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

Chapter 585 Conquering Gaul
According to Richard's idea, his original plan was to wait until Attila, the Scourge of God, attacked the Roman Empire again, and after the Roman emperor fled, he would send troops to kill the Franks and occupy the entire Gaul province.

The advantage of this is that the empire has no time to care about other things, and even if Aetius wants to stop it, he is powerless. At the same time, according to the course of history, the Roman Emperor Valentinian III will also break completely with Aetius during this period.

At that time, Valentinian III would kill Aetius directly, and then the emperor would be killed directly by Aetius's soldiers in the following year.

The Roman Empire would be in chaos and would have completely lost the ability to control the province of Gaul. At this time, the Roman Empire would basically be destroyed.

But plans cannot keep up with changes. Now that the Franks dare to take action first, this gives him an opportunity to resolve the issue in advance.

According to the original plan, the Franks would gradually lose a lot of wealth in trade, and because of these materials they would become greedy for enjoyment, and their overall strength would decline.

By then, it will be easier for Richard to attack.

But now that the Franks have reacted and launched an attack ahead of time, things will not change much. Moreover, the Franks gave Richard such a good reason, and he just took the entire Gaul province into his pocket.

After all, nominally speaking, he is now the governor of the entire Gaul province. Others didn't care about it before, but now he can use this righteous title to occupy the entire Gaul province.

As for whether it would affect the construction of the territory and the cultivation of farmland, Richard did not intend to mobilize a large number of troops this time. Although the Franks were numerous and had formed a Frankish Legion, their strength was far from that of a regular Roman Legion.

If they could really form a regular Roman legion, they would not be plundered by Germanic barbarians every year.

The strength of these Frankish legions is weaker than that of the Germanic barbarians, and their number is also over ten thousand. After all, many of the more elite Franks were recruited by the Imperial Legion and became foreign legions.

Richard was going to use 3,000 or 5,000 soldiers to deal with these Franks. Now the population of the territory had grown to 200,000, and 3,000 to 5,000 people would not affect the construction of the territory. Moreover, the most labor-intensive work of reclaiming wasteland and sowing had already been completed.

What remains is some road construction and house construction, which can be done slowly.

As long as he could defeat the Franks in one battle, he would have a large amount of manpower and material resources, and the entire province of Gaul would be at his disposal.

There is so much that a province with a population of one million can do.

Moreover, the province of Gaul has a good foundation. As long as it develops seriously for a year or two, it will be enough to recover its vitality. By then, he can march into Italy and rebuild his empire.

After learning that the caravan had been attacked, goods worth millions had been stolen, and heavy casualties had been incurred, Richard did not hesitate and directly ordered a war mobilization.

Three thousand regular troops immediately began to gather. Among the thirty extraordinary knights, twenty were ready to go to war, and the rest stayed in the territory.

Following Richard's orders, the entire territory began to operate rapidly like a war machine.

At the same time, the Franks also began to prepare for battle. After all, their plan failed. No one would give up after being robbed of so many supplies, so after looting the caravan, they mobilized for war as soon as possible.

Soon the various Frankish tribes began to gather and armies began to gather.

However, at this time, many people discovered that the number of horses and weapons and equipment of their troops was obviously much lower than before.

Richard's caravan used a large amount of sugar, salt, fine wine and other materials to exchange for the war horses in their hands. Those leaders exploited the lower classes for their own enjoyment.

As a result, the number and quality of war horses declined significantly, many weapons and equipment were not replenished, and the overall strength was reduced by 20% compared with before.

The changes among the leaders of various departments were even more obvious. Their original muscles were covered by fat in just one year.

Many tribal leaders suddenly found that they could no longer wear their old armor.

After seeing this situation, these people came to their senses. However, knowing is one thing, but how many people can quit after enjoying delicious food, fine wine and beautiful women?

Especially for those people of this era who have never tasted these delicious foods, these delicacies and fine wines are like Internet addiction and are difficult to quit.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many emperors in history who were greedy for enjoyment and indulged in luxury.

If you are not a strong-willed person, you will never be able to pass this level.

Seeing these people become like this, Merovice was very alert. He was able to establish the first Frankish dynasty in the future, and he was definitely not an ordinary person who could resist temptation.

It’s a pity that this time he was facing not those Germanic barbarians, but Richard.

Richard spent a week preparing everything before leading an army of 3,000 to the battle.

One week may seem like a long time, but it is much stronger than the war mobilization capabilities of other tribes and countries of this era.

Of course, he cannot be compared with Ming Baozong, who was the one who led an army of 200,000 to the Northern Expedition in five days, and then sent them all away and wiped them out in one wave.

Richard led an army of 3,000 troops, bypassed the Vosges Mountains, and attacked the Franks. On the other hand, he sent a messenger to Emperor Valerian, saying that the Franks rebelled, attacked the governor's caravan, and robbed supplies. He personally led the army to fight. When Richard went to the expedition, the Frankish tribes had not had time to complete the mobilization. Facing the attack of the army, several tribes were easily defeated by Richard, and a large number of Franks were captured.

The remaining Frankish tribes hastily began to prepare for war.

Richard was not worried at all that Valerian III would stop him. In fact, these Franks did not obey the orders of the Emperor. Instead, they preferred to listen to the orders of Aetius.

Aetius suppressed the exile uprising in Gaul, defeated the Visigothic Kingdom, defeated the Germanic barbarians, and Attila the Scourge of God. The Franks always followed Aelius to fight.

These people naturally listened to Aelius rather than the emperor.

Now that Richard was at war with the Franks, Valentinian III naturally stood on Richard's side.

Richard led the army to attack and won victory after victory. In just a few days, he defeated several Frankish tribes, which greatly frightened the remaining Franks.

Although the Franks had undergone hundreds of years of civilization and had gradually become different from the Germanic barbarians, they still retained many characteristics of the barbarians. For example, these Franks existed in the form of a tribal alliance.

The empire originally allowed the Franks to live here in order to allow them to resist the Germanic people. In later times, in order to fight against the Germanic people, even many taxes were exempted.

Therefore, these places have a great deal of autonomy. Of course, some Franks near Paris have gradually entered the town era.

The Romans built a small city here, which has now become the territory of the Franks. Many of the big cities in the Gaul province have also become the residence of the Franks.

These Franks have already begun to move from tribes to cities. If they are given a few more decades, these Franks will establish their kingdom in Gaul after absorbing the Roman legacy.

There was a rapid sound of horse hooves.

Accompanied by five or six cavalrymen riding horses to the tribe, several Frankish soldiers soon came forward and led the knights to the tribal hall.

The Franks' configuration is very similar to that of the Roman Legion, except that the Franks do not use javelins, but throwing axes. The Franks' throwing axe technology is still very good. However, the attack range of the throwing axe is closer than that of the javelin.

The equipment of the Franks was much worse overall, with less than half of them wearing armor, and most of them were wearing leather armor. This was a huge gap for the Rhine army.

After a year, Richard successfully accumulated more than 4,000 sets of armor through various means such as purchase, forging, and bribing Roman nobles, including 2,000 sets of "scrapped" armor from the Roman Empire.

With these equipments, high morale, and extraordinary knights leading the team, fighting a Frank is basically like an adult bullying a child.

The consecutive victories have frightened many Franks, and a large number of Franks are gathering towards Paris, preparing to gather superior forces to defeat Richard in one fell swoop.

The soldier hurried into the hall and said in a panic, "The Rhine Army has captured Bibracket and is heading here now. It will be here the day after tomorrow at the latest."

Bibracket is a gathering place where many Frankish tribes live. Going northwest through Senones is the Paris area.

"The Winter Tribe ahead of us has surrendered without a fight. It's our turn next!"

"How many of them are there?"

"Three thousand troops."

"Three thousand troops? We Franks can mobilize at least thirty thousand!" said the strong man sitting in the first seat.

"Chief, these three thousand men are all well-trained soldiers, and all equipped with iron armor. They are a complete Roman legion." The soldier said immediately.

The chieftain sitting in the first seat fell silent immediately. The Franks could indeed mobilize an army of 30,000, but the problem was that among these 30,000 troops, 5,000 of them had iron armor, which was considered a lot, and most of them had leather armor or no armor.

What's more, the fact that the Franks could mobilize an army of 30,000 does not mean that his tribe could mobilize 30,000. Now his tribe could mobilize all its forces and conscript all the men, but at most 3,000 of them, and the real warriors were at most 2,000.

But among his two thousand men, not even 300 are equipped with armor. How can he fight?
"There are also several powerful knights in their army. In previous battles, they led their troops to break through the army formations many times. This is also the reason why the tribes before were defeated."

"Where's Chief Merovei?"

"Have his reinforcements arrived?"

The knight shook his head and said, "No, the chieftain told us to hold on, they will be here soon."

"Damn it, he'll be here soon! Are we going to wait for him to come and collect our bodies?" the leader cursed.

(End of this chapter)