After that, Ortoren continued touring many other novel technologies with Dr. Vegapunk. Any technology he felt had real potential for wider application, he bundled together, planning to take the information with him when he left.
Dr. Vegapunk was more than happy about this. When he developed these technologies, his hope had always been to see them applied in the real world.
As for Dr. Borsalino, although he complained verbally about Ortoren treating Punk Hazard like a supply depot, he still followed Ortoren's wishes in the end.
There was nothing he could do about it. Ortoren was a Navy Admiral, after all.
By the time they finished viewing all the strange and impressive technologies, the sky outside had gradually darkened.
Ortoren showed no sign of leaving in a hurry. With Borsalino's arrangements, everyone shared dinner together, and a room was prepared for him to rest.
Sitting on the sofa in his room, Ortoren dialed the Den Den Mushi and set it on the table, then picked up the notebook where he had organized his notes earlier and began reviewing them.
Before long, the Den Den Mushi connected.
"Admiral?" Tesoro asked, sounding a little puzzled.
"Oh, Tesoro. Sorry to bother you so late," Ortoren said with a chuckle.
"No, I'm not off work yet," Tesoro replied with a faint smile.
"Still working this late?" Ortoren sounded slightly surprised.
"Not usually. It's just been a bit busy these past couple of days," Tesoro explained briefly, then asked, "Do you have instructions for me, Admiral?"
"Yes. About the design of Golden City, I think we need to make some adjustments," Ortoren replied while flipping through his notebook. "I found quite a few new technologies here on Punk Hazard that could be incorporated. I planned to explain everything once I got back, but I was worried you might already start construction, so I decided to tell you first."
"Yes, please go ahead," Tesoro responded immediately.
"First, there's a new type of material that can be used in construction. The original design is already distinctive, but if we incorporate this material, I think it would showcase things even better..." Ortoren quickly began explaining his ideas.
He covered the use of island clouds and Sea Cloud materials, holographic projection designs, and the layout of the climate conditioning system.
Ortoren spoke for quite a long time, with Tesoro occasionally interrupting to ask about specific details.
By the time Ortoren finished, moonlight had already spread across the surface of the sea.
"With this, Golden City will undoubtedly become the most unique entertainment city on the seas," Tesoro said excitedly. "It will combine the cultures and characteristics of the sky, the deep sea, and the surface, all enhanced by future technology. The profits might far exceed what we originally imagined. As for those technologies, are you planning to promote and sell them through Golden City as a platform?"
"That's right. That's exactly what I'm thinking," Ortoren replied.
"In that case, once the Golden City project is up and running, our revenue should see a massive increase," Tesoro said with emotion. Then he added, as if remembering something, "Oh, right, Admiral. The revenue statistics for the first half of the year are out. Just in the first half alone, our fiscal surplus has already reached 724.6 billion Bellies. Taking into account the Golden City project in the second half, along with other expenditures and projected income, we estimate that by the end of the year, our fiscal surplus should exceed 1.8 trillion Bellies."
"1.8 trillion Bellies?" Ortoren felt a surge of genuine delight when he heard the number.
That meant the massive organizational structure under his command was not only sustaining itself, but had already begun generating enormous wealth on a continuous basis.
And that wealth would, in time, be steadily converted into the strength of the New World Navy.
"Yes," Tesoro continued, "but there's still one major expense that hasn't been included. That's the Marine Police force established in Dressrosa. So far, Mr. Doflamingo hasn't coordinated specific financial details with us yet. I've only made a rough estimate of their expenses and haven't included it in the surplus calculation. Once they finalize things with us, the surplus figure will drop somewhat."
After a brief pause, he continued, "Also, the design changes we discussed earlier for Golden City will probably add several hundred billion Bellies in new expenses. Once all of that is factored in, this year's surplus may not be as optimistic as we just said."
"That's fine. The money we earn is meant to be spent anyway," Ortoren replied, seeing nothing wrong with it.
At the same time, it was as if something else crossed his mind. The excitement from earlier gradually faded.
A surplus of 1.8 trillion Bellies sounded impressive, but compared to Ortoren's ambitions and long-term goals, it was still nowhere near enough.
Only by turning Golden City into a true financial core and further amplifying its wealth-generating power could he ease the pressure he was facing.
And that pressure came from the enormous military expenditures of the entire Navy.
As a Navy Admiral, Ortoren now had a full view of the Navy's overall structure. As a result, the once-vague concept of "massive military spending" had become much clearer to him.
At present, including the New World Navy, the Navy's total nominal strength stood at 3.72 million personnel.
There were some minor discrepancies beyond that, but the overall figure was essentially this, counting everyone from ordinary sailors to all commissioned officers.
Three million seven hundred and twenty thousand marines, scattered across the entire world and all the seas. It was an enormous force.
In the first half of the Grand Line, the Paradise region alone housed a total of 560,000 marines across its various bases. There were twenty-eight naval bases in Paradise, each built around a standard establishment of roughly twenty thousand personnel. Within Paradise's seven major routes, each route was guarded by four naval bases.
This was the main reason the Navy could firmly suppress and control Paradise.
Compared to Paradise, the Navy's presence in the New World was much smaller. G-5 had more than fifty thousand personnel on its nominal roster, G-1 had twenty thousand, and G-12 also had twenty thousand. The remaining three naval bases had not yet been completed.
In other words, the total number of registered marines in the New World currently hovered around one hundred thousand.
In another two years, that number should reach roughly 160,000. Of course, these figures only reflected registered personnel.
From this alone, it was clear that the Navy's grip on the New World was far weaker than its control over Paradise.
According to the Navy's central registry, the combined strength of all branches in the New World and Paradise came to about 670,000 marines.
Marine Headquarters at Marineford, the Navy's stronghold of justice, maintained a standing force of one hundred thousand at full capacity year-round. Naturally, this "full capacity" was nothing like the elite forces present during the Summit War. It encompassed everyone from ordinary marines to the Fleet Admiral, all stationed there together.
As a result, the Navy's total deployment along the entire Grand Line amounted to roughly 770,000 personnel.
The remaining 2.95 million marines were all spread across the Four Seas.
Based on what Ortoren knew, East Blue, regarded as the World Government's symbol of peace, was also the sea with the strongest naval presence. Scattered among nearly one hundred and fifty naval bases, it housed a total of 900,000 marines.
Unlike the bases on the Grand Line, naval bases in the Four Seas were not built around a standard twenty-thousand-man establishment. Their size was adjusted according to local conditions. In fact, it could be said that the Four Seas essentially had no bases with a full complement of twenty thousand. Larger ones had seven or eight thousand personnel at most, while smaller ones made do with just two or three thousand.
East Blue held the largest number of marines among the Four Seas, while North Blue, West Blue, and South Blue divided up the remaining forces.
North Blue had 620,000 marines, West Blue had 660,000, and South Blue, due to recent unrest involving local militias, rebel forces, and regional instability, had seen significant reinforcements in recent years, bringing its total to 770,000 marines.
Similarly, each of the Four Seas maintained roughly between one hundred and fifty and one hundred and seventy naval bases.
Just last year, when Ortoren reviewed the Navy's expenditure reports in his capacity as an Admiral, he discovered that the regular salary payments alone for these 3.72 million marines amounted to an astonishing 260 trillion Bellies.
Since the start of the Great Pirate Era, marine casualty rates had been extremely high. This figure included medical expenses, death benefits, long-term disability subsidies, and more. It also accounted for internal corruption within the Navy, all of which was booked under payroll expenses.
The largest share of salary expenditure was concentrated within the Grand Line. Contrary to Ortoren's earlier assumptions, the pay for ordinary marines in the Four Seas was not particularly high. For marines of the same rank, base pay in the first half of the Grand Line was roughly three times that of the Four Seas.
In the New World, base pay was twice that of Paradise. Of course, G-5 did not receive wages from Marine Headquarters and was excluded from this calculation.
So although the Four Seas had far more troops than the Grand Line, the bulk of base salary expenditures actually occurred within the Grand Line.
At first, Ortoren found this surprising, but he quickly understood why. The risks and dangers faced by marines in the Four Seas were fundamentally different from those faced by marines on the Grand Line.
That alone accounted for the Navy's annual base salary expenses. Two hundred and sixty trillion Bellies.
On top of that, the Navy's annual logistics expenditures reached an incredible ninety-seven trillion Bellies.
This covered warship construction, weapons and equipment procurement, maintenance of facilities and machinery, and the daily operating costs of bases everywhere. After all, the Navy's greatest welfare benefit was providing food and lodging, which made these expenses especially staggering.
As a result, the Navy's total military expenditure last year reached 357 trillion Bellies.
Compared to that, Ortoren's projected surplus of 1.8 trillion Bellies for this year seemed almost comical.
In reality, however, this massive gap only existed on paper. The true situation was not nearly so extreme. Military funding was not distributed entirely in cash, and there was no way the World Government could realistically produce such an enormous amount of liquid funds every single year just to support the Navy. That idea alone was completely unrealistic.