Chapter 358: Behind Vermilion Gates, Meat and Wine Rot; Out on the Road, People Freeze to Death!

As soon as Uchiha Ren posed the question, the civilians of Sunagakure below once again fell silent.

Where had all of Sunagakure’s resources gone?

Could the people who actually lived in Sunagakure really not know?

But even if they knew, what could they do about it?

Their already miserable lives had weighed so heavily upon them that they could barely catch their breath, let alone find the time to think about such matters.

Seeing this, Ren knew that the pressure still wasn’t quite enough.

He temporarily set the matter aside and changed the subject.

“Since you don’t want to answer that question, then let’s talk about the war.”

“Does anyone here know why the leadership of Sunagakure wanted to wage war?”

This question stumped most of the civilians of Sunagakure as well.

However, a few quick-thinking people loudly offered their answers.

“Because the Third Kazekage disappeared! The village elders said that people from Konoha were responsible!”

Although nearly ten years had passed since the disappearance of the Third Kazekage, once someone gave this answer, the others quickly remembered it as well and nodded in agreement.

Nearly ten years ago, Sunagakure had used the disappearance of the Third Kazekage as a reason to point the finger at Konoha and launch the Third Shinobi World War.

“No!”

Uchiha Ren’s voice rang out across the plaza.

“The Third Kazekage was killed by your own Sunagakure shinobi—Chiyo’s grandson, Sasori of the Red Sand! Sasori even turned the Third Kazekage into a human puppet. This is common knowledge throughout the shinobi world. The only people who don’t know are the civilians of Sunagakure!”

Ren’s revelation sent shockwaves through the crowd below.

“What? The Third Kazekage was killed by Elder Chiyo’s grandson? How could that be?”

“No wonder that bastard Sasori became an S-rank missing-nin! I never knew why before!”

“Is that really true? Why would Sasori do something like that?”

As for the fact that Sasori of the Red Sand had killed the Third Kazekage, Sunagakure’s leadership might genuinely have been unaware of it at first.

But after Sasori defected from the village, the truth gradually began to surface.

By then, however, many things had already reached the point of no return.

Furthermore, if word got out that one of their own shinobi had murdered their own Kage, the consequences would have been disastrous, particularly for Sunagakure’s internal stability.

Therefore, Sunagakure’s leadership could only pretend they knew nothing, deliberately downplay the matter, and let time bury the truth.

Had Ren not brought the matter up again at this particular moment, the decisions made by Sunagakure’s leadership might never have been called into question.

“So the so-called disappearance of the Third Kazekage was nothing more than an excuse used by Sunagakure’s leadership to start a war. It was never the real reason!”

Ren continued,

“And that was merely the excuse for starting the Third Shinobi World War. What about the Second Shinobi World War? What about the First?”

The murmuring among the crowd gradually died down.

Everyone began thinking about the question.

But how could they possibly figure out such a complicated matter in an instant?

Ren never expected anyone to provide an answer.

After a brief pause, he continued,

“The answer is actually very simple. When you get down to it, whether it was the First Shinobi World War, the Second Shinobi World War, or even the Third Shinobi World War, Sunagakure had only one fundamental reason for waging war!”

“That reason was that the internal contradictions within Sunagakure had reached a point where they could no longer be resolved, leaving the village with no choice but to turn those internal contradictions into external ones!”

Ren’s words left most of the civilians below utterly bewildered.

Internal contradictions?

External contradictions?

What was he even talking about?

They couldn’t understand it at all.

But a small number of perceptive people began to realize something from Ren’s words.

Their eyes flickered thoughtfully.

Ren continued,

“As I said earlier, although the resources of Sunagakure aren’t particularly abundant, they are still sufficient.”

“But human desire is limitless!”

“When control over the distribution of those resources is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, that’s when the problem begins!”

“Think carefully about the kind of lives the leadership and nobles of Sunagakure live every day!”

“Behind vermilion gates, meat and wine rot; out on the road, people freeze to death!”

“They feast on delicacies and lavish meals every day, while you can only survive on whatever scraps happen to fall from their tables!”

Ren’s words caused the expressions of the civilians below to change.

His words might have been harsh, but his meaning was unmistakable.

They all understood that what Ren was saying was, in fact, the truth.

Ren continued,

“Although this method of distribution has its problems, it was still barely sustainable. After all, you didn’t ask for much. As long as you had enough to eat and could survive, that was enough!”

“And so, despite its problems, Sunagakure continued to develop.”

“But as Sunagakure developed, its population gradually increased. Eventually, the scraps left over from the tables of the village leadership and nobles were no longer enough to sustain the ordinary people of Sunagakure!”

“And so the problem grew larger and larger, and with it came conflict.”

Ren paused.

Looking at the civilians below whose expressions had become increasingly thoughtful, he asked another question.

“Think about it carefully. From the founding of Sunagakure until now, whenever there hasn’t been a war, hasn’t the same thing happened again and again?”

“As the periods of peaceful development became longer, didn’t the cost of living gradually rise?”

“Food, clothing, housing, transportation—didn’t the prices of all the necessities you needed to live steadily increase, while your incomes remained unchanged, or even declined as competition became more intense?”

“And then war came.”

“After a prolonged period of warfare, the population dropped dramatically.”

“Then your lives entered another period of stability.”

“The problems became fewer, and the conflicts gradually disappeared.”

“Don’t assume that the only people who died during every Shinobi World War were the few thousand shinobi from each village.”

“Leaving aside all the destruction caused by battles between shinobi, the secondary effects of war alone—rising prices and the like—would have been enough to make countless people across this world unable to survive!”

“Otherwise, why do you think there are so many bandits and raiders in this world?”

“And don’t forget: during wartime, the major shinobi villages generally stopped accepting missions from outside.”

“That was also the golden age for the growth of bandits and raiders!”

“Countless civilians died at the hands of bandits and raiders during times of war.”

“Sunagakure itself has shinobi, so its situation may have been somewhat better. But the Land of Wind as a whole was a completely different matter.”

“No matter how poor the relationship between Sunagakure’s leadership and the Daimyō of the Land of Wind might be, under the one-country, one-village system, Sunagakure and the Land of Wind were ultimately bound together by common interests.”

“Sunagakure’s situation was therefore closely connected to the Land of Wind as a whole!”

“And whatever happened throughout the Land of Wind would eventually be fed back to Sunagakure through various channels, influencing the village in turn.”