After washing the ship, Gu Hang, slightly fatigued, realized it wasn't ti to rest yet.
He still had a lot of work to do.
The Alliance was preparing for war.
In fact, Kedoba's previous glimpse into the Alliance's situation had been an eye-opener, leading to a ntality shift from believing the Alliance had already done its best to thinking that the Alliance hadn't tried hard at all. These thoughts were not entirely accurate.
At the very least, they were one-sided.
The Alliance, of course, had not given its all; otherwise, the Land Force troops on the front lines wouldn't be able to take turns resting and sending new troops to fight in the Temir Star System as circumstances allowed.
The Alliance Supre Command called this the "Temir Rotational Battle," which was essentially substituting training with actual combat, directly exposing soldiers to the battlefield atmosphere and engaging them in personal combat.
This would naturally result in more casualties than using veteran soldiers, but it was an inevitable path.
After the rotational battles, there was a clear increase in the combat effectiveness of the Alliance's various land armies. Even so newly ford troops, which had a relatively small proportion of soldiers trained by the "Soldier Token" system, saw a rapid increase in the ratio of T5-grade soldiers after being seasoned by combat on the battlefield.
Another indication was exactly what Kedoba had thought: if the Alliance had truly mobilized for war to the fullest, it wouldn't be possible for people living on the peripheries of its power to still enjoy a decent life.
Although, in many places within the Border Horse Sector, the annual consumption per capita was only around 0.6 Tax Currency, which wasn't considered high. Compared to the Alliance Core Region, it really isn't much; but looking at the broader context of the entire Empire, a citizen being able to spend 0.6 Tax Currency a year on energy, food, industrial goods, housing... all material goods combined, is already quite impressive.
Within the Empire, many worlds have lower-class citizens living in dire straits.
The Alliance was still investing resources, undertaking basic investnts and developnts in various planets, seeking greater returns in the future.
However, if the war situation truly beca dire and the Alliance issued a second or even first-grade mobilization order, the standard of living for the populace would definitely be compromised. Yet at the sa ti, the Alliance under extre duress would unleash a far more terrifying war potential than it currently had.
The number of troops and the production capacity for military goods would increase exponentially.
But the Alliance wasn't actually not trying at all. From certain perspectives, the Alliance was indeed doing its best.
After all, a third-grade mobilization order was always active.
The difference lay in the fact that under a third-grade mobilization order, the Alliance wasn't lacking in personnel or conventional resources. On the Eastern Front Battlefields against the Iron-Tooth Clan, the Alliance even had a surplus.
So what was the Alliance lacking?
It was cutting-edge equipnt.
Such as the Land Force's tanks, cha, even the Titan, and Warships.
And these could not be obtained by squeezing civilians and workers.
What was the Alliance's thod for obtaining this high-end equipnt?
It was the Black Box.
Of course, for each technology, aside from Black Boxes that directly produce finished products/components, there were master Black Boxes that could produce the production lines/key components necessary to make these products.
But this also ant that if there was a technology the Alliance didn't fully understand, then without the master Black Box, the Alliance would not be able to expand the production capacity of that product.
This was the case with many of the Empire's lost technologies: the capacity to produce them was fixed and could not be expanded.
Of course, Black Boxes could not be lost. However, even when Black Boxes were available, the expansion of most high-end production lines could only rely on the incrental output from master Black Boxes. The Alliance couldn't build these production lines on its own.
This ant that the rate at which the Alliance could expand its high-end equipnt was limited by the output capacity of the master Black Box. Even if Gu Hang squeezed the civilians dry, it wouldn't help; the factories producing Titans and the Starship Dockyards were already running at full efficiency and couldn't fit any more workers. New factories and dockyards had to wait for Black Box production, and having workers on hand wouldn't be of assistance.
This was the most important reason Gu Hang didn't resort to squeezing.
Extracting excessive labor from civilians could yield more troops, food, and basic industrial goods. But the advanced equipnt that the Alliance needed most wouldn't increase at all. The Alliance didn't lack the forr; it was the latter that was in short supply.
It made more sense to use the resources for local planet construction and improving the standard of living of civilians. The forr was an investnt for higher future inco, while the latter was necessary to stabilize local societies and gain broad public support.
Of course, not every technology extracted from the system had this issue.
So technologies with low tech content and foundational nature had already been mastered by the Alliance. Even if the Black Box vanished, it wouldn't affect production, and the Alliance could still proceed and expand capacity.
For instance, the G Series Rifle, the LR Series Laser Gun, the Strider Combat Vehicle... and even recently, technologies like the Lion Tank, Windfalcon Fighters, Sentry cha, powered Exoskeletons, and Flying Pig Transport Ships had been mastered by the Alliance.
But, with high-end technologies, the Alliance was sowhat lacking.
Technologies like the Lion King Tank, Knight cha, Titan, and various Warships were not yet fully understood.
However, there were two sides to this as well.
Mastering these high-grade technologies was very difficult and required a long ti. After all, even though the Black Box granted the Alliance such technologies, it could not completely fill all the industrial foundations the Alliance needed.
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