Ma'ao Star had become increasingly prosperous within a very short time, and it might have already become the planet with the most diverse species in the Galaxy. Ever since Bai Zhongqi announced the establishment of the offices of the Iridium Star United Empire on Ma'ao Star, every civilization that had joined the United Empire had set up their offices there. Smaller civilizations might only send a team of dozens to hundreds of people, assigned to an office building. Large civilizations, on the other hand, might directly send over hundreds of thousands of personnel to Ma'ao Star.
Since Bai Zhongqi did not allow the Iridium people to fully handle the affairs of the Pan-Galactic Iridium Star United Empire, a significant number of affairs within the United Empire were widely managed by talented individuals from other civilizations. Therefore, in a bid to increase their presence in the United Empire and also to seek benefits for their own civilizations, many member civilizations were actively involved in the administration of the United Empire.
After the number of member civilizations in the Iridium Star United Empire exceeded eight hundred, Bai Zhongqi announced the renaming of Ma'ao Star to First Galactic Star, formally establishing it as the political capital of the United Empire. Iridium Star then served as the capital of the Orion Arm's direct administration.
The efficient and experienced officials of Iridium Star had already established comprehensive rules and systems for the Pan-Galactic Iridium Star United Empire, and now they were absorbing officials from other civilizations to jointly manage the affairs. Prime Minister Guo Lingmei had to relocate from Iridium Star to First Galactic Star to assist the Chancellor in organizing the government of the Pan-Galactic United Empire. The original cabinet of Iridium Star was retained as the central government for the Orion Arm's direct administration.
The Prime Minister, Guo Lingmei, refined and well-learned, suddenly switched from managing Iridium Star's affairs to handling the administration of over eight hundred civilizations in the United Empire government, which was indeed very challenging. Although each member civilization still retained a considerable degree of autonomy in managing their administrative affairs, there were still several major divisions within the United Empire government.
"...The top priority for the United Empire government now is to unify the Empire Army. The command authority of the Unified Empire Army rests with the Privy Council, while the management authority lies with the United Empire government's Common Defense Department. The officials for the Common Defense Department are nearly in place, and the next crucial task is to urge civilizations to send their finest officers and soldiers, organize their training, and coordinate budget and resource allocation issues with the United Empire government," Guo Lingmei seldom introduced the work directly to Bai Zhongqi face-to-face, as it was more common for the Knights to handle such matters.
Bai Zhongqi nodded, the formation of the Unified Empire Army was spearheaded and led by him, and he had a clear grasp of the overall direction. All civilizations were careful in supporting the establishment of the Unified Empire Army. After all, if they were slow to act, the United Empire might not dispatch the Star Whale Beast Fleet, and that could compromise their security.
"Supporting the construction of the Unified Empire Army requires money and resources. This involves the newly established United Empire Bank, Finance Department, Resource Supply Department, Construction Engineering Department, and Ministry of Industry. We have decided that all inter-civilizational trade within the United Empire will use energy currency exclusively, setting one kilowatt-hour of energy equivalent to one Yuan. The United Empire Bank will effectively become the main base for the preparation and storage of the Empire's energy, and in any member civilization, the electronic currency, United Yuan, can be freely exchanged for one kilowatt-hour of energy. However, this is of little significance in itself; its primary value lies in being a medium of exchange and a measure of pricing."
Iridium Star originally used a government-mandated form of credit currency, which intrinsically had no value—it was merely a medium through which the Iridium Star government transferred various essential products for production and daily life to its citizens. Now, the Pan-Galactic Iridium Star United Empire has "regressed" to using energy as a general equivalent, establishing a unified currency system for trade and communication among civilizations, also as a way to promote resource circulation better.
This system actually still has significant issues. For high-level civilizations like Iridium Star or Borke, they can prepare energy indefinitely, which amounts to printing money indefinitely. If other resource development and product manufacturing can't keep up, then the currency will devalue. Civilizations with strong energy technologies have an advantage over those with inferior energy technologies. The advantage of civilization levels will quickly transform into a disparity, which is disadvantageous for many civilizations.
Therefore, to balance this fragile economic system, the Empire's embassies stationed in various civilizations continually draw up purchase lists according to the actual productive capacity and resource situation of these civilizations. These civilizations exchange resources or products they develop to meet the orders from the Empire's embassies. With the money from these orders, they can then purchase other products from other civilizations.
This is somewhat similar to Keynesian government expansion purchasing, except that Iridium Star does not face a scarcity of energy, so it can continue to promote production in this way. As for high-level civilizations, they can produce a large amount of energy without relying on purchases from the Empire's embassies, but this energy cannot be directly converted into United Yuan currency, meaning the member civilizations do not have minting rights.
High-level civilizations can either sell goods to the Empire's embassies in exchange for currency or choose to surrender their energy and pay a minting tax to obtain these currencies.
Relying on the embassy system, the United Empire is able to centralize different goods from different civilizations on the same platform, determining trade with a relatively balanced supply and demand relationship.
Naturally, for civilizations like Iridium Star or Borke, there basically isn't an issue of supply and demand—they supply as demanded. If the manufacturing supplies of these two civilizations were unrestricted, they could meet all needs of the entire United Empire, but that would be destructively disruptive to local production. Thus, for highly developed civilizations, they are only allowed to supplement excessive products according to their own needs and are not permitted to engage in dumping.
For example, if a high-level civilization needs 100 tons of gold, they can sell goods worth 100 tons of gold to acquire the gold they need. However, when they do not have a need for gold or other resources or goods, high-level civilizations are not allowed to participate in the free market trade of the United Empire. Of course, the trade department sets certain trade quotas for high-level civilizations, allowing them to sell slightly more than they buy, but the scale is not too large.
These civilizations are essentially self-sufficient, and the goods they purchase are likely not tangible goods but intangible ones, such as cultural products or services, in which case they are allowed to engage in excess trade.
By building such a trading system, the relationships among the United Empire's civilizations will become closer, and their mutual understanding will deepen to some extent.