[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-this-water-shadow-is-strong-but-excessively-caut":3,"chapter-this-water-shadow-is-strong-but-excessively-caut-this-mizukage-is-strong-but-excessively-cautious-chapter-466":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","This Mizukage Is Strong, but Far Too Cautious",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},2194777,3774,"Chapter 466: The kite that cannot be retrieved","this-mizukage-is-strong-but-excessively-cautious-chapter-466",466,"\u003Cp>Therefore, on the surface, Hatake Sakumo defeating the Sand Village was a great thing.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>But in reality, because Hatake Sakumo’s actions were too fast, for Hiruzen Sarutobi and the Sannin, it was not good news.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Especially for Hiruzen Sarutobi, the \"threat\" brought by Hatake Sakumo seemed to be imminent.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>No other reason, the cause was very direct, because at this time Hatake Sakumo could already vaguely threaten Hiruzen Sarutobi’s status as Hokage!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>At first glance, such a statement seemed very absurd, because Hatake Sakumo himself was sent by Hiruzen Sarutobi to lead the army, and he also held the position of Mist Anbu Commander, a confidant of the Hokage.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>No matter how you looked at it, Hatake Sakumo should be Hiruzen Sarutobi’s confidant; how could he compete with Hiruzen Sarutobi for the position of Hokage?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>No matter what, Hiruzen Sarutobi should not be wary of Hatake Sakumo.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>But the doorway in this was far from as simple as imagined.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Within Konoha, it was vaguely divided into several factions.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And the largest faction was naturally the \"Hokage line,\" inherited from Senju Hashirama.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hatake Sakumo, the current head of the small Hatake clan, because of his outstanding ability, was favored by Hiruzen Sarutobi and promoted to the position of Mist Anbu Commander.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>From this perspective, Hatake Sakumo, who came from a small ninja clan and was promoted by Hiruzen Sarutobi, was also a person of the \"Hokage line.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>But the truth was actually very simple; even people of the same \"Hokage line\" were divided into distant relatives and close ones.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Undoubtedly, compared to the Sannin, Hatake Sakumo was just a very marginalized pawn in Hiruzen Sarutobi’s hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>This could be seen from the position of Konoha Mist Anbu Commander he held.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>After all, Konoha’s Mist Anbu Commander was not the Mist Village’s Mist Anbu Commander, holding power second only to the Mizukage.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>On the contrary, the Konoha Mist Anbu Commander was a very marginalized existence among the village’s high-level officials.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Konoha’s Mist Anbu was actually in a very awkward position, with Danzo’s Root organization above and the Uchiha clan’s Police Force below, appearing stuck in the middle.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Because whether it was Danzo’s Root or the Uchiha clan’s Police Force, their functions overlapped with the Mist Anbu.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>The Mist Anbu was essentially an organization that existed for the Hokage to handle some shady matters.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>To do some work such as: assassination, aftermath, guarding the village, and some orders passed down privately by the Hokage.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>At present, the relationship between Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzo clearly had not reached the tension of later generations, and the internal group of the Hokage’s four-person team was also generally harmonious.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Therefore, the current Hiruzen Sarutobi was still relatively trusting of Danzo.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>He would unreservedly hand over some \"dirty work\" to Danzo to handle.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>This was equivalent to directly stripping away a major function of the Mist Anbu; the establishment of the Root was no different from using resources that belonged to the Mist Anbu to start a new stove and grab the Mist Anbu’s work.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And as for some \"tiring work,\" such as patrolling, the village’s defense, and being responsible for public safety, it was fully concurrently held by the Police Force led by the Uchiha clan.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>The Police Force was an idea the Second Hokage came up with to divide and win over the Uchiha clan.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>From the overall situation, the establishment of the Police Force did divide the Uchiha clan and successfully isolated the Uchiha from other departments and institutions in the village.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>But some were happy and some were sad; the happy ones were naturally the high-level officials of the Hokage line, and the sad ones were naturally Konoha’s Mist Anbu Commander.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Because the power of the Police Force to be responsible for public security and guarding the village was also grabbed from the hands of the Mist Anbu.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Therefore, after the division of two generations of Hokages, the Mist Anbu’s power was completely divided into three parts.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\"Dirty work\" went to the Root.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\"Tiring work\" went to the Police Force.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Only some miscellaneous work could fall to the Mist Anbu.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And anyone with a brain knew that \"An\" (Dark) Department, a department named after darkness, did dirty and tiring work; if the work in hand was neither dirty nor tiring, what kind of name was there to do? What kind of Mist Anbu was it?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>From this, one could imagine the awkwardness of Konoha’s Mist Anbu, and what kind of status Hatake Sakumo, who was in charge of the Mist Anbu, had in Hiruzen Sarutobi’s heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>That wasn't all; the reason Hiruzen Sarutobi had always intended to alienate Hatake Sakumo had another important reason.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>That was that Hatake Sakumo was \"halfway through\" joining Hiruzen Sarutobi’s subordinates.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hatake Sakumo was neither like the four people including Homura Mitokado, who had a \"second-generation disciple\" bond with Hiruzen Sarutobi.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nor was he like the Sannin, the gold-plated signboard that Hiruzen Sarutobi had been painstakingly managing, who had a master-disciple bond with Hiruzen Sarutobi.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hatake Sakumo joined Hiruzen Sarutobi’s subordinates halfway.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And the reason he joined Hiruzen Sarutobi’s subordinates was also because Hiruzen Sarutobi favored his strength and wanted to use him for his own purposes.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>In this case, Hiruzen Sarutobi naturally could not fully trust Hatake Sakumo.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hiruzen Sarutobi sending Hatake Sakumo to lead the army to fight the Sand Village was also a way out of necessity.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Otherwise, he couldn't send Danzo or the Uchiha\u002FHyuga, right?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>The \"internal threat\" Danzo, and the \"external threat\" Hyuga\u002FUchiha, Hatake Sakumo, who at most had some hidden dangers, naturally didn't count for much.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And in Hiruzen Sarutobi’s plan, it should have been the Land of Rain side, which had a large supply of materials and many elites, that ended the war one step ahead.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>On Hatake Sakumo’s side, as long as he could drag down the Sand Ninjas, it was already a victory.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And what Hiruzen Sarutobi never expected was that Hatake Sakumo was so capable!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>In two or three moves, he defeated the Sand Village one step ahead.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Now, the taste immediately changed completely!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hiruzen Sarutobi also had to follow this angle and continue to think backward.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hatake Sakumo’s return to Konoha this time, relying on the war merit of defeating the Sand Village head-on, his prestige in the village would inevitably reach a peak.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Even if the Sannin later defeated Hanzo of the Salamander, they could not be mentioned in the same breath as Hatake Sakumo.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>One step weak, every step weak.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Hiruzen Sarutobi understood this principle very clearly.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And the Sannin were three people, Hatake Sakumo was only one person.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>With such Sannin, what could they use to fight Hatake Sakumo?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And Hatake Sakumo would inevitably walk from an unknown transparent Mist Anbu Commander directly to the front of the stage.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>In this way, would Hatake Sakumo want to \"go further\" at that time?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Because one must know that Hatake Sakumo, who had Kage-level strength, fully had the strength to succeed as Hokage!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And through the battle with the Sand Village, he also had enough fame.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And what Konoha ninja would not want to be Hokage?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>In the short term, Hiruzen Sarutobi could still stabilize the situation, but over time, Hatake Sakumo’s prestige would accumulate thicker and thicker, while Hiruzen Sarutobi would be increasingly setting sun.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>At that time, what could he use to stop Hatake Sakumo’s rise?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>That wasn't all; maybe he wouldn't even wait for that time.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>This time Hatake Sakumo walked to the front stage, would some marginalized forces that had been squeezed out by Hiruzen Sarutobi for a long time find Hatake Sakumo, and taking advantage of Hatake Sakumo’s current popularity, directly push him to the top?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>For example, the Uchiha, or the Hyuga, or even Danzo?!!!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>No one expected the situation to develop into this appearance, even Hiruzen Sarutobi himself was the same.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>But since things had already happened, Hiruzen Sarutobi had to plan ahead and choose to strike first.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Thinking of this, Hiruzen Sarutobi’s eyes were vaguely cold.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ordering the Land of Rain battlefield to speed up the process and deal with Hanzo of the Salamander as soon as possible was only treating the symptoms but not the root cause.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>To completely handle everything, it was still necessary to \"eradicate\" it at the root.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Where the kite flies, the key still depends on the person flying the kite.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>And if the kite flies too high and cannot be retrieved, then the person flying the kite can only choose to cut the string directly.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Because continuing to try to control a kite that cannot be controlled will only waste time in vain.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>It is better to cut the string and go find a new kite.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>A trace of depth flashed in Hiruzen Sarutobi’s eyes, and he puffed on the pipe in his hand again.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Not long after, the Hokage Office was filled with smoke.\u003C\u002Fp>",1491,"2026-06-17T05:01:42.922Z","2026-06-17T09:00:23.248Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","e35d0190fe78f49d1414e92e51a58d3c6c3db67e3f7abe0c74c8814b3c2941c3","this-mizukage-is-strong-but-excessively-cautious-chapter-467","this-mizukage-is-strong-but-excessively-cautious-chapter-465",533,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthis-mizukage-is-strong-but-excessively-cautious-cover.jpg"]