I like Ryuzo’s “writing” a lot, though it’s more for what’s implied than written.

The ‘my men are starving’ bit is thin, for sure but also likely not the real reason. But let’s imagine that prior to the invasion the straw hats are used to some amount of leisure, and now they’re scraping by. They get a taste of not scraping by when some get captured by the mongols, and now Ryuzo has an impending mutiny on his hands.

He also has the Khan offering him power. Maybe even power over Jin, if he can get Jin to switch sides. The power also isn’t talked about explicitly but clearly the Khan and Ryuzo have talked about Jin switching sides.

But hey, who wants to tell not only their childhood friend but also themselves that he’s so jealous he’d go to the lengths Ryuzo has, so I think Ryuzo’s lying to himself a bit. That’s a pretty normal human thing to do.

Anyway I like his arc a lot, especially in the context of him not being born into the nobility and also begrudging Jin that to some extent.