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. In this case, their food can last until November at most!"

"How's the situation in Sicily?" Antalis 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, Burkos continued: "Carthage in Africa did not have a drought situation, only Central Greece and Peloponnesus encountered the same situation as us. , but theirs is a little less severe.”

After listening to his subordinate's report, Davos tapped the table with his fingers involuntarily, 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 at Senate meetings, 'Those granaries that we built were used most of the time, except for the occasional supply of the Legion's wars. 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 Dionians!"

Davos' 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 used 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, so as to tide over this difficulty, so as to prevent the grain merchants from taking this opportunity to wildly raise the price of grain, thus causing panic among the people..."

Davos pondered: "100,000 tons of grain is still not enough,

The challengers must have sufficient food reserves to cope with this impending drought. And we have to keep enough wheat seeds for next year's sowing, so Mersis, before the news spreads, use the treasury and send people to Carthage, Cyrenaica, and even Egypt to buy Lots of grains. "

"Okay, Your Majesty, I'll do it right away!" Mersis replied succinctly, without hesitation or shirk at all, because he knew that this was the kingdom's top priority.

"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... businessmen, allow the Ministry of Commerce and the court to impose severe penalties on them!

At the same time, you must cooperate with the chief executives of each city. When selling the grain of the granary, you must check the identity of the buyer. Each person is only allowed to buy a certain amount of grain per day, which cannot exceed it. Take the opportunity to make a fortune, find one who behaves despicably like this, and punish one! "

"I understand, Your Majesty!" Marighi was equally serious.

"Burks!" 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 Ministry of Construction must work together to dig deep wells in various cities to solve the problem of water shortages for the people."

"Okay, Your Majesty, I'll rush to the Construction Department in a while!" Burkes looked slightly stunned.

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 that they don't have to panic, keep calm, with the blessing of Hades and the full help of the kingdom, they will definitely get through this difficult time!"

"Your Majesty, we will hold a meeting this afternoon." Cornelus replied immediately.

Davos nodded, his eyes swept over everyone present, and their solemn expressions showed tension again, so he asked loudly: "Lysias, when the drought occurred in Great Greece 25 years ago, how did you do? deal with it?"

"Your Majesty." Lysias recalled the situation at that time, with a look of pain on his face: "At that time, the people of Crotone collected gold and silver and went to Carthage to buy food, but the cunning Carthage People 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, and then these went out. of the people were killed by the Iberian natives..."

"Yeah! The country is small and weak, and in the face of such a natural disaster, it can only endure the pain of separation from relatives and friends, and family destruction. But the Kingdom of Dionia has the ability to make every family in the kingdom not have to suffer such hardships. We have to see This drought is a bad thing, but it's also a good thing! It will make those few people who are still obsessed with the long history of the city-state and delusional city independence see clearly and understand that only by staying in such a powerful kingdom can peace be guaranteed. Through every natural disaster and man-made disaster, their homes 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 has news about Rome from the north."

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

"The Wolsci to the south of Rome united with the Aequi to the east of Rome and the Hernic? to the southeast were invited by the rebellious Roman Latin ally Praeneste , invaded the territory of Rome, and its strength is said to be about 20,000."

Prinister? Davos thought about it for a while, but there was no impression in his mind. He immediately turned around and said to the secretary Henepolis? "Heney, go and fetch the map of central Italy."

The map was placed on the desk. Davos looked down and finally found the location of this Latin city-state: Prinister is a larger Latin city-state located more than 60 miles southeast of Rome, near the mountains. It is the entrance to the lowlands between the mountains, and guards the access to the Aqua and the Herniki. Conversely, its mutiny would allow the Aquis and Hernikis to easily invade Rome's Latin allies and threaten the city of Rome itself...

"Have all the troops that Rome went to its north to attack Etruscans back?" Davos asked again.

"I haven't received any news yet," Aristillas 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 there was no enchantment by the messenger sent by Dionysius in this life (Dionysius died at the hands of Phoebe Das two years ago), the Celts did not abandon it. The Etruscan towns along the way did not attack, but advanced rapidly, approaching 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 elderly 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. Camelos, a 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.