Chapter 716: 403
The Alliance Army, with four hundred million troops, had a total construction cost exceeding twenty billion and required nearly 2.1 billion in military expenditure each year for maintenance.
This expenditure was considerably larger than that required to maintain thirty million Star Realm Army troops, even on a per capita basis.
It meant that although the Alliance Army ranked lower in the empire’s order and was essentially a Planetary Defense Army, its actual combat effectiveness was likely much stronger than that of standard Star Realm forces like the Dragonhawk Legion.
Normally, the Alliance wouldn’t have been able to afford such an army. Besides personnel training, the production and maintenance costs of military equipment were prohibitively expensive.
But in reality, the Alliance hadn’t spent that much money.
Most of the equipment, especially the expensive items, were offered to the Alliance Army at least at half the reported price.
…
This was to make the military expenses seem reasonable. Otherwise, if the costs were really twenty billion for construction and two billion annually for maintenance, outsiders would start wondering how the Alliance could sustain such expenditure.
In fact, under normal circumstances, the Alliance truly couldn’t afford this expense. The reported prices could be manipulated to appear lower, but actual production costs couldn’t be falsified since the troops genuinely needed that much equipment and ammunition.
However, the Alliance had a unique advantage in this aspect.
The Black Box’s direct output of some equipment was nearly free, costing only material expenses. The advantage was not obvious when producing relatively cheap items like firearms and armored vehicles; however, when it came to producing the Lion King Tanks, which cost about three hundred thousand each, getting one from the Black Box was like picking it up for free.
Direct production from the Black Box was only a small part; the main benefit was the production lines it could directly create, which were highly efficient and practically cost nothing.
When the cost of equipment excluded research and development and production line expenses, considering only the labor and material costs needed for manufacturing, the cost became very acceptable.
Moreover, the larger the scale of production, the lower the production cost. The Alliance would certainly keep building, and any surplus Land Forces equipment would be treated as payment for Imperial Tax. With over a hundred billion in Imperial Tax revenue each year, the production capacity would not be a concern.
Leaving aside the reality for a moment, officially, the Alliance spent only seven billion on the construction of the Land Forces, spread over the past six years, with annual maintenance costs of just six billion, which had been rising year by year.
However, another major portion of military expenses—the construction of the naval forces—was not so easy to manage.
For products that the Black Box couldn’t produce, only blueprints were provided. It could output only key components to establish production lines.
Even though this significantly reduced manufacturing costs, due to the high unit price and fewer ships, naval accounting was difficult.
And there wasn’t much need for detailed accounting, as the price difference wasn’t particularly large.
In the past four years, the Alliance had invested approximately seven billion Tax Currency into naval construction.
The current Alliance Navy possessed three Crazy Shark-class Destroyers, five Escort Ships, of which three were ‘Silver Helmet’ and two were ‘Silver Sword.’
These were the main force of the Alliance Navy, along with twenty-one ‘Blackfish-class’ patrol ships, whose smaller role was not worth mentioning.
Du Shiliang of the Tianma Fleet had witnessed the Alliance Navy’s debut, and his expression was somewhat complex.
On one hand, the current combat capability of the Alliance Navy couldn’t compare with the Tianma Fleet, not even with its residual forces left behind. The entire Alliance Navy’s value was roughly equivalent to the cost of a single Musician-class Cruiser.
On the other hand, the Alliance Navy had become a force in the Star Sea that couldn’t be ignored, having built all this in just four years. By comparison, how many years had it taken for the Tianma Fleet, which was funded by Imperial Tax, to reach its current strength from its inception?
Three hundred years!
The Tianma Fleet started from scratch three hundred years ago, accumulating ships, engaging in warfare, losing ships, and continuing to build more.
The Alliance Navy, not part of the Imperial Navy, was nominally an internal escort team of the Alliance Star Sector. Neither the Military Affairs Department nor the Imperial Navy Command had jurisdiction over them.
Without the need to unconditionally obey imperial commands and go to dangerous battlefields to fight, they would only escort within their Star Sector, with a very low chance of losing ships.
Cumulating resources this way, coupled with the further growth of the Alliance’s production capacity, especially that of the Rage Owl Star Shipyard, wouldn’t they be able to accumulate a third of the Tianma Fleet in twenty or thirty years?
From this perspective, it was quite frightening.
But in fact, Gu Hang’s vision might be even more ambitious than what Du Shiliang imagined.
It would be too few to accumulate a third of a Tianma Fleet in twenty or thirty years.
If given that much time, the growth of the Alliance’s productivity could reach an exaggerated level. The speed at which Starships were produced would increase, and the general increase in production capacity would lift the restrictions on using Starships to pay Imperial Taxes on Flying Wing Star, allowing those ships to stay and join the Alliance Navy.
The speed at which the Alliance Navy was built would accelerate over time.
Forget a third of a Tianma Fleet, if the Alliance were to develop peacefully, Gu Hang was confident that in twenty years, they could accumulate naval power not inferior to the entire Tianma Fleet.