"Chapter 680: A New Choice"
It is impossible to live happily if you live unwisely, unhealthily, and unrightly; In the same way, it is impossible to live wisely, healthily, and uprightly if you live unhappily. Pen | fun | pavilion www. biquge。 info
- Epicurus (representative of the hedonism of Arestepus)
The Sulla and Pompey forces have always had a very close connection with the Brutus Empire, and even the most important population for the development of the Sulla forces and the Pompey forces depends on the Brutus Empire; However, this does not mean that Sulla and Pompey should not be wary of the Brutus Empire, after all, the situation is not the same now as it was five or six years ago.
Five or six years ago, Macedonia and Peonia, ravaged by the plague, were not at all places where the Brutus Empire could be seen; Sulla and Pompey also understood that after the establishment of the Brutus Empire, Tiberius's ambitions were not comparable to when everyone cooperated in the past, so Sulla and Pompey decisively gave up everything in the Brutus Empire in exchange for the opportunity to move north.
After arriving in the uninhabited regions of Macedonia and Peonia, after several years of development by the Sulla and Pompey families, although the two regions still could not return to their former prosperity, there was also a thriving scene.
Later, the Sulla family and the Pompey family successfully incorporated the Thracian barbarian Thrace region and the Proptantis region into the scope of their own power, and the Sulla family and the Pompey family also had the foundation for development and growth; However, the roots of the Sulla family and the Pompey family are in the northern part of the Brutus Empire, will the Brutus Empire allow its own family to grow?
This problem is not that Sulla and Pompey are unfounded, and they are not unaware of the aggressiveness and expansion of the Brutus Empire, and if they want to make the Brutus Empire have no ambitions for the northern regions, there are only two ways; First, the Sulla and Pompey families were strong enough, and second, the areas ruled by the Sulla and Pompey families were worthless.
Needless to say, neither of these conditions was present to the Sulla and Pompey families; First of all, the Sulla family and the Pompey family have determined that it is impossible to have the strength of the Brutus Empire, and secondly, if the Sulla family and the Pompey family want to develop and grow their own family, how can they make the area ruled by their family worthless?
Based on these premises, the Sulla and Pompey families were actively developing and at the same time concluding the strongest alliance, one to guard against the Brutus Empire; While the Brutus Empire was desperately expanding into the eastern continent, the Sulla and Pompey families also joined forces to attack the Thracian barbarians further north.
If the Thracian barbarians had been entrenched in the north of the Sulla and Pompey families, it would pose a serious threat to the development of the Sulla and Pompey families; In order to completely eliminate this threat and win a more stable external development environment for their families, the Sulla family and the Pompey family had no choice but to start a war with the Thracian barbarians.
The Thracian barbarians, who were also ravaged by the plague, were no longer the powerful barbarian forces that had three major armies in the past, and the only remaining Thracian barbarian Catalan tribe was just a not powerful force within the Thracian barbarians at the beginning; The Sulla family and the Pompey family, in order to completely wipe out this Catalan tribe, the two families jointly gathered an army of 40,000 to wage war against the Catalan tribe.
The strength of the Catalan tribe of the Thracian barbarians is actually not weak, and at least twenty or thirty thousand Thracian barbarian armies can be assembled; Unfortunately, the 40,000-strong army owned by the Sulla and Pompey families was a fully equipped elite Roman army, and their combat effectiveness was more than twice as strong as that of the Thracian barbarian army.
The armies of the Sulla and Pompey were superior in quantity and quality, and the last remaining forces of the Thracian barbarians were destroyed before they could even resist; After the combined forces of the two families occupied Catalan, the ownership of Catalan was given to the Sula family, who ruled Thrace, but the population of Catalan was divided equally between the two families.
Just as the Sulla family and the Pompey family were rejoicing in their family's victory and harvest, the astonishing news came from the front that the Brutus Empire had successfully eliminated the Kingdom of Alexander on the Eastern Continent and expanded the ruling area of the Brutus Empire to five provinces; Even more shocking was the occupation of the region of Bithynia, across the sea from Pompey's Propontes.
In this way, the Brutus Empire would surround the Sulla and Pompey families to the south and east; To the north of the Sulla and Pompey families is the vast Black Sea, and the only outlet for these two families is to the west.
However, the reality is always cruel, to the west of the Sulla and Pompey families are the extremely powerful Dacian barbarians; This Dacian barbarian is not an existence that can be compared to the Thracian barbarians, it is an existence that is more than twice as powerful as the Sulla family and the Pompey family in terms of overall strength and military strength, and the Sulla family and the Pompey family cannot afford to provoke the Dacian barbarians at all.
Faced with such a predicament, the Sulla family and the Pompey family could only ensure their own security by expanding their army as much as possible; After a war of military expansion, the Pompey family, who ruled Macedonia and Propontis, had four fully armed legions, while the Sulla family, who ruled Paionia, Thrace, and Catalan, had six legions.
In this way, the military strength of the Sulla family and the Pompey family is also as high as ten legions, which is also the limit of the army they can build; If they only supported these ten legions with the area they ruled, I am afraid that they would not be able to form even five legions, and they were doing their best to support this huge army with the accumulation of their own families.
At such a time when the Sulla family and the Pompey family were in high spirits, the Brutus Empire actually sent two groups of envoys to the two families; In fact, the current Brutus Empire has no ambitions for the Sulla family and the Pompey family, and the reason why Tiberius sent this envoy is only to borrow from the Sulla family Pompey family.
According to Tiberius's idea, if the Aegean Sea was really blocked by the fleet of the Augustan Empire in the future war, then the only way that the Brutus Empire could use to reinforce the Eastern Continent was to cross the strait from the Greek Peninsula through the Macedonian and Propontic regions of the Pompey family to reinforce the Eastern Continent, and the navy of the Augustan Empire could not blockade this strait.
Of course, when the Brutus Empire's material delivery or legion reinforcements passed through the Pompey family, it might also pass through the Paionian region of the Sulla family; This is also the reason why the Brutus Empire sends emissaries to both families at the same time.
Although Tiberius's Brutus Empire had no intention of attacking the Sulla family and the Pompey family, the Sulla family and the Pompey family had to be on guard against the Brutus Empire; You must know that the Kingdom of Alexander on the Eastern Continent was a nominal ally ally of the Brutus Empire, but it was not wiped out by the Brutus Empire.
Sulla and Pompey don't think that their families are very close to the Brutus Empire, and the connection between them is just to use each other in the final analysis, so how can there be any trustworthy relationship?
Now that the Brutus Empire wants to borrow from the area ruled by the Pompey family, can the Pompey family refuse? Well, Pompey himself wanted to refuse, but just to think about it, who would dare to say no to the mighty Brutus Empire?
In the eyes of Sulla and Pompey, the ambition of the Brutus Empire is definitely not to be underestimated, and if you are not careful, the foundation that the Sulla family and the Pompey family have worked so hard to lay will be cheaper than the Brutus Empire; Therefore, their hearts are full of rejection of the borrowing of the Brutus Empire, but they still agree with the borrowing of the Brutus Empire on the surface.
Immediately after the departure of the high-spirited emissary of the Brutus Empire, a discussion began between the Sulla and Pompey families about how to deal with the Brutus Empire; In order to ensure the confidentiality of this discussion, Sulla traveled directly from Belasola in the Paionian region to Thessaloniki in Macedonia for a secret meeting with Pompey.
In fact, Sulla and Pompey had also heard about the alliance of the Brutus Empire with the Roman, Julius, and Seleucid Empires against the Augustan Empire; It's just that Sulla and Pompey have never had any direct contact with the Augustan Empire, and their dealings with each other are just commercial trade.
The Augustan Empire already had a monopoly on maritime trade throughout the Mediterranean, so how could merchant families like the Sulla and Pompey not trade with the Augustan Empire; Since the development of the Brutus Empire had already posed a mortal threat to his family, why couldn't his own family unite with the Augustan Empire?
Sulla and Pompey, who were frightened by the excuse of the Brutus Empire, already had the idea of secretly forming an alliance with the Augustan Empire to deal with the Brutus Empire; As long as the Augustan Empire has no ambitions for its own power, Sulla and Pompey are willing to help the Augustan Empire deal with the Brutus Empire, which is not necessarily a better choice for the Sulla and Pompey families.
Compared with the Brutus Empire, which did anything to expand outward, the Augustan Empire had a much taller image in keeping its promises; In addition, the Brutus Empire did not treat the conquered people favorably, while the Augustan Empire always gave the vanquished the status and treatment of high nobles, which is the key reason why Sulla and Pompey chose to cooperate with the Augustan Empire.
I have to admit that a good reputation is really crucial for a force; Maybe a good reputation doesn't make you powerful, but at least it can attract more valuable people for you, and Oscar's image project has won a great victory! (To be continued.) )
:。 :