The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2131 The Beginning and End of the Trade Alliance (Part )

2132. The Beginning and End of the Trade Alliance (Part )

When the power of the Trade Alliance became so huge that it could hardly be increased, their methods became 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, began to bribe members of parliament in large quantities to make them vote on issues that were favorable to them, and began to conduct their own business activities through secret transactions and illegal channels, laundering many of the wealth built on crime through official channels.

Not only that, the Trade Federation also began to conceal a lot of their navigation data, which resulted in the Galactic Republic's navigation data being incomplete and outdated. As a result, the Galactic Republic often could not send the Judicial Fleet to the Outer Rim quickly and effectively unless the Trade Federation agreed.

In the subsequent Clone Wars, the navigation data concealed by the Trade Federation played a crucial role in the Galactic Republic's difficult counterattack on the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Moreover, in places like the Outer Rim, the Trade Federation is truly like the sky. Without the support of the Trade Federation, many planets cannot even survive.

The Trade Federation uses various means such as plunder to make these planets its economic vassals, such as dumping a large amount of food to stimulate population growth, and 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 built on debt.

Then, in order to repay the debt, the Trade Federation arranged for these planets to sell their population, resources, and labor, or open factories to produce products that are completely useless to the planet - for example, all the factories on a certain planet produce armored hulls for Predator-class armed freighters.

As a result, these planets had no choice but to become vassals of the Trade Union. Without the Trade Union, they couldn't even support the expanding population base on their own planets! So they could 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 Federation secretly controlled thousands of star systems and signed long-term trade contracts with even more star systems. Then they used the representatives of these planets to work for themselves and vote for the Trade Federation on issues.

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

Not only is the external expansion brutal, the struggle within the trade alliance is also extremely bloody and cruel.

The Trade Union is governed by a seven-member council. The struggle within the Trade Union over the position of this seven-member council is bloody and cruel.

During this process, the ruthless, yet shrewd and meticulous Neimoidians became increasingly powerful within the Trade Union, and they began to steadily occupy a seat on the Council of Seven.

After that, more than a hundred years later, 150 years ago, as the Trade Union's power in the Outer Rim became increasingly powerful and out of control, the Galactic Republic could no longer obtain any tax revenue from the Outer Rim. This made the Galactic Republic, which was already in economic distress, very embarrassed - because it also meant that the fruits of the Galactic Republic's great expansion campaign in the Outer Rim for hundreds of years had been completely embezzled by the Trade Union.

In order to regain financial revenue in the Outer Rim star region, and also because of the good reputation that the Trade Federation had accumulated before, and because a large number of congressmen bribed by the Trade Federation spoke with one voice for the Trade Federation, 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 is equivalent to recognizing the Trade Union's status as a local emperor in the Outer Rim star region. By establishing the free trade zone, the Trade Union was exempted from local taxes and instead levied taxes on the Outer Rim planets 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 tacitly acknowledged the Trade Federation's right to keep the star map as private property and not make it public, which was equivalent to tacitly acknowledging the Trade Federation's monopoly on all traffic in the Outer Rim Star Region.

Moreover, taxation through the Trade Union is equivalent to handing over the financial power of the planets in the Outer Rim to the Trade Union. In this way, the Trade Union can tax as it pleases, and how much it pays to the Galactic Republic is entirely up to their mood. This is equivalent to having the power of life and death over the Outer Rim.

It was around this time that Heggo 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 part of the conspiracy, Sheev Palpatine planned a shocking plan through his secretly trained pirate Iaco Stark. He let the Stark pirates begin to openly attack the Trade Federation's 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 material in almost all medical institutions in the Milky Way. Almost all serious injuries can be cured by soaking in a Bacta tank. However, due to the large number of attacks on the Trade Federation fleet, a lot of the looted Bacta fluid was transported to the Outer Rim Star Region.

Under normal circumstances, backward planets in the Outer Rim are not eligible to enjoy such high-end goods. Therefore, the Yako-Stark Pirates' move made them very popular in the Outer Rim. However, for the Galactic Republic, the Stark Pirates, who robbed a large amount of Bacta fluid and caused a shortage of supply in the Core Circle and Inner Ring, were an absolutely intolerable crime.

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

But the whole thing was a conspiracy. Husk, the then Governor of the Trade Federation, had already colluded with the Bacta Corporation and Jakko Stark under the matchmaking of Darth Sidious. They secretly implanted a virus into the navigation computer of the Republic's Judiciary Fleet.

At that time, when the Judiciary Fleet entered the Outer Rim Star Region, it needed to navigate through the Trade Alliance, which made it very easy to implant the virus.

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

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

This was the war known as the "Stark Hyperspace War," and it was also the largest war the Galactic Republic had experienced in the more than a thousand years between the Ruusan Reformation 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 Trade Federation's crimes in this matter, and all the blame was handed over to Jakko Stark. They also used this incident to strengthen the power of the Neimoidians within the Trade Federation and further control the Trade Federation through Nute Gunray, who was not yet the governor at the time.

After the Stark Hyperspace War, the Trade Federation began to act more aggressively, and they repeatedly carried out large-scale military operations in the Outer Rim to meet their demands. The largest and most serious of these operations was the Siege of Naboo.

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

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

At the same time, as mentioned before, the pirate Yakko Stark who robbed the bacta fluid was seen by the people in the Outer Rim as a hero who robbed the rich to help the poor. The fact that such a hero was defeated by the Galactic Republic naturally made the Outer Rim even less recognize the Galactic Republic.

So in this situation, when they heard that the Galactic Republic was going to levy taxes here, it almost immediately ignited a wave of resistance in the Outer Rim Star Region.

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

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