Sensing that his image as an expert was about to crumble, Rubick hurriedly said, "Actually, I think agriculture matters most. People have to eat before they can develop anything else. Do you collect taxes directly from what the farmers grow?"
"Of course," Igaram said. "Three-tenths of the harvest. King Cobra is one of the most benevolent rulers among the Affiliated Nations."
Rubick nodded, then asked the question he cared about most.
"Do you have to pay the Heavenly Tribute?"
"No," Igaram replied. "Alabasta is one of the original twenty kingdoms, after all. We don't have to pay it."
No wonder they could support an army of six hundred thousand. Rubick turned to Kureha. "It must be tough for you, though. Ten billion a year? I don't know how you earn that much."
Igaram waved his hands. "It's not actually that much."
Kureha looked puzzled. "Doesn't your country pay the Heavenly Tribute?"
Rubick realized he had made a mistake about something everyone in this world knew. He quickly explained, "Well, my country isn't an Affiliated Nation."
Kureha said with an amused smile, "Look at our country. It's tiny, with fewer than a hundred thousand people. Do you really think we could afford ten billion a year? We only pay a hundred million, and the royal family covers most of it."
Kureha shook her head. "Even if you rounded up all of us ordinary people and sold us as slaves, you wouldn't get a hundred million. This past year, with Wapol gone, Dalton had to scrape together the Heavenly Tribute from wherever he could. Stubborn man."
Only then did it dawn on Rubick. "So that's why Doflamingo demanded ten billion in ransom back then. The ransom was never what he wanted. He wanted to become a Shichibukai."
"You're politically clueless," Kureha said.