"Isn't it Wano's silver coins?" Queen asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
"Silver coins? They're precious metal, but not a universal currency at sea—they only circulate within Wano and aren't valuable to us," Gusion explained. "As far as I know, we haven't looted Wano's silver coins, though we've taken plenty of gold."
"It's grain!" King, who'd been pondering, spoke up.
Gusion nodded approvingly. "Exactly. The only real asset we provide to Wano is grain, which the Beast Pirates acquire through trade. In other words, Beli is like this country's foreign exchange—we use it to import grain, which is then sold to the public for local currency."
"In short, we directly provide grain; wages are essentially grain."
He wrote "foreign exchange," "grain," "local currency," "wages," and drew arrows between them on the board, making the officers dizzy.
The smarter ones—King and Maria—barely kept up. Kaido just kept a poker face, pretending to understand.
"A nation's foreign reserves are important. We're not just exporting; the factories' products are exported, bringing in more foreign exchange. This is why the Beast Pirates have grown stronger."
He circled "cost" on the board. "Are our costs really that high? Mr. King, what's the overseas price for grain?"
King, who handled procurement, quickly recalled, "About 300 Beli per kilo of rice."
Gusion nodded. "At current Wano prices, 7 silver buys 30 kilos of rice, so one worker's wage costs 9,000 Beli a month."
"That's still pretty high," Jack said, doing a quick calculation.
"Is it? Mr. Jack, you don't know our profits," Gusion chuckled. "For example, a basic worker in the weapons factory produces items worth about 900,000 Beli per month in exports—a 100x difference!"
"So much!?" Kaido exclaimed; he'd never realized the profits were so high.
Gusion nodded. "So our wage costs are a drop in the bucket compared to profits. We just need to keep workers happy and motivated, and we'll always make money."
"And the people of Wano have no concept of this profit ratio. Even if they knew, Beli is meaningless to them—they only see what's in front of them, like food and daily goods. Beli is just paper if they never leave the country."
Kaido finally understood, getting excited. "So, we should run all factories like the new model—keep turning foreign exchange into grain, then into weapons, then into my money—multiplying it a hundredfold?"
"More or less. The key is, we don't need to treat workers like slaves. If they live well, we make more money, for longer, at lower cost."
Gusion thought, "For Kaido to understand this much is already impressive," so he didn't complicate things further.
"Although most of what you said makes sense, are the costs really that much lower? Don't new factory workers still need training?" King asked, frowning.
The question made the others realize—slaves need training, but don't workers too? Isn't that still a cost, and with higher wages?
"Mr. King, you're missing something," Gusion replied. "I explained the profit ratio so you'd see that, compared to our gains, wages are insignificant—even if we paid ten times more, we'd still be making huge profits. The real cost is time—the time of skilled workers, and equipment usage."
King started to get it. "Because profits are a hundredfold, wasted training time is magnified a hundred times?"
He was still confused. "But don't we still have to train workers for free?"
Unexpectedly, Gusion shook his head. "Who says I have to train them for free?"
Seeing everyone's confusion, Gusion explained, "The beauty of free workers is that they come by choice, not force—so education costs should be theirs. We just build a technical school and charge for training."
The officers were stunned. Queen even blurted, "You want people to pay to learn how to work for us!?"
He thought, "Who's the real brutal pirate here? Weren't you a traveler before? How did you come up with such a cruel idea?"
So, to work in the factory, they have to pay for their own training, then compete for the job?
"Why not? I believe many will pay, especially those already working—they'll pay for their children to study, knowing it's a good future," Gusion said. In truth, there were flaws in his logic, but the simple-minded pirates wouldn't notice.
His plan used classic capitalist methods—harsh, but effective at motivating people.
Comparing worker and slave training: workers pay their own way, slaves wait for the master to pay. You can't always tell if a slave is learning, but workers self-motivate; all bosses need to do is pay low wages. And with workers, you can fire them cheaply if they aren't good enough, unlike slaves.
So, worker costs are far lower than slaves—or rather, "worker" is just a nicer word for "slave of capital."
Of course, Gusion couldn't think of a better way. He figured giving people enough to eat, and work in decent conditions, was already progress.
As for the flaws—Wano was totally under Kaido's control, so no matter the training method, Kaido still paid. Schools needed land, teachers, equipment—all costs. But compared to in-factory training, a technical school was a bit cheaper, and workers' tuition was negligible in the big picture.
Gusion presented it this way mainly to make Kaido and the others feel like they were winning, since people are happy when others pay their own way.
In fact, Gusion was laying the groundwork for promoting educational reform in Wano.
If the factories ran smoothly, Kaido would get the idea that opening schools and charging tuition was profitable.
"Mr. Gusion, sometimes I really wonder if you're a traveler or a demon slayer—how do you know so much about governance?" King was amazed.
"Uh… I've just seen a lot of countries. The East Blue is peaceful; lots of countries there are well run. I learned by watching," Gusion answered awkwardly, thinking, "Good thing this isn't the real world—otherwise, I'd be acting out of character."
"Hahaha, either way, higher factory profits are good. Let's get the new ones going!" Kaido roared. He didn't care for the details; he just knew he was about to make a fortune and Gusion was doing well.
"What about the old factories?" Maria asked hesitantly.
"Change them all—do it Gusion's way!" Kaido decided.
"Governor, this can't be rushed," Gusion advised. "Can you let me handle it? Sudden changes could cause unrest and hurt production."
Kaido was in a good mood and agreed. "Fine, it's yours."
Gusion relaxed. His real plan was to reshuffle old factory staff, mixing veterans with new hires—this way, new factories could run smoothly. Output might drop at first, but would recover in a year or two.
This would also give veteran craftsmen the status they deserved—based on their skills, they'd start at higher levels, which would win them over.
Next, all he had to do was hire old masters as teachers, and gradually expand the factories with new Wano workers.
"Governor, my visit today isn't just to explain the changes to factory management," Gusion said, getting to his main point. "I want to discuss the artificial Devil Fruit factories."
"Is there a problem?" Kaido asked, now trusting Gusion enough to discuss even his core operations.
"My research shows the artificial Devil Fruit factories don't yield much profit. I want to discuss whether we should cut back or even stop this line of business," Gusion said, revealing his true goal.