Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 893

Chapter 886: Expedition Status and Alliance Economy

Due to the Alliance’s long-term investments in various regions, the Alliance faced some initial pressure, and the war’s expansion was not as rapid as anticipated.

People often compare the Dark Expedition to the Solar Expedition, which began nearly two hundred years ago.

The difference between the two is actually quite significant.

In terms of scale, the two are comparable. Although the Dark Expedition began with a focus on two universes, it has quickly spread to eight, and in the long run, it will expand further, encompassing the entire Eastern and Southern Frontiers.

While the Solar Expedition’s primary battlefield is confined to the Solaria universe, unlike the Dark Expedition, which has already expanded to encompass eight universes, the difference lies in the vastly larger Solaria universe, encompassing approximately ten thousand worlds, three or four times the size of the Forward Universe. Furthermore, while the Solar Expedition’s battlefield was relatively small, its scope was far greater, with the entire Empire providing support for the war.

Judging from their military performance, the Solar Crusade took sixty years to conquer ten thousand worlds, while the Dark Crusade expanded the Alliance’s territory to over forty thousand worlds over the same sixty years. While this might seem like a significant difference, it’s actually much more so. The Dark Crusade targeted Imperial territory, making it much easier to conquer.

In particular, as the Alliance’s Dark Crusade gained momentum, the military pressure diminished. After all, those Imperial worlds weren’t the Alliance’s enemies. They often welcomed the Alliance’s arrival. The Alliance’s true enemies were simply the threats posed by those worlds.

The Omgeria Campaign was a prime example. After just two or three years, the battle was concluded, and three thousand worlds in the advancing universe were instantly “submitted,” allowing for a fairly stable rule.

While not on the scale of the Omgeria War, the pattern was similar in other regions.

Eliminate a planet’s greatest threat, and that planet essentially returns to normalcy. These planetary-level threats were likely rebels, cults, or the like.

Eliminating a sector-level threat often leads to the return of multiple sectors and dozens of worlds; eliminating a threat within a single region can quickly bring hundreds of worlds to heel. This typically involves a multi-stellar rebellion, a cult, an alien threat, or an invasion by a Chaos army.

From this perspective, the rapid progress of the Dark Crusade is understandable. After all, the Solar Crusade offered no such convenience. The Solar Crusade fought beyond the Empire’s borders, requiring a concerted effort to conquer every world, sector, and region.

While the scale of the two wars is comparable, their impact on the Empire and humanity itself is drastically different.

By now, the Solar Crusade has been definitively declared a lasting disaster for the Empire. Not only did the Empire incur enormous costs to support the crusade over its sixty-year existence, but its conclusion seemingly saw the creation of a vast cosmic region, Solaria, encompassing over ten thousand worlds. However, these ten thousand worlds brought little benefit to the Empire. Instead, they were plagued by constant unrest, a constant drain and burden.

Gu Hang’s Dark Side Expedition, on the other hand, was truly recovering humanity’s lost territory. Furthermore, the Alliance’s long-standing policy of prioritizing governance would quickly restore normal production on each of these worlds. Overall, the Dark Side Expedition was profitable,

and a significant one at that. The

difference between the two was immediately apparent.

It was precisely this high return on investment that ensured the entire expedition, far from exhausting the Alliance itself due to its lengthy duration, actually fueled the campaign, making it even more intense.

Currently, the Dark Side Expedition’s headquarters was even discussing the possibility of adding an Eastern Front expeditionary force, given the success of the Southern Front Expedition, to attack the Lingyuan and Turgu Fronts, ultimately aiming for the Karlolia Front, the southeastern edge of the Empire’s territory.

The southern route, meanwhile, continued along the largely conquered Ningshou and Dingyuan territories, advancing southward to attack Mailang and the Xiang territories.

At this point, the Eastern Territory, the largest of the Empire’s five territories, would be completely under the Alliance’s control. In terms of the number of worlds, this represented nearly a quarter of the Empire.

The effects of the accelerated expansion were evident here.

Without further exploiting the Alliance’s home territories or raising the level of mobilization orders, the investment in infrastructure and industry in the newly acquired territories alone would be sufficient to support further expansion of the expedition.

It wouldn’t even significantly impact the Alliance’s investment in the newly conquered territories!

Under these circumstances, Gu Hang approved the order for a new expeditionary force.

The Dark Side Expedition, already advancing at a rapid pace, was once again accelerated.

The next phase of the plan called for the complete recovery of the entire eastern empire within fifteen years. Simultaneously, the central empire, after the Tianwang territories, would be expanded. The Western Expeditionary Force had also advanced into the Ando territories.

In the past, the Andor Realm was considered the core of the Imperium’s territorial core. Further west from the Andor Realm lies the Solar Realm, home to Sacred Terra, the heart of the Imperium.

There, too, lies the Scarlet Scar.

The Western Expeditionary Force was essentially fighting along the Scarlet Scar, with the intensity and battles exceeding those elsewhere, and this situation is likely to remain unchanged.

However, the achievements of the Western Front should not be dismissed simply because they were difficult or slow to advance.

Just as the Northern Front’s consistent defensive posture, its failure to expand territory during the Dark Side Crusade and its continued losses, should not be dismissed as meritless. On the contrary, the Northern Front’s legions established a solid defensive line at the edge of the Alliance’s heartland, preventing the horrific surge of forces from the Scarlet Scar from penetrating the Alliance’s vital homeland. This was their greatest achievement.

The largest number of generals were trained from the northern frontier.

…

After reviewing the overall situation of the Dark Side Expedition, Gu Hang turned his attention to the overall development of the Alliance.

Currently, the Alliance’s most important engine remains the Dragon Eagle Star Region, centered on the original Alliance territory, which extends to the Eastern and Spider Web Space Regions.

The Dragon Eagle Star Region, in particular, has maintained rapid economic development, uninterrupted since its unification. Even though

growth has slowed somewhat in recent years, that’s due to its sheer size, having reached a certain limit. Even so, the recent economic growth rate has been around 3% per year.

Looking at the entire 110 years since unification, the average economic growth rate has been around 6%. The Dragon Eagle Star Region’s overall economic scale, already considered an upper-middle-tier region in the East 110 years ago, has expanded almost 600-fold since then!

The population has also increased nearly tenfold, from less than a trillion at the time of unification to over 10 trillion.

Economically, the Dragonhawk Sector alone is over fifty times the size of a smaller sector like the Onward Sector.

This is the result of two or three decades of significant investment and development since its incorporation into the Alliance. If calculated from its initial integration into the Alliance, this figure is nearly a hundred times greater. Even considering

population alone, after the Ohmgerian War, which decimated an entire sector, the population of the Onward Sector was only around five trillion, less than half that of the Dragonhawk Sector. It

is precisely because of the Dragonhawk Sector’s central engine, driving the development of the Spider Web and Eastern Sector, and further, through the ability to export investment and generate returns across all newly acquired territories, that the Alliance’s overall economic model has been established, enabling the Dark Side Crusade to proceed steadily and healthily.

The Dragonhawk Sector’s importance to the Alliance is comparable to that of the Solar Sector to the entire Imperium of Man.

Perhaps, currently, no single world in the Alliance could reach the level of Holy Terra. Whether in terms of population or economic scale, Holy Terra’s situation was rare in the entire universe and could never be replicated.

But to be honest, Gu Hang had no intention of replicating Holy Terra within the Alliance.

He believed that a single world in that state was simply unhealthy. On the one hand, regarding security, the fall of Holy Terra would be unacceptable to the Human Empire. Politically and economically, it would be unacceptable.

On the other hand, Holy Terra was so developed, but had the Terran people benefited from its immense economic power?

They had, but not much.

High property prices and the high cost of living were not a big deal. However, Holy Terra’s overcrowding had led to a shortage of resources, nearly destroying the planet’s ecosystem. It relied entirely on technology and human labor for survival…

The wealthy and powerful naturally had no concerns, but for the vast majority of ordinary people, living conditions on Holy Terra were far from good.

Although the Alliance also has cores within the core, such as the Tianma Star Region where the Alliance started, such as Angry Owl Star and Flying Wing Star, or Yunluo Star where the capital of the star region is located, and another core of the forging world Jindi Star, but generally speaking, the economic development of the Dragon Eagle Star Region is relatively balanced.

The population pressure is evenly distributed, so it will not be as great as in Holy Terra; nor will it be like Holy Terra where all the eggs are placed in one cage.

Gu Hang is quite satisfied with this economic model. He consciously does not allow the Alliance to have an absolute central world, both economically and politically.

In addition, even if he looks at the scale of the entire star region, he feels that the Dragon Eagle Star Region is already large enough and concentrated enough.

He certainly will not intentionally reduce the development of the star region.

Let it develop as it should.

However, under his instructions, the Alliance government is deliberately strengthening the transfer of industries to other places.

————

There is still one chapter before dawn

(end of this chapter)