The various forces that were dividing up the population benefits of Korolya III were certainly acting with the intention of looting amidst chaos,
The Planetary Government of Korolya III was no cleaner; the population had become their bargaining chip for obtaining benefits. They did not think about how to preserve more human lives but were instead willing to place refugees in camps with enormous risks, where they could face death at any moment, rather than allow them to live in better places.
Only those people who were facing risks, who were inadequately clothed and underfed, who had lost their homes, were truly struggling the most.
Gu Hang couldn’t change the entire environment, but what he could do was to ensure that those who were ‘relocated’ to Rage Owl Star could start living a life befitting a ‘human’ again.
All the people on the ship came from risk-free areas and had gone through the quarantine process.
Gu Hang also did not want to bring aboard people with contagious diseases; otherwise, there was a good chance that everyone on the ship would die before even reaching Rage Owl Star, and they might even bring the plague there.
Of the two hundred and ten thousand people, half came from the ‘free’ population provided to Korolya III by Rage Owl Star – this was the free population quota that Gu Hang obtained after getting involved in political activities on the side while participating in the investigation team’s work.
The other one hundred and ten thousand people came from the Rage Bear Legion. They were directly involved in front-line combat, with several refugee camps within their defense areas. Li Kexi and the commanders of the local Korolya forces, in collusion, sold off this batch of people.
After all, if the Korolya government could sell the people without sharing the money with the military, why couldn’t the native military forces sell them on their own?
The price was very cheap; the Korolya government’s lowest price was 1 Tax Currency per person, but these native military forces were willing to sell for 0.6 Tax Currency. Moreover, with the authority Li Kexi had over them, and after applying both soft and hard tactics, the price was directly pushed down to 0.2 Tax Currency per person.
For these one hundred and ten thousand people, Gu Hang spent just over twenty thousand Tax Currency, what’s the difference from getting them for free?
…
After drifting in the Star Sea for seven days, the group finally arrived at Rage Owl Star.
A war merchant ship belonging to the Gu Commercial Firm, a transport ship, docked at the small port on Rage Owl Star.
Two hundred and ten thousand people disembarked, heading to the ground; some materials were loaded onto the ships, ready to be transported to Korolya, making the entire port start bustling with activity.
But of course, Gu Hang didn’t have to squeeze in there.
He left the starport ahead of everyone else, taking the investigative team and the representatives of the investors, heading to the ground.
Lady Ossina, the Alliance Premier, Major General Tadeusz, the Chief Political Commissar of the Entire Army, and Lambert Hodgson, the Grand Justice, the three figures who could be considered the top leaders of the Alliance Government, all came out to personally welcome their governor’s return.
After a brief reception banquet, the group boarded several Wind Falcons heading for Revival City.
Lady Ossina, who had already received the news, would dispatch a team from the Alliance Foreign Affairs Department and the Commercial Department to interface with the representatives of the investors.
They would be taken to see the industrial center of Weixing City on Rage Owl Star, then to visit the vast planting fields in the Southern Green Valley Region, and then return to Skaaro City to look at the construction situation of the starport.
Surely, after viewing all this, they would provide a reasonable report to their masters about whether Rage Owl Star was worth investing in.
As for the members of the investigative group, things were slightly more troublesome.
Gu Hang couldn’t afford to neglect them too much, so he simply took people on a trip to the Green Valley Region first.
This was also quite reasonable.
They had come to investigate the status of the Plague Demon; with the investigation on Korolya III completely deadlocked, they were looking to see if they could find some other clues on Rage Owl Star. The Green Valley Region, after all, was the starting point of that magical disaster a year and a half ago, so an investigation there was entirely sensible.
However, after they went to the Green Valley Region, how they would investigate was their own business.
The Alliance Government supported their work wholeheartedly, arranging for country villas with plenty of pure natural food, chefs, and servants. They would be able to enjoy the pastoral sceneries not easily seen in the Nest Capital or those civilized planets.
There was no shortage of fine food and wine, and if they got bored, they could even go to the southern edge of the Beiqing Valley Region to hunt some Aberrant Beasts for sport… no, investigative activities.
Isn’t this much more comfortable than squatting and waiting for the Sun Lord’s investigation team to arrive in that treacherous place on Korolya No. 3?
After settling in this batch of investigators, Gu Hang hurried back to Revival City.
Faced with the arrival of those 210,000 refugees and the investors’ team busying around, Osenia hastily put down her work to meet the governor and deliver a work report.
The development of Rage Owl Star was of paramount importance, but Gu Hang did not need to hear much. In the past, they had generally maintained a communication frequency of at least once, and sometimes three times, per week. Although he was not on Rage Owl Star, he was well-informed about the development of the Alliance.
Some particular key points could be discussed separately.
For example, Weixing City, as the industrial center, had seen its population grow to five million, having doubled versus just over a year ago. This was mainly due to people syphoned from other regions.
Weixing City’s annual industrial output value had reached 11 million in tax currency, with per capita output exceeding 2, which was double the empire’s standard for annual per capita output.
The concept of 1 tax currency was originally set by the Central Empire Government as the ‘standard case of total annual output value of an empire citizen’.
Of course, this was just Weixing City surpassing a per capita output value of 2, while other areas were far from it. Revival City, with 1.2 million people, only surpassed 1; the Beiqing Valley Region, due to vast land resources and exceptionally high per capita planting area, was able to reach 1.9 in tax currency; elsewhere, all fell short of 1.
Another matter, and also a key point in Osenia’s report, was the situation after the entire West Desert Region, along with the Western Desert, had been reclaimed.
After the elimination of Blackbird Heavy Industries, which occupied the western continent, the Alliance no longer had any enemies on Rage Owl Star.
Rage Owl Star, with oceans comprising the majority of its area, had a very good natural environment before the war, with high living standards for its inhabitants, and could be considered a combination of a Garden World and a high-grade resource planet.
The entire planet’s land area was only about 36%. The main part of the Alliance was located on the main continent, which was approximately 22% of the total area of the planet. There were two other continents, with areas of 9% and 5% of the planet’s total area, respectively.
However, while the main continent was battered, it still had lush regions like the Green Valley; other lands with poor natural environments could still support inhabitants as long as the Low Energy Storms were avoided. Even the most hostile West Desert, with its sprinkling of oases and underground water systems, could supply the necessary water for the underground planting factories, sustaining a large population and even having the capacity to export food.
On the other two continents, they were almost entirely unsuitable for human life. They were originally the primary sites for the extraction of Spiritualized Gas Fields on Rage Owl Star, and now those two continents, along with the surrounding seas, were enshrouded in unceasing Low Energy Storms.
According to past intelligence, there truly seemed to be no signs of life activity on those two continents.
From this perspective, the Alliance could be considered to have definitively unified the entire world.
Unified the whole world!
Became a ruler of a planet in every sense of the word!
Although this had been Gu Hang’s goal since he arrived in this world two and a half years ago, and he never doubted he would achieve it, when everything became a reality, he could not help but feel somewhat emotional.
Before crossing over, as just an ordinary person, how could he have ever imagined that he would see such a day?
However, Gu Hang did not feel very excited.
Had it not been for the series of events triggered by Galaraldo, and the journey to Korolya, Gu Hang might have been more excited.
But now, as the vast Star Sea was no longer just a background in his memory but had genuinely become the stage he was about to step onto, he realized how minuscule both he and the power of a single planet were in this context.
There is no choice but to forge ahead.
———— Find exclusive stories on My Virtual Library Empire
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