Chapter 299: Human Conflict_1
According to the agreement, the PDC first made the initial payment to the Solar System State, which then publicly disclosed the course of the Starship Fleet. Soon after, the Linge-Fitzroy telescope observed the Starship Fleet in mid-course adjustment.
Subsequently, as per the agreement, Fleet International paid Jiang Yu the second installment.
Jiang Yu then returned all the "requisitioned" and "borrowed" properties of the PDC and Fleet International in full.
The process was lengthy, leading Jiang Yu to stay in Guanghan City for a few days. He brought along a group of physics professors, as well as the hibernating Yang Dong and Rediaz, and returned to Jupiter together.
Guanghan City was extremely crowded those days. Fortunately, when Jiang Yu had just reclaimed his power, he relocated a batch of residents from Yinghuo City and Guanghan City to Jupiter in advance, to secure his ruling foundation.
Otherwise, Yinghuo City and Guanghan City would have been even more congested by now.
The population of these two cities was mostly made up of "immigrants" and it would take about two years for the cities to return to their normal population size.
It wasn't until Jiang Yu was about to return to Jupiter that the process of returning the property to the PDC and Fleet International finally came to an end.
Fleet International's warships and fortresses were all returned. However, to transport the "immigrants," the Solar System State had to rent the majority of planetary spaceships for a while.
In addition, Yinghuo City and Guanghan City simply couldn't accommodate the immense population. Therefore, the Solar System State only returned the sovereignty of PDC Lunar City and Mars City.
The people inside were not yet evacuated, and the Solar System State would continue to rent these cities for some time.
With a sharp reduction in Fleet International's population, they wouldn't need so many passenger spaceships. Moreover, the PDC couldn't immediately fill Mars City and Moon City with their power, so they were also happy to lease these assets to the Solar System State.
According to the agreement, once the property handover was clear, the PDC and Fleet International were supposed to make a payment to the Solar System State.
However, due to lingering issues from the Solar System State's previous large-scale immigration plan, PDC and Fleet International brought up the matter again, necessitating a renegotiation of the property return agreement, thus causing the delay.
Regarding the nearly two hundred million people swindled from the PDC, the PDC didn't make a fuss about it. After all, for them, population had become a massive burden.
If Jiang Yu wished, the PDC could provide another billion people to the Solar System State.
But Jiang Yu did not want them. The people who had protested at Desert North Farm, Yinghuo City, and Guanghan City were either still ready to act on their outrage or still possessed the desire to survive. These people still had hope.
As for the billion docile citizens that PDC could offer to Jiang Yu, the Solar System State had no place to accommodate them right now, nor the resources to involve them in colonizing the Solar System.
The two hundred million civilians could be dismissed, but the PDC requested the Solar System State to release thirty-two offspring of the wealthy families who had protested at Desert North Farm. To avoid stirring public outrage, the PDC's negotiators asked for this discreetly.
That request was not excessive, and Jiang Yu immediately dispatched personnel to locate the offspring of the wealthy families on the list.
In just over six hours, the current status of these wealthy offsprings was reported back to Jiang Yu.
To Jiang Yu's surprise, these offspring of the wealthy families were among the first to have an awakening.
Now, two of them owned small farms in Desert North Farm, eight had become grassroots leaders in the development of the Desert North Farm.
Moreover, sixteen had performed very well on Saturn and Uranus and were now grassroots leaders of the construction teams.
Out of these twenty-six individuals, seven had already married and were living contentedly.
Jiang Yu let them choose whether to return or stay in the Solar System State.
Aside from the six who were not doing very well, the rest were willing to stay in the Solar System State.
Everything they had was earned through their own efforts, which made it especially precious in their eyes.
Originally, Jiang Yu planned to grant official citizenship after these immigrants had worked for six years or more.
However, Jiang Yu provided the twenty-six wealthy offspring who chose to stay with Solar System State citizenship ahead of schedule and also granted citizenship to a group of "immigrants" who had been outstanding in their performance.
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Those who had the chance to become junior leaders all relied on Jiang Yu's immigration strategy: they were all citizens of the Solar System State in terms of personality, but their personal freedom needed to be restricted.
The people of the Solar System State had all the rights they should possess, the only difference being that, to prevent them from running away, they needed to be watched.
However, so far, Jiang Yu could only accept them for bottom-level positions. Once this group further integrated and developed a sense of belonging to the Solar System State, it would not be late to promote them.
The PDC representatives were somewhat surprised to learn that twenty-six people were unwilling to return.
The Solar System State had thoughtfully recorded a video for each of them, explaining their reasons for not wanting to return.
After watching a few videos, the PDC representatives darkly said they would transfer the funds to the Solar System State according to the agreement.
Some of the more polite videos stated that they had found their ideals in the Solar System State, while the less polite ones cursed the filth and darkness within the financial families.
Governing Council officials like Tao Yue only learned from these videos of the uneven distribution of resources among the scions of the consortia.
The excellent ones could receive almost all the resources, while the losers wound up as slaves or were forced to leave home to make their way on their own—at best. Most of the consortia's children were raised like pigs.
To prevent these losers from making a comeback and affecting their own status, the victors imposed strict control over them.
Many losers didn't have a penny to their name, relying solely on their families to survive, and even their social interactions were restricted.
As for Fleet International, they demanded that the Solar System State return the people they had been tricked into giving up, along with their property.
How could that be agreed to?
Seeing that Fleet International was itching for trouble, Ai Qi suggested taking the fleet for another spin around their military fortress.
Even though the fortress and warships had been returned, the armed forces of the Solar System State still maintained an absolute advantage.
Jiang Yu did not agree with Ai Qi's approach, asserting that one should act boldly when necessary, but now that the order of the human world had been fully restored, it was not the time for recklessness.
After much consideration, Jiang Yu had the Solar System State's negotiators contact Fleet International's representatives privately and expressed willingness to decrease the amount of that batch of payments.
Jiang Yu's move was a mere probe, but Fleet International immediately began to bargain.
Eventually, Fleet International only paid seventy percent of this round's funds and also secured a large deal for industrial robots with the Solar System State.
This left Jiang Yu and the others somewhat speechless, wondering if they had simply wanted to default on the payment. Why not just say so directly instead of making those threatening statements?
The most speechless of all was the Solar System State's negotiation delegate, who thought, If you want to pay less, just give us a hint, will you? Not even a hint, how do you expect to continue these grim discussions happily?
Actually, Fleet International wasn't foolish; those people had already been swallowed up by Jiang Yu, so how could they possibly be spat out again?
Taking advantage of these people to write off some of the debt was a concrete benefit.
Only the last eleven hundred billion remained to be paid to the Solar System State after the Starship Fleet returned to Jupiter.
Upon returning to Jupiter, Jiang Yu first settled Yang Dong and Rediaz's hibernation chambers.
Then, with utmost speed, he established Lunar University, with the main campus now situated in Jupiter City and the original Lunar University becoming a branch campus.
Simultaneously, Sophon provided Earth with its first batch of theories and technology.
Jiang Yu tasked groups from Lunar University and Mars University, known for its applied technology, to review the knowledge provided by Sophon.
This technology review group was to be permanent, maintaining constant vigilance over the Trisolarians' theories and technology.
The day after the group was established, they reported to Jiang Yu: the theories and technology provided by the Trisolarians had already been mastered by the Solar System State.
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