Chapter 713: Chapter 401, Now I Have Plenty of Money_2
But as far as we can see now, this seems to be the level all across Nuo Yan City. Even in the Middle and Upper Nest Districts of Nest Capital, the situation is much better than that in the Lower Nest District; the state of affairs may be a bit worse in the Bottom Nest District, but it should largely be similar overall.
From the perspective of Nuo Yan City, if each Nest Capital across Korolya were at this level, then it could be said that the whole of Korolya was on the right track. Korolya would no longer need to pay the human tax and could meet the Imperial Tax with its own production, no longer being a burden to the Alliance.
Given the current pace of development, in two more years, there could be a surplus; a few years later, with an increasing surplus, the standard of living for the Korolya people will keep improving, and they will become a major engine for the Alliance’s development—after all, the population size speaks for itself.
Realizing all these things truly exhilarated Shang Yanwen.
He was excited to be personally involved in this great transformation of the era.
In his spare time at work, the development plan he had formulated would add another engine to the advancement of the Green Bee Street District.
…
After the busy period with Imperial Tax concluded, he found his immediate superior, the head of the district government, Moody, and presented his ideas.
What he wanted to do was to set up a recycling aquaculture system.
In the Green Bee Street District, there used to be a kind of small flying creature similar to a bat, with sturdy membranous wings and strong teeth. Its main requirements for survival were threefold: human garbage, industrial waste water, and a type of luminescent spore-producing fungus that grew in heavily polluted environments.
The locals called these critters ‘Fluorescent Bats,’ and in the past, they were considered harmful creatures in the Lower Nest District and Bottom Nest District of Nuo Yan City. They brought disease, pollution, and radiation into human populations, causing illness and sometimes death.
The district had put in effort to control them, and now there were fewer, but they still existed.
But Shang Yanwen saw the value in these strange little creatures.
A classmate of his, who was in a school of engineering on Flying Wing Star, had a research topic on bio-materials. Shang Yanwen thought the teeth and skin of these creatures from his hometown, which fed on highly polluted fungi and organic waste and drank waste water, were excellent raw materials.
Previously, he had managed to obtain some of these ‘specialties’ from the Lower Nest District of Nuo Yan City for the research group to analyze, and indeed, they found them to have some value.
If they could be mass-produced, then the collected wings and teeth of the creatures could serve as a fine bio-material, useful for making leather for machinery, inner linings for armor, and corrosion-resistant bio-materials to emit light and heat in some situations.
He had compiled the relevant technical materials and brought back a copy.
What he aimed to do was to designate a specific area to breed these pollution fungi, which would in turn cultivate these mutated creatures under heavy pollution, and then slaughter them en masse to collect the bio-materials for sale to some processing plants.
This was the initial project. Moving forward, it would be ideal if the relevant processing industries could be undertaken by the Green Bee Street District itself, establishing corresponding factories, and even developing a more comprehensive industrial chain on this basis.
If the whole setup could indeed be successful, there was no doubt that Green Bee Street District would gain a new industry. This signified higher productivity, more employment opportunities, and residents of Green Bee Street District would be able to rank up more easily. With more money, the public’s standard of living could take a further leap forward, and they would be able to pay more taxes directly, contributing even more to the Alliance.
After listening to Shang Yanwen’s plan, Moody slapped his thigh and said, “You are indeed a top graduate! You’ve already been a great help with the tax matter before, not to mention that now you’ve come up with a surprise!”
“Do you think this is feasible?” asked Shang Yanwen, who wasn’t as confident as when he had been speaking so confidently just moments earlier.
Essentially, he was still a newcomer just starting out, with little experience in governance. He was afraid that what he had painstakingly developed was just pie in the sky. Although he had done his utmost to prevent this, and had conducted many investigations with numerous carefully considered, specific implementation steps in the plan, he was still somewhat uneasy.
He was afraid of letting his hometown down.
But Moody seemed much more reassured: “Stop worrying, we need that spirit! As long as the whole thing looks good, let’s do it! What’s the worst that could happen if we fail? The higher-ups aren’t going to punish us for one failed attempt, the Alliance always encourages innovation!”
“However, we do indeed need to be cautious. If we invest too much, there will be an impact.”
“Let’s start small with the aquaculture and work our way up slowly!”
“As long as it can be done, we’ll have solved a big problem! To tell you the truth, there are still a lot of labor forces in the district that haven’t been absorbed. This is a core indicator for our regional government, and I’ve been worried to the point of going gray. Your method sounds good, we definitely have to give it a try!”
“Even if we can only accommodate a few dozen or a few hundred people to start with, that’s very good. Don’t underestimate a few hundred job positions. With a few hundred stable output positions, we can support a new mall, more construction workers, more street vendors, and stalls… the affiliated industries can develop along with it.”
“Not to mention, there will be further opportunities to grow and strengthen later on!”
Encouraged, Shang Yanwen said, “Then let’s do it! I will apply for interstellar communication immediately and contact my classmates. Their research group will be interested in our area!”
…
The deeds of Shang Yanwen were condensed into a brief report, along with the achievements of several other commissioned young civil servants and new managers of state-owned enterprises, and were placed in front of Gu Hang.
At this moment, Gu Hang was on a starship, en route to Korolya. During the voyage, he finished reading these documents and gave his evaluation:
“Our young people have indeed done a good job.”
He was quite pleased.
The industry initiated by Shang Yanwen was thriving; a few months later, it achieved notable production value, had a stimulating effect on the local district, and even had the potential to be promoted throughout the Nest Capital, from Bottom Nest District to Lower Nest District.
Although, even if this industry were to develop further in the future, its production value is a small matter in the grand scheme of things. Its application scope is somewhat narrow; ground teeth and processed bat wings, turned into a basic material, can only play a certain role in the construction of industrial product components, nowhere near the scale of the metal smelting industry. The alliance had applications for this material in the past, but it mainly relied on imports.
However, the innovation reflected by the alliance system behind this matter, and the emerging talents of this new generation of administrative personnel, were all things that made Gu Hang even happier.
A single cycle breeding and processing industry might not count for much, but several linked together, even forming industrial chains, could have high value. Moreover, as long as the alliance system can prove its capacity for innovation and the new generation of officials is reliable, whether it’s about establishing new industries or maintaining old ones, it’s permissible to say that the future holds promise.
Setting this matter aside, Gu Hang started to look at another electronic tablet in his hand.
This contained something even more important.
The tax situation facing the alliance.
Currently, the Imperial Tax treats the alliance as a whole, collecting taxes in one go. For the Tax Fleet of the empire, this is also considered a convenient approach.
Now, the total annual tax amount for the alliance is 10.95 billion Tax Currency. Flying Wing Star 4 billion, Fatchess Tri-Star 3 billion, Korolya I and III combined at 3.5 billion, Rage Owl Star 100 million, Heijian Star 150 million, and Hongjian Star 200 million.
When the tax was set, Rage Owl Star had a population of 10 billion and Heijian Star had 15 billion, with the excess population having migrated from Korolya. As a result, the population of Korolya dropped from over 370 billion to around 350 billion, thereby setting the tax at 3.5 billion Tax Currency.
After deducting an exemption of 4 billion, the tax is paid every two years. In the past four years, in both tax seasons, the alliance had to pay 13.9 billion in Imperial Tax.
This was a huge figure that Gu Hang, who hadn’t yet been prosperous a few years back, wouldn’t even have dared to think about, but for the current alliance, it wasn’t difficult.
Especially in this latest tax season, Flying Wing Star had completed a Musician-class cruiser, along with four destroyers, totaling over 10 billion.
After setting aside the Imperial Tax annually, the alliance’s financial surplus could still be about 5 billion or so.
In one of Gu Hang’s recent conversations with his mother, he had quite boldly stated:
“I’ve got plenty of money now.”