"That's how you train the most important tax collectors in the Empire?" The vast conference hall reverberated with the angry shouts of the emperor's secretary general. Ｘ

Bertak was furious at the inaction of the lower bureaucrats, and even in collusion with the local aristocracy.

The land tracing campaign initiated by Emperor Alexios against the peasants and soldiers of the military district will be rectified at the level of tax collectors first.

These people have no sharp swords, no strong armor, they can only be helpless in the face of the emperor's ** soldiers, they are the weakest link in all the chains.

Every nation, every era, every person in power cannot escape this cycle.

The emerging regime will gradually ** over a long period of time until it buries itself.

The Komnenos dynasty spanned a hundred years from Emperor Alexios I to Emperor Manuel.

The previous Supreme Emperor Manuel was put on the throne because he was deeply loved by his mother, Princess Irina of Hungary, which led to infighting and cannibalism among the Komnenos later.

Emperor Manuel, as the youngest son, did not actually have the right to inherit, but when his father John II was out on a campaign, the emperor collapsed, and the prince took the opportunity to steal the military power.

With the support of the army, Emperor Manuel successfully entered the imperial capital and was gloriously crowned.

Manuel's brother Isaac Komnenos had been guarding the imperial capital of Constantinople, so he unfortunately became a stumbling block to the emperor's ascendancy, and he was arrested and imprisoned.

An unsuccessful accession to the throne heralded the split of the family's blood relatives, and in the end, the irreconcilable gap led to the infighting and collapse of the dynasty.

During the reign of the former emperor, the thirty-seven years of entanglement involved several of the most prominent members of the Komnenos family.

The deposed prince Isaac Komunen, the eldest sister-in-law of Emperor Manuel, Irina, and his ambitious cousin Andronica Komnenos.

Naturally, the struggle between the various factions inevitably led to the tilting of the lower bureaucracy.

The evil officials and military officers who were in charge of the land tax revenue vied with each other to flatter the magnates, hoping to stand in line in advance before the future supreme ascended the throne, especially the tax departments of the provinces, especially the hardest-hit areas.

Betak is also going crazy in the face of such a mess, and the local officials' ** is far beyond his and the emperor's imagination.

The tax collectors colluded with the village circuit judges to register the tax payments of the provinces and districts, so that the tax revenue of the empire was artificially reduced in invisibility.

According to the tax policy of the old empire, the state imposed a poll tax on land, which was measured by the amount of arable land, the number of people, and the yield of crops.

However, the prevailing system at that time was that the local provinces appointed their own tax collectors locally, and then the imperial government collected a fixed share of the tax from the tax collectors and granted the tax collectors the power to collect taxes at any time in the region.

This irrational approach naturally led to the collapse of the imperial tax system, and the emperor's orders could not even enter the villages and towns.

The Imperial Supreme of the previous dynasty abolished the old system through legislation and began to train the tax collectors of the empire in an orderly manner, and the real dynastic officials began to go to the countryside.

"But what is the report I'm seeing now?"

The emperor's secretary general desperately suppressed his anger and handed the secret report in his hand to the person opposite him.

Theocleidos, the chief tax officer in charge of the provinces, was already sweating profusely.

The summaries from the Imperial Intelligence Agency, presented in front of the desk of the Secretary General of the Emperor, were now in his hands again.

Here's how the intelligence officers went into the villages of the provinces and saw for themselves: "It was astonishing to hear that there was a problem in the provinces, and that the top officials could hardly overcome it on their own. ”

"Here's what we've seen: The great noble landlords, including the royal family, have so much property here, and their lands are so vast that we can't even walk out of their territory for a day."

"And the appalling thing is that these nobles also have their own personal guards, a mob that follows them, and their power here is almost infinite, and they can plunder whatever they want without fear."

"Almost all state property was annexed to private ownership, and even the war horses that the empire demanded to be domesticated were seized and plundered, and the local officials played little role, because their mouths were blocked by gold."

Betak finished the report for the tax bureaucrat who had already spoken.

"If that's what your subordinate officials do, then tell me, how much gold did you, the director, collect?"

In the early days, the state finances of the Byzantine Empire were not entirely dependent on agricultural taxes, which were only a small part of the empire's taxes.

During the reign of Emperor Justinian I, the Silk Road flourished here as a result of the flourishing trade between East and West, which expanded the empire's financial resources.

At that time, the hidden dangers of the empire were all concealed, and the treasurer's abundant warehouses allowed the Supreme to squander them unscrupulously.

Whether it's the war between the East and the West, or the construction of magnificent sanctuaries.

It is said that more than 400 churches were built in the imperial capital alone, which shows the generosity of the emperors at that time.

But things always take a turn!

The Norman commander Bosimund gave Emperor Alexios I a painful defeat repeatedly.

Even more terrifying was the fact that Corinth, the most important silk weaving center of the empire, was captured by these ferocious barbarians.

Hundreds of years of savings were wiped out or small, but since then one of the most important sources of wealth for the empire has been gone.

Palermo in Sicily replaced Corinth as the European center of silk weaving!

At this time, the trade between the East and the West had long been cut off by the rising Seljuks, and the country's shrinking finances witnessed the decline of the empire.

The Supremes began to look to the land, where the grain was once the subsistence of the aristocracy, but now it was being snatched up by the magnates, and the taxes belonging to the empire finally withered.

"Your Excellency!"

"Anyway, please give me some time!"

"I will definitely give you a satisfactory answer!"

The ashamed Theokridos hid his panic, he was naturally not clean, but now as long as Bertak did not track him down, then he was safe.

But someone has to be held accountable!

"You've got a month to scout slowly, but if you don't satisfy me......"

"I'm sure the prisons in the imperial capital won't mind adding another prisoner!"

"General Theodosius also complained to me that the Bulgarian prisoners of war who had been mining recently had been transferred, and that he was getting shorter and shorter!"

Theocleidos probably didn't know that for Betarch, he was already a dead man.

The difference is only whether this bastard will be able to collude with his corrupt subordinates, as the Secretary-General expects.

This time the target was the tax collectors at the grassroots level of the empire, and what these people did not expect at all was that in the emperor's mind they were just a group of lambs to the slaughter, and the emperor would let them spit out all the property lost by the empire.