Licinius was seated in his well-lit chamber, a spacious and comfortable space. The walls were plain, but there was a table in the middle with a single chair, upon which Licinius was seated. A candle was burning on the table, while the commander analyzed a rough sketch of the city and its surroundings, courtesy of the capital's library. It had been a surprise when this peasant army suddenly appeared at their doorstep, but they had time to prepare, for the rebels had no means of scaling/assaulting the stone walls. The enemy was estimated to be about three thousand strong and eight hundred, including the garrisons of surrounding forts that joined them. This seemed a slight mistake, bringing only five hundred men with them. But this must do for now.
Licinius tallied their and the enemy's forces in his mind, they had approximately 450 legionaries, 250 musketeers, and one hundred light cavalry; while the enemy at a glance didn't seem to have any horses, most of their weapons were either spears or improvised farming tools like scythes and pitch-forks, and most of them were farmers and peasants, except for a small core made up of Ronin samurai. But these samurai didn't consider themselves Ronin, instead, they probably had the intention of putting the deposed Frost Daimyo back on the throne, as a puppet of course. This seemed the most likely because the rebels needed a leading figure that could draw more support from the region's populace, but this wasn't certain.
As he contemplated these thoughts, a loud and hurried knock came on his door. Licinius turned his head towards the door and ordered the man to enter. It was Maximus, alongside the guard stationed on Licinius' door, the shinobi's clothes were a bit disheveled, while he was lightly panting. Licinius signaled the guard to go back, and calmly questioned Maximus,
"What seems to be the matter boy? You're the shinobi we sent with the scouts right?" Maximus gave a quick reply,
"Yes sir. There's a very important thing I must tell you. There's, there's a large enemy force assembled only a few kilometers here, about a thousand men, who're marching in this direction." Licinius' eyes widened, and he seemed surprised but remained calm,
"What of the others?" Maximus' breath now became normal as he replied,
"Stuck outside, only I was able to sneak back inside." Licinius turned his eyes back to the city's sketch on the table, and with a slight nod replied,
"Your shinobi skills have indeed been useful." After hearing this, Maximus quietly turned to leave. Licinius spoke again,
"However," Maximus stopped in his steps and slightly turned his head,
"There's another task I need you for." Now Maximus turned back completely and straightened his back,
"Of course, sir." Licinius started scribbling something on a paper in front of him, and informed Maximus,
"You see, following this siege by the enemy, we have placed the Daimyo and his daughter under house arrest. You know, lest they do something we don't like. Most of the men will be busy defending the ramparts, so I would like you to go and take charge, as a shinobi." He finished scribbling on the paper, and calmly handed the note to Maximus, the latter took hold of it,
"Take this with you, it has my signature on it if the other soldiers there question you." Maximus glanced over the paper, then quickly bowed to Licinius and turned to leave,
"Don't bow to me, I'm not your Hokage." Maximus didn't say anything, but smiled and left.
Byzantium
Marcus and Severus were seated facing each other in the former's office. It was a comfy and luxurious place, as described before. On the table were two flasks, while the two men were leaning back on their seats. Their mood was serious, but not tense. There were also a few papers on the table, which Marcus seemed to be reading as he leaned back on the chair, and he soon put the documents back on the table and straightened his back. Stroking his chin in thought, he spoke to Severus,
"So, Janus has managed to capture the fort, that's good news." Severus' mood remained serious, and he rolled his eyes to meet Marcus',
"And they have been besieged by another rebel army. Led by a daimyo named Ishikawa, from the Land of Jungles." Marcus raised an eyebrow, Severus continued,
"Well, not exactly besieged. Both armies are in a standoff, encamped just a kilometer away but no battle yet. We have had no news from the Land of Frost yet." Marcus nodded. They remained quiet for a while, Severus' mood still tense, as he asked,
"There's another matter,"
"What?" Marcus replied, Severus continued,
"Our position has been weakened by these troublesome peasants. I am worried that, one of the villages will take advantage of it. Especially those imbecile folk from Kumo, they must be seeking retribution." Marcus' mood became lighthearted, and he chuckled,
"If it's that, you needn't worry sir. That's not gonna happen." Severus raised an eyebrow,
"How can you be so sure?" Marcus took a sip from his flask, and replied,
"Our opponents were hit hard in the last war. Many of their ports and coastal settlements were sacked and destroyed, while we killed 110 of their most elite shinobi on Turtle Island, alongside about a thousand others in Konoha." Severus wasn't satisfied by this answer,
"I doubt that only a thousand makes a dent in a regional power like the Cloud Village." Marcus chuckled again and replied,
"Well Severus, the thing is that everything you learned about resource management and military strategy in your heyday must be forgotten because it doesn't apply here." Severus seemed a tad bit offended, but remained quiet, Marcus continued,
"As I have observed in their system, these shinobi are specially trained warriors and special forces that are trained rigorously for years and invested heavily if they are talented. This system has the advantage that any shinobi that survives in his career past the rank of Chunin is only a great asset for his village, but it also has a downside. Since it takes years of training and resources to produce these exceptionally talented warriors, it takes the same amount of time to replace them; if a Jonin with twenty years of experience is killed, it also takes twenty years to fully replace his loss. This system is also the reason why the villages are willing to send twelve-year-old children to the battlefield without hesitation, while our conscription age will only ever fall to 15 even in the direst situations.
"It is in stark contrast to our system, where we can properly train a man for seven months and be sure he will be a useful asset, the time for training is reduced further with those muskets. Because of this problem in the shinobi way of training, we have been able to dominate the battlefield in these parts. Yes, I admit that an exceptional shinobi may be able to fight fifty of us at once, and probably even win, but we can always send fifty more men into the fray without difficulties, while once that shinobi dies the entire battle is done.
"We have superior logistics, navy, siege weaponry, numbers, tactics, and battle strategies, that allow us to blockade any enemy nation in every aspect and turn it into a war of attrition, to the point that the Daimyo is 'forced' to either sue for peace or have his country's entire economy collapse. We can launch campaigns deep into the hinterlands of enemy nations; unlike the shinobi wars, which are mostly limited to the borders, or take other nations as their battlegrounds. This is why there hasn't been any shinobi campaign with the REAL goal of destroying an enemy village, the only two that ever occurred were the joint siege of Uzu by three great villages, and a force of the Kumo-Iwa coalition of 1000 that was destroyed by Minato Namikaze. The truth is that all the villages have certain advantages that make them roughly equal in power. One village can't completely overpower another without allying with some other village. This balance of power is maintained unconsciously, and no other village will go to the length of assaulting another unless they grow too powerful and disbalance the power scale. As I mentioned, the losses from such a war would be too great and would take decades or even generations to completely replace. The leaders of the villages know this flaw in their system well and intend to keep things mostly as they are, the wars don't make much of a difference from the political perspective.
This is very similar to ancient Sparta, where a small minority of exceptionally trained warriors dominated a much larger host of helots that did all the manual labor and farming for them. Sparta was a military state, where a citizen's only duty was to fight, as the helot slaves did all the necessary work for them. They had the same problem with recuperating casualties, especially with their low birth rates and population. Ultimately, as skilled as Spartan hoplites were, they were outclassed and outmatched by their Athenian enemies, who had a reliable economy, flexible military, and a navy powerful enough to dominate Sparta and all its overseas colonies. You see Severus, even an army of skilled warriors trained from birth is useless if they can't get supplies, and are surrounded by enemies.
There has been almost endless conflict on this land for more than centuries, which has halted all growth in science, technology, and philosophy, save for the military. And quite indeed, a civilization can develop because people have a surplus of resources and can do other things, and experiment with new ideas. This land is like a civilized jungle, where the peasant's only objective is to feed his family and pay his debts, his landowner's objective is to squeeze as much as possible from the peasant, and the ninja and samurai's goal is to perfect the art of war, and their Daimyo's goal is to dominate the continent, something not realistically possible. I can surely say, that even if we had arrived a century later, the technological development of this continent would've been the same, aside from some new destructive weapon or jutsu."
Severus nodded and stayed quiet, perhaps processing the information. Marcus cleared his throat after this long sermon and took another sip from his flask. Severus then got up and began to leave,
"I'll be now taking my leave, Marcus." The old commander turned to leave, Marcus smiled and commented,
"Come on, Severus, my narration wasn't that bad."
Land of Frost, 'royal' palace
It was all quiet in the palace corridors, save for the sizzling of the candles and Maximus' footsteps. He had a hurried pace, while in his left hand, he held the paper given to him by Licinius. As he continued walking, a soldier suddenly came before him, and stopped him by putting a hand on his chest,
"Where do you think you're going?" Maximus stuttered a bit, but replied,
"I, I was sent by Commander Licinius to join the palace guard." He thrust the parchment of paper to the guard, who promptly unfolded it and read the contents. In a few seconds, his manner became friendlier and he commanded him,
"Very well then, keep walking through the corridor and you'll meet the captain who'll assign you your shift." Maximus nodded and kept walking.
Soon, he reached the stairs leading down to a small enclosed garden-like space of the palace, where Maximus could see a few of the soldiers. Upon talking with the captain, it was assigned that Maximus stay here and another soldier was sent away to another part.
It was boring work, just as the captain put it. What possible danger was there to counter here, they were only wasting manpower and time here, standing idly by. The captain wasn't satisfied with being a watchman for a deposed Daimyo, however, the other soldiers seemed content; it was still better than digging trenches and other manual labor. The small garden was a good place to spend time, with a small pond, dozens of varieties of flowers planted systematically, and green grass. This enclosed garden was surrounded by corridors and other sections of the palace. This was a big building, built perhaps even before the warring states era, but the palace's luster had waned like their Daimyo's power.
The soldiers lounged off in the garden, there was nothing to do, or no one to ensure they were on duty. Maximus soon joined them, sitting on the grass and chatting with some of them. They were sociable folk, usually docile, but cruel in actual war. One of the soldiers was roughly explaining to him the layout of the palace,
"Over there, is the servants' quarters, to the left is the storage facility and granary," The soldier continued, now pointing to a tower-like structure in the distance,
"There, and around it, is the Daimyo's quarters. His daughter also lives there."
"Have you seen her?" The soldier nodded his head sideways, and replied,
"No, and I don't care. Just end this whole business and get back home." Another soldier, lying on the grass and playing with a twig, added,
"Yeah, I can't see anything that those Senators find beneficial in this war-torn shithole." The captain scoffed at this, and replied,
"Educated statesmen and simpletons think differently."
"Don't mock us so much, you come in the same category as us." It soon turned into a friendly argument, but Maximus ignored it. He ran his eyes around the building, particularly the tower that stood out. It was an impressive work of art, within a small daimyo's limits at least; stone arches decorated with complex patterns, pillars and windows made of imported sandalwood, and a sloping Japanese-style roof made of cyan bricks. The striking colors could catch anyone's attention.
It had been a busy day, and Maximus laid down on the grass to rest; his duty was to guard the palace, but from what? He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, with uncertain thoughts, of what will happen to Narses and the others.
Author's notes
So yeah, what I stated in the second segment are also my thoughts. The shinobi's is a flawed system, that produces skilled warriors but isn't suitable at all for drawn-out conflicts of a TRULY large scale. From the canon itself, I can deduce that 'wars' in the shinobi continent never went beyond border regions, or took place in small buffer states like Amegakure. The only direct/intended attacks on the enemy village itself happened only twice, once with the siege of Uzu, and the failed campaign by Iwa and Kumo during the Third Great War. Even in the warring states period, even cutthroat enemies like the Uchiha and Senju never attacked each other's bases, why? Probably because they knew that the losses from such an attack would take a painful amount of time to replace, given the system of shinobi training, and the gains from the victory would in no way justify them being removed from the position of top dog of the continent.
The number of people capable of becoming Genin at least is quite low, given how all the villages could only muster 85,000 ninjas including all ranks. This is also taking into account average, or below average ninjas. Because let's face it, not every Uchiha is an Itachi, and not every civilian is a Minato. So the requirements for being a shinobi are already so tough that most of the village's civilian population is ruled out from the category. This does have the effect of producing high-quality warriors, but 13 years to train one chunin, and he dies, means 13 additional years of training to recover from that loss. This system takes 'every life matters' to the extreme.
There is also a historical example of this. The earliest firearms used in Europe, such as the arquebus, were incredibly cumbersome, immobile, took a long time to reload after each shot, and may not even work in rainy weather. But still, all global powers of that era made extensive use of these weapons, why? The same reason- a skilled knight can easily beat a musketeer 1-on-1, but in a large battle, volleys of musket fire will decimate any cavalry charge. The fact that firearms can pierce all armor makes it even more painful for the losing side. Moreover, the after-effects of such a battle are bad as well.
It takes a knight rigorous training for years, then casually serving as a squire under another knight for years, to be then recognized as the best heavy cavalry in the West. On the other hand, it only takes a few weeks or months to properly teach a peasant how to load and aim a musket. This also allowed rulers to field much larger armies than before. Gradually caused the knights and footsoldiers of old to fade away, and be replaced with musketeers.
Do leave a review if you read this far.