Fū Uchiha slowly withdrew, while Uchiha Takashi lowered his head and carefully examined the information on the entire village.
Sure enough, just as he had expected, the village was dirt-poor and produced no specialty goods.
It had no special resources either. Its only output was grain. Even with an extremely rich iron deposit nearby, the village still produced no iron.
The village only had so much manpower. With a population of a few hundred, if no one farmed, they would not even have enough to eat. How could they mine iron?
Moreover, the village faced a very serious problem: its total population was around five hundred, but it had only fifteen hectares of farmland.
Five hectares were high-quality rice paddies, six were average rice paddies, and the remaining four were dry fields and miscellaneous plots. Annual grain production was approximately 155 shi.
If this was all they had, an entire year's grain would only provide half of what the villagers needed. What about the other half?
No, that was not right. Uchiha Takashi realized he had fallen into a trap in his thinking: he subconsciously assumed that everyone here took having enough to eat as their standard.
In truth, during the Warring States Period, going hungry was the norm. Only great clans like their Uchiha Clan did not have to worry about food.
In a poor village like this, everyone was probably struggling on the brink of death. The slightest mishap would leave them starving to death.
That also explained why all the villagers he had seen earlier were sallow and emaciated. Even the farmers who did manual labor looked utterly haggard.
If the village carried on like this, they would starve to death sooner or later. A single year of disaster would kill everyone in the village.
It looks like land reclamation needs to go on the agenda...
Uchiha Takashi slowly turned a page. The next page recorded the land available for reclamation in the village.
In fact, just two years ago, the village had still had thirty hectares of land available for cultivation, enough to feed eight hundred villagers without anyone going hungry.
However, in recent years, the population had plummeted to fewer than five hundred. At the same time, other factors had left half the land all but abandoned, including quite a few high-quality rice paddies.
That was why almost everyone was now on the brink of death.
Uchiha Takashi rested his chin on his hand. If he relied solely on the village population to reclaim and cultivate the land, there would definitely not be enough manpower.
Judging by the villagers' current condition, having them reclaim new land was completely unrealistic. Even keeping the existing fields cultivated was already very difficult for them.
Perhaps I should consider moving some of the Uchiha Clan's civilians here...
Tap, tap, tap... Uchiha Takashi drummed his fingers on the desk, considering how to transfer a group of people here without attracting the attention of other clans or affecting production within his own clan.
The main concern was avoiding the attention of other ninja clans, especially those two, the Senju and the Uzumaki. Manpower itself was not a particularly serious problem.
The Uchiha Clan currently had a full twenty thousand people. Of those, only a little over two thousand could become ninja, while the remaining eighteen thousand were all civilians.
They performed physical labor within the clan, such as logistics, farming, and production.
But the Uchiha Clan's home base was only so large. As the population grew, farmland became even scarcer.
On top of that, the Uchiha Clan had not expanded outward, making land even tighter and leaving less for each person.
Thus, transferring a group here would not affect the clan's production. Instead, it would ease population pressure within the clan, allowing its growth rate to return to an extremely high level.
Anyone who had studied biology knew that keeping a population's reproductive rate at its peak required ensuring that the population was neither too large nor too small. It needed to be at K/2.
At half the carrying capacity, reproductive and growth rates were highest. A larger population would instead cause the growth rate to fall.
"Yukimichi!" Uchiha Takashi suddenly called outside. An Uchiha clansman immediately entered. "Third Elder, what do you need?"
"Take this back to the First Elder. Have him select five hundred civilian households from the clan, preferably with more young, able-bodied adults in each household. Then send them here in batches under cover of night... They're urgently needed here."
Uchiha Takashi handed over the village information documents. He trusted that the First Elder would understand.
Yukimichi Uchiha nodded, accepted the documents with both hands, and vanished from the office.
The very next second, Fū Uchiha walked in. "Third Elder, the villagers have all assembled. You can now formally announce that you're taking office as village chief."
Uchiha Takashi nodded. Assembling the villagers had been his idea. It was evening now, and the villagers had been returning one after another.
There were five hundred people. Surely he could not visit every household to tell them he was the village chief? So he had Fū Uchiha take some men and summon all the villagers.
He would use this free time in the evening to announce his appointment as village chief.
At that moment, ten Single Tomoe Uchiha clansmen stood straight at the entrance to the office building, their hands behind their backs.
Before them was a dense crowd of villagers, all chattering away.
Their eyes were also filled with fear as they looked at the clansmen.
Just then, the office building's doors opened, and Uchiha Takashi walked out with two Uchiha clansmen, one ahead and one behind.
The previously noisy villagers immediately fell silent, quietly watching the Uchiha elder standing in the center.
Uchiha Takashi looked around. After visually checking that the number of people seemed right, he said calmly, "Starting today, I am the chief of this village!
"And from now on, this village will be renamed Uchiha Village!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the villagers burst into cheers. News that the Uchiha Clan had brought the village under its jurisdiction had already spread during the day.
Everyone knew the Uchiha Clan's policies for governing villages. Some had tears welling in their eyes, while others wailed and stamped their feet. In short, they were all overjoyed.
The Uchiha Clan's rule was indeed very strict, but compared with the former village chief... one was human, while the other was not even that.
Uchiha Takashi could not be bothered with pointless speeches. He was not some fellow named Sarutobi who loved going on about the Will of Fire. After making the announcement, he immediately had the villagers dismissed.
Everything in this village needed rebuilding, and there were still many matters for him to handle.
He needed to arrange the farming tools the Uchiha Clan had promised, and the village's fertile fields needed to be surveyed again.
Moreover, the First Elder would most likely send the first batch of Uchiha civilians over tonight. Before they arrived, he had to determine which plots needed reclaiming.
At the same time, he needed to register some vacant houses for those civilians to live in. He could hardly let them come here only to sleep on the streets.