Reading this account,
Zhao Chen could not help feeling some curiosity about this Star Alliance Leader.
He wanted to search for detailed information on this Leader, and for images of the man himself.
The first thing to appear before him was a very handsome man.
Zhao Chen stared at this man.
And one phrase came to him without thinking.
A man with a woman's looks.
And of a beauty beyond compare at that.
Song Chen.
A name that sounded very elegant too.
But what he had done was not so elegant.
First, he was born a bastard; he carried the blood of a so-called great family, true.
But for him at the start, that was no help at all; it was a tremendous drag.
For this so-called father of his had, counting only the offspring the family acknowledged, nearly ten.
And of bastards like him, rumor said there might be over a hundred outside!
Bastards of this kind were given no favor for their birth.
They were bullied and pressed down without end.
Not a few of these bastards died for one reason or another, died without a sound.
Zhao Chen had never been through such a thing, but in his own universe he had heard such secrets of great families too.
Because there were so many offspring, the life of a bastard was worth no more than a weed in the eyes of the legitimate ones.
Yet they had to guard against any of them rising.
At which point some small-minded person would quietly have all these bastards done away with.
Or kept down for life!
Most bastards, in truth, never had the chance to show themselves.
But this Song Chen was different.
Zhao Chen found the earliest event about him.
It was his first step into the spotlight.
【Song Chen and the White Rose Starship Research Institute jointly release the T4 Egret-class Light Interstellar Cruiser】
【The T4 Egret-class Light Interstellar Cruiser peaks at launch; orders are booked three years out】
【The White Rose Starship Research Institute announces it will establish the White Rose Military-Industrial Group, expand the T4 Egret-class Light Interstellar Cruiser's production lines, and raise this warship's output tenfold within half a year!】
【The White Rose Military-Industrial Group founded in ten days, by the merger of seven starship manufacturers!】
Zhao Chen read this.
This T4 Egret-class Light Interstellar Cruiser must have been the first pot of gold on Song Chen's road to power.
And it had founded an interstellar military-industrial group of his own outright.
This White Rose Starship Research Institute, if Song Chen had not founded it, must have had some partnership with him.
Zhao Chen raised his hand and opened a drinks cabinet beside the bed.
Some beverages were set out inside.
But they were all very cheap, and had to be paid for.
Zhao Chen took out a cold drink, and a deduction notice popped up on his side.
But Zhao Chen paid it no mind; his account held the half-year bonus just paid.
After a mouthful, Zhao Chen searched for this White Rose Starship Research Institute and the White Rose Interstellar Military-Industrial Group.
And sure enough, from then on,
these two names kept rising in this universe.
There might be a single Star Alliance system in this universe.
But that did not mean there was no war within it.
For one article of the Star Alliance Compact said as much.
There would be no interference in wars within the families of Star Alliance members, unless the Alliance's interests were touched.
Meaning: fight and squabble as you like, only don't disturb others' interests.
And so the military-industrial trade naturally still held the highest place!
For war is forever the quickest means of building up one's own power!
But to return to the matter at hand.
Zhao Chen looked at the White Rose Interstellar Military-Industrial Group.
Broadly, once the White Rose Starship Research Institute had founded this group, the research institute withdrew by degrees into the background.
What stood in front was the White Rose Starship Military-Industrial Group.
But everyone knew the two complemented each other.
From its founding until now, the White Rose Starship Military-Industrial Group had only five years of history.
Yet in those five years this group had taken a firm seat as the Star Alliance's foremost military-industrial group.
The White Rose Group's market share had by now reached sixty percent!
Starships for civilian use, cheap combat starships, high-end starships, the White Rose Group had a hand in all of them.
It held as many as thirty exclusive T1-grade technologies, eighteen of them starships.
Twenty-three exclusive T2-grade technologies, fifteen of them starships.
Fourteen exclusive T3-grade technologies, eleven of them starships.
After the White Rose Group brought out its first T4 Egret-class Light Interstellar Cruiser, that warship became the best-selling T4-grade interstellar warship.
This dark horse, charging out of nowhere, naturally squeezed other starship makers' market share.
As the saying goes, to take a man's money is to kill his parents.
And the White Rose Group, riding high, naturally became the target of every arrow.
Behind it, too, lay the fact that certain legitimate scions of the Song family could not abide this bastard stealing the limelight,
which gave rise to the affair of the eight military-industrial firms besieging White Rose.
They cut White Rose off, upstream and down.
They even had their sales arms say it plainly.
If you dared buy White Rose's interstellar warships, then the other warships these makers built would not be sold to you.
This approach in fact violated the fair-competition clauses of the Star Alliance Compact.
But such clauses forever protect the strong.
When you have strength, they trample on those clauses to bully you.
When you are stronger than they, they wave those clauses and shout at you.
And the way out of it is only to become the stronger.
All truth lies within firing range!
But at the time this Star Alliance Leader's military strength was not yet enough to match these opponents.
And just as outsiders thought he would swallow his anger.
A great affair broke out.
It is now called 'the Hundred-odd White Roses'.
Why so?
Because under that pressure the White Rose Group gave not an inch, and held the first press conference since its founding.
At that conference the White Rose Group brought out a hundred products at once: starships, military equipment, civilian equipment, manufacturing equipment and the rest,
covering nearly every category on the market at T1, T2 and T3.
And, as it happened, the best-selling products of the several makers besieging White Rose were among them.
Every one of the hundred products White Rose brought out was better and cheaper!
At the same time, on several of them the White Rose Group offered discounts.
And, as it happened, the products given discounts were exactly those matched against the eight besieging firms' best sellers.
And so,
this interstellar trade war, only just begun, took the stage in a form never seen before.
A vast hand seemed to press down on the heads of these eight firms.
Over the months that followed.
Because of the White Rose Group's precise sniping, and because its products truly were better and cheaper.
Those eight firms cried out in misery; in three months their sales fell off a cliff.
The worst hit had every one of its orders canceled.
Of ten industrial production lines, eight were shut down outright.
What does it mean when people would rather pay the penalty than keep the order?
Because White Rose's price, even with the penalty added, was still cheaper than theirs!
How was one to play that?
You lay down a low card, and they answer by throwing a bomb in your face.
And when you cannot play?
Then, naturally, you flip the table.
The family powers behind the eight firms all came forward and formed a so-called alliance.
They raised a joint interstellar force, meaning to attack the White Rose Group's production bases.
What followed needs little telling.
After these allied forces mustered and marched over,
what stood before them were interstellar warships built by White Rose on production lines expanded who knew when.
And they were forcibly beaten down.
Before the Star Alliance's arbiters could even arrive to mediate, they were wiped out entirely.
This war is called the War of the White Rose.
After these two affairs,
Song Chen truly had his chance to sit at the Star Alliance's board.
After that, the White Rose Group kept bringing out T4 interstellar warships, and then T5-grade ones.
When the White Rose Group brought out a T5 interstellar warship, every great family of the Star Alliance was shaken.
For however great a starship maker's market share, in these great families' eyes it counted for nothing,
since what it built were second-rate warships.
Only the T4-grade ones were even worth a look.
But a T5-grade interstellar warship was another matter.
For at that time, in the private fleets of the various families and in the Star Alliance's joint forces, a T5 warship could serve as a flagship and as the main fleet's core.
And the Star Alliance's technology then had only just touched the edge of T6.
Reading this far,
Zhao Chen felt as though he were reading the legend of a nobody's rise, and it was, he had to admit, quite satisfying.
After that,
with the White Rose Group as his foundation, Song Chen kept expanding.
Swallowing the interstellar powers that attacked him.
He gained interstellar territory of his own, from a small star system to a whole star region.
From a starship maker just starting out,
to a military-industrial magnate among the Star Alliance's top five!
All in less than three years.
In this period the Song family split into two camps.
One wanted to bring Song Chen back into the family; the other held that Song Chen must not return, and must be kept down.
The latter were in fact part of the Song family's direct line, the legitimate scions with hopes of inheriting.
Three of them were the most active,
because they were the three likeliest heirs to the Song family.
So they hated the suddenly risen Song Chen bitterly.
From then the two sides clashed,
from tit-for-tat of every kind to the outbreak of open war at last.
The three Song heirs made common cause, mustered every interstellar warship they could, and declared war on Song Chen.
To outsiders then, Song Chen had strength, but nothing near that of heirs with the Song family behind them.
After all, the Song family's power ranked among the Star Alliance's top ten.
Called a family, it was more an interstellar kingdom!
Yet against odds so uneven,
Song Chen brought out at that time a series of T5-grade interstellar warships, and won that war at last with the force of a king.
But that was far from the end.
This war, which might be called a war among the Song heirs, became the fuse of a Star Alliance civil war.
The three heirs did not die in the war, but nearly all were gravely wounded.
At which the powers behind the three heirs could bear it no longer.
Do not suppose the three heirs could call only on the Song family's power; their mothers, above all the mother of the eldest!
The family she came from was likewise among the Star Alliance's top five.
And, long since sick of her husband's philandering, she had thrown all her energies into power.
And had, without anyone quite noticing, taken hold of two-thirds of the Song family's military strength.
It was then, too, that she brought about a great upheaval in the Song family: those within it who did not support her died or fled, and the lucky ones announced their retirement and never asked after the family's affairs again.
From then the Song family formally belonged to the senior wife's branch.
Then came the campaign against Song Chen.
This senior wife of the Song family had no small ability, it must be said: she actually persuaded the Star Alliance Leader of the day to define Song Chen and the powers under him as dangerous elements threatening the Alliance.
And in the end it carried by a majority in the Council's vote.
It was decided to send the Star Alliance's joint forces to campaign against Song Chen.
It was the Alliance's greatest civil war in centuries.
And after the Leader announced the motion.
There was still a faction within the Alliance that stood behind Song Chen.
But set against the Alliance, the two were very unequal in size.
Then the Star Alliance civil war broke out.
The great powers fell chiefly into three blocs.
One was the middle party, who found reasons to decline joining the campaign against Song Chen, and did not support him either, but stood wholly aside and watched.
Another was, naturally, the Star Alliance's joint forces.
The last was Song Chen's side.
This war may be called the war in which Song Chen truly took the highest ground in this universe.
The war lasted nearly a year in the end.
And when the Alliance's joint forces brought out what they called T6 but were in fact quasi-T6 interstellar warships, and thought victory certain.
They were beaten on the battlefield by the true T6 interstellar warships Song Chen had built.
From then the outcome was settled!
Song Chen defeated the greater part of the Alliance's joint forces.
The neutral party came over to Song Chen's side as well, and with the family powers who surrendered and submitted besides.
Song Chen took control of the Star Alliance, and purged it by a series of iron-blooded measures.
Then came the Council's election, and Song Chen became Star Alliance Leader as a matter of course!
This was the third year of his term as Leader.
Having read all this, Zhao Chen felt, of all things, a kind of exhilaration.
He rather wanted to meet this legendary man.
……
The White Rose star system.
A handsome figure sat in a bathtub, enjoying the quiet.
Just then footsteps came from behind.
Without the least ceremony he raised a hand and pinched his fingers in the air.
A furtive figure was caught and left hanging in midair.
It was a bewitching woman in thin clothing.
"Brother Chen, I've come to scrub your back." The bewitching woman looked at the one in the tub, her eyes frighteningly ardent.
"Not needed. Sneak in again while I'm bathing. And see how I deal with you," Song Chen said coldly.
With that, he let go.
The woman dropped to the floor, and hearing Song Chen say so.
She simply burst into tears: "Deal with me? Very well then, Song Chen, deal with me. Kill me or cut me up, as you please. It was you, Song Chen, who saved me anyway; this life is yours. Do as you like with it."
Song Chen looked at this woman helplessly, knowing she carried on so because she knew he would do nothing to her.
And to tell the truth, the woman's looks were very fine.
Any man at all would surely have turned wolf and pounced.
"There is to be no next time." Song Chen gave a push and shoved the woman straight out of the bathroom.
But that was a thing he had said more times than he could count.
Then Song Chen stood up.
Water ran down.
But with a figure of such curves, how could this be a man!
Song Chen went to the mirror, wiped a hand across the fogged glass, and looked at herself in it.
"Song Chen? Heh… Mother. Had you not told me to, I would never have gone by this name. I want nothing of the surname Song. My surname is Zhao! I will always be Zhao Cheng!"