Two weeks quickly passed.
The battle at the Machine Planet's main base continued, having advanced to the eighteenth underground level, with victory within sight.
However, reinforcements from the Machine Planet were still arriving in an endless stream.
Two weeks ago, two hundred Machine Planet spacecraft a day were air-dropping troops.
Now, that number had increased to three hundred a day.
Most outrageously, the Machine Planet had invested heavily in building a robot factory in the orbit of Birong Star, capable of producing five hundred robots daily, which were then air-dropped to designated locations.
This robot factory had no network connection, and Ten-zhi Zhizi couldn't hack into it, leaving her helpless.
Jiang Ye was quite troubled.
To deal with the Machine Planet, 90% of the production in the rear had been halted, incurring massive expenses daily.
He had expected to resolve the battle quickly with superior troop numbers, but he hadn't anticipated the enemy's tenacity and stubbornness, clearly fighting to the death.
Jiang Ye really wanted to capture the Machine Planet's leader and ask, what was the point of such persistence? Had they drunk too much motivational chicken soup?
Of course, Jiang Ye wasn't just raging ineffectively.
Over the past two weeks, he had organized two full-scale sweeps, sixteen regional sweeps, and 244 small-scale sweeps. Excluding the small-scale ones, each sweep involved over 400,000 troops.
While observing the sweep results, Jiang Ye felt like he had become a villain, with hysterical armies being deployed to deal with elusive guerrillas.
The continuous military actions yielded fruitful results.
During the sweeps, a total of 750,000 robots were captured.
Thirty thousand Machine Planet fortifications were destroyed.
420,000 tons of various military supplies were seized.
Jiang Ye Star had begun constructing its tenth prisoner-of-war camp. Considering the post-war costs, these camps were all designed with stadium structures and distributed across major cities. This way, after the war, these POW camps could transform into venues for sports events, concerts, and various open-air ceremonies.
The citizens of Jiang Ye Star were shocked by the increasing number of POW camps, unable to imagine the intensity of the front-line battles. Some citizens began to worry about mandatory taxes and started tagging Jiang Ye or Cen Yemeng online.
"I heard they're imposing a shopping tax, increasing the price of all goods by 30%. Is this true? @Jiang Ye"
"The front line needs money to fight, so do we have to pay taxes? @Cen Yemeng"
"How much tax will be levied? As a single person, I don't have a family to support, so should I pay more? If so, I'll get married quickly. @Jiang Ye @Cen Yemeng"
"Children don't have to pay war taxes, right? @Cen Yemeng @Jiang Ye"
The rumors were becoming more and more absurd, and too many people were tagging them, so a response was necessary.
It was Cen Yemeng who first noticed the large number of netizens tagging them. She then posted a response on several of Jiang Ye Star's most popular web pages.
Cen Yemeng: "Many of you have been asking about taxes recently. I would love to answer your questions, but unfortunately, my job does not cover this area. Currently, the leadership of Jiang Ye Star is focusing all their efforts on the war in Birong Star. The fighting there is unprecedentedly fierce, with millions of troop deployments each week, and all leadership personnel are operating at maximum capacity."
Cen Yemeng: "I will pay close attention to this matter and relay your opinions to the leadership. Once there is a lull in the fighting, I will immediately release a statement to everyone. Please be patient, and everything will be based on official statements."
Cen Yemeng said a lot, but after reading it repeatedly, people felt like she hadn't said anything at all.
Rumors continued to spread online.
All sorts of alarming rumors began to emerge.
The next evening, Jiang Ye finally appeared and posted a very brief statement online.
Jiang Ye: "Stop spreading nonsense. There's no such thing as paying taxes. Anyone who spreads it will be arrested! @Shao Wan, if you see any particularly outrageous rumors, please invite them to the police station for a cup of tea."
As soon as Jiang Ye posted, the thread exploded.
The entire planet spread the word from one to ten, and then from ten to a hundred, rapidly disseminating the information.
Within two hours, there were over a million shares and two million replies.
"Commander, if we don't pay taxes, where will the money for the war come from!"
"We're not afraid of paying taxes. Jiang Ye Star belongs to the people of Jiang Ye Star, and we are willing to donate money to buy weapons for our front-line soldiers!"
"Our brothers are fighting abroad, so it's only right for us to contribute some money. We are willing to do what we can, as long as the taxes are not too outrageous."
Jiang Ye was speechless seeing these messy replies.
He furiously wrote a long statement.
Jiang Ye: "I am deeply moved by your willingness to pay money for the war effort, but most of you are too poor to contribute much. While our soldiers are fighting bravely on the front lines, you should live your lives well in the rear, earn more money, and live your best lives. That is the greatest help you can provide to Jiang Ye Star. You don't need to worry about military expenses; that's our job. If you truly want to contribute, you can immigrate to Birong Star, where there are many job openings."
Cen Yemeng watched from the side, her eyes wide with alarm. She quickly grabbed her husband, "You can't post this!"
"I'm not stupid." Jiang Ye sent the statement to Su Yueming.
Five minutes later, Su Yueming sent back the revised statement.
[Dear Citizens of Jiang Ye Star, I am Commander Jiang Ye. I have carefully read many of your online responses, and many of you have proactively offered to contribute money for military expenses, which deeply moves me. True feelings are revealed in times of crisis. Jiang Ye Star is a young planet, but our twenty million citizens have clearly coalesced into a unified whole.]
[However, after careful deliberation by the leadership, we have decided not to impose additional taxes on you.]
[Firstly, although Jiang Ye Star has not implemented a tax policy, you actually pay a considerable amount of implicit taxes in your daily lives. A certain proportion of the profits of major enterprises are handed over, and these profits are generated from your daily consumption. When you buy a roasted chicken at the supermarket, a soldier will have an extra broccoli on their plate. When you purchase a villa in the city center, the soldiers on the front lines will receive brand-new riot suits.]
[Secondly, from a macroeconomic perspective, Jiang Ye Star has a large number of unemployed individuals, children, and elderly people among its twenty million population, and many are struggling financially. Imposing additional taxes on you due to the war would undoubtedly exacerbate your living burdens. The leadership hopes that everyone on Jiang Ye Star can live and work in peace and contentment, and achieve better living conditions through hard work. Therefore, while paying attention to Birong Star, please work harder to create more wealth for society and yourselves.]
[Your concern for military expenses warms my heart. Please rest assured that the military expenses for Birong Star are currently sufficient, and the leadership has other ways to obtain adequate funds, primarily from other friendly planets and organizations that support us, and this will not cause you any additional burden. We are not alone in the universe; we have many friends who support us.]
[Today, I feel that all citizens of Jiang Ye Star are a single entity, marching forward together. Our future and destiny will not plummet but will soar. Some netizens have said that Jiang Ye Star is the planet of its people. I would like to add that Birong Star will also be our planet.]
Cen Yemeng read it and was astonished, "Holy crap, your secretary has some talent!"
"What talent? It's actually written quite poorly." Jiang Ye frowned. "When Liu Jizi was my secretary, his writing was even better than this."
After saying that, he copied and pasted the entire statement online.