Chapter 954: Country or Home?

President Diego didn't discuss whether it was good or bad for the Federals to come here to invest and build factories, because any ruler, even if his brain wasn't very good, would understand that this was absolutely not a terrible thing.

So after Labuer Minister mentioned that Lanse was for the stability of factory production and tried to control a part of the region, Diego didn't continue to pursue it.

Because pursuing it had no meaning; since the Federals had already decided to come here to operate this matter in person, even if he opposed it, was it useful?

It seemed it wasn't very useful either.

He could naturally use his status as President to expel these Federals, but he couldn't bear the consequences of doing so.

Sometimes he would also think about everything that happened during this period in the dead of night, and he would also have some very inexplicable emotions.

Being a President in such a backward and poor small country was instead not as good as being born into a wealthy family in the Federation.

At least the wealthy people living in the Federation never needed to worry like him, worry about whether their rule and power would be stolen by thieves.

For a period of time afterward, Diego focused on solving the anti-government armed forces; he continuously conscripted soldiers around the Zhuolan area, which made the number of soldiers in his hands obtain a huge increase.

The weapons aided by the Jiede Republic also made these soldiers at least not go to battle with cold weapons; when seventy thousand soldiers were controlled in his hands, he felt his unprecedented power!

He wanted to find someone to clash with, but this time it wasn't Pedro.

Pedro's influence was still expanding in an orderly manner; they didn't immediately take down many cities, instead controlling villages and towns around Saige City; up to now, they only had one city, which wasn't considered a big city, Saige.

But no one would underestimate their strength; they not only captured a batch of military materials from the Lapa government army, but also had several field artillery pieces in their hands.

They had already become an anti-government armed force with "assault" capability, so Diego focused his attention on the person who currently claimed to be the second largest reform force in Lapa, which was Ross's group.

Ross had led his followers to occupy three cities; Ross's approach and Pedro's were two extremes; they were expanding crazily.

As long as they took down a city, they would kill all the previous ruling classes, then replace them with their own people, and then support a batch of ordinary people locally to form a new regime.

Of course, being able to take down these cities so quickly also had a relationship with the Great Famine.

Now the entire Lapa was falling into famine in most cities; even if they didn't have weapons, they could very easily conquer one city after another.

It was just that clearly Ross hadn't considered one thing clearly, which was whether he had the ability and materials to manage the three cities well, which was still a question, an unknown.

Diego choosing to move against Ross was clearly also something he had planned and considered; taking advantage of the fact that their manpower was separated in three cities to launch an attack on a part of them, this definitely wouldn't be a too difficult battle.

The eyes of the Lapa country were once again focused on this upcoming battle; the last failure of the Lapa government army could be said to have directly torn open the fig leaf of the Lapa government lacking decisive power, letting people see the emptiness and weakness of the Lapa government.

If it failed again this time, perhaps the entire situation of Lapa would slide toward a direction no one knew.

In early June, Diego appointed a lieutenant general of the Lapa Army, leading twenty thousand people to attack a city that was said to have less than one thousand people defending it.

The battle broke out from June 8th or 9th; reporters from the Lanse Newspaper, reporters from surrounding countries and the Yalan Alliance, and even Federal reporters all rushed to the front line to collect news content.

This was the first time Ross's people moved against the Lapa government army; they clearly were still a bit unfamiliar, and the battle was very intense from the beginning.

Ross's people wanted to copy the success case of the "Saige City street fighting," and under the condition of being clearly at a disadvantage, inflict heavy damage on this part of the government army to establish their status as the second person of the anti-government army in the Lapa country.

However, this time he highly likely couldn't get the result he wanted.

After the last defeat, Diego let the military buy some materials about street fighting from the Federation; although these materials weren't very perfect or detailed, for Ross who also didn't know how street fighting should be fought, it was enough!

From the beginning of the exchange of fire, the anti-government armed forces started to appear in a state of retreat; some of their deployments clearly didn't play a role, for example, some traps arranged in the rooms.

This time the Lapa government army became much smarter; they almost didn't enter those rooms that looked like they might have traps, or didn't look like they had traps, but first used grenades or something to conduct a "blasting."

The vibration and fragments produced by the grenade explosion in the room were enough to activate those traps; the traps didn't play any use in this battle.

Both sides returned to the most primitive state of slaughter; in the low and complex urban environment, they fought in the most primitive way, and the losses of both sides were quite miserable.

By late June, the defensive forces of Ross could no longer form resistance; they withdrew from the city overnight.

It was said that the batch of people who successfully withdrew was less than two hundred; at least seven or eight hundred people were lost in the city.

This was also a heavy blow to Ross, because he not only lost these warriors, but more importantly, he also lost the weapons these people were carrying, and made some people question his decisions.

This was far more unacceptable than failure!

People died, they could be recruited again.

Lapa didn't have much, but it had many people; with a population of twelve million, even if three or five million died, it still belonged to a populous country in the entire Yalan.

But other things, weapons, authority, once lost, it was very difficult to find them back.

Wanting the Federals to support them with another batch of weapons, I don't know what kind of headache-inducing treaties would have to be signed.

The next day, on the cruise ship heading to the Federal mainland, Labuer Minister saw this news from the newspaper.

The Lapa government army won a battle after paying a loss of about two thousand people, and successfully recovered the city, and captured a batch of military materials and ammunition.

The report indicated the Lapa government's attitude toward these anti-government armed forces, which was to kill one if there was one, absolutely not letting them go.

His gaze soon landed on those accompanying pictures, a large number of accompanying pictures.

The government army arranged the corpses of those anti-government militants together, and pulled out some of the "anti-government armed officers" separately, cut off their heads, and tied them together with ropes, which were held in the hands of some government officers.

This period didn't have any code-blurring technology, and even if there was, they wouldn't know how to use it; Diego just wanted to use these photos to deter those anti-government armed forces, letting them understand that the things they were doing needed to pay a price!

"What are you looking at?", his son walked over and sat down beside him.

They booked a luxury suite, with a space of two hundred square meters, and the desktop was full of exquisite snacks.

At any time, as long as someone among them was hungry, they could pick up the phone and let the kitchen make sumptuous food for them, and it would be sent over through a dining cart.

If one only looked at these people, one simply couldn't feel that there was any famine or something.

Their dress was so decent that it was hard to connect them with Lapa's poverty and backwardness.

This time, in order to leave a good impression on the Federals, Labuer Minister had made several sets of formal wear for attending various occasions before departure.

Looking at his young son walking over, he handed the newspaper over, "The government army won a battle."

His young son soon read the newspaper, and a smile appeared on his face, "Does this mean the situation will soon stabilize?"

He was originally still considering whether to let this young son of his intern in a government department or intern in a capital group.

Now he had already made a decision, which was to let this guy intern in a capital group, not go to the government.

Because he was a bit naive, and not sensitive enough to political matters.

Politics is something that cannot be dull; once dull, it means big problems will arise.

In fact, he had other choices, but the other children already had their own careers, and didn't need him to arrange.

Watching his father not speak, the young man was a bit confused, "Is it possible that even if the war is won, the situation will continue to deteriorate?"

Labuer Minister sighed lightly; he took the newspaper back, then turned the page to those cruel pictures, and then asked, "If you were the leader, cadre, or member of the rebel army, would you lay down the weapons in your hands and surrender?"

His son saw those corpses or body parts with strange shapes in the pictures, and for a time realized that this newspaper would only make everything become more irreparable.

With their attitude toward anti-government armed forces, killing them all, not leaving one, forced those anti-government armed forces to thoroughly stand on the opposite side of the Lapa government.

Labuer Minister shook his head; if Diego adopted his previous idea and negotiated with these people, perhaps there was still room for recovery.

But he only thought about killing these people to prove that he was the master of this country; it seemed he had long foreseen the result.

And there was also the famine problem that hadn't been solved; this was a dead end!

Now he didn't consider these anymore; he only considered the things after arriving in the Federation.

Lanse also saw this newspaper; perhaps Diego hoped to deter those anti-government armed forces through this way.

However, his view was the same as Labuer Minister's; Diego blocked all the retreats of all anti-government armed forces, and also blocked his own retreat. Even if he suddenly announced now that he wouldn't kill all anti-government armed forces, and was willing to negotiate with them to solve some differences and disputes through negotiation, those anti-government armed forces wouldn't believe it either.

At this time, Labuer Minister's mood was much more stable than before, and he wouldn't produce panic and unease emotions; everything seemed to have become stable and calm again as in the past.

This was a kind of confidence brought by defecting to the Federation!

If you can't stop the weapon in the executioner's hand from falling, then you'd better turn yourself into one of the executioners.

He was practicing this truth.

Ross's forces didn't retreat after a round of strikes; they recruited another batch of manpower in their controlled area.

At this time, in order to survive, there were people willing to do anything, whether it was illegal or not illegal.

Because by summer, there were some things that could be eaten in the jungle and the wild; the famine problem, although it still existed, clearly obtained some solution.

Diego intended to use the grain transported from the Jiede Republic to buy more people; he borrowed the victory of this battle to bring some things, and soon stabilized the situation around Zhuolan; everything looked like it was moving in a better direction.

But in reality, there were also many problems here.

For example, where did the military expenditure come from?

Learning the Federal street fighting technique was indeed very effective, but the military expenditure was too big.

In the office of the presidential palace, Diego's face didn't leave much joy that should have been had by the victory of the battle.

Now the total number of the Lapa government army was close to ninety thousand, which meant he needed to pay the salary of ninety thousand soldiers every month.

If calculated according to the need to pay at least eight Federal Sol per person, this was an expenditure of seven hundred and twenty thousand Federal Sol per month.

At the same time, these people needed to eat, drink, and defecate, needed training, and ammunition also needed money.

Soldiers died and needed pensions, soldiers were injured and needed medicine to treat them.

Even if the pension was squeezed, at the very least, one person had to be given a pension of more than one hundred Federal Sol.

Before attacking the city occupied by Ross, they died and lost more than two thousand people, which was another two hundred thousand pensions.

Besides that, treatment costs were also a big head.

Because the war between the Silade people and the Dantela people had been constantly escalating, a large amount of living force was consumed; soldiers they wouldn't choose to save before would now also get very good care.

This meant that the price of medicine was still constantly rising, and it was also very tight.

Even if the Federation side was willing to sell medicine to him, he also found it very difficult to support the cost of using these medicines.

Even if using some local witch doctor's folk prescriptions, it was also an expenditure.

Various expenditures pressed down, making him a bit unable to breathe.

Now he didn't have many choices; once the wealth worth several million Federal Sol in the national treasury was used up, the remaining Para would only be enough for them to persist until about October.

After October, it meant that the national treasury couldn't continue to support them in maintaining so many soldiers, and the Lapa government also needed various expenditures; this money couldn't even persist until October.

Either Diego paid out of his own pocket to pay these expenses until the end of the war.

Or, he found a way to squeeze some money out of others to continue maintaining the war.

Letting him pay out of his own pocket, he couldn't do this, although he wasn't considered short of money.

Then it seemed there was only one possibility: let everyone pay together.

Soon Lapa's ministers gathered together again; the situation in Zhuolan was still very stable, and these ministers also had their own basic disks; they didn't have as much unease as people imagined about the changes in the situation now.

"I called everyone here this time because the money in the national treasury is not enough.", Diego said the truth as soon as he came up, without any concealment.

"Now the money in the national treasury can only persist until October; after October, it will be very difficult for us to pay the soldiers' wages."

"And this year's grain will definitely be in short supply; wanting to supplement this part of the expenditure through grain, it might not be possible to do it."

This is the pathetic point of a single income; the country's income, the people's income, all come from grain.

Once grain is in short supply and problems appear, the entire country will fall into chaos.

If it was just ordinary lack of money, cutting some expenditures could still cope; now they didn't have any place to cut, and they were still in wartime, so this was indeed a problem that needed to be solved.

A minister asked softly, "Can't the war end before October?"

Everyone in the room looked at him at the same time, including Diego.

Diego also looked at him with the eyes of looking at a fool, as if asking him if he really thought so.

"October... conservatively estimated,

"It will take at least until after October of next year, once grain income stabilizes, for there to be any possibility of a solution."

The minister, as if unaware he had asked a very foolish question, asked again, "Then how do you intend to solve this problem you've raised?"

Diego was suddenly somewhat annoyed, "What do you mean by 'the problem I've raised'?"

"I am merely pointing out a problem that currently exists in reality!"

"This is not my problem, okay?"

"This is a problem for me and all of you!"

His voice grew much louder; he was one step away from slamming the table.

Another minister eased the atmosphere in the conference room, "He just used the wrong words for a moment. Diego, do you have any good suggestions?"

Diego glanced at these people, "My idea is that we... share this expense equally."

"Impossible!" someone immediately rejected his proposal, "There has never been a precedent for us ministers to pay out of our own pockets for the national treasury. I think this is inappropriate."

Other ministers also voiced their opposition, believing that doing so was indeed not very good. How could there be any logic in ministers having to pay when there is no money for war?

Besides, this country didn't even belong to them!

Why should they pay?

Diego was somewhat annoyed, "If we don't pay, who should pay?"

"The ordinary people who can't even earn five hundred Para a month?"

"Or should we let the merchants pay more commercial taxes?"

The ministers all chose to remain silent; as long as their interests were not infringed upon, they could pretend not to hear.

But once their interests were harmed, they would immediately oppose it.

The constant bickering made it impossible for the meeting to proceed well, and until the very last moment, they seemed to have forgotten about the large number of federal investors.

If they could impose an additional tax on federal investors, perhaps this problem could be solved.

But none of them mentioned this, nor had they even thought about it.

Taxing the federal people?

Are they crazy?

In the end, these people parted on bad terms; in the words of some of the ministers, October was still a long way off!

They would talk about it again after October.

For the first time, Diego felt so exhausted; that deep sense of fatigue sometimes made him want to give up...

(End of chapter)