Ninja World Wars are different from the formation battles of ordinary armies. They don't gather together to charge at each other, as that would make them easy targets for large-scale Ninjutsu cast collectively by a group to decimate the area.
Battles between Ninja Villages usually take the form of small squads scattered across long border lines to prevent enemies from advancing into their country from any direction.
Reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, infiltration and counter-infiltration, tracking and counter-tracking, hunting and counter-hunting.
This is a game of strength, mobility, and intelligence.
Ninja are a high-speed, high-mobility profession. In the form of squads, they investigate all traces left by the enemy, find them, and eliminate them. If they can't win, they run and seek cooperation with nearby teammates.
If they encounter a large force of Ninja, it means the enemy intends to use that location as a Breakthrough point. The first thing the reconnaissance squad must do is not to block them, but to send the intelligence back to headquarters.
Ninja are not like the ordinary human armies of the Sengoku era, which often numbered in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
Ninja can usually guard a border with just a few hundred or a thousand men, relying on movement speeds far exceeding ordinary people and convenient information transmission capabilities.
Squads are scattered along the front lines, maintaining close contact with each other to form layers of defense that block the enemy's advance. Simultaneously, elite squads of great strength are organized to cross the lines of fire and search for the enemy's hidden base camps.
Once found, they either find an opportunity to destroy it or bring back intelligence to assemble a large force and sweep through.
This is the Ninja's mode of warfare.
If an army of ordinary people encountered Ninja, they would likely be eliminated by concentrated fire from Ninja teams quietly encircling them from all directions without knowing anything.
The elite ordinary armies of the past had no way to fight back against Ninja units. They might only march dozens of kilometers a day, having to detour around mountains and rivers, but Ninja can advance hundreds of kilometers in a day regardless of terrain while maintaining considerable combat power.
Therefore, once the one-country-one-Village system was established and the Ninja Village became the nation's military force, armies composed of ordinary people lost their reason for existence.
Since then, the Daimyo, the rulers of nations, have chosen to drastically reduce the size of their armies, leaving only the necessary troops to maintain public order in various towns.
The surplus military funds are instead used to fully support the development of their respective Ninja Village.
But this created another conflict: the ruler of the country essentially lost control over military force. Because the Daimyo and the Kage have only a nominal subordinate relationship, in reality, their status is equal. A single country has two Kings.
The division of supreme power often means war, but how could ordinary people be a match for Ninja? Only Ninja can deal with Ninja.
The Ninja Village system has only been established for half a century, and three major wars have already broken out. To some extent, this has masked the conflict between the nation and the Ninja Village.
If the Ninja World remained at peace, it would be hard to believe how long this deformed system could last. Initially, the Kage was only nominally a subordinate of the Daimyo, but in essence, it was a partnership. However, at some point, the Daimyo might become a subordinate of the Kage, and the Ninja Village would become another kind of entity—a Shogunate.
Analyzing it from this perspective, the wars in the Ninja World are actually something the Daimyo are happy to see.
Only by being trapped in endless fighting and hatred will the Ninja overlook the fact that above them, there is still a Daimyo who possesses little strength but holds political and economic power.
At the same time, major wars can greatly diminish the strength of the Ninja Village. By the time they recover, they might immediately face a new war.
This is very interesting.
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As time passed, the situation in the Ninja World underwent turbulent changes.
After the New Year, Higashino Shin was seven years old, and the Ninja Academy entered the third semester of the first year. After the spring break and the start of the new semester, he would be a second-year student.
During this nearly one-year period, the Ninja of the Hidden Sand Village and Konoha Village were engaged in a bloody struggle within the borders of the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fire.
Countless Ninja fought bloody battles; one side strove to invade and seize wealth, while the other wanted to keep the enemy outside their borders. The poor Land of Rivers became a battlefield, and the affected civilians suffered heavy casualties and displacement, but no one cared about them.
The Ninja World has regulations stating that civilians should not be harmed, but when a chaotic battle breaks out, who cares about that?
Casualties on both sides continued to rise, and hatred deepened. Those who survived the last war carried old grudges along with new hatred, wanting to kill all the bastards on the other side in this war.
The poor trigger, the Third Kazekage, had long since been forgotten.
Both sides constantly scouted for intelligence, uprooted outposts, and searched for the location of the enemy's main camp.
Iwagakure of the Land of Earth waited for an opportunity. The shrewd Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, sent Ninja units to pass through the Land of Birds and the Land of Rain to invade the borders of the Land of Wind, frantically squeezing out profits.
Meanwhile, they invaded the Land of Grass, directly threatening the security of the Land of Fire's northwestern border.
At the same time, they also pushed into the Land of Rice Fields, acting as if they were preventing an advance from the Hidden Cloud Village, keeping those muscle-heads in check.
His purpose was simple: to force the Hidden Sand Village to exert all its strength to decide the outcome with Konoha, thereby achieving the goal of weakening Konoha Village.
As for whether the Hidden Sand Village would withdraw its troops to turn back and fight him—ha, impossible. Ever heard of sunk costs? They had already invested so much time and so many lives into Konoha; they wouldn't be willing to retreat without an ending.
Before this, Ōnoki wouldn't have invaded the Land of Fire directly either.
But once Konoha was weakened, he believed the warlike black barbarians of Kumogakure would not miss the opportunity. When that time came, his chance would arrive.
As for the Hidden Mist Village, Ōnoki didn't even count them. It would be better if they joined, but it didn't matter if they didn't. He didn't count on them anyway; god knows to what extent those lunatics who love internal strife had crippled their own Village. It was hard to say if they even had the strength to invade the Land of Fire.
Faced with the threat from Iwagakure, Sunagakure naturally grew anxious. Although the Land of Wind has the largest land area among the Five Great Nations, it is also the poorest. Most of the territory is desert; except for a few oases, the economically developed major cities and arable land are almost all in the north, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong there.
Then, Sunagakure, eager to end the war with Konoha, fell right into the massive trap set by Konoha's western front commander, Orochimaru.
The ruthless Orochimaru had extremely keen instincts for war. When he learned of Iwagakure's arrangements through certain channels, he immediately realized his opportunity had come.
At the cost of some Ninja and wounded soldiers, he successfully fed the enemy false intelligence, leading Sunagakure to judge that Konoha's main camp was at Mount Myōboku on the border.
There was indeed a base camp there, but it was a trap that was hard to distinguish from the real thing.
By the time Sunagakure assembled a heavy force to push through, they were encircled and wiped out by Konoha. The result was heavy casualties, with only a small number of units successfully escaping.
This battle completely dismantled Sunagakure's offensive against Konoha and resolved the threat on the western front.
Seeing that the situation was beyond salvation, the Hidden Sand Village decisively admitted defeat and sent out signals for peace, while simultaneously mobilizing forces within the Village to head north to resist Iwagakure's invasion.
Konoha won the first victory, and Orochimaru was credited with the greatest contribution.
However, the Third Hokage was very dissatisfied with this because his disciple, Orochimaru, had used his own Village companions as bait. Although victory was achieved, the majority of the Ninja and wounded who drew Sunagakure's fire fell at the foot of Mount Myōboku.
This absolutely did not conform to the will of fire.
Danzo Shimura scoffed at this. His old friend was getting senile. To end the war with Sunagakure as quickly as possible and maximize the destruction of their effective strength, how could it be done without paying a price?
Well, the intelligence regarding Iwagakure was precisely what he had provided to Orochimaru.
After all, although the renowned Darkness of the Ninja World was a bit wicked and dark, his intelligence-gathering abilities were top-tier.
Orochimaru similarly expressed his dissatisfaction with his teacher in his heart. The old man was truly muddled; exchanging a small price for victory while also preserving the Origin Qi of the main force was clearly a very worthwhile deal.
A compassionate person cannot lead an army. As the commander of the western front, he had to be responsible for everyone's lives.
If the war were allowed to continue in a stalemate and they kept fighting Sunagakure, only more Ninja would die. If they fought for another year or two, how much of the western front force would be left?
He had clearly achieved a great merit, yet all he got in return was his teacher's rebuke.
Can the will of fire bring victory? Can the will of fire bring those dead companions back to life?
Suddenly, at a certain moment, Orochimaru stood on Mount Myōboku, looking down at the busy Ninja units, and felt that all of this was very meaningless.
It was dull and tasteless. If he had known, he shouldn't have come; he should have just let that idiot Jiraiya take over.
This victory was not as interesting as a small technical Breakthrough in the laboratory.
The dispirited Orochimaru no longer focused his mind on the war. Following his teacher's wishes, he quickly reached an alliance agreement with Sunagakure and released the prisoners.
Let them go back and fight to the death with Iwagakure. He would rather continue researching his Immortality Technique.
The situation on the western front suddenly became laid-back. After Sunagakure left, the Konoha Ninja began cleaning up the mess.
Inside a tent at the foot of Mount Myōboku, several young children were huddled together. The older ones were seven or eight years old, while the younger ones were only two or three.
These were children the Konoha Ninja had gathered along the way. Some were from the Land of Fire, and some were from the Land of Rivers. Their parents and families had all died in the war between Sunagakure and Konoha.
Beside this group of children, a tiny figure stood there alone, like a stray dog separated from the pack. His eyes were filled with confusion, unable to see the world clearly.
After a while, a few adults walked in and distributed food to them.
One of them, a young and beautiful blonde woman wearing glasses and a Miko Outfit, noticed the lonely child.
After stepping forward and asking a few questions, she placed her own glasses on the child's face and then gently stroked his silver-white hair.