Chapter 484, Silver Tribunal
Lao Yisi's choice was a real surprise for Gu Hang.
Isn’t the concern about legality?
If Lao Yisi could come, it would be a great help.
She is the Director General of the Dragon Eagle Star Domain's Government Affairs Department. From the perspective of the entire star domain government, she can be considered the second-in-command.
After she comes, Gu Hang will be able to establish a small star domain government within the area under his actual control.
The name is clear: it makes sense for the Secretary General to carry out the work of the Star Domain Government Department here.
After that, whatever Gu Hang does, he can do it in the name of the Star Domain Government.
He could even go back and cause some trouble for the Fury Legion.
This is the dispute between 'name' and 'reality'.
In fact, although Gu Hang suffered a lot of losses in the name of the Star Domain government, he also made some efforts in this regard.
Although there were many difficulties, the intelligence departments of the alliance all showed their talents and came up with some ways to place some agents in various worlds in the western part of the Dragon Eagle Star Region, including Yunluo Star.
It is unrealistic for these agents to carry out subversion, as the alliance does not have enough influence and instigation capabilities; however, they can gather some intelligence and make secret contacts with certain key figures.
Through the information that was not even confidential, Gu Hang was able to see that the Star Domain Government was not actually so willing to serve as a dog for the Fury Corps.
Some high-ranking officials of the star domain government have reached a certain tacit understanding with the alliance in this way.
They cannot directly resist the Wrath of Flames, but they can tip off the Alliance; they dare not help the Alliance blatantly, but they can resist and delay certain things that the Wrath of Flames needs their cooperation on, thereby increasing the cost of the Wrath of Flames' actions.
After all, the Fury Corps was a guest army. It was impossible for less than a thousand Space Marines to handle the affairs of half a star region, hundreds of billions of people, and one or two hundred worlds. Although they also brought a large number of auxiliary troops, they still needed to rely on a large number of local forces to maintain their rule.
It was pretty shaky, to be honest, and totally different from what Erso had originally envisioned.
Originally, Erso envisioned that the Fury Corps would become the heroes of the Dragonhawk Star Domain, and then everything would become very easy to handle. They would return power to the local forces, and only form a strong alliance with them through influence and security. Then, they would introduce the power of the Menghe Star Domain and the Empress Star Domain, and continue to infiltrate through trade and political cooperation. After a few years, the Dragonhawk Star Domain would become the de facto ally of the Iron Fury Stone; after a few more years, they would have to rely strongly on the Iron Fury Stone.
They have tried this method in many star regions. Although it takes a long time, it has always been successful.
However, in the Dragon Eagle Star Region, everything was different. The step of becoming a hero and savior was greatly reduced. Now, half of the star region regarded them as enemies, so how could they be considered heroes? Moreover, it was precisely because of the hostile relationship with the Alliance that they could not devote their full efforts to building their own "glorious image" and had to squeeze the power of the half of the star region they controlled to maintain this cold war.
But this would significantly deplete their prestige, which they had worked so hard to build up through the Iron Teeth War and which would be greatly reduced by the existence of the alliance.
It must be emphasized again that they are guest troops, they are not the masters of the Dragon Eagle Star Region. They are able to control half of the star region because of the prestige brought by victory in the war and saving the world, as well as their great strength. Both are indispensable.
As the former are constantly being consumed, no matter how powerful they are, once the local forces begin to become disunited, it will be impossible for them to continue to control half of the star field.
Gu Hang, on the other hand, is much more patient in this regard.
If things drag on, the eastern part of the Dragon Eagle Star Region will only develop better and better under his control, and society will become more stable. He will be able to turn the two hundred worlds in the east into his base.
On the contrary, as long as Gu Hang still maintains the cold war with the Fury Corps, the internal contradictions in the western part of the star field will become increasingly difficult to suppress, and the entire society will become increasingly boiling. The rebellions that come one after another may not be easy to see, but the cost of the Fury Corps' rule will undoubtedly continue to rise, so that not only can they not generate blood here, but they need constant blood transfusions to maintain it.
Be patient, don't rush, don't make mistakes, digest the results of your victory, and save up your wealth.
This is the overall idea of Gu Hang leading the alliance to fight against the Fury.
Only two years had passed when a man named Laois defected.
What about in two years? In four years?
If you have the guts, you can fight me for six or eight years. By then, the Alliance’s naval fleet will have grown to an unknown size!
…
However, it was obvious that Erso did not want to continue wasting time with Gu Hang.
What Gu Hangyuan could see in the eastern star field, Erso was in it himself, so of course the feeling was more personal.
He was feeling more and more uncomfortable.
Up to now, he had to admit that the alliance standing opposite him was a very powerful enemy. He was not very good at gathering intelligence within the alliance, but the few words that were revealed still allowed him to know that this enemy would only become more and more powerful.
But we can't take this opportunity to start a war directly, and we have to stay here and engage in a cold war.
This was very frustrating, but what was even more frustrating was that he felt that the local forces in the western part of the Dragon Eagle Star Region were rebounding because of the resources exploited during the Cold War and the high-pressure and strong rule that the Fury Corps had to adopt.
The allocation of materials and personnel replenishment became increasingly unsmooth, and the communication and execution of orders became increasingly obscure.
He felt like he was stuck in a quagmire. He could clearly feel that if things continued like this, he and his regiment would be drowned in the Dragon Eagle Star Region.
We must break the impasse.
But the way to break the impasse cannot be war, at least it cannot be a war without a justification.
It is not enough to say that the Alliance is treasonous. Although Erso is very fierce, he knows better than anyone what kind of image the Iron Fury Stone has in the political arena of the Empire. He is still pointing fingers at others and calling them traitors. No one will believe him.
Once he takes the initiative to start a war, if the "declaration" is not enough, it may cause a very big reaction. In the worst case, it may even cause the Empire to declare the Fury of Flame as traitors and mobilize forces to suppress him.
At that point, it would be another "Redbud Rebellion". That was the most important opportunity for the "Iron Fury Stone" to grow and develop, but it was also their biggest crisis. At that time, if they did not win, the fate of the three warbands of Redbud, Star Breaker, and Phoenix would be the same as the fate of their Iron Armor, Fury, and Stone Shield.
But on the other hand, what if the claim is enough?
Over the past two years, Erso has been causing all kinds of trouble for the Alliance just to accumulate "claims".
Officials who refused to obey orders, refused to be transferred, and refused to accept the Star Domain government... and this time, the issue of the imperial tax was a fatal blow.
Erso had long thought that Gu Hang would not pay him taxes. Otherwise, if more than 70 billion fell into his hands, many things would be settled, and he would not have to exploit the locals so much, and he could even share the benefits...
But it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t pay taxes. Even if Gu Hang goes to the upper government to pay it, just like the previous matter of reporting his merits, it is also within his expectations.
He even thought about whether to rob the transport fleet sent by Gu Hang. Anyway, that was not a proper imperial tax fleet, and it was not the same as robbing imperial taxes.
But after thinking about it, the risk is still too high, and that would offend the Cosmic Government too much. After all, the money is shipped to the Cosmic Government. If the Cosmic Government jumps out and says that this is the official tax fleet they recognize, it will be a big trouble.
This is enough for the current situation.
Skip the star domain government and pay taxes directly to the higher-level government?
Even if it is approved by the higher-level government, there is still a lot that can be done about this matter.
In this universe, there are only a few things that are truly black and white. Most things are in gray, but the gray varies in depth. The same thing has completely different natures under different judgment standards and even different standpoints.
The materials accumulated in the past, plus the issue of imperial taxes this time, all accumulated together will become the ammunition that Erso will use next.
But this cannonball cannot be fired by the Fury Legion, for the same reason that he cannot start a war without permission.
However, the Iron Fury Stone has been in the imperial political arena for so many years, doing many things that are against the rules and laws, and it is still so arrogant now. There is a reason for this. In addition to their own strong hard power, they have also developed some partners and some communities of interest, which has formed a certain degree of "protection umbrella".
It didn’t matter, the boat would have capsized long ago!
And now, it's time to use these "relationships".
Court.
Over the years, 'Iron Rage Stone' has maintained very good relations with many Imperial Inquisition institutions and orders.
Speaking of the Inquisition, it is a rather special organization within the Empire.
They are a super spy organization that combines multiple functions such as secret police, spies, intelligence, internal monitoring, handling of heretics, and external elimination of demons and aliens.
Their power is so great that it almost overrides any other political entity in the empire, and they monitor all living beings in the empire at all times.
In theory, the Inquisitors have almost unlimited power. As long as the reason is justified, they can do almost anything they want. Sign an extermination order to kill billions or even tens of billions of people on a planet; execute an Imperial Marshal; monitor the Lord of the Supreme Council; sentence a Space Marine Chapter to treason...
At the same time, the Inquisition is a large, loose, and complex organization. Each Inquisitor has his own ideas on how to more effectively defend the Empire. Based on different philosophies and methods of doing things, the Inquisition is actually divided into countless factions.
There is the Demonic Inquisition that specializes in dealing with the demons of the abyss, the Foreign Inquisition that concentrates on fighting all kinds of aliens, and the Heretic Inquisition that specializes in uncovering traitors to the Empire... These three are the largest, but there are many other smaller factions with completely different philosophies.
The Inquisition has no formal structure. When some Inquisitors encounter major problems that they cannot solve alone, they will form a cooperative group. Often, such a cooperative group is the predecessor and prototype of an Inquisition faction.
It seems that the power of the judges is boundless, but in reality, the situation is much more complicated. The excessive power of the court in name often turns into no power at all. In other words, what a specific judge wants to do depends on his "strength".
This strength depends on how much power the Inquisitor can mobilize within the Inquisition itself, how much support the Inquisitor's own faction has, how much power the Inquisitor can mobilize from other factions, whether the Inquisitor can get enough support from organizations outside the Inquisition, and whether the Inquisitor can mobilize the help of the State Church, the Mechanicus, or even the Astra Militarum or the Imperial Navy. These are all components of the Inquisitor's strength.
On the other hand, the question is to what extent the words and judgments made by this judge can be recognized within the empire.
Therefore, although the Inquisitors have almost unlimited secular power in legal terms, if they abuse their power in reality, they will soon face various kinds of retribution in this life - even the Inquisition itself has a special agency responsible for supervising Inquisitors who abuse their power. Therefore, although it is theoretically feasible, in reality, the Inquisitors cannot really do whatever they want.
And 'Iron Fury Stone''s relationship in the Inquisition is surprisingly good.
In particular, there is a large faction that often operates in the east of the empire - the Silver Tribunal.
This Inquisition once had a glorious history, with tens of thousands of official inquisitors under its command, and maintained good cooperation with many powerful Astra Militarum Corps and Navy Admirals. The two biggest achievements were that they successfully launched a trial against the chairman of the 'McCree Space Domain'. This person, who was definitely a top official and a frontier official of the empire, was sentenced by the Silver Inquisition.
Regardless of whether he was guilty of "treason", "incompetence and corruption", or "causing huge losses to the empire" as the Silver Inquisition said, the final result was that the chairman of the Universe wanted to start a rebellion to protect himself, but was still disintegrated and executed by the Silver Inquisition.
The second biggest move was to prove the loyalty of the Ironclad during the Bauhinia Rebellion more than a hundred years ago, sentence the Bauhinia Chapter to extinction, and sentence Starbreaker and Phoenix to a crusade of atonement.
After these two major events, the Silver Tribunal became famous in many cosmic regions in the eastern part of the empire. Iron Fury Stone also often cooperated with their actions and caused a lot of trouble.
The judgments made by the Silver Tribunal were always able to become a reality under their original strong power and the support of the Iron Fury Stone. At the same time, they were also able to get the Imperial Tribunal Headquarters to sign and approve their judgments.
(End of this chapter)
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