Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 368

368. Chapter 367, You Can Applaud

now. Gu Hang was greeted by a cocktail party when he boarded Lao Yisi’s ship.

Neil Lao Yisi, wearing a neat white uniform skirt, combed her gray hair into curls, looking quite graceful and capable. Seeing Gu Hang coming in from the door, she smiled and raised her glass to Gu Hang, and shouted to everyone else at the cocktail party:

“Everyone! Everyone! Look! Our protagonist today is here!”

“The hero who saved Korojia and the Pegasus star region is here!”

“I propose that everyone, together, raise a toast to our hero!”

After saying that, she was the first to take the lead and drank the wine.

Lao Yisi was the most senior person present. With her leading the way, the rest of the people, no matter what they thought in their hearts, had to put on a smile on their faces at this time, and then raise their glasses to drink together.

After putting down their glasses, people began to applaud Gu Hang who walked into the cocktail party and was pulled by Lao Yisi to go on stage.

Gu Hang walked through the applause of the bigwigs in the Tianma Star Region and came to the front.

On the stage, he looked at the people applauding below the stage, savoring the hidden thoughts behind their applause and smiles, and Gu Hang quickly formed his words in his mind.

He raised his hand and pressed it down.

He didn’t start talking until the applause died down:

“The last time I met with you was more than four months ago. I still remember the atmosphere of that meeting, which was solemn and desperate. I believe that no one at that time could have thought that four months later, we would be in the same place, drinking and celebrating our victory.”

“This is all because of you!” Someone shouted from the bottom.

Whistles and applause sounded one by one, and Gu Hang waited with a smile on his face.

When the applause died down, he continued,

“Indeed, I am not modest. That is indeed because of me. Four months ago, I said some unpleasant things here. I criticized the policies of the previous two governors in Koroja and the ongoing struggle between the Fachers family and the star district government.”

“I became the new governor of Koroja, and after Koroja announced the complete war zone, I took office as the commander-in-chief of the Koroja War Zone. I promised that I would do my best to fight a battle to defend Mingyan City and I will win.”

“Four months have passed, and I have brought the victory I promised to you.”

At this point, everyone cheered again.

It’s not that these bigwigs present like to make trouble, but… Gu Hang’s achievements this time, his performance like turning the tide, have formed a magnificent trend.

If you don’t applaud or cheer, then do you have any objections?

Not to mention the neutral elements, those who had previously linked up with the Gu family and the Fofana family to form a third-party neutral force in the Tianma star region, even the parliamentary faction representing the star region government, and the representatives of the Fachers family who lost the governor of Koroja, no matter what they thought in their hearts, had to applaud and cheer.

There was no choice.

However, this time, Gu Hang did not let the cheers rise.

He made a gesture of pressing his arm down, and at the same time, he quickly moved on and talked about the following things: “But this does not mean that the war is over.”

He first set a tone.

“The plague cult is still growing in Koroja. If it is not properly dealt with, the disaster brought by Fino City may happen again.”

“External enemies are never the most terrible; the most terrible enemies always appear inside.”

“How did Koroja’s problems evolve to this day? I think everyone has their own answer. But for me, what I have to solve is to completely eliminate all cult influences in the next six years of Koroja’s continuous war zone; thoroughly clean up the lower and lower nest areas of every hive city on Koroja.”

“I said that I would establish a complete and efficient administrative system to eliminate the inefficiency and corruption that the Koroja government has continued for countless years in the past, and better mobilize the potential of the entire planet. Now, four months later, I still put this sentence here, please witness it together. Six years later, the star district government and the star region government will see a complete, brand new Koroja with sufficient development potential.”

“I have finished my words, you can applaud now.”

Gu Hang smiled and took a step back and left the microphone.

The people in the audience still gave face and applauded collectively again.

But this time, everyone was more rational, and the applause became more polite.

In fact, the so-called “eliminating cults”, “eliminating corruption”, “Koroja has development potential” and so on are very empty. Which governor would not brag like this when he took office?

Everyone’s ears are almost callused.

Just mentioning goals and talking big, who wouldn’t do that?

But the key is that Gu Hang mentioned a serious handling strategy in his words.

It’s called “thoroughly cleaning up the bottom nest area”.

This is not something you dare to say casually.

In a hive world like Koroja, who doesn’t know that all kinds of terrible chronic diseases exist in the uncontrolled bottom nest area?

But how easy is it to completely clean up the bottom nest area?

Among the 40 billion people in Koroja, almost 30 billion people live in the bottom nest area and the lower nest area. With such a large population, it is impossible to establish effective administrative management based on the status of the planetary government in the past.

Various intricate gangs, interest groups, rebels… all kinds of organizations, entrenched in those places, have substantially replaced the powers of the planetary government.

The relationship between them and the planetary government is sometimes antagonistic, sometimes superior and subordinate, sometimes manager or managed… But no matter what role they play, there is a tacit understanding between them and the government: I respect you, and for your sake I will find a way to fix the tax for you, and you don’t have to worry about anything else.

Of course, the planetary government is always the most powerful, the most upper-level, and the most orthodox force on this planet. The so-called “tacit understanding” depends purely on whether the planetary government is willing to maintain it.

But the reason why this tacit understanding exists is essentially that the planetary government cannot fully manage the lower levels, so there is room for these interest groups to appear and grow. The planetary government also needs them to manage the power vacuum areas of the government. Without these interest groups, let the planetary government collect taxes on its own?

In the case of the bottom nest area being completely in the dark, how can they collect taxes? I’m afraid that the tax convoy will disappear as soon as it goes down.

Of course, there are often some interest groups that mess around or are unreliable in paying taxes, such as the “rebels” (they often call themselves the resistance army). This group is the most disobedient. Those radical rebels directly resist taxes in an all-out manner. The more established ones will also use their own territories and population to kidnap the planetary government and negotiate to pay less or no taxes.

Sometimes, the planetary government will turn a blind eye, but if it goes too far, or the planetary government is pushed to the edge, then the planetary defense force will be dispatched to launch a “counter-insurgency” operation to deal with the corresponding interest groups.

But counter-insurgency requires troops and time. What if the fight lasts too long and the taxes cannot be collected at all? After the fight, the interest groups have been defeated, who will collect the taxes? Who should be taxed, where are they, how much can they pay… All this information is unknown, and it is extremely difficult to collect taxes.

Otherwise, it is more cruel. After suppressing the rebellion in a region, all the rebels are arrested, and the rebels are killed. The living ones are all treated as human taxes, but this is not sustainable. This time, what about paying taxes next time?

It is not okay to cut the leeks by the roots.

This kind of action can only be punitive and warning. Normally, it is a lower-cost and easier way to negotiate halfway through the fight, or to support a new interest group to take over after the fight is defeated.

On Korojia, the ecology of each hive city has been operating continuously for hundreds or thousands of years.

Many, many years ago, Koroja had a population of about 40 billion, and it always maintained a relatively high birth rate. However, due to the imperial tax and high mortality rate, Koroja’s population size has hardly grown despite the high birth rate, and has always maintained its current size.

Even the so-called “40 billion” people are just a fictitious number.

In the past long years, the Korojia planetary government has conducted several world population censuses, and the data are quite unreliable. Many data are finally estimated.

Anyway, the imperial tax has always been levied based on a population of 40 billion, so let’s assume that there are 40 billion people on Korojia.

This is roughly the situation of this planet.

Now, Governor Gu said that he wants to completely clean up the entire nest area?

Everyone is really not optimistic.

A system, since it can still function now, don’t touch it. Otherwise, you don’t know how many mountains of shit are underneath, and it may collapse if you move it.

They simply can’t imagine that in the past so many years, the system that has actually proven to be able to maintain the operation of Korojia, what kind of changes must be made to make it better?

Establish a complete government that goes down to the grassroots?

Then do you know how many administrative personnel are needed? How should these administrative personnel be managed? How can the government bear such high personnel costs? How many troops are needed to maintain stability in turmoil?

Can you afford it?

There are 10,000 problems here.

If it was before, whoever proposed to do this would probably immediately arouse a lot of questioning. Even if the planetary governor nominally has full management rights over his own planet, this is just a casual talk.

In “bad places” like the Wrathful Owl and the Black Arrow, no one would care about you if you messed up.

But Korojia, such an important financial and taxation center and a place for exporting human resources, if it is messed up, everyone will be finished.

The star district government wants to intervene, the star region government wants to intervene, and all the stakeholders related to Korojia’s population business will come out to make comments.

That is, Gu Hang, who came here with a great victory to save the world and stood here to speak, could barely block these words in everyone’s hearts, so that they dare not say them to Gu Hang in public.

But in fact, not daring to say it does not mean that it does not exist.

His enemies, with sarcastic smiles on their faces, although they are applauding, they may be waiting to see your joke in their hearts. What’s more, they are likely to consider what to do later to hinder him.

And some close people are worried.

…

After the cocktail party, Governor Gu’s old mother came to him.

“You said you wanted to clean up every lower nest area and bottom nest area on Korojia? You were just talking, right? You’re not serious about it, are you?”

“Of course I’m serious about it.” Gu Hang said, “When did I ever brag?”

She frowned fiercely: “How are you going to do it?”

“That’s too complicated. It’s hard for me to explain it to you all at once.”

“Just tell me where your money comes from.”

Wang Qi asked a key question, which was a key core question from her perspective as a businessman.

“From Korojia.” Gu Hang said, “Korojia has such a huge population resource, why are you worried about not being able to pay the money?”

“You want to sell people? Sell them all, and then…”

“No.” Gu Hang interrupted his mother, “Of course not selling people. In fact, I also plan to reduce the proportion of human tax in Korojia as much as possible in the future. The ideal situation is that no human tax is paid.”

“Then the population resources you refer to are…”

Gu Hang rolled his eyes, “Mother, have you been brainwashed by Korojia’s past situation? When it comes to human resources, you can only think of the price of “people” themselves? People are the most valuable means of production and the most core and basic labor force.”

“Oh my God!” Wang Qi almost screamed, “Forty billion people! Do you know what you are talking about? You want to provide 40 billion jobs and let them create value as a labor force?! It’s a fantasy!”

“Why not? Isn’t this the best ending for Korojia?”

“Then the best ending for Gu’s Company is to become the president of the Imperial Chamber of Commerce!” Ms. Wang Qi rolled her eyes, “The key is how to achieve it?! This is impossible!”

“Then let’s see what I can do.”

Wang Qi wanted to ask more questions, but at this moment, a waiter came to the two of them.

“Excuse me for interrupting you, but… Special Envoy Lao Yisi hopes to have a private chat with Governor Gu.”

“Of course.” Ms. Wang Qi said.

She pulled her son and whispered in his ear: “Don’t mention your crazy plan in front of Lao Yisi, you…”

“Okay, mother, I have a good idea, don’t worry.”

After saying that, he turned around and followed the waiter to a small room on the side of the banquet hall.

Lao Yisi, dressed in white, was already waiting here.

However, her face was not very good, and she didn’t look like she had just won a war.

Seeing Gu Hang coming over, she asked directly:

“You want Korojia to be a war zone for six years in order to clean up all the nests?”

————

I was very sleepy when I got home yesterday. I thought about lying down for a while, closing my eyes and resting for a while, and then I got up to write, but when I woke up, it was time to go to work…

After I came back today, I originally wanted to post a single chapter to explain it, but later I thought it would be better to finish writing early.

(End of this chapter)