Chapter 154 The mission begins

The next day.

morning.

Qingming and a group of well-prepared Konoha jonin, led hundreds of Konoha middle and lower ninjas to the front-line stronghold to fight against the Iwagakure Village.

In addition to the people, there were also dozens of carts in the team, most of which were loaded with standard ninja tools such as kunai and shurikens.

Obviously, these were all prepared by the base camp for this counterattack.

However, to be honest, Qingming was not very optimistic about the outcome of this counterattack.

As for the reason
It's very simple. The war has been going on for two years and Konoha is already seriously short of troops. Even if they capture some strongholds this time, they will most likely not be able to hold on when support from the Iwagakure Village arrives.

As for destroying the enemy's living forces.
This may be possible, but there are many ninjas in the Iwagakure Village, and they don't care about the death of a few cannon fodder ninjas.

In this way, after the exchange, Konoha will definitely suffer in the end.

However, they had no choice but to fight, because if they continued to delay, the Iwagakure Village would transfer all the more than 10,000 ninjas who were surrounding and killing the Third Raikage to the front line.

Although it is impossible to fight Konoha with all of them, even if one third of them are divided, it will be enough to put pressure on Konoha's front line.

At that time, the situation will return to its previous state - the Iwagakure Village will use its superior military strength to gradually erode Konoha's defense zone.

Obviously, this is a slow death.

Orochimaru must have seen this, so he decided to take a gamble.

If we can take advantage of the emptiness of the Iwagakure front line this time and destroy a large number of its manpower, then it won't matter even if we are pushed back later.

At least the battle line was stabilized.

However, Qingming, who had the memories of his past life, knew clearly that things would definitely not go according to Orochimaru's idea.

Otherwise, Konoha wouldn't have been pushed to the doorstep a few months later.

Thinking of this, Qing Ming couldn't help but secretly remind himself in his heart that he must be careful on the battlefield this time and must always be alert to unexpected events. Maybe the Iwagakure Village has prepared some secret weapons.

If he died on the battlefield, he would regret it to death.

The wheels were rolling, and a group of Konoha ninjas were like ghosts, tightly surrounding the cart and moving forward in silence.

······
Sunrise and sunset.

In the blink of an eye, two days passed.

Unlike the march of a large army and the mission carried out by a single person, it only takes Qingming about a day to return from the front line.

According to the plan, their trip would take about three days.

Even so, it was because all the people were ninjas and could support high-intensity marches. If it were an army composed of ordinary people, they would not be able to arrive in less than ten days or half a month.

Qing Ming glanced at the surrounding environment and estimated that it would take another half day to reach the target base.

At that time, after two days of rest, the attack will be launched immediately, and time is very tight.

Fortunately, no harassment incidents occurred in the past two days, otherwise it would not be possible to recover in two days.

Wandering around, half a day passed quickly.

Before Qing Ming and his companions arrived at the base, the people there had already received the news and sent someone to contact them.

However, this has little to do with Qingming, as this aspect is mainly handled by a senior ninja from the Nara clan.

At the same time, the other party is also the commander-in-chief of this mission.

After the two finished their conversation, everyone set off again.

About ten minutes later, Qingming and others arrived at the target stronghold.

This is a small village. Hundreds of people poured in and instantly filled up the entire village, making it inconvenient to rest.

However, no one complained, or rather, there was no time to complain. The attack would be launched in two days, and they had to take advantage of the time to rest.

After settling everyone down, the senior ninja of the Nara clan convened a senior ninja meeting to arrange the work of each senior ninja.

Qingming was assigned to the combat group, whose main task was to deal with the enemy's high-risk targets, which was actually to deal with the enemy's senior ninjas.

Obviously, compared with his abilities in other aspects, the Nara clan's jonin believed more in his frontal combat ability.

Qingming had no objection to this, because he also needed some evenly matched battles to hone his swordsmanship.

"Swordsmanship" is ultimately used to kill people. Although simple practice can increase proficiency, it is far inferior to improvement in combat.

Just like the time in the Land of Earth, although he didn't have extra time to practice swordsmanship, after several battles, his proficiency was increasing rapidly.

Of course, the help of the shadow clone is also indispensable, but it is undeniable that fighting can indeed accelerate the growth of "swordsmanship".

It just so happened that after the Three-magatama Sharingan evolved to its limit, ordinary jonin were no longer his match.

Without any worries, Qingming can use the battle to hone his swordsmanship. This is a win-win choice.

······
In a blink of an eye, it was two days later.

This evening.

After Qing Ming and others finished dinner, they began to check their equipment.

During this time, no one spoke, only the "clang, dang, dang" sound of the ninja tools colliding.

For a moment, the entire stronghold was filled with a depressing atmosphere.

Ten minutes later, everyone finished the inspection and the Nara clan's senior ninja announced the team's departure.

The Konoha ninjas were divided into four teams, and under the leadership of more than twenty jonin, they ran towards the stronghold of the Iwagakure Village in a fan formation.

According to the plan, they would officially launch the attack at 8 o'clock in the evening, so they had to set off early.

The reason for this time limit is that this time the attack is not just on their stronghold, all the strongholds on this front line that are confronting the Iwagakure Village will launch an attack at the same time.

However, those strongholds were mostly feint attacks, and only their stronghold was the main force.

And once they have achieved clear results, the other strongholds will follow suit depending on the situation, thus forming a comprehensive suppression of the Iwagakure Village.

It can be said that they are the "spear" of the entire battle line. Only when they break through the defense line of the Iwagakure Village opposite can the subsequent large-scale counterattack plan be carried out smoothly.

From this, we can see how heavy their mission is.

Taking advantage of the cover of night, Qingming and his group arrived at a location less than five kilometers away from the Iwagakure Village stronghold.

According to the intelligence that has been ascertained in the past few days, the Iwagakure Village stronghold ahead will actively shrink its defense circle every night.

As for the reason, it seems that because the stronghold was empty, the opponent did not dare to spread its manpower too far at night and could only concentrate on defense.

In this way, they only need to eliminate the sentries along the way and they can reach within one kilometer.

At that time, a full-scale offensive can be launched.

Time passes minute by minute.

The four teams of Konoha ninjas advanced in unison without making any noise along the way.

All the secret sentries in the Iwagakure Village were discovered in advance by the Byakugan, and then dealt with by special jonin who were good at assassination. It was like an assembly line operation, simple and efficient.

About half an hour later, everyone finally reached the one-kilometer defense circle of the Iwagakure stronghold.

At this point, it was no longer easy to approach quietly.

Sure enough, just a few minutes later, a group of people exposed their whereabouts.

(End of this chapter)