Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece - Chapter 658

[Chapter 3 The drought and the news of Rome]

“Oh, that’s right.” Burkes reminded again: “Our Ministry of Agriculture has specifically investigated the grain storage in the homes of people in Turui, Crotone, Grumentum, Cosenza, Locri and other cities. The situation, their food can last until November at most!”

“How is the situation in Sicily?” Antaolis asked.

“Sicily has had plenty of rain this year. There should be no problem with the grain harvest in cities such as Catane and Naxos.” Burkes replied.

“What about Campania?”

“The farmland conditions in that area are not bad.” After being reminded by Antaoris, Bulcos continued: “There is no drought in Carthage, Africa, only Central Greece and the Peloponne. The Nisa area has the same situation as us, but their situation is slightly less severe.”

Davos tapped the table with his fingers after listening to his subordinate’s report, and his face was also a little unsightly.

But soon, he stretched his brows again and said slowly: “The sky is cloudy and sunny, people have good and bad luck, the gods can’t take care of us Dionia forever, this upcoming drought is exactly what Kingdom trials. But what have we to be afraid of! We were prepared, weren’t we! It wasn’t always the case in Senate meetings that people said, ‘Those granaries we’ve built, except for the occasional supply of the Legion’s wars, most of the time It’s a complete waste to sit there in vain.’ And this time, these seemingly wasteful granaries will save the lives of millions of our Dionian people!”

Davos’s words made Lysias, Mersis and others feel ashamed.

After a small beating, Davos continued to ask: “Bulcos, have you done statistics on how long the grains in these granaries of our kingdom can sustain the consumption of the people in the southern Italian region?”

Burkes was already prepared for this, he said in a deep voice: “Your Majesty, now our kingdom has a total of nine granaries, which are located in Grummentum, Turui, Cosenza, Crotone, and Trina. , Locri, Catane, Udie, and Silvium (they correspond to the 10 major legions respectively), with a total of about 100,000 tons of food, and the population of the southern Italian region is about 1.5 million. If each person has two meals a day If you only maintain food and clothing, you can guarantee food supply for about six months.”

“It’s only six months! These grains cannot be eaten by the people until next year’s autumn harvest!” Vespa sighed.

Several other rotating chairmen glanced at him.

To prevent him from being embarrassed, Mariji immediately explained: “In the past few years, the citizens have made a lot of money from selling grain because of the bumper harvests, and there are very few poor citizens. The grain in our granary is not supplied to them for free, but in the form of A lower price is sold in the market, so that they can all afford it, in order to get through this difficult time, so as to prevent grain merchants from taking this opportunity to wildly raise the price of grain, thereby causing panic among the people…”

Davos He pondered: “100,000 tons of grain is still not enough. The

pickers must have sufficient grain reserves to cope with the coming drought. And we also need to reserve enough wheat seeds for next year’s sowing, so Mercy You have to use the treasury before the news spreads and send people to Carthage, Cyrenaica, and even Egypt to buy a lot of grain.”

“Okay, Your Majesty, I’ll do it right away!” Mel The Sith answered very succinctly, without any hesitation or prevarication, because he knew that this was the top priority of the kingdom.

“Mariji, your Ministry of Commerce must strictly control the market in each city, so that grain merchants who sell grain can sell grain at a suitable price, and must not arbitrarily disrupt the market and blindly raise prices… For grain that ignores warnings and insists Merchants, allow the Ministry of Commerce and the court to impose severe penalties on them!

At the same time, you must work together with the chief executives of each city to verify the identity of the purchasers when selling the grain from the granary, and each person is only allowed to buy a certain amount of food per day. Grain, can not exceed, to prevent people from reselling the grain of the granary in large quantities, taking the opportunity to make a fortune, such a despicable person finds one and punishes one!”

“I understand, Your Majesty!” Marigui looked equally serious.

“Burkos!” Davos turned to the Minister of Agriculture again: “Now that the drought is coming, the river is shallow, and the role of the waterwheel is greatly weakened. To solve the problem of people’s draught, digging a well is a good solution. You and The construction department should work together to dig deep wells in various cities to solve the problem of people’s lack of water.”

“Okay, Your Majesty, I will rush to the construction department in a while!” Burkes looked slightly.

Davos’s eyes finally fell on the five rotating chairmen: “My lords, the Senate needs to hold an urgent meeting to discuss a proposal to deal with the drought as soon as possible to remind the public to save food and water in the next time. And we have to reserve more water at home… At the same time, we have to reassure them not to panic, keep calm, with the blessing of Hades and the full support of the kingdom, they will definitely get through this difficulty!”

“Your Majesty, we will be there in the afternoon. Hold a meeting.” Cornelus responded immediately.

Davos nodded, his eyes swept over everyone present, and their solemn expressions showed tension again, so he asked loudly: “Lysias, when there was a drought in Great Greece 25 years ago, what did you do? What to do?”

“Your Majesty.” Lysias recalled the situation at that time, with a look of pain on his face: “At that time, the people of Crotone raised gold and silver and went to Carthage to buy food, but they were cunning. The Carthaginians knew we had a drought, and immediately doubled the price of grain. So we couldn’t buy more food, and the council had no choice but to draw lots and send some people to Iberia to colonize Later, the people who went out were killed by the Iberian natives’ attacks…”

“Yeah! The country is weak, and in such a natural disaster, it can only endure the pain of separation from relatives and friends, and the loss of family members. But the kingdom of Dionia has The ability makes every family in the kingdom not need to suffer such hardships. We must see that this drought is a bad thing, but it is also a good thing! It will make those few people who are still obsessed with the long history of the original city state and delusional city independence see clearly , I want to understand that only by staying in such a powerful kingdom can we ensure that every natural disaster and man-made disaster can be safely passed, and their homeland will have long-term peace!”

Davos’s words lifted the spirits of the elders present, and aroused their sympathy. After working hard in this kingdom with a unique political system for more than ten years, even Lycias, who joined the latest, increasingly agreed with this. powerful country.

…………………………

After Davos sent Cornelus and the others away, before he could catch his breath, Aristillas walked in: “Your Majesty, the intelligence department is reporting from the north. There’s news about Rome.”

As soon as he heard Rome, Davos immediately raised his spirits and hurriedly asked, “What’s the situation?”

“The Wolsci in the south of Rome joined the Aequi people in the east of Rome. ), the Hernic? to the southeast were invited by the rebellious Roman Latin ally, Praeneste, to invade Roman territory, and are said to have a force of about 20,000.”

Prinister ?

Davos thought for a while, but there was no impression in his mind, he immediately turned around and said to the secretary Henepolis? “Heney, go get the map of central Italy.” The

map was placed on the desk, and Davos bowed his head. After a closer look, I finally found the location of this Latin city-state: Prinister is a larger Latin city-state located more than 60 miles southeast of Rome and close to the mountains. It happens to be the entrance to the lowland between the mountains and guards the entrance to Egypt. The pathway of the Quarries and the Herniki.

Conversely, its mutiny would allow the Equa and Herniki to easily invade Rome’s Latin allies and threaten the city of Rome itself…

“Roman forces heading north to attack Etruscans were all mobilized. Are you back?” Davos asked again.

“I haven’t received any news yet,” Aristiras replied.

Davos touched his chin, lost in thought.

In the third year of Dionia (ie 390 BC), the Celtic king Brennus, who was entrenched in the upper reaches of the Po River in northern Italy, united most of the Celtic tribes and invaded the Et in the south. Lunian.

They destroyed all the way, defeated many Etruscan forces, and captured many towns.

Just as they began to lay siege to the city of Clusium, Rome, an ally, sent an army to the rescue. As a result, the Celts and Roman armies fought near the Aria River, and Rome suffered a disastrous defeat.

What Davos didn’t know was that because he was not bewitched

by the messenger sent by Dionysius in this life (Dionysius died at the hands of Phoebe Das two years ago), Kai The Etruscans did not abandon the Etruscan towns along the way and did not attack them, advancing rapidly until they reached the city of Rome, but continued to kill and loot all the way, and did not cross the Tiber River until more than two months later. .

At this time, the Roman city wall was dilapidated, and it did not even completely surround the entire Roman city. In addition, half of the young and middle-aged people in the city were killed or wounded, and most of the civilians suffered from conflicts between nobles and civilians in the past few years. The conflict finally angrily left the city of Rome and settled in the city of Viai.

Therefore, there are not enough troops in the city of Rome for defense. Except for a few old people who are old and weak, unwilling to leave their homeland, and a few people who are willing to stick to the Capitoline Acropolis, most people have to evacuate the city of Rome. .

Some of them went to Wiai, and a few went to Ardea, a Latin city in the south of Rome.

Camelus, the famous Roman general who once conquered Viai but was expelled for being framed, lived in seclusion here.

The Celts easily occupied the city of Rome and slaughtered the old people in the city, but they could not attack the dangerous Capitol Acropolis for a long time. Towns and villages were devastated.