Chapter 438 The Scorpio Goddess of Wealth

Telga City.

As the capital of the Kingdom of Hana, this is a city with a population of about 50,000.

After the soldiers of the Athenian Empire entered the city, they began to arrest the royal family and nobles in the city.

Not only in the city, but even the small nobles in the villages and towns outside the city would be arrested by the soldiers of the Athenian Empire.

Roy, Selene, Hantiri, and Telepin entered the city and saw that the Athenian soldiers really arrested all the royal family and nobles of the Kingdom of Hana. Selene asked curiously.

"How can you rule this city if you arrest all the royal family and nobles here?"

"It is because I have arrested all these royal family and nobles and sent them to you as slaves that I can truly rule this city."

Roy explained with a smile.

"If I want to use the local royal family and nobles to rule Telga, I must retain their privileges and wealth as nobles. When my rule does not satisfy them, they can always use their huge wealth to arm soldiers to fight me. In this case, Telga is only ruled by me in name, and in fact, this city does not belong to me at all. In the history of the Mesopotamian Plain, the Akkadian Kingdom, the Third Dynasty of Ur [Uruk Dynasty], and the Babylonian Kingdom could only dominate for a short time because they only ruled the city-states in name. Once the city-states ruled by the king fell into decline, the city-states would be out of the king's control."

"Without the local royal family and nobles to help you manage the civilians, can you still establish a stable rule?"

"Yes!"

Roy said confidently.

"As the common people of the ruled class, they originally had nothing. I only need to give each common family 20 mu of land and exempt all kinds of taxes and corvee, so that they can be grateful and support my rule. Common people are not fools who like to be exploited by the royal family and nobles. They will not want to return to the hard days of exploitation and oppression in the past just because I am a foreign ruler."

After saying this, Roy looked at Selene with complicated eyes.

The rule of the Hittite Kingdom is to retain the original royal family and nobles in the conquered city-states and let them become the princes of each city-state.

When the Hittite Kingdom was strong, there was no need to worry about the loyalty of the city-state princes.

Once the Hittite Kingdom fell into decline, these city-state princes would leave the Hittite Kingdom, causing the vast Hittite Kingdom to fall apart.

In the history of another world, after the son-in-law of the Hittite King Hantili usurped the throne of his brother-in-law, the Hittite Kingdom fell into civil strife. The Amorites immediately rebuilt the Kingdom of Yamhad in the northern part of Syria, and the Kizuwatna region in the southeast of the Anatolian Peninsula also broke away from the rule of the Hittite Kingdom.

With these lessons learned from the past, Roy must firmly learn from the First Emperor Ying Zheng and transform the conquered areas to achieve the effect of the same track and the same writing.

After listening to Roy's words, Selene asked Hantili and Telepin.

"King Hantili! Prince Telepin! What do you think of the Athenian Empire's policy of eliminating local royal families and nobles?"

Hantili and Telepin looked at each other, then shook their heads and said.

"This policy will definitely fail. I don't think the Hittite Kingdom should implement this policy."

"Even if the Athenian Empire succeeds by chance, it does not mean that this policy is suitable for the Hittite Kingdom. After all, the situation of the Hittite Kingdom is different from that of the Athenian Empire."

As city-state princes of the Hittite Kingdom, Hantili and Telepin are the beneficiaries of the Hittite Kingdom's retention of local royal families and nobles.

If the Hittite Kingdom eliminates the local royal families and nobles, their families will also lose their status, power and wealth as city-state princes.

So from the standpoint of city-state princes, Hantili and Telepin will certainly oppose the policy of the Athenian Empire.

The Athenian Empire wants to thoroughly transform the city of Telga. Of course, it will not only demote all the local royal families and nobles into slaves and send them to the Hittite Kingdom as trophies, but also eliminate the local gods and let the gods of the Athenian Empire replace the Amorites' thunder god Marduk [Zeus], ​​the sea king Yam [Poseidon], the underworld god Nergal [Hades] and other gods.

Roy personally led the Athenian soldiers into the temples of Marduk, Yam, Nergal, Hammurabi, etc., and destroyed the statues enshrined in these temples.

When Roy led his soldiers to a small temple, a petite and beautiful priestess blocked the entrance of the temple and pushed all of Roy's soldiers to the ground.

Seeing that this beautiful priestess had the power of a demigod hero, and her temple was dedicated to a goddess, Roy walked up to her and asked.

"Which god is your temple dedicated to? Our Athenian Empire only refuses male gods and married goddesses, and will not refuse unmarried goddesses to join the ranks of Athenian gods."

Hearing Roy's words, the beautiful priestess first breathed a sigh of relief, and then replied.

"This temple is dedicated to the goddess of wealth Laleer, she is an unmarried goddess, please don't destroy my temple."

"Laleer, the goddess of wealth?"

As the most advanced region in civilization, the Mesopotamian Basin began to have a commercial economy a thousand years ago.

However, the chaotic state of wars in various city-states also made the commercial economy unsafe.

Looking at the temple of wealth with only one priestess and a pitifully small temple, Roy couldn't help but laugh.

"It seems that this goddess Laleer is neither regarded as the patron saint of the city-state nor has many believers."

The beautiful priestess said with a bitter face.

"I have tried very hard to spread the faith and tell people that they can get wealth by doing business, but they would rather plunder wealth under the protection of the god of war. If this situation continues, the goddess of wealth will have to change to a new priesthood."

"Wasn't this goddess Lale'er originally the goddess of wealth?"

"I - Lale'er was originally a Scorpio goddess born from the worship of stars."

In the Mesopotamian Plain, the original worship of the Sumerians was star worship.

Utu, the sun god, Nanna, the moon god, and Inanna, the goddess of Venus - are the famous star triad gods.

Although the Sumerians worshipped the stars, there was only the star triad god who ascended to the throne of the guardian god and even dominated the Mesopotamian Basin with the city-states they protected and became the king of the gods.

"Whether it is the Scorpio Goddess or the Goddess of Wealth, they will be useless priesthoods that will be eliminated by the times in this era! But you are very lucky to meet me. After the Mesopotamian Plain is incorporated into the territory of the Athenian Empire, this area will usher in the prosperity of the commercial economy due to stability and peace, and humans will also worship the goddess Laleer you serve because of the pursuit of wealth."

"If what you said can be realized, I-Goddess Laleer will definitely bless you and make you the person with the most wealth in the world."

After saying that, the priestess made a pious prayer.

Roy rolled his eyes and said.

"I don't need your goddess Laleer to bless me! As the emperor of the Athenian Empire, I will use my own hands to get the wealth I want. My wealth will not be the gift of any god."

Just as Roy was about to leave the Temple of Wealth, Roy suddenly looked at the priestess with a suspicious look and said.

"Your goddess Laleer is so weak that there are few believers at all, but you have the power of a demigod hero. You are not the goddess of wealth Laleer, right?"

The priestess immediately smiled awkwardly.

"How could the great goddess Laleer be so pitiful that she can only spread the faith to herself!"