Chapter 416: Corrupted Rat Bureaucrats
There is nothing in this garbage dump. On the contrary, many ratmen live here.

The density of ratmen in this garbage dump is very high. A lot of ratmen live on this pile of garbage, like a group of maggots living in a dark cesspool.

To this day, the towering new holy city has collapsed, as if the sky had fallen, or as if fire from heaven had descended.

A twisted frame wrapped in flames fell from the sky, a crack was torn in the dark sky, the sun shone again on the place, flames ignited, and then another death spread.

I looked up and gazed at the dazzling sunlight, and lowered my head to see flames rising from the mountains of garbage, black smoke, a pungent stench, and the running rats. Rats like cockroaches emerged from the garbage dump and ran wildly in panic.

The flames burning in the garbage dump rose higher and higher in such endless fuel, and finally dealt the final blow to the gradually stabilizing New Holy City of the Ratmen.

This brought the tragedy to its final climax.

It’s not that good things don’t happen, like the rat-man scavenger who is huddled in the former industrial area of ​​the underground rat city.

He was able to witness what happened, witness the falling flames, witness the overturned city. Amidst the loud noise, in the flames not far away, a huge beam fell down, just like a bridge, a bridge to a new world.

The rat-man scavenger boy stared at all this in amazement, until he came to his senses from his trance. He seemed to have made up his mind and resolutely ran towards the bridge in flames.
If he could be lucky enough to get through the flames, climb up the fallen metal beam, and break into the New Holy City, even if it was collapsed, then his fate would undoubtedly change.

Even though this towering city has fallen and is about to become worthless to the big guys, it can still be an opportunity within the reach of the lowly guys.

Everything that happened on Shenqi Star quickly spread throughout the entire Ratman Empire, causing an uproar. Obviously, this was a big event that affected all aspects.

The most important point in this turmoil is the private fleets of the temple priests. These things that could not be put on the table in the past are now lined up in a row at the star port of Shenqi Star.

The tacit understanding was broken and something started to become unbalanced.

This was an extremely dangerous omen. Some ratmen had already begun to feel the ripples of the storm, with the first to bear the brunt of the impact being a group of logistics officers, for a very simple reason.

At this moment, among the many ratman warships displayed in the Shenqi City Star Port, many of them are very familiar.

A rigorous pursuit began.

In the past, such things would naturally be insignificant. After all, there was no shortage of greedy guys and courageous guys in the Ratman Empire. With the repeated increases in the stakes by those temple priests, let alone replacing a few retired or about to be retired Ratman warships, even letting them lift their butts and dance in front of these temple priests would be a stress-free thing.

This warship leakage incident involves an extremely complete chain.

The great emperor's personal guard has begun investigating the matter.

The Fortress Star suddenly became a mess.

In a small office in an extremely remote area on the huge ring star port, a rather fat rat man was picking up everything in the office in fear.

This office is quite luxurious, with blood-gold pendants, fur carpets, carved walls, any one of these things would require extremely huge wealth to support, but now, they are all displayed in a small starport caretaker's office.

The rat people's star port is not just a port. In fact, the location of the star port is extremely critical. It can almost be regarded as a steel portal stuck in the node of that great passage.

All the ratmen warships that travel through the great passage and eventually arrive at the Fortress Star will appear around the star port. By simply setting up some giant cannons on this space port and stationing a sufficiently powerful patrol fleet, one of the nodes of this great passage can be easily taken control.

Of course, under normal circumstances, the warships that jump to the star port will definitely not be destroyed at will. The rat warships that arrive at the star port for the first time only need to choose to accept the care of the patrol fleet and complete the application for the pass, so that they can travel smoothly through this star port.

As one of the two centers of the empire, Fortress Star Port receives countless visits from ratmen ships every day. Moreover, Fortress Star Port is different from Shenqi Star Port in that it is not a mere decoration that garrisons too large a star force due to historical reasons.

The Ratmen's First and Second Expeditionary Fleets, the Third Expeditionary Fleet that is being planned, and the port patrol fleet which, with its own heavy firepower on the starport, is almost comparable to a main expeditionary fleet.

Most of the military forces of the Rat Empire are gathered here, and they are not afraid of facing sudden attacks.

If the attackers can completely defeat the Ratman fleet here, then the offensive force of the Ratman Empire can be almost completely destroyed.

The rest is simple.

The rats will use endless ground troops to fight against enemies who try to land on the colonized planets, or they will be wiped out by anti-planet weapons.

The Ratman Empire, with only eight planets, is not considered a big empire in the universe. It would be difficult for it to get up again if it was defeated once.

Qi was particularly angry after learning about the chaos on the Shenqi Star. He had been preparing for the expedition for a long time. The two unfamiliar star fields would be the directions for the rat people to explore. In his opinion, this passage was not the future of the rat people. Continued development and exploration were the most important things. But now, when he turned around, he saw the rat priests who were holding back.

All of a sudden, everything had to be paused, and what made him even more unhappy was that the group of damn bugs not only began to surge, but also stretched out their tentacles, appearing unnoticed under his nose.

A big cleanup is about to begin, and it will be a thorough cleanup.

The Gatekeeper Mouse is a transit registrar at the Fortress Star Port. His daily tasks are simple: he uses special paper tapes to punch holes in the steaming computer, and then types out record sheets based on these holes. He then uses these record sheets to decide whether to issue passes to the people in front of him.

It's a very simple job. It looks tedious but actually all you have to do is place the paper tape, punch holes, and then print the pass, and then repeat this process. He has always felt that such a task can be easily completed by anyone.

But what could he complain about? At least as an imperial official of moderate importance, he could still go to the mid-range Ratman bar in Star Harbor to have a drink every day and listen to the Ratman music that the music apprentice was trying hard to play.

It took him a long time to find this ratman bar, which was quite far from his workplace, but it was all worth it, even though the blood-red inferior wine inside was at least twice as expensive as other ratman bars. Damn it, that boss who always tilted his head really thought he had never tasted good wine.

A year ago, he spent 20,000 blood gold coins to get an invitation to the banquet held by the minister. The wine in the banquet was said to be high-quality goods shipped from Shenqi Star. Even though he spent such a huge amount of blood gold coins, he still did not get promoted or appreciated.

But this one is still worth it, what's important is the style, which is a very important thing, although it makes him spend more than he earns.

The bureaucratic system built by Qi became corrupt at an unimaginable speed. This is not surprising, after all, the rat people have always had obvious class barriers.

The newly born bureaucrats of the Ratman Empire learned this set of skills without reservation.

They value their style and manners, and are keen on holding various salons, forming associations based on various interests.

This is not uncommon. In essence, it is no different from what the rat priests did in the barbaric era. This style of behavior was called merit and achievement in the past. As for the practice of forming gangs and factions, no one is more enthusiastic about it than those rat priests.

They are united around senior rat priests, around rat cities, around the two categories of big claw priests and rat priests, around the wars they have experienced, and around common sacrificial rituals.

It can be said that the organizational structure of this group of guys is an endless nesting of dolls, with large groups within small groups, and small groups connecting with even smaller groups.

A structure of disorder within order.

In essence, it is no different from what the rat-man bureaucrats are doing now, and it may even be more extreme. After all, in the era when the rat-man priests ruled everything, conflicts between groups were not as serious as they are now.

There is also a special salon for mediation or socializing.

At that time, the rat priests used physical means to solve these problems. They would find a good time, a good place, and then a good opportunity to kill all the guys on the opposite side. In this way, all the problems would be solved.

All of these, whether in the past or now, play the same role, which is to set a threshold in order to distinguish themselves from the lowly guys who make up the vast majority, and to distinguish themselves from the young guys who have just entered this area.

The Gatekeeper maintains this style, so it is possible that other bureaucratic circles will be willing to accept it. This is a ticket, and only with it can you climb up better.

Of course, was the gatekeeper appreciated? No, these were just tickets. Whether it would really work or not depended on the opinions of the big shots above.

This may be the reason why the ratman priests in the past and the ratman bureaucrats now are fond of this way of playing. After all, the right of interpretation belongs to them.

No matter from which degree, the watchtower rat seemed exceptionally mediocre, which was not surprising, but he also had something that made him proud.

He is a rat man who insists on the concept of full parenting. He has a total of five rat children, and all five were raised by him one by one. Although in the end, only one can inherit his name, he will not give up the other four.

If he is smart, he will send him to a rat school. If he is not smart, he will give him an adult fund after he reaches adulthood.

It is not an easy task to raise these children one by one.

But he was quite proud of it.

However, after maintaining the style time and time again, the blood gold coins in his hand were becoming scarce.

Occasionally, he would receive some blood gold coins that were not very visible, and some guys who transported gray items would give him a sum of money in exchange for faster approval.

But such things are just minor things. After all, the guys who can get involved in these gray businesses are never irregular guys. On the contrary, only the largest and most formal chambers of commerce are capable of getting involved in these things.

Life became difficult, especially since one of his five children was extremely gifted.

The situation changed a year ago. One night, he received a sum of blood gold coins neatly stacked in a box, and what he had to do was very simple, which was to issue a pass regardless of the consequences.

He really needed such blood gold coins at that time.

It was also from that day that his life changed dramatically.

Money was squandered, all kinds of things that were previously unimaginable, the most upper-class salons, and blood-gold coins were spent wantonly in the casinos.

In just one year, his life has undergone tremendous changes. It turns out that rat people are indeed not a race that is good at resisting temptation.

He abandoned his wife, spent his nights partying, living a life of debauchery, buying properties, and taking that special blue mushroom powder.

Ridiculous things happened one after another, and all one had to do was to show those passes without any scruples.

Of course, the unwarranted gift had already been secretly priced.

He was a link in the warship leakage incident and was also the carefully prepared white glove. From beginning to end, he had never seen the upstream party who transferred money to him, nor did he know where the pass he had randomly stamped went.

A perfect scapegoat.

Until all this happened, the great emperor was furious. He felt something was wrong. After all, he was a smart guy who had studied at the Imperial Military Academy. He wanted to escape, but unfortunately, he, an excellent scapegoat, could not really escape.

The Starport Patrol, dressed in black semi-covered combat uniforms and holding electric batons in their hands, rushed into the office.

Not long after, the overweight ratman was forced onto the patrol ship while struggling in extreme fear, along with all kinds of luxurious items found in his office, the pass list, and boxes of blood gold coins.

(End of this chapter)