The Marines moved quickly. After approving Smoker's proposal, they immediately began to address the gaps and fill the flaws in the plan.
At the same time, in the New World, Smoker immediately took action after receiving the approval of Marine Headquarters.
That guy was generous, sending the World Government a whopping five hundred billion Berries in cash all at once!
Cash is always the most effective and powerful currency.
Five hundred billion in cash is often more valuable than one trillion Berries in fixed assets.
Mariejois was already a bit short on money. Thanks to Diarmuid, in the original story only Fisher Tiger was involved in the arson, but now, he and Dragon's people had burned the place together.
They had completely razed Mariejois to the ground, causing the World Government to incur much greater losses than in the original story.
Even the Gorosei were running low on funds.
Five hundred billion Berries in cash genuinely gave them some breathing room.
It wasn't that an entity as massive as the World Government couldn't support the reconstruction of Mariejois.
It was that even with such a massive size, the World Government would feel a severely tight financial chain during the reconstruction of Mariejois. If something went wrong with the funding chain, causing it to break, the consequences would be huge.
Five hundred billion Berries in cash, while not an enormous number for the entire World Government, was not insignificant either. It was enough to alleviate their strained financial chain.
Once the money was in circulation, there was nothing to worry about.
Therefore, the Gorosei and others gave the Warlord of the Sea Smoker high "praise" for extending a timely helping hand in a crisis.
At the same time, they increasingly felt that the Warlord of the Sea system was excellent and had genuine practical significance.
After all, so far, the Warlords of the Sea had remained under Marine control. Aside from Crocodile being a bit troublesome, they hadn't caused any major negative effects, so the World Government hadn't yet realized the threat of the Warlords of the Sea.
Smoker's political contribution was very effective. The World Government also felt that the new round of power struggles about to erupt in the New World made it necessary to support a proxy.
They quickly began an all-round analysis of Smoker through the CP organization and the Marine Intelligence Division.
The results went without saying. The person in charge of this matter on the CP organization side was none other than Queen Stussy, and there was no need to guess about the Marine side, as Smoker himself was a Marine.
Thus, the analyses provided by both sides subtly complemented each other.
The final result was that when the Gorosei received Smoker's analysis and read it, they found that this guy was a highly capable businessman—it was a waste for him to be a pirate or a Marine.
The reason he got involved in the New World's chaos this time was that his goods had been hijacked by the Big Mom Pirates, resulting in a loss of seven hundred billion Berries... Good heavens, is this Smoker really that rich?
This made the World Government even more eager to establish a deeper relationship with Smoker.
Meanwhile, according to the analysis, Smoker's strength was indeed insufficient to independently support the prestige of a top New World pirate crew; he was weaker than Charlotte Linlin, Kaido, and Whitebeard.
But this was actually good news for the World Government.
If Smoker couldn't hold his own, he would certainly need to seek protection. Judging by the five hundred billion Berries he offered, his patron was the World Government!
Therefore, supporting Smoker to become a top-tier pirate and dispatching Marine forces to covertly back him was extremely advantageous for the World Government.
Once Smoker gained a firm footing, if he wanted to maintain the status quo, wouldn't he have to continue "contributing" to the World Government?
No need to say anything else, if he couldn't deliver, he could just give money.
Furthermore, Smoker's relative weakness in strength made him easier for the World Government to control.
Therefore, after some deliberation, the World Government immediately decided to support Smoker's idea. The Gorosei personally contacted Fleet Admiral Kong and, with a righteous tone, issued a political mission regarding the coordination of the Marines and a Warlord of the Sea in the New World operation.
Yes, a political mission.
Fleet Admiral Kong was an old actor. Even though the higher-ups in the Marines had already planned how to arrange and execute the operation, he feigned disobedience and ignorance, bickering with the Gorosei. He argued that if Smoker advanced further in the pirate hierarchy, he would evolve into an uncontrollable force, and combined with his Warlord of the Sea status, he would definitely become an endless disaster.
But the Gorosei weren't concerned about all that. They were confident they could control Smoker. After arguing with the Fleet Admiral for a while, they brought up the Mariejois arson case and the promise of the Commander-in-Chief position.
Finally, Marine Headquarters "reluctantly" accepted the political mission under the pressure of the World Government.
Following this, the Gorosei witnessed Fleet Admiral Kong's sincerity. While he was resolute in his initial refusal, once the matter became set, he would go all out to execute it and strive to minimize the harm.
The Warlord of the Sea system was the same back then, and Smoker's matter was the same now.
Soon, the World Government received feedback from the CP organization that Marine Headquarters had begun contacting Smoker, and both sides were discussing the details of the joint operation.
It must be said that Fleet Admiral Kong's little maneuver was quite effective.
This attitude and approach made the Gorosei highly appreciate him.
Such a person was a good subordinate, a trustworthy subordinate.
When you propose an unreasonable plan, he will vehemently object and refuse you.
But once the matter is inevitable, he will go all out to do it, striving to minimize the harm.
How could such a person not be promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the entire armed forces?
Meanwhile, after Smoker completed all these "formalities," he went alone, single-handedly, to meet with Whitebeard.
Newgate had been under great stress lately. Kaido and Charlotte Linlin had basically both reached their peak. One-on-one, Newgate feared no one, but if they teamed up, he truly couldn't take them down.
In addition, the Whitebeard Pirates were notorious for their recklessness and lacked substantial financial reserves, especially since Newgate, who appeared to be a brutal pirate on the surface, secretly engaged in charity. It was outrageous! He basically donated all the wealth he acquired to his hometown, so he was perpetually broke. He often had to mooch off Marco and others to pay for drinks at restaurants. To be a top-tier pirate and end up like this was truly unique.
Therefore, the Whitebeard Pirates were already stretched thin fighting the alliance between Big Mom and Kaido. Essentially, they were relying solely on Newgate's prestige over the years to hold everything together.
But how long this prestige could last, Newgate himself didn't know.
So, when Smoker made his move, he decisively dragged Smoker into the fray.
Now that Smoker requested a meeting, Newgate naturally wouldn't put on airs or act arrogant.
He happily received Smoker and even hosted a banquet to welcome his arrival.
Thus, at least in terms of image, Smoker successfully elevated himself to the same level as Whitebeard and the others. After all, not everyone could be invited to a banquet by Newgate.
Newgate wasn't short on fighters, but he lacked the money needed for war, and Smoker happened to be a man who wasn't short on cash. Thus, the two hit it off instantly.
Of course, Smoker didn't tell Whitebeard that he was going to join forces with the Marines.
That was a plan for later. After all, his true reliance was on the Marines, not Whitebeard!
The formal alliance between the Whitebeard Pirates and the Warlord of the Sea, "White Hunter" Smoker, was neither announced nor publicized. Each side was simply making preparations in secret, and the talk on the high seas remained just rumors.
With Smoker's official entry, the atmosphere in the New World, already thick with suppressed tension and the smell of gunpowder, grew even heavier.
In the late year 1511 of the Sea Calendar, the Sun Pirates encountered an ambush by Marine Headquarters Admiral Candidate Borsalino, known as Kizaru, in the waters near Tama Island in the New World.
Fisher Tiger, one of the masterminds behind the arson case that involved colluding with the Revolutionary Army to incite a riot and burning Mariejois in the Holy Land of the World Government in the Sea Calendar year 1510, was killed on the spot by Borsalino during the ambush.
The remnants of the Sun Pirates, led by Jinbe, jumped into the sea and escaped. Three days later, the Sun Pirates publicly admitted that their captain, Fisher Tiger, had unfortunately been killed by the Marines.
Nevertheless, Fisher Tiger's death signaled a temporary conclusion to the Mariejois arson case. As for the other mastermind, Monkey D. Dragon, the leader of the Revolutionary Army, he was certainly not as easy to deal with as Tiger.
Fleet Admiral Kong immediately took the relevant mission report and went to Mariejois to report directly to the Gorosei.
The Gorosei saw the corpse of Fisher Tiger, the despicable Fish-Man who had made them grit their teeth in hatred.
In the photo, half of Tiger's head was blown off, and his body bore several laser beam wounds from Borsalino. He looked utterly miserable in death.
In fact, the photograph was real, but the content was fabricated. Borsalino, as Diarmuid had said, was meticulous. He secretly found someone to make a lifelike wax figure, added some special effects, and took this gruesome photograph.
Tiger himself did not die violently. However, he was severely beaten and heavily wounded by Borsalino and was subsequently "rescued" by Jinbe. He was then secretly detained under King Neptune on Fish-Man Island.
It's estimated that he won't have the chance to cause trouble again in this lifetime. In fact, after Jinbe and the Marines pulled off this stunt, Tiger had already realized that something was wrong with Jinbe. He shouldn't have simply wanted to seize power; perhaps he was a Marine mole?
Thinking back now, he had indeed gone through a guaranteed death trap, and Jinbe had ultimately saved him. Tiger no longer had any intention of going out to stir up trouble.
Mentally and physically exhausted, he eventually lived in seclusion in the Ryugu Palace, becoming an anonymous old gatekeeper in a cell.
He later even wrote a book called Old Man Tiger, the Ryugu Gatekeeper, which recounted some stories the prisoners had to tell.
As soon as the matter of Fisher Tiger concluded, Mariejois immediately initiated the proposal for the promotion of Marine Fleet Admiral Kong.
This matter was a done deal. The Gorosei all highly regarded Kong, and the other high-ranking officials of the World Government would not dare to provoke this powerful figure in the Marines at this time. No one was competing with him for the position of Commander-in-Chief of the entire armed forces.
Thus, a new transfer of power, a change in military authority within the Marines and the World Government, was set in motion.
At this time, Diarmuid's warship was sailing in a sea area near the Red Line and Mariejois.
Although the New World was the pirates' territory, the sea gates were actually firmly held by the Marines.
So, while navigating nearby, one rarely saw pirates, at most, those guys were rushing in or out of the New World and certainly wouldn't dare to cause trouble here.
On the deck, Diarmuid was lying on a deck chair with a cigar in his mouth. In similar postures were Queen Stussy and... Dragon of the Revolutionary Army.
The entire ship was crewed by Diarmuid's confidantes, so there was no need to worry about the meeting with Dragon being leaked.
"The New World is about to get chaotic, right?" Dragon asked easily, basking in the sun.
"Hahahaha, what do you mean? When has the New World ever truly been peaceful?" Diarmuid laughed heartily.
"You know I'm not asking that," Dragon said first, then softly added, "Is there a stage I can participate in?"
"No," Diarmuid said firmly.
Before Dragon could speak, Diarmuid sat up and looked at Dragon seriously. "Don't you dare mess around in the New World! I'm warning you, just focus on being the Revolutionary Army. It's not your turn to interfere with pirate matters!"
"Hehehe... Why so serious?" Dragon smiled nonchalantly, then nodded and said, "Fine, I won't bother with that business."