Starting from the Planetary Governor

At the meeting, many senior officials of the Alliance were still arguing incessantly.

But Gu Hang's mind had already wandered far away.

The war within the Dragonhawk Star Domain, no matter how you put it, was largely over.

There might still be remnants of the Green Skins on various planets; there were also hastily retreating Furyflame and their allies, who were very likely to seek revenge, and in the northern part of the Eastern Cosmos Domain, the Spiderweb Domain, Tie Nu Shi might possibly start a major war...

The shadow of war was still looming.

But no matter what shadows, what remnants of Green Skins, overall, one could say that peace had roughly descended.

Don't expect a regime spanning four hundred worlds not to have any disputes at all, that's unrealistic.

As long as there are no crises affecting multiple worlds at the same time, it could already be called peace.

And after peace had arrived, Gu Hang found that he and the entire Alliance had more concerns and were busier.

In Gu Hang's view, the current situation in the entire Alliance, where only two centers were making money while the vast majority of worlds were operating at a loss, was fundamentally due to the administrative capacity of the Alliance not keeping up with the expansion of its political structure.

Yunluo Star was even more developed than Flying Wing Star and was not designated as a Level 5 development, but Level 4 instead.

Richer, yet it had to pay less tax. This was clearly something that the previous Star Domain Government had cooked up.

With so many years of accumulation and the three star sectors behind it as a major rear, the resources were quite abundant; it should not be much lower compared to the newly developed Seven Horse Territory, which had only been developed for a few years, a decade or so.

In fact, although the output of Yunluo Center was much higher, its fiscal contribution was not high enough.

Similarly, those worlds operating at a loss had many objective conditions for their deficits, but if the administrative capability of the Alliance could keep up, then the costs of establishing and maintaining control should not be so high.

Of course, this was not just a problem of the Alliance itself. Gu Hang had just previously praised the Alliance Government for its good work and was not about to suddenly denounce them and think their work was subpar.

This problem is widespread throughout the entire Human Empire.

The jurisdiction is too vast.

Not to mention the Empire, just the four hundred worlds of the Alliance, trying to establish a unified, centrally controlled government controlled by the Alliance Government is quite difficult, and the maintenance costs are escalating significantly.

What if one day, the control of the Alliance extends to four or five thousand worlds in the entire Eastern Cosmos Domain?

By then, it might not just be a matter of money.

From this perspective, Gu Hang could actually understand why the Empire turned out this way.

Holy Terra might not have figured out up till today how many worlds within the current Empire's territory are under its jurisdiction; this number changes every day, with new incorporations, losses, rebellions, resolutions of rebellions...

And these changes are not just happening at the frontier. Due to the specialty of the Star Realm Tunnel, sometimes, a star system originally situated in the hinterland suddenly becomes a frontline because a new Star Realm Tunnel was discovered.

Not even knowing exactly how many Empire Worlds there are, only knowing that it's roughly a million or so.

The same goes for the military aspect; the Empire might barely know how many Star Realm Armies and the Imperial Navy formations it has, but these are also just nominal formations, and the actual situation is unclear. There are too many departments and institutions with the authority to form new Star Realm Armies and Navies, and it's impossible to keep an accurate count.

Not even these basics can be ascertained, let alone the population and industrial situation of various worlds.

If the basic information isn't even clear, how can governance be possible? Govern my ass!

Under such objective conditions, the Empire's current top-down five-level structure—Holy Terra, Cosmos Domain, Star Domain, Star Sector, Planet, coupled with various regions having strong autonomous political systems, was also an inevitable choice.

Within this structure, the most independent entities are the Planetary Governors; on their own planets, they can almost do whatever they want. The only reason stopping them from doing so is simply that the power of a single planet is not strong enough.

The Star Zone Leader is a pasted-paper craftsman, not worth mentioning;

The Star Domain Head is a heavyweight.

Among the three middle-tier structures, the most significant one is the Star Domain Government. Very independent, it can retain Imperial Tax, control appointments within its various Star Sectors, and can deploy Star Realm Armies and Navies within the Domain.

Each Star Domain Government is like a powerful regional vassal.

And the higher-up Space Domain Government is somewhat like an Alliance Leader.

Generally, a Space Domain Government occupies the most developed Star Domain, which is already the richest and most powerful local vassal, and with added administrative authority, various Star Domain Governments also have to follow orders to some extent, much like an Alliance Leader, but the Space Domain Government finds it hard to directly control every Star Domain, Star Sector.

The whole structure is somewhat like a feudal system, but also quite different from feudalism as the official appointments still come from the Holy Terra Government, and there is no autonomous inheritance of power.

Of course, Gu Hang doesn't like this setup; his Alliance always insists on a high degree of centralization, and as the Central Government, the Alliance Government has a high degree of control over the areas it directly governs.

But now, with reality bearing down, it seems that some compromises must be made.