The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 622 The New Empire
After learning that the Druid priests had taken the initiative to go to the plague area to prevent and control the plague, the Monotheistic Roman Catholic Church also sent a team to enter the plague area.

Richard also encouraged them and saw them off like the polytheists.

Watching these missionaries from the Holy See leave, Richard shook his head slightly. He was not very optimistic about these people.

"Your Majesty, do you think they can't succeed?" asked Cruz next to him.

"I'm not optimistic, but they are courageous." Richard said casually.

"By the way, Cruz, when Aleiya comes back, I will appoint you as the governor of Carthage in North Africa. You need to familiarize yourself with government affairs as soon as possible during this period."

"Yes, Your Majesty! I will try my best and will not let you down." Cruz said excitedly.

Born as a slave, Cruise was one of the first people to follow Richard, and he was also the hardest-working one. When Richard promoted learning, he was also the one who studied the hardest and fastest.

Some other bloodline knights did not like studying very much and found it difficult, but Cruz was different. He cherished the opportunity to study very much. In addition to going to school to study, he often went to consult those Greek scholars.

Therefore, his knowledge was among the top few among Richard's followers and knights. Richard made him familiar with government affairs, naturally intending to make use of these people.

After the establishment of the empire, Richard needed a large number of officials and managers to help him manage the empire. He needed to cultivate his own team.

At the same time, he planned to implement the system of itinerant officials in the empire, that is, all officials in a region had a term of office, and when the term was up they would need to be transferred, promoted or transferred horizontally, or simply dismissed.

He did not intend to let a local official like the governor serve in one place for a long time.

Many of the Roman Empire's systems no longer fit the reality, so Richard created a new set of rules. So far, this set of rules is running smoothly.

After the reconquest of North Africa, the finances of the Roman Empire were greatly improved. At the same time, due to tax reforms, the nobles no longer enjoyed tax exemption rights and there were more sources of tax revenue.

Richard began to govern other cities in Italy. Only with money could he disband those troops with low combat effectiveness, and at the same time, he relocated these disbanded troops to the provinces of Gaul and North Africa to expand the population.

The armies originally formed by local nobles also began to be disbanded. Richard recruited a large number of students from the college and began to survey the land in various parts of Italy, while distributing land to those who had no land or little land.

This kind of behavior is naturally not smooth sailing. Many nobles are secretly making trouble, but Richard will not tolerate these people. As long as he finds evidence, he will immediately deprive them of their titles, confiscate their property, and exile them.

The money obtained from the confiscation of property was added to the national treasury, the land was distributed to the people in the city, and these nobles were exiled to North Africa to enrich the population of North Africa.

After several times, many nobles realized that Richard was ruthless and they all behaved themselves.

It's not that these people don't want to resist, it's just that they have tried and have no power to resist. Richard's extraordinary knights are not vegetarians.

The extraordinary knight wearing heavy armor was like a tank on the battlefield. The private soldiers of the nobles were directly overwhelmed without any room for resistance.

Richard ordered the release of the slaves, but this decree was only implemented well in Gaul, North Africa and the areas around Rome. These were the bases that Richard had cleared, and no one dared to disobey his orders.

But it was not the same at the local level. Many nobles ignored the order to free the slaves and did not care about it at all. Even many slaves were unwilling to become free men.

The reason is very simple, because in the past, slaves of nobles could have enough food to eat and would not be bullied by local officials. In fact, during the reign of Valentinian III and the hundred years before, many people who were originally free citizens took the initiative to join the nobles and become their slaves.

Because if he were a free man, he would be madly exploited by local officials. The greed of the grassroots officials in the Roman Empire was no worse than those corrupt officials in the late Eastern Dynasty.

There were too many things done to extort money and exploit the people, not to mention that before that, due to the financial and tax difficulties of the country, the empire implemented the tax farming system in some places in order to collect taxes.

The tax farming system is very simple. The state contracts out the tax revenue of a region, and the contractor collects the tax. The contractor will first pay a contract fee to the empire, which is equivalent to the tax.

After the state receives the contract money, it no longer manages the taxation here, and the contractor is responsible for collecting the tax. The contractor is also called a tax farmer.

The tax farmer began to hire people to collect taxes from the people in the area. As for how much tax he collected, it had nothing to do with the empire. If he could collect more taxes, he would make money, and if he collected less taxes, he would lose money.

Of course, it seems that the people who take over the tax farmers are not simple characters. They are basically people with strong power in the local area. They will not only not lose money by collecting taxes, but also make a lot of money. This model allows the country to collect taxes faster and more stably, while also reducing the number of grassroots officials and various fiscal expenditures, which were originally paid by the tax farmers.

When the tax farmer system first appeared, it did help revive the empire's finances for a period of time, but it soon brought more serious consequences.

This system seems to have reduced the burden on the country and increased its fiscal revenue, but in reality? It has caused very serious consequences, that is, the rights of the grassroots are controlled by the tax farmers.

At the same time, in order to gain profits, the tax farmers who controlled the rights of the lower classes would naturally exploit the lower classes of the empire madly. This led to the lower classes of the empire being exploited by the tax farmers to the point of having almost nothing, and even owing a large amount of usury.

This directly led to a large number of people fleeing or being sold to military camps, etc. This is also the reason why a large number of exiles appeared in Gaul.

The same problem occurred in Rome. In order to avoid the oppression of tax farmers, many Roman people sold their land at low prices and then sold themselves to the nobles as slaves.

Now that Richard wants to abolish slavery, the first people to oppose it in these places are not the nobles, but the slaves.

Seeing this situation, Richard had to send officials to reassure these slaves again and again that there would be no tax farming system and that the country's taxation would return to normal.

But even so, the implementation of the slave release order was still slow, and Richard was not in a hurry about this situation.

The credibility of the Roman Empire has been bankrupt in the eyes of the people of the Empire. Even if it sounds good now, the Roman people will not believe it. So the best way is to let them see it with their own eyes, let them see the benefits of being free citizens, so that these people will come spontaneously without the officials' propaganda.

Richard distributed land to those slaves who were willing to become free men. As for those slaves who refused, he gave them a year to think about it. In the next year, if these slaves were willing to become free men, they could still be allocated land. However, if they still stubbornly refused after a year, Richard would not force them.

Respect personal choices.

The tax system has been taken back from the tax farmers, but who will collect the taxes next remains a question, and how the collected taxes will be distributed between the central and local governments is also a problem.

It can be said that the dispute over fiscal and taxation power between the central and local governments has not found a perfect solution in the thousands of years of human development history.

After collecting taxes, local governments would use a portion of the taxes for daily expenses and turn the rest over to the central government. This system was very common in ancient times, but it could easily lead to local interception.

Even when local governments collect taxes, they often collect an extra portion. This portion is the local slush fund and will never be turned over. Even the taxes turned over to the national treasury will be reduced using various excuses.

Just like in the late Ming Dynasty, the imperial court levied an additional tax of one cent, but when it came to the local level, it was doubled layer by layer, and finally the tax collected by the local government became nine cents.

In the end, only that one cent was turned over to the national treasury, and the remaining eight cents was divided up by officials and clerks at all levels and finally allocated to local private treasuries.

Otherwise, Emperor Jiajing would not have shouted that it was all my money. They took two million and I gave them one million. That was still good, at least one third. When it came to Emperor Chongzhen, how much would the local government give you?

The Chongzhen Emperor at that time thought that raising the tax by one cent would not be a big deal for the people, but what he did not know was that the local people had already been squeezed dry.

Richard finally decided to bring the taxation power back to the central government, and all local taxation officials would be under the central government's jurisdiction, stripping the local taxation power. After the local governments collected the taxes, the central government would allocate the taxes and give part of them to the local governments.

The advantage of this type of taxation is that the state can manage tax affairs and local governments have no right to interfere. The disadvantage is that the court needs to prepare a large number of tax personnel, which will be a huge expense.

But we have to do this.

Richard must take control of the tax issue into his own hands.

In addition to these, he also planned to clean up the nobles in various places. The empire has been rebuilt now, and naturally not all the former nobles will stay. Some of the nobles must be cleaned up. If they are not cleaned up, how can Richard's men be resettled?
The extraordinary knights under Richard and the soldiers who have made military achievements also need to be promoted to titles, granted land, and have clear rewards and punishments, and be awarded titles for military merit. This system must be implemented.

The awarding of titles for military merit is related to the combat strength of the imperial army. Of course, it is not easy to obtain a title.

Richard did not implement the farming and warfare system of the Qin State. In this system, military achievements would soon be confiscated for various reasons, forcing the Qin people to continuously make military achievements in order to obtain titles to atone for their crimes, otherwise they might be punished at any time.

However, although there were no such strict laws, the titles promoted by Richard were decreasing in rank.

(End of this chapter)