When the most prosperous core worlds of the Imperium of True Human Beings were mired in the unnecessary consumption of internal conflicts and usurpations, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, which seemed insignificant, mild, and harmless, was quietly rising in the remote worlds at the periphery of the Imperium.
The situation in the Pangu universe right now was entirely different from that in the hundred thousand years before.
In the first hundred thousand years of the civilization of mankind, every Sector had basically met the conditions for self-sufficiency. Every habitable planet had enough water, air, minerals, and a stable ecological system. Even if they did not trade with the outside world, the internal circulation could still be maintained at the minimum level.
However, from the last years of the ancient Cultivators to the great war of the ancient Cultivators that swept across the three thousand Sectors, to the rise and decline of the demon race, and to the "Doomsday War" of the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God, the flames of war in the Pangu universe had never really died down.
The war destroyed the self-circulation system of many Sectors. The atmosphere was gone, the mines were drained, the groundwater was polluted, and the gentle and domesticated animals mutated into the most ferocious demon beasts.
It was needless to say that, with the advancement of technology, human beings were able to conquer the resource planets and colonize the planets that were previously unconquerable. In the places that were absolutely unsuitable for the survival of human beings, large settlements that could accommodate millions of people or even more could be established.
As a result, most of the habitable planets at the periphery of the Imperium that lacked resources lost the ability to be completely self-sufficient, or perhaps they had never been capable in the first place. They had to count on the incessant interstellar trade to bring the necessary resources for their survival in order to survive.
Therefore, the importance of the interstellar trade had been raised to the highest level. Many specialists even pointed out that the future would not only be the age of the Spiritual Nexus but also the age of the logistics network. It would be the age of the Internet of Planets. Whoever controlled the trade among the habitable planets would control the entire universe!
In the prosperous areas of the Imperium, the trade sailing routes were controlled by the four families and the traditional officials and businessmen.
However, in the peripheral worlds that were barren and too far away to be exploited, it required a lot of time, energy, and patience to build a complete logistics system from scratch and develop the local market to the point where it was profitable.
The four families, who had long been used to earning excessive profits through monopolies and taxes, were too lazy to spend hundreds of years dealing with the bumpkins at the peripheral worlds. Therefore, the local trade groups and logistics sects were born and bred on their own. After hundreds of years of planting and sprouting in silence, they weaved a seemingly unattractive but in fact impenetrable network of trade, logistics, and even finance at the peripheral worlds of the Imperium. Later, those loose soldiers were gathered together and surfaced under the name of "Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors".
The peripheral worlds of the Imperium were a lawless, chaotic space zone. The so-called space pirates, merchants, privateers, and regular armies were the same thing. Having fought a way out of such a bloody forest, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors naturally boasted the most audacious sailors and captains, the most cunning and blackhearted merchants, and the most ruthless space pirates.
They had monopolized countless business routes that looked like capillaries. They could bring incessant resources and talents to a planet, allowing the planet to prosper in a short amount of time. They could also turn into space pirates and completely block all the sailing routes to the outside world on a planet, forcing the planet to succumb to their power obediently.
Other than anything else, as long as the warships under the command of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors blew up all the spiritual towers and remote communication bases around a planet, cutting off the connection between the planet and the outside world, the civilization on the planet would degrade by decades in a year and a half.
With such capabilities, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was naturally unwilling to wander at the edge of the Imperium as a supplier for the bumpkins and bumpkins.
Besides, the leader of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was also very clear that, in the eyes of the nobles who had the power of life and death in the leadership of the Imperium, the merchants like him were nothing but pigs waiting to be butchered. The fatter they were, the sooner they would be slaughtered.
In the past, the four families had not seen the profits of the trade at the peripheral worlds of the Imperium, so they did not bother to bother with them. But now that they had developed the market after all the trouble, and there were profits to be made, would the four families be Immortal Cultivators if they did not come to pick the peaches?
The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, which had just been born, realized with their survival instincts that they could only fight the nobles, magnates, and noble families at the center of the cosmos, the "old Immortal Cultivators" who exploited the ordinary people in the most primitive and unsophisticated ways, until they died, if they wanted to survive!
The free coin was the sharpest weapon that they had chosen.
They were going to launch a war, a currency war that did not require the Crystal Suits, starships, and Colossi to fight each other directly but with money!
While the Imperium was faced with the enormous military pressure of the Holy League in the last phase of the Battle of Black Wind, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors secretly paved the path of "monetization" of the free coin in the peripheral worlds of the Imperium.
At first, naturally, nobody regarded the free coin as real money. However inflated it was, the crystal coin of the Imperium was "real money" after all. It was not the time for the Imperium to really change dynasties. Who would trade real money for the … what the hell was the free coin?
Naturally, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors could not force the citizens of the Imperium at the peripheral worlds to use the free coin. In the beginning, they did not intend to replace the crystal coins of the Imperium with the free coin, either. They only stipulated that the businesses under their banner could accept two types of transactions at the same time, but they would be given a certain discount if the transactions were conducted with the free coin. Some of the most sought-after goods would be supplied to the buyers who used the free coin first.
The measure finally made the first ripple.
But the real trump cards were the sales on credit and the small loans.
The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was best at fishing big fish with a long line. The "South Spirit Planet", Huo Dongling's hometown, was the best example.
First, they would buy the asteroids with great potential for initial development with their abundant financial resources and unfathomable connections. Then, they would attract a large number of colonists to settle down there in a half-sold, half-free way. When the settlement was almost complete, the colonists would have also spent a lot of money and treated the asteroids as their new home. When there was no turning back, they would use all kinds of consumables to slowly earn back their money.
In order to raise the "hens that can lay eggs", the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors would provide tremendous technical support, magical equipment on credit, and even small loans for the colonists during the entire colonization process. The conditions were very attractive, except that they had to be repaid with the free coin in the future.
If the money was repaid with the free coin, the interest rate would be discounted, and if the money was repaid with the crystal coin of the Imperium, a punitive service fee would be charged. Of course, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors would solemnly guarantee the stability of the free coin and that the exchange rate with the crystal coin of the Imperium would not fluctuate too much.
During the period when the crystal coin of the Imperium was most devalued, the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors even linked the free coin with the necessary assets such as compressed air, water-cleaning pills, and synthesized food, stipulating that one piece of free coin could be exchanged for constant water and food. They were known as "air coin", "water coin", and even "canned meat coin".
"Canned meat coin" was such a rustic name. If the knowledgeable economists of the leadership of the Imperium heard it, they would certainly laugh their heads off.
However, for the uneducated people at the edge of the Imperium, it was such an appropriate and easy-to-understand name. The free coin was real money that could be exchanged for air, water, and canned meat, bringing the hope of survival!
Those measures won the first batch of real users and believers for the free coin other than the space pirates. They also injected real credibility into the free coin.
Since then, the free coin had risen more and more like a snowball and an unstoppable flood. When the Imperium finally caught its breath from the economic crisis caused by the failure of the Black Wind Fleet, the free coin had already spread out at the edge of the Imperium like a prairie fire that could not be extinguished at all.
Besides, even though the economic crisis was over, the war between the Imperium and the Holy League was still not over. In the first fifty years, the frontline troops had been actively defending under the leadership of Lei Chenghu, but in the later fifty years, they gritted their teeth and fought a "war of revenge". The war machines had been rumbling nonstop, and the exorbitant taxes had been rising too.
When the authorities wanted to collect a special war tax of one dollar, they were bold enough to collect ten to twenty dollars at the bottom after multiple increases. Both the hominoids and the low-level Immortal Cultivators could hardly escape. In those days, it was impossible for the ordinary people to live a good life without tax evasion, and it was impossible for the low-level Immortal Cultivators to complete their primitive accumulation and upgrade without tax evasion. The only way to evade tax was to use the free coin.
The exorbitant taxes provided a "great assist" for the free coin. They were essentially adding fuel to the fire.
Of course, it was impossible to completely forgo the use of the Imperium's crystal coins. Most of the transactions in daily life still had to be completed with the legal currency. However, certain clandestine, critical transactions were infiltrated and corrupted by the free coin.
For a hundred years, the free coin was like a "plague of kindness" that most people and the low-level Immortal Cultivators loved to see. It corrupted the body of the Imperium. At first, it was only circulated at the edge of the Imperium, but it gradually penetrated into the traditional core area of the Imperium. In the end, even a lot of Immortal Cultivators in the four Kurfürst families were using the free coin in secret. Who did not kill and loot when they were out to train? Were they supposed to sell their treasures on the black market with the crystal coins of the Imperium after they were killed and looted? They would be walking right into a trap!
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