Chapter 249: Chapter 171, I thought you really came to support my cousin_4
Seeing the name ‘Blackbird Heavy Industries,’ one can deduce that this is a super enterprise with heavy industry as its main business. They are nominally still part of the Alliance, but since the second-generation governor, they have gradually distanced themselves from the Alliance. They pay the Imperial Tax every two years as more of a symbolic gesture.
Based on their jurisdiction of ten million people, they should be paying products worth two million Tax Currency every tax period to the Alliance Government as their annual tax contribution.
However, in the past six years, across three tax periods, the most they’ve ever paid was four hundred thousand Tax Currency, and the least was two hundred thousand Tax Currency.
The difference is significant, but the key issue is that the Alliance Government is powerless to collect the full amount.
How to collect it? Could the Old Alliance Legion, in its sorry state, cross thousands of miles to launch an expedition to the western world of the mainland? Even if all political forces were mobilized, it just couldn’t be done.
The successive governors could only send letters berating Blackbird Heavy Industries, accusing them of being Imperial traitors and rebels for not paying their taxes.
But… isn’t it ironic? Suppressing planetary rebellions is the governor’s job, and failing to do so is a sign of incompetence. In theory, when faced with a rebellion, one could call for Imperial support, the Star Realm Army, the Imperial Navy, or even the arrival of a combat group is possible.
But unfortunately, that’s just in theory. Unless the situation deteriorates to an extreme extent or could potentially or has already affected surrounding regions, the Empire won’t bother with you.
Sometimes, a rebellion on a planet occurs, the rebels kill the governor, and Imperial reinforcements arrive only then.
Arriving on the ground, they find that the rebels say: The former governor was tyrannical and incompetent; we’ve overthrown him, but we’re still loyal to the Empire. We are willing to continue paying taxes, and we’ve already prepared the tax for the new period.
Hearing this, the Imperial reinforcements say, Well then, you are the new governor, and then they turn around and head home.
It’s quite absurd, but from the Empire’s perspective: the rebellion is over, the new governor is loyal, and not even a bit of the tax was missed. No need for battle, isn’t that great for everyone?
And the former governor? Just a waste who couldn’t even handle a rebellion, better off dead.
This scenario is not likely, but there have indeed been many such records.
For Gu Hang right now, he’s incapable of directly intervening in the far west of the mainland. He doesn’t have the power to organize a large army to journey thousands of miles and conduct an expedition, and the logistics would not hold up.
Orbital support is a joke – without ground troops for control, establishing rule through bombing alone is impossible.
Even considering orbital airdrops and orbital transport of supplies and materials for relay, while it’s true that it could disregard the distance on the ground, the Quintet is a standard warship with less-than-ideal conditions for orbital transport, making it unsupportable for this task; the Beautiful Lady, as an armed merchant ship, might be suited for such a mission, but obviously, Wang Jiarong would not support him in waging this war.
Even if he were to win, the current industrial level at Rage Owl Star’s surface is incapable of supporting rulership over lands at the other end of the mainland in a short period of time.
In conclusion, waging war is unreliable, and the timing is not yet ripe.
Conversely, by using the critical trade between the Gu Clan and Fatches, making Blackbird Heavy Industries pay up what they owe, and threatening to cut off trade if they don’t pay, is still feasible. The Quintet can tightly blockade the trade connections between the planet’s surface and orbit.
According to Gu Hang’s plan, at the very least, they must earnestly pay up this period’s two million Tax Currency; moreover, Gu Hang is also demanding that they make up the shortfall from the past six years, three tax periods, which amounts to roughly five million Tax Currency.
A total of seven million.
Of course, the latter demand is something Blackbird Heavy Industries, and Fatches would probably be unwilling to accept at all costs. Gu Hang had no intention of pushing them into a corner – if he did and they refused to do business, his scheme of getting money out of their pockets would also fail. That wouldn’t do at all.
It all comes down to the negotiations.
Anyway, two million Tax Currency is the bottom line.
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The update is late today, but there are 6000 words!
Last night, I actually finished writing 4000, but while setting the timer, I decided it would be smoother to write 2000 more, which I did this afternoon.
Tomorrow, we’ll see if it’s possible to update on schedule with 6000 words.