Salary and Commission in the Imperial Legions

The Imperial Legions are, or at least were during the time before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress, an expansive force, with many different positions, ranks, and deployments, each demanding support to keep it in the field. This includes the basics of food and shelter, weapons and tools, uniforms and hygeine, matters of Legion Logistics with which military officers are well acquainted from the lowest fanglord in the Red Piss to the strategoi of the Imperial Garrison. But it also demands Jade-stuffed purses to pay for all those expenses, and to compensate those who fight for their time and sacrifices. While most regular soldiers would object to anyone asserting they fight for pay as do mercenaries, even the soldiers of the Scarlet Empress must be paid.

Uniforms & Equipment

Under the Scarlet Empress, the Legions equipped their soldiers with what was needed for the mission, though they did not own it, and did not gain the right to bear arms on return to the Realm, though their last uniform was by convention gifted to them (stripped of its unit markings and reinforcing plates), so they might display it with pride. Dress uniforms and parade armour are not included in the regular Legion supply, instead being purchased by the sponsoring Great House with occasional assistance from the personal purses of commanding officers. Officers talonlord and above must have their own uniforms tailored, to the standard set out in an official document overseen by the Righteous and Accountable Ministry of Weights and Measures… for Outcastes, the Empress often commissioned such uniforms for them on their promotions, paid out of her purse as a gift. The Throne commissioned and provided the braids worn to mark rank, symbolically also a gift from the Empress, though this role has now been eagerly taken by the Great Houses.

Food is also provided, but this can be a greater expense than one might expect due to the Imperial Monopoly on supplying the Legions granted to Pangu prefecture. Heavily salted and pickled dishes dominate, though Legions stationed in the Scarlet Prefecture or regions nearby enjoy much fresher (and, some might say, more luxurious) fare.

Supply of basic equipment was once the responsibility of the Efficient and Exemplary Manciples of the Martial Table, though with their dissolution the task has been taken up directly by each Legion’s sponsoring House. Legionnaires, particularly those in the field, are used to difficulties with supply and many pick up skills at smithing, tailoring, cobbling, and other professions needed to maintain the equipment of their units. These skills may prove vital… by and large the Great Houses have slashed budgets for maintenance and supply amongst the Legions. Uniforms, however, have in many cases seen better repair and replacement than was once typical, since the sponsoring Houses passed House colours onto their Legions in the wake of the Legion Control Act. The conversion of uniforms from scarlet to House colours, involving full replacement or bleaching, dyeing, and re-stitching. House Sesus, whose burgundy shade stands closest to the original colours, managed to avoid the high cost of this conversion by dyeing its scarlet uniforms in spoiled cheap wine, though even years later the scents of wine and vinegar still cling to some buff jackets.

Salary

The salaries of Legionnaires are high by the standards of peasants and citizens on the Blessed Isle, already above much of Creation... when the Legions recruit on campaign in the Threshold, the loyalty of locals towards the Empress who has embraced them comes from uncomprehending gratitude that base soldiery could be so valued. In a year, a Legionnaire takes in five times the income of an Isle peasant. Slingers, of course, receive half the base salary of a Legion regular, still a significant amount comparable to a citizen working in the cities (albeit with greater risks and far greater potential for advancement). Legion salaries are paid in scrip, formerly by the Imperial Treasury but now by the Legion’s sponsoring House.

Salaries increase slightly for elite veteran troops (typically those signing on for successive tenures of service, advancing to the lead (heavy infantry) Dragons of a Legion, and double for fanglords and specialists (such as thaumaturge-technicians)). Officers of higher rank also receive a salary, but it is no higher than that afforded to an elite fanglord, regardless of social status… for a Dynast, a Legion career is not financially lucrative from its wages, to keep pace with their classmates who join the Thousand Scales or House management they must find other ways to monetize their posts.

Funerary Prizes

Funerary Prizes are granted to the family of a deceased Legionnaire upon their death, provided they died a loyal soldier and not in retreat. These payouts are traditionally large, often equivalent to several years salary (here even much-maligned slingers receive same rate). The existance of such a prize was thought to encourage soldiers to be willing to die, knowing their sacrifice would not only serve the Realm but their families… in a darker way, it made soldiers who suffered crippling injuries see their deaths before returning home as a boon next to the drain of a Disenfranchised spouse or parent limping back home once the campaign was through.

This prize was (with few exceptions) paid from the personal purse of the Scarlet Empress... the sponsoring Houses now seem due to take up the burden, but they are often hesitant to do so. House Tepet, following the War with the Bull, was forced to spend massive amounts of wealth in covering the Funerary Prizes for soldiers lost against the Bull of the North, as despite the urging of some within the House they were unwilling to reject the responsibility… their payouts were, however, equivalent to barely a years’ salary.

Loot, Prizes, and Slaves

Legion Logistics are complex, the Thousand Correct Actions talking of many different strategies. But while the basics of Legion life were paid for by the Imperial Treasury, the added expenses of the campaign needed to be paid off, and the officers of the Legion granted resources to raise their incomes to a proper standard for the Dynasty.

Legion campaigns pay for themselves through taking loot, and taking slaves. The bulk of loot and slaves are sold for scrip & jade, each officer distributed a share by their superiors… this can be abused, of course, but a strategoi who keeps all to herself soon finds she has more to worry about facing her subordinates in camp than her foes on the field. Some Legions split this evenly, or based on the unit that claimed the loot, and invariably the largest share goes to the officers of highest rank, the amount decreasing down through the ranks. There is no requirement for loot to be distributed a certain way, and common Legionnaires do not need to be paid anything, but again a commander who is greedy may lose the favour of their men, as the Thousand Correct Actions teaches clearly. Of course, soldiers might help themselves to a pocketful of silver or a spot of rapine, with some officers disciplining such excesses harshly and others encouraging them to reward loyal troops for their service.

Some commanders even offer additional prizes for soldiers who reach certain objectives, or fund celebratory parades and revels, out of their own purses.

Commissions

The Imperial Legions, like the wider Thousand Scales, considers itself a meritocracy. However, while its lower officers are most often promoted for their skills and successes, the bulk of the officers in a Legion (some scalelord posts, and all of talonlord or above) must pay a significant fee to buy their rank. An offer of promotion in the Legions is accompanied by a great deal of behind the scenes barter before a sum is agreed and the promotion implemented. The funds from these commissions go into the funds for maintaining and equipping the Legions, and a changeover of officer can sometimes grant a unit success from their gleaming new arms and armour even as their new leader proves inept at the task.

In addition to the official payments, obtaining a Legion post often requires a great deal of political horsetrading and bribery to secure an opening and have a candidate accepted. Graduates of the House of Bells or Pasiap’s Stair are viewed as carrying an inherent value which pays off some of their commission, and the Legions traditionally charge such individuals lesser rates for the same ranks.

When the Scarlet Empress stood on the Throne, her personal intercession and (more often) personal purse secured commissions for Outcastes and officers from the Realm’s upper classes who had proven their merit and/or loyalty. Today, Great Houses pay for the commissions of their own members into their own Legions, and rarely for posts in Legions outside their control, though there are exceptions, particularly in the longstanding affiliation between House Sesus, House Mnemon, and House Cynis, where the latter two place their martial candidates amongst the former’s Legions. Outcaste promotions, given a lack of the Empress’ sponsorship, have all but ended.

Artifacts, Manses, and Fortifications

The costs of maintaining the Legions is high indeed, artifacts particularly expensive. Each Legion supports warstriders, dragon armour, essence artillery pieces, special equipment for ranger scales, sorcerers, and administration, thaumaturgical reagents for scheduled bolstering rituals, and stocks of (mostly Jade Steel) artifact armour and weapons to be distributed to officers. While Dynastic officers are expected to be equipped by their own Houses, and the Scarlet Empress might gift artifacts to specific Outcastes as signs of her favour when they achieved great successes in Her name, most Outcastes and some patricians (even occasional impoverished Dynasts) must be equipped in at least basic fashion to serve as the heroic leaders the Thousand Correct Actions require. Some Legions had even more powerful and complex works of artifice, such as skyships , fortresses, and other facilities.

Though the Realm and Legions controlled these costly artifacts, the Great House assigned as sponsor to the Legion bore the cost of their upkeep, the cost of their repair, the cost of replacement should they be lost in war, and might even be ordered by the Scarlet Empress to pay for the construction of new artifacts deemed ‘vital to the readiness of the Legion’. The sponsoring Houses were also required to pay the upkeep and repair of the manses which supplied the Legions with hearthstones, constituting a large number as the Scarlet Empress ensured her soldiers had sufficient hearthstones to power their artifacts and bolster many of their officers.

When the Great Houses took direct control of the Legions, this long tradition of sponsorship was transformed into one of ownership… many Great Houses considered the weapons they had bought and paid for to be rightfully theirs, and the manses they had been maintaining (along with the hearthstones they produced) as well. In some cases, seen particularly with the Legions assigned to House Mnemon and House Peleps, Great Houses stripped this equipment wholesale and seized it for themselves (sending it to the Unsurpassable Guard in the case of Mnemon and loaning it to the [[Imperial Navy in the case of Peleps). Others, particularly in House Cathak and House Tepet, Legion and House artifact pools were simply merged into a single unit, often under Legion auspices, allowing those Legions to march with higher numbers of warstriders and dragon armoured troops than were ever seen under the rule of the Scarlet Empress.

Hearthstones have, unlike in many areas such as the Bureau of Climatic Deliberations, not been pulled away en-masse by the sponsoring Houses of the Legions, military forces able to make the case that they are vital both to preserve the Realm and to win in event of civil war.

Immaculate Support and Religious Expenses

When the Legions march, they do so accompanied by cadres of monks from the Immaculate Order, who provide spiritual guidance and assistance against rogue spirtits or the threat of the Anathema. The Legions themselves do not pay for these monks, whose costs are borne by the Palace Sublime, but each Legion pays a small, symbolic donative to the Temple of War in the Imperial City,to maintain the shrine of its patron god as part of proper veneration within the Perfected Hierarchy.