Readx;?genius one second to remember, for you to provide you with a wonderful novel to read. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

He who does not share in luck will not be faithful friends in disaster.

- Aesop (Greek fabler, Phrygian)

After the Brutus Empire grew rapidly, it set its next offensive targets on the islands of Rhodes and Crete in the Aegean Sea; Although the forces that ruled Rhodes and Crete had a very strong navy, their land forces were not a cause for concern, and the Brutus Empire wanted to form a coalition with the Roman Empire to invade this power.

With the current naval strength of the Roman Empire and the naval strength of the Brutus Empire, as long as the two are combined, they can naturally form an advantage over the power of Crete; After the combined fleets of the two countries defeat the naval fleet of the Cretan forces, they can easily seize Rhodes and Crete, and then it will be good for the two families to divide one island each.

After Tiberius sent an envoy to inform Marius of his idea, Marius, who had been suffering from nowhere to expand, immediately agreed to Tiberius's proposal and directly chose Crete as the spoils of the Roman Empire; From a geographical point of view, Crete, which was closer to Rome proper, was indeed more suitable for the Roman Empire, and Tiberius certainly would not refuse Marius's reasonable request.

After all, Crete is not as important as Rhodes in terms of strategic location, and its richness is far inferior to Rhodes; More crucially, Rhodes Island was an important springboard for the Greek Peninsula to enter the Eastern Continent, so how could the Brutus Empire let it go?

After Alexander the Great occupied the Greek Peninsula, he marched to the eastern mainland through the two important islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, and finally had Alexander's empire. Now that the Brutus Empire has accumulated enough strength, it is natural to start the expansion and development of its own empire.

When the union between the Brutus Empire and the Roman Empire entered into the substantial formation of a combined fleet, the huge fleet of the Augustan Empire appeared in the Aegean Sea and was routinely replenished on the islands of Crete and Rhodes; In this way, the Brutus Empire and the Roman Empire would have lived in vain if they had not yet known that this so-called Cretan power had been annexed by the Augustan Empire.

Although the Brutus Empire and the Roman Empire and the Augustan Empire were also considered hostile, everyone was still reluctant to meet each other until they completely tore their faces; The direct enemy of Augustus' empire was only Marius's Roman Empire, and Brutus's empire was not willing to mingle with the contradictions between the two empires now.

Even the Brutus and Marius forces, as well as the Scipio and Julius families, formed an alliance against the Augustus; But that was already an old thing in the Roman Republic, and after the four empires were established, this aspect of the matter was never put on the table again, so naturally it could not be taken seriously.

More importantly, the current Brutus Empire is not the Brutus family of the past, and the Ulius Empire is more than a step stronger than the former Ulius family; After everyone became stronger, the threat of the Augustan Empire was not as great as before, and this so-called anti-Augustan alliance existed in name only.

Under such a tacit understanding, how could the Brutus Empire easily provoke the Augustan Empire, whose naval strength was terrifying; You must know that the eastern expansion plan of the Brutus Empire also relies heavily on maritime logistics support, and of course it must not offend the Augustan Empire, which is invincible in maritime power.

As a result, this joint operation between the Brutus Empire and the Roman Empire was canceled, and the Brutus Empire also gave up its empire's plan to attack Rhodes Island, and began to put the new target of its empire directly on the eastern continent Alexander Kingdom.

As long as the Brutus Empire can successfully defeat the Kingdom of Alexander, and open up a springboard belonging to the Brutus Empire on the Eastern Continent; Then even if there is no Rhodes, the Brutus Empire can officially start the conquest of the Eastern Continent by its own empire.

However, the current Kingdom of Alexander is not so easy to deal with, not only its own strength should not be underestimated, but it also has the support of the Kingdom Alliance behind it; If the Brutus Empire really launched an attack on Alexander, then the Kingdom of Pontus and the Kingdom of Armenia, which were members of the Kingdom of Alexander, would definitely immediately reinforce the Kingdom of Alexander. 【】

No matter how strong the Brutus Empire is, it is impossible to land an army on the Eastern Continent in a short period of time that is strong enough to resist the attack of the three kingdoms; What's more, it is almost impossible for the overall strength of the Brutus Empire to be an enemy of these three powerful kingdoms at the same time, which is also an undoubted fact, who made these three kingdoms all powerful kingdoms on the Eastern Continent.

At this time, another sentence makes a lot of sense, the enemy of the enemy is the friend; Although Alexander's kingdom was in a powerful alliance of kingdoms, it also had its own irreconcilable enemy, that is, the more powerful Seleucid Empire.

The Seleucid Empire, however, was at war with the four kingdoms of the Kingdom Alliance, and there had never been a truce; Especially after Seleucus VII of the Seleucid Empire ascended to the throne as emperor, the ambitious Seleucus VII was not only expanding new territories for the Seleucid Empire, but also trying to recover the old territories that originally belonged to the Seleucid Empire.

What is the old territory of the Seleucid Empire, which is nothing more than the territory of the three kingdoms of Pontus, Armenia, and Parthia, which were once separated from the Seleucid Empire, and the Ionian region, which now belongs to the Kingdom of Alexander; These were the old territories of the Seleucid Empire, and they were the fundamental reason why the Seleucid Empire and the Kingdom Alliance became mortal enemies.

People all over the world know that this so-called alliance of kingdoms was established by the four kingdoms to deal with the Seleucid Empire, and the Brutus Empire naturally had to make good use of this relationship; Especially under the premise that the Seleucid Empire fought fiercely with the coalition forces of the Kingdom Alliance not long ago, this is a rare opportunity for the Brutus Empire.

Therefore, after the Brutus Empire's attack on Rhodes Island was hopeless, the Brutus Empire immediately sent an envoy to Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid Empire, to try to form an alliance with the Seleucid Empire; In order to be able to divide the four kingdoms of the Kingdom Alliance with the Seleucid Empire, Tiberius intended to send envoys to the Seleucid Empire with weapons and equipment worth more than 300,000 gold coins as gifts.

Seleucus VII of the Seleucid Empire also received the envoy of the Brutus Empire quite warmly after learning that the envoy of the Brutus Empire had come with a large number of gifts; Even if Seleucus VII didn't like these Roman forces very much, those valuable gifts were enough for Seleucus VII to show his enthusiasm to receive the emissaries of the Brutus Empire.

Perhaps this emissary of the Brutus empire was a bold man in his own right, or perhaps this was the deliberate arrangement of Tiberius; When Seleucus VII received the envoy of the Brutus Empire, the envoy immediately proposed that the Brutus Empire wanted to form an alliance with the Seleucid Empire against the alliance of kingdoms composed of four empires.

Seleucus VII did not directly refuse the Brutus Empire's desire to form an alliance, but he did not easily agree, but made his own requests; In Seleucus VII's view, it was okay for the Brutus Empire to form an alliance if it wanted to, and it was okay to deal with the Kingdom Alliance with the Seleucid Empire, but it was necessary to make a guarantee to the Seleucid Empire in terms of territory.

No matter how many territories belonging to the League of Kingdoms were occupied by the troops of the Brutus Empire, the territories that originally belonged to the Seleucid Empire must be returned to the Seleucid Empire; This was the promise that Seleucus VII needed the Brutus Empire to make.

Such a thing was not for a mere messenger to answer, and the messenger had to return to Corinth with Seleucus VII's request in this regard; When Tiberius learned of Seleucus VII's request, he decisively rejected Seleucus VII's request, and in Tiberius's opinion, Seleucus VII was simply a sky-high asking price!

The four kingdoms of the entire Kingdom League only have a total of how many territories they have now; The Kingdom of Alexandria owned four provinces, one of which belonged to the Seleucid Empire; The Pontus Kingdom had three provinces, two of which belonged to the Seleucid Empire; The Kingdom of Armenia had three provinces, two of which belonged to the Seleucid Empire; The Parthian kingdom owned two provinces, all of which belonged to the Seleucid Empire.

If the Brutus Empire had agreed to Seleucus VII's terms, seven of the twelve provinces owned by the four kingdoms of the Kingdom League would belong to the Seleucid Empire; Together with the region of Atropane, located on the border between the kingdoms of Armenia and Parthia, the Seleucid Empire could gain up to eight provinces.

Such conditions were unacceptable to the Brutus Empire, and Tiberius was not willing to waste his time doing anything to bargain; He directly opened the lowest bottom line acceptable to the Brutus Empire, that is, the land occupied by the Brutus Empire and the Seleucid Empire belongs to whoever the army occupies!

However, in order for Seleucus VII to agree to this alliance, Tiberius also made some concessions; If the territory occupied by the Brutus Empire was originally part of the Seleucid Empire, then the Brutus Empire was willing to offer the Seleucid Empire 500,000 gold coins for each region to 'buy' ownership of the territory.

When the envoy came to Antioch again with such conditions, this time Seleucus VII directly agreed to the terms of the Brutus Empire and signed a military alliance agreement with the Brutus Empire; The previous condition was indeed Seleucus VII's sky-high asking price, and after the Brutus Empire was willing to open the current condition, Seleucus VII was naturally willing to form an alliance.

With the current strength of the Seleucid Empire, it is not easy to take the initiative to launch a counteroffensive against the four kingdoms of the Kingdom Alliance; With the support of the Brutus Empire, as long as the Brutus Empire launched an attack on the Kingdom Alliance, Seleucus VII would take the opportunity to start a plan to recover the territory of the Seleucid Empire, and the Seleucid Empire and the Brutus Empire were just using each other in the final analysis. (To be continued.) Mobile phone users, please browse and read, a better reading experience.