You know, life is never that difficult when you know how to make an honest gaining from an absurdly easy job.
Now, one would easily mistake this claim to be somehow related to being a shinobi and doing missions, but the thing that many really failed to consider when it came to this kind of economy was how simple it was to gain the greatest weapon available in this time period.
At least, that is until someone, which is me, decides to use this reasoning to explain to a confused Hiruzen why my wallet was always full and fat with cold cash. To someone from a renowned clan, that much money wasn't rare to see someone handling, but considering the brunet's age, I quickly realized the problem was more about me being the one having this much pocket change at my disposal.
Add to the matter that the Shimura Clan shouldn't have a stable income from work since mother was retired and had little qualification to try for some meaningful job. The reason why we were able to live as well as we could was because the house was a gift from the Hokage to the clan, and because my 'father' had plenty of riches left for us to use to sustain ourselves.
I could bring up theories about how it was possible for that much coin being able to sustain the original Shimura family, but I was fairly certain that, after the eventual death of the original Ms. Shimura, Danzou was somehow supported by Hashirama for a certain time period. Just enough for him to graduate and make a living through missions.
It would also explain his devotion to completing the mission, with each check mattering in his general survival within the village.
Still, he wasn't the 'protagonist' of this brilliant and insanely stupid tale about how I managed to get a stable source of money flowing right in my clan coffers. It all started with a small question that roused when I found a specific aspect of Chakra Control training I hadn't realized even existed.
When I asked Madara about this technique, the man didn't give it much weight, merely saying that it was simple to accomplish the feat depicted by the book. I decided to try out the moment I was back home from that training session, picking a small plot of land that was still within our private property and decided to test my theories on the field.
Two days later, I presented my mother two fat bags filled with coins and an idea she was difficult to rope into until I gave her proper sight over the procedure I had elaborated.
Chakra wasn't a 'science' known to the fullest, especially with how the chaotic period of the Warring States drove a full shift of its usage to battle-related abilities. What many didn't know, or at least weren't still able to grasp after almost a century or two of fighting, is that Chakra could be used for other kinds of work. In this particular case, I was aiming at agriculture itself.
Vegetables are the main source of food after long conflicts. People just know that eating anything luxurious during trying times was synonym of begging for some serious riots or assassination. May it be grain or rice, food born from the fertile soils was regarded as the main source of nourishment for most of the planet's population.
In basic economics, better equipment translates in higher quality for the products elaborated through standard processes. With current farmers having trouble keeping up with the changing times, the production of available rice is dampened by this issue… and the moment someone manages to get a steady and big amount of food for people to buy through proper stores, then this individual is going to be able to exert a monopoly on the product. They gain momentum the more they work through the process… until someone else arrives with a better procedure to get more products out of the previous process.
So when I realized I could use chakra to speed up the growth of plans without having Mokuton as part of my affinities, I decided to give it a go and see how far I could go before actually tiring myself out. The result was that I ended up furnishing the local food store with at least a hundred rice cups in the first attempt to get this done.
I was baffled, shocked by the fact that nobody actually came up with this idea and… I knew I had to do something rather ballsy but incredibly difficult to get through with if lacking my mother's own permission to go ahead with this. The Shimura Clan lacked any 'family-own abilities', but just like any clans lacking this kind of unique traits, they could develop some artificial ones to keep up with the other clans.
To avoid this little trick to fall into unwanted hands, I decided it was only correct from my part to have this sealed as a family-only secret. The Hokage was confused by the decision, but it was Mito herself that made him realize the cunning plan I had just discovered. I wasn't sure if Hashirama considered it a flattering discovery since this very secret was loosely tied to the Senju's Mokuton, or if he was just surprised none of his clan actually came up with this idea about this.
Maybe they came up with it, but with the Warring State this idea was just lost in the endless period of conflict that preceded Konoha's foundation.
Finally, after three weeks of making tall numbers with the production of rice, I decided that the next step had to be carefully decided. I couldn't keep up on my own with the demand… and I knew that trying to grasp at the coins I had for too long was going to create only economic problems for my family and the village itself.
Without proper economic rules keeping the entire settlement to collapse onto itself, I had to take a bigger step than the one I would've wanted to go for.
It started as a minor attempt, with me trying my hand persuading some of the farmers living beyond the main gates of Konoha. The Farmlands were protected only by the outer wall which was supposed to confirm the borders of the village, but even now there was little case of banditry with the intense patrolling missions issued by the Hokage himself.
Reaching out from one of the few candidates that would've been opened to an economic deal, I was allowed to buy a share of its gains at the expense of investing on the plot of land and improving it to be used at its maximum potential. To the eyes of the old farmer owning that section of the territory, it just felt like a divine blessing.
And I couldn't exactly blame him for bowing at me as if I was the avatar of some God of Agriculture when I managed to produce in a single day twenty times the rice he would be able to produce in a full week. At first he thought that there was some trickery afoot when I said I wasn't going to be the one to personally oversee this kind of process, but he seemed to change his mind when I presented him to the worker I had decided to hire for this task.
Noda Bunjiro was an old Shinobi that had retired a little less than two years ago. After his left eye was damaged in one of the last fight of the Warring States era, the man had been given an honorable discharge for his loyalty to the Senju Clan, and was given the chance to live the rest of his life in complete peace and enjoy a substantial pension to pay for any expenses until the end of his existence.
…
Of course the old man that had fought endless battles wouldn't just give up the chance to actually do something with his skills instead of bemoaning the lack of action after retiring. While one thing was being spared from the horrors of War, another was putting someone that could still do so much with his abilities to a forced retirement.
So when I gave him the chance of working with me with contracts and seals to prevent him from turning on me with the 'secret skill' I wanted to give him for this kind of job, he jumped the boat as if I had offered him a lifelong membership to a quality brothel.
Bunjiro was the first of many veterans that were itching to do something more than spending their days sitting their butt in their living rooms and only muse about their glory days. And as many veterans, there were various farmers that were open for that kind of deal.
In less than two months, I ended up conquering more than 70% of the Farmlands that were under Konoha's jurisdiction. In less than two months, the price of food decreased to best regulate the sudden increase of availability for both rice and other vegetables in the local markets.
To summarize it all: The Uchiha and the Hyuga might have pretty eyes, and the Senju had their Mokuton- but the Shimura Clan held control over a non-negligible portion of Konoha's food source, and this was going to only go better for the clan once I managed to convince through negotiations the rest of the farmers to join my little scheme.
I could still remember the tears of joy mom was shedding when I took her for a big shopping spree. When I told her that she could buy what clothes she wanted no matter the price, she fell on her knees and forced me in a tight embrace.
"And that, Hiruzen-kun, is how babies are made."
As I concluded my explanation with that, the brunet seemed to snap out of his unfocused state of mind as his poor head was having some trouble digesting some steps of my brilliant plan and… now I did say something interesting that caught his attention at once.
"W-What? Babies? But we were talking about-"
"I was talking about why I got this rich at first, but then when I saw you all confused and thinking, I tried to check if you were still listening to me by adding the truth behind how babies are made at the end of it."
His jaws dropped and his cheeks flushed at that mirthful response.
"R-Really?"
…
"Nope," I cheekily answered, gaining a quick frown from him. "As if I would know how that madness works, Hiruzen-kun. I prefer to keep myself pure and untainted."
He seemed to buy it, but he looked immensely pissed by having tricked him through that joke. I had thought about doing that to him but… I decided against it. I had my standards, and my standards lied about the extreme barriers imposed by human morality itself.
…
"Do you want to buy some ice cream?"
The brunet frowned at me and I shrugged.
"I'm paying."
That seemed to get him to concede to that request, nodding in agreement as we decided to go for a detour to pick some of that sweet treat.
Ah, isn't it great to have knowledge of modern economy in a world where economy was an untreated subject?
AN
Canon Omakes have a 'C' in the title/threadmark.