Advertising Results and Hidden Concerns

Over the next two days, Yang Yunzhi was anything but idle.

The base was not recruiting soldiers, and with too few personnel, Hina had no way to begin her official work.

But Marines were soldiers, and soldiers could not do without training.

So every day before dawn, Hina dragged Yang Yunzhi out of bed and took him running and training with the others.

Do not ask why Hina was the one dragging him along. It was not favoritism; Yang Yunzhi was a clerk and directly under Hina's command.

He had no other superior, so of course Hina had to call him over for training.

Still, training had its benefits. At the very least, Yang Yunzhi could put his enhanced body to use.

The Marine base's training program was extensive. First came running, followed by hand-to-hand combat training, then movement drills, and finally swordsmanship.

Hina taught with great care, and everyone learned with equal dedication. After all, these were skills they would rely on to survive.

Besides, with such a beautiful female Marine leading everyone's training from the front, it was hard not to stay focused.

Outside of training, Hina did not rest either. She explained the geography of the Four Seas, some of her combat experiences, and the cruel pirates found upon the seas.

In Yang Yunzhi's view, Hina did not flatter those above her or bully those beneath her. She carried no airs. Though she was a woman, she lacked the affected delicacy common in many women and was instead as forthright as any man.

She was an exceptionally good superior.

He was observing his superior, and naturally, his superior was observing him as well.

Or rather, all of her subordinates.

Hina came from a commoner background, so naturally she had no attendants who had enlisted alongside her. When she came to serve as base commander, she had arrived alone as well.

Her innate talent was not exceptional, and her Devil Fruit was fairly ordinary. She had not yet learned Armament Haki or Observation Haki, which meant she was destined to be unable to suppress pirates alone through overwhelming strength.

Under such circumstances, she had to rely on collective strength.

And the group she could rely on was naturally the Marines under her command.

Therefore, she had to select a group of elite Marines to act alongside her.

Among those elite Marines, she also wanted to recruit some who possessed decent talent and could grow alongside her.

Previously, she had not found anyone like that.

In truth, even after training, people capable of becoming superhuman were few throughout the One Piece World. Lucci might have been nothing more than a stray dog by the roadside, but he was still a genuine once-in-five-hundred-years genius.

That alone showed just how rare the strong truly were.

A superpower like Alabasta, with thirty or fifty million people, did not even have a powerhouse at vice admiral level. That was the normal state of affairs.

Thus, Hina had never expected to recruit some extraordinary genius in a place like Glazed Town.

Yet over these past two days, she had made a small discovery.

That discovery was Yang Yunzhi.

Yang Yunzhi had previously appeared physically weak, and she had recruited him because he was literate.

But after two days of training, she discovered that Yang Yunzhi improved remarkably fast.

On the first day, he could only run two laps. On the second day, he could run three and a half.

By the third day, he had run five full laps!

Aside from endurance, he was also quite gifted in hand-to-hand combat and footwork. He could learn most moves after being taught just once; all that remained was repeated practice.

He improved quickly, learned quickly, could grow alongside her, and was educated besides.

He was practically a deputy officer chosen by heaven!

Because of that, she instead became somewhat worried about the results of that recruitment notice.

This was, after all, the first strategy he had offered since joining the Marines. If it failed, would it not deal him a serious blow?

"If the recruitment notice does not work well, then we'll just forget about it! We'll act as if it never happened. At worst, we can recruit soldiers the old way. Even if we only recruit one person a day, we can still recruit enough in a year!"

As Hina pondered, the day quietly passed.

The next day, two days after Hina and Yang Yunzhi had sent out the recruitment notice.

West Blue Weekly went on sale.

There had been no major news in the West Blue lately, only the same old stories, such as civil war within the West Blue Mafia, suspected traces of the Devil Child appearing somewhere, and the like.

Readers naturally skimmed past such stale, familiar news after one glance.

Since no one cared about the same old stories, what drew attention was naturally something that had appeared in the newspaper for the first time.

For example: a recruitment advertisement.

"Why is there a recruitment advertisement in this newspaper? Marine Base 36?"

"I know this base commander, Tina—she is Hina too. West Blue Weekly wrote about her before. She graduated from the Elite Marine Training Camp!"

"So the Marines are recruiting?"

"Looks like joining the military might be a way out too!"

Pirates ran rampant because people in many places could no longer survive.

When they could not survive, becoming a pirate was one path out. But was becoming a Marine not also one?

Many people did not avoid becoming Marines because of some nonsense about freedom. The main reason was that they simply had no channel to enlist and had no idea when recruitment was taking place.

They did not even know where soldiers were being recruited, so how could they become Marines?

But now things were different. The Marines had directly placed recruitment advertisements in the newspaper!

At this point, the entire West Blue knew that Marine Base 36 was recruiting!

Even though few people in the West Blue were literate, once those who could read passed the news along, one person telling ten and ten telling a hundred, it would be enough for the news to reach those who wanted to enlist.

Thus, before the day had even ended, local residents of Glazed Town came to ask about enlisting that very afternoon.

Do not assume that because the Marine base was in Glazed Town, everyone knew it was recruiting.

Many people kept their heads down farming and paid no attention to outside news, so it was entirely possible for them not to know.

So Yang Yunzhi spent the entire day busy alongside Hina, successfully recruiting thirty-five new people from Glazed Town.

"Mm, this newspaper worked quite well!" When the day ended, Hina returned to her office and patted Yang Yunzhi's shoulder in satisfaction. "You did very well. I'm promoting you. Starting tomorrow, you'll be a seaman second class!"

Yang Yunzhi frowned. "Commander Hina, if Glazed Town alone can send thirty-five people, then Gem Country has dozens of towns like this. Could we not recruit over a thousand people? And there are thirty or forty countries like Gem Country across the West Blue. Our recruitment information has spread throughout the entire West Blue. By that estimate, I'm afraid thirty or forty thousand people may come to enlist!"

"What?" Hina froze. "That can't be possible, can it?"

"Even if it isn't thirty or forty thousand, it could still be ten or twenty thousand!" Yang Yunzhi said seriously. "Since these people have decided to come enlist, they have basically already given up many things back home, such as their land and jobs. If we refuse to let them join, then when they return, they will have no work and nowhere to go. They might take desperate risks and become pirates!"

"Ah, this..." Hina was completely stunned. She had never expected a simple recruitment advertisement to work so well, much less possibly trigger large-scale piracy.

"Y-you're not just trying to scare me, are you?"

"I hope this is only my speculation as well!" Yang Yunzhi thought for a moment, then said, "This is also my fault. I did not expect the people of the West Blue to be so enthusiastic about enlisting!"

"What should we do, then?" Hina immediately grabbed Yang Yunzhi's hand. "I can't bear the cost of making more than twenty thousand people become pirates!"

Well, although Hina was a Marine, as a Devil Fruit user, she did not need to handle firearms. Her hand was quite soft.

But that was not the point.

The point was that when something like this happened, her first thought was not to shift the blame, but to solve the problem.

What an unparalleled superior!

He patted Hina's hand and said softly, "This is actually very easy to solve. We can report it upward. Our Base 36 is not the only one in the West Blue lacking recruits. Twenty thousand people divided among fifty bases would only be four hundred per base. Is that really difficult to assign? If that does not work, we can distribute them to the East Blue, West Blue, and South Blue as well."

"That is a solution!" Hina considered it and found herself quite convinced.

After taking over Base 36, she had dismissed quite a few old, weak, sick, and disabled personnel. Other bases likely had similar people as well.

And Marine recruitment had always been difficult. If there were a way to gain twenty or thirty thousand new recruits at once, the higher-ups would certainly be pleased!

"I'll contact my teacher right away!"