Chapter 305: Rasa and Yashamaru
Sand Hidden Village.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, the Fourth Kazekage left the underground mine along the passage. When the Sand Ninja standing on the ground saw this scene, he hurriedly handed over salt water and a towel.

The Fourth Kazekage took the salt water, drank a few sips happily, wiped the sweat off his face, and walked towards the Kazekage Building.

After sitting down in the Kazekage's office, the Fourth Kazekage did not waste any time and immediately began to deal with the affairs of the Sand Village.

As the leader of the Sand Village, he must take charge of all affairs in the village and cannot relax at all.

This is also something that can't be helped.

Although the Sand Village is nominally one of the five greatest ninja villages at the top of the ninja world, in reality, there is a huge gap between it and Konoha, Iwagakure, and Kumogakure.

Not only do these three ninja villages have more powerful people than the Sand Village, but they also have more ordinary ninjas than the Sand Village.

If Sand Village was not so poor and had not possessed a powerful weapon like Shukaku, the One-Tailed Fox, the Konoha and Iwagakure surrounding Sand Village would have launched an attack on Konoha long ago.

Even so, Sunagakure still lost to Konoha in the last war and was forced to become an ally of Konoha.

Although Sunagakure and Konoha are allies, in reality Sunagakure has become a vassal ninja village of Konoha. Merchants from the Land of Fire can easily travel within the Land of Wind without paying customs duties.

The employment commission that originally belonged to the Sand Village has now become the property of the Konohagakure Village.

Even the Daimyo of the Wind Country began to doubt the necessity of the existence of the Sand Village, considering whether to abandon the Sand Village and let Konoha become the protector of the Wind Country, and drastically cut the military expenditure provided to the Sand Village.

All of the above measures are aimed at restricting the development of the Sand Village and using money to limit the number of Sand Ninjas.

If this situation continues for another ten or twenty years, the Sand Village will become a second-rate ninja village and eventually die under the wheel of history.

As a ninja standing at the top of the ninja world and leader of one of the five major ninja villages, the Sand Village, Kazekage Rasa does not want to see this happen.

He paid a huge price to defeat his rival Ye Cang, and it was definitely not for the purpose of becoming the leader of a second-rate ninja village.

Therefore, he had to shoulder the burden of the village and rely on the limited funds at hand to develop the ninja force.

Since there are not enough students in the Ninja School, elite training is carried out. Every Sand Village student must have strength close to that of a Chunin in order to graduate from the Ninja School.

The resources provided by the Daimyo of the Kingdom of Wind were not enough to support a force of several thousand ninjas.

Then he would go to the mine himself and use magnetic gold mining to provide funds for the village. As long as the village could maintain sufficient combat effectiveness, it didn't matter even if he fell down exhausted every day.

After dealing with some trivial matters, the Fourth Kazekage looked at the information sent by the Sand Village Anbu, which recorded the information of Konoha and Iwagakure.

The Fourth Kazekage has always been very concerned about information about Konoha.

When he learned that the Nine-Tails Rebellion had broken out in Konoha, although he first wrote a letter to express his condolences to the Third Hokage, he actually hoped that Konoha would be destroyed because of the Nine-Tails Rebellion.

When the conflict broke out between Konoha and the Hidden Cloud Village, he even sent troops to provide support and ordered restrictions on the activities of civilians from the Land of Lightning in the Hidden Sand Village.

But all this is just because the strength gap between Konoha and Sand Village is too big.

Even though they lost two Kage-level fighters, the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, and Orochimaru defected from Konoha, the gap between Sunagakure and Konoha was still terrifying.

No matter how destitute Konoha is, its ninja village still has masters such as the Three Ninjas, the Hokage, and Danzo in charge, plus the two major bloodline families of Hyuga and Uchiha to provide protection.

Without the interference of other ninja villages, Konoha can still beat Sand Village. However, after hearing that the Uchiha clan of Konoha was annihilated and that the Iwagakure Village had started a small-scale war with Konoha on the border, the Fourth Kazekage was ready to make a move.

He was considering whether or not to take this opportunity to backstab Konoha.

As long as enough pressure can be put on the Konoha Village, even if the land of the Fire Country cannot be obtained, the Sand Village can be freed from the shackles that bind it and become a normal ninja village.

Logically speaking, the ninjas living in the Wind Country are particularly fond of this kind of high-risk, high-return plan.

After all, for a ninja living in the desert, he might be buried in the sea of ​​sand in the next second due to a series of reasons such as sandstorms and lack of water.

But the Fourth Kazekage faced troubles that the other Kazekage had never encountered.

There are no elite jonin younger than him in the Sand Village, which means that once something happens to him, the Sand Village will fall into the embarrassing situation of being without a Kazekage.

None of the previous gambles made by successive Fengying were successful.

Every time they gamble, the Sand Village loses big. If they continue to lose, there will be no Sand Village as a ninja village.

Retracting his gradually dispersing thoughts, the Fourth Kazekage gave up his plan to stab Konoha in the back. He didn't want the Sand Village to become a victim in the war between Konoha and the Iwagakure Village.

Besides, the Sand Village has not yet trained a qualified Jinchūriki and is unable to attack the Konoha Village.

After mentioning Jinchūriki, the Fourth Kazekage frowned and shouted into the air:
"Anbu, how is Gaara doing? Is he still unable to control his temper and the Shukaku inside him?"

"Replying to Master Kazekage, Master Gaara still cannot control Shukaku..."

After a pause, the Sand Village Anbu said hesitantly:
"Lord Kazekage, your plan to deliberately send people to provoke Lord Gaara is not a bit inappropriate. In the past few months, Lord Gaara has accidentally killed many ninjas."

"I am worried that Lord Gaara will not be able to bear such stimulation and will eventually be devoured by Shukaku."

"Besides, even if Lord Gaara can really control Shukaku, the ninjas in the village will become hostile to Gaara because of the incidents in recent years."

"Are you teaching me how to do things?"

The Fourth Kazekage frowned and then spoke:
"And don't call Gaara 'sama'. He is the village's Jinchūriki. Jinchūriki is just a tool for external expansion. Tools don't need to care about other people's opinions."

"But Gaara-sama is after all the child of you and Galura-sama..."

The Sunagakure Anbu said this cautiously, and he seemed to really intend to persuade the Fourth Kazekage to give up his temptation towards Gaara.

The Fourth Kazekage said with a frosty expression:
"Yashamaru, since you like to speak up for Gaara so much, I might as well tell you that I have lost confidence in Gaara and plan to find a new Jinchūriki."

"You go and assassinate Gaara tonight, and tell him that you hate him. If he can successfully control Shukaku's power this time, I can consider letting him continue to be a Jinchūriki."

After saying this, the Fourth Kazekage gestured to see the guest off.

Yashamaru looked deeply at the Fourth Kazekage, then slowly walked away from the Kazekage's office. He was a little disappointed with the Fourth Kazekage.

The Fourth Kazekage might be a good Kazekage, but he was definitely not a good father or husband.

(End of this chapter)