Chapter 294, You want 300 million?
The last words from Lao Yisi almost made Gu Hang understand what kind of problems he was about to encounter.
This is indeed a bit troublesome.
But in fact, even though Gu Hang had already made an advance judgment on Gallardo's intentions, in the end, he found that he still underestimated the appetite of this apostle of war.
…
Early the next morning, Ms. Lao Yisi, the chief tax controller, was going to check the imperial taxes that the Angry Owl Star had to pay this time - Legion No. 43.25.09.03.
The correct process is actually like this:
The Pegasus Sector applied to establish a new Astra Militarum Corps, citing the growing threat of the Imperial traitors and green-skinned orcs on the Wrath of the Owl. In the middle, it listed the traces of the green-skinned orc vanguard on the Wrath of the Owl, and also listed the naval battle against the green-skinned warships that took place in the Wrath of the Owl system.
This application was approved. From this moment on, Legion No. 43.25.09.03, also known as the Angry Bear Legion, already existed.
Of course, this legion had no soldiers, no generals, and no equipment. The Eastern Theater of the Astra Militarum sent a demand document to the Dragon Eagle Star Region, requiring the Astra Militarum to bear all the expenses for establishing the Angry Bear Legion. The money spent by the Astra Militarum was paid from the imperial tax collected by the Dragon Eagle Star Region that was originally expected to be paid to the Astra Militarum.
Isn’t this just a coincidence? The imperial tax required to establish the Angry Bear Legion is exactly equal to 25% of the imperial tax that the Angry Owl Star has to pay - the other 75%, the star zone government has already paid to the Angry Owl Star.
Then according to the document "Guiding Opinions on the Proximity Principle of Imperial Tax Allocation" jointly issued by the Imperial Administrative Department and the Taxation Department, Angry Owl Star provided soldiers, equipment, and generals to the Angry Bear Legion on the spot.
This whole set of operations is all compliant and legal, and all necessary procedures are complete, so no one can say anything.
However, the fact that the process is fine does not mean that the matter is over.
The regulations on imperial taxes are very strict. As an imperial tax officer, you need to inspect the army and evaluate whether the entire Angry Bear Legion is worth 2.5 million tax coins.
The evaluation was also very simple: one person was 5 tax coins; a fully trained soldier with all individual equipment was 10 tax coins. These soldiers had a price. Adding the total price of all the equipment, that was the price of the entire Angry Bear Legion.
It seems very reasonable and simple arithmetic, but in fact, there are too many things that can be said to be nonsense.
The price difference between soldiers and ordinary people is twice as much. Who has the final say here, whether a soldier is a "qualified Star Army"?
Here we need a representative from the Astra Militarum, together with the tax officer and the representative from the Military Affairs Department, to evaluate whether the soldiers' training level is up to standard.
It is of course natural to strictly follow the rules, but...
Why do we say that the empire is corrupt? Since there are people here to do the work of evaluation and judgment, there are naturally places where people can cause trouble.
Can soldiers fail to meet the standards? The standards of the Astra Militarum are very high. On many worlds, the quality of the local "planetary defense forces" is not up to the level of the Astra Militarum. Only a few elite soldiers in the defense forces can meet the standards.
But using the planetary defense forces to supplement the Astra Militarum was still considered good. In some places, when providing soldiers to supplement the Astra Militarum, they simply put civilians in military uniforms, received simple training, and took up weapons.
This is certainly not possible in terms of rules, and may not be possible in actual practice.
It all depends on how the planetary governor does things.
In some places, it has even become a semi-open secret.
It’s already good enough to provide you with enough soldiers, and I haven’t even taken your empty pay yet.
No matter whether it is ancient feudal society or modern society, or a cosmic empire like the Empire that spans the starry sea, as long as it is human beings and a society composed of human beings, some bad things are not new at all.
In addition to the number of soldiers, the weapons and equipment are also the same. From a rifle, a piece of plastic steel armor, to a lion tank, there are standard prices in the Imperial Military Affairs Department.
There's no room for bullshit here.
However, is the equipment new? Old? Incomplete? What is the pass rate? Is the production process in compliance with regulations? Is there enough ammunition?
The answers to these questions will affect the price of weapons and equipment.
Generally speaking, the joint tax collection team composed of representatives from the Ministry of Military Affairs, the Ministry of Taxation, and the Star Army will not be particularly strict in these places.
The reason is very simple. The imperial tax is tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. There are too many people and too many things. It is impossible to check every one of them. Random inspection has become an inevitable means. Moreover, some mistakes and omissions are not intentional by the planetary governor, nor are there any problems with the governor's ability. It is just an objective fact that there is no way to make everything perfect.
Just have the look, that's all.
This is not just the case with the special case of establishing the Star Army on the Wrathful Owl Star, it also applies to normal taxation.
For adults, is it considered healthy if they have some vision problems? Is it considered healthy if they have dental problems? Does it count if they stutter? Does it count if they have chronic diseases?
As for material taxes, the newness and oldness of grain, weapons and equipment...
Same principle.
If he sticks to the rules, how many planetary governors will Laois have to execute after one round of taxation?
Turning a blind eye is necessary. This cannot even be considered corruption, but a compromise with reality. As the planetary governor, you should prepare a little more than the original tax amount as a redundancy; as long as the tax officer does not put you on the spot, everyone can get by.
In addition, some personal benefits collected in the middle determine the extent to which one turns a blind eye.
Of course, in actual operations, there are cases where the rules are not strictly followed.
This kind of situation usually occurs when you want to trick someone.
Many staff members led by Laois and Gallardo rejected the Alliance's Wind Falcon. They had their own spaceship on their starship - coincidentally, it was the Traveler.
Gu Hang and many senior executives of the alliance were asked - not invited - to board the tax fleet's travellers and head west.
The entire journey is estimated to take no more than three hours.
It is indeed more than twice as fast as the Wind Falcon.
On the spaceship, the Apostle of War spoke two sentences to Gu Hang.
The first paragraph praised Gu Hang for his outstanding work on Angry Owl Star and his good development here. It also praised Gu Hang for his outstanding performance on Black Arrow Star and for suppressing the civil strife of the Gu family, the most important imperial chamber of commerce in the Tianma Star Region. Although the Gu family suffered some losses, they are more united and more powerful, and will definitely develop well in the future. And such a Gu family, united with Angry Owl Star and Black Arrow Star, has such a good development prospect, so it should give more support to the cause of the empire.
The support figure could be 300 million tax coins.
If the Angry Owl Star, the Black Arrow Star, and the Gu family can jointly come up with this money to provide additional funding for the empire's great cause - the Solar Expedition, then Gallardo will be very happy and he will regard Gu Hang as a friend.
The second paragraph is related to a specific event at the moment.
He hated the current corrupt situation in the empire, especially the manipulation of the Star Army. He cited several cases that happened during the rectification of the imperial army, and some of the Star Army units did not reach the level of strength that the Star Army should have. However, he believed that a rising star like Gu Hang, who was entrusted with the task of establishing a new Star Army corps, would definitely be able to meet the level requirements.
Putting these two sentences together, Gu Hang could of course clearly understand what they meant.
If you pay me 300 million, I will not only ignore what you want to do on Black Arrow Star, but I will also provide you with some help.
I know all the tricks you planetary governors have in the tax deduction for the Star Army. If you don't give me the 300 million, don't expect me to give you a hundred troubles later. For now, don't expect me to approve your "Angry Bear Legion".
After hearing these two sentences, Gu Hang almost laughed out of anger.
With the arrival of the war apostle and the reminder from the tax collector, Gu Hang had already anticipated that he, as the governor of the most dilapidated planet in the Tianma star region, had been targeted.
He was even prepared to lose money to avoid disaster.
The premise is that the price is not too outrageous.
But, open your mouth, three hundred million? ?
Even robbing money is not that fast!
Obviously, this was not a price that Angry Owl Star could afford. The current annual output value of the entire alliance was only over 30 million tax coins, and even if the entire Angry Owl Star was sold, it would not be enough to raise this amount of money.
He was targeting the Gu family behind Gu Hang.
But the problem is, based on what Gu Hang knows about the Gu family's situation, the Gu family cannot afford this money.
The total revenue of the Gu family last year was about 10 billion tax coins, but most of it was paid as costs. The purchase of goods, transportation costs, labor costs... these accounted for the bulk.
Of course, the Imperial Chamber of Commerce also had to pay the Imperial Tax, and they never considered the cost, but directly collected 10% of the turnover. In addition, the Imperial Chamber of Commerce was subject to many legal restrictions, and many means of obtaining high profits could not be used casually.
Not to mention that there is a high risk - if a ship fully loaded with cargo is lost during an interstellar voyage, both the buyer and the seller will have to pay compensation, and the ship itself is expensive, so the loss is huge.
If all these are excluded, Gu's Company's annual profit is only about 3%, which means it makes about 300 million yuan - this is after taking the risk cost into account.
According to this income, Gu's Company is just a worker for the Empire. It seems to make a lot of money, but the bulk of it has to be paid in taxes. After paying, what is left in the hands is less than one-third of the tax.
Gallardo wants 300 million, which is equal to Gu's Company's revenue for a whole year.
The key point is that this profit does not belong to the Gu family, but to the entire Chamber of Commerce. The Gu family caravan is a franchise caravan. Are you going to use the profits that the franchise caravans should get to donate to the Sun Expedition?
People will rebel at any moment to show you.
Originally, due to the internal strife in the family, the Gu family was now seriously damaged. Two of the fourteen merchant fleets were lost, and the remaining twelve were missing eighteen merchant ships of various types. Another three hundred million...
Can't afford it.
Unless you sell the boat.
Gu Hang would definitely not bring this up to his mother.
Asking the merchant caravan to sell its ships? That’s a joke!
Gu Hang had no intention of satisfying Gallardo's greed, which was much greater than he had imagined.
Of course, he didn't choose to refuse directly.
Drag it first.
You, Gallardo, are a very busy man. How long can you stay in the Pegasus region?
Just drag it on first.
The longer it drags on, the less time he will have to make trouble even if they end up falling out.
If it really doesn't work, let him talk to Wang Qi about the matter of Gu's Business.
As for the present, Gallardo threatened whether the Angry Bear Legion could be established...
Sorry, Gu Hang is not afraid at all.
Perhaps, there are a thousand tricks hidden in the tax deductions for the Astra Militarum by other planetary governors.
But for Gu Hang, everything is real.
You go check it out.
It would be best if you have the time to check them one by one. If you can find an unqualified soldier or an unqualified weapon, you will be considered very capable.
In front of Gallardo, Gu Hang laughed it off, evaded the question and did not give a direct response.
…
Gallardo understood what Gu Hang meant.
But he was not very angry. Instead, he always had a smile on his face.
The young man is still young and doesn’t know how dangerous the world is.
Then come on.
He had encountered this situation many times. Some people would not cry until they saw the coffin. If they were not shocked by the high-ranking officials of the empire, they would not wake up.
After understanding Gu Hang's meaning, he didn't say anything more. He just half-lay on the chair and closed his eyes to rest.
And they soon arrived at their destination.
The Angry Bear Legion has assembled.
The Beast Slaughter Brigade, the 11th-14th Infantry Divisions, the 26th-33rd Infantry Divisions, and the 35th Combined Brigade have all been assembled.
Fortunately, there was no war in the Western Theater Command before this, and the combat power of Blackbird Heavy Industry was temporarily pushed further west. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult to withdraw a total of 13 division-level and brigade-level units from the defense line for review.
In the previous battles, these 13 brigade-level units included in the Angry Bear Legion had suffered certain losses in personnel and equipment. Gu Hang had also issued an order long ago, requiring the logistics department to give priority to replenishing their troops and equipment.
Up to now, these 13 divisions and brigades are fully staffed.
As the traveler descended from mid-air, the smile on Gallardo's face slowly disappeared.
A war apostle, a high-ranking official who rose in the great campaign of the Solar Crusade, one of the Sun Lord's confidants, how could he be a fool?
Just by gazing down at the army formation from mid-air, he knew at this quick glance that there was something special about this army.
Although there had been no formal review yet, the appearance and military posture of the Angry Bear Legion had left a deep impression on him.
But at this time, he just regarded this army as a showpiece.
The reason is simple. How can a standard-level Star Army soldier be trained so easily? Not only do you need to select excellent soldiers, but you also need a long period of technical and tactical training. And what was the wreckage of the Angry Owl Planet before? Governor Gu Hang has only been in charge for two years. If he can make the planet look presentable, it is already amazing. How can he train a truly strong army?
After landing, he pulled over the Astra Militarum representative who came with the team and whispered something to him.
The other party nodded to show that he understood.
Then the review began.
(End of this chapter)
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