into full-time militarized forces.

He did not demand that they uphold the Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention. After all, an army of the people was not something that could be created so casually; otherwise, only his homeland would not have possessed one in his previous life.

But at the very least, Feng wanted his current men to uphold basic bottom lines: strict discipline, obedience to orders, and no persecution of civilians.

"So-called chakra is formed by combining spiritual energy with the body's 130 trillion cells..."

"As samurai, we do not use chakra to release ninjutsu like shinobi do. Instead, we concentrate chakra into our blades, increasing our weapons' sharpness and attack range..."

Feng did not merely teach ideological lessons. He had also hired an instructor for the Samurai Corps, giving them an opportunity to further improve their strength. Feng himself was among those studying.

The one teaching everyone the advanced swordsmanship of channeling chakra into weapons was a new mysterious figure clad entirely in black robes.

His true identity was a rather famous samurai from the Iron Country, with strength comparable to an elite jōnin.

That had been his identity in life. Now, he was merely in a state of Impure World Reincarnation, created from corpse parts Uchiha Mikio had stolen from the Iron Country.

Feng himself preferred swords in close combat rather than kunai like ordinary shinobi.

Furthermore, his future battles would mainly rely on Susanoo, whose weapons were almost all swords as well.

Therefore, Feng needed to master swordsmanship, especially swordsmanship combined with chakra.

And without question, the Iron Country samurai, who had always specialized in this path as shown in the anime, possessed ready-made swordsmanship suitable for him to learn.

However, Mifune, the Iron Country's general and leader of the samurai, was extraordinarily powerful. During the future Fourth Shinobi World War, he had even severed part of the God Tree with a single Sky-Splitting Slash.

Following the principle that a gentleman did not stand beneath a crumbling wall, Feng naturally could not personally travel to the Iron Country to learn swordsmanship.

That left him with no choice but to find Iron Country samurai to teach in the Tea Country.

But inviting Iron Country samurai over could lead to problems such as exposing his identity, finding instructors too mediocre to teach properly, or having them hold back their techniques.

Thus, the idea of using Impure World Reincarnation to summon a powerful Iron Country samurai as an instructor naturally arose in Feng's mind.

Feng considered this one of the most proper uses of the Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu:

"Reincarnate capable deceased people through Impure World Reincarnation, learn the special or lost abilities they possessed, gather many outstanding abilities into one body, and thereby enhance one's own strength."

After all, apart from a very few exceptions, most reincarnated people completely obeyed the caster. They would also teach more diligently and selflessly.

Moreover, Iron Country samurai were almost all poor at ninjutsu, so there was no need to worry that those brought back through Impure World Reincarnation would lose control. Feng could reincarnate them without restraint.

Feng's training and instruction of the Tea Country's samurai and guards were secretive and cautious.

As a result, the Tea Country's military strength was quietly changing and improving, yet its outward obscurity kept outsiders unaware for the time being.

However, Feng, whose path had been smooth ever since he transmigrated, had gradually lost his caution in other respects. He nearly exposed himself through an arrogant and rash move.

The reason for this near exposure was simple: something had gone wrong with the arrangements he had previously made for Sada Hidemasa.

On the surface, the Tea Country had returned to how it once was, an obscure little country in the Ninja World that would simply go to Konoha to post missions and hire shinobi whenever something happened.

In secret, however, Sada Hidemasa had continued following Feng's orders. Using various reasons such as employer requirements, employer satisfaction, and mission needs, he did his utmost to gradually ensure that more and more of the Konoha shinobi coming to the Tea Country for missions were Uchiha.

Sada Hidemasa had done this silently and naturally, leaving almost no flaws.

If things continued this way, then once Feng's other plans succeeded and his strength greatly increased, he could find a way to issue a special mission, gather all those Uchiha together, beat them into submission in one sweep, then disguise them all as having died in battle and bring them out of Konoha to serve under him.

But one must not forget that Konoha had someone who had always kept a close watch on every member of the Uchiha Clan.

Thus, when the abnormal situation arose in which more and more shinobi coming to the Tea Country for missions were Uchiha, Shimura Danzō noticed that something was wrong.

Then, after following the clues and conducting an investigation, he discovered that the Tea Country's true ruler was not the daimyo, but the daimyo's husband, who was also the Tea Country's general, protector of the capital, and captain of the Samurai Corps.

And this Tea Country ruler, Lord "Sekito," who held so many positions, also seemed highly suspicious.

After that... there was no after that, because Uchiha Mikio made his move. Feng had completely overlooked him, treating him as nothing more than a tool brought back through Impure World Reincarnation to control the Tea Country daimyo and serve as a temporary mentor.

In life, he had suffered from the traditional Uchiha flaws: arrogant without realizing it, stubborn and headstrong, obsessed with the clan's glory.

But after his emotions and personality had been greatly weakened in the Impure World Reincarnation state,

those common Uchiha flaws were nearly suppressed out of existence. His clever mind as a genjutsu master could then think with great rationality, free from emotional influence.

The moment he noticed Feng's recklessness, he immediately found Feng and warned him.

Feng was not truly a complete Uchiha, so he naturally was not as stubborn as a traditional Uchiha. After receiving Uchiha Mikio's reminder, he barely needed to think before immediately stopping every little scheme related to Konoha.

For the sake of safety and caution, Feng even had a sudden idea and deliberately exchanged identities with Uchiha Mikio.

Feng began wearing black robes that concealed his entire body, posing as the guard identity Uchiha Mikio had previously used outside.

Uchiha Mikio, meanwhile, used the Transformation Technique to pose as "Sekito," Feng's public identity, temporarily appearing in public in Feng's place.

With Feng's genin-level strength, the Transformation Technique had too many flaws and could not last long. Now that he had attracted Konoha's attention, if he encountered a Konoha expert in reconnaissance, exposure would be almost guaranteed.

Uchiha Mikio did not have this problem. In life, he had been a jōnin forged by war, so there was no need to question his ninjutsu proficiency.

Now he was also in an Impure World Reincarnation state with virtually unlimited chakra endurance. For a basic Transformation Technique, so long as he wished it, he could maintain it until the end of time.