Kazekage Ninja: The Rise of the Hidden Sand-Chapter 156 - 51: The Desert Campaign

"Throw down an empty water canteen, and make sure to tie a rope to it!"

Hidan shouted loudly toward the mouth of the well.

After a moment, an empty water container descended from above, landing with a soft "thud" on the dry well bottom.

Hidan removed the stopper and placed the canteen's opening at a small depression on the edge of the well. Drop by drop, clear water trickled into the container until it was finally full. Hidan replaced the stopper.

"Pull it up, pull it up, and throw another one down."

Following this pattern, Hidan filled about ten canteens before noticing the water source had dried up. He shook his head helplessly.

"Sigh, this well is useless now. These ancestors, I swear."

With these words, he grabbed the last half-filled canteen, leaped powerfully to the middle section of the well wall, and quickly climbed out using both hands and feet.

A group of samurai waited expectantly at the well's mouth. Hidan handed over the half-filled canteen.

"This is all that's left. The underground stream connected to this well has dried up."

The samurai exchanged worried glances. For so many people, this amount of water wouldn't even be enough to moisten their lips!

Hidan ignored these "lords" and walked straight toward Senku Hyōe.

Senku Hyōe was a relatively experienced "veteran" when it came to leading troops. His logistical preparations had been quite thorough, not only equipping each samurai with a large leather canteen that could hold five liters of water but also collecting nearly a hundred wooden water carts. In theory, this water should have been enough for two thousand samurai to make a round trip to Black Wind Fortress.

However, while ideals are plentiful, reality is often harsh. This guide job wasn't going as smoothly as Hidan had imagined.

According to the rules Hidan had established, regardless of how thirsty one felt, each person was limited to one liter of water per day. But these samurai lacked the obedience and endurance of ninja. They acted like entitled lords, and few followed Hidan's orders.

In the beginning, they even refused to tie the safety ropes around their waists, complaining that it felt like being tied up like livestock and was uncomfortable. Only after several of them were swallowed by quicksand deep in the desert did they finally tie the ropes properly.

The desert weather was scorching, and the samurai drank from their canteens without restraint, gulping down water whenever they pleased. Some higher-ranking samurai even used half a liter daily to wash themselves, claiming they needed to maintain a samurai's dignity. Come on, this is war! What dignity do you need? Now the situation was dire—halfway through their journey, most samurai had depleted their personal canteens and started consuming water from the carts. When they were still about four hundred kilometers from Black Wind Fortress, Senku Hyōe finally couldn't sit idle anymore and decisively ordered that the remaining forty carts of water were off-limits to everyone. Violators would be executed!

If they continued wasting water like this, even if they reached Black Wind Fortress, should the battle drag on even slightly longer, wouldn't his entire army perish?

So he approached Hidan with a humble attitude, seeking solutions. Hidan had no choice but to rely on memory to find abandoned wells and underground streams, hoping to squeeze out some water.

Now those samurai lords were unhappy. They had come to fight and serve their daimyo, not to suffer thirst in the desert. Led by several minor samurai leaders, they directly attempted to seize water from the remaining carts. Senku Hyōe was furious and beheaded several troublemakers before quelling what could have become a mutiny.

Does this seem unbelievable? Did you expect samurai to be obedient and highly efficient in executing orders? Friend, I tell you, they're not! The samurai collective has always been an extremely unruly armed group. Belligerent, overbearing, and arrogant accurately describe them. They barely listen to anyone's orders except the daimyo's, including Senku Hyōe's!

As direct armed forces under the daimyo, these samurai have always been highly favored by successive daimyos. Not only were they given generous monthly salaries and rice, but they also enjoyed high social status. Commoners had to bow and make way when encountering samurai. If they were slow, a samurai could cut them down with his sword without bearing any responsibility. A samurai only needed to do two things well in life: one, practice swordsmanship to improve strength; two, do whatever the daimyo commanded.

This resulted in some samurai having first-class swordsmanship but second-class intelligence, because they simply didn't need to use their brains. If you dared to make them unhappy, as long as you weren't the daimyo, they would cut you down regardless of the reason or who you were. Even if you outranked them, so what? They called this "gekokujō" (overthrowing superiors)! (Samurai generally weren't well-educated and didn't understand the true meaning of gekokujō.)

This is also why in the ninja continent, samurai gradually declined while ninja became the dominant force.

Fortunately, Senku Hyōe had some prestige among the samurai, and he managed to quell the disturbance. But the journey had to continue, and the battle still needed to be fought. However, he had completely lost the confidence he had at departure. In the current situation, he wasn't even sure if the troops could hold out until they reached Black Wind Fortress.

"If I were you, I'd simply leave no way back and let the men drink freely. It would boost morale, wouldn't it?"

Hidan leaned against the luggage with his legs crossed, speaking smugly.

"Hmph! What do you know? What if..."

"Hehe, there is no 'what if'!"

Hidan rudely interrupted Senku Hyōe.

"In battle, what matters is momentum. Fighting these desert bandits is a matter of life and death—there's no third option.

If you take Black Wind Fortress, you'll naturally capture enough clean water and food. If you can't take it, your only choice is seppuku. The water we have now is enough to sustain us until we reach Black Wind Fortress. This is a one-shot deal—is there any need to keep your brothers thirsty?"

Senku Hyōe considered this and realized Hidan's words made sense. He ordered all samurai without water to come and collect water in batches, with one critical condition: no scrambling.

Only then was the disturbance completely resolved.

"Lord Senku, there's something I need to make clear to you,"

Hidan said solemnly.

"Please speak."

Senku Hyōe now greatly valued Hidan's opinions.

Hidan pointed ahead.

"Another 200 kilometers north, and we'll enter Black Wind Fortress's territory. With so many people, we can't possibly avoid being discovered. This means that by the day after tomorrow at the latest, we might engage in combat. How will you fight? You need to think this through."

"I've already considered this."

Senku Hyōe opened a map and pointed to a small spot next to Black Wind Fortress.

"This place is fifty li from Black Wind Fortress—an abandoned post station called Bian City Post. I've checked the geographical records of the Land of Wind for this area. This post occupied about a hundred zhang and was completely abandoned only seventy years ago. Although the wells have dried up, it's definitely adequate for shelter. We'll use this location as our base and then launch an attack on Black Wind Fortress. It should be fine."

Fine, my ass! Leaving such an abandoned post station intact without demolishing it was obviously Black Wind Fortress using it as bait. They have ninja too, don't they? How many spies do they have in this desert? Any desert lizard or vulture in the sky could be a summoning animal! Yet he's still so confident, saying "it should be fine." Hidan couldn't help but feel contempt.

"So once I've guided you to Bian City Post, my mission is considered complete, right?"

Hidan asked.

"You could say that,"

Senku Hyōe replied.

"Alright then, let's rest. I guarantee we'll reach it within four days."

Hidan secretly rejoiced that he would finally be free from serving these lords. He turned and tossed a couple of bundles of dried tumbleweed into the campfire, then crawled into a standard-issue thick sleeping bag developed by the Hourglass Group and fell into a deep sleep.

~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~

Read up to (50 ) advanced Chapters on Patre\on

Visit us here: patreon.com/DarkGolds

Happy reading, everyone!