Chapter 792: The End is Near
Economic problems, plus Gu Hang needs to divide a part of the essence of the Kingdom of Storms to suppress the warp pollution of the ship...
These two points make it difficult for the Alliance to ship out a Queen of Glory every 15 years.
However, the alliance currently has one ship, and will soon have two, and will have three in fifteen years... This scale is enough.
In fact, when this "Orient" was displayed to the world, it had already caused countless surprises.
Mars, Holy Terra, various Mechanicus sects... countless people who got the news wrote in with inquiries.
The Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a plan for this, and all inquiries were blocked.
However, some of them were directly directed at Gu Hang.
For example, Qi Bodu, and the great sage Kaul who gave Gu Hang crucial help when they were in Holy Terra.
Such a high-ranking person must have Gu Hang's contact information. They directly skipped the Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs and asked Gu Hang, so Gu Hang couldn't just ignore it.
But it's just to the extent of 'sorting it out'.
The imperial central government said that the 3 trillion imperial taxes would not have to be paid next year, and that a Queen of Glory would be sent instead, but Gu Hang decisively refused.
How to pay the imperial tax is my business. As long as the amount is sufficient, it's fine. It's none of your business how to pay it.
Afterwards, Qi Bodu settled for the next best thing, hoping to place an order for the Queen of Glory battleship, offering a price of 4 trillion and asking the Alliance how long it would take to build it.
Gu Hang turned around and asked for a huge sum of 15 trillion yuan, 30% to be paid first, and then 10% every year, for a total of ten years, and the warship would be delivered in 60 years.
Qi Bodu actually hesitated for a moment.
Actually...he can accept both of these conditions.
Fifteen trillion is indeed a lot, almost a little more than half of the empire's annual income.
However, if 15 trillion yuan cannot be used for anything else, then it can be exchanged for a Queen of Glory, then it can be squeezed out by some effort.
As for the sixty-year construction time, it was actually reasonable. Many forge worlds would take decades to build a mechanical ark or battleship. So what if a warship of the level of the Queen of Glory took sixty years to build? He thought it was quite fast, at least he could see it in his lifetime - as long as his life extension surgery was successful.
But putting these two conditions together is a bit difficult.
You're going to build the ship for sixty years, why do you want me to pay all the money at once?
In this matter, Qi Bodu tried hard to bargain with Gu Hang.
Gu Hang was really surprised that Qi Bodu actually looked like he could still negotiate. He just asked for too much, quoted a price and construction time without any sincerity, and didn't even keep a balance. I will take all the money in ten years, and then the ship construction will be unfinished. Are you afraid?
The purpose of offering this price is to scare Qi Bodu away.
Turns out there's still something to talk about...
Then Gu Hang really became interested.
Let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs talk to the Imperial Central Government and include it in the terms of the new tax law that is now being implemented.
If the Empire can really accept it, Gu Hang can sell it in exchange for a Queen of Glory in sixty years.
It's not impossible for me to give you one ship in the time it takes to build five, and you give me the money to build seven.
As for the Martian sect, they didn't ask for a ship, they just came to inquire about the technology.
This...Gu Hang could only agree to it to a limited extent.
In the manufacture of the Queen of Glory-class battleships, the Alliance's own shipyards were only able to play a relatively low role, and were only responsible for some low-tech tasks. To put it bluntly, the core components were still made bit by bit by the black box that Gu Hang pulled out.
This part is not suitable to be shown to the people of the Martian sect.
It was no use for them to look at it.
As for the ship itself, Gu Hang could allow them to visit and even study it.
This is also because the great sage once helped him.
Anyway, it is impossible for them to really develop the technical capabilities to build a new Queen of Glory by studying the finished product.
The Empire now has more than just the Alliance's Glorious Queen. Each of the major loyalist warbands has one. Given the status of the Martian sect, there must be many opportunities to study those Glorious Queens, but the fact that nothing has been accomplished proves that the difficulty of replicating this technology is far beyond imagination.
In this regard, it is not a bad idea to have some exchanges with each other.
With this idea in mind, Gu Hang generously agreed to the great sage's request for communication, without even proposing any additional conditions for the exchange of interests.
However, what the great sage said next surprised Gu Hang even more.
"Correction, the communication is not in the form you think. I will persuade the Forging General to send the team on Mars that is best at building large ships, as well as the team that has the most thorough research on the information left by the ancient Queen of Glory, to the East."
"The goal of the exchange is not to learn something from you. It is to apply what they have learned and are good at in the past to the construction of your Glorious Queen."
Pie in the sky?
From this perspective, it can almost be said that Mars is providing free technical support to the Alliance?
Although, from a technical point of view, the Alliance does not particularly need it; but if these people are really as the Great Sage said, they are all talents and can more or less speed up the construction of the Queen of Glory.
"Speeding up the Alliance's construction of the Glorious Queen-class battleships is exactly my goal."
"Excuse me... why?"
The great sage did not hide anything and told Gu Hang the reason very directly: "The End Era is coming. We don't have much time. Since the Alliance already has the ability to build the Queen of Glory, every bit of power accumulated before the end comes will bring a positive change to the future of the empire."
"The End Era... is coming? Can you be more specific? I want to know what it is and whether there is a specific time?"
"I don't know either," said the great sage, "but it won't be too far away."
"……All right."
…
Gu Hang was unable to get more information out of the great sage.
But the sense of urgency in my heart became even more intense.
He was really worried about the so-called End Era and the prophecy he had seen from the Dark Eldar, and what it would eventually become.
Gu Hang is very annoyed by this kind of thing.
He was annoyed by anything that prevented him from staying at home, farming, developing the country, and making people live a good life.
The matter of the End Era may be even more annoying than the problems brought by the center of the empire.
As a result, he didn't have the energy to pay attention to the new crisis between the Alliance and the Empire, the new tax negotiations and the like. Instead, he spent more time in the Kingdom of Storms, observing the changes in the subspace.
The Empire and humanity face many threats in this universe. But if there is something that deserves the word "end", Gu Hang would first suspect the vast and terrifying subspace.
A year and a half later.
When the group of experts from Mars arrived and had already started working; when the negotiations between the Empire and the Alliance broke down for the third time, and the Empire once again took out the bluffing mobilization troops it had used before, gathering in the space area surrounding the Alliance, intending to put pressure on the Alliance...
Gu Hang saw a shocking explosion in the subspace.
(End of this chapter)
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