The special envoy finally came to his senses and shouted to the accompanying civil servant, "Hand Seals, confirm what is going on here."
The accompanying civil servant also served as Sensor Ninja, his hands formed sensory seals, and Chakra shimmered from his fingertips.
Sweat beads slid down the bridge of his nose. He felt it three times before and after, and his face became paler each time.
"Sir... it's not Genjutsu, the temperature is real."
The special envoy stood by the shaft of the carriage and did not move for a long time.
He stared at several little ghosts not far away running all over the ground with popsicles in their mouths. The melted snow splashed mud on their trouser legs. None of them were wearing cotton-padded clothes.
I turned around and looked at the dead tree on the side of the road. The green shoots sprouting out in circles on the trunk were stained with water drops. In the middle of winter, they were so tender that they were eye-catching.
Land of Fire It was still snowing heavily all over the place, but Konoha it was so hot that his snow fox fur coat was almost cooked.
His inner clothes were all stuck to his back, and he was covered in white hair and sweat.
The military expenditure reduction bill he was planning to use Konoha was crumpled into a ball of paper at some point.
The scraps of paper turned into paste in the sweat, and those few lines of condescending cuts seemed extremely ridiculous at the moment.
"Turn around and hide the carriage immediately in the woods outside the village."
The special envoy grabbed the civilian official's sleeve and pulled him back.
He has been a special envoy for twenty years, but he cannot understand the commotion caused by these vulgar warriors, let alone alert them.
The carriage drove a few miles outside the village and plunged into a forest covered with dead shrubs.
The two of them were busy picking up their clothes in the carriage.
The special envoy took off his snow fox fur coat and stuffed it into a hidden compartment, leaving his gold-threaded official robe under his feet.
The civil servant dug out two gray cotton jackets from the bottom of the car.
The envoy picked it up and smelled it. The smell of old camphor and musty smell made him wrinkle his nose.
He gritted his teeth and put on a cotton-padded jacket. In order to be realistic, he even put some mud on his face and stuffed the hosta on his head into the package.
"After entering the village, talk less, observe more, and talk less."
The special envoy adjusted his cuffs, and the two of them hunched their necks and walked around the alley into Shopping Street. To the outside world, they only said that they were traders passing by to collect furs.
The special envoy's calculations were clear.
Konoha Spending such a large amount of money on ostentation will definitely cause price chaos and the people will be very resentful.
As long as he can find irrefutable evidence of firewood shortage and boiling public dissatisfaction, he can write a report and submit a report.
But after walking twenty steps, my legs were so heavy that I couldn't lift them up.
Almost every shop on the street is open, and there are long queues at the door.
In front of the grain store, half a wall was stacked with rice bags, and a whole fan of pork hung on the butcher's cutting board.
The fat glistened in the heat, and the aroma of braised pork penetrated your nose half a street away.
Many villagers were only wearing thin autumn clothes, carrying cloth bags and crowded in front of the stalls to make selections. Their faces were full of New Year's joy, and no one cared about the copper coins in their hands.
The special envoy walked up to the grain store and took a look at the price tag, his eyelids twitching.
The price per catty of polished rice is 20 to 30% lower than the official price of the Daimyō Mansion Capital City!
Daimyō Mansion Grain prices have been rising for three months in a row. National Treasury is about to be hollowed out due to regulation. Konoha has been living on military expenditures for a long time. Does this grain seem to be free?
The civil servant came to the shelf, pretending to check the fur, and squeezed out a sentence through his teeth.
"Sir, the food stored here is enough to feed the whole village for two months."
The special envoy did not give up and took the civil servant around to the tea stall at the end of Shopping Street to sit down.
He approached some villagers who were having breakfast at the next table and deliberately talked to them.
"Brother, Konoha It's quite warm this year, but if you do this heating thing in the middle of winter, I'm afraid it will cost a lot of money for heating, right?"
He was waiting to hear the villagers complain about Hokage spending money indiscriminately.
A loud-voiced man in a blue cloth jacket at the next table put down his chopsticks and looked at him sideways.
"Heating bill, what heating bill?"
The man slapped the table and his voice was so loud that half the street buzzed.
"This is called Geothermal Generator. It was created by Mr. Orochimaru, and it was decided by the Fourth Generation!"
"Pipes run from the ground to every household. If we don't burn a pound of coal, the village won't confiscate a cent of our heating money."
Several nearby villagers also gathered around to help.
"Well, even the coal is saved, the hot water runs all over Konoha by itself."
"Brother, are you from out of town? I've heard this name for a long time. I heard that Northern Suburbs also has a test field. Have you heard of farming in the winter?"
The porcelain tea bowl in the special envoy's hand fell to the ground, and the tea splashed all over his gray cotton-padded jacket.
He ignored the wiping and stared at the tilted tea bowl at his feet, not bending down for a long time.
The whole village is heated without burning coal, and the people don't have to pay for it. Northern Suburbs can still farm in the winter.
The civil servant took out a charcoal pen next to him. His hands were shaking so much that he scribbled down the words "geothermal, free and Orochimaru" on the paper. The handwriting almost squeezed out of the paper.
"Let's go and see the north."
The two took a small road to Northern Suburbs.
The cotton-padded shoes made a squeaking sound when they stepped into the slush of melting snow, and the special envoy was out of breath as he ran.
The moment I climbed up the high slope of Northern Suburbs, my knees became weak and I squatted on the slope, with muddy water soaking through my trouser legs.
Hundreds of acres of farmland spread out below, and white heat steamed from above.
The frozen Kurotsuchi was softened by the heat, and the fields were filled with green crops, which were growing wildly in the cold winter.
A large number of surrounding civilians took off their thick winter clothes and were bending over to sow seeds or weed. Some people were pushing wooden carts to transport fertilizer. Sweat was dripping down their cheeks, and they were working enthusiastically.
The cold winter fields in front of us are already in the process of harvesting in midsummer.
The civil servant trembled as he took out his abacus and moved the beads against the growth of crops and the density of heat in the field.
His hands became more and more chaotic, and the beads kept clanging in the wooden frame.
At the end of the count, the civil servant's hand stopped in mid-air, and the blood drained from his face.
"Sir... at this temperature and growth rate, Konoha can harvest at least three crops a year, or even four seasons. The output here will be several times that of the fattest granary of the Daimyō Mansion."
The envoy's mind went blank as the soles of his shoes sank half an inch into the soft mud.
The uses of Geothermal Pipelines go far beyond winter.
When grain is out of season, Konoha first fills up the granary, and then sells the remaining grain to other countries, and the price of grain is in their hands.
With the minerals in hand, the new army has been formed, and the granary can be filled, Daimyō Mansion's military expenditure can no longer hold Konoha down.
They don't need Daimyō money anymore.
The sweat on my back seeped through my inner clothes, and a chill ran up my spine.
"Let's go back immediately, don't stop for a moment."
He rolled and slid down the high slope, dragging the civil servant with him and running wildly.
The two men in gray cotton-padded jackets were running awkwardly on the dirt road, and the civil servant didn't even bother to pick up a shoe if he lost it.
Rushing back to the woods and jumping onto the carriage, the envoy didn't even have time to change into his fine clothes. He grabbed the whip from the driver's hand and whipped the horse hard.
The horse neighed in pain, the wheels crunched as they ran over the frozen mud, and the carriage turned around and galloped towards the Daimyō Mansion.
Outside the car window, the military expenditure reduction bill that was originally used to establish prestige was soaked with sweat.
The special envoy casually threw it out of the window, and the shredded paper was blown away by the wind and fell into the muddy water on the roadside.
Behind Konoha Northern Suburbs, hundreds of acres of green farmland are still growing in the cold winter, and the heat is drifting along the field ridges.
The special envoy pressed the soaked newspaper on his knees. He had to let Daimyō know that Konoha no longer relied on military expenditures to survive.