Great Wisdom of a Small Country
The situation was now completely different from when Leo had made grand claims while he was destitute on Nine Snake Island.
First, he was now the globally acknowledged second-generation Commander of the Revolutionary Army, even if it had not yet been fully confirmed internally. Second, they had just spearheaded an assault on Enies Lobby, one of the Marines' three major strongholds.
Not only had they taken Enies Lobby with ease, but they already possessed two Logia Devil Fruit users. If they were not eliminated now, then given time, they would grow into a force standing shoulder to shoulder with the Marines in terms of top-tier combat power.
With such strength backing him, Leo's words now carried weight second only to the Four Emperors and the World Government.
The only thing people in the pirate world could not quite understand was why Leo and the Revolutionary Army still had not established a country of their own, monopolizing a territory and exercising political authority over it.
After all, many people still thought in very simple terms, but Leo had long since transcended such constraints.
The prosperous Grand Line trade routes cultivated by the World Government provided him with ample support. As long as he wanted it, merchants and capitalists would always be his friends, continuously delivering strategic supplies—steel, grain, and Devil Fruits—all for the Beli and gold in Leo's hands.
The World Government could never have imagined that the commercial and logistics system it had so carefully developed would become Leo's support.
Unlike the old Revolutionary Army, Leo possessed ample gold reserves and spent money like water in this regard, without the slightest concern. In fact, he was deliberately increasing his holdings of Beli. How could he fight a financial war in the future without ammunition?