The captain's face darkened as he snapped, "What are the Police doing? Why aren't they protecting the tax officers?"
"Who knows?" Gold spread his hands. "Maybe those officials who passed the exams still aren't familiar with the situation."
Over the past few months, large numbers of lawyers and scholars had gained positions in Austria's bureaucratic system through civil servant examinations.
Yet these intelligent, well-educated people had failed to bring the government the vitality and efficiency it should have gained. Instead, institutions that had once functioned adequately began suffering constant problems, while corruption became even worse than it had been under hereditary officials.
What the two Austrian Officers did not know was that nearly half of those newly appointed officials were agents of the Old Nobles.
The nobles who had lost their offices still possessed influence and wealth. Through various schemes—such as privately obtaining some civil servant examination questions—they pushed their own agents into office.
Thus, although Austria's officialdom appeared to have received fresh blood, power remained in the hands of the old nobles.
Once those agents rose to office, they first had to safeguard the interests of the masters behind them, then line their own pockets as well. So officials who had once embezzled one share now had to embezzle two.
Of course, there were also officials who had truly passed the examinations through their own ability. But what they faced were nobles who had been entrenched locally for decades, even centuries. Lacking connections and experience in official circles, these intellectual elites were no match for the Old Nobles.
In the end, they either attached themselves to noble families, or their orders never made it beyond their offices.
This was why, after the reform of Austria's bureaucratic system, administrative efficiency had instead grown worse.
As for taxation, this was naturally