Chapter 211: Sweeping the Eastern Provinces
After getting a vacation and replenishing the losses caused by the previous battle in the Qinggu area from the new recruits barracks, the Central Army Group set out for the eastern provinces.
Their movements were smooth.
The connection between the eastern provinces and the three central provinces and Fuxing City is very close.
The situation there is completely different from that in Qinggu area.
The grain production capacity of the eastern provinces is very weak, even worse than that of the three central provinces.
That was mainly because the eastern provinces were the core urban areas on the continent of the Wrathful Star Lord in the pre-war era, especially along the coastal areas. The only urban relic in the three central provinces, the "Tower Ruins", was everywhere in the eastern provinces.
Although there is still some flat plain soil that can be used for agricultural production, the overall amount is not enough.
The main food supply for the five to six million people living in the eastern provinces actually also depends on the Qinggu area.
After the unrest in the Qinggu region, unsurprisingly, famine spread across the eastern provinces, leading to unrest.
The alliance is kind.
Gu Hang has always attached great importance to population. He does not want the eastern provinces to be in chaos, causing a large number of people to starve to death and then fight to death for food.
Severe famine may even be more terrifying than the population reduction caused by war.
Under such circumstances, under the instruction of Gu Hang, Bradford, who is currently the de facto head of the Alliance's Ministry of Commerce, continued to supply food to the eastern provinces in accordance with the Governor's ideas.
At the beginning, according to Bradford's businessman nature, he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to sell grain at a high price, which would definitely make a lot of money.
But this kind of businessman's instinct was severely criticized by Prime Minister Ossena.
Amid the criticism, Bradford finally remembered that he was no longer a businessman. He was in charge of the Ministry of Commerce, but he was a politician and he had to act according to political logic rather than business logic.
For a long time, the food supply to the eastern provinces was maintained by large orders imported from the Western Desert; recently, there has been additional food imports from the Northern Qinggu Province.
The Qinggu region had its autumn harvest a few months ago. Although the output was still somewhat lower than the bumper harvests of previous years, it was at least enough to feed the 14 million people in the alliance.
The large amounts of cleared jungles and trees, as well as the large numbers of deformed monsters killed in previous wars, were all thrown into the synthetic starch factory.
The alliance mastered the self-developed technology of synthetic starch about half a year ago. Every time a set of related industrial lines is produced, one set is sent to Beiqing Valley.
At present, many large and small synthetic starch factories have been put into operation in the Beiqinggu area.
The output of these synthetic starches is increasing.
Taking into account these things that don't taste very good but will definitely not kill people, the amount of food that can be exported from the Qinggu region may be even more than in the previous bumper years.
That's enough.
Various types of food were exported in large quantities from the alliance to the eastern provinces, and in business, they were mainly exchanged for various industrial raw materials.
Industrial raw materials are the most important basic output of the eastern provinces and are traditional outputs.
To put it bluntly, it is similar to the production mechanism in the ruins of the tower, relying on picking up garbage.
Exporting food at a reasonable price in exchange for industrial raw materials is a basic business. It does not make money, or it just makes normal money.
But since we have said that this matter has political considerations, it is essentially a political business.
The political goal of this matter, in addition to protecting the eastern provinces' millions of people from uncontrollable large-scale famine and war, is to make back from other sources any excess profits not earned from business.
By increasing trade activities, the Alliance has established a very deep influence in many settlements in the eastern provinces.
The only one that can provide sufficient food supply is the Alliance. This forces many settlements to sell raw materials to the Alliance at normal prices. Of course, this is not strictly speaking forced, after all, the food is not sold at a high price, and the raw materials are not sold at a low price. It is a reasonable transaction.
However, some conditions are necessary, such as promoting the alliance's system and reaffirming that one's own settlement is a member of the alliance.
Don't underestimate these things, people's minds will change.
In their own settlements, they were hungry and cold, had to pick up trash every day, had to face mutated wild beasts in the wasteland, and had to worry about looters; in the Alliance, as long as they went there, became Alliance citizens, and were assigned a rank, they would at least have no worries about food and clothing. As for work, how could it be harder than picking up trash? Not to mention, in the Alliance's propaganda, all ranks had basic medical insurance, vacations...
By comparing them, you can know which is good and which is bad.
In conjunction with the second promotion, our own settlement is also a member of the alliance.
Then wouldn’t the lower-class or even middle-class residents think: Why are they all in alliance, but our lives are not so good?
So if one day, the alliance came and said that it wanted to bring the entire settlement under the direct management of the alliance, then how much resistance would the entire settlement have?
Let alone resistance, there will probably be many guides everywhere.
In addition to the minimum requirement of allowing alliance merchants to promote the alliance, there are also some other deeper cooperation.
For example, they gradually began to accept the "guidance" of some expatriate officials from various ministries of the alliance. In name, they were to help these settlements build their homes and bring the advanced experience of the alliance. Expatriate officials did not directly lead and manage the settlements, but were more like consultants, providing reasonable advice to the leaders of the settlements.
That being said, in reality...
In fact, this is true.
But in this process, the influence of the alliance was naturally further strengthened.
What strategies will those rulers of the settlements, who constantly listen to the advice of the alliance's expatriate officials and yearn for the alliance system, adopt when the alliance's army arrives?
In other words, the alliance's food trade strategy and value output have brought about a strong expansion of political influence. In the past six months, it has established a good situation in the eastern provinces.
In fact, if it weren't for the urgent urging of Governor Gu Hang, the alliance might not even need to take military action. When the time is right in the future, they can just fan the flames and a revolutionary wave sweeping across the eastern provinces will be able to safely take over this area of millions of square kilometers and a population of six million.
Military action is a double-edged sword.
Of course, this can speed up the process of bringing all the eastern provinces under the alliance's rule, without having to wait for the so-called "time is ripe". But correspondingly, some of the objects that might have been fought for may now stand on the opposite side of the alliance.
It's harmless.
At present, the new troops that the Union Army has planned to form have not yet been reorganized, and the corresponding weapons and equipment are still being produced. The Central Army Group that is now on the move has only seven divisions and more than 70,000 people.
But they still have good news.
The eastern provinces were too large, and because many city ruins stood on the wasteland, the terrain was widely separated, and it was difficult for the various settlements to form a joint force. In addition, many places did not have a strong will to resist.
Therefore, when faced with the actions of the Central Army Group, many places simply surrendered.
The alliance also has corresponding policies for this.
Those who do not resist are not considered enemies, and will be treated relatively well by everyone from the common people to the original ruling class.
As for the resistance...
That's like trying to stop a chariot with a mantis arm.
To put it bluntly, even if all the six million people in the eastern provinces gathered together and formed an army of at most a few hundred thousand, they would not be able to resist because of their crappy armaments and logistics. If the alliance cut off their food supply, more than half of them would starve to death immediately.
Not to mention, they can't even unite.
Yan Fangxu's army made rapid progress in the east.
Often every few hours, they would say they had captured one or two settlements.
In the end, Yan Fangxu himself felt embarrassed when he heard the good news.
What's there to spread? Just send a regiment to stand next to a settlement, without firing a single shot, and they will surrender in three minutes; if you are more aggressive, you can bring out the regiment's artillery to fire a few shots, and the infantry can fire a few shots more for the purpose of intimidation than for the purpose of attacking, and they will surrender in fifteen minutes.
If there are those who resist to the end, they will be killed.
Eliminate all the resistance forces, arrest all the leaders, and do not escort them back to Fuxing City. Sentence them on the spot. The local people will be divided into other camps according to the situation.
It can be considered a thundering measure.
Even if only one regiment was sent out to fight the entire battle, it would usually be completed in less than a day.
In short, no matter what the situation is, there are corresponding and mature ways to deal with it.
This was just something they had used when they had recovered the two million people in the Central Province. They were simply repeating it in the larger and more populous eastern provinces.
There is really no intention to pass this good news on to others.
Later on, Yan Fangxu would just make a summary battle report every week and that was it.
…
Gu Hang was too lazy to read Yan Fangxu's various reports.
It's nothing more than taking a city today and a town tomorrow. It's not interesting at all.
To be honest, he had no doubt that the Central Army Group could easily wipe out the entire eastern provinces.
The only thing we need to worry about is that no more monsters will appear in the east.
It is just the local survivor force, which does not pose any threat.
He was still struggling with the remaining grace points in his hand.
The new blood of the Phoenix, the construction of the 10th Special Operations Brigade, the expansion of the Alliance Army... In these aspects, Gu Hang has spent a total of about 5,500 points of grace.
He still has more than twelve thousand points left.
He planned to invest all of these gift points into the construction of the territory.
This is divided into two parts: technology and architecture.
Let’s talk about architecture first.
After the war in Qinggu area was settled, Gu Hang discovered that three new buildings appeared in the [Building] interface.
They are [Farm I], [State Church], and [Court of Inquisition].
Gu Hang estimated that the [Farm] building was because after he took over the Qinggu area, the area of land used for agricultural production increased significantly, reaching a certain goal built into the system, thus achieving the achievement of unlocking the [Farm] building.
The [Farm I] building has the same properties as the [Civilian Factory I] and [Military Factory I] that Gu Hang has unlocked before. Spend 100 points of grace and load it onto a farm that has already been built and put into production, which can increase production to a certain extent.
He didn't have extra grace points before to use on these production-increasing buildings, but now he has quite a lot of grace points, so he can use them.
After thinking about it, he did not redeem any farm buildings.
no need.
According to a rough report recently sent back by the Beiqinggu Province, the production plan for the coming year was mentioned.
According to optimistic estimates, the food output in the Beiqinggu area, including agricultural products and synthetic starch, could reach a total value of about six million tax coins throughout next year.
Add to that the grain imports from the Western Desert and some grain output from the three central provinces, and the total value of food is about three million tax coins.
This batch of grain is enough to feed more than 18 million people based on the well-off standard of having enough food to eat, which is the Alliance E9 level food supply standard; if we pay a little attention to food rationing and supply, based on the standard of food subsistence, which is the Alliance E5 level standard, it can feed more than 27 million people; if we are more demanding and use the standard of not starving people to death, which is the Alliance E3 level, it will be enough to feed 45 million people.
Even if the six million people in the entire eastern provinces are included, the total population of the alliance is only about 20 million.
That's enough.
On the contrary, industrial production is never enough.
Especially the military industry.
The production of civilian factories is mainly on various consumer goods. These things are used to pay taxes, and the Empire also recognizes them; if they are used for interstellar trade, others will also want them. But in general, the demand is relatively small. If they cannot be sold at a high price for trade, they can be used to deduct taxes from the Empire, and the tax amount assessed is generally lower than the actual production value.
But on the contrary, arms are hard currency in the interstellar world and a hot spot for trade. The empire will give enough tax coins when using them to pay taxes.
Under this circumstance, Gu Hang exchanged 16 military factories and 4 civilian factories in one go.
The former were all added to the various military industries in Weixing City.
The latter will also be placed in the metal smelting industry of basic heavy industries such as ceramic steel and plastic steel, as well as the metal processing industry.
Without further ado, the Alliance’s monthly production of Wind Falcons has now risen to ten.
After exchanging these twenty factory bonus cards, it is estimated that Weixing City's annual industrial output value will increase by about 400,000 tax coins.
And the price is only 2000 grace points.
He still has 10,000 points.
Gu Hang did not use these 10,000 points of gift for other purposes, but used them all to draw technology cards!
It’s time for the exciting lottery draw again, and Gu Hang is ready to go!
(End of this chapter)
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