Editing Ito (section)

==The Lost Kingdom of the Ito==

There are numerous legends of what the Chakas were like back when the Ito were undisputed monarchs. One persistent tale was that the population were sacrificed in huge numbers at the funerary temples erected in honour of deceased (or actually undead) Ito and the Empire intervened at the request of the oppressed population. Others suggest it was a golden age, when bureacracy, legalism and its attendant waste were kept to a minimum and you could rely on the wise and dedicated Ito nobles to make the best decisions for the people in their fief immediately.

Nowadays the Ito still exert considerable power, but a little more indirectly. They still own large estates, but they cannot exert the feudal dominance of the local poulation they used to. Instead they monopolise positions in the Palace of the Realm and see to it that their placemen hold all the junior posts. This enables them to bend the laws of the imperium somewhat - as long as the taxes assessed for thier districts come into the provincial capital no one much bothers about their corruption, though of course they have made sure their people do all the tax assessing.