2132. The beginning and end of Trade Federation (2)
When Trade Federation's power grew to the point where it was almost beyond reach, their methods began to become increasingly extreme.
Trade Federation began to use extreme measures to deal with competitors, just like their former enemies. Assassination, frame-up, kidnapping, extortion, all kinds of methods are endless.
They also began to extend their tentacles into the political field and began to bribe congressmen in large quantities to get these congressmen to vote on issues that were beneficial to them. And he began to conduct his own business activities through secret transactions and illegal channels, laundering much of the wealth built on sin through official channels.
Not only that, Trade Federation also began to conceal a lot of navigation data in their hands, which resulted in a lot of the navigation data in Galactic Republic's hands being incomplete and expired. The result is that Galactic Republic often cannot send Judicial Fleet to Outer Rim Territories quickly and effectively unless there is Trade Federation's approval.
Among the later Clone Wars, why was Galactic Republic's counterattack against Confederacy of Independent Systems so difficult? The navigation data concealed by Trade Federation also played a very key role.
And in places like Outer Rim Territories, Trade Federation is really like heaven. Without the support of Trade Federation, Xu Draon Planet would not even be able to survive.
Trade Federation uses various methods such as plunder and robbery to make these planets its own economic vassals. For example, they dump a large amount of food to stimulate population growth, and they dump a large amount of advanced products to corrupt these people's lives. These planets seem to have a better life and a more developed economy, but in fact all of this is based on debt.
Then in order to repay the debt, Trade Federation arranged for these planets to sell their populations, resources, and labor force, or set up factories so that they could produce products that were of no use to the planet - for example, all the factories on a certain planet produced Predator-class armed freighter's armor shells.
In this way, these planets have no other choice but to become vassals of Trade Federation. Without Trade Federation, they cannot even feed the expanding population base on their own planet! So they can only sign a permanent agreement with Trade Federation, mortgage everything on the planet to Trade Federation, and become their 'permanent customers'.
In this way, Trade Federation secretly controlled thousands of galaxies and signed long-term trade contracts with even more galaxies. Then they let the parliamentarians of these planets use it for themselves and vote for Trade Federation on the issue.
With its strong strength and influence, Trade Federation also successfully obtained a seat among Galactic Republic Senate, and can speak as a political entity in the highest authority in the galaxy. There are only two companies with this kind of treatment - InterGalactic Banking Clan and Trade Federation. Other super giants, such as Kuat Drive Yards, only have planetary councilors, but they do not have company councilors. Of course, the Kuat Drive Yards at that time was naturally far from comparable to Trade Federation.
Not only is the external brutal expansion, the internal struggle of Trade Federation is also very bloody and cruel.
Trade Federation is run by a council of seven people. Around the position of the seven-member council, the internal struggle within Trade Federation is also bloody and cruel.
In the process, the ruthless, yet shrewd and meticulous Neimoidian became more and more powerful within Trade Federation, and they began to steadily occupy one of the seven-person parliament.
After that, more than a hundred years later, 150 years ago, as the Trade Federation became more and more powerful in the Outer Rim Star Region and became more and more out of control, the Galactic Republic was no longer able to obtain any tax revenue from the Outer Rim Star Region. This is very embarrassing for the Galactic Republic, which has begun to gradually suffer from economic embarrassment - because it also means that the results of the Galactic Republic's large-scale expansion campaign carried out in the outer ring sector for hundreds of years have been completely embezzled by the Trade Federation.
In order to regain fiscal revenue in Outer Rim Territories, but also because of the good reputation Trade Federation had accumulated before, and also because a large number of MPs who had been bribed by Trade Federation spoke for Trade Federation with a unified voice, at that time Galactic Republic made a decision that was later viewed as a very wrong decision - to establish Outer Rim Free Trade Zone.
The establishment of Outer Rim Free Trade Zone is equivalent to the recognition of Trade Federation's status as the emperor of Outer Rim Territories. Through the establishment of the free trade zone, Trade Federation was exempted from local taxes. Instead, they replaced Galactic Republic to tax Outer Rim's planets and handed them over to the treasury.
In exchange, Trade Federation agreed to hand over a more detailed star map to Galactic Republic and Jedi Order, but accordingly, Galactic Republic also acquiesced to Trade Federation's right to treat this star map as private property and not to make it public. It is equivalent to acquiescence that Trade Federation monopolizes all traffic of Outer Rim Territories.
Not only that, imposing taxes through the Trade Alliance is equivalent to completely handing over the financial power of those planets in the outer ring star region to the Trade Alliance. In this way, the Trade Federation can tax whatever they want, and how much they hand over to the Galactic Republic depends entirely on their mood.
This is equivalent to having huge power of life and death over Outer Rim Territories.
It was around this period that Hego-Damask II and his apprentices Sheev-Palpatine began to extend their sinful hands to Trade Federation. They began to support Neimoidian and prepared to use them as tools to control Trade Federation.
As part of the conspiracy, Sheev-Palpatine planned a shocking plan through the pirate Yako-Stark (Iaco Stark) whom he secretly trained. He asked Stark Pirates to start openly attacking Trade Federation's fleet, and targeted the supply of Bacta fluid, which was monopolized by Trade Federation at the time.
As we all know, Bacta fluid is the most important medical material in almost all medical institutions in the galaxy. Almost all serious injuries can be cured by just soaking in Bacta tank. And because Trade Federation's fleet was attacked in large numbers, many robbed Bacta fluid were transported to Outer Rim Territories.
You must know that under normal circumstances, the backward planets of Outer Rim Territories are not eligible to enjoy such high-end goods. So this move of Yako-Stark Pirates made them very popular in Outer Rim Territories. However, in terms of Galactic Republic, snatching a large number of Bacta fluid and Stark Pirates resulting in a shortage of supply of Core Worlds and Inner Rim is an absolutely intolerable crime.
So at that time, under the leadership of Wilhuff-Tarkin's cousin, Renaf-Tarkin, Galactic Republic sent Judicial Fleet to prepare to destroy Stark Pirates.
But this whole thing was a conspiracy. Trade Federation's then Governor Hask had already colluded with Bacta Corporation and Yako-Stark under the help of Das-Sidious. They secretly planted a virus in Republic Judicial Fleet's navigation computer.
At that time, when Judicial Fleet entered Outer Rim Territories, it needed to navigate through Trade Federation, which made it very easy to implant the virus.
So after being eroded by the virus, Republic Judicial Fleet suffered a devastating blow and suffered heavy losses. This is exactly Darth-Sidious's plan. He hopes that after destroying Judicial Fleet, he can take the opportunity to control Galactic Republic through Trade Federation.
But later, under the desperate fight of Mace-Windu, Ploo-Kong and other Jedi Master, Galactic Republic still defeated Yako-Stark, eliminating the crisis of national annihilation.
This is a war called "Stark Hyperspace War", and it is also the largest war that Galactic Republic has experienced in the more than a thousand years between Rusan Reforms and the outbreak of Clone Wars.
Although the plan to subvert Galactic Republic failed, Das-Sidious, with the help of his master Das-Pregas, successfully covered up Trade Federation's sins in this matter, and all the blame was handed over to Yako-Stark. They also used this incident to enhance Neimoidian's power within Trade Federation, and further control Trade Federation through Newt Gunray, who was not yet the governor at the time.
After Stark Hyperspace War, Trade Federation began to behave more and more radically, and they met their demands through large-scale military operations many times in Outer Rim Territories. The largest and most serious one is Siege of Naboo.
Galactic Republic also realized that Outer Rim Territories was gradually losing control. Under the initiative of the Speaker Phineas-Valorum, Galactic Republic was preparing to withdraw the settings of Outer Rim Free Trade Zone, re-nationalize Outer Rim Territories, and impose taxes on Outer Rim.
This incident led to the most acute conflict between Galactic Republic and Trade Federation.
At the same time, as mentioned before, the pirates Yako-Stark who robbed Bacta fluid were seen by Outer Rim Territories people as heroes who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Such a hero was defeated by Galactic Republic, which naturally made Outer Rim Territories even more disapproving of Galactic Republic.
So under such circumstances, when I heard that Galactic Republic actually wanted to tax here? This almost instantly ignited a wave of resistance from Outer Rim Territories.
And Separatist Movement of Count Dooku also has a hotbed for growth at this time.
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