In the peripheral worlds of the fourth quadrant of the Imperium of True Human Beings …
The universe was too vast and boundless. Naturally, there was no such thing as top, bottom, left, right, or 'quadrant'.
However, if one were to look at the heart of the Imperium from the equator of the capital planet, the entire universe under the Imperium's control would be like a cluster of stars that had bizarre shapes but were basically oval in shape.
If the north pole of the capital planet was taken as the 'top', the universe that looked like an egg could be seen as a circle if one looked down from the top. Then, the division of 'quadrants' would be meaningful.
The fourth quadrant boasted the largest number of Sectors in the entire Imperium, more than twice as many as the other three quadrants.
However, those Sectors were often relatively weak and barren, too weak to give birth to enormous forces that spanned across Sectors. Therefore, they were often fragmented, independent, and disorganized.
Every Sector was often ruled by a local tyrant. The local tyrants often had conflicts with each other. Blood flowed incessantly, and the fire of destruction burned incessantly in the vacuum.
Nominally, they were all members of the Imperium of True Human Beings. The battles between the local tyrants were naturally not fought with regular armies but with privateers, or more frankly speaking, space pirates as the main chess pieces.
It was a battle form that was smaller in scale and less intense but more cruel, shameless, and cunning than regular battles. In such a battle of space pirates, soldiers were thieves, thieves were officials, victims were bandits, and bandits could become new victims at any moment. It was a well-known rule of the game.
This was the hometown of "God of War" Lei Chenghu. As the most prestigious soldier of the Imperium today, "Marquis Liaohai", he had organized the annihilation of space pirates many times when he was young and achieved glorious feats. For a certain period of time, he almost wiped out all the space pirates at the periphery of the second quadrant.
However, while he could annihilate the space pirates, he could not eliminate the soil that gave birth to space pirates, which was the boundless universe and the ambitions and desires of human beings.
Therefore, after he led his main force to the frontline of the confrontation between the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance, the space pirates who had disappeared at the edge of the second quadrant were back to life. They were even getting more and more violent, turning the place into the most famous land of chaos and destruction in the entire Imperium again. It was a hideout of bandits that most people would find intimidating.
Speaking of which, the recent decades, especially the last couple of years, had indeed been the golden age for space pirates on a large scale.
At first, the expedition launched by the Imperium against the Holy League had drawn a lot of the expedition troops to the frontline, leaving the rear empty. There were no more soldiers to surround the space pirates.
In the meantime, the warlords and Sector Masters who were unwilling to send their soldiers to the frontline often preferred to drown their fleets in space.. and as a matter of fact, they would be transformed from regular armies to privateers to amps and ambushes when other Sectors were empty..
Wherever the expedition troops of the Imperium went, they recovered one Sector after another and delivered inestimable assets, which greatly livened the business activities at the periphery of the Imperium and became the fattest prey in the eyes of the space pirates.
When the reformists quietly rose, and the "Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors" was ready to challenge the old business order, the reformists, who lacked enough combat ability, even threw out tremendous money to support many large pirate gangs in secret to resist the four Kurfürst families and other grand nobles.
The four Kurfürst families and other grand nobles naturally did not want to be outdone. They either annihilated or appeased the space pirates. They also recruited a lot of space pirates and launched a cruel war of "space pirates versus space pirates".
After a few years, quite a few pirate gangs expanded abruptly and boasted the strength to deal with the elite Deep Sky Fleets. Their unpredictable, mysterious, and unpredictable style that changed locations after every attack was a major headache for the hostile forces too.
Zuo Tianying was having a headache right now.
He used to be a space pirate in his early years, too, and the "Phantom Eagle Pirate Gang" under his command was notorious. It was perfectly normal. Few of the heroes at the periphery of the Imperium had never been space pirates when they were young. Many warlords, leaders, and even Sector Masters had such a dishonorable stain on their resumes.
Like all the powerful big shots, it had been a long time since Zuo Tianying did such a simple, violent, and unskilled job like fighting and killing after he became a deacon of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors.
Not only did he not do it himself, but he also felt that it was taboo for his subordinates to talk about it. Even when he looked at other space pirates, he could not help but feel disdain and disgust.
Right now, Zuo Tianying liked to say that he was a "decent businessman" best.
Although everybody knew that merchants and bandits were never separated in the vast and dangerous universe at the periphery of the Imperium, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was an ambitious business group after all. It was true that they were not involved in robberies and robberies. Instead, they were trying to establish a new business order and become the rule maker and arbiter of the order.
Zuo Tianying's boasting wasn't completely wrong.
Although he hated his past and other space pirates deep down in his heart, Zuo Tianying's job required him to deal with various "heroes" all the time.
He was the manager of the "Blue Sky Market" under the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors.
The Blue Sky Market was a free market established in a very secret stone belt far away from the habitable planets. It was built around the debris of countless starships and space fortresses around a desolate resource planet as the center.
Those whose goods were stained with blood and should not be exposed to the public, those who were unwilling to pay the high transaction tax, the port construction tax, the defense tax, and the war tax to the authorities of the Imperium, and those who were wanted by dozens of Sectors of the Imperium, hunted by bounty hunters, and offered high bounties by the major families, were most fond of trading in the free market such as the "Blue Sky Market".
In this place, there was no need to pay high taxes, and nobody would ask about the source of the goods and the identity of the owners. All kinds of dangerous contraband items could be bought. Even if you kidnapped the mothers of the four Kurfürsten, as long as the price was low enough, somebody would still be bold enough to buy them from you.
Even the bandits and criminals who were desperate and hated by everybody in various Sectors could still buy the most mysterious Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, the most powerful strengthening drugs, and the magical equipment with the best performance but whose quality was not guaranteed. Of course, they could also buy the most seductive prostitutes and the most fatal assassins. The so-called "free market" was exactly such a place of lawlessness and absolute freedom.
The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors had established dozens of free markets large and small at the periphery of the Imperium. Through the free markets, funds, goods, intelligence, and talents from various Sectors were gathered. The seemingly secret and unattractive free markets yielded astronomical profits every day. They were also the foundation of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors.
Among them, the scale and capital flow of the "Blue Sky Market" definitely ranked among the top five.
Zuo Tianying had made a name for himself with his bare hands and become the manager of the Blue Sky Market from a nobody. He was one of the most distinguished deacons of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, and he was even favored by Director Jin Yuyan. Naturally, he had his own specialties.
Therefore, even though he didn't have the slightest good impression of the guy sitting across from him, who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, had his nose pointed to the sky, and was slurping iced fruit juice. He even put his hairy legs on the desk and pointed the soles of his shoes at him. He even felt a physical disgust for him. However, he still firmly locked his face and didn't allow any unnecessary emotions to leak out.
"Sure enough, it's the same as what the intelligence said. He's an arrogant, conceited, and doesn't know his place."
Zuo Tianying quickly browsed through the files of the head of space pirates named "Boss Bai" in his head again and sneered in his heart. However, the more arrogant a guy is, the more gullible he is. So what if I let him be conceited for a while? Chances are that after some flattery, he will forget his name, and I will be able to negotiate even more perfect terms!
Deep down in his heart, Zuo Tianying did not think much of this "Boss Bai".
It was true that Boss Bai was a brutal man of the new generation who had risen in the circle of space pirates in recent years. His accomplishments in the past were almost "marvelous". After only a few years, he had swallowed quite a few famous pirate gangs in the Imperium. He even retreated in one piece after shaking the first-rate fleets of the Imperium and raiding seven resource planets under the control of the Imperium in half a month. It was safe to say that he was a rarely-seen "genius" in the world of space pirates.
But he was a young man who had just made a name for himself after all, and he had never heard of the name "Boss Bai" before. Judging from his sloppy, unruly, and aggressive behavior today, how awesome could he possibly be?
Zuo Tianying estimated that this Boss Bai must be a descendant of a noble family, too. His combat ability and commanding ability were rather impressive, and he was eager to make a name for himself and even take revenge. That was why his performance in the past two years had been so impatient and dazzling, not knowing the importance of keeping a low profile at all. It was also because of his good luck that he was caught in the war between the Imperium and the Holy League, as well as the contradiction between the reformists and the four Kurfürst families. Nobody had the time to bother with him.
Otherwise, such a reckless guy would've been annihilated by the army a long time ago!
Such a person, however strong he was, was destined to be a knife for other people.
The mission that Zuo Tianying received from the headquarters of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was to subdue Boss Bai and the other "heroes" in the second quadrant without caring about the cost and turn them into the knives of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors and even the reformists.
His communication with Boss Bai went quite smoothly.
Since the Blue Sky Market was the largest and safest free market in the few Sectors nearby, Boss Bai's "Big Bai Pirate Gang" had often come here to sell their stolen goods, purchase, and maintain starships. Although Zuo Tianying had never met Boss Bai in person, they had heard a thing or two about him through their connections.
Before the message of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors that was passed to him through the middleman was fully explained, Boss Bai had already approached him in a hurry, drooling like a dog that had smelled meat buns.
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