Chapter 978, King and Prime Minister

Chapter 978, King and Prime Minister
Gu Hang and Robert are both exceptionally intelligent people.

They don't need to spend much time repeatedly explaining their ideas or trying to persuade each other. They can clearly identify their own core interests and quickly understand what the other party's core interests are and what is non-negotiable.

This is why their communication is quite efficient.

Soon, a consensus on some of the most fundamental and inviolable principles was established.

First, the emperor is the supreme representative of the empire, a symbol of divine authority. On the day he returns to the mortal world—regardless of whether that day ever comes—he will be the emperor of humanity, ruling over all humankind from spirit to soul to body.

This is definitely number one, there's no denying it.

But beyond that, a clear dual-headed imperial system will be established.

The empire will have two heads of state—Robert and Gu Hang.

Imperial Regent and Imperial Prime Minister.

The Regent is easy to talk about; he is the supreme military and political leader of Holy Terra and the entire Empire.

The Prime Minister Gu Hang serves as is quite different from the prime ministers of the past ten thousand years. On the contrary, his responsibilities are more similar to those of the first prime minister of the empire during the era when the emperor was still alive, when the 'immortal' was in charge.

The current prime minister's main role is as a member of the Imperial Supreme Council, the head of the Imperial Government, and the chief executive of the four major departments of the Imperial Central Government. In theory, the prime ministers of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Military Affairs, the Ministry of Taxation, and the Executive Yuan must all listen to him.

However, in reality, very few prime ministers in the imperial court over the past ten thousand years have been able to hold all four positions simultaneously. It is common for a prime minister of a single department to accumulate political capital and adopt a tough stance, even going so far as to directly challenge or undermine the prime minister.

As for the military, the Prime Minister not only cannot directly command the armed forces, but also has limited influence over military strategy. The top military leaders, the Grand Marshal of the Astronautical Army and the Navy, are not under the Prime Minister's direct command. Even if the Prime Minister could indirectly intervene through the Ministry of Military Affairs, this indirect leadership would be weaker than the Prime Minister's inability to control other government departments.

Not to mention factions like the Inquisition, the Mechanicus, the Assassin's Court, and the Space Marines, who don't even have the authority to indirectly lead through the Prime Minister's office.

In the history of the empire, it was actually rare for Qibodu to become a prime minister with real power before the Great Cataclysm. Moreover, after becoming prime minister, he still had to act as a subordinate for several decades and spend several more decades cleaning up the mess before he could finally achieve this.

Even if it were successful, the Prime Minister's power would still be essentially based on government departments. To exert greater power, one would need to control the Supreme Council.

To put it bluntly, what makes a prime minister truly powerful isn't the sheer amount of power the position holds, but rather the individual's own exceptional abilities and skill in manipulating the Supreme Council. Essentially, they wield the power of the Supreme Council.

From this perspective, the authority of the Imperial Prime Minister is actually quite limited.

But according to the new agreement between Gu Hang and Robert, things are different.

The Supreme Council will become a mere figurehead in the future. The Imperial Diet, which was entirely under the Prime Minister's leadership, will be reduced to a subordinate institution—this is the very authority that once belonged to the First Prime Minister.

The future Prime Minister, Gu Hang, will be accountable to the Imperial Diet, which will hold the power of appointment. In addition to overseeing the four major departments of administration, finance, law, and military affairs, all government agencies in the entire empire's space domains and star domains will be directly appointed and dispatched by the Imperial Central Government under the Prime Minister's leadership.

The structure in which the chairman of the cosmic domain is like a feudal lord, the head of the star domain is like a feudal lord, and the governor of the planet is like a feudal lord will be broken.

Personnel management, economic development, military construction, legal affairs and stability maintenance throughout the entire human empire will be subject to a higher degree of centralization.

In this sense, while the regent is nominally the supreme military and political leader, the specific affairs he actually manages are far less extensive, broad, and profound than those of the prime minister. The regent is more like a supreme commander fighting on the front lines, a political representative, while the people truly responsible for implementation are the imperial central government under the leadership of the prime minister.

In this structure, the Regent's Decree and the Prime Minister's Decree will be implemented in two directions, permeating the Star Sea.

But precisely because of this, Robert naturally had concerns.

Under this structure, the role of the 'Regent' can easily be sidelined.

Therefore, both the Regent's Decree and the Prime Minister's Decree share one premise: the laws of the Empire must supersede all specific administrative affairs. The authority of the Prime Minister's Decree and the Regent's Decree is defined by the "Imperial Reorganization Charter."

This charter framework was jointly drafted by legal experts appointed by Robert and Gu Hang.

After the charter is signed, the two sides will merge to form a new department, the 'Imperial Charter Committee', which will be independent of the Prime Minister and the Regent. Its main task is to supervise and review every royal decree and prime ministerial decree to see if they violate the provisions of the charter.

This committee appears to be a third-party oversight body, but in reality, the so-called 'oversight' is nothing but a mirage.

The Charter Committee consisted of legal experts sent by Gu Hang and Robert, who represented the will of the Prime Minister and the Regent, respectively. They certainly wouldn't oppose their own head of state; at most, they would oppose the opposing side. Even if the Charter Committee ruled that a certain order was 'unconstitutional,' it essentially meant that one side had prevailed over the other within the Charter Committee.

That's not a good sign; it might indicate a conflict between the two, leading to a public confrontation in what is usually just a decorative institution.

Under normal circumstances, the two should have a tacit understanding to not exceed the provisions of the charter, or if they must exceed it, they should discuss it and amend the charter before taking the next step.

Of course, this thing, as a supervisory body, will still have to exist, regardless of whether it becomes merely nominal in the future. At the very least, it needs to provide a place where the two heads of state can sit down and negotiate a solution when conflicts arise.

Besides this Charter Committee, there is another one, which is probably also a formal 'restraint'.

The Regent and the new Prime Minister wield immense power and responsibility. Therefore, the Charter, which provides the Regent and the Prime Minister with the latest confirmation of legitimacy, must be approved by the Regent and the Prime Minister and signed in the presence of the Grand Marshal of the Imperial Guard, the Mars Forging General, and the Pope of the State Church.

Subsequent revisions will follow the same process.

The approval of both heads of state is of course the most important thing. After all, the charter is ultimately an agreement between the two of them on what to do and what to do, defining each other's 'spheres of influence'. It's about putting the unpleasant things out in advance to make cooperation easier.

As for the other so-called testimonies... well, they're just testimonies, aren't they?

If the so-called 'dual-headed imperial system' really takes shape, under two highly centralized leaders, what good will things like the Martian Cult or the Imperial Guard do? They'll still have to obediently follow orders.
The Imperial Guard is alright, but as for the Martian Cult, Gu Hang can tolerate the existence of something like the so-called 'other head on the Imperial Double-Headed Eagle emblem'?
Just look at the living conditions of the Mechanicus within the Alliance to know.

Gu Hang will respect the Mechanical Education, but this respect is based on the Mechanical Education being incorporated into the alliance's R&D and production systems.

The idea of ​​a Mechanicus fleet roaming the world collecting technical data and recovering black boxes, indifferent to everything else, is not permitted within the Alliance. The Mechanicus's frigates and fleets within the Alliance have been reorganized. Aside from retaining the original names and organizational structures of the fleets and ground units, preserving the Mechanicus cultural elements that symbolize their origins, and perhaps some of their distinctive command structures, they are now completely subordinate to the orders of the Alliance General Headquarters in overall strategic planning.

If you're ordered to a certain army group on a covert expedition, you have to go—no questions asked. Even then, you have no independent command authority; you must obey the army group headquarters' orders, accept combat missions, and complete them successfully. Failure to do so will result in being stripped of your official uniform or court-martialed. However, the Alliance will also transfer any special technologies acquired from various regions, technologies from other races, and technologies left over from the golden age to its research institute. And with the Mechanicus fully integrated into the research institute, they can naturally obtain these technologies free of charge.

Regarding state education, the restrictions were even more severe.

High efficiency requires the unification of national power. Gu Hang would not allow a situation where the country is divided into different factions, lacking any sense of hierarchy and even hindering each other.

In the future, when the political system of the alliance replaces the old government of the empire, the same situation will occur on every inch of the empire's land.

This will likely cause considerable controversy, and even conflict.

However, Gu Hang was determined to eliminate these resistance efforts.

In Gu Hang's mind, no amount of thorough reform would be enough to save the entire empire.

According to Gu Hang's idea, what he wanted was not to take over Holy Terra and reform the old imperial government at all.

No, there was no such thing as modification.

This is not reform, but a revolution.

He wanted to overthrow the old imperial government and completely replace it with the alliance central government, which he was now largely satisfied with.

The old system should be completely destroyed in order to rise from the ruins and be reborn.

When Gu Hang revealed his thoughts on the Holy Terra, even though Robert had somewhat anticipated it, he was still a little taken aback.

In his view, this was a bit too radical.

Surely the government of Holy Terra isn't this incompetent?

Are you leaving nothing behind?

If there's no transition period at all, won't things get too chaotic? Won't it cause problems with the integration of imperial power?
He had many worries.

But Gu Hang gave a clear answer.

The government of Holy Terra is just that despicable.

and……

"Abandon illusions, abandon wishful thinking, Your Highness Regent. We must now be prepared to rebuild the empire."

"Reconstruction is not just talk; it's a true rebirth from the ashes. Starting with the Alliance's Dark Side Expedition, and including the expeditions we will launch from Holy Terra to the Imperial Holy Frontier after we regain control of Holy Terra, it will be equivalent to launching another Great Expedition to establish a new nation."

"You must be prepared; this is about rebuilding an empire."

"The future history may refer to the empire that followed this moment as the Third Reich."

Robert's heart skipped a beat when he heard the words 'Third Reich'.

There were at least two things here that shook him to his core.

First, Gu Hang's ambition—or rather, his determination—was truly enormous. To completely rebuild a new empire and replace it with an alliance was an undertaking of immense significance.

But before thinking about this matter more carefully, Robert needs to consider why Gu Hang said that the empire they rebuilt was the 'Third' empire.
If the old empire was the first empire, then what was the 'second' empire?
He recalled a piece of history that should have been kept absolutely secret—the Second Empire hidden during the Imperial Civil War.

That was a secret he never wanted anyone to mention. In an era when they thought they were going to lose the civil war, that Holy Terra had fallen into the hands of traitors, and that the Golden Throne had been lost, he and his other loyal blood brother, the genetic father of the Angel of Death, jointly crowned their blood brother as the new emperor in the Infinite Starfield.

It was an absurd farce. When they learned that Holy Terra had not yet fallen and the Golden Throne had not yet collapsed, they took the initiative to end the farce, buried the Second Empire in history, raised an army, and saved Holy Terra.

But after that, none of them dared to bring the matter up in the open.

If this were made public, then who would be the real traitor?

Such overstepping of authority, such disloyalty... it's blasphemous.

If anyone brings this up, Robert's first instinct is to draw his sword and kill them. Then, he'll launch a massive, clandestine investigation, determined to eliminate everyone who knows the truth.

But when Gu Hang said it...

Well, he neither had the ability to deal with Gu Hang, nor did he find it unbelievable that Gu Hang knew about this.

After all, the so-called 'Second Empire' was something that actually happened. Even though he destroyed almost all records at the time, such a significant historical event would always leave some traces.

Some clues may not even be in the real universe, but rather left traces in the subspace.

Is there anything strange about Gu Hang finding out from this?
A fleeting doubt crossed his mind:
What does Gu Hang mean by bringing this up now?
Threaten him? Was he using this secret as a bargaining chip?

Robert didn't ask the question aloud, but Gu Hang seemed to hear his thoughts:
"The cornerstone that will allow this newly formed empire to withstand millennia of turmoil is the absolute mutual trust that must be maintained between the king and his minister."

"What do you say, Regent?"

(End of this chapter)