Peachbeard’s Bounty at 52 million Berries

Peachbeard did not pick his own name. Blackbeard gave it to him, and he makes no secret of it: he shouts it at his victims, ordering them to remember it and to fear his master. That is the entire method. Captain of a crew that carries the name with him and has sailed under the Emperor's colors since the day Teach became one, he works less with his cutlass than with somebody else's reputation. The fifty-two million on his head was already there when he landed on the Lulusia Kingdom, which places him between Laffitte's 42,200,000 and Van Augur's 64,000,000 — squarely inside the range of the founding crew he keeps invoking.

The target was chosen with care. Lulusia's royalty and its fighting strength had left for the Levely; he sacked the undefended port, told his men to cut down any resident who resisted, and learned from a young dairy farmer named Moda that the town was holding gold owed to the Celestial Dragons. He slapped her for the trouble. What he did not know was that four Revolutionary Army commanders were on the island, one of whom can make unarmed civilians brave — and it was Moda, with a stick, who knocked him out cold in a single swing.

The aftermath is the real lesson of this bounty. His own crew abandoned him on the spot and made no attempt to get him back. When he threatened his captors with Blackbeard's retaliation, he was told plainly that the Emperor does not lift a finger for the bands sailing under his name. The name was all he had. The fifty-two million, at least, is his own.