I want to be emperor

Maputo, a small port in East Africa, was a small commercial base during the Portuguese colonial period.

Because there are several rivers that can go deep into the interior of Africa, the Portuguese established a small colonial stronghold here more than 100 years ago to facilitate trade with the local indigenous people along these rivers.

However, during the Portuguese colonial period, this place was not an important commercial port, so its development was extremely limited.

The center of Portuguese colonial rule in East Africa was the island of Mozambique further north.

In fact, even after the Great Chu Empire accepted the colonial rule of East Africa, although it did not fully continue the development strategy of the Portuguese period, the focus of development was placed on the northern port of Pemba, but Mozambique Island is still an important city.

As for several other coastal port colonies, they basically adopt the stocking model, such as Maputo, Beira, and Quelimane.

Because the Great Chu Empire has a very clear strategy for its operations in the east coast of Africa, which is to open up the routes along the east coast of Africa, in order to completely control South Africa, and then block the waters of the Cape of Good Hope, completely bring the Indian Ocean under control, and completely control the Indian Ocean. Turn into the inland sea to establish a safe logistics supply channel, and do business along the east coast of Africa by the way.

Therefore, the current focus of development is partly the excellent coastal ports with the potential to berth large ships. Only deep-water ports can berth thousands of tons of large ships, such as Pemba Port and Cape Town Port.

Another part is that the location is very important. Even if the port conditions are not good, Chu will also focus on development, such as Mogadishu in Somalia, and Dongkai Port in South Africa.

In addition, Hongkou Port on the Red Sea coast of North Africa, and Anxi City in the Omanhad Cape area of ​​the West Asian desert peninsula.

These key development ports either have excellent natural conditions and a good local climate suitable for farming, or the geographical location is so important that they are supply ports for ships to sail.

Unfortunately, Maputo does not take either of these two requirements.

In the north, there is the largest military base of the Great Chu Empire in East Africa, and the excellent deep-water port of Pemba Port.

Over there, there is Dongkai Port under construction and even a larger comprehensive military base, Cape Town Port nearby.

Maputo, which is just stuck in the middle, actually rarely passes by ships to berth here for supplies on weekdays.

After all, the ocean-going ships of the Great Chu Empire are basically large ships with good battery life. It is impossible to say that they will stop and dock for supplies after a few days of walking.

This situation also led to the fact that after the Great Chu Empire took control of Maputo, the local development was very limited. After the people of Chu took over the city, they only renovated the necessary city defense facilities and stationed more than 60 regular troops of the Chu army. Soldiers, in addition to more than 200 servant soldiers of the Indian Legion.

The daily management also adopts the ordinary colonial model, and only a small number of necessary officials such as a town magistrate and tax officer are dispatched here.

Counting all the Chu people living in the city, including the military and civilians, there are only a thousand people.

In the city and the outskirts of the city, in addition to the Chu people, there are actually a large number of people from other countries, such as Portuguese immigrants who came to the area before, businessmen and even ordinary immigrants from other countries, and even some local people. There are aboriginals who are black or not.

Among these people, there are official people from Chu State, semi-official people from the Western Trading Company, and businessmen and adventurers from Chu State. As for pure agricultural immigrants from Chu State, there are not many...

The aborigines also have everyone, including ordinary businessmen, ordinary farmers, and some slave traders. You can even see sneaking pirates and various prostitutes.

It is worth mentioning that there are also many local merchants under the rule of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Many of these people are slave traders. Sometimes they buy slaves, and sometimes they go deep into the interior to catch slaves.

There is also slavery in the Ottoman Empire these days, and even the scale of slavery is quite large, but the slavery of the Ottoman Empire also has a very interesting feature, that is, slaves are not always at the bottom of society. With outstanding performance and based on their foundation, some slaves can actually become mid-to-high-ranking generals, officials, and even influence the change of imperial power in the empire.

The most typical representative of these slaves is the 'Ottoman Guards'. This army is the second army equipped with flintlock guns and adopts line tactics besides the Great Chu Empire. It has performed very eye-catching in the past ten years.

These army slaves, this kind of strictly selected slaves will study and educate, and enter the army to serve, and even become important generals and important officials.

The slave corps described in the later novel Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin is very likely to be based on the Ottoman Guards, plus the castrated eunuchs in the Ottoman court, and combined them for creation.

After all, the background of the whole novel is actually the "War of the Roses" period of the English Civil War in the mid-fifteenth century. During this period, the Ottoman Empire was on the rise, and its slave guards were very powerful.

There were also a large number of castrated slaves in the Ottoman court, and the power of the eunuchs in the Ottoman court was not much worse than that of the eunuchs in the Eastern court.

These upper-class slaves profoundly affected the political situation of the Ottoman Empire.

To put it bluntly, the political structure of the Ottoman Empire was dominated by local nobles and army slaves.

In addition, ordinary people also held a large number of slaves to provide them with family services, manual production and farming. These slaves were often of very low social status and were also the main body of the slave trade in the Ottoman Empire.

The slavery system of the Ottoman Empire is actually somewhat similar to the slavery system in traditional Eastern dynasties. The eunuchs in the court, the sons of big families, and the tenants of ordinary landlords... These groups are actually very similar in nature.

At the same time, serfdom was widely prevalent in Russia.

It can only be said that countries in the world before the industrial revolution were actually similar in some systems, and there seemed to be differences, but in fact they were similar.

In order to obtain a large number of slaves, in addition to the Ottoman Empire's own acquisition, there are also a large number of slave traders who will go to Africa to buy slaves through various substitutions.

Of course, the Chu people do not engage in slavery, and it is against the law to practice slavery in the empire. Therefore, slaves are usually obtained by helping the Chu army deal with prisoners of war, and finding Chu people to cooperate with labor export introductions, etc. to obtain slaves.

Therefore, many slave traders of the Ottoman Empire were also active in the east coast of Africa.

In Maputo is no exception.

Today's Maputo is a hodgepodge, everyone has it!

After all, this place has not been incorporated into overseas territories directly under its jurisdiction, so the Great Chu Empire will not expel these foreign natives.As long as you abide by the laws of the empire, the officials don't care much about you.

But it is different in overseas territories directly under the jurisdiction of the empire. In the overseas territories directly under the empire, the empire does not allow foreign aborigines to live and live, let alone foreign aborigines, even local aborigines will be expelled, such as many places in Southeast Asia, Ceylon island, parts of North America, and what is now South Africa.

In these typical overseas directly-administered territories, there are no aboriginals. Even if there are, there are a few aboriginals who are related and closely related to the Chu people themselves.

After all, in many places overseas, there are also many indigenous people who choose to cooperate with Chu State, and even serve as the leading party.

For these foreign natives who have made efforts and contributions to the empire's overseas expansion, the empire generally accepts them, grants them Chu's household registration, and legally becomes a real Chu native.

The Great Chu Empire also adopted a similar policy in the Indian Legion, promising to give the outstanding indigenous soldiers in the Indian Legion the household registration of the Great Chu Empire in the future.

It's just that the number of places must be very small, and it is difficult for ordinary Indian soldiers to obtain them.

Ordinary colonies, overseas territories, these two completely different models of overseas territories are very different in the Great Chu Empire.

Maputo, on the other hand, is a typical ordinary colony. There are everyone here, and at the same time it seems relatively chaotic, and there are a large number of desperadoes among them.

For example, Meng Xiu and his group belonged to extremely vicious criminal gangs no matter in what era or under what legal framework.

Now, they are targeting the Dutch who migrated to Tshwane, trying to seize the gold mines.

Meng Xiu's actions were very fast, and they quickly gathered about a hundred armed forces, dozens of them were the key employees of Meng Xiu's company, and they were all legal security personnel with guns.

There are dozens of other desperadoes who were recruited from the city and nearby areas, including not only Chu people, but also some West Asians and even Portuguese.

They all gathered under Meng Xiu's hands for money, trying to make a big fortune!

However, with so many armed personnel, it is naturally impossible to openly gather in the city of Maputo. Most of them gathered in an abandoned small village outside the city.

Otherwise, it is easy to cause unnecessary trouble.

After all, Maputo is a colony of the Great Chu Empire, and there are officials and garrisons in the city. Even though there are few officials in the city, the regular army only has five or sixty people, and only a few dozen people represent the official Chu. Semi-official servants, personnel of the Western Trading Company, etc.

No matter what, Meng Xiu didn't want to cause any trouble in Maputo, which would attract the attention of the officials.

As a citizen of the empire, and even a person who wanders in the dark and evil, he naturally has a sense of fear for the imperial officials!

If you don't deal with it, don't deal with it... Otherwise, no one knows when they will be targeted by those damn judicial censors, and then they will be arrested.

In fact...Meng Xiu's worries were not unreasonable.

That's when Meng Xiu secretly assembled armed men outside the city, and then personally led an armed group of hundreds of people to attack Zneva.

In the tax office in Maputo city, in the hands of Gan Bowen, a young tax officer in Maputo town, is a thick roll of investigation materials about Meng Xiu and the main backbone of his gang.

When I saw this, I sometimes frowned, and sometimes showed joy.

In the end, he put the dossier on the table and said to the middle-aged man next to him, "This man is quite courageous. He dared to evade taxes in such an open and aboveboard way all these years, and the amount involved is not small."

"Such bold and mindless people are rare in China."

The middle-aged man said: "This kind of situation is quite common in overseas territories. Although these people do some illegal business overseas, although they will cover it up, they don't care too much about some rules."

"And their areas of activity are basically in overseas territories or even in the territory of the indigenous people, so naturally they don't have much awareness of paying taxes!"

"And during our investigation, we didn't find that they hired professional accountants and tax lawyers to handle tax declarations. I think... probably no one has told him yet!"

"Even if it is illegal income, it still needs to be taxed!"

"Gan Bowen took a look at the file in his hand again, and finally said: "Continue to investigate. In addition, the amount of this case is quite large, and the Mengxiu gang is also a group of desperadoes. Be careful when you investigate, and safety is the top priority!" "

"I will write a letter to Pemba myself in the future, and ask the higher-ups to send an armed tax police over, so that they don't bite people in a hurry!"
"This time, we must handle this case beautifully, and let those profiteers who evade taxes know that their good days are over before, and they must pay taxes honestly to this official from now on!"

After watching his subordinates go out, Gan Bowen read the file again, then stood up and walked to the window, looking at the harbor outside the window!
As a new tax official in Maputo Town, Gan Bowen has ambitions!
When I was in China, I took the Jiangbei Township Examination. After I was successfully admitted, I entered the local taxation agency in Jiangbei and became a tax officer.

Not long after work, the superior was planning to send a group of people from the Jiangbei taxation system to the Indian governor's area to support the local taxation work.

Because of the difficult overseas conditions, as compensation, the grassroots personnel below the eighth rank will be promoted to a higher level, and after five years of service in the local area, they can be unconditionally transferred back to the mainland and promoted to another level.

In other words, if you go to India for support, you can be promoted to two levels after five years of service.

For many ambitious grassroots tax officials, the attraction is not small.

Gan Bowen was no exception. At that time, he had only worked for a year. Normally, he had no connections. If there were no major accidents in his local job, he would not be able to be promoted to two levels in ten years, let alone five years.

For the sake of his future, he chose without hesitation to sign up to support the governor of India, and then was selected and sent to India. His grade was also promoted from the lowest grade from the ninth grade to the full ninth grade.

When he first went there, he was sent to work at the Mumbai Taxation Bureau in India. Because the local taxation bureau had few people, there were also many professional tax officers from China. Some of them were recruited directly from overseas immigrants for emergency. Not so good.

After Gan Bowen went to Mumbai, he did a good job and was soon promoted there, becoming Congbapin.

Later, the African Governor’s Yamen was established, and the tax agency selected a group of people from the Indian Governor’s Taxation Agency, together with tax officials who were supported by the country, to form the first batch of African Governor’s Taxation Agency personnel to work in Pemba Port, Africa. .

During this process, Gan Bowen took advantage of the trend to rise to another level and became the eighth rank.

A month ago, the new director of the Maputo Tax Office, which had not been established for a long time, died of illness, resulting in a vacancy for the director of the local tax office. The position of director.

And this position is from Qipin!

Counting it, he has been an official for only five years, and he has been promoted from the lowest level from the ninth rank to the fourth rank to become a tax officer from the seventh rank, and he is also the director of the town tax office.

Even though he was just the director of a township tax office, he was the head of the lowest-level tax agency in the tax system of the Great Chu Empire.

This kind of thing is impossible to happen in China, and it is only possible to happen in overseas regions, especially overseas regions that have just opened up.

Even so, Gan Bowen was still not satisfied, he wanted more.

He wants to work as the director of Maputo's tax office, make achievements, earn enough qualifications, and then continue to climb up to the seventh rank, even the sixth rank, and the fifth rank.

He looks forward to the day when he will be able to cross the threshold that almost most of the imperial officials cannot cross: Cong Sipin.

Then become a high-ranking imperial official wearing a crimson official robe!
Wearing crimson official robes and becoming a high-ranking official of the empire is also the lifelong pursuit of many officials of the Great Chu Empire, and even some young scholars.

Now, Meng Xiu and his team let him see the opportunity to continue to rise. Even if he can't be promoted immediately after handling this case, he can still accumulate a solid qualifications for himself and lay a solid foundation for future promotion!