King of Mercenaries

Chapter 317: Institutional reform

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The expansion of the Aurich Palace is in full swing. Of course, this does not affect the daily work of the palace. Because the expansion is just adding walls and buildings around the old palace. At most, the noise during construction is very loud, which affects the mood of the office workers in the palace.

Fortunately, there are no cutting machines in this era, and they cannot make very harsh and sharp sounds. Otherwise, listening to these sounds is quite frustrating.

But even so, Marin, a modern person who is used to enjoying himself, is still very uncomfortable with the noisy sounds around the palace. As a result, he began to feel a little irritable. At the same time, I also began to be unwilling to deal with so many government affairs every day...

Therefore, Marin decided to add some institutions to share his work...

The first thing to be established is the secretariat. The so-called secretariat is an organization that helps the boss handle chores. According to later generations, it is "Let the secretary do something, and do nothing..."

However, because the four college student secretaries who followed Marin were all men, the latter half of the sentence is not valid, but the first half of the sentence can still be partially done.

Moreover, the country is not a company, and it is impossible for Marin to really hand over power to the Secretariat. For example, military power, such as financial power, and important personnel appointment power, Marin did not intend to delegate power to the Secretariat.

The military power Marin intends to be the general staff in the city, but because the military education in the Counties of East Frisia has just started, there is no ten or eight years, and it is impossible to train officers with the ability to serve as staff. Therefore, the general staff cannot be established for the time being.

As for the financial power, Marin must be handed over to Kohler for the time being. After all, Kohler is relatively trustworthy, at least for now. Of course, it is also because Marin currently has a serious lack of talents. Therefore, Marin requested that the Ministry of Finance, which is dominated by Kohler and supplemented by a few college students such as Rabbi, has a certain degree of independence and can reject some unreasonable expenditure requests from Prime Minister Jeffrey. Of course, if the Prime Minister's request is rejected, a report must be formed, reported to the Secretariat, and passed on to Marin himself for review, so as to avoid a situation where the Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister are fighting.

As for the important personnel appointment power, it goes without saying. Without military power, financial power, and important personnel appointment power, the prime minister is just a purely civilian official who handles chores, and there is nothing wrong with it. And Marin wanted to be lazy, so he planned to train the Secretariat to represent his own review department.

What they reviewed were the administrative documents and processing opinions transferred from Jeffrey. Then, according to Marin's request, the secretariat issued instructions one by one and used Marin's seal. Of course, without Marin's signature.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Secretariat, Marin thought of preventing the Secretariat from expanding into an institution similar to the cabinet of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Marin limited the power of the Secretariat. The staff of the secretariat can only use the seal to give instructions under the guidance of Marin.

Moreover, the Secretariat cannot give instructions on anything related to military and finance. Unless Marin has something to go out, they can make instructions according to the form strictly formulated by Marin. However, in some important situations, they are not qualified to give instructions. For example, large-scale military mobilization cannot be implemented without Marin's personal signature. The Secretariat uses Marin's seal, and the maximum number of troops that can be mobilized does not exceed 100. Moreover, these 100 people must not be in the city of Aurich or drive into Aurich to avoid a palace change. Even, in Marin's vision, even if the general staff is established in the future, the soldiers and horses in Aurich City cannot be mobilized. The soldiers and horses in the capital can only be commanded by Marin's most trusted people.

Without military command power, financial review power, and important personnel appointment power, the Secretariat is equivalent to a department that handles miscellaneous matters. Of course, because reviewing the processing opinions submitted by the Prime Minister also has a certain weight.

In this way, the prime minister's powers are limited, but the secretariat cannot handle documents by itself, it can only review them. And Kohler can also supervise financially to check and balance the two parties.

In the future, Marin even plans to set up an agency like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to supervise his subordinates and prevent them from having evil intentions. However, Marin has no relevant talents at the moment, so he had to let Sauer's men start to exercise their abilities in this area.

But even so, Marin decided to limit the power of this intelligence agency. Whether it was the Jinyiwei or Dongchang in the Ming Dynasty, or the secret agents in the Republic of China, they all became scourges because of their detached law enforcement power.

Therefore, even if such an intelligence agency is established, Marin does not intend to give them the power of judicial trial to prevent them from becoming bigger and creating unjust cases.

For this reason, Marin came up with a way-to let the Intelligence Bureau only have the power of investigation, proof and prosecution, similar to the procuratorial organs of later generations. However, the procuratorate is open, and it is easy to be monitored by those who want to. But the Intelligence Bureau is secretive. Not only can't those who are interested can't monitor, but they will be monitored secretly. Therefore, its role is greater than that of the procuratorate.

However, the Intelligence Bureau does not have the final judicial power, and even the power of law enforcement has been compressed to the limit. To arrest an official or aristocrat, the authorization of the Supreme Court must be obtained. Moreover, judicial jurisdiction is also vested in the courts. In this way, no matter how good the intelligence bureau is, because it has no judicial power and the ability to frame others, it can avoid becoming bigger. But because of its pervasive ability, it also allows Marin to "sight and ears" to understand the situation in all parts of the country and avoid being deceived. In addition, with the existence of the Intelligence Bureau, as long as there are a few good shots, it can deter those who have evil intentions.

With the rise of commercial trade, Marin can foresee that the urban population of East Frisia will increase. Then, the issue of public security in the city needs to be given great attention.

In the past, the urban population of the Counties of East Frisia was very small, but Marin is now expanding the city on a large scale and engaging in immigration. The urban population will definitely form a large scale in the future.

And the city is also a place where dirt is hidden. In the current rural areas, due to the existence of serf manors, serfs are restricted to the manors and do not run around. There is not much floating population, as long as the manor owners or managers manage those serfs according to the law. Therefore, in rural areas, there is currently no security problem.

But the city is different. The city has always been a place where the three teachings and nine streams are concentrated, and there are many messy things. Without law and order forces, it will not work.

In the past, although there were magistrates in various places, they were generally served by local officials. Moreover, the security personnel under them are not regular. Either the sheriff's younger brother, or simply a local soldier. These people are often gangsters and hooligans themselves, and law enforcement is relatively rough. There are even acts of oppressing the people. Compared with the security personnel of this era, the urban management of later generations should not be too civilized...

Therefore, Marin signed an order to cancel the setting of the magistrate and set up a special police force. Of course, the system of magistrates is still used in rural areas, with other officials concurrently serving. However, in the five major cities-Aurich, Emden, Leer, Den Burg and Norden, Marin established police stations respectively, canceled the former magistrate, and formed a formal police station. The former sheriff, replaced by the police chief.

The source of the police is some former soldiers who retired due to injuries after the last Lyle County battle. Of course, although these veterans could no longer stay in the army, their injuries were not too serious. At least there was no problem in forming a team to beat up gangsters.

Because these people have received strict military training and strict discipline, they will not bully the people like gangsters, but they are also very effective in combat and can hold the field.

Marin selected a total of 300 outstanding soldiers who chose to retire after being injured, and sent them to 5 cities to establish a police force.

The police are different from ordinary people. They need to beat gangsters at any time, and they also have the ability to stop riots. In terms of weapon selection, Marin hesitated for a long time...

First of all, muskets are not suitable. The musket is too lethal, suitable for killing people, not for law enforcement. Moreover, the muskets of this era take too long to load and the accuracy is poor. If you can't concentrate the criminals with one shot, you will make yourself unlucky, and it is easy to accidentally injure innocent people.

Therefore, Marin first ruled out muskets. Anyway, he has already banned guns across the country, so he doesn't have to worry about someone using guns to fight against the police. Then, Marin began to consider equipping the police with swords.

As a result, the light sword used by the knight came into Marin's sight. This kind of light sword is easy to carry and not heavy, and is suitable for police to patrol and perform tasks and fight crime. Therefore, the light sword is to be equipped.

However, it is easy to hurt people when drawing a sword when teaching stabbing. Therefore, it is necessary to equip batons. However, Marin did not have rubber and could not make professional rubber batons for beating people. So, Marin remembered the artifact of later generations—the baseball bat... Then, the baseball bat became one of the police's equipment...

When encountering thorns and gangsters, the police don't need to draw their swords, just take out a baseball bat and whip them. However, when facing a group of people making trouble, it is a little troublesome.

So, Marin thought of the riot police who used shields in later generations. The reason why shields are used is to resist attacks from objects thrown by troublemakers, and to a certain extent to resist knives. Moreover, the rows of riot police with shields can also forcefully push and drive away the rioters by using shields.

Therefore, Marin decided that the police's anti-riot equipment would be a square wooden shield, a baseball bat, and a wooden anti-riot hat.

This kind of equipment can completely beat up any gangster group, and can also resist those angry crowds. In the future, after Marin obtained American peppers, he also planned to make spicy chili powder instead of tear gas bombs to disperse the rioting crowd. However, the caster must wear glasses and a mask first, otherwise it will endanger himself...

After successively setting up the Secretariat, strengthening the Ministry of Finance, and setting up the Intelligence Bureau and the Police Bureau, Marin also set up tax bureaus in the five major cities for the development of domestic business.

The tax bureau personnel were dispatched by Marin himself, and Kohler's Ministry of Finance dispatched personnel to assist. In other cities, the tax office mainly collects taxes on street shops and street vendors. Even the city's entry tax is placed under the jurisdiction of the tax bureau.

Marin stipulates that the "one-tax system" will be adopted in the future. That is to say, when entering and leaving the city in the future, you only need to pay the city entry tax, and do not need to pay the city exit tax. At the same time, various tax cards in the country are cancelled, local governments are not allowed to set up private tax cards, and the taxation authority is vested in the tax bureau. For goods in transit, as long as the invoice is issued and stamped by the local tax bureau, when they arrive at another place in East Frisia, they only need to show the stamped invoice, as long as the type and quantity of the goods on the invoice meet the inspection results , there is no need to impose taxes.

This reform is intended to be progressive. In the Middle Ages, it was common for the same country to set up private tax cards in various places. Moreover, the tax revenue from the tax cards set up privately in these places will not be handed over, but will be divided up privately by local officials.

Marin's move actually harmed the interests of local officials. If you change a country, you may encounter great resistance.

But the Counties of East Frisia are different. Most of the old East Frisian nobles who followed the Sexner family were killed by Marin. The remaining old nobles and new nobles were very afraid of the fierce Marin. Therefore, they dare not violate Marin's policy, lest they be "clicked".

Therefore, with the previous bad name, Marin easily took back the power of commercial taxation in various places, and only retained the power of various places to maintain a certain amount of withdrawal when collecting agricultural taxes. After all, magistrates also have to eat. It's just that the people from the tax bureau will also send people to supervise the whole process to prevent these former tax officials from blackmailing the people. But in fact, in this era of Germany, the fields in the countryside are basically in the hands of the tyrants, and there are basically no homeowners. The tax officials just want to blackmail, and there is no suitable target. Those manor owners are basically nobles or relatives of nobles, so they are not easy to mess with. In the past, the ordinary people who did business in the city were very suitable targets for extortion. But Marin took back the right to collect taxes in the city, so, in fact, those original tax officials could no longer make extra money, and could only go to the manor in the countryside to eat and drink at most...

Ever since, in East Frisia, four new agencies were established: the Secretariat, the Intelligence Bureau, the Police Department and the Taxation Bureau.

The police station and the tax office are easy to handle. They can follow the old rules, add some new ideas, and start working right away. As for the Intelligence Bureau, because there was no precedent to follow before, they could only explore slowly. Moreover, relevant talents also need to be cultivated and explored.

As for the secretariat, facing the four immature college students, Marin didn't expect them to be able to get started right away. At the very least, it will take a year or two for these bookish college students to gradually adapt to government work and initially become politicians. At that time, Marin will be able to get rid of most of the burden and have time to do something else...

Of course, although Marin wanted to get rid of the burden, he was not dizzy. For the most important military power and important personnel appointment power, Marin will not let go no matter when. As long as these two great powers are in control, no matter how the people below make trouble, they will not be able to make waves...