Chapter 286: Edge of Collapse
[The local administrative chiefs of the Imperial Star Circle received the imperial edict and began to enter the Imperial Star one after another the next day to report their duties directly to His Majesty the Emperor.]
[His Majesty the Emperor entertains generals of the Imperial Army at the rank of Major General and above.]
[The Council of Elders issued a new order that nobles with private territories must report to the Imperial Star within half a month.]
[The heads of the scientific research units of the Imperial Star level will adjust according to their own work progress in the next two months and enter the Imperial Star to participate in the seminar. ]
[The core cyborg troops of the Skywrath Fortress will send representatives to accept the personal commendation from His Majesty the Emperor.]
…
At the Yilanduo Star Spaceport, Yang Ming sat in a corner, holding the 'Galaxy Daily' made for him by Lu, and read the news with a serious expression.
The trend is now very clear.
This is the contemporary emperor of the Sherman Empire, who wants to strengthen the leadership of imperial power at the core of imperial power.
In the past month, all kinds of news about the Imperial Star have come one after another. His Majesty the Emperor, who had been hiding in the core of the imperial power system, suddenly seemed to have gone mad and kept announcing his existence.
This is actually not conducive to the stability of the empire.
The empire's territory is too vast, and most of the administrative planets are very far away from the imperial planet. The empire itself has existed for too long compared to human lifespan.
The people's ideological awakening has long been completed.
In order to prevent civil unrest, the Empire's regulatory mechanism has been continuously reducing the privileges of the nobility and promoting the Empire's invincible fleet, making the people believe that the planet they live on is the safest, richest and most promising place in the Milky Way.
In addition, the Imperial Senate always draws parallels between the contradictions between the common people and the aristocracy in the empire and the contradictions between ordinary people and the capitalist class in countries like the New Federation.
In this way, the people of the empire will feel that their lives are actually quite good.
Yang Ming feels that the greatest advantage of the Sherman Empire system is that Levi Sherman clearly pointed out that imperial power must be the reins around the neck of the aristocracy, pulling the aristocracy hard, reducing the aristocracy's oppression of the common people, allowing the upward channels of most professions in society to remain normal, and keeping opportunities as equal as possible.
For a long time, the social environment in the Sherman Empire was relatively relaxed, and military power and resource exploitation rights were firmly controlled by the emperor and the nobility. The imperial power, the nobility, and the common people maintained a fragile balance.
The old emperor's sudden and intense assertion of his own presence is already impacting this balance.
The vested interests of the original situation have all fallen into anxiety.
The great nobles were now worried about whether His Majesty the Emperor would continue to reduce the privileges of the nobility, and high-ranking officials were worried that the Emperor would suddenly announce that he would take back the direct appointment power of officials of all levels.
The military is the most stable at the moment, because they are directly responsible to His Majesty the Emperor, and things are no different now than before.
"Alas, troubled times are coming."
Yang Ming turned the electronic newspaper over and immediately switched to foreign news.
[The New Federation Vice President condemned the Empire's brutal invasion, which was a trampling on human civilization.]
[Once again, backwardness defeated advancement, and barbarism defeated civilization. ]
[The End of the Empire: What does the New Federation's partial military advantage indicate? A brief analysis of the battle between the two great powers in the Milky Way.]
Six black dots slowly passed over Yang Ming's head.
It’s true!
Victory or defeat depends entirely on one's mouth, and victory in the online public opinion circle is decided?
Yang Ming really admires the New Federation's propaganda method.
In contrast, the Imperial Military Intelligence Bureau, an imperial intelligence organization with such a bloated staff, is completely unable to make a single noise on an interstellar scale.
It would be better to break it down earlier and separate the three major sections: military intelligence, foreign intelligence, and domestic and foreign public opinion.
A camera ball floated out of Yang Ming's pocket.
This type of suspended sphere is a network access terminal that has become popular recently. Many people in the spaceport hall can see one floating on their shoulders.
However, this is not a technological advancement, but just a fashion cycle. This type of network access terminal was also popular about a hundred years ago.
Lu's voice came: "Boss, Miss Mimili has two minutes to enter the spaceport."
"knew."
Yang Ming made a gesture as if he was throwing something, and the projected newspaper exploded into tiny dots of fluorescent light.
Lu whispered, "Are you really not going to change your clothes?"
Although he was here to pick someone up, Yang Ming's outfit was indeed a bit too casual. Slippers, shorts, a floral shirt, and a straw hat, he could go straight back to his hometown on Earth to guard the fish pond.
Yang Ming clicked his tongue and said, "It's just to pick up my niece, why bother with being so handsome?"
"But when you, boss, mention Miss Mimily, the secretion of certain hormones in your body will always increase slightly."
Yang Ming cursed angrily: "Why do you care whether I secrete hormones or not? The reason why humans can stand at the top of the Milky Way is because we can use reason to restrain our bestiality and use propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame to give history a profound soul."
"Boss, why are you talking so inconsistently lately?"
Yang Ming laughed: "I learned it from The Emperor's Biography. After reading it several times, I remembered some of the words unconsciously."
"Miss Mimilee showed up."
Lu considerately projected an arrow in front of Yang Ming's eyes, pointing to the crowd rushing forward.
In fact, there was no need for Lu to point it out. Yang Ming took a quick glance and saw that the most eye-catching beautiful girl was the target person he had been waiting for for half an hour.
Mimily, who is already well-known in the pirate world.
She wore a white wide-brimmed hat and a pair of wide sunglasses on her delicately made-up face. Her long burgundy hair was slightly curled. The light grey suspender dress fit her figure perfectly. The lace gloves wrapped around her arms and the white stockings extending from the bottom of her skirt gave her a bit of the temperament of a rich lady.
Is this still the Mimili who jumped on board and stabbed people?
Yang Ming frowned and curled his lips in confusion, but Mimili had already seen him. She cheered, put her thighs together, and ran over like a lady.
"Uncle~"
What kind of accent is that!
Seeing that she had opened her arms enthusiastically, Yang Ming smiled and opened his arms in order not to embarrass her.
Mimili fell into his arms like a young swallow.
Yang Ming felt that there were many male creatures of all ages around him, casting slightly sour looks at him.
Yang Ming smiled and patted Mimi's arm, sniffing the strange fragrance and said with a smile:
"Okay, there are too many people here, let's go to the boat and reminisce."
Mimi's suitcase floated over from behind. On the fixed screen at the front of the suitcase, Molly, wearing an elegant long dress, appeared and bowed to Yang Ming, lifting her skirt.
"Hello, respected Mr. Yang Ming."
"Hello Molly."
Yang Ming laughed, and Mimili had already taken his arm and was looking forward.
"Where's my dad?"
"Your father has gone to a neighboring country for a meeting," Yang Ming said with a smile, "Now is a critical period for resource integration, and he, an energy tycoon, is very busy."
Mimi Li curled her lips slightly: "I'm busy. I'm not here to see him."
"What's wrong with you? You're dressed like a lady."
"Don't you like it?" Mimi Li laughed, and seemed to hug Yang Ming tighter on purpose. "I am now wanted by seven or eight small countries, so of course I have to cover it up."
Yang Ming smiled and said, "Now that we're here, what are you afraid of?"
"It's always better to be careful," Mimi took off her hat and threw it on the suitcase. Some hair floated on Yang Ming's shoulders. "Uncle, why are you free this time? Shouldn't you be busier?"
"Let's talk on the boat."
Yang Ming agreed and took Mimili into the military emergency passage of the spaceport. Under the gaze of a group of passengers, he boarded a small transport ship and landed on the surface.
As soon as she entered the cabin, Mimili found that there were only a few maid robots moving around, and she immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm dying of suffocation!"
Mimili complained and raised her hand to untie her skirt. Yang Ming quickly turned around and sat in the driver's seat.
There was a rustling sound from behind, and Yang Ming couldn't help but turn his head to look, only to see that Mimili had taken off her long skirt without any hesitation, and was only wearing a protective top as thin as a vest and safety pants. She took out a pair of hot pants from the suitcase that were no more than two centimeters longer than the safety pants.
In just two minutes, the rich girl turned into a hot girl, and her high heels were replaced with a pair of thick-soled short boots.
She sat in the co-pilot's seat, her long straight legs crossed over the edge of the console, her feet gently swinging.
Yang Ming said: "You should also pay attention."
"Uncle is not a stranger," Mimi Li blinked her long eyelashes and took the initiative to move closer to Yang Ming, "Or does uncle still have some thoughts about me?"
"I promised your father that I would not do anything to you."
Yang Ming sighed softly:
“While I’m not a conservative person, I do need to respect the promises I make.
"Didn't you just ask why I was free?
"The Imperial Expedition has just ended, and there has been some unrest in the country. The Imperial Star Circle is also not very stable. I am coming back here on the pretext of being sick to avoid the limelight."
Mimily was not interested in imperial politics and changed the subject after asking a few questions.
She said in high spirits: "Well, since you have time, I will be your companion and accompany you around."
"You don't care about the fleet?"
Mimi Li smiled and said, "What fleet? It's just a group of pirates and some small broken ships. The pirate group has entered a period of rest and recuperation. They went to the black market to resell the squeezed goods. Business has been good recently. They will probably be busy for a few months."
Yang Ming was a little puzzled: "Aren't you directly in charge of finance?"
"If I have to do everything myself, even if there are eight of me, I will be exhausted by the affairs of the pirate group."
Mimily stretched.
She seemed to be intentionally showing off her beautiful figure. Her slender waist without any fat was stretched out, her snow-white skin exuded a slight luster, and her smooth waistline was very eye-catching.
Yang Ming almost forgot that this person is a skin whitening enthusiast.
Mimi Li said slowly: "Since you choose to employ someone, you must trust him. Instead of worrying all the time whether he will betray you, it is better to see his true nature before employing him and maintain your prestige in daily life."
"Okay," Yang Ming chuckled, "Do you plan to continue working in the pirate industry?"
"I have no plans to change my career for now, but..."
Mimili turned her head and looked at Yang Ming, her gem-like eyes flickering with light.
"Uncle, if you allow me to follow you, I can put this career aside for the time being.
"What you have experienced is incomparable to my daily life as a pirate."
"It's too dangerous for me," Yang Ming said in a gentle voice, "We'll discuss these things later. Although I have established a firm foothold in the empire, my foundation is still too shallow, and the path to promotion is not clear. I am also thinking about how to develop next."
"Uncle, do you want to become the superior of the empire?"
"I can only say that gaining power in the empire will be of some help in achieving my ideals and goals."
Mimily thought carefully.
Yang Ming turned on the projection screen, pushed it in front of Mimi Li, and said with a smile: "Look, this is the itinerary I arranged for you."
"Uh, Dark Star Base 2? Are we going to your secret base?"
"There is an intelligent machine production line there," Yang Ming said softly, "Aren't you eager to try out mechanical transformation? I'll help you design some plans for mechanical transformation."
"real?!"
Mimili was overjoyed, but then she cleverly smelled a hint of conspiracy.
"Uncle, you want to persuade me to give up mechanical transformation, right? I won't change my mind so easily."
Yang Ming smiled but said nothing.
The subtle fragrance filled the entire cabin, making him feel much better.
…
"well."
On the Imperial Star, in a park on the edge of a city where hundreds of thousands of technicians gathered.
Catherine, wearing exoskeleton armor and a tactical helmet, jumped off the hoverboard and sat on a stone-like seat in front of a fountain, lost in thought.
Leaving the manor area of the royal nobles, Catherine finally didn't have to witness the collective depravity of those nobles.
There are very few imperial citizens on the Imperial Star, only about 100 million or so, of which 90 million are "ordinary citizens" and 10 million are slaves who are like private property of the royal nobles.
Slaves in the Empire are rare, and most of them are on planets that are semi-resource and semi-administrative, and are mostly serious criminals or prisoners of war.
——When the empire destroyed a small country before, it demoted about 3% of the population there to non-normal citizens.
Crime and oppression happened to these slaves.
Catherine had actually heard about the persecution of slaves by the nobles, but when she actually saw those scenes, it still impacted her deeply rooted ideas.
The nobility of the empire are not that noble.
The imperial star, which should have been a symbol of the empire's spirit and a representative of civilization, was instead filled with the ugliness of human nature.
Catherine looked down at the communicator. Although she couldn't contact anyone, she felt a little more comforted when she touched the guy's portrait with her fingers.
There was a slight tremor in the earth.
The Emperor Star module began to rotate, and the simulated stars in the sky also began to move.
The star system where the Emperor Star is located is dark, because the star in the center has been wrapped in a thin energy-absorbing device, which continuously provides the Emperor Star with almost endless energy.
But even so, sometimes energy has to be transported from outside the star system.
The Emperor Star seems to be a monster that devours energy.
Catherine raised her hand to hold the front of her helmet, and figures suddenly appeared in her mind one after another.
'Catherine, stop thinking about these meaningless questions and do your job well.'
Director Riva's voice is always so calm.
"Captain Catherine, we keep fighting desperately just to protect these scumbags? We set the date of death at birth, and participate in the human dimensional upgrade experiment that is bound to kill us, just to pave the way for these scumbags? I can't accept this, I can't accept it!"
"Captain, we are super-combatants. We should face powerful enemies instead of becoming guard dogs for the nobles."
'I can't stand it here.'
The team members' voices gradually became more excited.
"I saw with my own eyes that they hung several young men and beat them to death bit by bit, and then fed their bodies to their pets!"
Someone sneered in my ear:
"Children born from slaves are still slaves. They are using gene optimization technology to select toys for themselves. Humans are just toys here. Do you understand?"
'What's the big deal? If you don't like it, you might as well try to become one of them.'
"We are super reformers, why should we care about these messed up things? Otherwise, why is this place called the Empire instead of the Sherman Federation?"
These figures suddenly disappeared and turned into a girl wearing only underwear. She rushed out from the corner of the roadside manor, but was grabbed by two mechanical guards by the feet and dragged back to the corner gate of the manor.
'Save me! Save me! Please save me!'
She suddenly thought of the several foreign wars she had participated in. The bodies of soldiers and enemies seemed to have piled up into a small hill, and she was now standing blankly on the top of the hill.
"snort!"
Catherine suddenly covered her helmet with both hands, her body trembling slightly, as if she was enduring great pain, and a buzzing sound kept echoing in her ears.
What she didn't know was that a hidden camera device hidden in a tree not far away had focused on her and was watching her carefully.
