Debate of Wits: The West Blue Mafia Problem

Yang Yunzhi watched Hina hurriedly contact her superiors, feeling rather panicked.

It was only his first day on the job, and he had already caused such a huge mess. He wasn't going to be fired, was he?

The call connected quickly.

Only when the voice on the other end began speaking did Yang Yunzhi learn whom Hina had contacted.

It was actually Tsuru, Chief of Staff of the Marine Headquarters General Staff.

Wait, could a mere Marine major casually contact the Chief of Staff? Was that right?

Didn't the Marines have rules about reporting through the proper chain of command?

Then Hina explained the situation to Tsuru, emphasizing that a single newspaper might bring tens of thousands of people in to enlist.

Unexpectedly, Tsuru was not concerned with how to arrange tens of thousands of new recruits, but rather—

"Newspapers can actually be used for recruitment? And with such good results?"

"Wait, recruiting through newspapers is basic stuff, isn't it? You should have thought of it from the very first day newspapers existed!" Yang Yunzhi could no longer hold back. He asked curiously, "So the Marines don't recruit like this?"

"Hina, who is the person speaking?" Tsuru was not upset at being interrupted. Instead, she sounded curious.

"Uh, he's a soldier I just recruited. He's only eighteen this year, and I'm training him as my adjutant. He also came up with the idea of recruiting through newspapers!" Hina explained.

"I see. Eighteen—he really is a young man!" Tsuru said. "Perhaps young people like you think more actively. No one among us ever thought of using newspapers to recruit!"

"Then how did you recruit before?" Yang Yunzhi asked curiously.

"Recruitment notices are posted year-round outside Marine bases. Naturally, the nearby residents know that the Marines are recruiting!" Tsuru replied.

"Wouldn't that cause the lower-ranking Marines to form cliques?" Yang Yunzhi asked. "After all, they all come from the same place. If they band together to do bad things—say, conceal things from their superiors, gang up to get their superiors killed, or collude with pirates to oppress civilians—it would be hard for their superiors to deal with them, wouldn't it?"

"This..." Tsuru froze. For no apparent reason, she thought of the reports submitted by many commanders of grassroots Marine bases—reports saying the Marines at their bases were ineffective and difficult to manage.

There were also plenty of cases of Marines colluding with pirates.

Previously, Tsuru had only thought these were problems with certain individuals. Could the problem actually lie in the recruitment method?

The Marines had existed for so many years. How had no one noticed this? How had a newly enlisted soldier noticed it instead?

"As for the situation at Base 36, I'll send officers from other bases to assist you!" Tsuru said at once. "I have some matters to attend to here!"

She could not keep talking to this new recruit. Otherwise, he might start to think that all the upper ranks were a bunch of useless fools.

"Then please attend to your work, Chief of Staff!" Hina quickly said.

After hanging up, Hina immediately turned around and stared at Yang Yunzhi with an astonished expression.

"Why are you looking at me so lustfully?"

"Pah, lustfully?" Hina admitted that there had been something off about her gaze, but there was no way it could be called lustful.

She hurriedly looked away, but then quickly realized something was wrong. If she looked away, wouldn't that prove she really had been looking at him lustfully?

She looked back at Yang Yunzhi with full confidence and asked curiously, "How exactly did you do that? It's the first time I've ever seen someone leave the Chief of Staff speechless!"

Yang Yunzhi thought for a moment. "Can I tell the truth?"

"Go ahead." Hina nodded. "It's not like I'm some unreasonable person. What, am I going to hit you just because you say something wrong?"

Indeed, Hina treated her subordinates quite well. Not to mention hitting them, even seeing her scold someone was rare.

"This is what I think: maybe there's a problem with the Marine system. It values force too much and neglects intelligence instead!" Yang Yunzhi explained.

Seeing Hina's expression darken, Yang Yunzhi hurriedly tried to smooth things over. "Of course, maybe it's not a Marine problem. Maybe there just aren't many educated people in the whole world, so it's only natural that the Marines are like this too?"

"The Marines still value intelligence, don't they? For example, the current Fleet Admiral is known as the Wise General!" Hina argued.

"Then it's a problem with the world." Yang Yunzhi nodded. "There really aren't many intelligent people. Otherwise, even a half-baked guy like Sengoku wouldn't have become the Wise General!"

Hina rolled her eyes. "What nonsense are you talking about? How is Fleet Admiral Sengoku half-baked? Everyone recognizes his title of Wise General!"

"Look at the people he competed with in his generation. One was the utterly unreliable Garp, and the other was Zephyr, who wouldn't kill even an admiral. Compared to those two, even a Den Den Mushi could count as intelligent, let alone Sengoku!"

Yang Yunzhi was already putting it mildly. He was too embarrassed to say that Sengoku's nickname on Earth was "mental retard."

"What, mocking Fleet Admiral Sengoku wasn't enough for you, so now you're mocking the Marine Hero and my teacher too?" Hina's expression immediately turned ugly. "Don't tell me you're an undercover agent sent in by some pirate crew?"

"I'm sorry!" Yang Yunzhi immediately stood at attention. "But weren't we discussing intelligence? If they couldn't even think of recruiting through newspapers, it's hard to call them intelligent, isn't it?"

"You were just lucky. I refuse to believe you're all that intelligent!" Seeing Yang Yunzhi's smug expression—though he actually wasn't smug at all—Hina suddenly thought of something. She pulled a stack of documents from a drawer and slapped them directly onto the desk. "Didn't you say you're so intelligent? Come on, see how you'd solve this problem!"

Yang Yunzhi took the documents and looked through them. They turned out to be a large number of complaint letters and reports.

Yang Yunzhi flipped through the documents with a rustle, gaining a general understanding of the whole matter.

These documents were complaints against the West Blue Mafia.

The West Blue Mafia was rampant. They controlled every link in the industrial chain, from production, processing, and transportation to sales. Those who joined them had to pay exorbitant protection fees.

Those unwilling to join either died or were injured.

If they merely did business, that would be one thing. But they also fought over territory, breaking out into shootouts every now and then.

In places where the Mafia ran rampant, ordinary civilians could only live like dogs.

Such living conditions naturally bred large numbers of pirates. Those pirates generally could not defeat the Mafia, so they could only ravage places where there was no Mafia.

Once pirates ravaged those peaceful places and the upper social order collapsed, the Mafia would move in from below.

When those peaceful places suffered pirate attacks, they naturally reported them to the Marines.

Of course, the Marines would also suppress the pirates, but they soon discovered that as long as the Mafia remained, the pirates could never be completely eradicated.

Yet the Mafia was not made up of pirates. It belonged to the kingdoms' sphere of influence, and the Marines had no authority to eliminate them.

The current situation was that rampant Mafia activity led to rampant piracy; rampant piracy caused order to collapse in peaceful regions; collapsed order allowed the Mafia to spread; and the Mafia's spread caused piracy to become rampant once more.

Meanwhile, the Marines were left running themselves ragged behind the Mafia, unable to wipe out the pirates no matter how hard they tried.

"Well? Aren't you intelligent? Tell me, then—what should be done in a situation like this?" Hina looked at Yang Yunzhi with a bright smile. Did he really think coming up with newspaper recruitment meant he was capable?

That was just luck!

This problem was where true intelligence would be proven!