Macho Wars

"Xia Li, wake up, Xia Li!"

In this way, the development of the situation quickly got out of control, and Xia Li finally realized her wish that she had always hidden in her heart and became one with her beloved mentor.And then Karen also joined the "battle", making the situation even more scorching.

After a hearty and fierce battle, the three cuddled together, enjoying the afterthought.Xia Li, who had been "drinking", thought of her bold move before, and she couldn't wait to find a place to sew in, but Dragoon's solid arms made her unwilling to move half a point.

Karen nestled in the arms of her lover, whispering her hopes for the future.Encouraged by Dragon and Alicia, she has made up her mind to start a new life.She loves Dragon, but also wants to bid farewell to her princess status and become an independent woman.

For this reason, Karen regained her childhood dream and wanted to be an animal doctor. For this reason, she used her seclusion period to study hard.

I don’t want to think of Karen as a canary’s Dragon, and naturally he supports Karen’s idea very much, but before then, he may have to spend several years trying to make this country better. .

Chapter 616 The Inspector General's Decision

At the headquarters of the Eastern Empire Supervisory Office, the first inspector-general, Latuk, is reviewing the various documents and reports that they continue to submit.

Although the reorganized Eastern Empire government has resolved to a certain extent the power struggle caused by overstaffing, many problems still exist, and the most troublesome of these is the increasingly serious financial dilemma.

After the counterattack failed, the Eastern Empire, which failed to regain the mainland, was in a very bad situation. They had barely completed the preparations for the war by squeezing the entire colony to the maximum. As a result, the defeat caused all inputs to be wasted, and the resulting huge The fiscal deficit also put the entire government on the verge of bankruptcy.

In order to close this horrible funding gap, the Eastern Empire government faced accusations from all walks of life while racking its brains to do everything possible to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, but the situation still did not improve significantly.

Fortunately, the Eastern Empire has given up counterattacking the mainland, so military investment can be stopped for a while. Relying on the existing naval and air forces is enough to protect the country from attack.The "Building Corps" plan launched by the military has really shared a lot of worries for the government.

In the past two months, the construction corps with a total of nearly half a million people has not only over-completed the second round of rush to plant summer crops, but also made great efforts in civil engineering and upgraded water conservancy facilities in several major agricultural production areas.Thanks to the huge scale and militarized management, the cost-effectiveness ratio is far better than the average construction team.

If there is no major accident, as long as the second season’s crops are ripe for another month or two, the food crisis that plagued the colony will be solved. The 500,000 construction corps will be discharged in batches over the next three years. The government It has been promised to the military that these veterans will be assigned corresponding jobs according to their ranks to prevent them from becoming "social idlers."

However, this is only part of the problem that has been resolved. The vast majority of the problems that the government has to face can be summed up with the word "lack of money" to make an absolute and accurate overview.

At the thought of these things involving specific plans, Latourk felt headaches. This is not his area of ​​expertise.

"Come on, please come in, Com's chief of staff."

Hearing Latourk's order, his deputy secretary immediately dialed the internal telephone number of the Supervision Institute. After a while, a thin middle-aged man knocked on the door and walked in. Latourk said with a smile.

"Sit down, brother Duck, I want to advise you on something."

Darkcome was in the recuperation that just ended last month. He was recommended by Dragon and was specially hired by Latuk to enter the new government as the chief of staff.

After a period of contact, Latuk must admit that Dak is indeed a very good administrative talent.Capable, thoughtful, and experienced, the only problem is probably bad luck. Looking at his past resume, it was really bad luck that made him run into it.

Not long after Duck took office, he came up with many plans to help the government effectively deal with a lot of mess.Latuk appreciates his abilities, so he reuses them more and more.

Latuk called Dak over this time, and wanted to ask him if he has any good ways to ease the current financial pressure.And Duck seemed to have expected Latuk to ask this for a long time, and said after a little thought.

"My lord, with all due respect, the current colony...well! I mean the Eastern Empire, this country is not short of money, but the money is not in the hands of the government or ordinary civilians who are most likely to rebel. , And the main problem we are facing now is not just as simple as lack of money."

Unlike many old officials who like to think about problems, Dak is a firm data faction who advocates "investigating before speaking". He has a dedicated polling team to help him collect and analyze data from the private sector.

So in front of Latuk, Dak took out a prepared document and handed it to the inspector general Latuk.

"My lord, during the war, our government used a lot of...well, extraordinary methods to raise funds, so that some people below were able to exploit loopholes and took the opportunity to make a fortune, and most of these people took the wealth they collected. Coming to buy land has caused very serious land mergers."

"Oh, what does this have to do with the lack of money in our government?"

"It's a big deal, my lord! It's so big that our taxes have shrunk by almost two-thirds. This is the most fundamental reason for our lack of money!"

Dak has worked as a tax officer in the past and understands the market.

Since modern times, the empire has drastically reduced the rights of nobles and strengthened centralization, but the noble class still enjoys many benefits, including tax cuts.Nobles at all levels enjoy different degrees of tax reductions.

Although ordinary people do not enjoy this preference, because of the unified tax system throughout the country, the enfeoffment aristocracy no longer has the right to tax independently, so the actual burden is also reduced.

This tax system did not have any problems in the past, and the central royal family, local aristocrats and the people at the bottom all benefited.The central government has strengthened the centralization of power and expanded the sources of taxation. Although the nobles have no real power, they have less responsibility and still enjoy superior benefits. The ordinary people simply pay less taxes.

However, a series of social problems occurred in the New World, which caused a large number of people at the bottom to sell the land they once owned at a low price to those powerful and wealthy, and finally became poor proletarians.

The nobles turned their wealth into large tracts of land, and some even rented it out to the tenants for farming, and some just deliberately left it there and left it unused.Because there is no output, there is no need to pay taxes, and the value of the land itself will continue to rise.

In this way, a vicious circle is generated. The poor are getting poorer and more numerous, and the rich are getting richer, which consumes the credibility of the government.

Darker presented this process to Latour in detail, and pointed out sharply that if the situation is allowed to develop, the country will become weaker and weaker, and they will collapse first without fighting from the west.

Regarding this, Latuk fell into deep thought. He didn't know what the nobles below were doing. After all, "filial piety" received a lot, and his own family had done similar things.But Latuk’s position is far away from the grassroots after all, so if Duck hadn’t come up with detailed data, even he himself hadn’t expected that the following situation would be so serious!

Chapter 617

Duck pointedly pointed out that the growing problem of land annexation was the root cause of the current financial tension of the Eastern Empire.

The newly born East Sidney Empire is actually a very standard agricultural country in nature. Although they have made great progress in heavy industry through the local blood transfusion brought by the central government in the past less than two years, the overall structure is abnormal. It is deformed. All industrial projects are completely revolving around military objectives. Not to mention that they generate economic benefits. They also make the government spend a lot of money in it. Commercial activities are also greatly affected by the war.

However, agriculture, as the main source of tax revenue, has been neglected by high-level officials and unfavorable supervision, allowing many unscrupulous nobles to take advantage of the opportunity to do whatever they want and take advantage of all kinds of tricks to take a large amount of land under their own name.

In fact, simply talking about the enclosure movement is not all bad in itself. If these aristocratic landlords who are crazy enclosing land can make good use of these lands and build labor-intensive large farms and large plantations, then at least at the national level, the problem It may not be particularly serious, and it is even beneficial to the economy.Because the production efficiency of intensive large-scale farms is much higher than the average small-scale farming economy, it can increase output while reducing unit costs.

But the problem is precisely that these noble landlords don't want to pay taxes!There are even a group of people who are hoarding pure land as a commodity. They just think about how to resell them to make money, but they never even thought about producing.

After losing their land, ordinary farmers are getting poorer and poorer. They can only find jobs in the farms and factories of the nobles. They are squeezed out and their lives are so embarrassed that they need to rely on the state for relief.But the nobles who reselled the land had a lot of money, but they could always find various ways to pay less or even no tax.

In addition to the privileges offered by their own titles, they also "smartly" used the country's pension policy for fallen soldiers.For those who died for the country, their immediate family members are exempt from tax for three years, which urges many nobles to have endless "righteous sons."

If things go on like this, the national tax revenue continues to shrink, the lives of the people at the bottom are getting worse and worse, and the country will become weaker and weaker, and sooner or later it will collapse like a big tree eaten by termites.

Latuk does not want to see such a thing happen. Although he himself is a member of the "worms", he is at least a brainworm. He knows that without a big tree, it is difficult for them to live alone. The insect swarms on the big tree will not accept them.

However, how to solve these problems specifically, Latuk has made difficulties.

It's not that he doesn't know the way, but this way, more than 30 years ago, there was a great man who had prepared to implement it, and his final fate has made many people sigh even today.

Since ancient times, the central government representing imperial power and the nobles representing the localities have always been complementary and mutually restrictive. Even in the period of the most prosperous emperor, the central government has almost completely recovered the power of the entrusted aristocracy to govern the locality, but the ownership is this. The bottom line has never been touched.

But now that the country is weak and the imperial power is declining, it is time for the nobility to regain its head, and now it is even more difficult to act on them.These guys are really anxious, they can do everything.

Unless... the government is the first to act first!

Startled by the thoughts that came out of him, Latuk shook his head hurriedly. He has become accustomed to thinking about problems with the thinking of a politician. Many concerns and uncertainties make it difficult for him to make a decision.After all, most of the officials in these empires are nobles, so they can't beat themselves, right?

Dak, who sat opposite, saw what Latuk was worried about, and sighed silently in his heart. He knew this would be the case, so he came up with another plan he had prepared.

"My lord, if you don't want to fall out with those people, we can also change to a slightly gentler method. But in my personal opinion, this can only be regarded as a stopgap measure, not a permanent solution."

"any solution?"

"Increase taxes."

"No, no! No more tax increases."

Latuk, who was expecting the other party to come up with some clever tricks, suddenly shook his head in disappointment when he heard that it was a tax increase.