Chapter 1003, New Empire and New Contradictions

Gu Hang held a report, his brows furrowing slightly.

Although he was already the Prime Minister of the Empire, he did not stay in the Empire for long. Even at the founding ceremony of the new Empire, his so-called 'personal' speech was in reality nothing more than an avatar.

He can hardly live without the Angry Owl Star.

Wrathful Owl Star is the location of the Storm God Kingdom, which is where he cannot leave for a long time.

After all, his primary duty is still 'suppression'.

Only when he has suppressed the problem can Old Deng, who has freed up his hands on the other side, have the time to slowly repair the major problem of the scarlet scar.

Before Gu Hang came along, he had to do the 'suppression' himself.

All I can say is that in this 'cesspool' universe, everyone has a place to sit in jail.

However, although he cannot go to Holy Terra in his real body often, Gu Hang still has a pretty good grasp of the overall political situation of the empire.

The primary means of communication, of course, is through the coalition government.

The current Alliance government is mainly based in the East, in the 'land of origin' of the Angry Owl Star and the Pegasus Star Region.

The Alliance's central government and the Empire's central government are essentially the same entity with two different names; logically, they should be based in Holy Terra, the heart of the Empire.

This is indeed a future plan.

But I haven't gone to be stationed there permanently yet.

My main focus right now is the alliance, and I spend a lot of time with the alliance.

However, this does not mean that the control over Holy Terra has weakened.

First, the Alliance—or rather, the Imperial Government—has a dedicated capital government in Holy Terra that manages affairs in this special world of Holy Terra. Its personnel are composed of administrative elites drawn from various parts of the Alliance.

The alliance attaches great importance to Holy Terra, no less than to Comoros.

The capital city government is of a very high standard; it is capable of operating independently and effectively implementing the alliance's central strategy.

Secondly, there is convenient transportation.

The central government of the Alliance, specifically referring to Osena and a few other leaders of the central government, although they do not reside permanently in Holy Terra, will visit Holy Terra every two weeks, or even every week, and stay for two days.

This would have been impossible in the past.

A trip to Holy Terra is too far and takes too long—not to mention the travel itself, even communication is not always reliable.

Under such circumstances, it would be impossible to achieve a model where someone on the empire's frontier could still effectively rule the empire's central region.

But it's different now.

Although communications were worse than before due to the presence of the scars, the Comoros under the Alliance's control proved incredibly effective. For maximum efficiency, miniature veiled portals were installed within several of the most important government buildings in the central government of Wrathful Owls.

On the other hand, Comoros opened a small port specifically for government use, corresponding to the administrative offices within Holy Terra.

The Alliance government argued with the Imperial Guard for a long time about this matter. After all, these administrative offices were all located within the palace. The Imperial Guard refused, citing the security of the palace. In the end, it was only through the joint intervention of Gu Hang and Robert that Yan Xinzhen was barely persuaded.

With these three doors located in three different places, an official with sufficient authority like Osena could, if she wished, push open her office door, go to the miniature curtain spirit gate in the same building, walk in, arrive at Comoros, take a few more steps to the corresponding spirit gate, and then walk in to reach Holy Terra.

The entire process probably took less than fifteen minutes. It was Comoros's teleportation ability that made it possible for the Alliance government to govern both the Dark Side of the Empire and Holy Terra simultaneously.

The report that Gu Hang is currently reading comes from the central government of the new empire.

What made him frown was that the main problem mentioned above was still quite thorny—the league's increasing financial pressure.

……

The Alliance is well-governed, and the worlds conquered by the Dark Side Expeditions are often able to recover economically in a short period of time, thus providing fuel for the expeditions again.

However, this economic recovery is conditional—investment.

Construction doesn't happen out of thin air; builders, technology, resources... all of these are indispensable.

Construction and investment in various regions have consumed a great deal of funds.

Many newly conquered worlds not only fail to bring direct benefits, but also become a financial burden.

The Dark Side Expedition has been going on for so many years that the Alliance has developed a complete and well-established reconstruction process. But even the best process takes time to gradually rebuild the world and get the finances back in order.

However, before it becomes official, there is a financial burden.

Meanwhile, the Alliance's Dark Side Expedition is currently divided into five fronts—the Central Front, the Eastern, Western, and Southern Fronts, plus the Angel Front. Each is massive in scale, and even without reinforcements, simply maintaining their current size and sustaining their operations would require astronomical sums of money.

That's all well and good, after all, the Alliance has been doing this for the past century, and has always been able to maintain a balance.

However, this balance was somewhat disrupted when the Alliance took over Holy Terra and assumed the role of the central authority of the Empire.

Holy Terra is too large. With 700 billion survivors, a huge amount of infrastructure and factories need to be rebuilt, requiring massive investment.

Based on the Alliance's past experience, this is equivalent to an entire star field being instantly brought under the Alliance's rule, and hundreds of worlds needing to be reinvested.

This will put a lot of pressure on the economy.

Fortunately, there was a spark nearby.

Mars provided significant assistance, but their own lives weren't easy either. Production on Mars required substantial input of raw materials and a large workforce. Even with preferential treatment, the Cult of Mechanics still needed to make a profit.

Placing an order with them also costs money.

To put it simply, at the founding ceremony, Gu Hang, representing the new imperial government, promised to give the residents of Holy Terra a better life.

This requires sufficient construction, and the construction period is not short. It will also take a considerable amount of time to recover costs and see significant benefits.

But here's the contradiction: Robert wanted to push forward the construction of a powerful expeditionary force.

A massive army of soldiers, a huge number of new Space Marine chapters, a massive fleet...

Building these requires a massive amount of financial investment.

In terms of scale, if Robert's needs were fully met, it would be equivalent to building an army group the size of two and a half Allied forces.

It's one thing to just invest capital, but the key issue is that it also requires a large amount of production capacity and population, which will make the original economic construction and recovery time even slower.

This conflict, which had been raging for a long time, has finally reached its breaking point and been brought to Gu Hang's attention.

(End of this chapter)