Minato was about to pull his good friend, Tatsumi, into bed with him.
Although Tatsumi verbally protested, his body was quite honest. After all, he preferred being passive.
Meanwhile, in the large tent at the base, Tsunade and Orochimaru continued to discuss the war.
"Shouldn't we send more reinforcements to Sakumo? The aftereffects of his secret technique are quite significant," Tsunade said with some concern.
"It's fine."
"You know Sakumo's strength. He is more than capable of handling any problem," Orochimaru said calmly.
Speaking of Hatake Sakumo, even someone as proud as Orochimaru held him in high regard. He had absolute confidence in Sakumo's abilities.
"That's true. The reinforcements we sent him this time are all elites from various clans," Tsunade nodded.
"If the Third Hokage hadn't sent so many ninjas as reinforcements, we wouldn't have been able to spare any to support him," Tsunade said with a smile.
"These clans wouldn't have sent troops to support him if they hadn't come to an agreement," Orochimaru said disdainfully.
Orochimaru's words were not without reason. The war had been raging for over a year, and the situation in the Land of Rain had reached a stalemate.
The underlying reason was that Konoha was not a united front. A ninja war was no small matter, and deciding which ninjas to send to the battlefield and which to keep in Konoha were both crucial issues.
Civilian ninjas were easy to manage, but clan ninjas were very troublesome. Allocating how many people each clan should send was always a thorny issue.
Some clans had small populations and wanted to preserve their strength, so they didn't want to send too many ninjas.
On the other hand, some clans wanted to send a large number of troops to earn merit on the battlefield.
After all, once they accumulated enough merit, they could easily be promoted as heroes of Konoha with a little publicity in the village.
If they wanted to compete for the position of Fourth Hokage in the future, these accomplishments could easily be converted into political capital.
However, some higher-ups might not want to see this happen.
So, if there was controversy, they would just let the battlefield remain in a stalemate. Anyway, the village was strong and could afford to drag it out, while other villages couldn't.
This kind of dirty trick existed in almost every village, and Orochimaru was used to it.
"The Third Hokage isn't having an easy time either..." Tsunade's explanation sounded somewhat weak.
"They don't actually think they can defeat the other villages with these civilian ninjas, do they?" Orochimaru said sarcastically.
Tsunade helplessly patted her forehead, feeling that her teammate was becoming a bit of an angry youth.
"However, now that this batch of ninjas has arrived to support us, as long as we maintain this stalemate and gradually wear them down, we should be able to end the war in the Land of Rain soon," Tsunade said, changing the subject.
"But the enemy won't give us a chance to wear them down," Orochimaru shook his head.
"Iwagakure is clearly desperate now, even sending out the Jinchuriki. Do you think they will continue to drag this out with us?"
"But the Four-Tailed Jinchuriki has already been stopped by Sakumo," Tsunade frowned.
"Iwagakure doesn't only have the Four-Tailed Jinchuriki. There's also Sunagakure and Hanzo," Orochimaru's golden eyes looked at Tsunade.
"Are you saying they will join forces with the Sand Village and Hanzo?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow.
After saying that, she shook her head again. "Impossible, the Sand Village has already begun to retreat."
"Not to mention that the Land of Wind's treasury is already insufficient. Before the war, the Third Kazekage confidently declared that he would occupy the Land of Rain in three months, but now they haven't even made any progress. They can only retreat," Tsunade analyzed the current situation.
Orochimaru shook his head. "However, according to the information Jiraiya just sent back, a large amount of supplies suddenly appeared in Sunagakure."
Tsunade took a deep breath. "How is that possible? Where did they get the food?"
Orochimaru said expressionlessly, "I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I can only think of one place that could provide this food."
"Where?"
"The Land of Fire," Orochimaru said, one word at a time.
"Huh, are you sure?" Tsunade stood up, knocking over her stool in the process.
Orochimaru nodded. "That's enough supplies to support a village. I can only think of the Land of Fire being able to do that."
Orochimaru continued his analysis. "If the Land of Fire really sold it, then there are two possibilities.
One is that the merchants of the Land of Fire, without the Daimyo's knowledge, contacted the ninjas of the Land of Wind and secretly sold them their own country's food at a high price."
"Although there are risks involved, if the profits are high enough, it's not impossible that they would take the risk."
"Of course, that's just one possibility. Another possibility is..." Orochimaru carefully considered his words.
"Since most of the Land of Fire's merchant guilds are controlled by the Daimyo's office, then the mastermind behind this matter might be the Daimyo of the Land of Fire himself."
"...Are you serious?"
Even Tsunade, with her eccentric personality, found it hard to accept Orochimaru's speculation.
The Daimyo of their own country openly funding enemy ninjas during wartime? If that were to be said, they would be laughed to death, and the Land of Fire's reputation would plummet. And what would the ninjas on the battlefield think?
In comparison, Tsunade was more willing to believe the former possibility, that the merchants of the Land of Fire were secretly funding the Sand ninjas of the Land of Wind in exchange for huge rewards.
"Serious," Orochimaru nodded, without a hint of joking. "Honestly, I'm more inclined to believe the second possibility."
"The Land of Wind is chronically barren and located in the desert. In terms of resource production, it's at the bottom, even worse than the Land of Earth. A prolonged war with a resource-rich country like the Land of Fire is impossible."
"Alright, alright," Tsunade didn't quite understand what Orochimaru was saying, so she nodded and asked her doubts again: "In that case, what benefits would the Land of Fire gain? Pointlessly strengthening the enemy and making things difficult for its own ninjas?"
"Ninjas are ultimately just knives in the hands of the Daimyo. As the supreme ruler of a country, the Daimyo can't consider everything from the ninjas' perspective, because he's just an ordinary person who controls the country."
"For ordinary people, no matter how sharp the knife in their hand is, it's not particularly important. Only profit is the most important thing."
"Isn't war ultimately about seizing profits? Now that there's an opportunity to profit from war, who cares about the lives of ninjas?"
"By the way, do you have any evidence?" Tsunade interrupted Orochimaru.
"No," Orochimaru answered confidently. "If I had evidence, what would I be guessing for?"
"So, what are you going to do?" Tsunade calmed down and sat down again.
"Do nothing. We'll settle the score after the war in the Land of Rain is over."
Tsunade sighed. Perhaps after this war is over, she should take a spontaneous trip to another country?
She stood up, lost in thought, and let out a long sigh.
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