Paradise on Earth
The Whitebeard Pirates all shuddered.
They were pirates, but they understood the Navy's power even better.
The Navy could bury them beneath sheer productive capacity. Warships, soldiers, cannons—those were all things that could be mass-produced.
A pirate crew's fighting strength, on the other hand, could not be replicated, cultivated, or regenerated.
You could defeat the Navy ten thousand times, but as long as the Navy defeated you once, sank your ship, and scuttled their own ships, you were finished.
Not everyone could fly, after all, or use the Navy's Rokushiki technique of Moonwalk.
Under such circumstances, the chances of pirates being sunk and killed from long range would increase dramatically.
And merchants could provide everything: people, lumber, food, steel, gunpowder...
As long as those things could be purchased, the Revolutionary Army and the Navy would effectively become impossible to defeat.
They could fight on despite repeated defeats.
Once they realized this, the members of the Whitebeard Pirates felt their scalps tingle. They had never expected the Revolutionary Army to have such close dealings with merchants.
But that was precisely what proved Marco's choice had been correct.
Three main warships alone meant nothing. The Revolutionary Army could build thirty, or three hundred. They would not even need to establish bases; with Supply Ships alone, they could easily sail the Four Seas and suppress pirates.
They had no way to resist such force.
The Whitebeard Pirates' commanders composed themselves and gradually began to understand Marco's intentions.
Marco did not continue the topic. He simply followed Ace and continued wandering around.
The gathering of so many merchants was bound to promote prosperity. Merchants drew capital out of the countryside, turned it into goods, gathered those goods here, and then tried to earn even more goods from this place.
Wealthy merchants