After leaving the restaurant, Zou Hyuga returned to his quarters and sat alone in his study.
As the Tailed Beast Merchant Association grew, its existing military strength was no longer enough to support further expansion.
Working behind the scenes, he could hardly bring more people under his control without attracting the village's attention.
Though the Land of Fire nominally belonged to the Daimyō, its shinobi village was the country's true leader. The Daimyō could remove the Hokage, but the Hokage could likewise replace the Daimyō in secret.
That made a loyal force of ninja belonging to the organization indispensable.
For Zou Hyuga, there were two ways to give the organization a ninja force.
The first was to follow Akatsuki's example and recruit missing-nin from across the shinobi world. These ninja already possessed considerable strength and could become an effective fighting force as soon as they joined.
The drawback was equally obvious: most missing-nin were unruly individuals who had defected from their villages.
If they seized an opportunity, he would have invited wolves into his home, and all his efforts would come to nothing.
Even someone as powerful as Pain, who kept every member in line through overwhelming strength, could not stop the organization's members from killing one another or betraying it.
The other option was to follow Orochimaru's example, occupy a small country, and establish a shinobi village of his own.
That was how Orochimaru had occupied the Land of Rice Fields and founded Otogakure. It required painstaking effort to train ninja, and those produced were not particularly strong.
In return, their loyalty and cohesion were high. At least there would be no betrayal.
Of these two approaches, Zou Hyuga favored the latter. But he did not have enough time to seek out suitable orphans and establish a shinobi village