Chapter 772: The War to End the War
When Gu Jing was young, he might have been ignorant about demons, Tzeentch, great demons, and the subspace. But now that he is in his twenties, he has fully understood how big a crisis he encountered at that time.
That is a great demon of the subspace, a demon lord of all changes!
This kind of existence is enough to set off a terrible turmoil that sweeps across the entire star field. They are always able to hide behind the shadows, bewitching people, creating all kinds of coincidences, and using conspiracy and trickery to cause terrible destruction without showing up.
Not to mention, it's targeting a tiny baby.
But because of this, he also fully understood the horror of his father.
Such a most dangerous demon was eventually caught no matter how carefully it hid.
In his dream, Gu Jing saw the demon being electrocuted into a dough stick by his father.
"If you like to accompany me to study, then accompany me for the rest of my life."
Until now, Gu Jing still remembers what his father said.
Then, there was a small 'Vanchang Demon Lord' who was made of lightning beside him. When he was young, he accompanied him to study, breaking down knowledge and learning quickly. When he grew up, he became his assistant and assisted him in work.
It no longer had its own will, and the demon's soul had been annihilated by thunder. Now, it was just something reshaped in the Kingdom of Storms through its subspace essence, and it was of the same nature as the many heroes in the Kingdom of Storms, except that it retained a little more of the knowledge and wisdom of the Tzeentch demon.
Its behavioral characteristics are quite rigid, and it has no proactive behavioral capabilities, just like an intelligent assistant.
But as a tool, it is still very useful.
This was also what his father intended.
It is not a good idea to leave a little more intelligence to a Tzeentch demon, otherwise it might cause some trouble, so it should be completely annihilated to ensure that it will not affect Gu Jing's decision. Now, the application of this Heroic Spirit of the Ever-changing Demon Lord is just like a calculator, computer, or analysis machine.
During the previous meeting between Gu Jing and Yang Shiwei, he was able to quickly read, analyze and understand the thousands of pages of documents and materials, all thanks to the help of this Ever-changing Demon Lord.
The plug-in my dad gave me is so useful!
As for the spiritual power that Gu Jing used in the "slight" physical conflict later, it was his own strength.
As Gu Hang's son, he was born with psychic talent, and it was quite good. He had been studying psychic training since he was a child. The instructors in the Psychic Order taught him specifically, and sometimes Gu Hang would personally train him when he was free.
After the Lord of Change became his 'plug-in', his psychic abilities reached a new level.
Among the four types of Warp Demons, Tzeentch Demons are the most proficient in psychic power. As the top of Tzeentch Demons, the psychic power of the Lord of Change is even more exaggerated.
There is no psychic among humans who can fight against the Lord of Change.
Uh...except Gu Hang, he is not considered a human.
With the help of this Ever-changing Demon Lord, Gu Jing, who is only 23 years old now, can easily exert A+ level psychic power, and his psychic power is still growing rapidly. It is certain that he will reach S+ level in the future.
As for the Alpha level... He had received a stern warning from his father, not allowing him to summon this level of power. The relevant upper limit was also sealed by Gu Hang himself.
It is not a question of whether or not one can become an Alpha-level psychic. Gu Jing can easily achieve this if he grows up a little more in the future. However, the biggest problem with psychic power at this level is that it must be controllable.
This is the limit of human beings, and it is impossible to control it.
Unless Gu Jing is no longer a human being and finds a way to master the essence of the subspace.
That's very rare. Gu Hang just happened to encounter a weak and primitive being, but it is indeed a secondary god of the subspace. With the help of the system, they merged together to create this subspace essence.
The easy part in reproducing this process is to find a subspace essence.
Although not every planet is like the Wrathful Owl, with a thin veil of reality that easily breeds native gods, the universe is so big after all, and if you want to find it, you can always find it.
There are similar things in the Alliance, local religions and cults, which do not believe in warp demons or the Emperor, and have spawned some strange things.
This kind of thing is usually not strong, far from reaching the level of a great demon, at best it is a higher level demon. But because of the way it is produced, it truly has a subspace nature.
The Alliance basically adopted a combative attitude towards this. In the real universe, they cracked down on cults and destroyed all beliefs that were not from the state religion or the Mechanicus; in the subspace... those original lesser gods were basically eaten by Gu Hang.
Since he ate so much, it’s no big deal to leave some for my son.
But the key is, how can a mortal integrate a piece of the essence of the subspace?
There is nothing even Gu Hang can do about it.
The ones chosen by God don't count. If you want to do it, you can do it in minutes now, and there is no need to worry about the essence of subspace.
But God’s Chosen One cannot grant people immortality.
Unless Gu Hang is a little stronger, he can create something similar to the Four Gods that can upgrade people into demons and promote them to demon princes.
But in that case, one will lose his humanity, the soul will be completely reshaped, and the person may not be the same person anymore.
It's still a bit of a headache.
But there is no need to rush.
Gu Jing is still very young, and there is still a lot of time in the future. He can consider how to go down the path of psychic energy. Maintaining the S+ level is also a way.
At least, safety is guaranteed.
If all else fails, this heroic spirit in the form of the Ever-changing Demon Lord will also provide Gu Jing with close protection.
Although, it is a little weaker than when it was 'alive', it is not a level weaker. It is still at the level of a great demon, and has many different methods. It is not like a bloodthirsty demon that only knows how to chop, chop and chop.
And at this moment, it also plays a very good auxiliary role.
It can quickly polish the report that Gu Jing had previously narrated into a suitable formal document, and then quickly transmit it back to the hands of senior officials of the alliance through the subspace.
After doing this, Gu Jing could only wait for Angry Owl Star’s reply.
He is not so arrogant as to make his own decision on such a crucial and important matter.
What to do exactly depends on the overall decision of the coalition government.
After the decision is made, whether he should execute it is another matter.
However, he is definitely not idle.
As a tax envoy, he still has to do his job.
However, this matter was not challenging at all for him.
Even without the assistance of the Lord of Change, it would be easy to accomplish this task with his abilities.
As one of the two duties of the tax envoy, communication with the Imperial Taxation Department is no longer a problem. He has now completely grasped Yang Shiwei. Before the Imperial Taxation Department replaces their head, Gu Jing is confident that his say in the taxation work on Lingze Star will be extremely large.
As for the other responsibility, supervising the Union Empire Tax Working Group, there is nothing much to say about this. He only needs to stay here, and the specific matters will naturally be handled by the elite working group composed of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the General Office of Integrity, and the Audit Department of the Finance Department that he brought with him.
Generally there won't be any problems, as the Imperial Tax Working Group has been cleaned up and checked many times.
But even if it was boring, Gu Jing would complete his work meticulously.
He has made a very good start, and he would be sorry if he didn't end it well.
…
Gu Hang received the report very quickly.
His son reports to his immediate superior, the Minister of Finance, and to the Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which oversees external relations.
However, neither of them dared to act on their own on such a big matter.
They sent Gu Jing's suggestions, along with their own opinions, to Gu Hang's desk.
After reading it, Gu Hang smiled.
The young man is quite thoughtful.
However, it is not necessary for Gu Jing to bring up this matter.
Salihovic had a complete set of preemptive plans, but before this, the time had never come to use them.
If possible, the alliance does not want any changes to the current situation.
The past fifteen years have been a period of rapid development for the Alliance. The sixteen trillion war expenses have been basically deducted. Before that, the Alliance actually paid one trillion in taxes a year, and the rest was the Iron Armor War expenses owed by the Empire to the Alliance.
The Empire has already gained a great advantage in this matter.
Sixteen trillion, the alliance can’t even get the interest, so the central government of the empire divides it into fifteen-year periods. What else do they want?
That's fine. Now that the war payment has been deducted, the alliance has resumed the normal tax payment of 2.1 trillion, and there is no pressure. At least it will not affect the development of the alliance. In this case, it would be best if the situation can remain unchanged.
Over the past fifteen years, the growth rate of the alliance's GDP has remained high. In recent years, it has developed into a deep water zone, especially the Dragon Eagle Star Region, which is the leader. The current annual per capita output value has reached 11 tax coins. Although it is still growing, it is not as fast as in previous years.
But it doesn’t matter. Even if the Dragon Eagle star field can no longer grow, there are still other star fields.
There is still a lot of room for growth.
Even though the growth rate has slowed down, the absolute magnitude of annual growth is still very large considering that the total output value has increased four or five times compared to the past.
Gu Hang really had no intention of opposing the imperial central government. It would be best if the alliance could maintain this relatively peaceful development trend for a longer period of time.
But we definitely don't want to raise taxes.
According to the memorandum that Yang Shiwei tried to trick Gu Jing into signing, Xu Fuzhen, or the central government of the empire, was not too harsh in raising taxes on the alliance, increasing it from 2.1 trillion to 2.5 trillion, a mere increase of 400 billion in tax revenue.
The alliance can afford it.
However, 400 billion is not a small amount. This is all the tax revenue that the empire can collect from general cosmic domains. And that is the place where the empire has strong control and the tax cost can be reduced. For some poor cosmic domains, or cosmic domains with quite chaotic order, after all the costs are deducted, it would be considered good if 100 billion could be collected.
Moreover, compared with the alliance's past tax revenue of 2.1 trillion, it has increased by almost 20%.
The league can and cannot pay.
You can't start like this.
It has been opened once, and the price goes up again in a few years, what should I do?
What if they go even further and conduct a development investigation across the entire alliance, levy taxes strictly at 10% of the gross output value, and raise the amount of imperial tax directly to more than five trillion? What then?
By that time, the Alliance Project was dead in name only.
Furthermore, seeing that the alliance is so fat and so easy to control, don’t the greedy bosses want to intervene and get a share of the pie in the alliance’s various industries?
Once the bottom line is broken once, it will be broken again and again.
Can we increase taxes?
Yes, if the choice is really between raising taxes and civil war, then the 400 billion will be paid with a pinch of the nose.
However, there are still plenty of gray areas between tax increases and civil war, and there is plenty of time and space to play games with the central government of the empire.
The alliance also has enough chips.
Take your time.
Even if it comes to paying 400 billion in the end, the central government of the empire must pay a sufficient price to let them know the pain, so that the next time they make further demands can be delayed as much as possible.
Pulling back his thoughts, he focused on the present. This time, Gu Jing went out on his own for the first time.
In Gu Hang's opinion, the result was both expected and unexpected.
What was expected was that the big demon that dared to attack his son was changed in a moment's thought, and it really worked wonders.
Originally, Gu Hang wanted to devour the subspace essence of the Everchanging Demon Lord. Although, at that time, he was no longer like in the early days, eating a big demon or a neuron worm could make a leap forward, but the big demon was still very nutritious.
Going out to actively hunt big demons in the subspace is very dangerous, and it is easy to be caught by their masters. But if you don't eat this kind of thing that comes to your door, you will be sorry for yourself.
But... I'm sorry, for the sake of my son.
So far, it has worked. The bodyguard, wisdom bonus, and intelligent assistance have three functions in one, and the effect has been brought into play.
With such a configuration, even though Gu Jing is only 23 years old and does not have much experience, he can definitely stand on his own and it is not surprising that he can make achievements.
The so-called unexpected thing refers to the fact that Gu Jing had accomplished this task, and the harvest was indeed very good.
More importantly, this actually allowed Gu Hang to obtain information, which in turn prompted him to make a decision.
The issue of tax increase is no longer just a matter of public opinion in the central government of the empire. With Yang Shiwei trying to discuss this issue with Gu Jing, the tax envoy of the alliance, it is a sign that tax increase has officially become a policy being implemented by the central government of the empire.
Then, political peace is a pipe dream.
The beginning of this war without gunpowder is already inevitable.
Of course, war is just an adjective. In fact, all of this is an effort for peace, in order to avoid real war.
(End of this chapter)
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