Chapter 502: Even Busier After Peace
At the meeting, many senior officials of the alliance were still arguing.
But Gu Hang was already daydreaming.
The war in the Dragon Eagle star field is basically over no matter what.
There may still be remnants of greenskins on various planets; outside, there are the hastily retreating Furies, and the possibility of revenge from their allies, as well as the Spider Web Realm located in the northern part of the Eastern Realm, where the Iron Fury Stone may start a war...
The shadow of war still looms.
But no matter what shadows or greenskin remnants there are, overall it can be said that peace has generally arrived.
Don't expect a regime spanning four hundred worlds to be free of any internal disputes. That's unrealistic.
As long as there is no crisis that affects multiple worlds at the same time, then we can already say that there is peace.
After peace came, Gu Hang found that he and the entire alliance had more things to worry about and were busier.
In Gu Hang's opinion, the current situation of the entire alliance, where only two centers make money and the rest of the world is losing money, is essentially caused by the fact that the administrative capacity of the alliance cannot keep up with the expansion of the political system.
Yunluo Star is a more developed place than Feiyi Star, and unlike Feiyi Star, it is not set at level 5 development, but level 4.
Richer, but with less taxes. This is apparently what the previous Star Region government came up with.
With so many years of accumulation and the three star regions behind as the rear base, the resources are quite abundant, and its size should not be much higher than that of Qimadi, which has only been developed for a few years or more than ten years.
In fact, although the output value of Yunluo Center is much higher, its financial contribution is not high enough.
Similarly, although those loss-making worlds have many objective conditions for loss, if the administrative management capabilities of the alliance can keep up, then the cost of establishing and maintaining rule should not be so high.
Of course, this is not the alliance’s own problem. Gu Hang was just praising the alliance government for its good work. It’s not like they would turn against them now and think that their work is lame.
This problem is widespread throughout the human empire.
The scope of rule is too vast.
Let alone the Empire, it is quite difficult to establish a unified, centralized government controlled by the Alliance government in all the 400 worlds of the Alliance, and the maintenance cost has soared significantly.
What if one day, the alliance’s control extends to four or five thousand worlds in the entire Eastern Universe?
By then, it probably won’t be a matter of money anymore.
From this perspective, Gu Hang could actually understand why the empire had become such a mess.
Holy Terra may not have figured out until now how many worlds are under the Empire's rule. This number changes every day, with new worlds being included, lost, rebelling, and rebellions being resolved...
Moreover, these changes did not only occur in the frontier areas. Due to the special nature of the star tunnel, sometimes a galaxy that was originally located in the hinterland suddenly became the front line because a new star tunnel was discovered.
We don't even know exactly how many imperial worlds there are, we only know that there are about a million of them.
The same is true for the military. The Empire may know how many Astra Militarum and Imperial Navy units there are, but these are only on paper, and the actual situation is unclear. There are too many departments, institutions, and dignitaries who have the power to create new Astra Militarum and Navy units to count them.
If we can't even figure these out, let alone the population and industrial conditions in various parts of the world.
If you can't even get the basic information right, how can you rule? Rule the hell!
Under such objective conditions, the Empire's current top-down five-level structure - Holy Terra, the Universe, the Star Field, the Star Region, and the Planet, coupled with the strong autonomous political system in each local area, is also helpless.
In this structure, the most independent ones are the planetary governors, who can do almost anything they want on their own planets. The only reason that prevents them from doing so is that the power of a single planet is not strong enough.
The head of the sector is a paperhanger, so I won't talk about that.
The head of the star domain is also a heavyweight.
Among the three levels in the middle, the most important one is the star region government. It is highly independent, can retain the imperial taxes, has control over the appointments of the star regions under its command, and can deploy the star army and navy within the star region.
Every star domain government is like a local lord with real power.
The cosmic government above it actually looks like the leader of a confederation of princes.
Generally, the cosmic domain government occupies the most developed star domain and is itself the richest and most powerful local lord. With the blessing of administrative power, each star domain government must obey orders to a certain extent. This is like a leader of the lords, but it is difficult for the cosmic domain government to directly control every star domain and star region.
The entire structure is a bit like the feudal system, but it is very different from feudalism. After all, the appointment of officials still comes from the Holy Terra government, and there is no self-inherited power.
Gu Hang certainly didn't like this. His alliance always insisted on a high degree of centralization. As the central government, the alliance government had a high degree of control over the areas it directly controlled.
But now, under the pressure of reality, it seems that I have to make a certain degree of compromise.
While thinking, Gu Hang had some vague ideas in his mind.
Just at this moment, someone called him at the meeting.
Gu Hang came back to his senses.
Although he was distracted before, he was actually listening to the heated discussions in the meeting.
At this point, when people called him, it naturally meant that the discussion had reached a point where it could no longer proceed and he, the leader, was needed to make the final decision.
Anyway, everyone's opinions have been clearly expressed in the previous debate.
Gu Hang didn't hesitate any more and directly expressed his opinion:
"I roughly understand what everyone means: increase investment in loss-making worlds, build these worlds as soon as possible, turn them from losses to profits as soon as possible, exchange short-term large losses for rapid development, and become self-reliant in the future, get rid of long-term losses, and even make profits."
"The other extreme is to completely abandon these worlds, maintain the Empire's normal ruling methods, appoint planetary governors, and forcibly demand a 10% imperial tax. Other resources will not be interfered with. Unless the situation reaches the point where the entire planet is about to be destroyed, the Alliance will not interfere in the local situation, and it will be handled by the local governor."
"I fully understand everyone's ideas, but I think these two directions are not completely contradictory. We can implement them at the same time."
"I agree with Jason Morgan. We need to analyze the situation region by region and planet by planet to decide how to implement it."
"Let's talk about the several areas separately..."
Gu Hang began a long speech.
While he was speaking, everyone else remained silent, listening carefully to the opinions of the alliance's supreme commander. Only when Gu Hang asked a question did the person named speak.
Gu Hang first determined the development goals of Qimadi.
The entire Qimadi was identified as the core area of the alliance.
Not only the Tianma star region, but also the remaining six territories need to be developed.
These seven star regions have a total of 88 worlds and 187 billion people, and are now a region with positive returns. Although the main returns are in the Tianma Star Region, the birthplace of the alliance, the development of the Tianma Star Region will always reach its limit.
Of course, this upper limit does not mean that there is no more development after reaching a certain level of development. This is a soft upper limit. After reaching a certain level, the speed of development will inevitably decline. At the same time, because advanced industries occupy a large proportion of manpower and production, the number of people that the planetary environment can carry will also reach an upper limit - Gu Hang does not want to build a world like Holy Terra, it is too terrifying.
After reaching this soft cap, the star zone will of course continue to develop, especially advanced and high-tech industries. However, some backward production capacity will definitely be eliminated.
Qimadi is the best receiving area.
Moreover, since these 88 worlds were already under the control of the Alliance during the previous war, the Seven Horses Framework and the Economic Community Framework were fully promoted to these worlds. Now, the time is ripe for a complete transformation into an alliance system.
These 88 worlds are also where the Alliance will invest heavily in the future.
In response to Gu Hang's inquiry, the Prime Minister of the Union, Ms. Ossena Chenko, discussed with her own staff and several senior officials from various departments of the Union for a few minutes, and gave Gu Hang a definite answer: in the next five years, the industrial and economic development of Qimadi can maintain an annual growth rate of 10%.
Five years later, the total output value of Qimadi should grow to more than 300 billion.
…
The second area mentioned is Yunluo Center.
This will be the area where the focus will be on establishing alliance rule.
These forty-odd worlds have large populations and developed economies, so it is unlikely that they will suffer losses. However, Gu Hang would not accept the result that he could just make money in these places.
What Gu Hang wants is that these 54 worlds with a population of 250 billion and a production value of 630 billion should complete the institutionalization of a comprehensive alliance, just like the Qimadi.
Only in this way can Gu Hang conveniently place various high-level technologies and industries in this area for production in the future. This will be able to further increase the output value of these places; and the alliance believes that these worlds obviously have such a high output value, and the imperial tax is not much, why is the fiscal quota provided in a year only so little?
After replacing the alliance system, Gu Hang hopes to achieve the following: no large-scale unrest, no general decline in the living standards of the vast majority of the empire's citizens, and at least no decline in the industrial economy. On this basis, the alliance's control over these areas has been greatly improved, and the contribution to fiscal revenue has been significantly improved.
Ossena looked embarrassed about this.
There are many conflicting items here.
There is a contradiction between alliance and unrest. Alliance will inevitably bring losses to the middle rentier class, although according to the alliance's policy, these business owners and former local officials can obtain relatively high ranks as long as they cooperate with the alliance's institutionalization. But the high ranks of the alliance are indeed extremely superior to ordinary people, but compared with the past, when they held the power of life and death and owned all the industries, that is not the same concept.
If we don’t eliminate these rentier classes, how can we significantly increase fiscal revenue without increasing output value or reducing people’s living standards?
The knife is meant to be used on these people.
If people resist, there is the possibility of unrest; even if they do not resist openly but only adopt non-violent non-cooperation tactics, the alliance's work will suddenly become difficult due to the lack of cooperation from local government officials.
This is much more radical than the personnel replacement method previously implemented by the alliance.
But it seems that Governor Gu has made up his mind.
Gu Hang also gave his own reasons: "No matter how the future develops, Qimadi and Yunluo Center are the core areas we need to rely on the most. In the foreseeable future, our neighbors to the north will make big moves. Whether we like it or not, we need to face it. While there is still time, we must solve the backyard problem. I don't want the rear to fail when the front line is under great pressure."
Ossena said she understood.
This time, she spent more time discussing with the coalition government team.
In the end, their reply to Gu Hang, or the 'KPI' they set for themselves, was that in the next five years, the fiscal revenue contribution of the four Yunluo districts would increase by 30% while keeping other economic and livelihood indicators unchanged and avoiding unrest as much as possible.
Gu Hang believed that Yunluo Center had more potential, but he was reluctantly satisfied with the number.
Next, we come to the loss-making star areas.
The situation is different in different areas.
In the eastern part of the star field, the area once controlled by the alliance, namely the Golden Pass, Bronze Pass, and Prideful Hand... a total of 8 star regions, 94 worlds, but the population is only about 88 billion. The common feature of these star regions is that before the outbreak of the Iron Tooth Orc Green Tide, they were the worlds surrounding the fallen area and were part of the "Iron Tooth Defense Line" of the year, and they have been subjected to war for many years;
In the green tide, they either fell completely or partially.
After the Green Tide ended, during the standoff between the Alliance and Fury, the Alliance was under the control of the Alliance.
The production bases and social order of these worlds have almost all collapsed to varying degrees due to the Greenskin Wars, resulting in massive population losses and government dysfunction.
The Alliance passed the 'Economic Community Act' in these places in the early stage, and later directly dispatched Alliance officials to manage them, basically firmly grasping these worlds in their hands.
There is no resistance in these worlds. On the contrary, they are very grateful to the Alliance for saving them from the flames of war. Thanks to the efforts of the Alliance Propaganda Department, the entire society is also oriented towards the Alliance.
There is no cost of ruling here. The main reason for the losses is the war. Too many people died and all kinds of production were destroyed. Now we are extremely poor.
The problems in these worlds are relatively easy to solve. Just throw money at them and they will work.
What Gu Hang meant was that these worlds could spend money.
In these 94 worlds, the Alliance estimates that if it spends around 20 to 30 billion per year, it will be able to achieve relatively good results.
In fact, after peace was restored in these 94 worlds, a baby boom has occurred, and it is foreseeable that the population will recover quickly.
Ossena was most confident about the work plan for this area. She even dared to guarantee that in five years, the total output value of these eight star regions would increase from 67 billion to 100 billion, and the population would increase from 88 billion to 95 billion.
The remaining areas are the areas that really need to be tackled.
(End of this chapter)
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