Joaquim Augusto Barbosa de Melo - The Great Empire

Whenever the Empress had to decide on Administrative or State matters of a certain importance, she used the famous lunches to surround herself with advisers and informally obtain their opinions. For a long time she had shown herself to be an excellent manipulator and cunning person. It was thanks to these qualities that she succeeded in destroying the former Empress in title and little by little access to her current authority. Contrary to the thought of her whistleblowers, the lunches were for her an ideal moment to gather information for her causes, to influence aristocrats and to find out their opinions without being politically exposed. Through the years and by this way she managed to progressively increase alliances with the conservatives, who gave her a broad base of support for decisions and opposed the influence of foreign powers.

When the Empress put the problem of the military on the table, the matter divided the advisers. Some were in favor of military reinforcement of the Navy and Army, others, fearing the inevitable loss of foreign trade improvements, were in favor of maintaining the current situation. It was clear to the Empress that this issue had acquired in time a growing complexity of interests and, if no measures were taken, the gap would inevitably widen. She therefore had to deepen the issue through the hearing of State Councilors and Provincial Governors. However, before moving on to this strategy, she first wanted to hear some of them informally. So, once again she sent out invitations for lunches, grouping them by nearby regions. First those from the seafront and then those from the inland regions. The Empress went from plan to action, listening first to the Governors and then to the State Councilors, using a dynamic but informal strategy. She listened to each one of them but without expressing her opinion. At the end of these hearings, and to their great perplexity, several months had passed without the Empress having taken any decision on the matter raised by the military chiefs. When she finally called the meeting of the Governors and State Advisors to formally examine the matter, the decision was taken to create a special fee to remain in force for a period of ten years. As a result, by national representative means, she brought an edict to every nook and cranny of the empire - “We hereby make known the creation of an additional tithe on income, to be applied on holders of land and for a period of ten years. The money collected is for the renewal of the equipment of the armed forces. The tax that has now been created is distributed in the proportion of one third for the land forces and two thirds for the naval forces. The tax has immediate effect, so it applies to income already obtained in the next harvest”.

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