Chapter 6 The Imperial Tithe

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's paying taxes for the empire!

The human empire spans the galaxy and is surrounded by many enemies.

Multi-front warfare resulted in tremendous war pressure, which in turn gave rise to an extremely strict tax system.

This tax system was 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's territory.

There are two most important taxes:

The military tithe refers to the payment of an appropriate amount of the population of the planet as imperial logistics workers or new soldiers.

Precise tithe tax means precise payment of the planet’s specialty resources and wealth.

The tithe is paid depending on the type of world it applies to, and can be any form of resource: food, weapons, minerals, population, etc.

Although a huge internal affairs department was set up on Holy Terra in the center of the empire to oversee the payment of tithes.

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

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

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

Even if all the people were turned into slaves, exploited in the most extreme way, and the bones piled up in mountains, the empire would 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 blows from the empire. If the resistance escalates, it is very likely that a planetary extermination order will be issued.

If there are any violations or omissions during the tax payment process, imperial officials will often order the law enforcement officers of the local Ministry of Justice to immediately execute the planetary governor!

The empire's rule was extremely authoritarian and ruthless.

This means that no matter how well Ron manages the planet, if there is a tax problem, he may be killed!

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

Linda noticed something strange about Ron and came over to ask gently: "Are you feeling uncomfortable?"

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

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

"Are you feeling better?" Linda said softly.

It's good, but a bit suffocating...

You can't stay here for long!

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

If you wait until the law enforcement officers come to the door and put a bolt gun to your head, it will be too late.

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

"Tell Chief Bayev to come to the Ministry of Government to find me!"

Ron said nothing and walked out of the restaurant, but after taking a few steps he turned back to look at Linda: "Where is the Government Affairs Department?"

This damn memory is foggy, I even forgot the road!

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

Administrative staff greeted him from time to time on the road, 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 have disappeared and it has become much deserted.

Something must have happened in the middle...

Ron wanted to find someone to ask, but after thinking about it, he decided to give up or not.

Let’s find an opportunity to learn more about it later.

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

——

Ministry of Government Document Library.

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

Ron sat at the wooden table, flipping through a thick book of information helplessly.

Next to it is a mountain of paper documents that would bury someone if they fell.

Others are numb. This is only the tax information for this quarter. You can’t read it all in a year!

"What age are you in, at least get a computer!"

Ron couldn't help complaining. After searching for a long time, he confirmed that there were no Internet-connected devices in this damn place.

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

Anyone who dares to break through taboos and use artificial intelligence will most likely be tried as a heretic!

Some people may ask, isn't the empire a fool for going backwards like this?

Young, still too young.

It can be said that behind every weird rule in the unit, there is often a lesson learned through blood and tears.

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

During the war, these erroneous data caused serious accidents and caused heavy losses to the empire.

In other words, the Tech-priests of the Mechanicus can use electronic equipment on a small scale, and they can use rune codes to fight against electronic demons.

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

The rebellion of intelligent machines nearly drove humanity to extinction.

Humanity eventually won the war and was able to continue the race, but from then on artificial intelligence was called "hated intelligence" and its use was completely banned.

Of course, humans are not without alternatives.

Ron glanced at the "human" standing motionless in the corner, his body covered with pipes and equipped with various auxiliary robotic arms and tracks.

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

Generally, criminals or bodies cultured in incubators are used as raw materials.

After simple surgical modification and brain programming, they become mindless "robots" to perform simple high-intensity repetitive tasks.

For example, the document moving work in this archive is performed by servitors, but the mental work still needs people to complete it.

The complex government affairs of the empire are almost all solved by human brain power, and paper documents are also used.

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

This also resulted in the empire having a huge internal affairs system and personnel.

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

Their management is disorganized and inefficient.

A certain administrative order may take decades to be issued to a specific planet.

And that planet was invaded by Chaos Demons hundreds of years ago, and the entire population of the planet was wiped out.

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

But hundreds of years have passed since that war, and I don’t know whether they did it intentionally or accidentally.

Therefore, the Empire’s broken car has not disintegrated even now, which is really awesome.

Joking aside, survival in such an internal affairs system is difficult.

Foolish Imperial officials occasionally made mistakes, such as overestimating the planet's capacity or miscalculating tax data.

The consequences of these errors are often the responsibility of the planetary governor and the world to which he belongs.

Every miscalculation almost always leads to tragedy.

Taxes that far exceed the capacity of the planet often plunge tens of billions of people into extreme misery.

Even if they were held accountable afterwards and the erring officials were made into servitors to atone for their sins for the God-Emperor and the Empire forever, it would be of no use.

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

The truth is so cruel.

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

But if the resources and population are turned over, how can we develop?

He couldn't give up his burden yet, otherwise the law enforcement officer sent by the Ministry of Interior would send him to see the God-Emperor, and then another planetary governor would continue to collect taxes.

Because taxes must be collected, if the taxes cannot be collected, the empire will fall apart, and mankind in the entire galaxy will suffer an even crueler fate.

There'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 difficult to control. It would be good if he can save his life.

After rummaging for a long time, Ron finally found the latest assessment report of Erth Star's tithe.

The moment he saw the evaluation report, his heart went cold.

"After evaluation by the Ministry of Interior of Holy Terra, the tax level of Erth Star has been adjusted from the second-class special class to the first-class superior class?!"