Wano was divided into six regions: Kuri, Udon, Kibi, the Flower Capital, Ringo, and Hakumai.
These regions were separated by great rivers and did not directly border one another. To travel from one region to another, one had to pass over bridges connecting them.
Each region had its own climate and characteristics. Kuri had once been Kozuki Oden's domain. Udon was home to the infamous prisoner quarry—Udon Prison. Kibi was the most desolate land in Wano. The Flower Capital was the most prosperous area. Ringo was known as the Land of Snow, while Hakumai was a port region.
Among these, Kurosaki Rei was most familiar with Kuri, largely because of the manga—Luffy first arrived in Wano there, met Tama, and the story unfolded from that point onward.
Because of this preconceived impression, Kurosaki Rei had assumed that Kuri's famine must be the worst.
But after reviewing the reports provided by Fukurokuju, he discovered that Kuri wasn't actually the most impoverished region.
That unfortunate title belonged to Kibi.
After all, Kozuki Oden had only been dead for eight years, and Kaido's factories in Wano had only been operating for a little over a decade. Environmental pollution hadn't yet reached a completely irreversible stage. In Kuri, the land could still produce some crops—just not enough for people to eat their fill.
Kibi, however, had always been barren to begin with. With soil and rivers now polluted, it had become completely incapable of growing food. Large numbers of people starved to death every year. The only reason it wasn't even worse was that many Kibi residents had joined Kaido's factories, earning wages to support their families.
Based on population estimates, Kurosaki Rei calculated the amount of grain required and decided to allocate the largest share to disaster relief in Kibi.
Yes—relief.
He had no intention of selling this grain. Instead, he planned to distribute it directly, ensuring that people in famine-stricken areas could eat first.
Kurosaki Rei didn't understand complex market economics very well, but he knew one thing: urgent problems had to be solved first. Besides, whenever the Beasts Pirates shipped grain to Wano in the past, they had never charged Kurozumi Orochi for it.
The Beasts Pirates weren't philanthropists, of course. They had already been paid elsewhere. Compared to cheap overseas grain trade, the output profits of Wano's factories were absurdly lucrative.
Kurosaki Rei recognized that a country dependent on imported food was fundamentally unhealthy. But at this stage, he had no better option. And since the Beasts Pirates had no difficulty obtaining grain, he intended to exploit that advantage during the early development phase.
He divided the shipment King had delivered into two portions.
Sixty percent went into the national granaries, kept for flexible use. This would also allow him to regulate the market later, suppressing the originally sky-high grain prices.
The remaining forty percent was all sent out as disaster relief, ensuring that people in severely affected regions like Kibi and Kuri could eat their fill and regain the strength to resume productive work.
As for governing Wano, Kurosaki Rei had drafted a "three-step strategy", already put into writing. He even had the Oniwabanshu deliver a copy to Kaido—though whether Kaido would actually read it was another matter.
The overall logic was simple.
Step One: Solve famine.
People needed to eat before they could work. Every portion of grain distributed meant one more life saved.
In the strategy document, Kurosaki Rei had even emphasized this point explicitly:
Every life saved today becomes an additional laborer for the factories tomorrow.
He trusted that Kaido would fully understand this logic.
Once the people were fed, what should they do next?
Go back to farming?
No.
Although Kurosaki Rei, at heart, appreciated agriculture and understood the importance of food self-sufficiency, he had no intention of sending these people back to the fields.
Wano's land, after years of pollution, simply wasn't suitable for grain production anymore. Yields were pitiful and returns low.
If people continued farming before environmental recovery, they would remain trapped in a vicious cycle of low output and chronic hunger.
So Kurosaki Rei made a bold decision.
He would send them all to help Kaido build factories.
Yes—factories.
He was confident Kaido would be delighted with this plan and would never veto it.
Wano was an inherently distorted country. When Yamato had first asked how to make the people live better and happier, Kurosaki Rei had agonized over it for days without reaching a conclusion.
But yesterday, it finally clicked.
The reason Wano seemed to have no future was because he had been trapped in the mindset of a traditional agrarian state. Yet Wano had already entered an industrial era—it simply required a different set of rules.
It wasn't that he was foolish. Rather, because of his past life and his company, he instinctively disliked concepts like factories and capital. He had forgotten that the essence of the problem lay elsewhere.
Industrialization itself was never evil. No system was inherently good or bad. What mattered was how leaders guided it.
In the end, if people could eat, wear clothes, have shelter, and feel their happiness rise, that ruler was a good ruler.
Thus, Kurosaki Rei concluded that Wano didn't need to cling to agriculture. Based on his understanding of pollution, even with environmental治理, the land wouldn't recover for at least ten years—possibly not even in a century.
At this stage, Wano was better off importing food.
Of course, simply stating this wouldn't let Kaido feel Wano's "progress." So correspondingly, Kaido needed to gain more profit.
And where should the unemployed masses go?
Naturally—the factories.
Kaido had already dispatched the Numbers, the ancient giant corps, to dredge rivers and expel polluted waste from Wano, partially addressing environmental issues.
From a global perspective, this was still a half-baked solution. But Kurosaki Rei knew he couldn't persuade Kaido further yet. He would wait until he produced tangible results and secured the strategist position before offering advice.
With environmental issues preliminarily addressed and employment routes established, Wano was now poised to see factories rise everywhere.
Kurosaki Rei made a rough estimate.
Given the extraordinary physical labor capacity of people in this world, within one month, Kaido's factory scale would double.
At that point, Step Two would be complete.
Step Three involved gathering unemployed drifters from other regions and jobless citizens from non-famine areas.
They would be split into two groups.
One group would go to Udon to mine resources—expanded factories required expanded raw material supply.
And the other group?
Construction.
They would build bridges, repair roads, construct reservoirs, and elevate Wano's infrastructure as a whole.
Kurosaki Rei didn't explain in detail how this benefited Kaido. But he was confident that if the first two steps succeeded, Kaido wouldn't question the third.
With Kurosaki Rei's order issued, grain convoys rolled out toward Wano's famine-stricken regions.
Because he had just established his authority with bloodshed, no one handling the grain dared to get any ideas. Under Oniwabanshu supervision, the shipments moved cleanly—no one dared steal even a single grain of rice.
At the same time, on Onigashima, Kaido sat with the All-Stars and the Tobiroppo, all gathered around a single sheet of paper.
"What kind of nonsense is this brat spouting?" Queen roared after reading the letter, his fat jiggling.
"He wants to give our grain away for free to disaster victims!? Are we running a charity now?!"
"I say he's up to no good," Jack growled. "He's just wasting our money. I'll go kill him right now."
The others chimed in, most expressing dissatisfaction with Kurosaki Rei.
In their eyes, Kurozumi Orochi had been a passable ruler—at least he knew grain was meant to be sold, not handed out to lowly civilians.
Even Kaido frowned amid the noise. In his worldview, pirates didn't do disaster relief.
"Kaido," Black Maria finally spoke up, cutting through the chaos,
"I think Kurosaki Rei makes sense."
"The grain was already given to Wano. Naturally, Yamato and Kurosaki Rei have full authority over how it's used. Besides, we never charged Orochi for grain before either—wasn't that basically giving it away to support that useless bastard?"
The other officers froze.
When she put it that way… she wasn't wrong.
They just instinctively rejected anything that smelled like "charity."
"And don't forget," Black Maria continued,
"Wano is our territory now. Yamato is its shogun. That means Wano's people are our people—our property. If they starve to death, isn't that a loss of assets?"
The officers wore strange expressions, but the logic… held.
They plundered freely abroad, but never did so in Wano. This was their base.
Now that they ruled directly, letting the population die off would only mean fewer workers for the factories.
"I agree with Maria," King said calmly.
"From Step Two alone, it's clear Kurosaki Rei has a coherent plan. He's not feeding people for nothing. Once they're fed, they'll build factories for us. Factory numbers will rise, and output will increase."
King, one of the sharper minds in the Beasts Pirates, immediately saw the plan's feasibility—and found it rather clever.
Moreover, King wasn't a purely bloodthirsty pirate. He once believed Kaido to be Joy Boy, someone who could create a better world.
If Wano's people could live better, that was a good sign.
Perhaps he hadn't been wrong.
If one day the entire world could live well under them—wouldn't Kaido truly be Joy Boy then?
Even if Kaido insisted he wasn't, King would still follow him to the end. Kaido had saved him from darkness. They were brothers forged by countless battles.
The officers argued back and forth, analyzing the plan's feasibility. Some supported it; others doubted it.
Finally, Kaido slammed the table.
Silence fell.
After a brief pause, Kaido spoke solemnly:
"So what he's saying is… my factories will double. Right?"
The officers' mouths fell open.
Kaido actually understood the core point.
"Haha, that's not wrong," Black Maria chuckled.
"From one angle, at least, that's exactly the conclusion—our factories will double."
"Can it really work?" Kaido asked suspiciously.
"Double the factories within a month, workers in place, output doubled?"
"Based on Kurosaki Rei's description," King replied,
"I think it's feasible."
Kaido's eyes lit up.
"How are the Numbers doing?" he demanded.
"Once they finish dredging the rivers, send them to Yamato. Let them take orders from Kurosaki Rei."
His mind was already filled with visions of factories multiplying.
Since King—the brother he trusted most—said the plan could work, Kaido was more than eager to see results.
Kurosaki Rei had mentioned road-building and reservoirs in the plan. Kaido didn't quite get their purpose—but they had to be beneficial, right?
Filled with anticipation, Kaido decided to hand the Numbers directly over to Kurosaki Rei, eager to see the outcome as soon as possible.
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