The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge

2132. The Beginning and End of the Trade Federation (II)

When the power of the Trade Federation became so huge that it could not be increased, their methods began to become increasingly extreme.

The Trade Federation began to use extreme means to deal with its competitors, just as they had done with their former enemies. Assassination, frame-up, kidnapping, extortion, all kinds of means emerged one after another.

They also began to extend their tentacles into the political field, and began to bribe congressmen in large quantities to make these congressmen vote on issues that were beneficial to them. And they began to conduct their own business through secret transactions and illegal channels, and laundered many wealth built on crime through official channels.

Not only that, the Trade Federation also began to conceal many navigation data in their hands, which resulted in many navigation data in the hands of the Galactic Republic being incomplete and expired. As a result, the Galactic Republic often could not actually send the judicial fleet to the Outer Rim Star Region quickly and effectively unless it had the approval of the Trade Federation.

In the subsequent Clone Wars, why the Galactic Republic's counterattack against the Confederation of Independent Systems was difficult, the navigation data concealed by the Trade Federation also played a very critical role.

Moreover, in places like the Outer Ring Star Region, the Trade Union is really like the sky. Without the support of the Trade Union, many planets can't even survive.

The Trade Union uses various means such as plundering to make these planets their economic vassals. For example, dumping a large amount of food to stimulate population growth, dumping a large amount of advanced products to corrupt the lives of these people, these planets seem to have better lives and more developed economies, but in fact all of this is based on debt.

Then in order to repay the debt, the Trade Union arranges these planets to sell population, resources, and labor, or open factories to let them produce some products that are useless to this planet-for example, all the factories on a certain planet produce armored hulls for Predator-class armed cargo ships.

In this way, these planets have no choice but to become vassals of the Trade Union. Without the Trade Union, they can't even support the expanding population base on their own planets! So they can only sign a permanent agreement with the Trade Union, mortgage everything on the planet to the Trade Union, and become their "permanent customers".

In this way, the Trade Union secretly controlled thousands of star systems and signed long-term trade contracts with even more star systems. Then they let the congressmen of these planets use them for their own purposes and vote for the Trade Union on the issues.

With its strong strength and influence, the Trade Union also successfully obtained a seat in the Galactic Republic Parliament and could speak as a political entity in the highest authority in the galaxy. There are only two companies that have this treatment - the Interstellar Banking Association and the Trade Union. Other super giants, such as Kuat Power Dockyard, only have planetary congressmen, but no company congressmen. Of course, Kuat Power Dockyard at that time was naturally far from comparable to the Trade Union.

Not only was there brutal expansion outside, but the struggle within the Trade Union was also very bloody and cruel.

The Trade Union was governed by a parliament composed of seven people. The struggle within the Trade Union was also bloody and cruel around the position of the seven-member parliament.

In this process, the ruthless and shrewd Neimoidians became more and more powerful within the Trade Union, and they began to steadily occupy one of the seven-member parliament.

After that, more than a hundred years later, 150 years ago, as the Trade Union's power in the Outer Rim became larger and more out of control, the Galactic Republic could no longer obtain any taxes in the Outer Rim. This embarrassed the Galactic Republic, which was already in economic distress - because it also meant that the results of the great expansion movement carried out by the Galactic Republic in the Outer Rim for hundreds of years had been completely embezzled by the Trade Union.

In order to regain fiscal revenue in the Outer Rim, and also because of the good reputation accumulated by the Trade Union before, and because a large number of congressmen bribed by the Trade Union spoke for the Trade Union in a unified voice, the Galactic Republic made a decision that later seemed to be a very wrong decision - to establish the Outer Rim Free Trade Zone.

The establishment of the Outer Rim Free Trade Zone was equivalent to recognizing the status of the Trade Union as a local emperor in the Outer Rim. By establishing a free trade zone, the Trade Union was exempted from local taxes, and instead levied taxes on the planets in the Outer Rim on behalf of the Galactic Republic and then submitted them to the treasury.

In exchange, the Trade Federation agreed to hand over a more detailed star map to the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order, but in return, the Galactic Republic also acquiesced to the Trade Federation's right to treat the star map as private property and not to make it public. This was equivalent to acquiescing to the Trade Federation's monopoly on all traffic in the Outer Rim Star Region.

Not only that, levying taxes through the Trade Federation was equivalent to handing over the financial power of those planets in the Outer Rim Star Region to the Trade Federation. In this way, the Trade Federation could levy taxes as it wanted, and how much it would pay to the Galactic Republic was entirely up to their mood.

This was equivalent to having a huge power of life and death over the Outer Rim Star Region.

It was also around this time that Hego Damask II and his apprentice Sheev Palpatine began to extend their evil hands to the Trade Federation. They began to support the Neimoidians and prepared to use them as a tool to control the Trade Federation.

As one of the conspiracies, Sheev Palpatine planned a shocking plan through his secretly trained pirate Iaco Stark. He asked the Stark Pirates to openly attack the Trade Federation fleet and targeted the supply of bacta fluid, which was monopolized by the Trade Federation at the time.

As we all know, bacta fluid is the most important medical supply for almost all medical institutions in the galaxy. Almost all serious injuries can be cured by soaking in bacta tanks. However, because the Trade Federation fleet was attacked in large numbers, many of the looted bacta fluids were transported to the Outer Rim Star Region.

Under normal circumstances, backward planets in the Outer Rim Star Region are not eligible to enjoy this high-end product. So this move by Iaco Stark Pirates made them very popular in the Outer Rim Star Region. However, in the Galactic Republic, the Stark Pirates, who looted a large amount of bacta fluid and caused a shortage of supply in the core circle and the inner ring, were absolutely intolerable crimes.

So at that time, under the leadership of Wilhuff Tarkin's cousin, Ranulph Tarkin, the Galactic Republic sent out the Judicial Fleet to wipe out the Stark Pirates.

But this was a conspiracy. Husk, then the governor of the Trade Union, had already colluded with Bacta and Yakko Stark under the matchmaking of Darth Sidious. They secretly implanted a virus in the navigation computer of the Republic's Judicial Fleet.

At that time, when the Judicial Fleet entered the Outer Rim Star Region, it needed to be navigated by the Trade Union, which made it very easy to implant the virus.

So after being eroded by the virus, the Republic's Judicial Fleet suffered a devastating blow and suffered heavy losses. This was exactly Darth Sidious' plan. He hoped that after destroying the Judicial Fleet, he could take the opportunity to control the Galactic Republic through the Trade Union.

But later, under the desperate battle of Jedi Masters such as Mace Windu and Plo Koon, the Galactic Republic still defeated Yakko Stark and eliminated the crisis of national destruction.

This is the war known as the "Stark Hyperspace War", and it is also the largest war experienced by the Galactic Republic in the more than a thousand years between the Ruusan Reform and the outbreak of the Clone Wars.

Although the plan to overthrow the Republic failed, Darth Sidious, with the help of his master Darth Plagueis, successfully covered up the crimes of the Trade Federation in this matter, and all the blame was given to Yakko Stark. They also used this incident to strengthen the power of the Neimoidians within the Trade Federation, and further controlled the Trade Federation through Newt Gunray, who was not yet the governor at the time.

After the Stark Hyperspace War, the behavior of the Trade Federation began to become more and more radical. They repeatedly carried out large-scale military operations in the Outer Rim to meet their demands. The largest and most serious of these was the siege of Naboo.

The Galactic Republic also realized that the Outer Rim was gradually out of control. At the initiative of Speaker Phoenix Valorum, the Galactic Republic was ready to withdraw the establishment of the Outer Rim Free Trade Zone, re-nationalize the Outer Rim, and impose taxes on the Outer Rim.

This incident led to the sharpest conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Trade Federation.

At the same time, as mentioned before, the pirate Yako Stark who robbed the bacta fluid was seen as a hero who robbed the rich to help the poor by the people in the Outer Rim Star Region. Such a hero was defeated by the Galactic Republic, which naturally made the Outer Rim Star Region even more dissatisfied with the Galactic Republic.

So in this case, when they heard that the Galactic Republic was going to levy taxes here? This almost ignited a wave of resistance in the Outer Rim Star Region on the spot.

And Count Dooku's separatist movement had a breeding ground for growth at this time.

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