Chapter 1062: Additional Conditions

Additional Conditions. In mid-April, a short coup broke out in Dantela. A small group of people tried to end the cruel political cleansing and infighting in the country by assassinating the president.

However, it's a pity that the gunman's bullet only missed by one centimeter, flying past the president's scalp. The shooting made the president's face full of blood at that time, and everyone thought he was finished, but a miracle happened subsequently.

The doctor indicated that he only had a scalp contusion and opened a cut, and the blood flowed more, but it was not fatal.

Immediately after, the president summoned the generals of the military. Accompanied by the end of the two-hour negotiation, the entire Dantela domestic began to arrest the party members of the Second Party.

The presidential palace claimed that these people were suspected of assassinating the president and treason.

In order to gain the trust of the people, the presidential palace also produced multiple pieces of evidence. These pieces of evidence appeared in front of people through various newspapers and other ways.

Looking at the true and false evidence, the domestic political cleansing gradually reached its peak.

During this period, Federal newspapers were almost reporting on Dantela. Many commentators agreed that the war was coming to an end, and the atmosphere in the whole country began to turn for the better.

In the following week, constant news came that under the promotion of the Dantela president, a multi-party negotiation on the ceasefire was held in New Jincheng, led by the Federal government, to discuss specific details on ending the war.

Many people thought this would be a difficult negotiation, but in reality, what should have been discussed had already been discussed, and the rest was just going through the motions or solving some less important additional problems.

Lan Si was dealing with the negotiation problem between the Lapa Provisional Government and the Federal government these days. It sounds unbelievable that the Lapa Provisional Government decided to hire a large number of Federal officials to help the Lapa government complete the transition from a "dictatorial" to a "free and democratic" government.

In this process, in order to strive for this goal, and to let the spring breeze of freedom and democracy blow toward Lapa, the entire government structure was dominated by Federal officials in the early stage.

Although a few people thought about whether this practice had some unpredictable risks, for example, Federal officials controlled the Palapa government, would it become an actual takeover, and would the sovereignty of Lapa change? These worries didn't cause much social public opinion in the end. On one hand, Lapa was just a small country, even if many Federal newspapers had reported on the situation of Xiang Yalan and those countries on that land.

But nearly half of the Federal people still had no impression of the word "Lapa." They didn't know whether "Lapa" was a commodity, a country, a region, a person, or something else.

Naturally, these discussions couldn't form a trend within the Federation, so they didn't cause greater influence. 【1062-

However, the impact it has caused within the Alliance is significant.

Lanse returned to his villa in New Jincheng from the Congress side, and Ambassador Kasiya's call came through: "Lanse, I have some friends here who would like to meet you."

Ambassador Kasiya's current status and position are a bit awkward; once the bilateral cooperation negotiations are completed, the importance of his role as ambassador will drop sharply.

In the past, he might have felt that he was only losing a job, but after living in the Federation for a long time, he has already realized the severity of this crisis.

This is not as simple as losing a job; he will lose his generous income and comfortable living environment, and most importantly—he will lose his current status! Back in Lapa, he didn't care much about what he did, as ninety-five percent of the final benefits would fall into the hands of the ruling group anyway.

Someone like him, without a prominent surname and not belonging to any special ethnic group, could only be part of the underclass.

Don't look at him as an official in Lapa; in reality, he lived only slightly better than Lapa's middle class.

But in the Federation, it is different.

This developed capitalist society of the Federation possesses the ability to monetize anything, including status.

Likewise, status has brought him the respect he deserves; people respect him because he is a foreign diplomatic ambassador, and by virtue of this respect, he has obtained privileges.

Once people have stayed in such a highly capitalized and market-oriented society for a long time, and have enjoyed the various conveniences brought by this social status, it is very difficult for them to leave it.

Now, whenever Ambassador Kasiya thinks that he might soon be unemployed, he becomes quite anxious.

Unemployment means he will be unable to obtain more income to maintain his current family expenses; his children are all studying in those private schools that bear the name "International."

The tuition for each semester is a staggering figure, and it's not just about having money to attend—one must also have status.

Having money alone is not enough to get into his children's school; beyond that, their daily living expenses are also not a small sum.

Every month, the bills sent to him by banks, the community, and various cooperative commercial institutions total about five or six hundred dollars; just this expense alone makes him feel very uncomfortable and difficult to manage.

If he wants to reduce this expenditure, then his family must move out of their current villa and sell it, moving into an ordinary house.

However, his parents, wife, and children have already grown accustomed to their current life; if he suddenly makes them return to that kind of impoverished life, he worries about whether problems will arise for his family.

Therefore, for the current Ambassador Kasiya, what he focuses on is how to enhance his own value, allowing himself to gain more attention to maintain a more stable life.

When a young woman who sells her charms reaches an age where she can no longer sell them, but still has a need for money, what should she do? It's very simple: recruit a few young girls and monetize the client channels she once held in her hands.

This method of monetization might not last very long—those clients might communicate directly with the newly recruited young girls, so this is not considered a long-term choice.

But at the very least, it is a choice; sometimes being able to have a choice, even if it is not the best and is the worst, is already a tremendous stroke of luck.

Kasiya's own value is constantly decreasing, but he realizes that there are other ambassadors, those who want to lean toward the Federation, who still need occasions and opportunities to get to know Lanse.

His alternative value is fully manifested at this moment.

From selling out his country himself to introducing others to sell out their countries, in terms of "selling," they are actually not necessarily any more noble than those prostitutes; they might even be more despicable!

After Lanse heard him mention the names of two or three ambassadors, he asked for the address and subsequently drove to Ambassador Kasiya's villa.

This was Lanse's first time visiting his villa; he had known before that Ambassador Kasiya had sold his villa, and the money to buy the villa was actually given by him, though he didn't care much about that.

The money he spent had already returned to his hands tenfold or a hundredfold through other means.

After the car came to a steady stop, he stepped out, and Ambassador Kasiya and the others were already waiting at the entrance to welcome him.

After they walked up to Lanse, Lanse shook hands with them, and then Ambassador Kasiya began to introduce them: "This is the Ambassador of Makan, this is..."

All three ambassadors wore ingratiating smiles on their faces, and Lanse noticed that their attire was very plain.

In the Federation, in New Jincheng, for an ambassador to be dressed very plainly can only mean one thing: that they, and the countries behind them, are poor.

A diplomatic ambassador is, after all, the face of a country; even if they have to scrape together every penny, these countries will find a way to make them look at least not destitute and poor, unless they truly cannot even afford the money for a few decent sets of clothes.

After the group entered the room, Ambassador Kasiya brought over wine glasses while asking, "If you have nothing to do tonight, would you like to stay for a meal?"

Lanse looked at the three ambassadors around him, watched the smiles on their faces, and after a slight moment of thought, he nodded: "No problem."

Ambassador Kasiya breathed a sigh of relief: "I will go arrange it in a moment."

After Ambassador Kasiya returned, the few of them sat down separately, and he used inquiring about the progress of the negotiations as an opening to start the conversation.

"How are the results of today's negotiations?"

"I heard that the federal government is already selecting candidates for expatriate officials?"

Lanse held his wine glass and took a sip: "Basically, it has been negotiated; now there are just some things left going through the motions."

He glanced at Ambassador Kasiya, then looked at the other three ambassadors, lowering his voice slightly as if he were sharing inside information: "There are still a few points that haven't been finished; currently, we are discussing the tax issue."

"The federal government's demand is for the federal government to formulate the tax collection plan, including how these taxes are used—all of this is decided by our side."

"Later, there are also issues like rebuilding the legal system, all of which relate to the key to the specific operation of a regime, so it might still take some time."

Among them, the diplomatic ambassador of the Republic of Aldera revealed a rather complex expression on his face; they wanted to lean toward the Federation, but they also wanted a certain degree of autonomy.

This is typical of wanting to have it both ways; for these countries, tax power is not considered a very important power, because most countries in the Xiang Yalan region find it difficult to collect taxes.

There are too many poor people; you can't expect these people who are too poor to even afford a meal to find a way to pay taxes to the government.

But this does not mean that tax power is unimportant, and during the time they have lived in the Federation, they have already felt the importance and the formidable nature of taxation.

Once tax power is handed over to the Federation, they have a high probability of turning tax power into a knife, hanging it over everyone's head, including their own.

After all, for these poor countries, the only ones domestically who can afford to pay taxes and meet the tax-paying standards are these privileged classes, capitalists, and the ruling stratum.

Lanse revealing this news at this time is actually telling them that this is one of the core conditions for leaning toward the Federation.

Only after handing over financial power can they truly become "one of our own," avoiding situations where some people use the Federation's help to revitalize their economy while simultaneously burning the bridge after crossing the river, leaving the Federation's efforts in vain.

The logic is the logic, and everyone understands it, but it is just slightly difficult to accept emotionally.

Two out of the three people smiled a bit awkwardly and reluctantly, whereas the Ambassador of Makan nodded with a completely indifferent expression: "I don't think there is any problem; we couldn't collect taxes ourselves anyway. If we hand it over to you, we might actually be able to collect them; this is actually a good thing."

Makan has only two million people, not even as many as New Jincheng, so their ambassador doesn't care about the issue of who tax power is transferred to.

Even if their ruling class and privileged class, like their president, are very wealthy domestically, placed here in the Federation, they are only upper-middle class.

The geographical environment is poor, they are impoverished, and there are no particularly valuable resources or minerals; being able to find a wealthy backer is likely what their entire nation collectively longs for.

The ambassadors of the other two countries looked at each other; originally, they—or rather, the ruling groups behind them—had the idea of leaning toward the Federation, utilizing the Federation's developed industrial level to drive their own backward level, acting as a small vampire to suck the Federation's blood to strengthen themselves.

At that time, they could ask the Federation for subsidies, for technology, for everything, and in the end, the ones making money would still be their own people.

These requested technologies and subsidies would undoubtedly enter the hands of their ruling groups.

But now they realize that the federal government is not so easy to defraud; this matter might not be settled in the short term, and they have to go back and discuss with their domestic ruling groups whether it is necessary to continue.

The two men's silence and the Ambassador of Makan's indifferent expression and statement formed a sharp contrast, and Lanse did not urge them to make a decision today.

He also smiled: "Talking to me about this is useless; you have to talk to the Secretary of State, though he might not have time recently."

"If you read the newspapers, you should be able to see that the armistice negotiations are the most important thing right now."

When the issue of the armistice negotiations was mentioned, Ambassador Kasiya asked with some curiosity: "Will there really be an armistice?"

Lanse nodded: "I believe the foundation for an armistice is already in place, so there is a high probability that the war will end before summer arrives."

"After the war ends, every aspect of the Federation will enter the fast lane: industrial development, economic development, and scientific progress."

"The Federation will leave the entire world behind, far behind!"

Upon hearing these words, everyone had different expressions on their faces; the reason they are here now, chatting with Lanse and talking about the Federation and Xiang Yalan, all stems from this war.

If not for this suddenly erupted war, Xiang Yalan would still be Xiang Yalan, and the Federation would also be continuously depressed due to economic regression, to the point of being powerless to face the changes in the world.

It is this damned war that has directly changed the world! And it has also created a new monster!

(End of chapter)