Chapter Twenty-Nine: Fibllum's "Blood" Festival
On a hillside on the outskirts of Pompeii, an ornately decorated troika is parked, surrounded by several maids and guards. In the carriage sat a beautiful young woman, now looking into the distance down the hill with her head cocked, her expression very worried and anxious.
While the woman was worried, rows of small black dots slowly appeared on the distant horizon below the hillside, and the woman's eyes lit up, staring at these small black dots tightly, her eyes constantly scanning their bodies.
"Ragseus!" After the little black dots gradually turned into figures in armor, the woman was also surprised and found her goal. The young beauty grabbed the hem of her robe by her hand, jumped out of the carriage, and ran briskly towards one of the figures.
"Claudia, you're getting heavier!" Ragseus smiled wryly and hugged the noble lady who threw herself into his arms.
"You have regained your freedom, and if you don't take me with you, I will kill you!" Claudia cried and laughed and pounded Lagerseus in the chest with her pink fist.
"Didn't I come for you?" Ragseus said with a weak heart.
"Boss, something is wrong in Pompeii!" Dinah walked up to Xu Mo and whispered.
"Huh?" Xu Mo looked at Dinah suspiciously.
"The gladiators who were just in the main square of the city, the Bardax Manor...... I've been told that the rescue mission has failed, but ...... Lucius announced that a group of more than 200 slave gladiators would be executed tomorrow! Dinah said with an ugly face.
"What?" Xu Mo's pupils dilated instantly, "Another batch?" Are you sure you were also a gladiator? ”
"That's what Lucius announced!" Dinah smiled wryly.
“…… I understand! After pondering for a moment, Xu Mo's face began to gradually turn pale, and he turned back to the gladiator team and shouted, "Kabal! ”
"Arres, what's the matter?" Hearing Xu Mo's shout, Cabal immediately walked towards Xu Mo, "Could it be our brothers......
"Yes, they have been killed!" Xu Mo nodded solemnly, "Kabal, how many gladiator schools are there in Pompeii, and how many slave gladiators there are in total!" ”
"I don't know!" Cabal said with a wry smile. Although he was a champion gladiator, he was imprisoned in the underground cells of Bardax Manor, except for entering the arena to fight, where could he collect this information.
"Chief Arres, huh? Let me tell you, Cabal doesn't know that! Claudia snuggled sweetly into the arms of Ragseus, and the two walked from behind, embracing.
"There are three gladiator schools in Pompeii, and Bardax is one of them. However, Bardax was an elite gladiator school, so it had the smallest number of people, and the other two, each of which probably had nearly a thousand gladiators.
In addition, there are many gladiator schools and underground gladiatorial arenas with one or two hundred people, plus the gladiators privately trained by the nobles of Pompeii, the total number of gladiators is very large, and the specific number may not be counted, it is estimated at four thousand to six thousand! The aristocratic lady, who was once fascinated by gladiatorial performances, said seriously.
"Boss, you suspect that the batch of gladiators executed tomorrow belongs to other gladiator schools!" Dinah's eyes lit up and she sent a message to Xu Mo, "Could it be that Lucius deliberately bought them from other gladiator schools to serve as rebel slaves?" ”
"No, we've been in a tense state since we entered the Spartan world, and as a result, I've overlooked a very important thing. Pompeii was the second largest city in ancient Rome, a place where slave gladiators were concentrated, so how could we be the only reincarnation on the side of the gladiators? Xu Mo said with a little annoyance.
"Boss, are you saying that there are other teams of reincarnators who have started uprisings in other gladiator schools?" "But we didn't hear that in Pompeii?" ”
"Claudia, where are the gladiator schools in Pompeii, except for the Bardax gladiator school? Have you heard about other slave uprisings from other nobles these days? Xu Mo turned his head and asked Claudia with a smile.
"The larger gladiator schools are basically on the outskirts of Pompeii, in almost every direction, and there are no locations. I haven't heard of any other slave revolts, but there is one thing that is very strange, Lucius was asking the nobles in the city for support from his private soldiers a few days ago, but few nobles responded to him! Claudia furrowed her beautiful eyebrows, pursed her lips, and said disdainfully.
Xu Mo asked Claudia about the time when Lucius asked the other nobles to support the private soldiers, and then took a deep breath, "Sure enough, after the success of our uprising, on the night of Fiblum Day the next day, several other gladiator schools should also have broken out in the gladiator uprising, and the time is very concentrated!" ”
"Arres, so they all succeeded in revolting, so Lucius blocked the news of the gladiator uprisings in addition to this uprising we had in advance?" Because Cabal and the others were also present, Max didn't call Xu Mo boss, and said hesitantly.
"No, you can't say it's all successful!" Xu Mo shook his head and said a little sadly, "Max, do you remember Nilo?" ”
Later, under Xu Mo's meticulous analysis, everyone present finally began to gain insight into the inside story of a huge conspiracy......
In fact, the reason why Xu Mo affirmed that Nilo was also one of the internal annihilators was that in addition to the suspicions he said about Nilo, he had direct evidence. That is, Dinah's true mind detected Nilo's secret meeting with Bardax, but from the fact that Nilo gave Bardax the wrong time to revolt, Xu Mo deduced that Nilo was actually a double agent of a Pompeii city authority.
Later, from various sources, Xu Mo deduced that this person in power was Lucius, and Nilo was likely to be an active Roman officer. However, from the intelligence that Nilo reported to Bardacus that Nyos was involved in the uprising, it is clear that the two internal annihilators, who belonged to Lucius, did not know each other's identities.
In other words, after Lucius accidentally learned about the gladiators' uprising in Bardax Manor, he did not choose to trust Nyos completely, but sent Nilo to Badax Manor again to investigate. Although Nilo's mistake exposed Nyos's identity as an internal annihilator to Bardax, it did not affect Lucius's plan.
If it weren't for Xu Mo's existence, then Bardax would have turned into a pile of ashes and died in the sea of fire. The gladiators of Bardax Manor had long since become a brilliant achievement for Lucius, and it was reported to the Roman Senate. From here, it can be seen that Lucius is definitely a conspirator of the old and cunning land.
What would be the first reaction of a conspirator like Governor Lucius to the uprising in Bardacus Manor? Quite simply, his first reaction must have been how big this uprising really was, whether it was a rebellion in one of the gladiator schools in Bardax, or a rebellion in all the gladiator schools in Pompeii, and what benefits could this rebellion bring him?
With this in mind, Lucius would have sent spies to the major gladiator schools in the first place, not just Nilo. The intelligence reported to Lucius by the spies sent is probably not just that the Badacus gladiator school wants to start an uprising. But judging from the situation of the Bardachus gladiator school, these gladiator schools that wanted to revolt did not communicate with each other about the uprising.
So why did so many gladiator schools concentrate on the Febrom festival to revolt? This may be due to some special factors of the Fiblum Festival, or it may also be that the internal annihilation sent by Lucius is deliberately promoting the uprising to concentrate at this point in time, and even Xu Mo speculates that some gladiator schools that were not preparing for an uprising were also instigated by spies sent by Lucius.
As for the information about the uprising reported to Lucius by the spies at the beginning, how many gladiator schools participated in the uprising, I am afraid that it will be a mystery buried in Lucius's heart forever. If all of Xu Mo's speculations are true, behind this large-scale gladiator uprising, I am afraid that there is a greater ambition and conspiracy of Lucius.
Regardless of whether Lucius was a fan of the revolt or not, the scale of the revolt clearly surprised Lucius, who immediately realized that Pompeii's 2,000 reservists alone could not cope with so many gladiators, but Lucius did not inform the city of Rome, and he chose to let the revolt happen.
Xu Mo and the other reincarnators entered the Spartan world, and there were still more than seven days before the uprising, and Lucius would only get the news of the uprising earlier than Xu Mo, not later than him. The city of Rome was only more than 240 kilometers from Pompeii, and more than seven days was enough time for Lucius to send messengers to Rome and bring enough Roman troops to suppress the uprising.
Of course, in this case, the uprising would definitely fail, but Lucius would not gain much. There was only one scenario in which Lucius could gain the most advantage, and that was for Lucius to personally suppress a portion of the rebel army, and at the same time, to let go of a small number of gladiators without affecting the safety of Pompeii.
The part of the rebel army that was suppressed could allow Lucius to gain the trust of the Senate and add a heavy weight to his political and military future, while the part of the rebel army that was released could allow Pompeii to expand its armaments openly.
Therefore, except for the Bardax uprising led by Xu Mo, a freak, the uprisings of the other gladiator schools were all under the control of Lucius. Some of the smaller gladiator schools were spared by Lucius, but the large schools with a high concentration of gladiators were the targets of Lucius's repression.
The two hundred or so gladiator slaves who will be executed tomorrow are clearly the losers of the uprising. Judging from the bloody battle that Xu Mo and the others experienced, if more than 200 gladiators were to be captured, then at least five to ten times more than this number of gladiators would die on the battlefield.
The night of Fibrom was bloody, and Lucius led two thousand reservists armed to the teeth, with absolute superiority in equipment, combat experience, and terrain (ambush), to crush as few as a thousand, or as many as two thousand gladiators like cattle slaughtered on the deserted outskirts of Pompeii, making their corpses a delicacy for vultures and wolves......