novelHome #2188 - Act impartially
#2188 - Act impartially
After a brief period of mental and physical adjustment, Solzhenitsyn plunged back into his busy work.
First, he held a grand memorial service for all the officers and soldiers who died in the Battle of the Carac System, and announced that non-Space Marine personnel who died in this expedition would receive the standard pension benefits of the Imperial Guard. Of course, even so, the number was not small, and Solzhenitsyn's existing material resources could not fully meet it.
So he came up with the second trick, which is actually a more common measure in the Department of Military Affairs: land in place of compensation.
In the many star systems that have been conquered, a considerable part of them are suitable for habitation, such as the ocean world of the Maggot Star Cluster. The Red Corsairs' development of it was very extensive. After 'migrating' the residents above, those fertile islands and lands, as well as the oceans full of rich algae and fishery resources, can immediately become very suitable resettlement sites - Solzhenitsyn named it the Martyrs' Territory.
If the families of the deceased are willing, according to the troops and military ranks they belonged to during their lifetime, they can obtain land of varying sizes, mountains, forests and other resource points from these habitable worlds, and there is also a ten-year tax exemption period. This can not only meet the needs of pensioning the fallen officers and soldiers, but also provide a part of immigration.
Of course, there must be many people who are unwilling to leave their homes. There are also arrangements for these people. The land in their hands can be sold, and who is the buyer?
It is the newly appointed ruler of the world.
All appointed governors have one condition, which is to unconditionally acquire those transferred martyrs' territories and must pay immediately. →
The governor has to spend money to buy the land in his own world. This sounds a bit incredible, but there are still many people who flock to it. After all, these livable worlds are much more comfortable than those hive worlds or mining worlds, and the development potential is even greater.
In this way, Solzhenitsyn can solve the problem of pensions for the fallen without spending a penny.
Of course, this is just a general framework. The specific rules can only be formulated and implemented by the expeditionary force's administrative agency in conjunction with the Department of Military Affairs and the Department of Internal Affairs.
Although the Department of Internal Affairs was quite dissatisfied with Solzhenitsyn's casual disposal of the reclaimed world, but now he is the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force. His power in the Maelstrom is almost infinite. As long as the expedition does not end for a day, he is qualified to dispose of any world.
Not only the fallen officers and soldiers, but after the end of the expedition, in addition to some outstanding troops that will be included in the Department of Military Affairs to continue serving the empire, many temporary troops recruited locally will have to be laid off, and those retired soldiers will also receive similar rewards.
After dealing with the issue of fallen officers and soldiers, Solzhenitsyn made another amazing decision.
Considering the contributions and sacrifices made by the people of the various worlds in the Maelstrom for this expedition, he decided to exempt all non-agricultural and mining worlds from the tithe for one cycle, except for those belonging to the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Adeptus Arbites, while those two types of worlds would have their tithe halved!
This decision was immediately met with serious opposition from the Department of Internal Affairs. Solzhenitsyn then explained that this was his personal decision. He, or rather the expeditionary force, was willing to pay the tithe for one cycle on behalf of the people of the Maelstrom. →
The person in charge of the Department of Internal Affairs was dumbfounded at the time. It was the first time they had seen this. After that, Solzhenitsyn further explained that during the years of the expedition, they had seized a huge amount of gold, silver, jewelry, cultural relics, antiques, religious relics and other valuables from the Red Corsairs. It can be said that all the wealth except weapons, equipment and machinery had been handed over. These things cannot be eaten or drunk, but they have 'value'. Solzhenitsyn also specifically checked the Department of Internal Affairs' tithe collection standards, and it is possible to use specific valuable items to 'offset' them, including but not limited to exquisite jewelry, ancient cultural relics, etc.
But the person in charge of the Department of Internal Affairs was in a dilemma. This is indeed possible, but it often requires greeting Terra in advance, and it also depends on the type of tithe in the local area. Some that involve strategic resources or important human resources cannot be offset in this way.
Solzhenitsyn then threw out the second bargaining chip, which was a pile of illegal psykers caught during several years of expedition.
Due to the existence of a certain amount of Chaos pollution in the Red Corsairs' territory, there are more illegal psykers or wizards than in normal Imperial worlds. Over the years, four to five thousand people have been caught sporadically. They are strong and weak. The Grey Knights took away a batch in the middle, the Ecclesiarchy took away a batch, and the Librarians of the various chapters selected a small part, leaving more than 3,800 people.
The psychic tithe is the highest level tithe in the empire. Due to the value of psykers, some worlds can even provide a dozen psykers to offset a cycle of tithe.
These three thousand psykers are almost three times the psychic tithe of the Maelstrom in one cycle. At most, this area only provides less than a thousand psykers at a time, still because the warp activity in the Maelstrom is more frequent.
With these psykers, the Department of Internal Affairs immediately changed its tune, praising Solzhenitsyn's noble character and understanding of the people's sentiments.
However, in terms of the role of the Maelstrom area in the imperial tax system, these alone are still not enough. For this reason, Solzhenitsyn also found the Terra special envoy and explained his ideas, and finally got the other party's support.
Of course, this matter was also widely publicized. Under the crazy operation of the Imperial propaganda machine, at least the vast majority of hive cities and a considerable number of residents inside knew that the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force had exempted them from one period of tithe, which also won Solzhenitsyn the praise of many governors and nobles, after all, the tithe was first placed on them.
And this, in turn, involves the next issue.
The appointment of the governors of those newly conquered worlds, although some worlds and hive cities will be assigned to meritorious officers, there are also some resource worlds or worlds that can barely be developed and immigrated. Solzhenitsyn certainly will not do things like selling official positions. In fact, he selects those governors entirely based on ability, character and family background, including many officers who have climbed step by step from civilian backgrounds to senior command positions. If Solzhenitsyn had made such a decision before, the nobles would definitely be dissatisfied, but now that they have taken advantage of him, they can't say anything more.
And Solzhenitsyn did this only to hope that the Maelstrom can be more stable in the future, and that more and more capable people can make a small contribution to the empire's rule in this area, and that their people can live a little better under their rule.
No matter what the original intention of this expedition was, at least as an Astartes, Solzhenitsyn has to be able to live up to his conscience.
Maybe things won't always be good, maybe when he turns around, everything that was originally beautiful will slowly deteriorate, but he has tried his best.
Of course, he still fulfilled the contract with the Votan League. These greedy dwarves obtained the mining rights to several high-value mining worlds in the Bloody Bone Star System. Although this behavior of suspected 'compromising with aliens' will damage his great and upright image, the Inquisition of Xenos is also quite critical of this, but fortunately the Votan still have a considerable influence in the Maelstrom. Under the traditional means that money can make the devil push the mill, coupled with the fact that the definition of dwarves is still a gray and vague area, Solzhenitsyn's behavior can only be said to be 'inappropriate', and cannot be said to be a violation of imperial law.
Completion Check: The entire Chinese text has been translated into English.
Length Comparison: The translated English text is of comparable length to the original Chinese text, ensuring no significant omissions.
Confirmation Statement: The translation is complete, accurate, and of high quality, with consistent character names and a natural English flow.