Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 247 The Decline of the Colony
Chen Ming became a little more energetic after hearing the last few words Bai Quan said, and asked, "Adding insult to injury?"

"Correct."

"We can't really let people retreat so easily, right? If they want to retreat, then we must bite off a large piece of meat before they retreat."

"Every time they commit a crime, something will happen. This is an opportunity for us to do something. And even if we don't do something, most of their resources will be divided by others."

"Then I'll definitely have to step in."

Bai Quan's words aroused Chen Ming's interest: "So what should we do specifically?"

"It's just to grab their share of the legion's internal resources."

"What resources?"

"The command of the fleet, the annual military expenditure, whether the technology developed by some research institutes can be obtained as soon as possible, and their people."

Chen Ming asked back: "Do you want people?"

In itself, this can be regarded as a factional dispute between the Baiquan and Lou Wei factions. He will not show mercy to those who have had direct face-to-face conflicts with him in the factional dispute.

The day passed in a blink of an eye.

As for the core hormones or base of Purgatory last time, the report sent by Chen Ming this time has been placed in the highest priority queue waiting for review, and a reply will be given soon.

"Yes, because people are also resources."

"But I will definitely find a way to dig out the others."

"Let's take a look. These are the things we have researched in the seventeen days before our departure by the end of your side."

Chen Ming must have supported Bai Quan in completely plundering all the resources and even people on the opposite side.

"That's not the case."

But others who didn't directly conflict with him were left alone.

However, Chen Ming suddenly asked another question at this time: "When is the next meeting with Lou Wei and the others? This matter has been resolved, won't they all have time to finish the rest of the things with us, right? "

There are not a few things he can actually research in these seventeen days.

Bai Quan immediately denied Chen Ming's guess, and after roughly calculating, he said: "It should be tomorrow. What they have to do now is to save themselves some resources that can be used after stepping down as soon as possible. The rest doesn't matter. That's it. One day is enough.”

Bai Quan also felt that there was something in Chen Ming's words, but since Chen Ming had already said that he would not take action, he had nothing to explain.

"Oh, okay."

Bai Quan didn't say much this time. Anyway, there was no possibility of a comeback after the matter was over, so he just acted kindly.

"I know, I've seen the consequences of doing this twice, so I won't do it to others."

You must know that this chip also contains some research information on the core of the synchrotron.

"Just like Lou Wei, he actually has some ability. He became a major general in his forties, but you can see that he is very unhappy, so forget it."

Just like last time, Lou Wei and others sat in the conference room earlier than them.

"A faction has no future. As long as it's not a key figure, wouldn't it be enough to change to another faction? It's a simple reason."

Chen Ming still had the same cold expression on his face as before.

Chen Ming suddenly sat up from the sofa, stretched his body after reading the report for a long time and said with some stiffness: "I thought there was still a long battle to fight, but I didn't expect that because of an assassination from a left path psyker, That's the end of it."

Chen Ming came to the conference room where they met last time.

But at this time, he said to Chen Ming: "This can be regarded as a reminder. Don't think about doing anything to others."

After giving away the memory chip, he handed over all the rest to Bai Quan to handle.

If someone really makes him anxious, he has many ways to kill people without being discovered.

Chen Ming considered Bai Quan's words and said, "That's okay."

"If the senior management is involved, as long as he has the potential to continue to develop and I am confident in controlling him, I can also come over."

Bai Quan also stood up from the sofa, preparing to start teaching Chen Ming every day.

"And the fleet command rights, military expenditures and technology I just mentioned are all related to people. If we don't take people away, how will these resources come into our hands?"

Their status is not much different from before.

This way there will be no chance of a comeback.

"So we can take whatever people we want from those at the bottom of Lou Wei's faction."

Chen Ming could only say that he was rich if these things did not cost Lou Wei his fortune.

The complete research content of the synchrotron core has already been sent to where it should go by Baiquan.

"These are what I have to do. If I can take this opportunity to allocate more resources, the situation at the branch should be better in the future."

Chen Ming glanced at the chip subconsciously.

He didn't embarrass others and handed the chip directly to Major General Song.

It’s just that I was still anxiously waiting for the trial before, but now I have received the court judgment.

"Anyone who has the ability will not die in the sea holding a body that is already sinking."

But there was one thing Chen Ming didn't say, and that was that it was none of his business whether other people took action.

According to Chen Ming's estimation, the synchrotron core and the purgatory core are on the same level, and there is a high probability that they can achieve first-class performance.

The trouble for Lou Wei in delaying his first-class merit is not small, and the money he will lose will definitely not be small.

Major General Song inserted the chip into the terminal.

When Lou Wei next to him saw the number of files displayed on the terminal, his hands trembled subconsciously.

Chen Ming noticed this immediately and suddenly said: "You won't default on your debt, right?"

Lou Wei's face was not only ugly but also a little uglier, but he still squeezed out two words: "No."

"Do you have money to compensate?"

"Instructor Chen, if he has no money, we will try our best to get compensation for you."

Chen Ming was a little stunned when he heard Major General Song address him. He almost forgot that he was a temporary tactical instructor hired by the 14th Army Corps.

Major General Song's sincere attitude and the stunned look at the address made Chen Ming lose interest in continuing to be aggressive, and leaned back in the chair with his eyes closed to rest.

Of course, he said he closed his eyes and rested his mind, but in fact, Chen Ming was paying attention to the situation on the main body.

Because it’s almost time to find the third temporary stronghold.

It has been almost a month since he came to the Fourteenth Legion today, and their exploration of the galaxy around the second temporary stronghold is coming to an end.

Although the last survey around the first temporary stronghold took about two months to be completed.

But after all, the whole thing was started from scratch and was done without any experience.

After the first experience, the investigation efficiency this time was obviously higher.

And Chen Ming believes that starting from the third stronghold, this efficiency will be even higher.

Because it was almost time to return the Supreme Point that Chen Ming had borrowed from Shao Yang.

With two Supreme Points, more supplies, more experience, and more support, it is definitely not a problem to significantly increase efficiency.

And by the time the third temporary stronghold is built, the first temporary stronghold will almost be demolished.

Although Chen Ming now has Bai Quan's help with some basic supplies, the funding gap is obviously much smaller.

And with the start of testing of the hyperspace jump engine, the advancement of energy crystallization technology testing, and the receipt of the second batch of patent fees for antimatter technology, Chen Ming will not be short of money at least in the short term.

But there is still no need to support three temporary strongholds for no reason.

The main reason is that it is meaningless. After exploring the surrounding 400 light-years, it is almost enough. The cost of going further is too high, and it is too close to the empire's border.

It really should be demolished.

But there is a problem when it comes to dismantling the first temporary stronghold.

Zerg problem.

Because within about half a year or a year, the empire and the machine race will start to fight.

The planet where Chen Ming first found the Mechanical Tribe city and the Insect Queen was not too far from the Mechanical Tribe's territory.

If a war really starts, there is a huge risk of being discovered.

So with the first temporary stronghold being demolished, it was time for the Zerg to go elsewhere.

But the problem is that one-third of the entire habitable planet has been completely covered by insect nests, and even the climate on the planet has changed due to the coverage of insect nests.

Relocating such a huge insect nest is a huge project.

And the act of relocation will definitely cause unpredictable damage to the ecology of this livable planet.

Leaving the planet with an unmanageable mess.

Although the mess can be left alone, Chen Ming will have to find a way to completely move away the robots on top of the mess.

This city is now the most important place for Chen Ming to produce new individuals of the mechanical race.

Therefore, it is best for these mechanical tribes to relocate to nearby planets with the Zerg tribe.

It can be conveniently used as a bridgehead for Chen Ming to stay near the empire in the future for the transportation of materials, so that he will not have to use his spiritual power to send energy crystals back to the empire.

As for the Zerg, they have to run farther away.

If possible, it would definitely be best to go to the final location of Chen Ming's colony in the future, but it is still a bit far away from this goal. He still has to follow Huihuang and the others slowly first.

For large-scale and long-distance movement in a cosmic environment, one has to either use a stargate or fly slowly in a spaceship. There is no other choice. Chen Ming has no grasp of Stargate technology at all, and has never even been exposed to it, so he can only choose the latter.

The latter would only allow the insect queen to control the insect race to create a large number of biological spaceships.

In this regard, the gap between destroyers and cruisers will be magnified countless times.

So Chen Ming is still waiting.

Wait for the day when the insect queen eats the Defender-class fed to it and evolves into a cruiser.

It can be considered as progress.

It just so happens that the basic structure of the insect nest can be changed in the process of slowly advancing to adapt to the situation where the barely functional biological buildings created by the insect queen participate in the incubation process of the insect units.

Just when Chen Ming closed his eyes and thought about what he had to do recently.

On the prosthetic side, he suddenly heard Major General Song's voice.

"I wonder what Instructor Chen is doing recently? I haven't seen you since the last meeting."

Chen Ming opened his eyes again.

This attitude of Major General Song made him feel that Major General Song seemed to have something on his mind.

He turned his head and looked at Bai Quan, who nodded slightly and seemed to have thoughts about Major General Song as well.

Although Chen Ming didn't quite understand why Bai Quan had thoughts about a half-buried Major General, Bai Quan had thoughts as long as he had thoughts. Chen Ming and Major General Song had met before and there was no fundamental conflict, so it didn't matter.

So Chen Ming responded normally: "Take some time to do some research or something. You can see it, just the things in the chip."

The wrinkles on the old Major General Song's face relaxed a little, and after confirming Bai Quan's attitude, he didn't say anything more.

Soon he confirmed the authenticity of the data and stored the data chip in a special box.

And it was handed over to the people in the sector military, who would transfer the data chip to the people in the laboratory to confirm the value.

Major General Song stood up from the conference table, reached out to Bai Quan and said, "Thank you for your hard work. The next step is to deal with the colony."

Bai Quan first pulled Chen Ming, who had his eyes closed and looked like he was asleep. Then he also extended his hand and shook it with Major General Song. He talked about the colony and ended the meeting.

The rest will be dealt with once we get to the colony.

On the way back to the Stardust level, Bai Quan suddenly sent a document to Chen Ming.

Chen Ming opened the file and looked at it, and found that it was samples from two colonies that Lou Wei was going to use for him to test.

The two colonies are located in the same system. One is a light industry colony on a habitable planet, and the other is a heavy industry colony on an uninhabitable planet.

Chen Ming was quite surprised when he saw the industrial colony on this habitable planet. After all, the habitable planet itself has its own value.

But when he continued to look at the aerial photos and satellite images of the colony, he suddenly felt that he was not surprised anymore.

Because these two colonies looked extremely declining even from the outside.

Even though there are various huge industrial production facilities arranged in the colony, it just looks like a backward and desolate town.

Moreover, according to the information sent by Baiquan, the development momentum of these two colonies has begun to regress as early as more than ten years ago.

Nowadays, most of the industrial facilities are in a state of shutdown and abandonment. If the legion had not been occasionally providing some funds for maintenance, I am afraid that the industrial facilities in the entire colony would have been dismantled and sold for scrap metal.

Obviously Lou Wei and the others deliberately found two abandoned and backward colonies for Chen Ming, or they were two connected together. I don't know how much thought they put into it.

"It's so shabby."

When Bai Quan heard Chen Ming's words, he probably knew where Chen Ming had seen the document.

So he introduced the past of this colony to Chen Ming: "This colony was originally a colony under the military of the sector to which it belongs. It was traded to our Fourteenth Legion in a transaction, and we internally distributed it to Lou Wei and the others. Faction."

"Why don't they take care of their faction's things? After all, they are two industrial colonies so close to each other."

"Don't worry, you'll know after you read it."

Chen Ming continued to read on the terminal.

However, the rest of the report only briefly talked about the decline of these two colonies more than ten years ago, which was due to an accident on the industrial colony of the habitable planet.

But the details of the accident were vague and unclear, and were not of the same quality as the reports Baiquan usually gave.

Guessing that this report was probably sent from Lou Wei, Bai Quan forwarded it to him.

Chen Ming was too lazy to check it himself, and directly asked Bai Quan, who had probably seen it and done a background check on the colony: "So what was the specific accident? Why did one accident cause the entire colony to fail? It even affected The colony next to it?”

"If you think about what is in the colony, and then think about what is important in the colony that can cause problems in the entire colony, you will know."

It just so happened that they were on their way back to Stardust with nothing going on, so Bai Quan gave up.

"What's in the Industrial Colony..."

Chen Ming subconsciously recalled the conditions in the industrial colonies he had visited in the simulation.

Those warehouses, those factories, those assembly lines, those robots, those workers with hefty compensation deals and the engineers who maintain industrial facilities.

And...the geocentric furnace energy supply tower that almost every industrial colony has.

"Earth Furnace Energy Supply Tower?"

Chen Ming was not surprised when he guessed Bai Quan so quickly and confirmed: "Yes, it is the Earth Core Furnace Energy Supply Tower."

"But even if this thing breaks down, won't it be repaired? Why does the nearby colony also have problems?"

"Because the energy supply tower of the earth's core furnace is not just malfunctioning."

Bai Quan said and sent another document to Chen Ming.

The content of this document is much clearer. It is the true history of the two colonies that Baiquan asked people to investigate.

And Chen Ming finally identified the real culprit of the colonial decline, Zuo Jing.

"At that time, Zuojia carried out a sabotage plan against the earth-core furnace energy supply tower, and they succeeded."

"The energy supply tower not only shut down in operation, but also had several explosions in succession, which even caused problems in the factories outside, and many people died."

"It took Lou Wei and the others more than a year to barely repair the energy supply tower, but during this period of time when production was no longer possible, all the customers had already left."

"And because it was Zuo Jing who successfully destroyed the energy supply tower, many Left Jing elements were inspired. They took root in this colony and were difficult to eradicate."

"Even if a group of people are killed, in two days another group of people will start to believe in that evil."

"No one dared to invest or sign a production contract in a place where Zuojie had done things. Only some small companies looking for cheap were willing to produce things here. The colony began to decline from that time."

"The automated system was abandoned first. One was to save costs, and the other was to recruit idle personnel in the colony."

"The automated system occupied too many people's labor positions. Originally, when the colony was fully operational in the early stage, everyone had something to do. But later, the production lines slowly stopped, and there were fewer places where people were needed, so we had to do it. Use this method to get people back.”

"Otherwise, if we leave a large number of people outside with nothing to do, it will create too many opportunities for the spread of Zuojiao, which is also a way to stabilize the social environment."

"But the effect was not ideal. More left-wing incidents occurred one after another, and there was no way to completely solve the left-wing incident."

"So Lou Wei and others later gave up and even started assigning some reform-through-labor prisoners here."

"The whole environment is a mess, and it continues to this day."

Chen Ming listened to Bai Quan's story and read the entire contents of the two documents, and his understanding of Zuo Jing became much clearer in his heart.

Just four words, death is not a pity.

He raised his head and looked at Bai Quan: "Actually, one thing I'm surprised about is that since these two colonies are like this, they actually still have operating industrial facilities. What are they producing?"

"They are mainly self-sufficient daily necessities."

"As for the reason why it is still operating, although Zuo Jing is a madman, he is not a fool. They definitely have smart people at the top."

"If they completely destroyed all the working industrial facilities in the entire colony, then the place would be completely shut down and everyone would have to move."

"Instead, they will lose a place that is already a stronghold."

"But if they stay like this half-dead state, Zuo Jing can even let the empire support them."

"And as I just said, Lou Wei and the others have reached cooperation with some prisons and use this place as a work place for reform-through-labor prisoners and half a prison."

"It's better to lock a large number of left paths on this planet, and all entrances and exits must be audited. Even if there may be loopholes in the audit, it is better than letting the left paths run around."

"And not everyone in this colony believes in Zuo Jing. We can't kill everyone with one stick."

Chen Ming nodded, fully understanding the history of the decline of the light industrial colony.

Another heavy industrial colony has a history similar to that of the light industrial colony.

After leftist elements gradually took root in the light industrial colony, a large number of leftist elements also began to appear inexplicably in the nearest heavy industrial colony.

As soon as Zuojiao appeared, the situation behind it was almost the same. Various accidents in industrial production began to occur frequently here, and orders and vitality were gradually lost.

Chen Ming can now see that there is no hope for these two colonies before the left path here is completely wiped out.

"In other words, they are two pools of stagnant water. Lou Wei and the others are really embarrassed to take them out."

Bai Quan said in a helpless tone: "No matter how bad the colony is, it is still a colony, and these two colonies should be the ones closest to you that are similar in size to the colonies in the simulation. At least there is really no problem with the location of the colonies. "

"And with their current state, you don't have to pursue them if you want."

"Okay, actually it's not a big problem. Under such harsh conditions, I can feel more at ease and just do something big."

"Big deal?"

Bai Quan suddenly thought of something and said to Chen Ming: "Wait a minute, I have to explain something to you, that is, the colonies within the empire cannot be done casually."

Chen Ming suddenly had a bad premonition and asked, "What do you mean?"

(End of this chapter)