Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 765

Chapter 760: Is the Alliance About to Go Bankrupt?

Gu Hang surveyed the vast conference room. The gathering was remarkable, with such a diverse group of attendees.

The Alliance’s jurisdiction now extended far beyond its borders, and many high-ranking officials shouldered heavy responsibilities. Even senior officials at the central level were often required to travel to specific locations due to their respective responsibilities.

On Angry Owl Star, such a large gathering was uncommon.

The last time such a grand event had occurred… it seemed like it had never happened. This was

because Gu Hang was the only one within the Alliance with sufficient prestige to summon such a large gathering of heads of all the government departments.

The reason for this absence was that Gu Hang had personally led the army into battle after the Iron Armor War began.

Before the conflict, the Alliance hadn’t grown to this size.

The war had been raging for so long, leaving Gu Hang with little time to return for such a meeting. Even during wartime, it was impossible to gather so many people; making the trip was difficult and prone to delays.

After the war, Gu Hang returned to Holy Terra.

After the Alliance expanded to fourteen star regions, there was indeed no opportunity to hold such a general meeting.

Thanks to Gu Hang’s consistent training of the “Political Commissars,” the loyalty of the personnel in key positions across the Alliance was guaranteed, regardless of their competence. This ensured that both the political and administrative officers were free from ideological flaws. This ensured that the Alliance’s principles and vision could be effectively implemented.

Without this, the Alliance’s highly centralized system, relying heavily on the professionalism and purity of its bureaucracy, would have been unable to maintain such a large scale and would have collapsed long ago due to corruption and institutional rigidity.

Many other imperial powers secretly planted spies within the Alliance, gathering information and studying its system, hoping to understand how it maintained such a large-scale, effective centralized rule. However, the Alliance’s methods were so obvious that they required no further study, yet no one could imitate them.

Forget about managing fourteen star regions, thousands of worlds, and a population of tens of trillions under a unified government and a highly centralized, semi-planned system. For ordinary forces, even implementing a similar system on just one planet wouldn’t be enough to address the drastically rising governance costs associated with increased scale.

This was Gu Hang’s golden trick; it couldn’t be learned.

It was precisely because of this system that the Alliance continued to operate smoothly even after years without a general meeting, even during the three-year Holy Terra journey when Gu Hang was away from his central control center.

But ultimately, such meetings still had to be held.

While he could see a lot of information from the system dashboard, there was also much he couldn’t see, relying on the Alliance’s bureaucratic system to report to him.

Similarly, he needed general meetings like these to clearly implement his will.

As the Alliance’s Chancellor, Ossena opened the proceedings.

She first provided an overview of the Alliance’s current situation.

Currently, the Alliance governed 14 star regions, 577 sector-level administrative divisions, and a total of 7,109 worlds.

There’s no precise statistics on the total population, but a rough estimate is 11.8 trillion.

The combined output of all fourteen star systems in the past year is estimated at 16.1 trillion.

The largest share of this output comes from the Alliance’s core territory, the Dragonhawk Sector. The Dragonhawk Sector alone generates over 5.2 trillion in output, or 32.5%. Residential consumption, development investment, and military spending—all other expenditures—bring the total to 3.9 trillion. The Alliance has a surplus of 1.3 trillion in the Dragonhawk Sector.

Beyond this, the Alfonzo Sector is the strongest, with an annual output of 1.4 trillion. This surge in output is primarily driven by the Forge World of Aramita. It’s a shame that the other two Forge Worlds were destroyed. Otherwise, even after the war, if they had largely survived, the output of the entire Alfonzo Sector would have reached at least 3 trillion.

While slightly less than the Dragonhawk Sector, it’s still a significant contributor.

Unfortunately…

Further down the line are the Menghe and Proud Claw star regions.

These two star regions were relatively unscathed after the last war.

Menghe was the smallest, with only a few northern sectors experiencing large-scale fighting. During the war, it served as the Alliance’s rear base. The Alliance invested considerable resources in developing the Menghe star region, significantly boosting the development of the entire region. This was a blessing in disguise for the people of Menghe.

While the entire Proud Claw star region was at war, the conflict between the Alliance and the Fury of Flame was primarily fought on the interstellar seas. Crushing on planets, where devastating battles were rare, meant the region’s vitality was relatively well-preserved. Furthermore, in the latter stages of the war, Proud Claw star region largely became a rear base, suffering little from insect infestations and recovering quickly.

These four star regions are the financially profitable sectors for the Alliance.

Imperial taxes are now paid uniformly by the Alliance. When calculating fiscal surpluses, the Alliance government doesn’t include taxes; it only counts profits earned from individual planets, regions, and star regions.

The Alliance’s annual fiscal surplus from these four regions reaches 1.55 trillion.

Of the remaining ten regions, with the exception of Fox Moon, which is also largely non-war-fought and is currently breaking even, the remaining nine are operating at a loss. The

combined losses of these nine loss-making regions total 1.27 trillion.

Adding the 300 billion in Imperial taxes due in the first year, the Alliance’s own military expenses, and the central government’s special project expenditures, the Alliance is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Who could have imagined that the Alliance, so glamorous and boastful, a paradise on earth, would nearly bankrupt itself?

This was Ossena’s most troubling period.

The overall fiscal deficit was enormous, around 200 billion.

Fortunately, there was some surplus in the previous years, and some armaments were cut from the military that was not fighting now. On the one hand, it reduced expenditure, and on the other hand, the equipment cut from the military could be used to offset taxes.

This is a huge amount of money.

In this way, we were able to get through the most difficult year.

The nine loss-making star regions are basically the entire Spider Web Universe.

Gu Hang did take over a huge financial burden by taking over the Spider Web Universe, and it was right from this perspective.

Otherwise, the fiscal surplus of the Dragon Eagle Star Region alone would be 1.3 trillion a year, and if the Spider Web Universe was not taken, the imperial tax of the Alliance would not be so high, and it would be much more comfortable.

However, Gu Hang did not regret it.

Ossena also gave the reasons for the losses of the nine star regions.

The most important point, of course, is that the war destroyed the nine star regions.

(End of this chapter)