The Land of Wind was mostly desert, with few places suitable for habitation. Its population was concentrated around the oases, where the capital and the nobles were located, with a scattering of ordinary cities nearby. The remaining regions were harsh and sparsely populated. Even military garrisons were generally stationed only at strategically important locations.
Hyuga Qi led Heizo Hattori and the others into one of the cities. Following the intelligence they had gathered, they arrived outside a merchant's home. Because he suffered from an illness, the merchant regularly ordered medicinal herbs from Sunagakure Ninja Village and kept a considerable stock at home.
Although the merchant hired ninja from Sunagakure Ninja Village when he traveled—there were plenty of bandits who lived by plundering in this desert—he obviously could not do the same at home. He was only an ordinary merchant, and keeping ninja in his employ for extended periods would be an enormous financial burden. Generally speaking, he would not encounter danger in a safe City.
Thus, infiltrating his home could not have been easier for Konoha Ninja Village's elite Anbu squad. They did not even encounter any threatening enemies. The Anbu's name itself referred to ninja who operated in the shadows. The squad simply slipped in and stole the medicinal herbs without alerting anyone. The household only discovered the theft a day later; the uproar it caused was a story for another time.
Similar scenes played out in cities throughout the Land of Wind. By the time people realized someone was stealing medicinal herbs on a large scale, the Anbu squads had already obtained what they wanted and gone far away. Clearly, the war had stretched Sunagakure Ninja Village's ability to protect the country to its limit. They encountered almost none of the village's intelligence operatives. All useful fighting forces