Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 796

Chapter 790, Three Wars

. The Empire often believes the Alliance is expansionist, but this is a bit unfair.

The Alliance’s current territorial size is more than enough for them to wrestle with. As long as

the external environment remains stable, Gu Hang and many Alliance leaders unanimously agree that they would rather stay home and farm peacefully. Even with the slowed economic growth rate, it still stands at 6-8% annually.

This rate of growth is rare, even unprecedented, in the entire Empire.

It almost doubles every ten years!

Honestly farming and doing business can make you rich, so why fight a war?

This isn’t the time when we were poor and small.

But there’s no other way.

The external environment never improves on its own; it all depends on personal effort.

Furthermore, a man is guilty of possessing a treasure even if he’s innocent. With the Alliance’s wealth, the eyes of the “poor” Empire will naturally be drawn.

Furthermore, with the Alliance’s wealth, many people naturally assume that the Alliance will be ambitious and expansionist.

No matter what Gu Hang does, he always looks like an ambitious individual bent on expansion, overthrowing the existing order, and occupying Holy Terra.

The Alliance’s participation in the Solarian War is a prime example.

The Alliance forces, acting under the Imperial command, participated in the Solarian Campaign under the name of the Astra Militarum Corps, following the usual Astra Militarum engagement procedures.

Under these circumstances, the Imperial Central Government naturally assumed responsibility for logistical support.

However, in reality, the dispatch of various supplies was often thwarted by layers of bureaucracy.

The Angry Bear Corps’ superior headquarters repeatedly pushed the Alliance forces into the most devastating battles.

They had their reasons: Aren’t you Alliance soldiers capable? The more capable, the more work you do. The tougher battles are now yours.

The Alliance isn’t opposed to fighting tough battles, and the headquarters’ arguments are acceptable.

But you treat me like your sharp weapon, so why are you withholding supplies?

Why are there so many instances of inadequate support from allies?

Why are you forcing the Alliance troops to fight to the death in battles that are clearly hopeless?

Is this the proper treatment for elite troops?

Clearly not.

So what should the Alliance troops do?

They can’t just be left to suffer.

With their home base too remote and out of reach, the Alliance Expeditionary Force Command was forced to activate the “War Zone Self-Sustainment Plan” to maintain operational effectiveness. They took over several key hub planets under the guise of “temporary martial law,” establishing a complete closed-loop system from conscription to production to taxation.

Not to mention, the areas under Alliance military control became a truly stunning spectacle during the Solarian War.

Solaria’s decline far exceeded expectations.

After the Solar Crusade, the Human Empire ceased further expansion, shifting its focus to stabilizing Solaria and preserving the achievements of the Solar Crusade.

Although Imperial politics had already established that the Solar Crusade had done more harm than good, the Solar Crusade had lasted for over sixty years, costing so much money and resulting in so many casualties. The gains must be preserved.

However, the sudden death of the Solar Lord instantly left the Solar Crusade without control. The Solarian universe encompasses tens of thousands of worlds, divided into 17 star regions, at least twice the size of a normal universe. The Solar Expeditionary Force, having lost its leader, was directly shattered by the divisions of many war apostles and local forces.

In name, everyone was a subordinate force of the Empire.

But in reality… they were just a group of separatist warlords.

What they did was much more excessive than the Alliance.

The Alliance nominally followed the Empire, believed in the state religion, believed in the Mechanicus, paid taxes, and now it has almost become one of the most important sources of financial income for the Empire. They can go to war whenever the Alliance is asked to.

Those who always scold the Alliance for being disloyal may not have contributed more to the Empire.

And those separatist warlords in Solaria are really separatist. They are very active in asking the Empire for money, and will riot if they don’t pay.

Pay taxes? Pay nothing, all the money is used to suppress the riots. If they have the ability, they can send tax collectors and the Inquisition to investigate. But

when they investigate, none of them say a word.

Ambitious individuals are seizing territory, lingering Chaos beliefs are rekindling like wildfire, Zerg parasitic cults are entrenched in the lower reaches of the hive, and Orks are revolting… Solaria’s decay

is a situation that has contributed significantly to the Empire’s utter collapse. Naturally, the Empire will respond with a powerful blow.

Fifty years have passed since the death of the Sun Lord. The Empire

‘s suppression of the rebellion in Solaria has been relentless. The war there is unlike the all-out, space-scale wars of the Spider Web, comprised of multiple battles and major engagements. Instead, it resembles a fifty-year, uninterrupted security war.

It’s a diseased part of the Empire, a painful wound to be shed. While it can still function to

some degree, it requires enormous resources to maintain, a constant drain on resources. While the direct annual expenditure on suppressing the rebellion is modest, sometimes even offsetting tax revenue, the total cost over the past fifty years has been even greater than fighting the Ironclad War.

The key point is that after the Iron Armor War, while the Spider Web Domain was given to the Alliance, the Imperial Center also reaped a significant reward. Imperial taxes alone were nearly tenfold. Yet, despite the massive investment of resources in the war against Solaria, it continues to bleed.

Not only are the separatist factions, Chaos cults, and alien enemies difficult to defeat, but even these are no match for the Imperial Army, provided the Empire is willing to spend the money.

The challenge lies in managing them once conquered.

Since they can’t simply exterminate them all at once, why bother fighting back?

Vast swathes of Imperial troops are thus entangled in security operations, resulting in significant costs.

Even more alarming is the seemingly peculiar atmosphere of this region. Many of the troops used to suppress rebellions have, after years of suppressing them, shown a tendency to mutate into separatist factions themselves.

Troops dispatched from the Imperial Center may be somewhat more reliable, but the Astra Militarum, which is not directly under the Imperial Center, is far less reliable.

The biggest problem, however, lies with those rebel forces recruited from other star regions and universes, not even the Astra Militarum. They can easily quell a rebellion only to become separatist regimes themselves the moment they’ve finished.

Solaria’s current situation is certainly better than it was at its worst, but the problems remain significant.

Against this backdrop, the planets under Alliance military rule have, for all intents and purposes, seen a significant improvement in order.

While the planetary governors originally appointed to these locations were coerced into accepting the Angry Bear Legion’s military rule, they eventually acquiesced, even actively inviting commissars from the Alliance Legions to participate in local government.

With the Angry Bear Legion’s presence, a significant portion of its forces have been dedicated to maintaining planetary order, a significant improvement. Initially, the Inquisition was quite displeased with the Angry Bear Legion’s actions, with one faction active in the Solarian universe even accusing it of “pursuing separatism under the guise of suppressing bandits.”

It was like a typical foreign rebellion-suppression force, only to become a new traitor.

The Inquisition faction, stationed on Solaria for decades, had witnessed countless similar situations.

But they soon discovered something different.

The planetary governors stopped criticizing the Alliance and instead spoke in its favor.

Initially, the Inquisition members assumed the governors had become corrupted or controlled by the Alliance.

However, when the Inquisition members arrived, they found no signs of corruption. Not only was the Alliance not engaging in any heretical activities, but they were also cooperating with the investigation.

More importantly, these planets were still paying their Imperial taxes. Before the Alliance military control, these planets often defaulted on their taxes, sometimes even failing to pay them. When they did, the amount they paid was often less than the resources the Empire had spent helping them quell the planetary problems.

The Alliance’s military control and permanent presence actually stabilized the situation.

While there was still a risk of rebellion from the Alliance’s troops, at least no such rebellion had been detected.

In fact, after learning of the Solaria incident, the Alliance officials also specifically explained the matter to the Empire. “

If you don’t let me occupy it, fine. We won’t. The Alliance never intended to profit from this, nor did we harbor any ulterior motives. This was simply because the conventional model was ineffective. After the Alliance imposed martial law, despite the lack of professional civilian officials, the Alliance’s military and political commissars were able to establish order remarkably well.

On Solaria, order alone was a very valuable asset.

Because of Imperial taxes and the fact that the Raging Bear Legion didn’t interfere with local development and continued to follow the orders of the higher-up headquarters, going wherever they were told to fight, the Empire ultimately acquiesced.

They didn’t explicitly grant the Raging Bear Legion or the Alliance military authority to manage these worlds, but they chose to acquiesce.

They allowed them to obtain supplies locally from these planets. If they simply didn’t have enough physical supplies to replenish the army, at least after receiving funds, they could exchange them with Imperial merchants for the various war supplies the army needed.

…

This was the situation during the Alliance’s war on Solaria.

For the Alliance, the last of the three wars of the past decade was, in fact, the most significant.

The Solarian War was fought on behalf of the Empire; the Ork War threatened the Eastern Realm, not the Alliance’s homeland.

This war against the Dark Eldar, however, was fought within Alliance territory, in the northern Arachnid Realm.

Furthermore, the format of the war was unfamiliar to the Alliance.

In the past, most battles the Alliance had encountered involved both sides squaring off, each facing off for dear life.

However, the battle against the Dark Eldar was a different story.

Those Eldar pirates operated stealthily across the galaxy, making them difficult to track down.

They relied on a specialized system of stargates to navigate interstellar regions, making them incredibly elusive. They targeted newly opened Alliance trade routes for lightning raids. Their tactics were ruthless: they disabled merchant ships’ engines with poison crystal cannons, abducted entire crews and made into living sculptures, and finally left twisted warp beacons to lure rescue fleets into a trap.

The Alliance suffered heavy losses in its initial battles against these Eldar pirates.

However, during the Battle of the Abyss, Gu Hang personally intervened.

He had grown fed up with these pirates’ increasing tendency to intrude upon Alliance territory.

Summoning his son, he harnessed the remaining abilities of the Lord of Change and deduced the wave patterns used by the Eldar pirates to navigate through stargates. Then, he set a triple gravitational trap in the Abyss system, using a merchant caravan carrying supplies and people as bait. As if unaware, they lured themselves into the enemy’s trap.

From there, things went smoothly.

The pirates, once they emerged, were caught in the gravitational trap, their speed drastically reduced. The merchant ships took advantage of this opportunity to flee, while the Alliance’s main fleet, ambushing them, leaped into the Abyss system via astral tunnels and arrived at breakneck speed.

In this battle, the Alliance’s most powerful warship, the Glorious Queen of the Orient, made its debut!

Over 67 Dark Eldar pirate ships were reduced to cosmic waste.

The treasures accumulated from the loot fell into the hands of the Alliance.

The Alliance’s greatest gain, or perhaps a lesson for the Dark Eldar, was the capture of a massive stargate constructed by the Dark Eldar in the Abyss System.

To prevent human exploitation, the stargate was rapidly closing from within.

But before it closed, the Alliance fleet, particularly the Vostok, unleashed a barrage of heavy artillery fire.

These bombardments would likely inflict immense damage on the city of Comoros, located across the stargate.

Without teaching the Dark Eldar a lesson, it would be difficult to vent their anger.

Furthermore, taking advantage of the momentary chaos of the stargate’s opening and the bombardment within, Gu Hang managed to cram ten thousand Heroic Spirits inside.

The Dark Eldar might discover these Heroic Spirits and launch a full-scale extermination, but as long as they remained, Gu Hang could devise a method to fully calculate the exact location of Comoros, the “City of Veil,” situated between the Warp and the real universe.

If Gu Hang could truly calculate the exact location of Comoros and find a way to enter Comoros, then it would mean that when facing those Eldar pirates, humans would no longer just passively take the beating, but would also have the opportunity and ability to proactively threaten the Dark Eldar’s lair!

(End of this chapter)