Chapter 6 The Tithe of the Empire

What is the most important duty of a planetary governor?

When someone asks this question, all planetary governors have one and only one standard answer.

That is to pay taxes for the Empire!

The human empire spanning the galaxy is surrounded by many enemies.

Multi-front warfare leads to huge war pressure, which in turn gives rise to an extremely harsh tax system.

This tax system is called the Imperial Tithe, also known as the Great Harvest Tax.

It refers to the various resources that must be paid by each world within the empire.

There are two most important taxes:

Military Tithe, which is to pay a moderate amount of the planet's population as logistical labor or new recruits for the empire.

Precision Tithe, which is to accurately pay the planet's specialty resources and wealth.

The payment of the tithe depends on the type of world it applies to, and can be any form of resources: food, weapons, minerals, population, etc.

Although a large internal affairs department has been established on the Holy Terra, the central empire, to oversee the payment of the tithe.

However, due to the huge territory and the instability of subspace navigation, this often makes the tax payment process chaotic and inefficient.

As a planetary governor, Ron's most important responsibility is to ensure that the tithe of his world is paid.

After paying the full tax, he can rule the planet in any way and do whatever he wants.

Even if all the people are turned into slaves, exploited in the most extreme way, and the corpses pile up into mountains, the empire will not interfere.

Paying taxes on time is the greatest loyalty to the God-Emperor!

On the contrary, any world that dares to refuse to pay taxes will suffer the most brutal blow from the empire. If the resistance escalates, it is very likely to receive a planetary extinction order.

In the process of paying taxes, if there are violations or omissions, imperial officials often order the law enforcement officers of the local Ministry of Justice to immediately execute the planetary governor!

The rule of the empire is so extremely dictatorial and cruel.

This means that no matter how well Ron governs the planet, once there is a problem with taxation, he may lose his head!

Hiss~ Ron felt a chill on his neck, which was too scary.

Linda noticed Ron's abnormality and came over to ask in a gentle voice: "Are you feeling uncomfortable?"

"It's okay, it's a little cold suddenly, um-"

Before Ron could react, he fell into Linda's arms, so warm and soft.

"Are you feeling better?" Linda said softly.

It's better, but a little suffocating...

We can't stay here for long!

Ron got up and walked out. He was going to check if there were any problems with the tax revenue in the last few quarters. If there were any problems, they had to be dealt with as soon as possible.

If the law enforcement officer came to the door and the bolt gun was pointed at his head, it would be too late.

It's about your life, so you can't joke.

"Ask Butler Bayev to find me at the Government Affairs Department!"

Ron said and walked out of the restaurant, but he turned back and looked at Linda after a few steps: "Where is the Government Affairs Department?"

This damn memory fog, I even forgot the way!

After Ron figured out the direction, he went all the way to the Government Affairs Department.

On the way, administrative staff greeted him from time to time, but their eyes were a little surprised.

For some reason, Ron felt that the Administration Department was a little different from what he remembered.

Many departments disappeared, and it became much quieter.

Something must have happened in the middle...

Ron wanted to find someone to ask, but after thinking about it, he decided to give up.

I'll find a chance to slowly understand it later.

The top priority now is to figure out the tax situation.

——

Document library of the Ministry of Government Affairs.

The entire document library is nearly six meters high and as large as ten football fields. Thousands of large bookshelves are filled with densely packed paper documents.

Ron sat at the wooden table, flipping through a thick book with despair.

Next to him was a mountain of paper documents, which could bury people if they fell down.

He was numb. This was just the tax information for this quarter, and he couldn't finish reading it in a year!

"What era is it? At least get a computer!"

Ron couldn't help but complain. He searched for a long time and confirmed that there was no Internet-connected device in this ghost place.

That's right, in this era of technology that can travel between stars, the Empire prohibits the use of smart devices, and artificial intelligence is absolutely prohibited!

Those who dare to break the taboo and use artificial intelligence will most likely be judged as heretics!

Some people may ask, isn't it stupid for the Empire to go backwards like this?

Young, or too young.

It can be said that behind every weird regulation of the unit, there is often a bloody lesson.

The reason why the Empire does not use Internet smart devices is that the electronic demons in the subspace will attack smart devices and tamper with the data.

During the war, these wrong data caused serious accidents, causing heavy losses to the Empire.

Only the technical priests of the Mechanicus can use electronic devices on a small scale, and they can use rune codes to fight against electronic demons.

Artificial intelligence is taboo because humans have experienced a catastrophe called the "Intelligent Rebellion".

The rebellion of intelligent machines almost exterminated humans.

Humans eventually won the war and continued their race, but from then on they called artificial intelligence "hateful intelligence" and completely banned its use.

Of course, humans are not without substitutes.

Ron glanced at the "human" standing motionless in the corner, with pipes all over his body, and various auxiliary mechanical arms and tracks installed.

That is a servitor, a lower-level substitute for artificial intelligence.

Generally, the material is the flesh of criminals or culture tanks.

After simple surgical transformation and brain programming, they are turned into "robots" without thoughts to perform simple, high-intensity repetitive work.

For example, the document handling work of this archive is performed by mechanical servants, but mental work still needs to be done by people.

The complicated political issues of the empire are almost all solved by human brainpower, and paper documents are used.

You must know that the empire spans the galaxy and has millions of planets under its jurisdiction!

This also leads to the empire having a huge internal affairs system and personnel.

The Holy Terra in the center of the empire has a population of hundreds of billions, and administrative personnel occupy a considerable part of it, responsible for managing the affairs of millions of planets in the empire.

Their management is chaotic and inefficient to the point of making people's scalps numb.

A certain administrative order may take decades of procedures to reach a specific planet.

And that planet was invaded by Chaos Demons hundreds of years ago, and the entire planet's people have died.

What's even more outrageous is that there are still some unknown departments within the empire, and they are still calculating the materials needed for a certain battle.

But that war has been over for hundreds of years, and it is not known whether they did it intentionally or accidentally.

Therefore, the Empire has not disintegrated until now, which is really amazing.

Joking aside, it is difficult to survive in such an internal system.

Those incompetent imperial officials occasionally make mistakes, such as overestimating the planet's carrying capacity or making errors in tax data statistics.

The consequences of these mistakes are often borne by the planetary governor and the world to which they belong.

Every miscalculation almost always leads to tragedy.

Taxes that far exceed the planet's carrying capacity often cause tens of billions of people to suffer extreme suffering.

Even if the officials who made mistakes are held accountable afterwards and made into mechanical servants to atone for the God Emperor and the Empire forever, it will be of no avail.

Because by that time, countless people have died in pain, and even the entire planet has withered into a Jedi without people!

The facts are so cruel.

Ron must first plunder the planet's resources and population and hand them over to the Empire, and then he can consider how to develop the planet, let the people live a good life, and absorb the power of hope.

But how can he develop after the resources and population have been handed over?

He can't give up yet, otherwise the law enforcement officer sent by the Ministry of the Interior will send him to see the God Emperor, and then replace him with a planetary governor to continue collecting taxes.

Because taxes must be collected. If taxes cannot be collected, the empire will fall apart, and the human beings in the entire galaxy will face a more cruel fate.

It's a bug!

"It's not easy to be a planetary governor..." Ron couldn't help but sigh.

It seems that in the cruel Warhammer 40K, the power of hope is really hard to get. He is lucky to be able to save his life.

After searching for a long time, Ron finally found the latest assessment report of the eleven taxes on the planet Ers.

The moment he saw the assessment report, his heart was chilled.

"According to the assessment of the Holy Terra Ministry of the Interior, the tax level of the planet Ers has been adjusted from the second special level to the first superior level?!"