In the days that followed, the Tea Country seemed to return to how it had been before, once again becoming an inconspicuous little presence in the Ninja World.
'The battle flag follows the daimyō; the army's heart belongs to the daimyō.'
'Loyalty is the army's foremost virtue.'
Such slogans could be seen everywhere in 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 pulled away from production and reorganized into full-time military forces.
He did not demand that they uphold three rules of discipline and eight points of attention. After all, an army of the people was not something that could be created so casually; otherwise, only his homeland would not have had one in his previous life.
But at the very least, Feng wanted his men to uphold the most basic bottom lines: strict discipline, obedience to orders, and no persecution of civilians.
'So-called chakra is formed by combining spiritual energy with the 130 trillion cells in the human body...'
'As samurai, unlike ninja who use chakra to cast ninjutsu, we concentrate chakra on our blades to enhance their sharpness and attack range...'
Feng did not merely teach ideological classes. He also hired an instructor for the Samurai Corps, giving them an opportunity to further improve their strength. Feng himself was among those studying.
The person teaching everyone the advanced swordsmanship of infusing weapons with chakra was a new mysterious figure entirely concealed beneath a black robe.
His true identity was a rather famous samurai from the Iron Country, whose strength had been comparable to that of an Elite Jonin.
That had been his identity in life. Now, he was merely a body assembled from corpse parts Uchiha Mikio had stolen from the Iron Country and brought back through Impure World Reincarnation.
Since Feng preferred swords in close combat rather than kunai like ordinary ninja did,
and since Susanoo would be his main means of fighting in the future, while nearly all of Susanoo's inherent weapons were swords,
he needed to master swordsmanship, especially swordsmanship fused with chakra.
And without question, the samurai of the Iron Country, who had always focused on this path in the anime, had ready-made sword techniques suitable for him to learn.
However, Mifune, the Iron Country's Grand General and leader of the samurai, possessed extraordinary strength. 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 meant he could only find a way to bring Iron Country samurai to the Tea Country to teach him.
But inviting samurai from the Iron Country could lead to problems such as exposing his identity, hiring someone too mediocre to teach properly, or having them hold back their skills.
Thus, the idea of using Impure World Reincarnation to summon a powerful Iron Country samurai as an instructor naturally arose in Feng's mind.
This was also one of the most proper uses of the Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu, in Feng's opinion:
'Reanimate capable people from the dead, learn their unique or lost abilities, gather countless outstanding abilities into oneself, and use them to improve one's own strength.'
After all, aside from a very few exceptions, most people reanimated through Impure World Reincarnation obeyed the caster completely. They would also teach more diligently and selflessly.
Moreover, samurai from the Iron Country were almost all poor at ninjutsu, so there was no need to worry about them losing control after being reanimated. Feng could summon them without reservation.
Feng's training and instruction of the Tea Country's samurai and guards were secretive and cautious.
Thus, the Tea Country's military strength was quietly changing and improving, yet its outwardly inconspicuous appearance kept it temporarily hidden from outsiders.
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 reckless move.
The reason for this was simple: something had gone wrong with the matter he had previously arranged for Sada Hidemasa.
On the surface, the Tea Country had returned to its former state, an inconspicuous little country in the Ninja World that turned to Konoha to post missions and hire ninja whenever something came up.
In secret, however, Sada Hidemasa had followed Feng's instructions, using all sorts of reasons—employer requirements, employer satisfaction ratings, mission needs, and so on—to make the Konoha ninja coming to the Tea Country for missions increasingly likely to be Uchiha.
Sada Hidemasa had handled this quietly and naturally, leaving almost no flaws.
If things continued like this, 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 stroke, 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 there was someone in Konoha who had always kept a close eye on every member of the Uchiha Clan.
Thus, when the abnormal situation of Uchiha ninja gradually making up the majority of those coming to the Tea Country for missions emerged, Shimura Danzō noticed that something was wrong.
After following the trail and conducting an investigation, he discovered that the Tea Country's true ruler was not the daimyō, but the daimyō's husband, who was also the Tea Country's Grand General, guardian of the capital, and captain of the Samurai Corps.
And Lord 'Sekito,' the Tea Country's actual ruler who held so many positions, also seemed very suspicious.
After that... there was no after that, because Uchiha Mikio acted. Feng had completely overlooked him, treating him as nothing more than a tool reanimated through Impure World Reincarnation to control the Tea Country's daimyō and serve as a temporary mentor.
In life, he had suffered from the traditional Uchiha flaws: arrogance without self-awareness, stubbornness and obstinacy, and an obsession with the clan's glory.
But in his Impure World Reincarnation state, after his emotions and personality had been greatly weakened,
those Uchiha flaws were almost completely suppressed. As a genjutsu master, his intelligent mind was then able to think with exceptional rationality, unaffected by emotion.
After noticing Feng's recklessness, he immediately sought Feng out and warned him.
And Feng was not truly a complete Uchiha. Naturally, he was not as stubborn as traditional Uchiha. After receiving Uchiha Mikio's reminder, he barely had to think before immediately stopping every little move related to Konoha.
For the sake of safety and caution, Feng even had a clever idea and deliberately switched identities with Uchiha Mikio.
He began wearing a full-body black robe that concealed him entirely, posing as the guard identity Uchiha Mikio had previously used outside.
Uchiha Mikio, meanwhile, used the Transformation Technique to become 'Sekito,' Feng's public identity, temporarily taking Feng's place in public.
With Feng's Genin-level strength, the Transformation Technique had too many flaws and could not last long. Now that he had already attracted Konoha's attention, if he encountered one of Konoha's skilled investigators, exposure would be all but inevitable.
Uchiha Mikio did not have that problem. In life, he had been a Jonin who grew up amid war, so there was no need to question his proficiency in ninjutsu.
Now that he was in an Impure World Reincarnation state with virtually limitless chakra endurance, he could maintain a basic Transformation Technique until the end of time if he wished.
Before you continue