Rome Must Fall

Nine department heads were directly promoted to knights by Maximus without any military merits. For example, the legion commander Pecot was only one merit away from being promoted to the third-class viscount, and Maximus encouraged him. Carminus, Phesalus, Toleruge, Aulus, and a few other officers with outstanding military achievements were only a few merits away from being promoted to the third-class viscount...

Maximus mastered the balance and did not focus on one or two troops to win the entire war. Instead, he divided the big pie of the war equally among the four legions. Of course, the four legions performed very well and did not lag behind.

In any case, this tribal commendation meeting was a big dividend given by Maximus to his loyal subordinates. Not only did he give them 20 acres of land, bringing their respective land holdings to 100 acres, but he also announced in public:

These tribesmen who were promoted to knights are the nobles of the Nix tribe. When other tribesmen meet them in public, they should take the initiative to greet them, give way to them, and address them as "Sir So-and-so". They enjoy priority rights when riding a boat, a car, or buying things. In the village where they live, they have the right to assist the village chief in resolving disputes among villagers, the right to supervise the village chief and his subordinates, and the right to make suggestions...

Although the Ministry of Justice had previously sent its staff to read out the details of the twenty-title system to each village, Maximus's public speech at this time left a deeper impression on the tribesmen.

Finally, Maximus also announced that in the future, the Nix tribe will hold a grand festival of the goddess Danu every midsummer to pray for a good harvest. At the same time, each town will select a rugby team to compete in Ophidilla, and the final winner will represent the entire tribe to offer sacrifices to the temple.

After the meeting, the tribesmen returned to their respective towns (villages) and told their neighbors and friends about the grand occasion of this meeting, which greatly inspired the tribesmen's ambition to make merit and advance, and also made them look forward to the summer festival next year.

At the same time, all the tribesmen who had just joined the tribe had the same doubts: What is rugby?

Just when they took the initiative to ask the old tribesmen of Knicks, a new decree came from the government hall: the rugby team members sent by each town to participate in the summer festival must be composed of one-third of the old tribesmen, one-third of the new tribesmen of Segestica, and one-third of the new tribesmen of Scodischi.

Then, Ophidillia Chief Executive Sikrops conveyed the decree to each village: Starting from the beginning of next year, Ophidillia will hold a rugby competition, and each village must send a team to participate. The team members must be composed of one-third of the old tribesmen, one-third of the new tribesmen of Skodiszi, and one-third of the new tribesmen of Skodiszi. The final winning team will be decided before the start of the summer festival, and then this team will represent Ophidillia in the rugby competition of the tribal festival.

So the village chiefs of each village, while urging the tribesmen to farm, also began to rack their brains for the establishment of the team.

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Broch chief Bricks now regrets it very much.

He fled back to the territory first, but in order to meet the remnants of other tribes and return safely to make up for his mistakes, he stayed in the temporary military camp on the western edge of the territory for more than half a month.

During this period, he learned the news that "the Nix army invaded the territory of Segestica and occupied its main camp". Although he was surprised, he was not anxious, because he did not think that the Nix army with a small population could annex such a large Segestica tribe.

After discussing with several other great leaders, the Pannoni Tribal Alliance sent an envoy group to the main camp of Segestica to prepare for a temporary peace and truce with the Nix people. The purpose was to reclaim the Pannoni warriors captured by the Nix army, so that the major tribes could recover faster and better appease the warriors' families.

During the period when this envoy group spent more than 10 days going back and forth, Brix had already stopped searching for the defeated soldiers. The main force of the Pannoni coalition army of more than 40,000 people returned alive in the end. Because Brix had exhausted the food reserves of the entire tribe in order to ensure the expedition of the army, the returning army was unable to support the return of the army and stayed in the territory of Brochi, so the warriors returned to their own tribes one after another.

Only a few chiefs did not leave, they were waiting for the return of the envoys.

However, the envoys brought back bad news: the Nixes refused to negotiate with the Pannoni Tribal Alliance.

This made several chiefs angry: a year ago, the Nixes agreed to the peace talks requested by the chief of Segestica, Kabudes, signed a one-year truce agreement, and released many captives. However, today this emerging small tribe actually ignored their peace talks, which means that it will continue to be the enemy of the Pannoni Tribal Alliance.

As for the other sentence that the Nixes asked the envoys to bring back: "The Nixes are willing to negotiate with other Pannoni tribes except Brochi and Mazii..." The envoys did not say it in front of the five chiefs, but the envoys of each tribe would naturally tell their own chiefs in private.

Although the Pannoni chiefs hated the Nixes tribe, the current situation of their tribes made them unable to start another war.

Under Pricas's pleading, everyone only reached a rough opinion in the alliance meeting: the Nixes have become a major threat to the Pannonian tribal alliance, and they must be eliminated by all means! All the great leaders returned to their territories, and they must appease the tribesmen as soon as possible, raise military funds, and strive to form another army after the autumn harvest to defeat the Nixes, recapture the territory of Segestica, and then look for an opportunity to completely annihilate the Nixes.

When bidding farewell to the four great leaders, Temagis, Demicas, Metilis, and Pachilas, Brix always felt that the expressions of these four people were a little strange, not knowing whether it was affected by the words that his own envoy told him privately.

It has been a month since Brix fled back to the territory and the major leaders left. During this month, he felt more and more that the Nixes were a threat to his own territory.

The Segestica people who escaped from various villages first came to the Gonamai Lake area. When the tribes in Gonamai Lake refused to accept them, they had to pour into the Brochi territory one after another, which led to some conflicts with the Brochi people.

Bricks did not drive these fleeing Segestica people out of the territory, because Brochi suffered heavy losses in this war and became short of labor, so he tried his best to persuade various tribes to accept these refugees as much as possible and hire them to work for the tribe.

Due to the vigilance of the Nix people, the envoys of the tribal alliance were blindfolded in black cloth when entering and leaving the Segestica territory, and were not allowed to go out when they were in the Ophidiliya village, so Bricks could not learn from them about the situation of the Nix people in the Segestica territory.

Instead, I learned some information from these refugees: the Nixes used methods such as giving them more land and making them tribal nobles to lure the Segestica people to join their tribe. People like them who were unwilling to surrender could only quietly flee the tribe to the south. Some people who were unwilling to surrender but did not want to escape became slaves of the Nixes. There were also many greedy and ignorant Segestica people who joined the Nixes... Because the Nixes stationed small fully armed troops to various tribes in Segestica, these tribes did not dare to resist at all due to the lack of warriors. At least when they fled, there was no conflict in their tribes...

These inquiries made Brix very uneasy. Although these refugees did not have a comprehensive understanding of the methods taken by the Nixes in the Segestica territory, it was still obvious from the few words they told that the Nixes' invasion of the Segestica territory was not just for revenge and plunder. The Nixes had a greater ambition-to annex the entire Segestica!

They stationed troops in various tribes of Segestica and formulated laws to lure the people of Segestica... This was obviously carefully planned in advance, and it seemed to be very effective, because these refugees came from the core area of ​​Segestica, from the tribes near the main village of Segestica to the tribes near Lake Gomi, which showed that the Nixes had already controlled the core area of ​​Segestica, and the speed was completely beyond Bricks's expectations.

Bricks misjudged the Nixes' intention to invade, and hoped that the Nixes army would consume its strength in the constant conflict with the people of Segestica, and had to spend a lot of energy to deal with matters after the defeat. Later, he also hoped that the envoys sent to negotiate peace would bring back good news... Therefore, more than a month of time was wasted.

Bricks is now getting anxious: once the Nixes gain a foothold in the territory of Segestica, it will be a disaster for Broch!

But as soon as he revealed his intention to "help the Segestica people drive away the Nix army" at the tribal meeting, he was unanimously opposed by the leaders for only one reason: there were no soldiers and no food.

Because the tribal army he led suffered too heavy losses, some leaders criticized him at the meeting, not only demanding that he compensate the tribes, but also proposing to deprive him of his command over the tribal army as the chief.

Fortunately, the rest and recuperation that Brix had been implementing for more than ten years had kept the order of the entire tribe stable and developed well, and everyone was quite grateful for it, so in the end, he did not get more than half of the votes and passed the test.

But this was the first time Brix had encountered such a big criticism since he took office as the chief, which made him angry and cautious at the same time. For this reason, he did not dare to discuss with the tribesmen under his direct jurisdiction, but instead set his sights on Prikas and his people who were stranded in Brochi's territory.