After basking in the sun for most of the day, Maximin was really thirsty at this time. He took the warm tea from Petronius and drank it all without even thinking about it. The fragrant tea is refreshing and nourishing to the lungs, and has an endless aftertaste.

Just as Maximin was about to give a compliment to the Ming Qian Longjing given to him by the Celestial Honglu Temple, he suddenly felt a pain in his lower abdomen, and then the pain intensified, making him restless.

He suddenly realized, his eyes were round, and he glared at Petronius and said, "What did you give me to drink?" ”

Petronius's eyes flashed with a flash of purity, and he said half-smilingly: "Naturally, it's tea." ”

"What's in the tea?"

"A condiment." Petronius said fearlessly: "The Seris named Crane Crowned Red is highly poisonous. ”

"Poison?" Maximin was horrified, "Why! Why poison me? ”

"I don't want to!" Petronius smiled hideously, "Who made you too smart." You've seen too much and thought too much, and there's a good chance that your advice to the executive will affect Seris's deployment in the future. You are in the way of His Holiness the Pope, and I have to root you out. ”

"You ......," Maximin spat out a mouthful of blood, "as a Roman and the commander of the Archon's personal guard, why did you rebel against your country and the monarch and help Seris?" ”

"People are ambitious. At most, I will be a personal guard commander by the side of the consul, and I will not be promoted much in my life. But unlike Seris, when His Majesty the Pope secretly summoned me the day before yesterday, he said that within ten years the Holy Church army would conquer Rome, and I would be his king of Macedonia. ”

And you believe him when he says this. Even though Cyris was strong and strong, it was more than a year's road away from Rome, and there were several great powers in between. It's so easy to hit Rome. ”

"You still don't know much about Seris." Speaking of this, Petronius couldn't help but think of the skyscraper that Luan Yi mentioned to him, with such a large ship and artillery, Seris would definitely be able to conquer Rome. "I wasn't sure before, but after watching Seris's parade today, I have no doubt that Seris will one day capture Rome."

"You traitor!" Maximin got up and was about to scuffle with Petronius. But at this time, he was poisoned and suffered great pain, where did he still have the strength. He stumbled two steps and fell to the ground. "Quick...... Give me the antidote. ”

"This poison can't even be cured by the Seris themselves, where do I have the antidote!"

Maxi was in utter despair when he heard this. He clearly felt that the pain in his body was rapidly weakening, and the reason for the weakening was obviously not because the toxin was decreasing, on the contrary, his physiological functions were rapidly weakening under the corrosive effect of the toxin, so that he lost the perception of pain. He began to feel cold and weak, and with a burst of sweetness from the tip of his tongue, he fell to the ground.

The next day, news came from the Roman mission that the head of the mission, Maximin, had died of a sudden illness. In order to prevent the Romans from questioning the cause of his death, Xi Zhicai and Petronius repeatedly said that Maximin's illness was contagious, and he was cremated on the same day.

As soon as Maximin died, there was no need for the mission to remain in China. Petronius then submitted a request to Luan Yi to return to China, and after receiving approval, began to prepare for the future return journey.

In the evening of the same day, Luan Yi once again summoned the Egyptian beauty Nafret to the palace for an audience. This time, Maximin died, Petronius defected, and Nefret did not have to be sneaky, but officially called on Luan Yi, the pope of the Holy Chinese Empire, at the Papal Palace as an Egyptian envoy.

During the meeting, Luan Yi asked Nafrit if she was willing to buy the arms of the Holy Chinese Empire.

After watching yesterday's military parade and seeing the power of gunpowder, Nafret was shocked and knew that Seris's gunpowder would bring a historic new revolutionary start to Egypt. Therefore, after listening to Luan Yi's question, her face showed excitement like grasping a life-saving straw, nodded and said, "What I want!" Thank you, Your Majesty, Long. If Egypt's reform succeeds, he will be driven by His Majesty. ”

"Good!" Luan Yi took out a booklet from the desk, handed it to Nefrit, and told her that this booklet recorded the prices of various weapons in the Empire, and asked her to refer to the quantity purchased according to the price, and hand it over to the Ministry of Rites in the future, and ask him to transfer it to the Imperial War Department.

Next, there is a round of bargaining between you and me. Because of the military and commercial secrets, the historian responsible for recording the Pope's life was sent out of the study by Luan Yi, so this process did not go down in history. The only thing that can be traced is that Luan Yi discussed with Nafret for a long time that day, from the evening to the next day.

It wasn't until decades later that history buffs revealed this affair based on the fact that Queen Nefret of Egypt was unmarried, but there was a seven or eight-year-old boy with obvious Chinese ancestry by her side, combined with the historical gap of that night, and recorded it in the wild history.

Of course, that's an afterthought.

In any case, Nafrit used her charm to win a good price for the next deal.

10,000 taels of gold for an artillery, 1,000 taels of gold for a thunderbolt, and 500 taels of silver for a grenade, such a price was completely acceptable to Egypt.

So Nefret ordered 200 thunderbolts, 100 cannons, 1,000 grenades, 5,000 sets of infantry armor, and 10,000 swords......

The empire's first real arms trade was thus achieved with a touch of romance.

A month later, the Roman mission, which had ended its mission, was on their way home with Nefrit, along with the Imperial envoys who had returned to Rome with them.

Under the escort of the Imperial Central Army, they boarded the Caoyun ship at the Luoyang North Ferry, followed the Yellow River all the way to the west, turned into the Daqing River in Jinan County, Qizhou, and then sailed into the canal.

Along the way, after experiencing the prosperity of Luoyang, people from Rome witnessed the prosperity of the inland area of Seris. The bustling bazaar, with its well-dressed crowds, gave them a further taste of Seris's affluence.

The countryside and cities outside the capital of the Roman Empire were by no means as orderly and wealthy as Seris, and although both claimed to be the largest countries in the region, Seris was more deserved.

As they walked, the Romans, who thought that Egypt's Suez Canal was the longest canal in the world, were shocked by the mileage of the canal after a month's journey and still did not reach the destination of the trip.

They immediately asked the accompanying imperial officials about the chief of the canal, and the answer was "three thousand five hundred and eighty-eight li." ”

Knowing something about the length unit of Seris, they were shocked to find that the Suez Canal was only more than 340 miles in terms of the mileage of Seris, which was only less than one-tenth of the length of the Seris Grand Canal.

More importantly, the Suez Canal is far inferior to the Seris Canal in terms of width and depth, at least not on the Suez Canal with the giant Seris House ship they are currently riding.

The boat drove slowly on the canal, and a month later, the newly built harbor of Hangzhou appeared in front of everyone. The South Sea Fleet of the Empire, at this time, was waiting for them on the coast.

On the shore of the coast, they saw the treasure ships of the Empire for the first time in their lives. They looked at the building ship they were riding in stunned, and then looked at the skyscraper sea ship in front of them, and found that the building ship that they once thought was the largest ship in the world was like a child who had not grown up in front of the treasure ship. A treasure ship is the size of a three-story ship, and it looks like a small island on the coast.

What made them even more indescribably shocked was that the sailors of Seris were shouting slogans and pushing one cannon after another onto the big ship in front of them, and one after another black cannon holes leaked out of the inside of the ship's sampan, and there were forty black holes on one side of the ship's branches, that is, forty cannons.

"Oh my God! They actually put their guns on the battleship. The Romans felt that the actions of the Seris were far beyond their knowledge of the world, and the various experiences they had seen and heard in the territory of Seris had changed their thinking drastically. They began to be ashamed of the stupidity of Rome.

In charge of leading the Nanyang Fleet on this ocean voyage was the younger brother of General Wei Sun Ce, the governor of the Nanyang Fleet, Sun Quan, assisted by the generals Hercules, Wen Ping and Jiang Wei, who also served as the head of the mission to Rome. Accompanied by more than 600 teachers and students from the Imperial University Hall, the Imperial Holy Cross University, the Academic Academy, and the Yanwu Hall, there were more than 100 Imperial Masterpieces.

Hearing the news that the Imperial Nanyang Fleet was sent to Rome, the major chambers of commerce of the empire started the idea of exploring maritime trade routes to the West to pan for gold with a powerful navy. As a result, the trade fleets under the merchants of the various states of the empire went straight to Hangzhou. Hangzhou Port is full of tides for a time, the crowd is surging, thousands of ships and thousands of sails, and the formation is very grand.

The shores of Hangzhou are full of horse-drawn carriages and wheelbarrows carrying goods. Truckloads of fine silk, tea leaves in moisture-proof boxes, and a dazzling array of glass and ceramic handicrafts were loaded onto the ship.

The waterline of a cargo ship carrying heavy cargo fell by a large margin in an instant.

On March 4, the thirtieth year of the Holy Dynasty, Sun Quan, the governor of the Nanyang Fleet, who had been preparing for a month, led 20,000 officers and men to set up an altar on the shore and prayed to Our Lady that everything would go well on the first ocean voyage after the completion of the Nanyang Fleet. Four quarters in the hour, everything is ready. Fifty Imperial Treasure Ships, one hundred Haixinglou ships, and two hundred small ships and supply ships left the port with their sails outstretched.

The imperial merchants guarding the harbor saw the warship sail away, and with a roar, the people in the harbor were busy like dumplings in an instant, and quickly boarded their respective ships, for fear of falling behind the Nanyang Fleet.

More than 1,200 merchant ships converted from standard seabound ships sailed into the sea like a moving continent, and embarked on the westward journey under the mild late spring sea breeze.