The Beiqing Valley Region has already put into use two hundred million acres of farmland, and along with the service industry, transportation, fertilizer, and food processing industries that have stemmed from agricultural production, the per capita annual output value has reached 2.3 Tax Currency.
By contrast, Weixing City’s per capita output currently stands at only 1.95 Tax Currency, and the population is just 2.55 million, a little short of the five million annual output target.
This is the origin of the disparity between the two.
Of course, when looking at development, you can’t just look at money
The main produce of Beiqing Valley Province is agricultural, primarily grains, with various other types of economic crops supplementing it.
These goods are solid currency, whether they are consumed domestically, used as agricultural exports in trade, or even used to pay taxes, the prices are very stable.
However, relying on agriculture alone will not make you rich, nor can it cultivate a reliable army.
Moreover, large-scale agricultural production fundamentally relies on ‘land,’ a resource with a limit.
Although currently, a large amount of farmland in the Green Valley Region has not been put to use. According to estimates, the viable farming area of Beiqing Valley Region could reach up to 1.2 billion acres; furthermore, the Southern Green Valley is still undeveloped, and if it were to be fully developed, it could provide no less than 700 million acres of arable land.
But ultimately, there is a limit to this.
However, industrial mass production has no limit.
As time progresses, the per capita output of Weixing City will have even more room for growth. Furthermore, according to the plans of Prime Minister Osenia and Weixing City’s Mayor Patel, construction in Weixing City is set to accelerate in the following year.
Weixing City’s population growth has already been rapid. In two years, it developed from an empty plain into an industrial city of 2.5 million people today.
But it can be even faster.
The constraints on further population growth are the expansion of industrial lines and the construction of urban infrastructure.
In this area, they expect to solidify the foundation within half a year; afterward, in the span of one year, they plan to double the industrial population of Weixing City again.
In such a case, Weixing City’s industrial output value should be able to catch up with Beiqing Valley Region’s agricultural output.
Of course, no matter what, the Beiqing Valley Region and Weixing City are currently the core sources of output for the Alliance. Combined, they account for over 67% of the Alliance’s total output value.
The remaining provinces are lagging behind.
Apart from Revival City, the capital, which barely reached an annual per capita output of 1 Tax Currency, the rest did not even reach 1.
The poorest among them is the newly reclaimed Northern Border Province.
Since the Extreme North Industrial City was assigned to Central-North Province and Polar Industrial Group’s main production capacity was moved during the administrative division, Northern Border Province, despite having the Alliance’s largest land area and a population of 3 million, has a per capita annual output value of only 0.34.
Let alone the future investments and construction that the Alliance plans to carry out there, just those more than 3 million people, based on the Alliance’s welfare and allowance policies, with a per capita cost of 0.4 Tax Currency, it’s a loss-making business.
It’s not much better in other areas either; even if they don’t lose money on welfare allowances, when you factor in the tax contributions, they don’t make much of a profit.
Add to that the investment in construction, and most of it is pure loss.
However, as the saying goes, in construction, you can’t just look at the money; this isn’t about doing business.
Despite its harsh natural environment, the Northern Border Province has mines.
Exploration teams using [Resource Exploration Technology], who have been working throughout the Alliance territories, have discovered three different types of ore veins in the Northern Border Province just in the past month.
Plus, with the numerous mining ruins left over from before the war, it may potentially become the Alliance’s most important mining resource area in the future.
The Xiongya Province in the Eastern three provinces, leveraging Starport, has already found its development path; the other two provinces are somewhat behind but are also trying to find solutions, and at the very least, they have ruins within their territories to clear. The pre-war Nest Capital has enough debris to provide for many years to come.
Before it is completely exhausted, they have plenty of time to find a way out.
Gaota Province, Central-North Province, and other areas of the Central Province are trying to absorb the spillover industries from Weixing City, hoping to form a large industrial circle centered around Weixing City…
Everyone has a bright future!
In the end, Osenia summarized, “In the next two-year plan, what I hope to achieve is to double the Alliance’s total output value; even in the poorest provinces, the per capita output should exceed 1.”
Gu Hang gently clapped.
He was mostly satisfied with Osenia’s report.
Could one ask for more?
Actually, since its establishment, the Alliance had only just gone through two years. Weixing City was built from scratch; Beiqing Valley had only been reclaimed for just over a year; the three eastern provinces were recovered less than a year ago; the North Territory had been reclaimed just one month ago.
In such circumstances, to have developed to this point, the golden finger that Gu Hang brought with him through time-travel, which was devoid of reason, was certainly the most significant factor. However, Osenia, as the chief steward of the whole Alliance Government, played a role that could not be overlooked due to the arduous work she had put in.
In the midst of applause, Gu Hang opened the character interface.
He could see that Osenia’s character information had quietly upgraded from R to SR level. At the same time, beside her LV3, there was an option to upgrade.
Without hesitation, Gu Hang clicked on the upgrade.
Osenia became an LV4 governor.
Furthermore, she could continue upgrading.
She had indeed accumulated a lot of experience in this position.
However, Gu Hang no longer had enough blessing points in hand.
He only had 194 points left, which was not enough to meet the 500 points required for an LV4 character to upgrade to LV5.
But it didn’t matter, after the following ‘payday’, Gu Hang would not hesitate to give Osenia another level up.
Currently, Gu Hang’s monthly blessing income had reached 3522 points. Of this, the Alliance provided 3178 points, and the remaining 344 were provided by the Luman Kingdom through the [Vassal] system.
It was quite sentimental.
In the past, after a battle, earning a thousand or two blessing points felt like striking it rich, as the monthly blessing points were not very substantial and were rather insignificant.
But now, it seemed that while fighting could lead to sudden wealth, the daily accumulation from farming should not be neglected either.
Ten thousand blessing points were merely a matter of lying in bed for three months.
Nothing to speak of.
Moreover, this monthly blessing point income would continue to grow as the Alliance expanded.
…
After meeting with Osenia, Gu Hang then met with Lambert.
The matters he mentioned were mainly threefold. Explore more adventures at empire
One was the construction of the legal system within the Alliance’s territory, which was advancing normally. Whether it was criminal law, civil law, or the like, Gu Hang had reviewed them quite seriously.
The legal system was, of course, very important.
The second matter was the result of the anti-corruption campaign that started in the Beiqing Valley Province and gradually extended to the entire Alliance.
A considerable number of Alliance officials were purged and held accountable. The majority of the trouble came from those officials who had transitioned from the original ruling class.
The Alliance had already given them an opportunity, but they did not seize it; therefore, the Alliance was not to blame for taking stringent measures.
There were relatively few death sentences, and those who were sentenced were transformed into servitor skulls or automata, to make full use of them; most were subjected to labor sentences, with lighter cases supplemented by imprisonment and demotion.
One should not think that labor sentences were light; a ten-year labor sentence was truly worse than a straightforward execution—the Alliance was not yet wealthy enough or advanced enough to consider or improve the working conditions for prisoners with labor sentences. Generally, those sentenced to ten years of labor did not survive that long.
In fact, the Servant Management Bureau and the Servo Skull Studio had visited Lambert, the chief justice, several times, hoping that he would pass heavier sentences in the future.
A ten-year labor sentence, when the person doesn’t survive ten years—why bother? An execution would be more straightforward and provide them with materials to make servo skulls and automata. Those creations could serve far longer than ten years.
Lambert said that he was carefully considering the matter.
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