Chapter 406: Response
Conflicts, large and small, never ceased across the land. The power of families, the power of religions, the power of commercial groups... were intertwined and chaotic. Even if their resistance couldn't be called an ant trying to shake a tree, there were still those who persisted.
However, the vast majority of people had already begun to accept the new system, or rather, resigned themselves to their fate.
"Have the inventories and calculations been completed?" a middle-aged man in a white uniform asked, looking around.
"Almost," the chubby man, busy with accounts, replied while pressing his calculator.
"Good. Be quick. Once you're done, move on to the next household."
They were temporarily assigned by the system to be responsible for the accounting and statistics of non-monetary assets for each household.
Individual bank account balances could be obtained by the system through merging with bank databases, but for things without precise valuations, these people were needed to obtain accurate data.
Because it was likely that even the owners themselves couldn't accurately state the actual value of items like jewelry or artworks, and the task of statistical valuation wasn't worth wasting the central system's precious processing power on.
......
"Additionally, according to the new regulations, there is no concept of joint marital property. All items must be assigned to a specific individual..."
"Is that so? I understand."
"Once you've made your selections, input the corresponding options directly into the system. Tomorrow, others will be responsible for receiving the remaining items. We have other tasks to attend to."
The middle-aged man didn't delay. After completing his task, he immediately turned and left, leaving the family lost in thought.
Their team still had a large number of inventory targets to process, and the actual disposal of surplus assets was not something this liquidation team needed to concern itself with, so they wouldn't interfere.
The entire society was like an assembly line with extremely clear divisions of labor. Each person only needed to be responsible for their own function; overstepping would only hinder the operation of the planned machine.
......
One year later.
"The transition is fully complete. Annual GDP, compared to last year, has decreased by a total of twenty-five percent, while the total value of societal wealth has decreased by twenty-seven percent, which is within an acceptable range..." Bai Mo casually glanced at the report.
Without the GDP generated by false reporting and useless, repetitive construction, the financial industry was left with only foreign business, the domestic stock system was abolished, the cultural and entertainment output value decreased by seventy-four percent, and the confiscation of the entire real estate industry led to the disappearance of the housing price bubble... After eliminating these factors, the number given in the report was a net growth of seventeen percent.
And with the efforts of over fifty Five-Tier human-form calamities, twelve thousand Four-Tier extraordinaries, plus two point seven million engineering personnel, twenty-nine thousand eight hundred square kilometers of mountainous terrain were leveled into plains.
Almost all of the excess soil was transported to the East China Sea, adjacent to Qi Lu Province, for land reclamation, creating nearly seven thousand square kilometers of new land. The scale of the project shocked the world.
Naturally, the most concerned party was Yamato, the target of the engineering project. They also had a certain scale of mountain excavation and land reclamation within their own country, but they had never imagined that a nation would attempt to forcefully create, solely through land reclamation, a corridor connecting the Asian continent to Yamato's main island.
"Is that individual still unwilling to make any concessions?" Yamamoto, Yamato's supreme leader, summoned the Land of White's ambassador to Yamato's capital for the eighth time.
The reorganized Huaxia Federation was directly named the Land of White by Bai Mo, implying that in essence, it was no longer a nation belonging to all in the traditional sense, but purely an extension of his personal will.
"As you know, we are merely messengers of the system's will. What I can see, it can also see." Though facing Yamamoto's overwhelming aura, the ambassador maintained a humble yet confident demeanor.
"Everything is his will. Without internal strife, even division and appeasement are impossible..." Yamamoto, with a long katana at his waist, couldn't help but sigh at this thought.
"There's no room for negotiation on the terms?" He remained somewhat unwilling to give up.
"It's already magnanimous not to give you second-class citizen treatment, and you still want super-national treatment? Have your brains gone swimming?" The ambassador harbored this thought, but his excellent diplomatic etiquette allowed him to maintain a polite smile.
"The Destiny System treats everyone equally and never discriminates against anyone based on nationality or race." He politely delivered a circuitous diplomatic statement, implying that no concessions were possible.
In truth, the treatment offered by the system was quite good for ordinary people, but Yamamoto clearly did not represent the interests of Yamato's common populace. The confiscation of personal assets exceeding one million, coupled with five years of collective servitude, were two terms they absolutely could not tolerate.
As for the option of war... Ever since Bai Mo declared his challenge to the entire world and then suppressed the entire Huaxia Federation, no one had dared to mention it again in any meeting.
Edward Teach, one of the United States' top combatants, possessed an avatar with his main body's full power, yet couldn't last three moves under that person. Yamamoto, who was of comparable power, surely wouldn't believe he had any chance of turning the tide.
Under the influence of Bai Mo's nanite swarm, other nations' satellites had been unable to capture any clear photographs related to the Land of White since over a year ago.
After that June snowfall, all spies were systematically equipped with the system one by one, becoming members of the vast working populace. Every action they took was monitored, and they lost the ability to gather intelligence.
What exactly was happening within the Land of White, other nations could only deduce from publicly available information. All secret intelligence was unobtainable, and military readiness could only be guessed at.
Facing an enemy with unparalleled individual combat power and completely unknown military equipment, the probability of victory was easily imagined.
"According to our engineers' predictions, there are roughly four more years until we are connected to Yamato. Should we make a stand?" Unless absolutely forced, Yamamoto didn't want to flee Yamato with his trusted aides, as this was their home base. If they lost it and fled to the Americas, everything would have to start from scratch.
"A full-scale war is essentially unwinnable. But with the nation's resources, perhaps there's a sliver of hope for me to gain enough power to contend with him within these four years... But just how strong is a Seven-Tier power?"
With power capable of completely crushing Six-Tiers, Bai Mo was, without a doubt, designated as the benchmark for Seven-Tiers by evaluators. However, how truly strong he was, no one could answer for now, except for himself.
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