Archduke Hall was not a brainless man, having been in charge of the Empire's finances for twenty years, and certainly understood how high energy prices could cost the entire empire's economy.

But now is not a good time to stop the economic damage for the entire empire, after completing the devastating blow to the Sanctuary...... The Empire did not quickly begin to subdue the remaining remnants of the Alliance, as the planners of the Agency had expected, and feast on the monster.

Contrary to their estimates, the use of Project Alpha did not directly destroy the Alliance's will to resist, and their resistance even increased.

After Project Alpha was put into effect, the fleet that was originally directly part of the Sanctuary was not completely wiped out - nearly half of the fleet was on a mission elsewhere at the time.

After paying for the lives of two planets, a quarter of the Alliance's fleet, and hundreds of millions of people on the two planets, the Alliance's people not only did not lose the courage to resist, they were even more "united" than before.

As the armed forces of the Sanctuary, the half of the Sanctuary fleet recognized the status quo very rationally, and then announced that the entire fleet of the Sanctuary would serve the interests of the Alliance - they would not obey the orders of any force, but would fight to the death for the benefit of the entire Alliance.

This "high-sounding" statement was not taken seriously by the other forces of the alliance at first, the Zoige did not like to deal with the Sanctuary fleet, and the Tasbars were not very happy to supply the Sanctuary fleet - the Academy had some ideas, but their support capabilities were difficult to serve all the Sanctuary fleets.

At the same time, the other two colonies of the Sanctuary are still at war - they both believe that they are the only legitimate heirs to inherit the military and political resources of the Sanctuary, and they are constantly issuing orders to the Sanctuary fleet, asking them to quickly participate in their own side and eliminate the "traitors" of the other side.

In the midst of this chaotic situation, an organization called the "People's League" suddenly appeared on the political scene of the League. They have captured two agricultural stars in Ruoergai, one mining star in Tasbar, and also have support from the Academy.

The academy completely stopped the study of phrenology and racial differences, and began to promote a very complex theory of political economy. They call it "dialectical materialism."

If a student of Newsar had somehow arrived at Confederate College, he would have been surprised to find that the "dialectical materialism" proposed by Confederate College was almost identical to the "Dussandism" taught in Newsal's school.

The Academy spoke highly of the People's League, believing that it would be the future and the only way out for the League—a government founded by all the people of the League, for the sake of all the people of the League, in order to safeguard and protect the interests of the League in the face of a powerful enemy, the Empire.

In the history of the League, the College has always been a relatively independent political entity. Before the League functioned as a "nation," the Academy existed in El Salvador's fleet—an institution of scholars on board.

The history of the Academy is almost as old as the Sanctuary, if not older than the Alliance. Over the past few hundred years, the Academy has maintained a close relationship with the Sanctuary, but has also dominated the political, economic, and cultural development of the Confederacy in a relatively independent manner.

Without the Academy, it would be impossible for the Sanctuary to become the dominant player in the entire alliance on its own. Without the Sanctuary, the Academy's power would not be enough to sustain their enormous influence over the League's politics, economy, and culture.

According to imperial estimates, after the collapse of the Sanctuary, the Academy will choose one of the factions to attach to either Zoige or Tasbar, and no matter which side the Academy chooses, the other side will start a civil war to try to seize power.

When one of the parties is clearly weak, the Empire can take the opportunity to step in to support the weaker side. As long as you jump back and forth a few times, the strength of the alliance can be basically wiped out in a civil war.

But...... The Academy's move really caught the empire off guard. The empire really didn't expect that the academy would suddenly launch a brand new force to support it. What they didn't expect was that the People's League had such a strong appeal within the League.

According to the Imperial Intelligence Service, Tasbar has announced that it will stop its attack on the Awami League, and that they will hold peaceful political negotiations with the Awami League in an effort to resolve the contradictions between the two sides through peaceful means.

Zoige, which focuses on agriculture, does not have such a "pattern", after all, the People's League "made its fortune" from their colonial star, and the planet it occupies is also dominated by the agricultural star of Zoige. The development and growth of the People's League poses the greatest threat to Zoige.

What makes people feel even more unbelievable is the attitude of the Sanctuary Fleet. They sent an envoy directly to Zoi, and then announced the decision of the fleet.

The fleet would provide protection to the People's League to ensure that "the war heroes and other allies of the League would not die at the hands of their compatriots," and then put forward a proposal to invite the Grand Governor of Zoige and the Secretary of the People's League to negotiate peace, using the floating fleet as the place for negotiations.

In such a situation of serious imbalance of power between the two sides, this seemingly fair move of the Sanctuary Fleet is essentially pulling the shelf. After all, it is impossible for the People's League to have the possibility of a large-scale attack on Ruoergai to prevent the two sides from fighting, which is essentially protecting the People's League.

The tendencies of the Sanctuary fleet can also be seen in this, as they do believe that the People's League is a better choice than Zoige and Tasbar to become the dominant political faction within the League.

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Grand Duke Hall had a headache, a very headache. The emergence of the People's League completely disrupted the arrangements of the organs for the League. Ever since the Sanctuary and the Academy teamed up to forge a national consensus through phrenological and racial differences, the alliance had begun to spiral out of control.

Project Alpha is the Empire's ultimate means of controlling the Alliance, and it is a safety line to ensure that the Alliance, a foreign enemy, does not actually pose a mortal threat to the Empire. The loose structure of political alliances within the alliance is itself an important means for the empire to ensure that the alliance does not pose a danger to the empire.

Now, the final means don't work very well, and the important ones seem to be completely shattered. Archduke Hall had to begin to seriously deal with the threat of the Alliance, and began to arrange the corresponding financial expenditures.

But the problem is that in a short period of time, the empire will not be able to come up with so many gold pounds to continue to strengthen its armament. In fact, it was very difficult for the empire to maintain even the current size of its navy.

Naval equipment is expensive, and they need to ensure that ships can continue to function in the harsh working conditions of deep space jumps.

A normal maintenance of equipment and the replacement of faulty parts on a capital ship costs at least 300,000 gold pounds and consumes at least two months of maintenance at a shipyard.

If the budget for building ships is to be increased temporarily, it will be necessary to arrange new ships of the same size for at least four Royal Guard fleets. The garrison navy can use the remaining old ships of the Guards Navy, but the equipment of the Royal Guards must not be sloppy - the commanders of these fleets are committed to "strengthening themselves". It's as if the purpose of their existence is to beg for resources for their fleet.

The slightest bit of unfairness will cause an outcry or even a backlash from other fleets. It is not uncommon for those cunning fleet commanders to instruct young officers to come to the door of the Treasury Hall to make trouble.

At this time, the large sum of cash that Schultz suddenly sent became a good thing that could really make Grand Duke Hall's blood pressure go down. He even did not hesitate to extort a little more and get a lot of extra cash. As for the rise in fuel prices...... Grand Duke Hall really didn't really care.

After all, the empire still has mining complexes, and some of the planets that are not suitable for colonization also have coal deposits. Even if the coal mines of the local aristocracy were expensive, the mining complexes would be able to supply the Imperial Navy and military factories with coal at a sufficient price.

Since energy prices do not affect the military industry, there is nothing to worry about.

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Archduke Hall was not worried about rising coal prices, while Dussand, far away in Newsal, was troubled by the rising prices of another important product.

The smugglers are a bunch of greedy bastards, and they are the most loyal lackeys of capital in the world. As long as they can make money, smugglers never care what they are transporting, and they don't mind that their smuggling will cause serious damage to their old customers and even their compatriots on the same planet.

The relative stability of food prices in Newsart was the result of countless days and nights of insomnia and repeated negotiations. In order to ensure that the Nyusar people, who were still expanding their arable land, would not starve to death, Dussart even "pioneered" the creation of a special exemption decree.

As long as more than 90% of the volume in the hold of the ship carries food, and is ready to unload the "trading ship" in Newsar, it can receive free supply and maintenance services from the Newsar Starland Landing Site. At the same time, all merchandise in the hold of the ship is exempt from tax, and the tax on reloaded goods is levied at one-third of the original schedule.

With this kind of "support", a large number of smuggling ships gathered in Newsar, and brought a large share of Newsar's food imports - the total share was about half of the support given by the Star Sea Federation.

As the time ticked for August, the number of smuggling ships willing to run to Newsar quickly dwindled after the Olin Development Bank began to raise coal prices like crazy. Most of them chose to go to the allied Tasbar to load coal and transport it to Olin for sale. The price of Olin coal is so high that even if it is a normal customs declaration and transportation, the profit is as high as that of smuggling luxury goods.

The most immediate consequence of the rapid decline in food imports is the rise in food prices – the price of meat and condiments has risen by 30% in the past month. Among the 12 types of meat commonly available in the market, the price of all meats has risen dramatically, except for the price of ballfish, which has remained stable.

The fastest price increases were in beef and pork, which saw an average price increase of 60%.

Unlike Archduke Hall, Dussander believed in the phrase "food for the people" as a creed in life. In order to curb the rapidly rising food prices, Dussander even considered using the KPA's strategic food reserves. But then I thought that those dried sawdust-like corned beef probably wouldn't be liked by civilians, so I reluctantly gave up.

In its place, Dussand's order to the expeditionary fleet and a letter to the Confederate Academy were the solution.

The order ordered the expeditionary fleet to quickly suspend or terminate military operations in Saxony and immediately go to Bomir to investigate. As the Empire's famous agricultural star, despite the planned slaughter of the Confederates, Bomir should still have a large reserve of food. If Bomir is accepted, perhaps the food shortage in Newsar can be significantly alleviated.

"Rebirth: The Great Age of Waves"

The letter was addressed to Fern von Steinberg. In the letter, Dussander asked his friend to advance the grain deal plan for the Awami League and Newsal a month earlier, in exchange for giving the design of the gas internal combustion engine to the Awami League.