"right."

"We can't really let them retreat so easily, right? If they want to retreat, we must bite off a large piece of meat before they retreat."

"Now whenever they commit a crime, they will get into trouble, which is just an opportunity for us to do something. Moreover, even if we don't do anything, most of their resources will be divided up by others."

"Then I must get involved."

Bai Quan's words aroused Chen Ming's interest: "So how do we do it specifically?"

"It's to seize their share of the resources within the legion."

“What resources?”

"The command of the fleet, the annual military budget, whether the technology developed by some research institutes can be obtained in the first place, and their personnel."

Chen Ming asked back, "You want all the people?"

“Yes, because people are also resources.”

"And the fleet command, military expenditures, and technology I just mentioned are all related to people. If we don't take away the people, how can we get these resources?"

"No one with the ability would die in the sea holding a body that is already sinking."

"If a faction has no future, as long as the person is not a key figure, can't we just switch to another faction? It's a very simple truth."

"So we can take anyone from the bottom of Lou Wei's faction."

"If the senior management is involved, as long as he has the potential to continue to develop and I am confident that I can control him, then I can also ask him to come over."

"Like Lou Wei, he actually has the ability. He became a major general in his forties. But you can see he must be very unhappy, so forget it."

"But I will definitely find a way to dig out the others."

"These are what I have to do. If I can take advantage of this opportunity to get more resources, the situation at the branch should be better in the future."

Chen Ming thought about Bai Quan's words and said, "That's okay."

This can be regarded as a factional struggle between Bai Quan and Lou Wei. He will not show mercy to those who have had direct face-to-face conflicts with him in the factional struggle.

But as for the others who didn't have a direct conflict with him, it was fine.

Chen Ming would definitely support Bai Quan in completely plundering the opponent's resources and even people.

This way you won't give them a chance to make a comeback.

Chen Ming suddenly sat up from the sofa, stretched his body after reading the report for a long time, and said, "I thought there would be a long battle to fight, but I didn't expect that it would end because of an assassination from a left-handed psychic."

Bai Quan also stood up from the sofa, ready to start giving Chen Ming his daily lessons.

But at this time he said to Chen Ming: "This is also a reminder, don't think about doing anything to others."

"I know. I've seen the consequences of doing that twice, so I won't do it to anyone else."

However, Chen Ming didn't say one thing, which was that whether other people took action or not was none of his business.

If someone really makes him angry, he has ways to kill that person without being noticed.

Bai Quan also felt that there was something else behind Chen Ming's words, but since Chen Ming had already said that he would not take action, he had nothing to explain.

But Chen Ming suddenly asked another question at this time: "When will we meet with Lou Wei and the others next time? This matter has come to an end. They won't be too busy to come and finish the rest with us, right?"

"That's not the case."

Bai Quan immediately denied Chen Ming's guess. After roughly calculating, he said, "It should be tomorrow. What they need to do now is to save some resources for themselves as soon as possible so that they can use them after stepping down. Other things don't matter. One day is enough for such a small matter."

"Oh, sure."

A day passed in the blink of an eye.

Chen Ming came to the meeting room where they had their last meeting.

Just like last time, Lou Wei and his companions were already seated in the conference room earlier than them.

The conditions of these few people are not much different from before.

I was just anxiously awaiting the trial before, but now I have received the court verdict.

Chen Ming still had the same cold and expressionless face as before.

After giving away the storage chip, the rest was handed over to Baiquan to deal with.

Bai Quan didn't say much this time. Anyway, the matter was over and there was no possibility of reversal, so he just acted kindly.

He did not make things difficult for others and directly handed the chip to Major General Song.

"Take a look at this. These are the things we have researched in the seventeen days before we set off, up until the time you finished researching."

Chen Ming subconsciously glanced at the chip.

During these seventeen days, he was able to research quite a few things.

Chen Ming could only say that since Lou Wei didn't lose everything he had to pay for these things, he was rich.

You should know that this chip also includes some of the research data of the synchrotron core.

The complete research content of the synchrotron core had already been sent to where it should go by Baiquan.

Like the last Purgatory Core Hormone or base, the report Chen Ming sent this time has been placed in the top priority queue waiting for review, and a reply will be given soon.

According to Chen Ming's estimation, the synchrotron core and the purgatory core are of the same level, and there is a high probability that it can also get first-class merit.

The trouble of Lou Wei's delay in receiving the first-class merit is not small, and the compensation he will have to pay will definitely not be small.

Major General Song inserted the chip into the terminal.

When Lou Wei, who was standing next to him, saw the number of files displayed on the terminal, his hand trembled subconsciously.

Chen Ming noticed this immediately and suddenly asked, "You won't default on your debt, will you?"

Lou Wei's expression became even uglier than before, but he still managed to squeeze out two words: "No."

"Do you have money to pay?"

"Coach Chen, if he doesn't have the money, we will do our best to get compensation for you."

Chen Ming was a little stunned when he heard Major General Song addressing him. He almost forgot that he was a temporary tactical instructor hired by the 14th Corps.

Major General Song's sincere attitude and the daze caused by the address made Chen Ming lose interest in continuing to be aggressive, so he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to rest.

Of course he said he was closing his eyes to rest, but in fact Chen Ming was paying attention to the situation at his main body.

Because it’s almost time to start looking for the third temporary base.

Today has been nearly a month since he ran to the 14th Legion, and their exploration of the star systems around the second temporary stronghold is nearing completion.

Although the last investigation around the first temporary base took about two months to complete.

But after all, the whole thing was started from scratch and I had no experience at all.

After the first experience, the efficiency of this investigation was obviously higher.

And Chen Ming believes that starting from the third stronghold, the efficiency will be even higher.

Because the Supreme Point that Chen Ming had borrowed from Shao Yang and had been using was about time to be returned.

With two supreme ships, more supplies, more experience, and more support, it is definitely not a problem to greatly improve efficiency.

And by the time the third temporary base is built, the first one will almost be demolished.

Although Chen Ming now has Bai Quan's help with some basic supplies, the funding gap is obviously much smaller.

Moreover, with the start of testing of the hyperspace jump engine, the advancement of energy crystallization technology testing, and the receipt of the second batch of patent fees for antimatter technology, Chen Ming will not be short of money at least in the short term.

But there is no need to support three temporary strongholds for no reason.

The main reason is that it is meaningless. It is enough to explore the surrounding 400 light years. It is too costly to go further out, and it is too close to the border of the empire.

It really should be demolished.

However, there is a problem if we want to dismantle the first temporary base.

The Zerg problem.

Because within the next six months or a year, the Empire and the Machines will start a war.

The planet where Chen Ming first found the mechanical city and the Queen of Insects was not too far from the mechanical territory.

If a war really starts, there is a great risk of being discovered.

So with the first temporary base being dismantled, it was time for the Zerg to move somewhere else.

But the problem is that one third of the habitable planet has been completely covered by the hive, and even the climate of the planet has changed due to the coverage of the hive.

Relocating such a huge insect nest is a huge project.

Moreover, the act of relocation will certainly cause unpredictable damage to the ecology of this habitable planet.

Leaving the planet in an unmanageable mess.

Although the mess could be simply abandoned, Chen Ming had to find a way to move the mechanical city above it intact.

This city is now the most important place for Chen Ming to produce new mechanical individuals.

Therefore, it would be best for these mechanical races to relocate to nearby planets with the Zerg.

It will be convenient for Chen Ming to stay in the vicinity of the empire and become a bridgehead for the transportation of supplies in the future, so that he doesn't have to use psychic power all the time to send the energy crystals back to the empire.

If it's the Zerg, then you have to run away.

If possible, it would definitely be best to go to the final location of Chen Ming's colony in the future, but now it is still a bit far away from this goal, so he still has to follow Huihuang and the others and walk slowly.

For large-scale, long-distance movement in the space environment, there are no other options: either use a star gate or fly slowly on a spacecraft.

For the latter, the Queen can only control the Zerg to create a large number of biological spaceships.

In this regard, the gap between destroyers and cruisers will be magnified countless times.

So Chen Ming is still waiting.

Wait until the Queen eats the Defenders fed to her and evolves into Cruisers.

It can be considered as progress.

It is also possible to change the basic structure of the Zerg nest in the process of slowly advancing, to adapt to the situation where the biological buildings created by the Queen of Zerg, which are barely effective, participate in the hatching process of Zerg units.

Just when Chen Ming closed his eyes and thought about what his main body was going to do next.

On the prosthesis side, he suddenly heard the voice of Major General Song.

"I wonder what Instructor Chen is doing these days? I haven't seen you since the last meeting."

Chen Ming opened his eyes again.

Major General Song's attitude made him feel that Major General Song seemed to have some ideas.

He turned his head to look at Bai Quan and saw Bai Quan nodded slightly, as if he also had ideas about Major General Song.

Although Chen Ming didn't quite understand why Bai Quan had any thoughts about a major general who was half buried in the ground, Bai Quan had his own thoughts. Chen Ming and Major General Song had only met once before and there was no fundamental conflict, so it didn't matter.

So Chen Ming responded normally: "Spend some time doing research or something. You saw it, the things in the chip."

The wrinkles on Major General Song's old face relaxed a little, and after confirming Bai Quan's attitude, he didn't say anything more.

He quickly confirmed the authenticity of the data and put the data chip into a special box.

It was handed over to the military personnel in the star zone, who passed the data chip to the laboratory personnel to confirm its value.

Major General Song stood up from the conference table, took the initiative to extend his hand to Bai Quan and said, "Thank you for your hard work. The next thing is the matter of the colony."

Bai Quan first pulled Chen Ming, who had his eyes closed and looked like he had fallen asleep, and then he also stretched out his hand and shook hands with Major General Song. They talked about colonial affairs and ended the meeting.

The rest will be dealt with once we reach the colony.

On the way back to the Stardust level, Bai Quan suddenly sent a document to Chen Ming.

Chen Ming opened the file and took a look, and found that they were samples of the two colonies that Lou Wei was going to give him for testing.

The two colonies are located in the same galaxy, one is a light industrial colony on a habitable planet, and the other is a heavy industrial colony on an uninhabitable planet.

Chen Ming was quite surprised when he saw the industrial colony on this habitable planet. After all, a habitable planet itself has its value.

But when he continued to look at the aerial photos and satellite images of the colony, he suddenly felt not surprised anymore.

Because these two colonies looked extremely dilapidated even from the outside.

Even though there are various large-scale industrial production facilities in the colony, it looks like a backward and desolate town.

Moreover, according to the information sent by Bai Quan, the development momentum of these two colonies had begun to decline as early as more than ten years ago.

Nowadays, most of the industrial facilities are in a state of shutdown and abandonment. If the Legion had not occasionally provided some funds for their maintenance, the industrial facilities of the entire colony would have been dismantled and sold as scrap metal long ago.

Obviously, Lou Wei and his team deliberately found two abandoned and backward colonies for Chen Ming, and they were two connected colonies. I don’t know how much effort they put into it.

"How shabby."

When Bai Quan heard Chen Ming's words, he probably knew where Chen Ming had seen on the document.

So he introduced the history of this colony to Chen Ming: "This colony was originally a colony under the military of the star region it belongs to. It was traded to our Fourteenth Legion in a transaction, and we divided it among ourselves to Lou Wei's faction."

"Why don't they take care of their faction's affairs? After all, they are two industrial colonies so close to each other."

"Don't worry, you'll know when you read on."

Chen Ming continued reading on the terminal.

However, the report only briefly talked about the decline of the two colonies more than ten years ago, which was due to an accident on the industrial colony on the habitable planet.

However, the details of the accident were not clearly written, and the quality was not up to par with the reports Baiquan usually gave.

Bai Quan guessed that this report was sent by Lou Wei, so he passed it to him.

Chen Ming was too lazy to check it himself, so he directly asked Bai Quan, who had probably seen and done a background check on the colony, "So what exactly was the accident? Why did an accident cause the entire colony to fail? And even affected the neighboring colonies?"

"Think about what the colony has, and then think about what is so important that it can cause problems for the entire colony."

It just so happened that they were on their way back to Stardust and had nothing to do, so Bai Quan kept it a secret.

"There's something about industrial colonies..."

Chen Ming subconsciously recalled the conditions of the industrial colonies he had visited in previous simulations.

Those warehouses, those factories, those assembly lines, those robots, those workers who signed high compensation agreements, and the engineers responsible for maintaining industrial facilities.

And...the Earth Core Furnace Power Tower that almost every industrial colony has.

"The Earth Core Furnace Power Tower?"

Bai Quan was not surprised that Chen Ming guessed it so quickly, and confirmed: "Yes, it is the Earth Core Furnace Power Tower."

"But even if this thing is broken, can't it be fixed? Why would the colony next door also have problems?"

"Because the Geoforge Power Tower is not just malfunctioning."

Bai Quan said as he sent another document to Chen Ming.

The content of this document is much clearer. It is the true history of the two colonies that Baiquan had people investigate.

Chen Ming finally identified the real culprit for the decline of the colony, Zuo Jing.

"At that time, Zuo Jing had carried out a sabotage plan against the Earth Core Furnace Power Tower, and they succeeded."

"Not only did the power tower stop functioning, but there were also several explosions that occurred in quick succession, causing problems at the factory outside, and many people died."

"Later, Lou Wei and his team spent more than a year to barely repair the energy tower, but during this period of time when we couldn't produce, all our customers had already left."

"Because it was Zuo Jing who successfully destroyed the power tower, many Zuo Jing elements were encouraged. They took root in this colony and were difficult to eliminate."

"Even if we kill a group of people, another group will start to believe in that stupid path in a few days."

"Afterwards, no one dared to invest or sign production contracts in a place like this where Zuo Jing had done something wrong. Only some small companies that wanted to save money were willing to produce things here. The colony began to decline from then on."

"The automated system was abandoned first, one reason being to save costs, and the other was to gather the idle personnel in the colony."

"The automation system has taken up too many people's jobs. Originally, when the colony was fully operational in the early stages, everyone had something to do, but later the production lines gradually stopped, and there was less need for people. We had to rely on this method to get people back."

"Otherwise, if we leave a large number of people outside with nothing to do, it will create too many opportunities for the spread of Zuo Jing, which can be regarded as a way to stabilize the social environment."

"But the effect was not ideal. More left-way incidents occurred one after another, and there was no way to completely solve the left-way problem."

"So much so that Lou Wei and his team gave up and even started to assign some prisoners here."

"The whole environment is a mess, and it remains so to this day."

Chen Ming listened to Bai Quan's story and read the entire contents of the two documents. His understanding of Zuo Jing became much clearer.

Just four words: death is not a pity.

He raised his head and looked at Baiquan: "Actually, I am quite surprised that since these two colonies are like this, they still have industrial facilities in operation. What are they producing?"

"They are mainly daily necessities for self-sufficiency."

"As for why it is still operating, Zuo Jing may be a madman but he is not a fool. There are definitely smart people in their top management."

"If they completely destroyed all the industrial facilities that were still in operation in the entire colony, then this place would definitely be completely shut down and everyone would have to move away."

"Instead, they will lose a place that has become a stronghold."

"But if they remain in this half-dead state, Zuo Jing can even let the empire support them."

"And as I just said, Lou Wei and his team have reached a cooperation agreement with some prisons, using this place as a workplace for prisoners and half a prison."

"Lock a large number of Zuo Jing on this planet, and all entry and exit must be audited. Even if there may be loopholes in the audit, it is better than letting the Zuo Jing run around freely."

"Besides, not everyone in this colony believes in the heresy. We can't just kill everyone with one blow."

Chen Ming nodded, and he had a thorough understanding of the history of the decline of the light industrial colony.

The history of another heavy industrial colony is similar to that of the light industrial colony.

After left-wing elements gradually took root in the light industrial colony, a large number of left-wing elements inexplicably began to appear in the nearest heavy industrial colony.

Once Zuo Jing appeared, the situation was similar. Various industrial production accidents began to occur frequently, and the company gradually lost orders and vitality.

Chen Ming now realized that there was no hope for these two colonies until the Zuo Jing here was completely wiped out.

"In other words, they are two pools of stagnant water. Lou Wei and his friends are really shameless in taking them out."

Bai Quan said helplessly, "A colony is still a colony, no matter how bad it is. Moreover, these two colonies should be the closest to you and have a similar size to the colonies in the simulation. At least there is nothing wrong with the location of the colonies."

"Besides, given their current state, there is no way to investigate even if you want to."

"Okay, it's not a big problem. Under these harsh conditions, I can feel more at ease and make some big moves."

"Big deal?"

Bai Quan suddenly thought of something and said to Chen Ming, "Wait a minute, there is something I need to explain to you. Colonies within the empire cannot be handled casually."

Chen Ming suddenly had a bad feeling and asked, "What do you mean?"

(End of this chapter)