The participation of a million disabled veterans upgraded the crying incident into a superstorm that swept across the entire planet and even the entire Imperium.
When the storm hit, Dongfang Wang, the prime minister of the Imperium of True Human Beings and the leader of the Dongfang family, known as the prime minister of iron and blood, was having a friendly and constructive discussion with the heads of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Finance, and other relevant departments about the special defense budget for next year in the prime minister's residence not far away from the Council of Elders.
Getting to the bottom of it, they were mired in the swirl of numbers, and everybody was arguing!
Dongfang Wang had been the prime minister of the Imperium for twenty years. Many people said that he was one of the most powerful ministers in the Imperium in the past hundreds of years. He certainly deserved his reputation.
It was only because of that that Dongfang Wang realized how difficult it was for the prime minister of the Imperium of True Human Beings to coordinate and balance the interests of hundreds of Sectors, thousands of resource planets, and countless forces, sects, warlords, and super experts.
On the surface, he was an arrogant, dominating minister. Even the glory of the emperor was eclipsed by him.
In fact, the other three families had grasped the military power tightly in their hands and established their own systems in their respective territories. They either obeyed or ignored the orders from the prime minister's residence. When any policy touched their interests, even if it was merely plucking one of their hairs, those people would be bold enough to pick up their sabers and fight him desperately. They would even fight in the Council of Elders. Two elders would fight each other like scoundrels in the marketplace!
It was the same for the other three families. Even the Dongfang family did not listen to him, the "head of the family".
After a thousand years of development, the Dongfang family naturally had a lot of factions. Which of the seven most developed heavy industrial worlds did not have a big shot?
Those big shots were all in the high level or even the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage. Some of them were his peers, and some were even his seniors. It was thanks to the support of those people that he became the leader of the Dongfang family and the prime minister of the Imperium. How could he touch the interests of those people mercilessly to the end?
Right now, the special defense budget for next year was a good example.
The Imperium's counterattack had lasted more than ten years. More than billions of soldiers had been mobilized, and so many new Sectors had been occupied. The supply line was long and arduous. All the messy expenses had consumed the national treasury that had been accumulated for almost a hundred years. The economic situation of the many Sectors in the rear was not good at all. Famine was even breaking out in many places.
The war could not be fought anymore, and the scale of the expedition army had to be reduced. However, the reorganization and disarmament involved a lot of severance pay and pensions. Also, a lot of military tickets and shares had already been awarded. It was said that they would be redeemed after the victory, but it was very troublesome how they were redeemed.
Therefore, next year's defense spending would not only be substantial, but it would also be higher than previous years. This could be considered as the "pain of peace."
The problem right now was that there was no money. Of course, it was not really that there was no money but that there was no money in the national treasury. The four Kurfürst families were still rich, but there had to be rules as to how to fill the hole with money.
Dongfang Wang asked the other three families to come up with a proposal. The other three families all looked at him obediently and praised the Dongfang family as the number one family of the Empire, who was wealthy and powerful, more powerful than the other families, and more than twice as powerful as the other families. Naturally, the Dongfang family had to be the one to decide on the proposal. After all, the Dongfang family would take the lead to fill the hole first, and the other three families would continue to fill it after they were almost done.
Dongfang Wang tried his best to persuade them, but they could not get any money. The other three families pointed at their own starships and Colossi and said that they had spent all their money on them for the Imperium's counterattack.
Gritting his teeth, Dongfang Wang went to discuss with the big shots of his own families. The big shots all glared at him and said that they had elected Dongfang Wang as the prime minister because they wanted him to earn as many benefits for the family as possible. Why was he asking them to pay before he got any benefits? Was he going to be the prime minister of the Dongfang family, the Li family, or the Yun family?
His opponents were the big shots at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage who controlled an entire heavy industrial world. Could Dongfang Wang kill them and confiscate their property? He could only negotiate with them!
After much discussion, both the big shots of their own and the other big shots had the same idea. As for money and resources, no matter how hard they tried, they would still be able to scrape out a little bit. However, they couldn't scrape it out for nothing. They had to use the land, property rights, development rights, and management rights of the newly recovered areas in exchange.
As time went by, before the frontline ceased fire, the few resourceful core worlds in the newly-recovered areas had been carved up. Naturally, the peripheral worlds of the Imperium were dissatisfied, believing that their interests had been greatly infringed.
With everything coming to this point, the matter had turned into an irresolvable knot.
Without the support of the interest groups in the four Kurfürst families who had money and resources, the expedition army couldn't have been reorganized and disbanded smoothly, and the national economy couldn't have returned to the track of peaceful development from the wartime system. Even the disabled veterans and retired officers at the periphery of the Imperium would not have been provided for and would cause trouble sooner or later.
However, the bleeding of the interest groups was at the cost of the rights and interests in the newly-recovered areas, which naturally hurt the interests of a lot of people and classes. They even betrayed the promises made to the local parties before the war. One moment of carelessness, and the whole world might be turned upside down. The recent incident of the Blood Oath Alliance, the rise of the reformists, and Lei Chenghu's rebellion all started because of that.
Standing before such an unsolvable loop, even "Prime Minister of Iron and Blood" Dongfang Wang felt that his head was going to explode.
Many times, he thought of "Silver Fox" Li Jiande, his greatest political enemy, who had been dying for a hundred years but could not.
"Silver Fox" Li Jiande used to be the prime minister of the Imperium a hundred years ago, but he was mentally deranged and fell from the Divinity Branching Stage from then on. Since then, he had never been able to return to the politics of the Imperium.
At that time, Dongfang Wang even mocked that Li Jiande was too old to be such a mess as the prime minister.
It was not until he was roasted on the bonfire that he finally realized what it was like to be caught in a dilemma. He even vaguely felt that perhaps Li Jiande's "illness" was the wisest choice.
Perhaps, the universe was too vast, and human beings were sometimes limited. Even with the computational ability and wisdom of the Divinity Branching Stage, or even the arrival of the real gods, it was impossible for them to govern the hundreds of Sectors effectively, right?
Or perhaps, the boundless universe was still too small to satisfy the messy desires of every human being?
It was exactly in such a state of mind that Dongfang Wang received the report of the "crying incident".
He stared at the report for a long time in a daze, as if he were trying to find clues from every line of dry words. Holding back his fury, he raised the most critical question.
"Even if the students of the Royal Academy for Advanced Military Officers and the members of the royal family living inside and outside of the Emperor's Mausoleum were 'spontaneously gathered', how did so many disabled veterans from the peripheral worlds of the Imperium sneak into the capital? They couldn't have jumped directly to the surface of the capital after a space jump, could they? "
Dongfang Wang smelled the scent of a scheme.
Some of the advisors suggested that these people who gathered to cry at the mausoleum were all disregarding law and discipline, rebelling against their superiors, and were suspected of treason and heresy. Should they immediately send troops to suppress them and arrest all their leaders first?
Dongfang Wang glared at the advisor and pondered for a moment before he made a few instructions.
Firstly, set up blockades at the periphery of the Emperor's Mausoleum immediately. Nobody was allowed to enter the Emperor's Mausoleum.
Secondly, cut off all the Spiritual Nexus and all the communication signals near the Emperor's Mausoleum to make sure that nothing that happened inside the Emperor's Mausoleum was leaked to the outside world. Of course, all the media inside the Emperor's Mausoleum had to be controlled, too.
Thirdly, investigate the origins of the million disabled veterans immediately. They had to figure out how they were organized to sneak into the capital as soon as possible. It was of paramount importance!
Dongfang Wang's reaction was certainly timely.
Such standard procedures to suppress riots were often implemented by the authorities of the Imperium. They were rather familiar with the procedures.
But this time, a series of accidents happened nonstop.
The Emperor's Mausoleum was the territory of the Imperial Guards. There were a lot of members of the royal family in the mausoleum, who had all been instigated to resist the troops of the four Kurfürst families.
A starving camel was still bigger than a horse. However poor the Imperial Guards were, they still had hundreds of rusted, outdated starships.
Those starships were naturally asking to be killed when they were pulled into the vacuum to fight the fleets of the four Kurfürst families. Even before the enemy opened fire, they would have been paralyzed, torn apart, and out of temperature, pressure, and gravity.
However, within the atmosphere, it was still possible for them to form a circle around the Emperor's Mausoleum and defend their last territory.
The Imperial Guards had to protect the disabled veterans, and the disabled veterans were shouting the names of Emperor Shenwu and Blackstar the Great. It was truly a touching scene. Even if the fleets of the four Kurfürst families and the Crystal Suit Legions arrived, what could they do? Were they going to slaughter the members of the royal family and the veterans in broad daylight under the watchful eyes of so many people?
The Spiritual Nexus and the media did not go well, either.
There were four groups that provided Spiritual Nexus services for the Empyreal Terminus Sector, which happened to belong to the four Kurfürst families. The network was the most important infrastructure for a modern civilization. Naturally, the four Kurfürst families were unwilling to be controlled by other people in that regard.
Under Dongfang Wang's command, the Spiritual Nexus service provider of the Dongfang family immediately cut off the network. The other two families followed suit, but the base of the Spiritual Nexus that belonged to the Li family was still transmitting the information from the Emperor's Mausoleum incessantly.
It was the same for the media.
The four Kurfürst families all kept a lot of media. It was even possible to say that all the "official media" of the Imperium was endorsed by the four Kurfürst families. The entire media was monopolized by the oligarchs.
After such a huge incident, the media of the other families naturally did not dare to act recklessly without receiving the instructions from their superiors.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
