The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 584: Unexpected, Take Action in Advance

Time passed quickly, and while Richard was using large amounts of luxury goods to exchange for people, half a year passed in a flash.

The fighting in Rome was still going on. With the support of the old nobles in the Senate, Valentinian III had gradually stabilized his position and caused a lot of trouble for Aetius.

On the other hand, the wealth of the Franks was disappearing in large quantities. Various luxury goods appeared, and the Franks bought them crazily.

Alea's caravan even bought silk from Jerusalem and transported it to the Franks.

Even in Rome, only the emperor and nobles could enjoy silk. The Franks had never seen such gorgeous cloth.

Especially after knowing that these cloths were exclusive to Roman nobles and emperors, the Franks became even more crazy about them.

At the beginning, they were still capturing exiles everywhere to exchange for supplies, but as a large number of exiles were sent for trade, the number of exiles left in various places became fewer and fewer.

These Franks had to use horses, livestock, food, and money to exchange for supplies. In half a year, Richard obtained 100,000 people, thousands of horses, tens of thousands of livestock, and a large amount of food from the Franks.

This brought great benefits to the Rhine Province.

The influx of a large population has accelerated the development of the Rhine Province. With the help of paramilitary management, horse plowing and iron farm tools, the Rhine Province successfully cultivated 1.1 million acres of farmland in half a year.

Basically, all the most suitable areas for farming on both sides of the Rhine River have been reclaimed and cultivated.

Of course, 1.1 million acres of farmland may seem like a lot, but in reality, on average, each person has only five acres. Add to that the previously abandoned farmland, and there are less than 1.2 million acres of farmland in the Rhine Province.

According to the average yield per mu of land in this era, one mu of land can produce about 100 to 150 kilograms of grain. A normal man needs at least 3 kilograms of grain a day, and if he does heavy physical labor, he needs 5 kilograms.

A man needs at least ten acres of land to support himself a year, and with a population of 200,000, at least 1.5 million acres of farmland is needed.

In other words, the 1.2 million mu of farmland cannot even support the current population of the Rhine Province. In particular, these acres of land are basically newly reclaimed and the yield is even lower.

But Richard was not worried. In fact, there was enough food in the Rhine Province. Aleiya had purchased a large amount of food from Carthage in North Africa during this period.

Although Carthage was occupied by the Vandals, the Vandals also needed to eat, sleep, and enjoy themselves. So Richard's refined salt, sugar, and delicacies were also what the Vandals wanted.

Although Carthage is in North Africa, it is not a desert. On the contrary, the land here is fertile and the climate is warm, making it more suitable for farming than the province of Gaul.

You know, during the heyday of the Roman Empire, Carthage had always been the granary of the Roman Empire. The grain produced by Carthage alone accounted for half of the output of the entire Roman Empire.

The province of Gaul is at a higher latitude, receives less sunlight, and has a much lower grain yield per mu. Carthage is at a lower latitude, has a warmer climate, and has a grain yield that is one-third more than that of the province of Gaul.

Richard traded salt, sugar and other materials to allow Aleiya to buy a large amount of food from Carthage, shipped it to Gaul by sea, and then shipped it back to the Rhine Province.

At the same time, Richard had been letting Sean and Cruz lead small armies to plunder the Germanic tribes in the north.

Over the course of half a year, through this kind of looting, the two men led their army to plunder thousands of people and a large number of barbarian slaves.

Now, within the 50-kilometer range in the north of the Rhine Province, there are basically no Germanic tribes living there. The Germanic tribes that originally lived here were either conquered and plundered by Richard, or were forced to move north to the north.

The prosperity of the Rhine Province indirectly led to the decline of the Franks. The Frankish tribal leaders bought a large number of enjoyable items from Richard and paid a large amount of materials, which greatly reduced the Franks' war potential.

At the same time, it also caused a problem, that is, the poverty of the tribe.

In order to obtain silk, sugar, salt, fine wine and delicious food, these tribal leaders began to sell their tribal property to Richard's caravan on a large scale.

The first person to discover this problem was Merovingian. This Frankish leader and founder of the Merovingian dynasty soon discovered something was wrong.

Those tribal leaders who were originally brave and good at fighting began to enjoy themselves, and many of them even had fat on their bodies.

Under such circumstances, Merovice immediately wanted to correct the situation, expel the caravans from the Rhineland, and stop buying salt, sugar, fine wine and other items.

Seeing Merovice's serious expression and the soldiers behind him, the caravan finally decided to leave. In order to facilitate transactions, the Rhine caravan established a trading post here, and in order to facilitate transactions, they also stored a large amount of supplies in the trading post.

Now Merovitz had strictly ordered the caravan to leave, and the manager of the caravan had no choice but to ask people to take these supplies with them and prepare to leave.

Originally, this was nothing. We could just stop trading and leave, but there were too many goods and other materials in the trading post.

A large amount of salt, sugar, fine wine for trading, as well as various handicrafts and pottery produced in the Rhine Province, were stored here.

In addition to these, there were also large quantities of cattle, sheep, livestock, food, etc. exchanged from here.

Originally, these things were planned to be shipped back in the next two days, but in the end all these supplies were shipped away together, making the surrounding Franks jealous.

Hundreds of war horses, thousands of cattle and sheep, and hundreds of carts of various supplies were a huge temptation for the already poor Franks.

In particular, there were dozens of carts of sugar, salt, fine wine, cloth and other supplies. This was an extremely great temptation for them.

The manager of the caravan didn't pay attention to these things at first. He just asked people to pack up the goods and prepare to leave, but they soon discovered that the atmosphere seemed a little wrong.

More and more Franks were watching them outside. And each of them was no longer as enthusiastic as before, but stared at the goods.

Quintu, who was directing the workers to transport goods, was reminded by a guard next to him. He looked up and around. After meeting the gazes of these people, his heart sank suddenly. He was originally busy and sweating, and it was as if a basin of ice water was poured over his head.

The whole person was cold from the inside out.

"Oh no! These people want to steal our goods!"

Quintu was very familiar with this kind of look. When he was transporting goods in the past, he often saw this kind of look in the eyes of bandits. Now the looks of these people were exactly the same as those of the bandits.

Seeing this scene, Quintu's face changed slightly. He quickly called a guard, quickly explained some things to him, and asked him to leave quickly.

At the same time, he ordered the caravan's guards to be alert immediately, prepare their weapons and horses, and be ready to break out at any time. At the same time, Quinto sent someone to invite Merovice, saying that there was something important to discuss.

But the person he sent to seek an audience with Merovice did not see the great Frankish chieftain. Seeing the person who came back to report the news, Quinto's heart sank even more.

Looking at the Franks around him, Quinto gritted his teeth and said immediately: "Go again and tell Merovice that I am willing to give all these supplies to him."

"Sir, these supplies are to be transported back to the Rhine."

"I know. You must do what I say right now. When we return to the Rhine Province, I will personally apologize to Sir Richard!" Quinto interrupted him without waiting for him to finish.

"Time is urgent now. If we are late any longer, it may be too late!"

Seeing Quintu's stern expression, the man immediately went to ask for a meeting with Merovice. When he heard that Quintu was going to give him all the goods, Merovice's eyes flickered slightly in the tent.

He seemed to be thinking about something. After hearing this, several other tribal leaders around Merowe suddenly showed greedy looks.

A tribal leader nearby said, "How about we accept these supplies and let them go?"

"No!" Another person immediately refused: "If we take these supplies now, Richard will definitely come to cause trouble later!"

"These people are just stalling for time. They want to go back and report!"

"Yes, we can't let them leave!"

Merovice's expression changed slightly. He originally planned to pretend to be a horse bandit and rob the caravan when it left here, hoping to die without any evidence. When he heard that Quinto was willing to give him all the supplies, he did hesitate for a moment.

But the arguments of these people immediately made him react.

"It is indeed unacceptable. If we accept it, wouldn't that tell them that we are plotting against them?"

"Tell them to leave immediately!" In the end, Merovice decided to act according to the plan and take action after they left.

But just as he sent someone to deliver the message, a Frankish child who was gathered around the camp sneaked up to the goods and stole a bag of sugar from among them.

Just as he was about to do it, he was discovered by an attendant who was sorting goods nearby.

"Okay, how dare you come here to steal candy! Catch him for me!"

Following his order, two people around him immediately stepped forward to catch the child. Seeing that he was discovered, the Frankish child did not drop the bag of candy, but directly picked up the candy and ran to the back.

He rushed directly into the crowd and hid, while two people from the caravan rushed forward and tried to catch him, but the onlookers, the Franks, stopped them directly.

Seeing this, the attendant said angrily: "Get out of the way immediately and hand over the thief!"

As a result, the Franks ignored him and laughed at him, saying, "Where is the thief?"

"Did you see it?" a Frank nearby asked the people around him.

"no!"

"I didn't see it!" The people around shook their heads.

"You are still shielding him!" the follower said angrily.

At this moment, after seeing the child successfully grab a bag of candy, the others immediately started to follow suit.

They all ran to steal the goods. The follower who was arguing with several people saw this scene and hurriedly wanted to step forward to stop them.

As a result, the children ran away without giving him a chance.

And they could only curse on the side.

Hearing the curses from several people, the surrounding Franks were immediately furious: "These profiteers have robbed our things, let's take them back together!"

As one of them shouted, the surrounding Franks immediately responded. The impatient Franks rushed forward and began to snatch the supplies.

When the caravan's followers and guards saw these people looting supplies, they immediately wanted to stop them, and the two sides started fighting.

Quinto realized that the situation was not good. Without caring about anything else, he shouted loudly: "Everyone in the caravan, don't worry about the goods anymore, gather together immediately and break out to the east."

Following his order, the surrounding caravan followers and guards immediately moved closer to him, formed a formation, and broke through to the east.

Because most of the Franks were looting supplies, Quinto and his men were not targeted, and the guards were well-equipped, so they quickly broke through the siege. But even so, half of them were still trapped and killed.

Immediately afterwards, everyone did not dare to stop for a moment and fled towards the Eastern Rhine Province.

The Frankish leaders who were discussing how to seize these supplies in the tent suddenly heard the noise outside and immediately sent people out to check.

Before he could give the order, a soldier came in and said, "Captain, our men have taken action, and the supplies have been looted."

Hearing this, everyone was shocked and rushed out to check. They saw that the camp not far away was in chaos and a large number of tribesmen were fighting for supplies.

"Damn it! I was careless!" Melovi said with a grim expression.

The military discipline of this era was very poor, even in the heyday of the Roman Empire. They also looted, burned, killed and plundered, but the Roman army was organized. All the looted items had to be distributed uniformly.

Other armies' looting was completely random.

The same was true of these Franks.

"Have those people escaped?" Merovi asked directly without paying attention to the supplies.

"They just broke through and ran to the east!" the soldier replied quickly.

"Damn it!" Melovi said with a grim expression.

"Gather the soldiers immediately and follow me to chase them. Make sure to kill all of them!"

"Yes!"

As Merovice gave the order, a group of Frankish cavalry soon arrived. Merovice jumped on his horse and led these people out of the camp.

"boom!"

In the Lord's Hall, Richard slammed the table and said, "Damn you Melovi, I haven't bothered you yet, but you dared to rob my caravan!"

"Sir, Meroving is extremely daring. I am willing to lead the army to defeat him personally!" A knight next to him immediately stepped forward and said.

The knights around him were so angry when they saw that he had taken the lead that they immediately jumped up and down, and they all stepped forward and said, "Sir, we are willing too!"

"I originally wanted to let you live for two more days, but you couldn't wait to jump out. I'll satisfy you then!"

Richard said with a cold expression.

(End of this chapter)