"You've all worked hard."
Koharu smiled slightly before her expression became serious once more.
"Village Hidden in the Mist's offensives have suffered repeated setbacks these past days. They will definitely not let the matter rest. I estimate that Village Hidden in the Mist may launch a full-scale offensive next."
"What are everyone's thoughts?"
As she spoke, Koharu slowly swept her gaze across the four captains before ultimately settling on Shinichi.
At the same time, the other three captains, Minato Namikaze, Fugaku Uchiha, and Hiashi Hyuga, almost simultaneously turned to look at Shinichi with perfect tacit understanding.
So now you people can't even be bothered to think anymore, huh?
Shinichi silently complained in his heart.
Outwardly, however, his expression remained calm.
After pondering for a moment and organizing his thoughts, he walked toward the massive coastal defense map and pointed at the marked location of Rinkai City.
"I suggest abandoning Rinkai City."
The moment those words left his mouth, the command center fell silent while Homura frowned slightly.
"Abandon Rinkai City? Shinichi, you should understand that Rinkai City is our strongest foothold along the southeastern coast. It possesses abundant supplies. Once abandoned, the Village Hidden in the Mist will gain a solid foothold inland. At that point, driving them out again..."
"It will be extremely difficult."
Shinichi picked up the sentence and nodded calmly.
"Shinichi, explain your reasoning."
Koharu spoke.
"Just as elder Koharu predicted, the Village Hidden in the Mist's multi-point infiltration tactics have failed to achieve results during these past days. Therefore, their commander will likely change strategies soon and launch a large-scale offensive instead."
"At that time, the Village Hidden in the Mist will certainly commit everything they have and use Rinkai City as their primary breakthrough point, pouring massive forces into a frontal assault. Given our current troop strength, if we insist on defending Rinkai City to the death, even if we manage to hold it, our casualties will be extremely severe."
"More importantly, even if we defend Rinkai City successfully, all we will have accomplished is preserving the city itself. The village Hidden in the Mist's main force will still exist, and their supplies and reinforcements can continue arriving endlessly by sea."
"So we cannot fight according to the Village Hidden in the Mist's plan. They want to launch a decisive offensive, and we should refuse to let them achieve it. What we need to do is continue controlling the initiative of the battlefield."
"That means: you fight your war, and I fight mine."
You fight your war, and I fight mine?
The people present all revealed thoughtful expressions.
"So what if we voluntarily abandon Rinkai City and hand it over to them?"
"Village Hidden in the Mist gathers so many troops and expends so much effort to launch a major offensive, only to find an empty city waiting for them. Will they enter or not?"
"And after they enter, the choices before them become..."
"Either use Rinkai City as a foothold, advance steadily, and gradually push inland..."
"Or seize the momentum and pursue our forces in an attempt to destroy our main army in one decisive blow. But if they do that, their battle lines will rapidly stretch out, carrying them deep into inland territory that they are unfamiliar with. Their forces will also become increasingly dispersed during the pursuit..."
"As for us, while abandoning Rinkai City, we can evacuate all supplies from the city. Anything we cannot take away will be destroyed, leaving the Village Hidden in the Mist with nothing but an empty shell..."
"We are far more familiar with the terrain of this region than they are. We can fully utilize the surrounding depth of territory, continuously harassing and attacking them with small units while wearing down their effective strength."
"To put it simply, this is a proactive strategic withdrawal in which we cast off our burdens and move lightly."
Shinichi slowly swept his gaze across everyone present before concluding: "The core strategic principle is…"
"Preserve the people and lose the land, and both people and land can be recovered. Preserve the land and lose the people, and both people and land will ultimately be lost."
"And the essence of the entire deployment can be summarized in eighteen words…"
"Lure the enemy deep inside, disperse their forces, exhaust and trap them, then seek opportunities to annihilate them."
"And this deployment has another important significance. As a major Rinkai City, once the Village Hidden in the Mist occupies Rinkai City, they will inevitably use it as the central hub of their logistical network."
"Their supplies will be transported regularly from rear bases to Rinkai City. What we need to do is use this period of drawing the enemy deeper inland to continuously harass and scout them, gradually uncovering their supply patterns and eventually locating the core logistical headquarters supporting Village Hidden in the Mist's frontline forces."
As he spoke, Shinichi picked up a pen and drew an arc across the map, extending from Rinkai City toward the seas surrounding the Land of Waves.
"As long as we destroy their logistical heart, the Village Hidden in the Mist army on the frontlines will become an isolated force and will have no choice but to retreat without a fight!"
The command center fell completely silent.
Everyone carefully pondered the strategic concepts emerging from the young boy's mouth.
Shinichi said nothing more and simply waited quietly for everyone to digest the information.
At the same time, a thought casually emerged in his mind.
Perhaps in the future, he could write strategic-rank books, such as on war and total war.
And books concerning tactical thought as well, such as attention, soldiers… no, attention, ninjas.
That would further deepen his identity as a military theorist.
Thinking about it, it was rather absurd.
This world had been fighting wars for nearly a thousand years, and conflicts large and small were countless, yet no systematic theoretical works on warfare had ever emerged.
Military knowledge in every faction was mostly passed down through verbal instruction between senpais and juniors, combined with personal experience.
The operational planning of the ninja villages also relied largely on the talent and intuition of individual commanders.
No reproducible or inheritable theoretical framework existed, and no one had ever attempted to elevate warfare into a systematic field of study.
Although Shinichi had never personally read the original versions of those famous military classics in his previous life, he had watched many analysis videos from content creators explaining history's most famous battles.
With his current intelligence and deductive ability, especially under the enhancement of the Seeing Through Things as Clearly as Observing a Flame, he could completely reconstruct the general frameworks of those strategic theories.
Of course, many aspects could not simply be copied directly.
After all, this world possessed the extraordinary power known as chakra, where individual combat strength could alter the course of local battles.
But he could fully adapt and reconstruct those theories according to the realities of this world, especially considering how various supernatural powers affected the nature of warfare.
If he could someday organize these theoretical systems into books and spread them throughout the Shinobi World, he would undoubtedly establish himself as a military sage who had reshaped the very rules of warfare.
Just how much cognitive depth and scope would that bring him within the Shinobi World… The mere thought of that scale was enough to inspire anticipation.