Starting from the Planetary Governor

Chapter 952: Chapter 514, Mr. Gu has given too much

Gu Hang was here to address the issue of the slow operations in the Menghe Star Sector.

The solution, of course, wasn’t for Gu Hang to personally join the battle. The problems in the Menghe Star Domain were not about war. The Alliance had ample power to resolve every war they encountered in the Menghe Star Domain.

The local rebellions were not significant enough to pose a challenge for the Alliance.

But the problem was, there were too many of them.

On one hand, the advance forces of the Alliance didn’t have sufficient troops, and on the other, the Alliance couldn’t possibly send a large number of its valuable troops to suppress the local rebellions in Menghe.

That would cost a lot of money and would affect the overall development plans of the Alliance in the Dragonhawk Star Domain.

Moreover, it wasn’t economical or beneficial.

Frankly, the Alliance’s expansion into the Menghe Star Domain wasn’t just for the sake of enlarging its territory. Gu Hang’s goal was to establish a strategic buffer zone outside of the Dragonhawk Star Domain, so if subsequent wars started, they could ensure the battles wouldn’t take place on their own territories.

Secondly, to put it bluntly, it was about plundering.

Gu Hang wanted the Imperial Tax and Planetary Defense Forces from the Menghe Star Domain.

The former is outright money, while the latter is manpower, cannon fodder.

This Star Domain is poorer than the Dragonhawk Star Domain, but it is larger, with over seven hundred worlds. Even if each world could provide only a little in terms of resources, the Alliance did not have enough resources to develop these places; they could hardly keep pace with the development of the Dragonhawk Star Domain, their ‘homeland’.

However, just the revenue and manpower that could be provided by this scale, along with various other benefits, had already made Gu Hang quite envious.

Without the intention or capability to turn these places into homeland territories, what the Alliance needed was to rule this area cheaply, even if control was unstable, as long as it allowed them to extract local benefits, that would suffice.

The keyword here was ‘low-cost rule’.

The teams of officials dispatched by the Alliance to the various planets were very small in size, often just a couple of hundred people in an administrative team. Their main task wasn’t direct management of local planets, but rather the establishment of cooperative governments, whether newly established or in cooperation with the original interest groups.

Once the establishment of government was complete, they would then manage and oversee it. Specific governance, tax collection, resource provision, and manpower supply mainly relied on the local cooperative governments.

Add the small number of Alliance garrisons to the equation, such as a single battalion per planet, and that’s about it.

At most, a division.

Under this mechanism, the low-cost rule expected by Gu Hang could be achieved.

The problem also precisely lies here.

Low-cost rule implies instability.

What are the reasons for those worlds rebelling?

Is it simply because of the influence left behind by the Furyflame Battle Group?

Probably not that simple.

This reason certainly exists and is a very important factor.

But the loss of control associated with low-cost rule is also significant.

Some worlds are dissatisfied with being controlled by the Alliance because the Alliance actually demands more than the Imperial Tax.

Establishing a cooperative government does, to some extent, infringe upon the interests of the original ruling classes of these worlds.

Their instigation and direct participation in rebellions are normal occurrences.

Reflected on the panel information that Gu Hang could see in his own system, these worlds, although recognized and incorporated into the [Vassal] panel, were predominantly at Vassal levels LV1, LV2, showing high inclinations to separate and probabilities of rebellion.

In response, Gu Hang had made some demands of the Alliance Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The core lies in the fact that the officials dispatched by the Alliance to Menghe must respect the interests of the local ruling groups when acting locally. They can even use the powerful stationed troops of the Alliance and special agents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to resolve some troubles that they could not handle by themselves. They can also allow, even indulge them, in seizing benefits which were previously difficult to capture.

For example… more aggressive exploitation.

This will, of course, make the lives of the local residents, who are already not affluent, even worse.

But…

The people will just have to endure more hardships.

In this process, there will certainly be many negative impacts. For instance, the local residents may have more resistance towards the rule of the Alliance. They might think that it is the arrival of the Alliance that is making their lives even worse. The local ruling classes are happy for the residents to think this and even actively propagate it.

But the Alliance has no other choice.

At most, they just need to work more meticulously, carry out some propaganda locally, and shift the blame onto the cooperative governments.

These are some of the approaches that the Alliance applies to the work of the cooperative governments.

In the Menghe Star Domain, Gu Hang wasn’t in a good position to extensively use his newly acquired authorization, the “Land Appropriation Bill”. After all, the Land Appropriation Bill only gave Gu Hang the right to incorporate local territories into the rule of the Alliance after defeating the enemies of the Empire. But the situation in the Menghe Star Domain wasn’t yet at the point of declaring these planets as ‘enemies of the Empire’.

It could be forced but would be an overstretch and might diminish his own reputation.

Since direct rule is out of the question and not intended, there is absolutely no need to invoke the “Land Appropriation Bill” when ruling indirectly using ‘cooperative governments’ as a colonial approach to turning these places into vassals.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!