Time flies by, and in the blink of an eye, decades have passed.
In the new solar system, Lu Kang seemed a little bored in the Xinghan Embassy in the Earth Federation. For him, decades seemed to be a very short period of time.
But for the current Earth Federation, these past few decades can be regarded as the most difficult decades in the history of the Earth Federation.
Every year, large sums of war reparations need to be paid to the Temuer civilization. This war reparations is like an extremely heavy burden, which weighs heavily on the Earth Federation, so much so that the Earth Federation is worried from top to bottom.
I was bent over.
According to the original agreement, the Earth Federation needs to pay war compensation worth 1,000 trillion iron yuan to the Temuer civilization, because the Earth Federation has no way to pay it all at once.
Therefore, the two parties signed an installment payment agreement. According to the agreement, this huge war compensation will be paid in installments over a hundred years. Taking into account interest and other factors, the Earth Federation must pay Tiemuer every year.
Civilization paid tens of trillions of iron dollars in war reparations.
Furthermore, the war reparations are also priced by the Temuer civilization, and they need to be paid with a large amount of materials, rather than just taking the Earth Federation's banknotes.
This has in turn increased the burden on the Earth Federation in disguise. For example, a ton of steel should be worth several thousand iron dollars, but because the Temuer civilization does not need this steel, if steel is used to pay war compensation, a ton of steel
Maybe I don’t even have 100 iron dollars.
Because the pricing power of value lies with the Temuer Civilization, this means that the Temuer Civilization can significantly lower the price, thereby plundering more of the Earth Federation's wealth.
Although tens of trillions of iron dollars are nominally paid in war reparations every year, in actual operation, the value of materials paid to the Temuer civilization may exceed one hundred billion iron dollars.
This is naturally very beneficial to the Temuer civilization, but for the Earth Federation, this is tantamount to blood drawing in disguise, and blood must be drawn continuously every year for a full hundred years.
Only a few decades have passed. In Lu Kang's view, if the Earth Federation was once a strong and strong man, then now, after just a few decades of blood drawing, the Earth Federation has become as skinny as a stick and cannot even produce blood.
It is almost impossible to keep up with the blood drawing of the Tiemuer civilization.
"My life was so comfortable before, but now I finally have a taste of the hard times."
Lu Kang looked at the newspaper in his hand. The newspaper was introducing a delicacy, chicken feet. It introduced in detail many ways to make and eat chicken feet. It even spoke highly of chicken feet and compared them to adults.
Delicious.
As a person who has been stationed in the Earth Federation for a long time, Lu Kang knows very well that these people in the Earth Federation did not eat chicken feet a few decades ago.
Things like chicken feet, pig offal, cow hooves, cow heads, etc., these people in the Earth Federation did not eat in the past. They usually made these into scraps, or exported these things to Xinghan.
.
They only eat meat, beef, chicken, fish, etc. They have never eaten those miscellaneous things. One of them thinks these things are unclean, and the other is that they are too lazy to clean them, and they don't know how to cook them.
of.
Of course this is also one of their traditions and habits.
Historically, during the Age of Discovery on Earth, they were rich enough and had no worries about food. Naturally, they would not eat such miscellaneous things. They were even full of contempt for Chinese people eating, thinking that Chinese people would eat anything.
How can they understand how difficult the ancestors of the Chinese people have gone through.
In the era of famine, not to mention eating these things, even tree bark and Guanyin soil were eaten. They were like stubborn weeds, absorbing all nutrients in order to survive.
Being frugal and thrifty are habits developed by our ancestors in the long and hard years. This is especially true when it comes to food. Everything that can be eaten will be made delicious by every possible means. This is how the world-renowned Chinese cuisine was born.
But in the final analysis, it is actually because the ancestors of the Chinese people were poor and miserable. They had no choice but to try their best to survive and fill their stomachs.
Now, the situation here in the Earth Federation is almost the same.
Under the heavy pressure of huge war reparations, the Earth Federation needs to move massive amounts of supplies to the Temuer civilization every year, ship after ship.
From the gold and silver mined from asteroids to rare metals; from the clothes and shoes worn by the Temuer civilization to the grain, fruits, meat, etc. needed for the daily diet of the Temuer civilization, as long as it can be used to pay war reparations
The Earth Federation's priority is to use it to pay war reparations.
Under such a policy, the resources occupied by the people of the Earth Federation have been greatly reduced, and the Earth Federation's population has plummeted because billions of people were plundered from the European planet.
The policy of encouraging and forcing childbearing has not changed at all. In order to restore the population, childbirth is even encouraged and forced. Every household in this country has the same large population as Xinghan.
However, in terms of resources, they are far from meeting the standards of Xinghan, so they will naturally have to live a hard life.
Maybe in the past, people in the Earth Federation only ate chicken breasts when killing a chicken. They didn’t eat chicken feet, wings, necks, offal, etc. They either threw them away directly or used them as fertilizer.
Something like that.
But now, they have to eat these things, because eating chicken has become a relatively luxurious thing for ordinary people.
The huge war reparations are distributed to the enterprises, companies, organizations and individuals of the Earth Federation. Enterprises and companies need to pay an additional tax every year, and this tax is collected to pay for the war reparations.
Individuals also need to pay an additional tax, which the Earth Federation calls "war tax". It is also a special fund used to pay war reparations.
Regardless of whether it is an enterprise, company or individual, this tax is very heavy, accounting for almost one-fifth of the total income. Add in other tax collections, etc. One can imagine the current tax rate here in the Earth Federation.
How heavy the fee is.
But this is not the key point. The key point is that the tax collected also needs to purchase various materials that can be used to pay war reparations. This means that the wealth obtained by the Earth Federation every year must first be used to
After paying war reparations, you can then use it to consider your own expenses in all aspects.
Just like at the end of the Qing Dynasty, huge war indemnities weighed on everyone, and everyone had to pay a few taels of silver in compensation.
A few taels of silver does not matter to the rich, but it is an extremely heavy burden for the people living at the bottom, making the already tight life even more difficult.
The same is true for the Earth Federation at this time.
Because of heavy war reparations, large-scale demonstrations break out every year within the Earth Federation. Angry people even lose their minds. They have lived a good life for hundreds of years, but they have never experienced such hardship.
But no matter what, the war compensation still has to be paid. Unless the Earth Federation feels that it can defeat the Temuer civilization, otherwise, the war compensation will still have to be paid.
Otherwise, the armies of the Temu'er civilization will once again invade the territory in a large scale, and the current Earth Federation is worse than it was during the war decades ago. The space fleet in its hands is only in name only, so how can it arrive.
Therefore, we must be as diligent and frugal as possible, live as frugally as possible, and endure it. In one generation or two generations, after this century, the Earth Federation will be able to relax.
"It's so boring, let's go out for a walk."
Lu Kang sighed slightly. The current Earth Federation no longer had the ambition it had when it first came here. It was like an eggplant beaten by frost, completely dead.
I truly felt the cruelty of the interstellar universe and felt the real pain.
But the Earth Federation is still lucky, it's just war reparations and it's just a cession of territory.
At least the Earth Federation still has sovereignty and is an independent and autonomous entity. Although it is bullied by others, at least it has not destroyed the country and is still continuing.
Compared with the countless civilizations in the interstellar universe that have been completely wiped out, the Earth Federation is at least lucky. They still have opportunities and hope. This is enough.
The burden we are carrying now is nothing compared to the countless civilizations in the interstellar universe. Some entire civilizations have been wiped out and completely disappeared in the long river of history.
Some civilizations, their entire civilizations have been conquered and become interstellar slaves. Generation after generation, they are born slaves, and their descendants will also be slaves. There will be no end.
Some civilizations are subsidiary civilizations of powerful civilizations and need to pay huge amounts of tribute every year without any return or deadline.
Compared to these civilizations, the Earth Federation is really lucky, too much.