No matter how much they argued, the Third Hokage refused to yield.
Either they walked away from the negotiations, or every village paid one hundred million ryo in compensation. Konoha would promise not to use puppets in warfare or to send puppets to attack other villages.
One hundred million ryo was far less than five hundred million, but it was still an astronomical sum.
This was no small amount.
Whenever the Third Kazekage thought of such an enormous compensation payment, the muscles in his face twitched uncontrollably.
Ōnoki even cursed several times on the spot, yet the Third Hokage simply would not budge.
One hundred million ryo was the final bottom line. They could refuse to pay it, and Konoha would pretend the Five Kage Summit had never taken place.
Jingyi's actual bottom line was two hundred million, but considering that Iwagakure and Sunagakure would flip the table at that price, they had no choice but to make a concession and hold firm at one hundred million ryo.
Kumogakure and Kirigakure could afford this money. Iwagakure could manage it too if they gritted their teeth and tightened their belts.
As for Sunagakure... just ignore them. At most, it could be counted as a debt. There was no point expecting them to produce that much money in one go.
The Third Hokage calmly puffed on his pipe. He was not the one who should have been anxious now.
"Everyone, you think one hundred million ryo is a huge amount of compensation, but for a village, banning puppets from being used in war and surprise attacks will result in even greater losses. It means we will have to invest more manpower and resources into warfare."
"Attacking another village was originally part of war, yet that has now been cruelly stripped away."
"War