"What?! My brother???"
In the distance, Ace, who was quite sensitive to the word "younger brother," immediately stood up with his eyes wide open.
"What's going on, sir? You... you're not the younger brother of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Tenyasha, are you?"
You guys... huh?
"Well..."
Hearing Ace's words, Gawain quickly stopped Ace. It was just a simple word; it wouldn't be a problem if he didn't elaborate, but if Ace made a big deal out of it, it would seem like there was something strange going on.
After stopping Ace, Gawain clapped his hands lightly, signaling everyone to look at him.
Then, Gawain explained with a wry smile.
"As is well known, Doflamingo comes from the Donquixote Family."
Even my good friend Mjosgard, the current patriarch of the Donquixote Family, is Doflamingo's uncle.
Intermarriage is very common among the various Celestial Dragon families. Although my family, the Gawain Family, according to seniority...
Doflamingo, he probably really is my cousin..
As soon as he finished speaking, Gawain quickly turned to Doflamingo and then spoke to Doflamingo, changing the subject.
He spoke seriously to Doflamingo.
"Doflamingo, I'll tentatively believe your promise and accept you as one of us until you break the rules of my Dark Bird Ship."
However, in return, you are expected to make the same contributions.
Lucci!
Gawain called out, and Lucci immediately took two steps forward, stood beside Gawain, and bent down to listen.
Gawain continued.
"Send your men to take over the Joker's influence in the Underworld. For the next period of time, this will be your main focus!"
Regarding the arms and Devil Fruit trade, we'll change our sales strategy.
New and heavy weapons will not be sold, and all Famous Sword and excellent spears and clubs will be kept for future use to arm our forces.
As for the deal between Doflamingo and Kaido, well...
Let's just cut it off!
Even if it could make us a lot of extra money, I have no intention of strengthening the pirates!
As soon as he finished speaking, Gawain glanced at Doflamingo from afar, while Doflamingo waved his hand dismissively.
At the same time, Lucci suddenly knelt down in front of Gawain and solemnly said, "Yes, sir."
After Lucci the order, Gawain also fell into deep thought, because Doflamingo's most important business was not arms, but human trafficking!
As he gently rubbed his forehead with his right hand, Gawain couldn't help but sigh.
Based on the intelligence he had previously obtained regarding Doflamingo's forces, just how large was Doflamingo's human trafficking operation?
Every human trafficking hub in the world has a significant connection with Doflamingo!
Either they were directly controlled by Doflamingo, or they paid Doflamingo a fixed fee...
To put it simply like that, it might sound a bit dry, so let's look at the data.
In the world of Pirate King, more than 140,000 lives are sold every day!
Please note, it's not 140,000 per year, but 140,000 per day!
Most of the slaves sold came from villages around the world that had been displaced due to pirate activities and crackdowns by the World Government.
Every moment, countless villages across the Four Blues are destroyed by terrifying creatures without the knowledge of the world.
Let me give you an example, and this example has to include Pirate King.
In the original One Piece storyline, after Luffy released the prisoners from Impel Down, a large number of relatively more vicious pirates returned to the sea.
Among them, the strongest is naturally Bullet is imprisoned on Level 6 of Impel Down.
And what did Barrett do? Not long after he came out, he and his collaborators devised the Laugh Tale Eternal Pointer Project.
As soon as this plan came into being, the island where he was carrying it out immediately became another tragic place where residents had to be displaced!
The vast majority of the new generation of slaves on the high seas emerged during such large-scale migration events.
Because in the world of One Piece, where the technology is advanced but the basic living standards are extremely low, slave traders could easily manipulate events involving large-scale population migrations!
Besides Bullet's actions, Zephyr's actions were also involved. In the original storyline, Zephyr's attempt to destroy the world with Dyna Stone turned Shug Island into a dead zone, causing countless refugees to flee in panic!
Note that not every refugee captured by slave traders is eligible to appear at an auction!
While they were still in prison, the number of destroyed islands was simply not that many.
When watching anime and seeing the auction scene at Sabaody, we can't help but feel that there are only so many people being auctioned off.
Even if a dozen or twenty people take the stage at a time, and it's scheduled for one night, there probably won't be twenty groups in total.
But in reality, the auction house in Sabaody is the most high-end auction house in the world!
This auction house is practically the only one in the world that regularly welcomes Celestial Dragon as clients!
The slaves that appear in this auction house are all the best among slaves. If the items aren't good enough, the Celestial Dragon will really kill the entire family of the auction house manager.
In short, the fact that Mr. Rayleigh can consistently appear in these auction lineups is quite a testament to his capabilities.
Ahem, we've digressed. Rayleigh doesn't represent all slaves.
Aside from the official auction house in Sabaody, slaves are being sold all over the world every moment!
Gangs need to buy slaves to work and act as henchmen, the wealthy need to buy slaves to be laborers, and nobles need to buy slaves to maintain their luxurious lifestyles.
Even ordinary people who suddenly become rich or accumulate a piece of land and a house will often buy one or two slaves they like to serve as stewards or assist with their work.
In short, some darkness will never be clearly depicted in comics. All you need to know is the saying "what the superiors do, the inferiors follow."
When rulers around the world are openly promoting slavery, it's quite reasonable that the slave market in the Pirate World is even more exaggerated than that of United States at the time.
Just like in old United States movies, perhaps in a rural open space in some village, itinerant slave traders would start their trafficking operation time and time again.
This guy looks alright, 5,000 Beli.
That guy looks good, 10,000 Beli.
Some even have stakes of a few hundred Beli.
Such examples abound; population is one of the most sought-after commodities in this world, and the Pirate World is indeed this dark...
Thinking of this, Gawain let out a long sigh, tapped the back of the chair with his finger, and then shook his head.
"I cannot easily make a decision about the slave trade!"
After all, the number of people involved is so large that it truly alarms me!
As soon as he finished speaking, Gawain pursed his lips with a deep expression and rubbed his forehead.
There was something he didn't say, and that was...
He can't even make the decision to abolish the slave market right now!
Even in the United States of the past, a single law concerning whether or not to allow slavery sparked the famous American Civil War.
A country fought a fierce civil war before finally determining the ultimate victor.
At this moment, Gawain, although he had gathered many powerful figures around him, and his forces could barely hold out against all the pirates and all the known marines for a while.
Ultimately, however, Gawain's influence over the entire ocean was far too small!
Moreover, all he can decide is the slave sales system that Doflamingo has established over the past few years. He is not Five Elders and does not represent the World Government. He cannot order the entire world to abandon the culture of slavery.
Even though Doflamingo forcefully ended Gawain's slave system, he could not stop people's desire to buy slaves.
Where there is demand, there is a market. Doflamingo doesn't do this market, then others will gradually tear it apart and take it over. You'll have to do it yourself!
In a previous One Piece manga, Doflamingo once said something that many readers considered arrogant and boastful.
He said that if he were really arrested and imprisoned, the whole world would be thrown into turmoil!
In the manga, hardly anyone feels that the world is in turmoil, because the world of the manga revolves around Luffy and his crew.
In Luffy's world, he cannot see what happened after Doflamingo's arrest.
The fact is, after Doflamingo's arrest, the global slave market had to be reshuffled!
That was a massive operation involving global gangs; it was an economic war that could plunge countless villages into crisis.
Many people are puzzled as to why he is called the Gild Tesoro, or Doflamingo, or the controller of the World Economic Journal.
None of them possessed monstrous strength; they would tremble at the sight of the Four Emperors.
But they just happen to have a strange kind of confidence!
In reality, the status and position of these three individuals are equivalent to those of the national bank, the national stock exchange, and all the news agencies within the country.
What if all three industries went bankrupt and disappeared overnight?
Do you think this country might experience unimaginable turmoil?
That's why their confidence is understandable!
Because in this world based on comics, Luffy's story is a story of dreams, while the story of someone like Doflamingo is stark reality!
Reality is far heavier than dreams.
Thinking of this, Gawain's pursed lips turned slightly pale. Beside him, Rayleigh for a moment, then raised his hand and patted Gawain's arm.
"Hey, Captain, don't think about those things."
Do you think we're still just innocent pirates, marines, and little kids playing pretend pirate games?
To be honest, I have a very deep understanding of the profession of slavery.
Although I'm always the one being sold out, believe me, it's only through being sold out that you can learn more.
I often don't bother to look at the intelligence reports Shakky and Kalifa give you, but I can guess what you glean from them.
The way you look right now, isn't it...?
"Is the slave market under Doflamingo's control difficult to manage?"
"Whisper, whisk, whisk!!!"
The instant Rayleigh finished speaking, before Gawain respond, Doflamingo himself burst into laughter.
He laughed as he arrogantly spread his hands and said...
"The legendary Dark King Rayleigh, was ultimately just a legendary sailor and pirate. How could you possibly understand what's hidden behind the word 'market'?"
Any industry that uses the word "market" in its name, whether it's the entertainment market, the industrial market, the food market, the building materials market, and so on.
Every market exists as an integral part of modern society and a fundamental piece of the puzzle for maintaining social stability!
As for the slave market I control, Fufu, you don't want to abolish that kind of thing all at once, do you?
"Tsk tsk, do you want me to laugh at your kindness, guys?"
At this point, Doflamingo raised his right hand, but halfway up he suddenly felt pain, so he had to switch to his left hand.
As his left hand slid through the air, countless lines appeared out of thin air, then intertwined and entangled to form a complete market structure diagram.
Pointing to the line drawing, Doflamingo continued with a cold laugh.
"If my slave market is abolished, the resulting demand gap will cause discontent among everyone from kings and nobles to members of the middle class on the streets."
The world is changing and moving. Every day, different families go from slaves to commoners, from commoners to petty bourgeoisie, from petty bourgeoisie to millionaires, from millionaires to aristocrats, and then fall back to commoners or even slaves.
Just like the flow of water, as long as everything flows in a world with the concept of slavery, forcibly cutting off the water's circulation will only lead to polarization between upstream and downstream, resulting in floods upstream and droughts downstream.
Such an outcome would only result in a breach in the dam, impacting both upstream and downstream sectors of the market!
And my slave market, even I know that everyone who does this job will be called a damn bastard by you!
But I must explain on their behalf: they also have families, and they also need this industry to maintain their income!
If you truly despise slave traders, then simply eliminate the concept of slavery from the entire world!
Without the concept of slavery, their actions would be purely criminal, going against the tide of society!
As for now, even the World Government and Mary Geoise are leading the way in keeping slaves. In this environment, my people may be bastards, but they are just heartless!
They only violated morality, not purely the law!!!
Of course, some of them would break the rules and expand the scope of slavery from the prescribed children who had lost their parents to children from good families.
Some of them, when they can't find any homeless people to sell their goods to survive, will reach out to families with comfortable lives!
That kind of behavior is a crime, but punishing crime is the business of the Five Elders and the Navy. What does it have to do with me?
Most importantly...
Did you know that the slave trade not only supported slave traders, but also the vast majority of ordinary slaves?
Unlike merchandise like Rayleigh, who sneaks into my auctions to make extra money, the vast majority of slaves in small towns come to us themselves, selling their children, and even their wives and themselves!
At this point, Doflamingo looked coldly at Gawain, staring into Gawain eyes as he spoke, word by word.
"Gawain, you don't really want to give up my slave market completely, do you?!"
You can reform that market; you can add more rules and improve the enforcement methods!
But once you give up completely, not to mention the slave traders who crave power in the future, just consider the slaves who have to wait to be sold every day!
Without my market to support them, and without the families who buy them to support them.
How are you expecting countries around the world to conjure up the environment and resources necessary for the slaves to live in?!
Many of the people I trafficked were indeed pitiful and innocent.
But besides those, many more ultimately lost their families, their futures, and without the support of the slave traders who made their living off them, they wouldn't even have a decent meal, destined to starve to death!
At this point, Doflamingo stood up excitedly, no longer looking at Gawain, but at everyone around him.
As he watched, he slammed his fist on the table and said this.
"In my entire life, I've never had a damn chance to learn any damn principles!"
All I know is that if you want to ban slavery, then wait until you truly rule the whole world!
If one holds a position, one should fulfill one's responsibilities; if one makes decisions of that level without having reached that level of understanding, then so be it.
That kind of decision is definitely irresponsible!
After saying that, Doflamingo looked down at Gawain and spoke to Gawain in the most serious tone he had ever used.
"Believe me, Gawain, even though I'm trash, I understand better how trashy people can live more comfortably in today's world!"
Don't take a one-size-fits-all approach, even if it's an industry that shouldn't exist in the first place. Don't use a one-size-fits-all approach when it's inappropriate!
I will give the market to you and your people, and I will work with you to plan for the current slave market!
Let's work together to plan the details, raise the bar for this industry, and reduce its chaotic practices!
Gawain, you have a kind heart, but you shouldn't be a hero; you should be the king at the highest point, shouldn't you?
"In any case, now is not the time to completely abandon the slave market, absolutely not!!!"