The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

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

2133. The Beginning and End of the Trade Alliance (Part )

Therefore, the Trade Federation was once the largest economic entity in the entire galaxy, or at least the second largest. Moreover, the Trade Federation controlled the lifeline of the Outer Rim Star Region. It can be said that the Galactic Republic's rule over the Outer Rim Star Region was actually achieved through the Trade Federation.

That is why they, like the Interstellar Banking Association, were the only two entities that could hedge their bets during the Clone Wars without being liquidated - because these two entities were so huge, one monopolized the financial industry in the galaxy, and the other monopolized the transportation industry in the Central and Outer Rim of the galaxy.

Compared with these two, others such as corporate alliances and business guilds cannot really be compared with them.

It is precisely because of this that the Trade Federation was used by Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, becoming the fuse that ignited the numerous conflicts in the Central and Outer Rim regions of the Milky Way.

So now when Darth Vader proposes to take action against the Trade Federation, everyone reacts in this way.

Because this proposal is both feasible and impractical.

This is possible because the Trade Federation's headquarters is on the planet Balmorra, and the Neimoidians' home planet Neimoidia, as well as their important colonies and wealth worlds Cato-Nemoidia, Deco-Nemoidia, and Kru-Nemoidia are all located in the core circle of the Milky Way.

In other words, the Galactic Republic can take these places with ease.

The Trade Federation's headquarters was not originally on Balmora, but in the Outer Rim. Later, as their power grew, they moved their headquarters to Coruscant. Then, as the Separatists grew stronger and war was about to break out, the Trade Federation, which had been controlled by the Neimoidians, moved its headquarters to Cato-Nemoidia, the Neimoidian wealth world, on the pretext of protecting its property.

However, during the war, because Newt Gunray stood on the side of the Separatists, the Galactic Republic decided to sanction the Trade Federation. In addition, the fact that Cato Neimoidia once sheltered the Plague Titan battleship led by Separatist General Severance Tann made the Trade Federation feel that Cato Neimoidia was not so safe.

Therefore, they finally moved the Trade Union headquarters to the largest, most developed and most advanced industrial world in their core circle, the planet Balmora. Therefore, this place was once called Balmora-Neimoidia.

The Neimoidians finally understood that in times of war, wealth and finance were all illusory. Only industry, and only industry, could protect them.

Therefore, for the Galactic Empire, although the Trade Federation’s influence in the Milky Way is complex and their client worlds are almost everywhere, reaching thousands of galaxies, their most core planets are almost all in the core circle.

In other words, the Galactic Empire does not need to mobilize on a large scale, and can even directly dispatch the three major armies guarding the core circle - the First Galaxy Army, the Second Galaxy Army and the Third Army, to attack the Trade Federation. Although the Second Galaxy Army suffered heavy losses and was almost completely wiped out due to the expedition to the Mandalore Star Region led by Master Mace Windu, the First Galaxy Army and the Third Army combined can still dispatch more than 2000 capital ships.

However, the plan to attack the Trade Union is also seriously unfeasible - even though the Trade Union has been blatantly mixing with the separatists and the Principality of Dawn in recent years, the reputation and network of relationships they have built up over a long period of time are still intertwined and cannot be easily shaken.

It is impossible to say how many people have interests in the Trade Union, who have been bribed by the Trade Union, or even whose home planets are controlled by the Trade Union. Even though the Republic Congress has been dissolved and the Imperial Congress is basically a decoration, those congressmen and senior officials still have enough power to influence the decisions of the Galactic Empire.

Therefore, if we attack the Trade Alliance directly at this time, not to mention that the Trade Alliance will definitely block all major transportation routes and cause chaos, the opposition voices within the Empire alone will definitely not be small.

But opportunities also exist here.

Darth Vader's dull voice said, "Since Darth Malthael has disappeared, we can take this opportunity to directly destroy the Trade Federation and occupy their core planet. The Principality of Dawn will not be able to respond."

"Hahahahaha... Indeed! Indeed! Good! Very good!" Darth Sidious laughed strangely, and was obviously very satisfied with the plan. "Since taking action against the Trade Federation will lead to their counterattack, why not take advantage of Darth Malthael's absence and destroy them directly! They won't have time to react!"

"Your Majesty. This is undoubtedly a good opportunity... I also agree to attack the Trade Alliance immediately." Sat Pestaghi quickly agreed.

For him, as long as Palpatine didn't think of forcibly sending troops to attack the Principality of Dawn, then everything would be fine. It was also a good idea to vent all of Palpatine's anger on the Trade Union.

Others present thought the same.

After all, the Trade Federation was still a tangible target, and the Galactic Empire would definitely be able to crush their weak fleet. On the other hand, the Principality of Dawn? It was a powerful entity that fought battle after battle during the Clone Wars, defeating the Galactic Republic repeatedly, and in the end the Empire had to accept their separate peace agreement!

Don't think that the separate peace at that time meant that the Principality of Dawn was bowing to the Galactic Empire. In fact, on the contrary, the Galactic Empire also believed that it failed to wipe out the Principality of Dawn in one fell swoop, but instead could only sign a peace agreement with them with a pinch of nose, which was a huge shame.

As a big country, we can only accept the proposal of a small country to end the war. This in itself is a huge failure!

But no matter how unwilling he was, no matter how humiliating it was, even Palpatine had to admit that the Galactic Empire, which was now facing internal and external troubles, was indeed not suitable to choose the Principality of Dawn as its biggest enemy.

The trade alliance is indeed the most suitable target from an economic and military perspective.

Therefore, the decision to attack the trade alliance was confirmed very hastily in such a meeting that started off well but ended badly.

The one who led the army to launch this offensive was naturally Darth Vader. He immediately went to the Imperial Ministry of Defense and began to mobilize the fleet and make plans.

This attack on the Trade Union was named "Eradication Operation" by Darth Vader. The main force of the attack will be the main fleet of the Third Army of the Galactic Empire, a total of 1200 battleships. The First Galaxy Army will also draw 300 battleships to join this operation. Therefore, the total force is 1500 battleships, 2800 light cruisers and heavy cruisers, 12000 small warships, 2000 transport ships, including 400 million marines.

The operation was tentatively scheduled for 40 days later, on August 12, 8 BBY.

……

After finalizing the strategy, the entire propaganda machine of the Galactic Empire went into full operation.

Countless editorials and news reports exposed the Trade Federation's collusion with the Separatists during the Clone Wars and its actions against the Galactic Republic.

  Not only that, almost all of the shady deals, money laundering, and illegal activities of the Trade Alliance over the years have been made public!

For a time, the reputation of the Trade Union plummeted.

Even though the media controlled by the Trade Federation tried its best to whitewash itself, its voice was still insignificant compared to the official mouthpiece of the Galactic Empire.

Under the control of Crueya Vandron, the core of the Imperial New Order Maintenance Committee, all major media outlets in the Galactic Empire have almost completely consistent voices, and all different voices have been directly eliminated in various ways.

All propaganda and media point in one direction - the Trade Federation's treasonous behavior!

Not only did the Trade Federation control the navigation data of the Outer Rim, which made it impossible for the Galactic Republic to counterattack and enter the Outer Rim when it had a slight advantage at the beginning of the war, but the Trade Federation also helped the Confederation of Independent Systems to produce robot corps, and through large-scale logistics channels, the Confederation of Independent Systems was able to build an industrial core that could rival the three major industrial giants of the Galactic Republic on the originally unknown small industrial satellite of Parment Harbor!

Then, the Supreme Court of the Galactic Empire convicted the Trade Federation of treason in absentia without the presence of a representative of the Trade Federation. The Trade Federation was ordered to confiscate all assets to compensate for all war expenses from the beginning of the Galactic Republic to the present, and to be responsible for all war losses during the Clone Wars.

The current Governor of the Trade Union, Newt Gunray, was declared a Class A war criminal and the person most responsible for the Trade Union's participation in the war. At the same time, the Trade Union's parliamentary representative, Lot Dude, was directly expelled from the Imperial Parliament, deprived of all political rights, and was not allowed to make any voice for the Trade Union in Parliament.

  All these actions point to one fact - the Galactic Empire is determined to wipe out the Trade Union! Under such circumstances, many neutral factions have been forced to stand on the side of the Galactic Empire and prepare to participate in the feast of dividing the super cake of the Trade Union!

Naturally, the Trade Federation was unwilling to sit idly by, so they immediately stopped all navigation and transportation services in the Outer Rim star regions and announced that all official and unofficial spacecraft of the Galactic Empire were not allowed to use the navigation data of the Trade Federation.

At the same time, the Trade Federation instigated almost all of the affiliated star systems and their permanent client star systems to directly rise up against the Galactic Empire. Not only did they launch large-scale demonstrations and seize Galactic Empire assets, they even directly targeted all merchant fleets flying the Galactic Empire flag.

This time, the two sides almost fell out directly. The Trade Federation, with a desperate mentality, launched a destructive counterattack against the Galactic Empire.

For a time, the Galactic Empire's sphere of influence in the outer ring of the Milky Way lost contact almost at the same time. In the absence of navigation data, the Galactic Empire could not even send troops to the outer ring star region to suppress it!

The Galactic Empire was left with only two options: the first was to sit back and watch the Trade Federation cut off all contact with the Outer Rim Star Region, acquiescing in the Galactic Empire's loss of all territory in the Outer Rim Star Region. The second was to directly deploy heavy troops in the core star systems of the Trade Federation and force the Trade Federation to fight a decisive battle.

  In short, even if my Galactic Empire has to give up the Central and Outer Rings, I will still fight your Trade Federation to the end!

Without a doubt, the Galactic Empire chose the latter.

A large number of fleets began to gather and surrounded several core planets of the Trade Federation - Neimoidia, Balmora, Cato-Neimoidia and other most powerful planets.

In fact, even before this, these planets were already under the direct supervision of the Galactic Empire Fleet. A powerful force of more than 800 battleships had already blockaded these planets.

In fact, the blockade had already existed before, and the core planets of the Trade Union had long been surrounded by the fleets of the Galactic Empire. However, the current series of troop movements were obviously not normal rotations.

  The mobilization of thousands of battleships and over 4000 frigates of various types also shows one thing - the Galactic Empire has no intention of letting the Trade Alliance survive this time!

But the Trade Federation is wealthy after all. Under the pretext of protecting their own property, they began to build large-scale planetary defense systems on these core planets.

Planetary shield? That's the minimum equipment.

These planets also include planetary energy supply centers, large planetary shields, large orbital defense systems, hidden space hangar platforms, Argonev-class interstellar bases, Gauss defense platforms, and other defense facilities. These expensive and powerful facilities have been set up in almost all the affiliated star systems of the Trade Alliance.

In short, the Trade Alliance lacks everything except money.

  A complete planetary defense system can match the powerful force of a fleet of the Galactic Empire. Now that the Galactic Empire has been found to be plotting something bad, the Trade Federation has activated all its defense forces to form an extremely powerful defense network!

Newt Gunray quickly appointed Mal-Tuk, a rare Neimoidian general, as the commander-in-chief to coordinate the positioning of the core planets.

At the same time, Newt Gunray also went to the planet Dawn in person to ask for help from the Grand Duke of Dawn, Tang Xiao.

Now the Galactic Empire's intention to directly invade and solve all the problems of the Trade Federation in one fell swoop has become very obvious. Newt Gunray hopes that the Principality of Dawn will send troops directly, or at least launch a few offensives on the border to tie down the Galactic Empire's fleet.

But what made Newt Gunray very uneasy was that Tang Xiao had always met with him without any obstacles and started the conversation directly. But now, Tang Xiao never showed up, and he was received by the Prime Minister of the Principality, Francis Underwood.

The answer Underwood gave to Newt Gunray was also despairing - the Principality of Dawn currently had neither the power nor the willingness to directly send troops to start a war with the Galactic Empire.