"I once heard a short story from the age of the ancient Cultivators. According to it, the crown prince of an empire on a certain planet rebelled and tried to kill his father. The reason he gave was that there was no such thing as a sixty-year crown prince in the world."
Li Linghai said calmly, "Hehe. In the Imperium of True Human Beings today, the resources are abnormally concentrated, and all kinds of techniques that can prolong one's life are popular. Not just a sixty-year crown prince, even a three-hundred-and-sixty-year crown prince is possible.
"Think about it. You are a young Immortal Cultivator who is talented, strong, ambitious, and eager to make a name for yourself. But in the Sector Master, the leaders, the CEOs of the major groups, the commanders of the local garrisons, the commanders of the fleets, and so on, almost all the leadership has not changed for a hundred years. Also, the old men who are entrenched above your head seem to have no problem living another two hundred years comfortably. How do you feel? Do you feel that your vision is dark, and your future is bleak, and you are desperate?
"Besides, as one's life grows longer, their ideas will inevitably become stale and rigid. They will refuse to accept new things and new training ideas, clinging to what they have in the past. In the end, they will not just be doing nothing but doing nothing. In order to defend their own power and interests, they will even significantly hinder the progress of the entire society.
"Those old men have ten thousand ways to kill the young Immortal Cultivators who may pose a threat to them but are unwilling to be attracted and corrupted by them in order to ensure their absolute reign.
"Once the young Immortal Cultivators are corrupted by them, they will inevitably be mired in the endless cycle of suffering based on seniority. They will be enslaved and exploited blatantly, and their edges will be ground away. Eventually, they will become insignificant components on the interest groups."
Li Yao was silent.
On second thought, if a society abided by the philosophy of "survival of the fittest" and did not have a relatively stable rule of succession between the old and the new, the situation that Li Linghai described would certainly happen.
"However, these old farts do have a fatal weakness."
Li Linghai narrowed his eyes as a cruel smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. "They can waste countless precious resources and barely keep themselves alive, but it is impossible for them to maintain their combat strength at the peak forever.
The combat ability of the Immortal Cultivators will increase with the improvement of their level, but it will also decline with the extension of their lifespan. The real world is not a novel. There is no such thing as' the older you are, the better you are '. When one's life and level both rise to the peak and form a golden cross, it will be the peak phase of an Immortal Cultivator. However, once the phase is over, it will be impossible to catch it back.
"Therefore, a lot of 'Yuanying at four hundred years old' and 'Divinity Transformation Stage at five hundred years old' sounds very intimidating in the Imperium right now, but they are in fact just empty shells. Perhaps they still have their vision, experience, and level, but they are absolutely no match for me or even you in a real fight.
"One day, these resurrected corpses that should have decayed long ago will taste the unstoppable power of the younger generation. I firmly believe this!"
Li Yao grinned and said, "If I am given a chance to beat the dozens of high-level Immortal Cultivators of the Imperium into a pig's head, I won't object to it."
Li Linghai smiled casually. "Rest assured. After such a pleasant conversation, we will certainly cooperate very well. There will definitely be a chance.
"The contradiction between the high-level Immortal Cultivators and the low-level Immortal Cultivators is the fundamental contradiction that the Imperium is faced with today.
"Other than the fundamental contradiction, there are naturally other contradictions large and small.
"For example, the exploitation and bloodsucking of the hundred resource worlds at the edge of the Imperium by the dozens of most developed industrial worlds at the center of the cosmos. Do you need a detailed explanation?"
Li Yao shook his head.
The exploitation and bloodsucking of the underdeveloped resource worlds by the developed industrial worlds was an almost unsolvable problem. Even the Xing Yao Federation was faced with the same conundrum, which was the competition between the so-called 'three old Sectors' and the 'four new Sectors'.
The Heaven's Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Flying Star Sector, the three core Sectors, boasted relatively advanced technologies and perfect production systems for large-scale industrial magical equipment. Since they were all the same country without tariffs or trade barriers, they could dump their products on the resource worlds such as the Water Crystal Sector, the Nether World Sector, the Forest Ocean Sector, and the other Sectors, completely destroying the lackluster, primitive, and underdeveloped industrial systems of the Water Crystal Sector, the Nether World Sector, and the Forest Ocean Sector. Eventually, the Water Crystal Sector, the Nether World Sector, the Forest Ocean Sector, and the other Sectors would forever become the dumping grounds for industrial products and the suppliers of primary resources.
Because of such a central contradiction, before Li Yao and the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector returned to the Federation, the three old Sectors and the four new Sectors had been at odds with each other. The two sides, led by Ding Ling Dong and Jin Xinyue, had even been formed. They were at loggerheads with each other.
Of course, the Xing Yao Federation was a very young country. It was as vigorous, ambitious, and prosperous as the Imperium of True Human Beings a thousand years ago.
On one hand, the Federation had no more than ten Sectors in total. With a history of only a hundred years, it was too late to form a solid fortress of interests. Any contradiction could be resolved easily through negotiation.
On the other hand, the Federation was faced with the enormous threat of the Black Wind Fleet at that time. The long-term contradiction of the industrial worlds dumping and bloodsucking from the resource worlds could only be considered secondary.
On the other hand, under the leadership of Li Yao, the Federation discovered the Ancient Sages Sector, Kunlun, Boneyard, and other prosperous worlds, as well as the primeval advanced technology. It was equivalent to receiving a huge sum of start-up capital out of nowhere, which greatly lubricated and eased the contradictions that were getting sharper and sharper every day.
Also, the leaders of the interest groups such as Ding Ling Dong and Jin Xinyue temporarily shelved the disputes and resolved the contradictions with great patience and wisdom. Jin Tuyi and the rest of them were also in charge of the overall situation behind the scenes. In the end, the three old Sectors and the four new Sectors were more or less united and defeated the Black Wind Fleet successfully.
Even so, Li Yao found it hard to imagine how the Xing Yao Federation, which had been expanding for hundreds of years, could resolve the imbalance of regional economic development, the siphoning effect of the industrial worlds, and the growing scissors gap.
Therefore, many specialists of the Xing Yao Federation even asserted that, for the Federation, the best state was no more than right now, which was to have no more than ten Sectors.
That was the limit of the scale effect and the comprehensive national power. If they were to expand blindly, they would certainly suffer from indigestion and even die of overeating.
The Imperium of True Human Beings, which boasted hundreds of Sectors, would have at least blown itself up, if not already.
The Imperium had almost none of the advantages that the Federation had.
Li Yao did not think that the developed industrial worlds under the reign of the four Kurfürst families would show any mercy to the frontier resource worlds that the Imperium established later on.
It was certain that the remote worlds would be drowned in the cheap, large-scale magical equipment produced on the assembly lines, ensuring that they could never develop any industrial system of magical equipment and could only serve as primary resource providers for the four Kurfürst families forever, unable to free themselves from the trap of "five hundred tons of raw minerals for one Crystal Suit".
Then, would the rulers of the remote Sectors, who were also ambitious Sector Masters, warlords, and fleet commanders, be willing to let their worlds be exploited, dumped, and drained by the four Kurfürst families forever?
That was exactly the competition between the three old Sectors and the four new Sectors that had been expanded ten times in scale!
In the Federation, the competition between the industrial worlds and the resource worlds had been temporarily fooled by Li Yao, Ding Ling Dong, and Jin Xinyue.
The Imperium today was probably not as simple as that. It would not be strange even if a civil war broke out.
Li Linghai observed Li Yao's face without batting an eyelid. Seeing that the guy was truly deep in thought, he thought even more highly of him. He nodded his head and said, "Very good. As expected of the Speaker's special envoy. You are not a simple warrior."
"If you can understand the contradiction between the industrial worlds and the resource worlds caused by the imbalance of regional economic development, as a battle-type expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage, I believe that the contradiction between the 'military' and the 'families, sects, and interest groups' is even more understandable, right?"
Li Yao was slightly dazed. "What's that?"
"It's very simple. All the troops in the Imperium of True Human Beings are nominally called 'Imperium's Army', but in fact, they do not have a unified command and operation system. Even the financial power and the control of the military groups are not in the hands of the military.
"In fact, after being corrupted by the nobles and the warlords for hundreds of years, except for the fancy Imperial Guards in the capital of the Imperium, there is no real army that can be called 'Imperium's Army' at all.
"Most of the space fleets and Crystal Suit legions that are considered elite are in the hands of the nobles, the warlords, and the Sector Masters.
"In other words, the Imperium's Army is just the private army of the nobles and the lackeys of the old bastards.
"The simplest example is the army that Li Lingfeng brought that we destroyed earlier. Can they be called 'Imperium's Army'? No, they are just the 'Li family's Army', or rather, Li Lingfeng's private army. Technically speaking, they are just 'family servants'. "
Li Yao nodded slowly.
In a dynasty where the royal power was declining and the warlords were rising, such a thing was only natural.
The army that should belong to the country, or at least the emperor, was actually the private army of the nobles and the warlords. It was the nobles and the warlords who supported them with money, manpower, Crystal Suit, and starships. Naturally, they had to protect, and could only protect, the interests of the nobles and the warlords.
"However, not every soldier of the Imperium is willing to serve as the nobles' private army, family servant, and lackey for their entire life and die a worthless death in the competition for power and territory among the nobles. It is especially so for the young officers at the bottom level who are vigorous, ambitious, and even … remember the glorious history of the Imperium's Army in the age of Blackstar the Great!"
Li Linghai's eyes were red. He said aggressively, "Gather the private soldiers in the hands of the nobles and the magnates in various Sectors into a powerful, real army of the Imperium so that the 'military' can roar thunderously with its own voice!
"From then on, they will only fight for the interests of the Imperium, for the civilization of mankind, and for His Majesty!
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