The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2438 Fangduo Planet

2439: Fangduo Planet

Looking at the timid Severance Tann, Matt Horner sighed to himself.

She was not like this before. She used to be so high-spirited, so arrogant and domineering, and she was indeed invincible. All the enemies who dared to question her were trampled under her feet.

Just one failure caused her to fall to this point?

Qi Jian patted Matt Horner on the shoulder, and the two walked out of the cell. When the heavy iron door closed behind them, locking Severance Tann in darkness, Qi Jian sighed and said, "I hope that the report you asked her to write can cheer her up a little."

"It is also possible that he plunged her into a deeper darkness." Matt Horner was silent for a long time after he finished speaking, and then asked, "What exactly was Tang Xiao's plan back then? In fact, I can feel that Severance Tann's transformation was directly related to him."

Qi Jian shook his head and said, "Your Majesty had foreseen a long time ago that an Imperial general named Thrawn would be very powerful, and he once wanted Cun Te to bring him here. However, Cun Te failed to do so because Thrawn had a high status in the Chiss Territory at the beginning and had few opportunities. Later, when he was exiled, Cun Te was no longer in the Unknown Star Region, and Thrawn went to Coruscant with a clear purpose to become a member of the Galactic Empire."

As he walked, he looked out the window, recalling the past. "Your Majesty actually told us that Thrawn is very powerful, almost the most powerful military commander he has ever seen. But why and where he is powerful, Your Majesty couldn't actually explain it clearly. He just said that Thrawn's existence is the future he saw through the Force... But the future is something that has too many variables, after all, so we don't know how to deal with it. We can't just avoid fighting when we see a man named Thrawn on the opposite side, right? How the plan was made should be how we fight, and the influence of such a person should not be taken into account."

"This is inevitable. Tang Xiao has mentioned Thrawn to me many times, but such a topic is almost worthless in my opinion. I can't even prepare for it. He also said that Thrawn is very good at studying his opponents and finding their weaknesses... There is almost nothing else. Does our battle plan have to bypass Thrawn? This is impossible." Matt Horner said, "I just didn't expect that there really is someone who can make Severance Tann lose so miserably."

Qi Jian said: "Your Majesty probably wanted to stimulate Severance Tann to fight against Thrawn in the beginning, which is the so-called provocation. And Tann did study and improve madly for that unknown goal, and even regarded defeating this person as the meaning of her life. Because to her, Your Majesty is her everything. Once she loses her value to Your Majesty, she will lose the value of her existence."

"But Tang Xiao still thinks that Severance Tann cannot defeat Thrawn?" Matt Horner asked.

"That's exactly what he judged." Qi Jian nodded, "Although I don't know the basis of his judgment. But judging from the results, His Majesty is indeed correct."

Matt Horner smiled and said, "Tang Xiao knows a lot of things, like a prophet. Maybe controlling death is just an appearance, his real power of the Force actually comes from foresight."

"So, we call him... Your Majesty." Qi Jian said this, and seemed to have a hidden meaning, implicitly reminding Matt Horner of the title.

Matt Horner said: "I understand him, but it doesn't mean I agree with him. In many cases, he made things very terrible. But now that things have come to this, we really have to win this long war."

"What's the difference between this and before?" Qi Jian asked back.

"This time, I will fight to protect more lives in the galaxy," said Matt Horner.

Qi Jian was silent for a while, then said, "Is this the reason why you went to see Hari Seldon yesterday?"

"Operation Plan Zero is undoubtedly a failure. This plan is too dependent on the reaction of the Galactic Empire. Once the Galactic Empire does not act as we expected, the plan is likely to fail." Matt Horner said, "To defeat the Galactic Empire, we must fight a quick battle. There is no problem with this. The problem lies in the method of implementation."

"What do you think?" Qi Jian asked.

"Maybe." Matt Horner smiled. "Hope it will work... For this, I must say that Hari Seldon is truly a genius among geniuses."

"Then I'm looking forward to what sparks you can create." Qi Jian raised his eyebrows.

Matt Horner nodded and said, "But Thrawn... he is indeed a difficult existence just as Tang Xiao said. No matter how extreme Severance Tann's thinking becomes, her learning and improvement over the years are visible to the naked eye. She almost forgot to eat and sleep in her studies... but Thrawn defeated her easily."

Qi Jian smiled bitterly and said, "And I also understand why His Majesty couldn't tell us why Thrawn was so powerful... Because his command style is completely untraceable, almost entirely based on improvisation, and some tactics are simply incredible. For example, the tactic he used to defeat Severance Tann - Thrawn's Pincers."

"Thrawn's claws?"

"Yes, the intelligence department said so. The Galactic Empire's naval officers in the north now call Thrawn's tactic 'Thrawn's Pincer'. It is a tactic that uses their Interdictor-class Star Destroyers to set up an ambush, form an artificial gravity well, and then forcibly drag the fleet out of the hyperspace jump and fall into the encirclement." Qi Jian said, "Now the Galactic Empire military is preparing to popularize this tactic. Of course, officially, they call this tactic Dunn's Pincer."

"Humph!" Matt Horner sneered, expressing his disdain for the so-called Northern God of War. But he was still very serious about Thrawn. "I've also read the battle report. He led his fleet to the route of General Tann's First Fleet in advance and created an artificial gravity well to ambush the First Fleet. But...how did he get there so quickly? And almost the entire army jumped."

Qi Jian said: "If there is any characteristic of Chiss naval officers, it is that they understand and utilize hyperspace far better than others. It may be due to the environment. To navigate in the extremely chaotic 'Tangle', it is definitely not just advanced technology. It also requires solid skills and understanding, as well as some luck..."

He paused, retrieved a research report from the universal tool and sent it to Matt Horner, saying, "He forcibly turned off the safety fuse of the hyperspace engine, and in the case of possible hyperspace fluctuations, he used a fleet that exceeded the capacity of the channel to forcibly jump, and then exited the jump state before the fluctuations were caused. He even considered the impact of the medium-sized black hole in front of the channel. This series of actions could not even be predicted, and it all depended on improvisation."

Matt Horner's face darkened. "And he came up with this tactic less than three days after he got the Interdictor-class Star Destroyer... Such a person is too scary. Even if I were to fight the Northern Campaign again now, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do better than Tann."

"So... I hope our preparations can be effective." Qi Jian said.

"Ender Wiking...he's just a kid." Matt Horner frowned.

"But I have never seen someone so smart and so talented," said Qi Jian.

"Including Thrawn?" "Including Thrawn!"

"Again, he is still too young. War is not something that should be done at his age."

"Defeat Thrawn once is enough." Qi Jian said seriously.

Matt Horner nodded and said nothing more.

……

The core circle of the Milky Way is filled with planets.

This planet was once one of the most brilliant industrial pearls in the entire Milky Way, a completely factory-based industrial world. This planet alone produced one-tenth of the industrial output value of the Galactic Empire. Such a production capacity can only be described as terrifying.

But now, this planet has been completely occupied by the Kingdom of Dawn, which has become the greatest shame of the Galactic Empire!

Not only did they lose the most important industrial world, but Fangduo Planet also became the first core circle planet to be occupied by the Kingdom of Dawn for a long time! This means that the Kingdom of Dawn’s military force has been directly pointed at the core circle!

It can be said that if Darth Vader had not maintained a super-large fleet of more than 2000 battleships in this direction, the powerful people in the core circle might have been in chaos by now.

But things are getting a little tricky for the Kingdom of Dawn.

Being able to occupy Fangduo Planet is definitely a significant move for the Kingdom of Dawn's strategy. In the past, this was definitely an ultimate goal that they would never dare to dream of. Occupying Fangduo Planet not only greatly improves their industrial capacity immediately, but also causes the industrial capacity of the Galactic Empire to fall into chaos in the short term, and will also cause a huge reduction in production.

It can be said that after occupying many planets, the Kingdom of Dawn will be able to confront the Galactic Empire head-on as one side gains strength while the other loses strength!

But the problem is...

Strictly speaking, it was not the Kingdom of Dawn that occupied the planet Fondo... but Alexia Ashford!

In order to occupy the planet Fondo, the fleet commander at the time, Severance Tann, had to accept the conditions of Alexia Ashford and use her power to occupy the planet, but the condition was that the planet Fondo must be handed over to her!

And now, Alexia Ashford has accomplished this task, and according to the agreement, she has also become the owner of the planet Fangduo.

Because of this incident, the top leaders of the Kingdom of Dawn held an emergency meeting to discuss it, but after studying the current situation of Fangduo Planet, they had to face a reality - Fangduo Planet seemed to have to be handed over to her!

Alexia Ashford's process of occupying the planet Fangduo was actually very simple and crude. She sent the mother nest of the T-Veronica virus that she had cultivated for a long time to the planet, built an extremely large nest, and then merged herself with the nest to become an extremely powerful mother nest.

The mother nest continuously produces various biochemically mutated monsters, which not only bring the virus to every corner of the planet and infect everyone on the planet, but also form an extremely large army.

It is precisely by relying on this endless supply of mutant troops that the Kingdom of Dawn can defeat the countless combat robots produced by countless factories on the planet Fangduo.

Although this method is very simple and crude, it solved the problem that the Kingdom of Dawn had been unable to solve before.

First of all, the problem of troop delivery was solved. The Kingdom of Dawn no longer needed to use long transportation lines to transport troops and supplies from the military base they occupied in the Central Ring Star Region to the planet Fondo. Moreover, Darth Vader's Death Squadron was still blocking the road.

The number of mutant creatures produced by the second mother nest is extremely large. By the end of the battle, including assimilation and production, there are already nearly 10 billion monsters!

Third, before the war, Fangduo had a population of 50 billion, including a large number of soldiers, workers, technicians and their families. Most of these people were eventually infected with the T-Veronica virus and assimilated into mutant monsters, which was also the reason why the planet's production eventually collapsed. Otherwise, under the control of these people, Fangduo's factories would continue to produce combat robots.

But after Alexia's actions, the natural environment of the planet Fangduo began to be completely transformed.

The T-Veronica virus, which is a mixture of plant and ant genes, has a strong ability to transform the environment and is very social. On the planet Fangduo, mutant vines can be seen almost everywhere. These vines constantly absorb energy from energy facilities, and then produce more mutant organisms and grow more vines.

Many places were completely taken over by these vines, and the planet's atmosphere began to be filled with spores of the T-Veronica virus.

It can be said that if a person comes here, he will become an unconscious zombie in just a few minutes!

Such an environment naturally has a very serious impact on the planet's production, and the Kingdom of Dawn absolutely does not want the industrial world it has occupied with great difficulty to be destroyed by Alexia Ashford and become a planet full of primitive jungles.

Therefore, Daphne Clement, the current Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Dawn, personally contacted Alexia Ashford and asked her to come up with a solution as soon as possible.

But Alexia Ashford was somewhat resistant. She told Daphne Clement that she would only talk to Tang Xiao.

However, Tang Xiao had completely lost contact at this time, and no matter how Helmut Zemo and the others called him, they could not find any trace of him. They even used a life detector to scan the dark altar where Tang Xiao was in seclusion, but the result of the scan was that there was nothing, he was not there at all!

Therefore, Alexia Ashford coldly stated at this time that since Tang Xiao was not there, she could only maintain the status quo.