Chapter 2514: The Economic Crisis of the Imperium
Li Yao told Li Jialing that the legal tender of the Imperium of True Human Beings, which had been established at the center of the cosmos for a thousand years, was named “crystal coin” because the currency was dependent on high-purity crystals in the beginning.
At first, there were five hundred million crystals of ultimate quality as the support of the crystal coins of the Imperium. Every dollar of crystal coins could be exchanged for 0.1 grams of ultimate crystals unconditionally.
“Ultimate” was not an exaggerated modifier but had a very strict standard. Only the crystals with a purity of more than 95% could be marked as “ultimate”. The only things purer than the ultimate crystals were the rarely-seen marrow crystals.
Such a guarantee empowered the crystal coins with high credit and vitality, helping Blackstar the Great to crumble the vulnerable economic and financial system of the obsolete Star Ocean Republic.
Crystals were the essence of high-purity energy that was required in daily training, fighting, the life of the ordinary people, or the colonization on the foreign planets. Therefore, it was a hard currency, a hundred times harder than gold and silver.
Since the crystal coins could be directly exchanged for ultimate crystals, the common people were naturally glad to choose such a currency. Choosing the crystals coins meant choosing the Imperium. As a result, the old Star Ocean Republic that was corrupt and inflated was kicked to the gutter—well, not exactly gutter, but the Star Glory Federation at the edge of the cosmos.
To be honest, leaving aside the evil nature of Wuying Qi and his offspring, the purchasing power of the crystal coins was rather solid during the first five hundred years of the Imperium’s rise.
On one hand, the stock of the ultimate crystals looted everywhere in the entire Imperium grew from five hundred million tons to five billion tons, guaranteeing the solemn promise that the crystal coins of the Imperium could be exchanged into ultimate crystals anywhere and anytime.
There were interests if money was deposited in a bank, but the money would not appreciate if it was exchanged into crystals. In the early phase of the Imperium, the prices of the crystals were strictly monitored. Whoever dared to stir trouble in the crystals market would be shot in the head. Also, it was inconvenient to trade directly with crystals. Naturally, not many people kept a large stockpile of crystals, and the risk of bank runs was not high.
On the other hand, the newly-conquered worlds brought infinite war benefits and an ever-expanding market. During the five hundred years, all the sects and families in the Imperium were in the golden, thriving period. The society was prosperous, and the colorful soap bubble was bigger and bigger. Even though the value of the crystal coins slightly decreased, people’s income had increased even more. Even the ordinary people in the central areas could share the war benefits. Their days were not bad at all. Naturally, they had faith in the Imperium, His Majesty, and the crystal coins of the Imperium.
However, the splendid, flouris.h.i.+ng Imperium of True Human Beings had internal and external problems breaking out simultaneously after just having its 500th birthday.
Inside, the few consecutive court coups significantly weakened the royal family, and the four Kurfürst families took the opportunity to rise, usurping the power of the government under the claim to maintain the stability of the royal family by four renowned elders electing the emperor together.
Outside, all the prosperous worlds had been included in the territory of the Imperium. The war cost and the difficulty of governance for further conquests had significantly increased. Also, the protracted war of attrition against the Covenant Alliance resulted in the continuous loss of blood of the Imperium. It had reached the limits of expansion.
A country of Immortal Cultivators such as the Imperium of True Human Beings lived on invasions and conquests. The prosperity of the conquerors was founded on the blood and bones of the conquered.
Once the footstep of conquest stopped, the soap bubbles immediately broke apart.
The first economic crisis that swept across the entire Imperium broke out. Many people went bankrupt overnight, their bonds, shares, and futures reduced to wasted paper. Even more people were in debt, which they could not pay back in their entire lives, turning them from free folk into slaves.
There was a most famous case back then. At that time, a powerful, influential Immortal Cultivator, whose name was Pang Qingyun, claimed that he had informants in the court who told him that an expedition of five million lightyears was about to be launched to conquer twenty Sectors that were marked on the ancient star maps. In the meantime, he had got the subsequent colonization and management rights of three of the worlds. He talked with so many convincing details that it was almost real.
As a fundraiser, he divided the colonization and management rights and sold them, promising a high return rate, such as double returns in one year and ten times return in three years. A lot of greedy people were allured to devote their life savings to the project.
At first, Pang Qingyun did honor his promise. Not only did he pay the high interests in time, but he also invited the investors to visit various s.p.a.ceports, claiming that the expedition army of the Imperium and his colonization fleets were parked in such places. In the meantime, he made the most splendid demo pictures and even the vivid Grand Illusionary Lands, depicting the beautiful future of the new colonies. All the investors were delightedly tricked.
In the end, not only did the people invest huge money on the project, even many Immortal Cultivators and their sects were convinced by him and devoted all their revenues to the intangible colonization project.
But as it turned out, due to the economic crisis and the tight budget, the Imperium changed the policy of colonization. In principle, ma.s.sive expedition armies would not be sent to explore the unvisited lands like before. Instead, a technology named “star child” that had been invented would be used for smaller and more accurate explorations in the future.
It meant that the Imperium’s grand expedition had ended, perhaps forever!
Pang Qingyun’s lie was immediately exposed. The angry people surrounded his “development corporation”. It was not until then that they learned that he had been doing nothing except to borrow new money to pay the old debts. Countless people killed themselves because of him. His trick was henceforth known as “Pang scheme”.
Pang Qingyun’s scam was just one of the most insignificant soap bubbles that broke in the economic crisis. There were even more and even larger schemes that swallowed the wealth and lives of countless people.
The four Kurfürst families, with their ill intentions, did not help the court to resist the economic crisis at all. Instead, they instigated it and simply allowed the economic crisis to escalate, significantly diminis.h.i.+ng the last authority and vitality of the court. In the meantime, they made a fortune through the national disaster and expanded into giant monsters that could not be rid of.
The result of the economic crisis was that the crystal coins of the Imperium were announced to be independent of the ultimate crystals. Neither the ordinary people nor the low-level Immortal Cultivators were able to exchange ultimate crystals in banks with a stable price anymore and could only purchase them at the market price.
In the meantime, the average price of the crystals on the market appreciated by thirty times after only one year. Crystals were the source of productivity. When the prices of the crystals soared, the prices of all the other things soared too, except for wages and currency value. In other words, the crystal coins of the Imperium cheapened by thirty times after its independence.
The wealth of all the citizens of the Imperium was looted by the four Kurfürst families.
The four families, which had seized tremendous wealth, took the opportunity to take charge of politics and announced that they had the power to mint coins.
Although it was still “crystal coin of the Imperium” in name, the four banks under the four families all had the power to issue it. A “Joint Meeting of Banks” replaced the central bank of the Imperium and took over all the duties, which meant that the emperor’s money bag had been stolen by them.
The four families were merely conspiring with each other for interests, and their internal compet.i.tion was very fierce too. It was not hard to imagine that they couldn’t care less about the stability of the value of the coins. As long as the economy in their own territory could sustain, they did not care what was going on outside at all!
From that day on, the crystal coins of the Imperium had been rus.h.i.+ng on the road of depreciation, its value completely diluted.
Another piece of horrible news dealt a fatal blow to the shaking fiscal system of the Imperium. At first, the central bank of the Imperium had a stock of five billion tons of ultimate crystals as the support for the currency. Those ultimate crystals had been the pacifiers for the Imperium. But rumors spread out among the people that the five billion tons of ultimate crystals had been divided by the four families and consumed in the training of the high-level Immortal Cultivators in the families!
“It’s exactly because the four families carved up the ultimate crystals and consumed all of them that they have raised so many experts in the Core Formation Stage, the Nascent Soul Stage, and the Divinity Transformation Stage so quickly!”
Although the crystal coins of the Imperium were no longer dependent on the ultimate crystals, the appalling rumor still smashed the people’s last confidence in the Imperium. It was more like a plague and a curse than a rumor when it completely shattered the financial market and the economic system of the Imperium.
In the several hundred years that followed, another few economic crises broke out in the Imperium, gradually worsening to what it was today, where the warlords minded their own business, the economy was in chaos, and the local places did not care about each other. The source of the problems was that none of the people—from the ordinary people to the Divinity Transformation Stage experts—believe in the crystal coins of the Imperium at all!
Otherwise, such a vast Imperium wouldn’t have been mired in the swamp of total collapse after only ten years of expeditions, which were also victorious.
What was even more critical than the instability of the value and the malicious depreciation of the crystal coins was that the currency today had been virtualized and paper-free. There was not any concept of cash anymore. All the trades were conducted via the Spiritual Nexus. Even the greatest wealth was nothing but a series of zeros in the account.
The authorities of the Imperium were not shameless enough to directly modify the numbers in the citizens’ accounts. The problem was that all the deals on the Spiritual Nexus had traces. The production and consumption of everyone were known by the authorities, who could be the local warlords sometimes, the four Kurfürst families sometimes, or the so-called His Majesty in other cases.
Mastering such information meant mastering the wealth status of everybody in the Imperium. Naturally, it was easy for them to exploit and swallow the rich guys without leaving anything behind.