Chapter 195

The moment he learned the news, Leeteuk found Lucius and wanted to ask why.

Lucius just looked at Li Te with a smile, and then told his reasons.

"The opponent's military strength is not weaker than ours, and the royal family is standing behind them. It is our duty to do this."

In desperation, Liteuk could only nod.

Fortunately, Scaloni was also a loyal man. He did not abuse the military power when he got it, and did not deliberately suppress the Antican army. On the contrary, he also reduced the area that the Antican army was originally responsible for and handed it over to the Imperial Army.

Although this is done to gain military merit, it will also reduce the pressure on the Antican army and reduce the number of soldiers in disguise.

Losses of the Antican army.

On the other side, in the city of Romulus, things were not peaceful.

For the first time these days, Downey received military power from Giovanni, but his task was not to defend the city wall.

Giovanni gave Donny five thousand soldiers to form a temporary inspection team in the city, responsible for the night curfew and daily security work. Once a suspicious person is discovered, he can just arrest him without reporting to Giovanni. .

This task seems simple, but in fact it is very troublesome to implement.

There are many people to arrest every day, but there is too little time left for yourself.

At first, Downey wanted to enforce the law impartially, interrogate the arrested people one by one, and commute their sentences or let them go directly according to their purposes.

But later, due to the shortage of supplies in the city, many people chose to go out to ask for food from relatives and friends during the lockdown, and in the end they were imprisoned by mistake. Downey had no choice but to order them all to be imprisoned.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of people in Romulus, nearly 10,000 people were arrested in just a few days.

Even the cells of the prison were packed with people. When the original designer was designing the prison, he had no idea that the prison could hold so many people.

Subsequently, the material shortage spread to the prison.

Food was distributed among the soldiers, leaving only a portion of the rations for the citizens, and even less for the prisons.

At first, they could guarantee two meals a day. After a week, as more and more people were arrested, the food stocks in the prison were exhausted. In the end, they could only provide one meal a day, and it was a simple bowl of oats soaked in water to fill their stomachs. All difficult.

These citizens, who had never experienced such abuse, immediately resisted in prison and eventually turned into a riot, which was naturally suppressed.

The population in the prison was instantly reduced by one-third. It was much more peaceful inside, but there was still not enough food.

In desperation, Downey could only conscript some young and strong prisoners to go to the city wall, while the remaining ones stayed in the prison and survived with a bowl of oats soaked in water every day.

However, as people who came to visit the prison could no longer see their relatives, various rumors began to spread in the city. The public security did not get better because of the arrests. On the contrary, it was faintly unable to suppress the citizens in the city. Some citizens were During the limited opening hours, secret meetings began to discuss the matter of marching on the streets.

Eventually, it evolved into what it is today.

Outside the Duke's residence, tens of thousands of Romulus citizens blocked the streets, demanding that the Duke give a reasonable explanation for the violent suppression in the prison, stop abusing the prisoners, and let them go home.

In the mansion, Giovanni was sitting in the office, looking at Downey who was standing in front of him with his head bowed and saying nothing, and sneered.

Donnie thought that Giovanni was dissatisfied with him, and bad memories came back to his mind. His body trembled, and he quickly lowered his head to admit his mistake.

But he didn't expect that what Giovanni said next was not a scolding of him.

"Those untouchables, think they can resist me by twisting themselves into a rope?"

"Donnie, let me ask you, as a Duke, what should you do if you encounter such a thing?"

"Father... we should communicate with the leaders of the march, understand their demands, listen to their wishes, and then work out a result acceptable to both parties."

"No." Giovanni shook his head. "Is this thing taught to you by the Imperial Academy? Their group of people has never really ruled a territory. They have always been idealistic. This method is useless."

With that said, Giovanni taught Donnie his own ideas.

"Donnie, I will only tell you this once, and I will only demonstrate it to you once."

"When dealing with such untouchables, you don't have to listen to them. Our bloodline is inherently nobler than theirs. There are rules for the operation of all things. One of them is that the inferior obeys the superior. If they resist us, they violate the rules."

"And if you violate the rules, you need to be punished."

With that said, Giovanni stood up.

"Come on, Donny, come with me to the top balcony and see what's right."

Donnie nodded quickly and followed behind Giovanni.

When he came to the balcony, Downey could see a large group of people crowding at the gate of the manor. One of the young men was speaking angrily to the guard at the door, but the guard couldn't listen at all.

On the other side, in the queue of demonstrators, the leader stated his demands righteously.

"We only

We need the Duke to come forward and talk to us, give an explanation to the deceased, and give an explanation to the citizens! "

At this time, a man wearing full plate armor came out of the Duke's Palace.

He walked on the ground, and the plate armor made sounds as he walked.

When he came to the leader of the citizens, he only said six words.

"Get out or die."

The other party obviously didn't care about this threat and still didn't give in.

Then, a sword pierced his heart.

Then, the guards of the Duke's Palace rushed out and began to use force to disperse the crowd.

The demonstrators immediately fled in all directions, making various cries of terror.

However, at this moment, on other streets, part of the army that originally guarded the city gate also came to suppress the crowd.

For a time, everyone fell into despair.

Downey stood on the balcony, looking at the hell on earth at the Duke's door, and looked at Giovanni in disbelief.

"Father...do you really...don't care about your future reputation?"

"Donny, you have to know that fame is far less practical than rule." Giovanni said earnestly.

The corners of his mouth were even slightly raised, as if he was enjoying it.

Donnie only thought that his father was probably crazy.

Chapter 110: Exchange of titles for alliances

Giovanni is a thief. All the soldiers who suppressed the citizens of Romulus this time are not locals. Most of them are soldiers from other areas of the Duke of Naples. Therefore, when facing these strangers, , Only then are they willing to resolutely execute the order and wave the butcher knife.

The soldiers who came from the citizens of the city had no chance to know what was happening in the city. Their attention was completely attracted by the siege outside the city, and their commanders also refused to do so on the grounds of keeping military secrets. Let them leave the military camp for half a step.

This bloody crackdown ended with minimal cost.

Fifty percent of the tens of thousands of Romulus citizens who participated in the demonstration died. Although the remaining people were lucky enough to escape with their lives and escaped back to their homes, after witnessing the Duke's tough tactics, , and dare not launch any more demonstrations.

After all, the Duke really didn't regard them as human beings.

The besieging troops outside the city did not know that such a tragedy had occurred in the city, and they were still carrying out the siege orders step by step.

After this incident, the security of Romulus City stabilized, and even the originally scarce supplies became slightly more abundant because many people died.

This was not a bad thing for the Duchy of Napoli, at least for Giovanni's reign.

At this moment, outside the city of Romulus, the siege equipment has been set up.

Traditional engineering equipment such as catapults, wells and ladders are fully prepared. From today on, the walls of Romulus will no longer be peaceful.

"Calculate the time, it's almost here." That day, standing by the window on the top floor of the Duke's Palace, Giovanni looked at the city wall on one side and sighed.

North wall of Romulus.

The soldiers were still guarding the city wall as they had been the past few days, with one sentry every five steps, and the position was very dense.

Because starting from this morning, a large group of Imperial soldiers and the siege equipment they had built over the past few days had gathered in front of the northern city wall.

Standing on the city wall, the soldiers with good eyesight among them could see siege equipment being built in the military camp outside the city every day. However, due to the disparity in the number of troops, Naples did not dare to go out of the city to hinder the opponent, and could only watch helplessly. Watching the opponent assemble the killer weapon step by step, he was planning his own death.

The soldiers below the city were obviously preparing to take the opportunity to seize the city wall after the first round of siege equipment ammunition was used up. The soldiers in Naples did not dare to relax at all. Although they knew that the city wall was dangerous, they could only obey the commander's orders at this moment. Order, guard on the city wall.

At ten o'clock in the morning, under Scaloni's instructions, the siege party gathered all siege equipment at the north city gate, and then dozens of catapults were launched simultaneously.

The boulders launched by the catapult will be strengthened by the magician and will explode when hitting an obstacle, causing an effect similar to that of a cannonball.

In an instant, casualties appeared on the city wall.

Although the hit rate of the catapult was not high, under the suppression of numbers, it still caused a lot of damage to the Napoli army.

Fortunately, Giovanni has been working hard to manage the city of Romulus over the years, and the city walls have been repaired several times, and no gaps have appeared despite several rounds of bombardment.

The reserves of stones took three hours of beating before they were used up. At this time, although the walls of Naples looked in tatters, no part of them had collapsed.

Therefore, the siege troops still have to pass through

Cross the ladder and climb up the city wall to fight the enemy hand-to-hand.

"I really didn't expect that although Giovanni made Naples a mess, he didn't fall behind at all in the management of the base camp."

In the military camp, Scaloni couldn't help but complain as he listened to the reports from the front line.

"If Giovanni was really that incompetent, he wouldn't have caused us so much trouble ahead." Lucius said from the side.

"Indeed." Scaloni nodded.

Scaloni had great respect for this battle-experienced general. If he had not brought the order of His Royal Highness when he went south this time, Scaloni would have preferred to hand over the command of the army to Lucius.

But he also knew that if he wanted to become the next Lucius, he couldn't just follow him, he had to surpass him.

"First send five thousand people to the city wall to test the enemy's will to resist. If they are still very determined, we can surround them for a while longer and then break through a little further."

After briefly determining the strategy at this stage, Scaloni found messengers to convey his orders to the besieging armies in other directions.

…

Just half a month ago, Arthas used his military power to hold a generals' meeting in the army without the participation of the emperor.

"Everyone, the current situation in the Dukedom of Naples is still unclear. I am worried that the Duke of Antica will not be able to capture Naples in a short time."

"And as you all know, the Duke of Naples, Giovanni, is likely to be the one who designed the murder of the Duke of Francois and sent people to assassinate my father. In order to arrest him as soon as possible, we have to send troops to help the Duke of Antica. It just so happens that the situation on the border is not so tense now, and we can spare time."

Hearing what Arthas said, the generals present more or less understood what he meant.

This is to choose one of these people to be the Duke of Naples.

So, many people looked at each other and began to think about who to nominate to lead the troops south.

Arthas looked at Scaloni and said:

"When we discussed the dispatch of troops last time, it was General Scaloni who was most determined to send troops, so I think that the commander-in-chief of the Southern Expedition Corps this time should be General Scaloni."

After saying this, many generals nodded.

Except for Scaloni, the generals of the empire were either too old and had been awarded, so it was not convenient for them to occupy the title of Duke of Napoli, or they were not qualified enough.

After discussing the candidates for the troops, the generals discussed how many soldiers to bring.

After the meeting, Arthas found Scaloni alone.

"General Scaloni, I am very optimistic about you." Arthas looked at him with admiration in his eyes.

"You are the next pillar of the country like General Lucius, so please make sure to win this battle beautifully."

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, I will do my best."

"Well... and General Scaloni, your daughter is very good. I admire her very much. I hope to invite her out more often in the future. I heard that you are strict about this kind of thing, so I came here to ask."

Scaloni was stunned for a moment when he heard Arthas say this, and then laughed.

"Your Highness, you are joking. I did this just because I don't want my daughter to come into contact with some bad people. Your Highness personally invited her, how could I refuse?"

"That's good." Arthas smiled when he heard the other party say this.

In this way, he has completed the task that Rosaline entrusted to him.

Chapter 111: Being used?

Milton is dead.

When the guards of Saint Laurent City broke into his temporary residence, Milton had hanged himself in the room.

All this is thanks to a cleaner.

The place where Milton died was an inn. He had rented a room in this inn earlier, but did not live in it until the incident in Saint Laurent City, when he secretly moved into this inn.