Chapter 278: New Escape Plan_1

Regarding the escape plan, Jiang Yu did not implement it with great fanfare.

When the Great Migration plan had attracted most people's attention, Jiang Yu relocated the industrial cities and space docks involved in the production of interstellar spacecraft to the outer edges of the Jupiter Circle, citing vulnerability to attacks from "The Waterdrop" and the need to free up enough space for newly built space factories.

At the same time, Jiang Yu assigned the surplus labor force to clean up the debris left by the abandoned parts of Jupiter City.

So far, the destroyed quarter of Jupiter City had formed a metal ring around Jupiter.

This ring still contained a large number of bodies of the victims, as well as metal fragments.

Even if Jiang Yu had little respect for modern people, he would not let his compatriots be "abandoned as corpses in the wilderness."

Many criticized Jiang Yu's actions after gaining political power as inhumane, but nobody mentioned the task of collecting the bodies of these several million compatriots.

Furthermore, those metal fragments constantly floating in the Jupiter Orbit posed a great danger.

The rings naturally formed by Jupiter were mostly composed of dust and black rocks, and most spacecraft hulls could virtually ignore the impact of these rocks.

But metal fragments were different; they were almost as hard as the spacecraft hulls and moved at great velocity, easily capable of smashing through a spacecraft.

Therefore, if one wanted to continue operating in the "Jupiter Circle", the wreckage of Jupiter City had to be thoroughly cleaned up.

However, recently everyone had first been terrified by the Trisolarans, and then bewildered by Jiang Yu's disruptive actions, and no one paid any attention to those metal fragments.

Jiang Yu took advantage of the ample labor force at his disposal and began this tedious engineering task.

Moreover, by bringing this up at this time, Jiang Yu's main intent was to remind everyone of the nightmare of being attacked by "The Waterdrop".

At the same time, he gained everyone's support for his decision to send those interstellar spacecraft factories to the periphery of the "Jupiter Circle", to spare them from further harm.

Consequently, these factories, along with the ten newly built interstellar warships, were unobtrusively nudged by tugs into inconspicuous corners.

At least from places like Jupiter City, they were invisible to the naked eye.

What Jiang Yu did not tell everyone was that these factories had not stopped for a moment; they were continuously producing new interstellar spacecraft.

The new spacecraft, after undergoing a simple modification that removed some weapon systems, significantly relieved the energy system's pressure.

Compared to the previous warships, they could carry several hundred more people.

Not until Number Three brought back hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers from Uranus to Jupiter did Jiang Yu's military government gain further strength.

Aside from a few loyalists like Gu Cheng and Ai De, nearly all of these hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers were absorbed into various departments, making the Solar System State the military hegemon of the human world.

Number Three's return allowed Jiang Yu to start a new escape plan in earnest.

When it came to secrecy, Jiang Yu was never ambiguous; regarding the selection of personnel for the new escape plan, even Ai Qi and Tao Yue were kept in the dark.

Jiang Yu entrusted Number Three with this task and repeatedly urged him to maintain confidentiality.

Nowadays, the only people Jiang Yu could completely trust were "old-timers" like Number Three, Jiang Shiliu, Thirty-Six, and others.

It wasn't that Ai Qi and Tao Yue's loyalty to the Wallfacer was insufficient; it was that Jiang Yu felt his value system was markedly different from theirs.

For example, if modern people like Ai Qi were to implement the escape plan, they would certainly not accept a scenario where some people fled while others were left to die.

But if it were left to someone tested by time like Number Three, he wouldn't ponder so much and would earnestly complete the task Jiang Yu assigned, without caring about whether it was moral or not—that was all nonsense.

Thus, the Great Migration plan could be entrusted to Ai Qi and others, but the escape plan had to be kept secret from them as well.

In about half a month, Number Three carefully selected twenty thousand resolute individuals and quietly transferred them to Jiang Yu's guard.

Some time ago, Jiang Yu used ten interstellar warships as bait and announced his escape plan with much fanfare, leading to multiple assassination attempts against him.

From that time on, Jiang Yu's guards became very sizable.

No one paid attention to whether his guards had become even more sizable.

Then, when Jiang Yu took his guards to inspect the Jupiter Circle, he crammed twenty thousand people into the interstellar warships as swiftly as lightning, without giving anyone time to cover their ears.

And informed them that their new mission was to pilot the warships to other star systems to blaze a trail for a new world.

There was no time to say goodbye to their families, no time for any mental preparation; they had to leave immediately.

Jiang Yu had prepared ample supplies for them, enough to sustain a journey of about ten light-years.

Jiang Yu ordered them not to accelerate at full throttle immediately but to exit Jupiter's gravity with a normal acceleration process.

Since a large number of spacecraft had been departing from Jupiter recently, the sudden appearance of ten more light points wouldn't attract any attention.

Only after traveling a sufficient distance did they each accelerate and head for two different stars.

Jiang Yu numbered them as the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Fleets.

These two fleets were different from the previous sixteen; they were well prepared and resolute, and unlike the other fleets, there was no element of coercion involved.

All the supplies and construction costs for these two starship fleets were funded by the consortia.

Jiang Yu really didn't show any courtesy with their funding; the various facilities onboard these ten interstellar ships were much better than those of regular warships.

Bai Pingjun and Ai Wei joined Jiang Yu to see off the ten interstellar warships discreetly. It was precisely because Jiang Yu didn't show the slightest intention of running that they began to tentatively trust his plan.

From then on, the consortia no longer questioned the funds allocated to Jiang Yu and almost gave him whatever amount he asked for, and gave it readily.

In the Crisis Era, November of Year 205, four months after the battle at Uranus unfolded, the grand migration plan was still underway in full swing when Jiang Yu suddenly announced his intention to inspect operations on Saturn.

Meanwhile, the tycoons preparing to escape discreetly arrived at the outskirts of the Jupiter Circle.

At this temporary dock, as the captains disembarked from their private spacecraft and saw Jiang Yu chatting jovially with a few influential figures, they felt very reassured.

The twenty spacecraft they were about to embark on had been thoroughly checked by specialists multiple times, with performance and equipment in perfect condition.

Especially since the ample supplies they were to carry would allow them to continue living a life of high quality onboard the ships.

Only those interested in seeing the new world would choose to hibernate, while those uninterested in the new world were prepared to spend the rest of their lives carefree on the ships.

Jiang Yu had no intention of heading in the same direction as them, which again eased the minds of the consortia representatives.

In their eyes, Jiang Yu was like a malevolent wolf; having him close by was very dangerous.

When the representatives learned that Jiang Yu would depart three days earlier than them, they nearly let go of all their wariness.

If Jiang Yu had forced them to go first, they would have feared he was using them as cannon fodder.

But with Jiang Yu leaving first, it proved that it was indeed a "window of opportunity" now, and departing at this point was very safe.

After paying lip service to the consortium representatives, Jiang Yu bid farewell to them.

Before boarding the warship, he looked indifferently at the consortium members who were dragging their families to the dock, including the elderly with snow-white hair, the lady's pet dogs, and the lovers or male favorites of the wealthy executives.

Jiang Yu sneered in his heart, "To blaze a trail for a new world, one really does "need" the elderly, pet dogs, and those who are as helpless as chicks!"

With this thought, Jiang Yu boarded the spaceship without looking back.