Chapter 688: Pig-Raising (Additional chapter for Alliance Leader

This crashed spaceship has been sleeping at the bottom of the lake for who knows how long; a layer of stone similar to coral has already formed on its surface.

Sun Cheng was extremely cautious regarding this spaceship, which would very likely change the foundation of his forces.

Two beams of light shot out from his eyes, first analyzing the stone layer, and only after confirming that destroying it would not cause too much impact on the ship below did he carefully reach out and strike it at a constant speed.

"Boom, boom, boom, boom!"

The dull thumping sounds echoed at the bottom of the lake for quite a while before ending; a large section of the stone layer wrapping the ship's surface was quickly peeled off by Sun Cheng and thrown far away.

The ten fingers of his left and right hands wriggled simultaneously, turning into transparent liquid metal tentacles, which extended and adhered to the outer layer of the spaceship.

Lines of azure data flickered incessantly in Sun Cheng's eyes; he prepared to use the special abilities of a Cybertronian to forcibly check the current status of this spaceship.

Perhaps because the ship's Central Main Control Intelligence was damaged or had not yet been awakened, his intrusion did not encounter any resistance, just as it had always been successful in the past.

The entire process lasted for a full thirty to forty minutes before Rush, who was standing guard for him on the side, saw Sun Cheng slowly exhale a long string of bubbles.

"Is it damaged this severely..."

His ten fingers wriggled and quickly returned to their original state; Sun Cheng frowned as he looked at the spaceship in front of him, yet he felt a sense of relief in his heart.

"No wonder that Pathfinder abandoned it!"

This spaceship was basically beyond saving; it seemed to have been attacked by space pirates, or perhaps it had the misfortune of colliding with a meteorite.

In short, a huge gap with a radius of over twenty meters had been left on one side of the ship's hull, and having been soaked at the bottom of the lake for who knows how many years, the backflow of lake water and silt had already rendered it almost completely scrapped, with not even any value for repair.

Sun Cheng finally understood why that Pathfinder would abandon this precious spaceship.

However, although the spaceship had no value for repair, it was still a treasure of no small significance.

Neither he nor Base No. 2 had the experience or technology to manufacture large-scale spaceships; this damaged ship could still provide some structural and material data, which could save them a massive amount of time and keep them from taking many unnecessary detours.

Besides that, due to the ship's special design, not all equipment inside the ship was completely destroyed.

According to Sun Cheng's recent detection, there were still some devices in the core area of the ship that were still usable after minor repairs due to being hermetically sealed.

Among these, what moved him the most was none other than the spaceship's Central Main Control Intelligence.

The universe is a place more unpredictable and dangerous than the ocean; when traveling in the universe, even those as strong as Pathfinders have countless veterans who, without even leaving their names behind, silently disappeared into the boundless and infinite universe.

The universe is too vast and is filled with all kinds of dangers and changes.

Therefore, to travel across the stars, one needs not only flight vehicles like spaceships but also corresponding star maps to avoid dangerous celestial bodies such as asteroid belts, neutron stars, black holes, and wormholes.

Central Main Control Intelligence—you can tell from the name—is the control core of a spaceship.

The Cybertronian civilization is extremely skilled at manufacturing such entities with extremely high intelligence; in Jetfire's memories, the Central Main Control Intelligence on a Cybertronian spaceship has computing power even far stronger than most scientists, and they can fully control a large spaceship for fully automated navigation while avoiding the vast majority of risks during the voyage.

The Central Main Control Intelligence of every spaceship surely preserves the most precise data of that ship.

This is also why Sun Cheng did not feel it was much of a loss; if a ship is broken, it is broken—as long as the Central Main Control Intelligence is fine, one can just build another one.

Thinking of this, he immediately issued an order, "Rush, have the Workers withdraw the robots... The damage to this spaceship is too severe; there is no need for emergency repairs..."

Rush was stunned, hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Master, then haven't we been busy for nothing all this time..."

"How could it be for nothing? Just the gold salvaged from this lake, which the Ancient Maya called the Sacred Lake, is enough to say we didn't lose out. Furthermore, although the ship isn't worth salvaging, there are still some good things inside; I will go over and retrieve them myself in a moment!"

Perhaps because that Decepticon Pathfinder had once descended here, Lake Titicaca was called the Sacred Lake by the Ancient Maya who lived nearby.

Ancient South America was rich in mineral resources, especially copper, gold, and silver mines, which were widely distributed.

When Base No. 2 originally excavated the underground mausoleum that the Ancient Maya had built for that Decepticon Pathfinder, the weight of the various gold funerary objects obtained alone was calculated afterward to exceed eight tons.

This Sacred Lake was worshipped by generations of Ancient Maya, and the various gold artifacts thrown into the lake were countless.

On his way here, Sun Cheng had already obtained first-hand data from the Central Smart Brain of Base No. 2—Huan; in the past few months, the weight of various gold artifacts cleaned out of the lake silt by the dredging robots alone exceeded twelve tons.

To the Cybertronians, gold is just a normal metal; they might use gold when manufacturing bodies, weapons, and some machinery, but their demand for it is not high.

Although Sun Cheng had also brought back several batches of gold from the Transformers Multiverse to the real world, compared to the gold mined by Base No. 2 and obtained from South America, it could only be considered a drop in the bucket.

The gold stockpiled within the base was not much; most of it was treated as precious metal for trade and sold to Moscow and Beidu.

A small portion was taken by the Humanoid Decepticons controlled by the base and used as capital weapons to subsidize the fiscal loopholes of several countries under their control.

The economies of various South American countries are generally not good; idlers and lawyers and elites raised by international capital are everywhere.

Although Base No. 2 is hidden behind the scenes, Peru, Paraguay, and a part of Brazil have already fallen under the control of Base No. 2.

In order to maintain stability, Sun Cheng has been implementing a 'Pig-Raising Policy'.

That is, purchasing large amounts of mineral resources from their countries, while dumping daily necessities purchased from the Far East and Eguo at low prices, and regularly providing fiscal and interest subsidies to their governments and the politicians under their control, maintaining relative stability and higher welfare for all sectors of their domestic society.

This method is very insidious, but it is also very effective.

Smart people are everywhere, and the intelligence network of Base No. 2 covering South America has become increasingly perfect.

They had long discovered that in the countries controlled by Base No. 2, there were politicians and forces investigating or who had already sensed the existence of Base No. 2.

But why are the several controlled countries still peaceful to this day? To put it bluntly, everyone has obtained the benefits they wanted from Base No. 2.

Therefore, regarding the fact that there is an extra controlling force behind the scenes of the country, everyone is pretending to be ignorant while knowing the truth.

In the future, as the 'blood transfusion' provided by Base No. 2 continues to corrode, even if the ghost of Base No. 2, which is active behind the scenes of various South American countries, is exposed, it will be very difficult to shake Sun Cheng's control over South America.

Because the now gradually prospering economies of the several controlled South American countries, as well as the high welfare that the governments have begun to implement, are all built on the foundation of blood transfusions from Base No. 2.

Once he stops the mineral procurement, low-price dumping of daily necessities, and fiscal subsidies for these South American countries, their good days—from the country to the politicians to the commoners—will all vanish into thin air.

This is Sun Cheng's 'Pig-Raising Policy'!

Let's set a small goal first, for example, remember this in 1 second: Shukerju