The numbers did not lie.
They never did.
He sat alone at the long table in the warehouse office, ledgers spread before him in neat stacks. Oil lamps burned low, their light steady, illuminating columns of figures that had not been audited in years—if ever.
Trade volume up.
Rail throughput normalized.
Workshop output climbing.
And tax revenue?
Anemic.
He traced a finger down the page, then stopped.
"Interesting," he murmured.
He pulled another ledger. Then another.
The pattern emerged quickly once he stopped looking at individual accounts and started looking at behavior.
Five merchant houses accounted for nearly sixty percent of local trade. Of those five, four reported losses. The fifth reported barely enough profit to justify continued operation.
That alone was implausible.
What made it damning was the expense side.
Security payments.
"Community defense contributions."
Transport escorts.
He leaned back slightly.
They're not evading taxes quietly, he thought. They're outsourcing violence.
The militia—Group Bravo—suddenly made sense.
Not ideologues.
Not patriots.
Private muscle.
He closed the ledgers and rang for an aide.
"Summon the merchant council," he said. "Tomorrow morning. Mandatory attendance."
"And the militia?" the aide asked carefully.
He paused for half a second.
"Do not warn them."
The merchants arrived confident.
They always did.
Well-dressed men, fur-lined coats, polished boots. Men who smiled too easily and spoke of loyalty while funding disorder as a line item. They gathered in the town hall, murmuring among themselves, reassured by the familiar presence of armed men outside.
Militiamen. Rifles slung. Watching.
He entered without ceremony.
The room fell silent.
"Gentlemen," he said calmly, taking his seat at the head of the table, "we are here to discuss arrears."
A few exchanged glances.
One of them—Mikhailov, the fattest and boldest—cleared his throat. "Your Imperial Highness, there must be some mistake. Our accounts—"
He raised a hand.
"No," he said. "There is not."
He nodded once.
Outside, the doors closed.
Firmly.
The merchants stiffened.
"You have not paid Imperial taxes in full for three years," he continued. "Instead, you have financed an armed organization operating without charter or authority."
Mikhailov forced a laugh. "Those men are for protection. Bandits—"
"Yes," he agreed. "We will address them."
The doors opened again.
System infantry entered—not rushing, not threatening. Just present. Rifles held at rest. Enough men to make resistance arithmetic rather than emotional.
One of the merchants stood. "This is outrageous—"
"Sit," he said quietly.
The man sat.
He leaned forward slightly.
"You have two options," he said. "You will remit all unpaid taxes. With penalties. In coin. By end of day."
A pause.
"Or," he continued evenly, "your militia will be disbanded by force, your assets seized for conspiracy against Imperial authority, and you will explain your bookkeeping to an investigator from St. Petersburg."
That did it.
They broke—not loudly, not dramatically, but completely. Protests turned into negotiations. Negotiations into pleas.
He let them talk for exactly three minutes.
Then he stood.
"This meeting is concluded," he said. "Payment instructions will be delivered."
He turned and left.
The militia reacted badly.
They always did.
When word reached them that the merchants had folded, they mobilized—perhaps forty men, poorly disciplined but well-armed, marching toward the rail yard in a show of defiance they clearly hoped would turn into leverage.
It did not.
He observed from the observation tower as his troops deployed.
This time, there would be no restraint beyond necessity.
"Disarm and disperse," his officer called out. "Lay down weapons."
The militia leader laughed and raised his rifle.
That was the end of the conversation.
The system infantry advanced in two elements—one fixing, one flanking. Smoke grenades—era-appropriate, crude but effective—rolled across the frozen ground, obscuring vision and breaking cohesion.
Militiamen fired wildly.
It did not help them.
Within minutes, resistance collapsed. Some fled. Some surrendered. A few tried to fight.
Those few were shot.
Not brutally.
Not vindictively.
Decisively.
By noon, the militia no longer existed.
Weapons were confiscated. Leaders were executed on the spot as armed conspirators. The rest were detained, stripped of equipment, and released with warnings that would linger longer than scars.
He did not watch the executions.
He was already back at his desk.
SYSTEM UPDATE
ILLEGAL ARMED GROUP: NEUTRALIZED
TAX COMPLIANCE: ENFORCED
KP GAINED: SIGNIFICANT
MP AWARDED: 4,500
LOCAL STABILITY: INCREASED
MERCHANT INFLUENCE: REDUCED
He reviewed the updated figures with quiet satisfaction.
Revenue stabilized.
Payroll secured.
Industrial expansion funded.
Two birds.
One ledger.
By evening, the town understood something fundamental had changed.
Not because soldiers patrolled the streets.
But because taxes were paid, wages arrived on time, and men with guns no longer answered to merchants.
He stood at the window as the lamps came on again, brighter than before.
This is how authority becomes normal, he thought. And once it is normal—no one remembers how chaos was tolerated.