Cornerus was old, his voice was not loud, even a little trembling, and it was impossible for anyone at the back of the room to hear him, but several voices in front of him repeated his words in a loud voice.

At this time, he took out a papyrus scroll from his bosom, carefully unfolded it, coughed lightly, and then began to read: "Honorable elders of the Dionian Kingdom! Representatives of the local councillors of the towns and cities of the Kingdom of Dionia! I apologize so much for not being able to attend the Kingdom Conference during the Kingdom Conference. This war with Carthage, Rome, and Samonay was not provoked by us, but we had to fight it, because it was about the life and death of the Kingdom of Dionia, and the fundamental interests of every one of our citizens!

Up to now, this war has been going on for a year, in which our soldiers have fought bloody battles on the front line, and in the rear, you have worked hard to maintain the stability of the domestic order, and have worked tirelessly to prepare a large number of materials needed for the war.

Some time ago, our Sicilian Fleet and Third Fleet had almost completely annihilated the Carthaginian fleet, and just yesterday as I write this letter, our land army inflicted a heavy blow on Carthage's 100,000 troops at Selinus, and captured Carthage's military commander, Margo—"

Cornelous paused deliberately at this point, and as he expected, there was a thunderous cheer in the room.

"Great! Another big win! ”

"Win! Win! We won this war! ”

"We won Carthage! We have become the new overlord of the Western Mediterranean!! ”

……

People danced and hugged each other, and the joy was palpable, considering that Carthage had dominated the Western Mediterranean for many years, and most of the people present, including the senators, did not have much confidence in the war, but it was this unexpected result that surprised them extraordinarily.

At this time, even the officials in charge of the order of the venue smiled, and did not immediately stop the commotion in the venue, and after a long time, they again asked for silence.

Cornerus then continued: "...... We have defeated the Carthaginian navy, and now we have defeated the Carthaginian army, and the Carthaginians have basically lost the ability to fight with us Dionia, so they have sent messengers asking for peace talks with us.

Ladies and gentlemen, I know that this year's war had had a great impact on the kingdom, the treasury was almost depleted, the price of food was high, the young and middle-aged citizens were drained in large numbers, there was a shortage of labor, there were many casualties among the soldiers, and some of the territories were ravaged by the enemy and needed to be rebuilt...... Many of you may wish to make peace with Carthage and restore stability to the kingdom after gaining some benefits.

However, since the Western Mediterranean is too large to accommodate two powerful nations, do we want to see Carthage, which has been battered by the armistice, learn its lessons, recuperate, and regain its strength to challenge us again?

I think your answer must be 'No!' So we can't stop at the victory now, but continue to fight until we finally get the ideal result we want, that is, we Dionya must gain absolute superiority, so that Carthage will never be able to challenge, and there will always be only one hegemon in the Western Mediterranean, and that is us, Dionia! ”

When Cornerus read this, his voice couldn't help but become louder, and everyone present had blazing eyes and held their heads high.

“…… Therefore I hope that you will continue to unite and do your best to continue to pacify the people, maintain the stability of the kingdom, and do everything in your power to provide the army with sufficient supplies until we achieve the final victory! …… These are the contents of the letter written by His Majesty. Cornerus finished reading the letter and handed it to Lycias, who was next to him.

At this moment, someone in the hall suddenly shouted: "Your Majesty Davers wins!" ”

Lively the venue again: "Your Majesty Davers wins!! ”

"Victory !! of the Kingdom of Dionya"

……

Sitting at the front of the hall, Publius was enveloped by this passionate atmosphere, and he never imagined that on the first day he entered the temple of the supreme power of the Kingdom of Dionia, he felt the ambition of this kingdom - to become the sole overlord of the Western Mediterranean.

Although he was not as excited as the others, he was also a little more proud in his heart, and at the same time sighed: fortunately, he was lucky to be a citizen of this kingdom in time!

At this time, Cornerus took the opportunity to say: "It seems that everyone not only has no objection to the decision made by His Majesty, but also supports it very much. Over the next two days, we will discuss how best to fulfill His Majesty's request. But for now, we will first invite the heads of the various departments to give you a summary of the situation in the kingdom last year. Since everyone is interested in the military situation of the kingdom, the first thing to do is to invite the Minister of War, Shilos, to come to power. ”

According to the previous procedures of the Kingdom Assembly, first King Davers made a comprehensive summary of the situation in the kingdom last year, and then the heads of each department made a specific introduction to the situation in charge of their departments, but now that Davers is out on the expedition, the steady Cornerus and Lucias They dare not overstep their bounds, so they simply skip the first link, and the speeches of each department generally start from the Ministry of Finance, after all, money is the issue that everyone is most concerned about, but now the military has become the most concerned issue for everyone, So Shilos was the first to play.

After years of training, the mercenary-turned-military minister stood in the center of the venue, and he had a calm and majestic bearing, which attracted everyone's attention.

He gave a comprehensive and brief account of the whole process of the war between Dioonia and Rome, Samonai, and Carthage from the beginning, development, and the current situation in which he was in the war, and gave a rough account of the tactics and tactics formulated by King Davers and the War Department against these three hostile forces, and also mentioned the contributions of various legions and fleets in the war.

Even though everyone had a general understanding of last year's war through various channels, Shiros's comprehensive and professional narration was still refreshing to them, so everyone listened carefully.

For Publius, he only then knew why Dionya dared to ignore the Carthaginian attack in the first place, and King Davos led the army to attack Rome first, it turned out that they had already been seriously discussed and deduced, made careful preparations, and formulated a perfect plan, and Rome responded in a hurry, how could it be undefeated!

Publius had a rough sense of the terrible nature of the establishment of a military ministry in the Kingdom of Dionia, and how could the Roman nobles, who spent a lot of time on the affairs of the city-state and foreign affairs, gather citizens and consider tactics only in time of war!

What surprised Publius even more was the series of data that Shilos said: in the past year's war, the Kingdom of Dioonia used a total of eleven regular legions, one reserve legion, four cavalry legions, and four fleets of more than 700 warships, and the army alone used 110,000 people (not counting the reserve soldiers that were replenished later), what a powerful military force, and being able to make this powerful military force operate normally for a year also shows that the national strength of the Dionian Kingdom is strong!

Publius, who had been a Roman senator for many years and had been engaged in tedious government affairs, was deeply aware of this, and now he thinks back that the Roman Senate rejected the request of the Dionian envoys to "hope that they will reach an armistice with Wolsey", and arrogantly shouted that "they are not afraid of Dionya joining the war".

Of course, at the end of his speech, Shilos also mentioned with a heavy face: although the Dionian army won a great victory in the war that year, it also paid a lot of casualties, with a total of nearly 30,000 dead and more than 40,000 wounded so far (including the crew of the navy, and they accounted for the majority of the deaths). The Ministry of Military Affairs will do its best to make arrangements for the aftermath of the soldiers who died in battle, distribute pensions to their families as soon as possible, and properly solve the livelihood problems of the families of the dead and wounded soldiers, so that the soldiers who are still fighting will have no worries.

By the time Shilos finished speaking, there were almost no questions, and everyone responded with warm applause.

The second to come to the stage to make a summary was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mercis, who spoke in a distinctly different style from Shilos, complaining that the war had wiped out years of savings in the kingdom's treasury, and the expression of heartache on his face was by no means fake.

Throughout the story, he complains about the war costing a lot of gold and silver, even though he mentions that he has obtained a lot of spoils from the captured city-states of Rome and Syracuse, and has begun to mine precious metals from the mines of Corsica and Sardinia, which actually makes up for a large deficit in the treasury, but his tone and his expression seem to indicate that these are not worth mentioning at all, and if the kingdom does not stop the war immediately, the kingdom will be in trouble this year due to lack of finances.

Publius knew from the whispers of those next to him that this was the usual style of the greedy Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was forever complaining about the lack of gold and silver in the treasury.

However, Publius was still taken aback by Mersis's statement: the monthly tax revenue of the Dionian Kingdom was seven or eight hundred talientes, and this year it was close to ten thousand talientes, and this was due to the impact of the war, which led to a significant drop in tax revenue. But even so, compared with the previous Rome, its income was only about a fraction of that of the Kingdom of Dionia, and if Rome had more or less military strength to fight, it was not worth mentioning financially, and its destruction was probably expected.