‘……So, the Empire’s administrative system is… romance-fantasy all right. Everything’s mixed together.’
I muttered quietly as I closed the brick-thick bundle of documents Maximilien had handed me.
The Empire’s basic materials, which I had spent the past several hours reading carefully at the desk in my private office, were quite interesting.
In my previous life, I had double-majored in public administration.
I had even passed the first round of the Grade 5 civil service examination—the PSAT—and I had been serious enough about the field to consider going on to graduate school for public administration.
Though, thanks to getting hit by a truck and flattened like dried filefish while playing TFT with headphones on in the street, I would never get to put that knowledge to use in public office in modern society.
In any case, through the eyes of someone who had been a reasonably decent undergraduate student of public administration, the Empire’s framework was extremely peculiar and misshapen.
It felt as though my ex-girlfriend, who had been particularly interested in history, had stitched together every feature of various great empires throughout history when building the setting.
First, the legal system and administrative divisions closely resembled ancient Rome.
On the other hand, the governing system—where officials were dispatched from the center to monitor local power—was similar to methods used by the unified dynasties of ancient China.
And yet, the military system, which constantly waged wars of conquest to expand its territory while emphasizing mobility and logistics, strongly called to mind the Mongol Empire.
‘For a Western-style setting, there are a lot of traces of someone wanting an Eastern-style centralized government.’
Basically, the Empire seemed to have aimed for a unified centralized system while uniting the continent by force.
Realistically, however, there was no way to control such vast territory and so many different cultures all at once.
Perhaps because of that, the Empire’s system took on the form of feudalism, leaving the former rulers of each nation in place to some extent and acknowledging part of their rights.
Of course, the central government was constantly attempting to secure control by dispatching officials as overseers.
They had also prepared plenty of checks and balances of their own, such as elevating those who had cooperated with the Empire during the wars of conquest into new powers in place of the old local magnates, granting them real authority, and making them keep one another in check.
But since the administrative knowledge of this world remained at a medieval level, there were clear limits.
As for the external reason, it was probably my ex-girlfriend’s lack of knowledge, since she had been purely in the language and literature field.
‘Whatever the case, from the perspective of a public administration student, there are mountains of areas that are lacking and inefficient.’
That said, I had no intention of recklessly applying the standards of modern public administration here and declaring that I would overhaul the entire system.
This place was, after all, a fictional nation within a romance-fantasy world, and a conquering empire under an absolute monarchy where the emperor’s authority was law itself.
It would be foolish to force the system of a modern state, completed through the developmental process of democratic nations, onto it as-is.
After thinking for a long while with all those temporal limitations and realistic conditions in mind, I began writing down meaningful improvements that could still be applied immediately without issue on a blank sheet of paper.
“The most serious problem is…… that policy management and evaluation—in other words, the feedback process—is extremely lacking.”
The Empire was quick at planning policies and implementing them in a top-down fashion, but there was no objective system whatsoever for evaluating what results those policies actually produced.
Naturally, the statistical indicators necessary for evaluation were a mess as well.
Since the tasks of measuring population or economic scale, which should have fallen under a statistical office, were scattered chaotically among each ministry, it was no wonder the crown prince spent every day suffering with his eyes wide open.
The next fatal weakness that stood out was the tax system.
“The method of collecting taxes is far too primitive.”
I dipped my quill deeply into the ink and rapidly filled the paper.
The Empire’s current taxes were levied in lump sums with unclear purposes.
The center would simply tell a local lord to pay one hundred thousand gold coins this year and assign the quota all at once.
This kind of structure inevitably encouraged lords to embezzle in the middle and produced harsh exploitation.
In the end, the people’s resistance and anger toward taxes would be directed not at the lords, but at the emperor.
‘Using modern society as an example, they probably need to clearly subdivide taxes into categories such as income tax, capital gains tax, acquisition tax, and property tax.’
I began explaining that concept in the report.
Even if the total amount of taxes collected by the state increased, if the people paying them could clearly understand exactly what area their taxes arose from, and where that money would be used—such as road maintenance or border defense—the psychological backlash would be much smaller.
It was a matter of giving taxpayers a justification.
‘Of course, matters tied to vested interests, such as abolishing the poll tax or completely reforming the tax system, would be difficult to touch right away.’
I carefully added a realistic compromise as well: sensitive issues that directly emptied the nobles’ pockets would only provoke fierce resistance if handled clumsily, so at the current stage, they should focus on subdividing the nominal categories of taxes.
Like that, the public administration knowledge floating around in my head began pouring onto the paper as concrete alternatives.
Once I fell into the flow of concentration, the habits from my university library days—staying up all night during exam season—came back, and I read reports and wrote like a madman, losing all sense of time.
Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch.
In the silent office, only the sound of my quill scraping against rough paper rang out without pause.
Unaware that ink was staining my fingers, I was completely submerged in a sea of documents.
Knock, knock.
At the sound of someone knocking on the door, I suddenly came back to my senses.
When I raised my head, the red sunset outside the window had long since vanished completely, and night had already settled in darkly.
Creak.
The door opened, and Crown Prince Maximilien, looking plainly exhausted, stepped inside.
Perhaps he had already finished the day’s work and was about to leave, because he was wearing a neat outer coat.
“……Ian Sterling? You still haven’t left?”
Seeing me still holding a quill by the light of a single lamp in the dark room, Maximilien widened his eyes as though genuinely surprised.
“Ah, Your Highness. Is it already this late?”
I rose from my seat while rubbing the stiff back of my neck.
“I was reading the documents carefully and became so focused that time flew by. But I still haven’t finished reading them. There’s so much that I’ve only just finished the administrative section, and I haven’t even opened the materials on the military system.”
“No, who on earth told you to read all of that in one day? I only told you to skim through it roughly, look around the room, and then go.”
Clicking his tongue as he approached, Maximilien’s gaze fixed on the piles of paper stacked high on my desk, reeking of ink.
He narrowed his eyes and looked at what I had written.
“……I’m quite certain I told you to write a brief impression, about a single page. What is all this? Were you writing this much?”
“Ah, Your Highness, those are unfinished drafts.”
“This is?”
Before I could stop him, Maximilien picked up the sheet lying on top.
Written on it was my draft about the need to unify statistical work, methods of reducing tax resistance by subdividing the nominal categories of taxes, and gradual implementation to avoid backlash from the vested classes.
It was only a draft and still had many points that needed supplementation, but Maximilien’s gaze began moving quickly along the words on the page.
Soon, after he had read all the way down to the final line of the last page, a strange light flashed behind his glasses.
Tap.
He carefully set the paper back down on the desk.
Then he very slowly raised his head to look at me. Unable to control the corners of his mouth, they twitched before he broke into a broad, bright grin.
He placed a hand firmly on my shoulder.
A very friendly voice flowed out of him, to the point that it was hard to believe he was the same cold, neurotic crown prince as usual.
“Ian, do you drink?”
“Pardon? Drink…… you mean alcohol? Yes, I can hold my liquor fairly well.”
“Excellent! Pack up at once. Have a drink with me this evening.”
“……Pardon? No, Your Highness. I still haven’t even read the military system section, and I’d like to return to my lodging and rest for today.”
“You can take your time with the military system later! That wasn’t even my area of responsibility in the first place. Right now, I very much want to drink with you.”
“Um…”
“Let’s go. I’ll personally bring out my most treasured bottle from the palace cellar for you.”
Maximilien winked.
“Besides, tomorrow is the weekend, isn’t it? Surely it’s fine to get drunk for one day?”
To be honest, I did feel like having a bit of alcohol.
I hadn’t really had a chance to drink heavily in this life.
“Yes, then I won’t refuse.”
“Good! Follow me.”