Riding and Slashing

Chapter 207 Empire Rebirth Plan
Even the emperor himself had to go out to defend Siyuan City in person. Of course, the situation of the Bacchus Empire was not as light as Emperor Marius' performance was.

But Mario remained calm and composed, and he even had time to think about Alina's marriage...

This is probably the state of mind and self-confidence that an emperor should have.

He believes that as long as he doesn't mess up, everything can be solved.

And all things have two sides, it is not necessarily a bad thing to destroy and then build.

Besides, many things were expected.

For example, the gladiators in Siyuan City will take advantage of the chaos to revolt, this is not an accidental accident...

This slave uprising led by gladiators was originally Mario's intention, but this plan was written by Alina.

The gladiator who led the rebellion was named Brutus. He used to be an officer of the Immortal Legion under Emperor Marius. He made a lot of military exploits and became the little lord of Granmer Village in the north of Siyuan City.

Brutus's younger sister is named Elena. Elena met Luciana (now Alina) at a banquet organized by Justus, and she became Luciana's only friend .

Elena is the only girl of the same generation that Luciana has ever met who is willing to listen to her tell the official history instead of following others. It is probably fate, and the two of them also look very similar, so the relationship is quite good.

Luciana has now changed her name to Alina, which has something to do with Elena.

Brother and sister Brutus and Elena got into big trouble some time ago, of course, it should be said that the trouble came to them.

Brutus has repeatedly rejected the offer of the Senate, and Elena just rejected a marriage proposal from a member of the Senate on this year's Goddess Day—Brutus is a new generation of lords who emerged from Emperor Marius' reforms , is a staunch reformist, and it is impossible to take refuge in the conservatives.

It is also absolutely impossible for Elena to marry a politician who is old enough to be her father, no matter how high the other party's status is.

And this firm refusal had vengeful consequences.

As the lord, Brutus had to lead his troops to fight against the rebellion caused by Sheila Yuzas's rebel army, but not long after he left the village of Glenmere with his troops, the whole village was identified as a "serpent cult bandit den" 'It's...

All the villagers, together with Elena, are accused of being Snake Worshipers, and they will be reduced to slaves for this reason!
This is of course an unjust case, and the cause of the unjust case is also very easy to understand. Once Elena became a slave, the former member of the Senate could naturally do whatever he wanted - Elena was taken away by him.

Of course Brutus would not let it go. After all, no brother could bear such a thing. He withdrew his troops and led his troops to kill nearly 200 members of the Senator's family and rescued Elena.

Under his anger, Brutus couldn't hold back his hand. In addition, he couldn't hold back his hand in order to save people. Indeed, he killed a little more people. There must be some innocent people who died at his hands.

But in order to save my sister, there is nothing I can do.

In any case, this matter was indeed too much trouble, no matter what the reason was, it was of a serious nature after all.

In addition, they were members of the Senate. If nothing else happened, all the old-school nobles would want the lives of Brutus' family and his soldiers.

So Brutus claimed that Elena was killed, and let his soldiers flee quietly with Elena, and he went to the Royal Court of Siyuan City to surrender himself and bear all the charges—he knew that Emperor Marius was blindfolded. The judge under the frame will be fairer, and since he is a member of the Immortal Legion, maybe he will give him a chance.

The royal court in Siyuan City was indeed fair. After all, there was a reason for the incident. In addition, Brutus had made military exploits for the empire, so he was only sentenced to slavery and not sentenced to death.

And it also gave Brutus the easiest way to regain his freedom and become a warrior again—making him a slave gladiator in the Royal Arena of Siyuan City.

It is not bad to have this result. After all, the whole family was killed. In fact, most members of the Senate felt that the sentence was too light.

But Elena didn't want her brother to die in the arena, so she approached Luciana, hoping that Luciana could help her, and see if she could find a way to rescue Brutus.

Luciana, now Alina, is the daughter of Justus.

Since the matter involved the Senate and the Supreme Court had already made a decision, Governor Justus originally did not want to intervene.

But Luciana thinks this is a good opportunity, an opportunity to completely solve the internal problems of the Bacchus Empire.

Justus himself was the biggest assistant in promoting the reform of Emperor Marius, and he was also the initiator of most of the reform policies. Of course, he also knew the two biggest internal difficulties that Emperor Marius faced in his reform.

One is the resistance of the old aristocratic forces - the conservatives hold more than half of the country's wealth and army in their hands, and they just want to live a comfortable life with their vested interests.Even those who are willing to protect the national interests in the old school are at best just like Governor Kairos who strictly abide by personal morality.

Another difficulty is the deep-rooted tradition of slavery in the Bacchus Empire.

It was the slavery system that brought about centuries-old ethnic conflicts between the Bacchus and the Pendors; at the same time, it also gave the empire's largest foreign enemy, the Snake Cult, the best soil for expansion.

Unlike other countries, the slave system of the Bacchus Empire is almost deeply rooted in the bones of every Bacchus.

The Lion Kingdom and Ravencrow Kingdom also have slaves, but they are basically in the nature of contract servants, that is, the kind that can be redeemed by selling themselves as slaves.

This should actually be called a servant or a servant—in fact, Klose and the others belonged to Li Ang's contract slaves at first.

But the master can't kill this kind of servant at will, and will pay some salary, the specific is subject to the contract.

Most of the farming in the kingdom's aristocratic territories is also done by letting commoners who have lost their land be rented as tenants, which is also a form of contractual cooperation.

That is to say, the servants and tenants of the Lions, Ravens, and Fieldsway and other countries are essentially employment relationships, at least based on the contract signed on the basis of treating the other party as an equal 'person'. Both parties have a binding contract.

But Bacchus Empire is different.

The slaves of the Bacchus Empire were pure tools for unpaid labor without personal freedom, and they could not even be called human beings.

Most of the nobles in Bacchus use serfs to cultivate the fields, and they are not of the transactional nature of selling themselves as slaves, but are forced to be slaves.

That is to work without pay for life, and the next generation will still be like this. Children and grandchildren must be slaves, without a contract, and they cannot be redeemed.

This is the bottom of the real society, without any human rights, even relying on rewards for food, living worse than pigs and dogs.

In the current Bacchus Empire, nearly one-third of the people are still such slaves, and they are basically natives of Pendor.

In fact, Emperor Marius had abolished the Civil Equality Law 20 years ago, and the new Citizenship Law also stipulated that all people have equal citizenship rights, but 20 years is indeed too short, and people's ideas have not changed.

Besides, there are policies at the top, and countermeasures at the bottom—the emperor said that the Bacchus and the Pendor are equal citizens, so that's fine, citizens are citizens, and you must respect His Majesty the Emperor.

However, criminals and heretics cannot be equal citizens, can they?

In addition, Emperor Marius also promulgated a decree against the Snake Worship Cult, as long as anyone who defected to the Snake Worship Cult was considered a slave—this was allowed by the policy.

As a result, Bacchus has a vast number of 'snake worshipers'...

Anyway, as long as the noble lord or tribune said that this person was a snake worshiper, then this person would most likely become a slave.

There must be more unjust, false and wrongly decided cases than real Snake Cultists, but no one would take the risk of overturning the verdict on a slave identified as a Snake Cultist.

As a result, the Bacchus who own the land and power can still force the Pendor to be slaves, not much different from a hundred years ago.

And the current nature may be a little more ruthless, directly labeled as a Snake Cultist, and lost all hope of turning over, and can't even escape to a foreign country-carrying the identity of a Snake Worshiper, fleeing to other countries is also a Heretics will be burned...

This caused many people who did not believe in the Snake Cult to join the Snake Cult to fight against the empire because they were reduced to slaves.

Of course, the slaves are not completely hopeless. Emperor Marius' military system reform includes such a clause-allowing gladiators to join the Imperial Legion after a certain number of games, and as long as the service period expires, they can become free men. There is also the opportunity to be promoted and make a fortune after making meritorious deeds.

Therefore, a large number of slaves who did not want to join the Snake Cult became gladiators, hoping to regain their freedom through slave gladiatorial fights.

Gradually, the influence of Bacchus' slave gladiatorial competition became very large, and Emperor Marius and his reform policy were also regarded by the slaves as their only hope.

But, but.

Most of the people who control the arena and the gladiator training camp are high-ranking officials from the traditional conservative sect, and they want to safeguard their interests.

Those who can really leave the arena and enter the legion are actually very few, and it is very difficult for gladiators to live until the day they are free.

Because, although Mario's policy is fine, there is a problem with the people who implement the policy...

The reform policy on slave gladiators has been played by slave traders and various gladiator training camps in the past ten years.

Originally, the slaves sold to the arena would register the number of battles they played in the arena. After reaching a certain number of games, if the gladiator was alive, he would join various legions of the Bacchus Empire and become a warrior.

This is a mandatory restraint policy promulgated by Emperor Marius, in order to select excellent soldiers from gladiators, and it is equivalent to training soldiers through the arena.

For this reason, each legion will also settle a certain amount of training funds to the gladiator training camp and the arena to subsidize the cost of the training camp - the gladiator training camp also spends money to buy these slaves.

Originally, if this policy was implemented properly, everyone would benefit in a steady stream.

However, in order to make the best gladiators become long-term cash cows and for greater profits, slave traders, gladiator training camps, and arena bosses cooperated closely and began to constantly tamper with gladiator files.

So over the past few years, most gladiators have gradually lost their names, leaving only a code name.

After playing all the required games in one arena, it will change its code name and transfer to another arena...

This is probably the earliest transfer transaction between clubs.

If the gladiators do not cooperate with the transfer, then the last battle may be an extremely unfair fight, or even a battle with a lion and a tiger.

Anyway, gladiators who don’t cooperate will most likely die in the last battle, and earn enough profits for the bosses through completely unfair fights—there are many Bacchus nobles who like to watch battles between humans and beasts with fewer enemies , this kind of unfair battle is fierce and exciting.

The bloodier the scene, the more attention-grabbing it is, the bosses earn more, and the influence of the slave wrestling has further increased.

If the gladiators are "willing to cooperate with the transfer", at least most of the time they face relatively fair battles, and they can survive for a while on their own fighting power.

In this case, it is obvious what kind of mentality the gladiators will have.

They're all warriors on the line between life and death, what do they do when they see no real hope in sight?
Those serfs didn't have the courage to resist, so they could only join the Snake Cult to seek the power of evil gods.

But gladiators do not worship evil gods, these fighters rely on their own strength!
Luciana saw this, and she hatched a big plan.

She planned to let Brutus lead the gladiators to rebel, and then, with the cooperation of Governor Justus, launch a large-scale slave uprising army, using this uprising army to let all the Bacchus understand that the slave system must be changed!
Then let this rebel army deal with the Snake Worship Sect, and clean up the rebellion charges of the rebel army.

In the end, the empire promulgated a policy to abolish slavery, fully implemented the contract employment system, and incorporated this slave rebel army.

Brutus, who has made great contributions to His Majesty the Emperor, will naturally be able to clear his name and become a lord again, and maybe even become a legion commander.

But Governor Justus felt that this plan was too risky, and it would be difficult to control if something went wrong, so he did not agree to his daughter's plan.

As a result, Luciana secretly went to Siyuan City and directly told Emperor Marius of the plan.

Justus and Emperor Mario are best friends. Mario can be said to have watched Luciana grow up, and he was even Luciana’s godfather—he was just a godfather. Before Mario became emperor Just old friends with Justus Dukes.

Moreover, Luciana happened to be born on the same day that Marius became the throne, so Mario regarded her as his own daughter.

Therefore, Mario knew Luciana well.

This girl has been a well-known child prodigy in Boshi City since she was a child, and she could read Bacchus' narrative poems when she was three years old.To be able to translate seven ancient poems from the Noldor literature before the age of six... This is an incredible ability, of course, this is also because her father Justus is indeed very learned.

Since she was 12 years old, she has been the biggest customer of the Candle Merchant in Boshi City——Luciana orders enough candles to feed an ordinary family for seven years, and she always sits there by herself poring over endless ancient scrolls and manuscripts , the candles burned all night.

Even Justus and Mario were not sure if she had slept at all, but she must have slept very little anyway, and she liked to spend her nights taking notes on ancient manuscripts, and she had been studying Madigan's prophecy.

Luciana will soon be 20 years old, and there are very few aristocratic girls in this era who are still unmarried at this age.

But she is still single, because all the men in the empire are afraid of making a fool of herself in front of her, and no one even dares to associate with her—the knowledge she possesses is indeed not at the same level as most young people.

Emperor Marius even felt that her talent and learning had surpassed Justus, but she had little political experience.

The plan that such a girl dared to propose to the emperor was actually very feasible, and it was in line with Mario's temper.

Therefore, Emperor Mario and Luciana perfected this plan together, and the overall design is similar to Luciana's design, but it is related to some specific actual situations.

Taking advantage of the rebellion of Sheila Yuzas' rebel army, let Brutus, a trustworthy immortal, lead a slave uprising from within Siyuan City. This will let everyone see that the slavery system must be reformed!

Then, let the rebels kill the most uncooperative and most rampant conservatives first—or let these conservatives who do not support reform go to 'kill the rebels'.

Luciana will pass on first-hand information to the rebel army, and whoever goes to suppress them will die...

After no one dared to destroy the rebel army, let the rebel army cooperate with Marshal Kailos to wipe out the rebel army of Sheila Youzas in one fell swoop——The rebel army of Sheila Youzas is to establish a deeper slavery system. Rebels, they and the slave rebel army are natural enemies!
After that, Marius will announce a comprehensive transformation from the slave system to the contract employment system, which will fundamentally inhibit the development of the Snake Cult.

In the end, Marius would personally lead the rebel army to deal with the Snake Worship Cult, and then recruit the rebel army tempered in the battle, adding a powerful army supporting reform to the empire.

This is a means of killing multiple birds with one stone, and it may even make the entire Bacchus Empire see the light of day and rejuvenate!
This plan was also named by Marius as the 'Empire Rebirth Plan'.

So Luciana changed her name to Alina and served as the intelligence officer of Emperor Marius, and she and Elena acted as the liaison with Brutus both openly and secretly, and began to implement the plan.

This talented woman is too famous. If she doesn't change her name, everyone will know that Mario and Justus are messing around. Maybe the gladiators won't be willing to believe her...

It would be very reasonable to follow the name of 'Eileen' and change it to 'Alina' - the name differs by only one letter, it looks like two sisters, and everyone will think that she is also Brutus' younger sister.

Brutus was a very capable warrior. With the cooperation and remote control of Emperor Marius, he successfully launched the gladiator uprising and led a huge slave rebel army.

It's just that the plan couldn't keep up with the changes. Originally, this good plan for the rebirth of the empire encountered the cross-sea invasion of the Snake Worship Cult.

This is indeed an accident...

Emperor Marius and Alina could both think that domestic Snake Worshipers might take the opportunity to cause trouble, and they had made corresponding arrangements in advance.

But no one expected that the Snake Worshipers who caused chaos this time not only came from the territory of the Bacchus Empire, but most of them came from the headquarters of the Snake Worshiper on the continent of Amala...

The descendants of the conquerors now face the invasion of another, more vicious conqueror.

At the same time, no one expected that the rebel army of Sheila Youzas would suddenly receive a large amount of money, food and materials, and their strength would increase greatly.

The deployment of Emperor Marius was also disrupted.

According to the original plan, after the rebel army killed those stubborn conservatives and liberated a large number of slaves to establish their prestige, Brutus should lead the rebel army to cooperate with Kailos and eliminate the rebels of Sheila Yuzas in one fell swoop.

Then Marius would grant an amnesty to the rebel army for his great achievements in eradicating the rebellion, and abolish slavery along the way-this seemed reasonable and no one would object.

Anyone who dares to disobey will go to crusade against the rebel army, and by the way, Kailos, the old-fashioned army leader, will understand that sticking to the old system will only erupt wave after wave of uprisings.

But there must be a high-level commitment to this matter, and some loyal troops must be sent to guide the rebel army, or a group of rabble may fight Kairos...

Originally, Marius planned to do this in person, but due to the sudden increase in the strength of Xila Youzas's rebel army, not only defeated Kailos, but also advanced to a position only thirty miles away from Siyuan City.And the army of Snake Worship Cult coming across the sea from the south has already approached Siyuan City. Under such circumstances, Mario really couldn't leave Siyuan City.

This also caused Mario and Alina to temporarily lose contact with Brutus and Elena some time ago. As a result, the rebel army got out of control and became bigger and bigger, and went straight to Boshi City. Besieged Boshi City...

At the same time, Marshal Kailos's army of rebels can't be contacted at all. We only know that the last place to appear is Finlad Village-this is when Agathon was recalled, Agathon met on the way.

Mario realized that it must be very difficult for Brutus alone to completely control an army of tens of thousands of people under the current circumstances, and the plan had to be changed.

Because this is a risk, once something goes wrong, it may change from a 'new life plan' to a 'death plan'...

So now we can't let Brutus lead the troops to eliminate the rebellion, we can only let him cooperate with Governor Justus to see if he can recruit security on the spot in Boshi City.

In addition, the southeast region has been invaded by the Snake Cult, Marasburg has been captured, and all news from the east has been cut off.

Once Emperor Lingang falls, the Snake Cult will continue to land from Emperor Lingang just like General Osa did when he invaded the Pendor Continent.

So Emperor Marius recalled Agathon from Leyla Fortress, let Agathon return to the army to recover Marasburg, and rescue Emperor Lingang.

Abandoning Leyla Fortress, of course, is very risky, which means that the capital Siyuan City, which has encountered enemies on both sides, will no longer have reinforcements.

At the same time, General Titus of Sava River Fort had been recalled a few days ago, and Emperor Marius asked him to contact the Ashborn Empire to fight against the Snake Cult.

The Empire of Ashes is the country that was re-established on the ruins of the old Bacchus Empire, which had been destroyed, by those who were unwilling to succumb to the Snake Cult in the mainland of Amara.

But Marius did not ask General Titus to ask for help.

Instead, he asked Titus to take the battleship directly across the sea to the continent of Amala, to join forces with the Ashborn Empire and destroy the Snake Cult's port on the continent of Amara!
He wants to draw from the bottom of the pot!

Emperor Mario didn't ask anyone for help because of the crisis in Siyuan City, and he sent out all the troops that could support Siyuan City.

Not only that, he also took the initiative to stand on the outermost line of defense in Siyuan City, which is the front line to face the rebels.

"I am Marius! Emperor of the Empire! Here I am! Come, traitors, charge against me!"

(End of this chapter)