Chapter 279: All Powers Can Be Harnessed_1

Jiang Yu sat down in his office aboard the spacecraft, lit a cigarette, and after two puffs, he turned to Number Three and asked, "No oversights?"

This spaceship, a "Space Palace" custom-built for him, had an exceedingly spacious office.

Of course, the money used to construct this spaceship all came from conglomerates.

Number Three replied, "There shouldn't be."

He paused before adding, "Actually, we could have secretly eliminated them all; there was no need for such a fuss.

"Today's military won't question your orders. Even if you command them to kill humans, they will carry it out."

Jiang Yu put out his cigarette, "One must always think about the long term. When it comes to killing—and especially killing the wealthy—it's best not to get our own hands dirty.

"In two or three years, the Solar System State will have to ease its relations with the PDC and the three major fleets.

"If we strike directly at the magnates, it's tantamount to making enemies with the entire human world.

"With the blood of the capitalists on our hands, it turns into a struggle of ideologies, and the conflict becomes irreconcilable.

"The PDC and Fleet International would see us as true enemies, and it's not like they would turn a blind eye just for some benefits.

"There's that saying again, only by entangling our interests with theirs can we use the power of capital to influence the whole human world.

"The power of capital is detestable, but their nature of seeking profit above all can be exploited by us!"

At this point, Jiang Yu sighed, "We still need the power of capital to back us up now!"

The Governing Council had calculated many times that the construction of the outer planets required a lot of money. The suddenly increased population of 250 million wouldn't generate much value for a while, and Jiang Yu's other two plans would also cost a lot.

If Jiang Yu hadn't fiercely shorn the conglomerates, the financial situation of the Solar System State would have collapsed long ago!

Now, the Solar System State simply did not have the power to control the entire human world.

Apart from the severe lack of finances, there were too few mature administrative personnel, and while the military might now allow the Solar System State to eradicate the PDC and Fleet International's administrative mechanisms,

what then? Without effective management, it would only result in chaos and death, and in the end, humanity would tread the old path once more.

After all, the power of capital is like weeds that sprout anew with the spring breeze; wherever there are people, there will be the shadow of capital.

It's impossible to eradicate through killing; it can only be curbed through control, limiting its growth!

Moreover, even if he had the ability, Jiang Yu wasn't planning on controlling the entire world at this moment, because then all the ideological conflicts would turn into internal struggles.

High-pressure politics would suffocate society, thereby losing creativity and the drive for progress.

If the policies were too lenient, it would foster the rise of a profiteering class. And when it came time to clean them out, he would find that this class was deeply entrenched, making removing them as painful as cutting one's own flesh.

The grand unification of humanity wasn't necessarily a good thing; at least not yet. Jiang Yu had not found the right opportunity for unification, and people weren't psychologically ready for it.

Jiang Yu even considered the possibility of an artificial separation of humankind in the future, not wanting to put all eggs in one basket.

At this thought, Jiang Yu forcibly pulled his mind back. Now was not the time to consider these issues.

He reminded Number Three, "Don't be influenced by modern values. In the era I was born in, humanity never ceased its localized wars with itself.

"On the battlefields of that time, soldiers did not think of killing as an unforgivable sin. On the contrary, the more they killed, the greater their merit.

"The Trisolarans took away all of humanity's hatred, allowing a period of peace.

"Many people then shamelessly touted the progress of human nature. What progress, I ask? The current idea of universal love is nothing more than a tool of the ruling class!

"You have just seen those corpulent conglomerates. They've never regarded ordinary people as human beings. When talking about human rights and universal love, where were these notions when they fled?

"And those big shots in the conglomerates doing dirty deeds; you must know a thing or two.

"There are bigwigs with villas on private islands full of child prostitutes; some have committed appalling crimes but escaped the reach of the law, and there is..."

Jiang Yu sighed, "Ah, these people really push human indecency to the extreme!"

Number Three nodded, "Sometimes I also feel that this is indeed a strange era."

"Not surprising at all!" Jiang Yu said, "When I was in school, similar incidents happened in the Western countries.

"They glorified competition and encouraged it, but lacked control until the poor became poorer and the rich richer. Still, they had no effective control, and things went south."

Number Three said, "No matter what, that was the choice of the people."

"Most people don't really have a choice; those choices are made for them by others," Jiang Yu said. "Enough of that, focus on the situation at the temporary dock."

The organization skills of the consortiums were much inferior to those of Jiang Yu; whereas Jiang Yu had departed five days earlier, they had only just boarded their ships.

Some bade farewell to the Solar System with genuine emotion, others with a playful smile, and yet others with schadenfreude.

After a grand farewell ceremony, the twenty spaceships prepared by Jiang Yu finally set off one after another.

On these twenty spaceships, there were one-third of the representatives from PDC, half of the mid-to-senior officials from Fleet International, and the chairmen of the top twenty enterprises among the world's strongest five hundred.

Initially, there had been five enterprises from the Solar System State amongst the top twenty, but all were nationalized or divided by Jiang Yu.

The current top twenty enterprises all came from PDC and Fleet International.

In short, there were many VIPs on these twenty spaceships, and even more people of significant but not extreme importance who were attached to these VIPs.

Their mood at embarking was as if being reborn, filled with joy as they set sail.

In the spirit of this new life, they held banquets for three consecutive days to celebrate profusely!

But what they didn't know was that, as soon as their ships had departed, the temporary docks and all factories for the interstellar spaceships received an order from Jiang Yu: All personnel were to withdraw to Fort Number Six.

Fort Number Six was originally a military stronghold of the European Fleet, and later commandeered by Jiang Yu. It had been left empty just to accommodate these individuals and temporarily seal off any information.

Then Jiang Yu issued an announcement: A group of politicians and financial world celebrities, disregarding the basic moral principles of humanity, were fleeing the Solar System from the Jupiter Circle aboard spaceships!

Below is the list of those fleeing!

Once the announcement was released, the entire human world was shocked. Soon, more and more confirmations arose, and those on the list had indeed taken leaves of absence for various reasons, essentially disappearing.

The human world, which had just quieted down, immediately boiled over again.

The VIPs on those twenty spaceships were completely baffled by Jiang Yu's maneuver; if we're all fleeing together, where do you get off being any better?

A few VIPs jointly exposed that Jiang Yu had also fled aboard a spaceship.

However, Jiang Yu promptly published detailed information about the spaceship he was on; the five spaceships that took off with him were newly designed large planetary-class ships that simply didn't possess interstellar travel capability!

Everyone first waited quietly for the VIPs to speak again, but then there was no further news from them.

It was clear they had resolved to flee! Such an escape plan was intolerable to everyone, and the public demanded Fleet International give chase.

Under public pressure, PDC once again legislated defining escapism as a crime against humanity!

Just as PDC, Fleet International, and Solar System State were discussing whether to send warships to pursue, Number Two The Waterdrop roared in, destroying all the interstellar spaceship industrial cities in the "Jupiter Circle."

This indicated that humanity would not have the capability to produce interstellar spaceships for the next five years!

Subsequently, "The Waterdrop" again distanced itself and disappeared without a trace.

Three hours later, according to reliable information from a cargo spaceship, the course of the twenty fleeing interstellar spaceships happened to be in the direction from which Number Two The Waterdrop had come.

Those twenty spaceships were likely destroyed by Number Two The Waterdrop!

Fleet International immediately dispatched smaller ships to investigate, and indeed, along the course of the twenty spaceships, they found a large amount of wreckage and confirmed the failure of the escape.

Thus, everyone spread the word, saying these people met with good, fitting ends; they got what they deserved, that it was divine justice!

Only a minority thought that this matter had to be connected with Jiang Yu!

The incredibly small number who knew Jiang Yu's escape plan, but chose not to flee, broke out in cold sweats: they had almost been killed by Jiang Yu, without even the time to leave last words!

Yet they didn't dare disclose what they knew because that was considered escapism, which could lead to severe punishment; the key was they had reached a consensus: Jiang Yu was not to be provoked!