Purging the unscrupulous tax farmers

Southern Suburbs of Paris.

In the interrogation room on the second floor of the National First Prison, a man covered in tattoos from his neck to his arms hung his head and said nervously, "I swear, Mr. Barnard made me do it!"

"Those fake documents were all made by someone he hired; I just handed them over to the Tax Bureau as he instructed..."

"You signed all the handover documents with the Tax Bureau," the Police sitting opposite him said coldly. "Falsifying Taxation documents can lead to five to ten years in prison."

"No..." The tattooed man jolted, then hurriedly said, "I can testify against Barnard, oh, and my men can testify too!"

"Is it Rector Marette de Barnard?"

Yes, it's him.

Where is he now?

"He should be on Coles Street..."

The Intelligence Bureau officer who had been listening in immediately whispered to his subordinate, "Bring him here."

"Yes, sir!"

As the interrogation continued, more and more high-ranking Tax Farmers were implicated and joined the new group of people on trial.

At the same time, the assets of all the Tax Farmers involved in the case were also seized.

This is a ruling by the High Court —the facts of the fraud case are clear, and it will inevitably involve Taxation accounts, so the seizure of assets is perfectly reasonable.

Meanwhile, Tax Bureau across France, with the cooperation of the Police, began shutting down local Tax Farm Office and arresting almost all the Tax Collector.

Unlike in Paris, where there's a greater concern for public opinion and fewer arrests are made, in local areas...

The Local Tax Bureau is only worried about the impact on next year's tax revenue, so they arrest as many people as they can, thinking they can just release them later if they find out there's no problem.

Just two days later, as more and more high-ranking Tax Farmers confessed, the "document forgery" case began to spread to the giants of the Tax Farmers Guild.

On the Carriage, Balo, one of the leaders of the Tax Farmers Guild, stared grimly at the huge headline in the Paris Business Daily: "Shocking! Tax Farmers collectively involved in Taxation document forgery, more than 150 people arrested." He felt a suffocating tightness in his chest.

Just two days ago, he was planning how to adjust the scale of the Tax Farm Office and increase the trade in illicit liquor after acquiring the Salt Tax and Liquor Tax from four provinces, including Reims and Champagne, in order to maintain the original revenue level. As a result, he received news that his two most important Tax Farmers had been arrested for forging documents.

He knew he would soon be exposed.

Forgery of documents is not a serious crime for him. According to convention, he only needs to pay a sum of money—probably no more than 250,000 Franc —to be released on bail. However, he will eventually face trouble such as appearing in court, and it will inevitably affect his other businesses.

Balo was somewhat envious of Morel, Gordmide, and others, whose businesses were mostly overseas, and who could simply abandon their businesses in France if all else failed, thus avoiding these cases.

He was a native France, his roots were here, and now he no longer cared about tax farming; he just hoped to get rid of the immediate troubles.

The Carriage soon stopped in the Versailles Palace Square. Balo got out of the carriage and walked quickly toward the gates of the Versailles Palace with his head down.

In the Office of the Minister of Finance, he looked at Brienne with a pleading expression and said, "Archbishop, I really don't know anything about these things; it was all the idea of those people below..."

"Of course, I also bear responsibility. I am willing to pay the fine for it."

He glanced at Brienne and continued, "How about 500,000 Franc... Oh no, 800,000 Franc!"

Brienne remained silent, staring at the table in front of him, until Balo increased the fine to 1 million Franc. Only then did he look up and calmly say, "Count Balo, the actions of the Tax Farmers Guild have had a significant impact on the State Finances, to the point that I have had to issue Special Treasury Bonds to cover the losses caused by the tax chaos early next year."

"Government Bonds?" Balo paused for a moment, then nodded in understanding. "Ah, yes, we need to prepare funds to deal with the chaos. Your Excellency Archbishop, I am willing to purchase 3 million Franc worth of Government Bonds to support you..."

Brienne shook his head slightly and held up one finger.

"One million..." Balo only uttered half a sentence before exclaiming in shock, "You mean you want me to buy ten million in Government Bonds?!"

"This is too much... What are the returns on these Special Treasury Bonds?"

"3%," Brienne said, "One-year term."

Balo's face turned green.

If you use 10 million Franc to cover taxes, you could earn 3 million francs yourself, but if you buy these Government Bonds, you'll only get 300,000 francs in interest!

He stood up with dissatisfaction, bowed slightly, and said, "I'll think about it," before turning and leaving.

With 4 million Franc, he could easily handle this Taxation evasion issue no matter how he bribed officials. Why should he bother with Brienne's attitude?

After he left, Baron Morell, Borolei, and other prominent figures came to Brienne's office one after another, and even Fuld rushed over before dinner to "apologize."

However, they all left with dark expressions soon after.

At dusk.

On the second floor of the Tuileries Palace, Joseph listened to Brienne's report and frowned slightly, saying, "Only Baron Pellier has promised to buy 7 million in Government Bonds; no one else is willing to accept?"

"Yes, Your Highness," Brienne said hesitantly, "Perhaps 10 million is a bit too much."

"According to my calculations, we'll need about 100 million Franc more to meet next year's funding needs. So, each of them only needs to contribute about 6 million Franc."

Joseph shook his head. "You're only talking about the costs of maintaining government policies. If we're talking about things like dredging canals or building Wooden Railway, then it's far from enough."

Brienne was taken aback. After such a major tax reform, it would be quite an achievement to maintain stability, let alone for His Crown Prince to be thinking about projects like canals and rail transit?

Joseph ignored his expression, stroking his teacup and muttering to himself, "Looks like I'll have to give them a bit more of a hard time."

Previously, there were no ways to deal with these Tax Farmers, but now that there's a breakthrough in document forgery, how can they be let off easily?

It's important to know that historically, the Tax Farmers were all sentenced to death by the Jacobin, even though many received excessively harsh sentences, is enough to demonstrate the group's long history of misconduct.

On the deck of the French Navy frigate "Wonderland Forest," en route to Calvi Port in Corsica, Napoleon gazed at the faint outline of the hills and sighed deeply.

On the small table next to him was a copy of The 《The Times》 from over a month ago, which had been translated and read to him many times. The news about Paoli Rape Case had shattered a huge crack in his beliefs.

He recalled the works by Paoli that he had read since childhood and couldn't help but shake his head.

His claims about fighting for the Corsica people and driving out foreign oppression are just excuses to deceive the Volkswagen!

Napoleon then glanced at the transport ships to his side and rear, which carried two Artillery Company and hundreds of Infantry —a force that could earn him the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Corsican Legion.