Translator: PapaSmurf0700
"Is that it?"
The question hung in the air, sharp and dismissive. Bai Ye, the Priest, looked at the leader of the Revolutionary Army with an expression that bordered on pity. Even for a man like Monkey D. Dragon, a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, the insult stung. A muscle in his jaw tightened. Now he understood what Sabo meant about Bai Ye's… particular brand of provocation.
Seeing the stony expression on Dragon's face, Bai Ye knew he'd pushed just enough. He softened his tone, but only slightly. "Look, I admire what you're doing here. Truly. In a world brainwashed by Celestial Dragon propaganda, creating the Revolutionary Army is a monumental feat."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "But your 'revolution'? It's naive. You haven't learned a damn thing from history, because this world has no history of success to learn from."
Bai Ye continued, "You think your purpose is to stir up hatred and incite resistance. That's not a purpose; it's just the first, clumsy step. I agree with Garp on this one. All your wars and uprisings do is get more civilians killed. And for what? Tell me, Dragon, what becomes of the nations you 'liberate'? The ones where you successfully overthrow the nobles?"
Dragon's pupils contracted. How could he know?
Bai Ye answered the unspoken question. "It's not hard to guess. They either collapse back into civil war, or a new tyrant rises from the ashes to take the throne. You teach people how to fight, how to tear down their rulers. But what do you teach them to build in the rubble? Nothing."
He drove the point home. "Tyranny must be overthrown, I agree. But unbridled freedom is just another brand of chaos. To restore order, to redistribute power, they will inevitably fight amongst themselves. Because the human heart... is a greedy son of a bitch."
The words struck Dragon with the force of a physical blow. The pride drained from his face, replaced by the grim focus of a student who has just met a master. He had spent decades fighting a war of attrition, and this man, this "Priest," had dismantled his entire ideology in under a minute with nothing but cold, brutal logic.
"To bring down the World Government," Bai Ye began, his voice taking on the cadence of a lecturer, "you don't have to attack its limbs. Attacking the member nations is a fool's errand. They are the foundation of the Government's power, and with your current strength, you can't hope to compete. All it does is get you targeted and paint you as villains."
"Then how?" Dragon asked, his voice rough. "If not by liberating the Allied Nations, how do we win?"
"Did you listen to my broadcast?" Bai Ye retorted. "Did I spend the whole time screaming about how evil the World Government is? No. I just stated facts. I showed them the slave auctions. I explained the Celestial Tribute system. I gave the world a point of comparison."
Dragon's eyes widened in understanding. "The Whitebeard Pirates."
"Exactly." Bai Ye flicked his wrist, and several small paper figures manifested on the table between them. He placed a morsel of meat in their center. "Imagine this is the world's wealth. From the beginning, this one figure—the Government—is in charge of distribution. He gives himself the lion's share, but the others don't complain. It's all they've ever known."
The paper figures moved, acting out his words.
"But what happens," Bai Ye said, producing another set of figures and another piece of meat, "when they see another group, right next to them?" He slid the new group forward. "And in this group, the meat is shared equally. What do you think happens then?"
"They begin to question," Dragon finished, his voice electric with revelation. "And when their questions aren't answered, they have two choices."
"Either they overthrow the bastard hoarding all the meat," Bai Ye said, "or they take their chances and try to join the group next door."
Dragon looked up, the pieces clicking into place. "So from the very beginning... the Revolutionary Army's target should have been the non-member nations. The ones outside the system."
A proud smirk touched Bai Ye's lips. "Finally. Ever heard of a strategy called 'Surrounding the City from the Countryside'?"
He then laid out his grand vision. The Revolutionary Army would undergo a complete rebranding. They would cease being overt revolutionaries and instead become the protectors of the independent, non-affiliated nations. They would build armies to fend off pirates, establishing a new bloc of power, a new interest group.
The benefits were obvious. The World Government would lose its legal pretext to hunt them. The Navy might even unofficially see them as a massive, self-funded bounty hunter organization cleaning up the seas. This new alliance would provide the Revolutionaries with a steady stream of funds, recruits, and legitimacy. They would create a safe, prosperous alternative to the World Government's oppressive system—a paradise that citizens of the Allied Nations would grow to envy.
Of course, the World Government would eventually try to crush them. But by then, it would be too late. The new alliance would be too big, too powerful, and too popular to destroy without paying an astronomical price. For the foreseeable future, the Government would be powerless to stop their rise.
Bai Ye's motives were, naturally, entirely self-serving. This new power bloc would pacify the Four Blues, discouraging new pirates from setting sail and compressing the existing ones into the New World—fulfilling his promise to Garp.
But most importantly, once Dragon's new Revolutionary Army began this plan, it would become the World Government's absolute, number-one nightmare.
And compared to that? A rookie pirate crew that punched a Celestial Dragon would look like cheating at cards in a pirate den.