Interstellar Industrial Age

Time flies, time flies, and in the blink of an eye, decades have passed.

In the new solar system, in the Xinghan embassy in the Earth Federation, Lu Kang seemed a little bored. To him, decades seemed to be a very short period of time.

But for the current Earth Federation, the past few decades have been the most difficult decades in the history of the Earth Federation.

Every year, it is necessary to pay a large amount of war indemnity to the Tiemuer civilization. This war indemnity is like an incomparably heavy burden. Was bent over.

According to the original agreement, the Earth Federation needs to pay 1,000 trillion iron yuan worth of war reparations to the Tiemuer Civilization, because the Earth Federation has no way to pay it all at once.

Therefore, the two sides signed an installment agreement. According to the agreement, this huge war indemnity will be paid in installments over a period of 100 years. After calculating the interest, the Earth Federation must pay Tie Muer to Tie Muer every year. Civilization pays tens of trillions of iron yuan in war reparations.

Furthermore, this war indemnity is also priced by Tie Muer Civilization, and it needs to be paid with a large amount of materials, rather than the paper money of the Earth Federation can be paid.

This has increased the burden of the Earth Federation in disguise. For example, a ton of steel should be worth several thousand iron yuan, but because the Iron Muer civilization does not need these steels, if steel is used to pay war indemnities, a ton of steel Maybe not even 100 iron yuan.

Because the pricing power of the value is on the side of the Tiemuer civilization, this means that the Tiemuer civilization can greatly reduce the price, thereby plundering more of the wealth of the Earth Federation.

Although nominally tens of trillions of iron yuan are paid every year in war reparations, in the actual operation process, the value of materials paid to Tiemuer civilization may exceed one trillion iron yuan.

This is naturally very beneficial for the Tiemuer civilization, but for the Earth Federation, it is equivalent to blood drawing in disguise, and it is still a steady flow of blood drawing every year for a full hundred years.

It has only been a few decades now. In Lu Kang's view, if the former Earth Federation was a strong and strong man, then now, after just a few decades of blood drawing, the Earth Federation has become as scrawny as a piece of blood. It's almost impossible to keep up with the blood draw on Tie Mu'er Civilization's side.

"It used to be so comfortable, and now I finally taste the bitterness."

Lu Kang looked at the newspaper in his hand. The newspaper was introducing a kind of food, chicken feet. It introduced in detail the many practices and eating methods of chicken feet, and even praised chicken feet, comparing it to an adult. delicious.

As a person who has been stationed on the Earth Federation side for a long time, Lu Kang is very clear that these people in the Earth Federation did not eat chicken feet decades ago.

Things like chicken feet, pig water, cow hooves, cow heads, etc., these people in the Earth Federation didn't eat them before. They usually turned them into waste, or exported these things to Xinghan. .

They only eat meat, beef, chicken, fish, etc. For those miscellaneous things, they always don't eat them. One feels that these things are not clean, and the other is that they are too lazy to clean them, and they don't know how to cook. of.

Of course, this is also a tradition and habit of them.

In the era of great voyages on the earth in history, they were rich enough to not worry about eating at all. Naturally, they would not eat these miscellaneous things, and even they were full of contempt for what Chinese people eat, thinking that Chinese people eat everything.

How can they understand what difficult years the ancestors of the Chinese people have gone through.

In times of famine,

Not to mention eating these things, even the bark and Guanyin soil must be eaten, like a tenacious weed, absorbing all the nutrients in order to survive.

It is a habit developed by our ancestors in the long and difficult years to save food and food, and be diligent and thrifty. This is especially true for food. Everything that can be eaten will try its best to turn it into delicious food. Therefore, the world-renowned Chinese cuisine was born.

But in the final analysis, it was actually because the ancestors of the Chinese people were poor and bitter.

Now, the situation on the Earth Federation side is similar.

Under the heavy pressure of the huge war indemnity, the Earth Federation needs to move a large amount of materials to the Tiemuer civilization ship by ship every year.

Gold and silver mined from asteroids to rare metals; from the clothes and shoes worn by the Tiemuer civilized people to the food, fruit, meat, etc. that the Tiemuer civilized people need for their daily diet, as long as they can be used to pay war reparations things, the Earth Federation side is given priority to pay war reparations.

Under such a policy, the resources occupied by the Earth Federation people have been greatly reduced, and the Earth Federation has plundered billions of people because of the European star, and the population has dropped sharply.

The policy of encouraging and forcing childbirth has not changed in any way, and even in order to restore the population, childbirth is even encouraged and forced. Every household, like Xinghan, has a large population.

However, in terms of resources, it is far from reaching the standards of Xinghan, and naturally they will have to live a hard life.

Maybe I killed a chicken before to eat it. The people on the Earth Federation only eat chicken breasts. They don't eat chicken feet, chicken wings, chicken necks, and chicken offal. They either throw them away, or just use them as fertilizer. What.

But now, they have to eat these things, because eating chicken has become a relatively luxurious thing for ordinary people.

The huge war reparations are distributed to the enterprises, companies, organizations, and individuals of the Earth Federation. Enterprises and companies need to pay an additional tax every year, and this tax is collected to pay the war reparations.

Individuals also need to pay an additional tax, which the Earth Federation calls the 'war tax', which is also a special fund dedicated to paying war reparations.

Whether it is a business, a company or an individual, this tax is very heavy, accounting for almost one-fifth of the total income, plus other taxes, etc., it is conceivable that the tax on the Earth Federation side is now How heavy is the fee.

But this is not the key. The key is that the tax collected also needs to purchase various materials that can be used to pay war reparations, which means that the wealth obtained by the Earth Federation every year, the first thing to consider is to use it Pay the war reparations, and then it can be used to consider all aspects of your own expenses.

Just like at the end of the Qing Dynasty, huge war reparations were placed on everyone, and everyone had to pay a few taels of silver.

A few taels of silver is naturally not a lot for the rich, but it is an extremely heavy burden for the people living at the bottom, which makes the already poor life even more difficult.

The same is true for the Earth Federation at this time.

Because of the heavy war reparations, large-scale demonstrations break out in the Earth Federation every year, and the angry people even lose their minds. They have had a good life for hundreds of years, but it has never been so difficult.

But no matter what, this war indemnity still has to be paid, unless the Earth Federation feels that it can win the Tiemuer civilization, otherwise, this war indemnity must continue to be paid.

Otherwise, the army of the Tiemuer civilization will once again be overwhelming, and the current Earth Federation is not as good as it was during the war decades ago.

So everything is as thrifty as possible, as much as possible, and endure it. One generation, two generations, after this century, the Earth Federation will be able to ease this sigh.

"It's too boring, let's go out for a walk."

Lu Kang sighed slightly. The current Earth Federation no longer had the ambition it had when it first came here. It was like an eggplant beaten by frost, completely gone.

I really felt the cruelty of the interstellar universe and felt the real pain.

But the Earth Federation is still lucky, it's just war reparations, just ceding land.

At the very least, the Earth Federation still has sovereignty, and it is still an independent independent entity. Although it is bullied by others, at least it has not subjugated the country and the species, and it still continues.

Compared with the countless civilizations in the interstellar universe that have been completely wiped out, the Earth Federation is at least lucky. They still have opportunities and hope, and this is enough.

Compared with the countless civilizations in the interstellar universe, this burden is nothing at all. Some civilizations have been wiped out and completely disappeared in the long river of history.

In some civilizations, the entire civilization has been conquered and become interstellar slaves. Generation after generation, they are born as slaves, and their descendants are also slaves. There is no end to it.

Some civilizations are subordinate civilizations of powerful civilizations, and they need to pay a huge amount of tribute every year, without any return or deadline.

Compared with these civilizations, the Earth Federation is really too lucky, too much.