Money cannot do everything, but without money, nothing can be done.
That truth had been eternal in his past life, and in this ninja world with supernatural power, it was still an unchanging law.
The war was basically over. Without exception, all Five Great Ninja Villages had been badly wounded and would need a long period of recovery to rebuild their strength and raise a new generation.
But thanks to Haru's near-miraculous moves, the Leaf now had more money on its books than the other four great villages combined. It was enough to make a dying man sit bolt upright in bed and borrow another five hundred years from heaven.
Haru was now throwing money around by the handful, and the Leaf, a house already battered half to ruin by war, was beginning to rebuild at astonishing speed, bursting with life at a level that was almost hard to imagine.
Because of the war, the ninja had spent all their money on war preparations before rushing to the battlefield. That meant the small merchants inside the village had started earning less, while at the same time prices had risen because of the war.
As a result, all kinds of shopkeepers and traders in the village had been living extremely hard lives.
Now Haru was showering the Leaf's ninja with money. Those men had returned alive from the battlefield with their lives hanging by a thread, so once they had money in hand, of course they wanted to spend it and enjoy themselves.
No one wanted to experience the pain of dying with money they had never spent.
Money only mattered when it was spent. Spending created circulation, and circulation made the Leaf's fragile commercial system start moving again. Once the village had more life in it, that would bring in more money, and more money meant more taxes.
Haru walked down the street. The dark cloud left behind by war was still hanging over the villagers' heads, but their eyes held a little more light than before.
Once life had hope, people would produce astonishing vitality.
As Haru headed to work, two little followers trailed behind him, Kaede and Rin. At first, the villagers of the Leaf had still cast strange looks their way, but after Haru skillfully lowered his own moral standards, all resistance had quietly disappeared.
This ninja world was not built on one-man-one-woman rules anyway. Let them be jealous.
Walking through the Leaf's streets and seeing the villagers' completely renewed state of mind, Haru knew his direction was correct. The living conditions of ordinary people at the bottom never lied.
At the Hokage building,
Shikato had already arrived early and started the day's work. Now, at a glance, the entire Hokage building seemed full of pineapple heads.
The Nara Clan's talent clearly lay in administration, so Haru naturally intended to make full use of them and have them help him deal with the Leaf's mountain of problems.
If Haru really had to sit at the Hokage's desk reading files every single day, he would go insane.
The moment he walked through the door, the ninja working inside all greeted him. By now, they were already used to Haru's habit of showing up late and slacking off at work.
As long as the boss could help them make money and was willing to pay them, then as subordinates, they naturally had no complaints about Haru's personal work style.
"Hokage-sama, recruitment for the ninja academy has already begun. Talented children are currently being selected from the civilian population and brought into the academy."
"According to your instructions, the program has been changed from two years to four..."
Haru sat in his chair and listened to Shikato's report on the village's recent progress and arrangements.
As someone who had personally suffered under that rotten system where ninja academy students graduated after only two years and then had to go out and earn a living through missions, Haru despised it to the core.
This was not just child labor.
It was a production line for cannon fodder.
If the Leaf had enough resources, Haru would have wanted to extend the schooling time even further and make it a six-year system.
There had never been any fixed age requirement for entering the ninja academy. Generally, anyone under twelve could enroll.
That had led Haru to see far too many little kids barely ten years old, excitedly carrying kunai out to missions where they would end up cutting down people.
They were not transmigrators like him. They did not have cheats.
Most of them ended badly.
During peacetime, they could at least spend some time transitioning through D-rank missions. But once tensions rose in the ninja world, they would all be sent to clear bandits to get used to bloodshed, and then thrown straight onto the battlefield.
Out of a thousand cannon fodder, someone would always stand out, become a chunin, and maybe a dozen or so would even rise to jonin.
"Oh, right. Make sure to screen the Leaf orphanage especially carefully. There are bound to be some future great talents among those children."
"..."
"If there are children whose parents both died, who carry deep blood feuds, and who also happen to have a marriage promise hanging over them, make sure to bring them directly to me. I'll personally evaluate them."
"And remember, no one with the surname Tang."
"And make sure the yearly funding allows those kids to eat meat every now and then."
"..."
While listening to Shikato's report, Haru suddenly thought of the Leaf orphanage and started muttering one odd instruction after another.
The orphanage was one of those blessed places where monsters were always born. In a hot-blooded world like this, if that place did not produce a few terrifying geniuses, that would be abnormal. He had to treat it with the highest level of seriousness.
"Understood, Hokage-sama."
Shikato noticed that as Haru kept talking, he once again drifted into saying all sorts of weird things. After spending this much time with him, Shikato was already used to it.
Some of Haru's words he could understand.
Some of them he had absolutely no idea what Haru was talking about.
Still, since the Hokage had specifically emphasized it, as a subordinate, he would of course carry it out.
After hearing out Haru's arrangements, Shikato finished reporting the remaining academy enrollment plans. Haru saw no problem with them and signed off.
The rest was just a matter of waiting for recruitment to finish. Once school officially started, Haru would go to the ninja academy, meet the Leaf's new students, and do the usual work of filling their heads with ideals about the Will of Fire and all that.
"Is pig iron still falling?"
After that, Haru turned his attention to pig iron prices. Because Haru had violently inserted himself into the Land of Fire's pig iron industry, the entire market had started racing off in an indescribably bizarre direction. Price logic had already collapsed.
This time, Haru intended to buy the bottom and purchase a batch of cheap pig iron.
The previous pig iron futures plan had only succeeded because Haru had possessed the perfect timing, the perfect place, and the perfect conditions. Repeating it was almost impossible.
"It's still dropping slowly. Based on the Leaf's intelligence channels and my own judgment, pig iron should bottom out in about another week."
Shikato cared deeply about futures now. He had keenly sensed the enormous value hidden there. This business lived on information gaps and available capital, and in the Land of Fire, the Leaf was an incomparable giant in both respects.
Manipulating prices and harvesting the suckers' money was unbelievably addictive.
"I'll leave that line of work to you. When you handle things, I'm at ease."
Haru nodded and directly put Shikato in charge of that side of the business.
Those words of trust moved Shikato deeply. He had just been about to express his loyalty when Haru's next sentence nearly made him jump.
"Oh, right. I want to buy a batch of iron mines in the Land of Fire."
Haru's words were shocking as ever. The moment he opened his mouth, it was another hundred-billion-level deal. Even if the Leaf had money in its accounts now, they could not just burn it like this.
"Hokage-sama, the cost would be far too great. A single iron mine would cost at least more than a billion ryo. If it's a super-large mine, the price would be even more outrageous. Probably several billion, if not more..."
Shikato felt uneasy at Haru's giant move. The Leaf had never been involved in this line of business before.
"Shikato, your vision has to be longer-term. Money exists to be spent. Don't cling to it."
"And money can also be split in two and spent that way. We can form joint investments with them. As long as the Leaf controls the bigger share, that's enough. We need to completely control the price of iron. In the future, the ninja world's demand for steel is going to be enormous."
"..."
Everyone knew steel was the lifeblood of industry. Haru's ambition was enormous. He wanted to play industrialization in the ninja world, and steel was indispensable. That meant he absolutely had to keep steel under his control.
And if you wanted to control an industry, then you had to control the source.
Haru planned to go directly negotiate with the merchants and nobles who owned iron mines in the Land of Fire and take over a batch of those mines from the vermin at low prices.
These people considered themselves seasoned veterans of the pig iron industry, so they had been among the most reckless and all-in players. They had also been the ones hurt the worst by Haru's sudden arrival. Most likely, they were already at the point where they had to delay even the wages of the miners under them.
An iron mine was a hen that laid eggs.
There were many in the Land of Fire who wanted to swallow up the assets of these unlucky fools who had gambled too hard.
But Haru intended to eat alone.
He wanted the biggest piece.
"Hokage-sama, the major merchants in other industries, and the nobles..."
Shikato expressed concern over Haru's decision. It was not only about the money. Competing for iron mines would not be easy.
"Hmph. Anyone who dares compete with the Leaf, whether buyer or seller, send Leaf ninja to deliver fruit baskets to them every day."
A sinister smile spread across Haru's face.
The fruit in the Leaf's baskets was especially sweet.
If they still refused to give the Leaf face after eating such sweet fruit, then they were simply choosing death.
"All right, Hokage-sama..."
Shikato could only respond helplessly. Methods like that were not exactly respectable. Last time, they had at least had the daimyo backing them. This time, it would be the Leaf acting on its own. If the daimyo became displeased...
Even with all his worries, Shikato still obeyed Haru's arrangement.
If the sky collapsed, Haru, the taller one, would be the one holding it up. What did he have to be afraid of?
After that, Shikato and Haru discussed the future Five Kage Summit, settled the rough framework, and then Shikato left the office with a troubled expression.
Now only Haru remained in the office, along with the two little ones who had just come in, Kaede and Rin.
Time to slack off again.
Haru leaned back in his chair, and Kaede skillfully started massaging his shoulders and neck.
He spent the rest of the workday enjoying their service in small ways, then sent them home first and told them to wash up and wait for him.
After work, Haru went alone to a remote underground cell area within the Uchiha clan grounds.
Originally, the place had been old, broken down, and badly neglected. Now it had been completely cleaned up at Haru's orders, filled with luxurious experimental equipment, and turned into what could be called one of the finest laboratories in the ninja world.
Security around it was now extremely tight. Clan ninja had been assigned to guard it heavily, and Haru had given a death order: from now on, no one except him was allowed to enter this laboratory.
It was also time to move Tobirama into a new home.
Earlier, Haru had searched all over the Leaf for experimental equipment, only to discover that the most advanced instruments were all in the Senju Clan's possession. When Haru tried to requisition some of it, he was directly refused.
The funds Tobirama had embezzled in the past had all come from the Senju Clan's own accounts. They had nothing to do with the Leaf. That meant Haru had no authority to touch them, so he could only pull together a few experimental devices from other parts of the village and let Tobirama make do for the time being.
Haru walked into the laboratory.
The place practically reeked of money.
Every instrument and every experimental material inside was worth a fortune. Some seemingly ordinary bottle of solution sitting in a corner might cost tens of thousands of ryo.
Haru opened a summoning scroll, and a coffin appeared before him.
Tobirama kicked the lid open with one foot, obviously extremely dissatisfied with Haru'sunreasonable imprisonment routine.
"Uchiha Haru, how's the laboratory preparation coming along? The junk you found before couldn't possibly meet my requirements."
"Tobirama, come out and take a look at your new home."
Haru pointed at the newly finished laboratory.
Still grumbling, Tobirama slowly stepped out of the coffin.
Then his eyes went wide.
He hurried forward and began touching the equipment, casually picking up a small instrument and stroking it with care. The look in his eyes turned downright obsessed.
"This instrument is practically a work of art. Only the Land of Wind..."
Haru had no idea what that instrument actually did.
He only knew it was expensive.
More than a hundred thousand ryo.
Tobirama set it down and picked up a bottle of pale purple solution from among the rows of reagent bottles.
"And this solution too. I've wanted to buy it for ages. Even the Land of Demons can barely keep up with its own demand, and you still managed to get it..."
"..."
Tobirama inspected the entire laboratory. Once the delight faded from his face, he turned serious and said solemnly to Haru:
"Did you steal the Leaf's funds? This laboratory is worth far more than three billion ryo. The Leaf needs money everywhere right now."
"You're the Hokage. You're supposed to lead by example. You absolutely cannot go down the road of crime."
"..."
Haru rolled his eyes.
The one who started the glorious tradition of stealing Leaf funds was you, Tobirama.
"Relax. Do you know how much money the Leaf had on its books a few days ago?"
"More than a hundred billion ryo."
"..."
Haru then explained the entire pig iron futures plan to Tobirama from beginning to end.
He had deliberately held back before and refused to tell Tobirama anything.
He had been saving it all specifically for this moment, just so he could show off.
Even Mito had already been slapped in the face by the results.
How could Tobirama possibly escape?
Tobirama's expression shifted from initial contempt for the pig iron futures plan, to thoughtful silence, and finally to complete disbelief.
"Tobirama, your time as Hokage was really a failure. Do you even know how long the Leaf's ninja clans suffered under you?"
"You should've seen Mito's face when she got her share of the money. Tsk, tsk, tsk."
"Now that everyone's gotten their share, they've started calling me the strongest Hokage in the Leaf's history."
Haru wore a smile as he mocked Tobirama.
Tobirama's face turned black on the spot.
A failed Hokage?
That word could be linked to him?
And you, the strongest Hokage in the Leaf's history?
If my big brother were here, he'd crush you with one hand.
Tobirama desperately wanted to smash his fist into Haru's face. That smug expression was just too irritating.
"Hmph. It's only a little money."
At this point, Tobirama's mouth was the only thing still hard.
Inside, though, he had begun seeing Haru in a completely new light.
Had this Uchiha reincarnated into the wrong clan?
How could that bunch of reckless Uchiha brutes possibly produce a brain like this? Did awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan actually increase intelligence? He had somehow created something as unheard-of as futures trading.
That was more than a hundred billion ryo.
If he had had that much on the books back when he was Hokage, then to hell with peace talks with the Cloud. He would have fought them to the end and captured that bastard Ai alive.
Tobirama muttered bitterly to himself in his heart.
(End of Chapter)
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