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

Chapter 625: Fraud and Alliance

War, plague, and famine had made the northern countries extremely weak. Although the Roman Empire had food relief from the province of Gaul, food was still somewhat tight.

At the same time, the North needed to resume production, and Richard did not intend to start another war. In his opinion, time was on his side.

He was not in a hurry to attack, but was prepared to let the country develop first. After all, the empire had been in war for years, and the officials were corrupt and embezzled, and the people at the bottom had a hard life. If the war continued, even if it was won, there would be heavy casualties and losses.

Although the northern countries have temporarily ceased fighting, as long as they survive this winter and have a good harvest, these people will definitely continue to fight. Time is on his side.

The civil war in the Hun Empire will not end until one side lives and the other dies.

Taking advantage of the rare peace, Richard began to control the empire to recuperate. At the same time, he took the time to improve the warships. The warships of this era had many problems, such as slow speed and unreasonable structure. Richard took out the improved warships and ordered the shipyard to start construction.

At the same time, Richard also began to build a navy. Fortunately, the Roman Empire has always had a navy, so he only needs to recruit and train again.

In the past, the navy was disbanded due to financial problems because of the huge cost and the near-cessation of trade.

Now Richard began to strengthen the navy and prepare to cross the sea to conquer the Visigothic Kingdom.

After learning that the Vandals in North Africa had been defeated and the Empire had regained control of North Africa, the military pressure on the Visigothic Kingdom suddenly doubled.

In the past, North Africa was occupied by the Vandals. They fought with the Vandals several times, with both sides winning and losing, but the military pressure between the two sides was not great.

Because the Vandals focused their expansion on the Roman Empire.

After all, the Roman Empire was famous for its wealth, and the Visigothic Kingdom was a poor and remote place compared to the Roman Empire. So the Vandals had always wanted to tear a piece of meat from the Roman Empire.

But now the Vandals were killed by Richard with a stick, and then the Roman Empire rose again and occupied North Africa. Who will be the next target of the Roman Empire?

The Germans in northern Gaul? Even the Visigoths knew that the Germans were poor and fearless, and were a tough nut to crack. They had no benefits and were difficult to defeat.

As the former governor of Gaul, how could Richard not know? So he certainly would not target the Germans.

Since they are not Germanic, there are only a few targets left: the Hun Empire, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Visigothic Kingdom.

The Hun Empire was in civil strife, but its strength was not weak. At this time, the outcome of the Hun Empire had not yet been determined, and no one wanted to interrupt their war.

After all, the Huns suffered heavy casualties and even if they were reunited, they would not have the strength to invade other countries. As for the Balkan Peninsula, it is now a mess.

The Roman Empire's next target was most likely the Balkan Peninsula and the Visigothic Kingdom.

Compared to the Balkan Peninsula, the hatred between the Roman Empire and the Visigothic Kingdom was much greater. At the beginning, the Visigoths fled to the Empire, and then with the cooperation of slaves, they opened the gates of Rome.

Then, after looting Rome, the Visigoths led their army to the Spanish province, captured it, and established the Visigothic Kingdom.

It can be said that the establishment of the Visigothic Kingdom was completely like cutting off a large piece of meat from the Western Roman Empire. Coupled with the deep hatred for the looting of Rome, if the Roman Empire rose, it would inevitably come to settle accounts with them.

Not to mention Richard, it would be the same if anyone was in this position.

For the people of Rome, this was a war of revenge.

Thorismund was well aware of this, so he was wary of the resurgence of the Western Roman Empire, but he didn't have any better solution.

After all, for the Visigothic Kingdom, if it wanted to attack Rome from Spain, it had to occupy Gaul and then attack Italy from the north.

As for relying on the navy, it is almost impossible.

Italy's location is very good. In the waters between Italy and Spain, Italy occupies three large islands. These three islands are Italy's natural line of defense.

If Spain wants to attack from the sea, it must take these three islands, but Spain simply does not have such a powerful navy.

In this situation, King Thorismond could only defend or attack North Africa, using North Africa as a springboard to attack Rome.

Neither of these paths is easy.

Thorismund began to send envoys to Rome and the Germanic barbarians in the north. The Visigothic Kingdom also belonged to a branch of the Germanic barbarians.

On the one hand, Thorismund sent envoys to Rome to express friendship to Rome and congratulate Richard on becoming the emperor of the Roman Empire.

He sent messengers here to gather information and test Richard's thoughts on whether he had any intention of attacking the Visigothic Kingdom. On the other hand, he sent messengers to contact the Germanic barbarians, trying to get them to fight against the Roman Empire together.

He knew very well that in the past few years, Richard had defeated the Germans in the Gaul province, causing them to suffer heavy losses, and the Germans almost dared not move south.

If the Visigothic Kingdom could lend a helping hand at this time, the Germans would most likely join forces with them.

Thorismund had prepared for war from the very beginning. Even if the Roman Empire was not prepared to attack the Visigothic Kingdom, he was ready to join forces with the Germans.

For the Visigothic Kingdom, no, it should be said that for all the countries in Europe, a powerful Roman Empire was not in the interests of these countries.

Torismund felt that a weak Rome would be more suitable for him to nibble away at step by step.

In order to achieve this goal, Thorismund began to collude with the Germanic barbarians in the north and trade with them by sea.

Although the Germanic barbarians were fearless, their overall equipment was very poor. Many of them only had a battle axe and a helmet, and wore leather armor or even no armor. Few people had iron armor.

Among the German barbarian troops, the proportion of iron armor was about 30%, while the Gaul army had a penetration rate of iron armor of 70%, and the rest also had leather armor. In addition, they occupied a favorable terrain, which was how they were able to stop the German looting at a very small cost.

However, if the Germanic equipment is upgraded so that they have a large number of armors, javelins and battle axes, even if the Gaul province can stop the invasion of the Germanic people, the casualties will inevitably increase.

If the time goes on for a long time, Gaul will not be able to bear the loss.

In addition, if Thorismund attacked from the other side, he felt that there was a high chance that he would annex the Gaul province, or divide Gaul with the Germanic barbarians. Thorismund was salivating over the current Gaul. After Richard's governance, the Gaul province not only became the granary of the empire, but also produced a large number of handicrafts, cloth, ceramics, ironware, salt, sugar, wine, etc.

All of them are the supplies needed by the Visigothic Kingdom.

In recent years, the Visigothic Kingdom has purchased a large amount of supplies from Gaul every year and has a deep understanding of Gaul's wealth.

Soon, envoys from the Visigothic Kingdom traveled to Germany and Rome respectively.

The envoys to the Germanic barbarians soon arrived at the Germanic tribes. After learning that the Visigothic Kingdom was willing to trade with them and secretly form an alliance to deal with Gaul, these tribal chiefs did not agree directly.

In recent years, the strength of the Gauls has caused the Germans a lot of trouble, and the Visigoths are not good people either. Without sufficient benefits, these chiefs do not want to fight a war with the Gauls.

Seeing this situation, the Visigoth envoys began to put forward conditions for negotiation. After learning that the Visigoths were willing to sell them armor and weapons, these Germanic barbarians immediately became excited.

The Germanic people's iron smelting technology was not as good as that of the Romans, so their equipment had always been limited. When the Visigoths looted Rome, in addition to taking away gold, silver and jewelry, they also robbed a large number of craftsmen.

This is also the reason why the Visigothic Kingdom developed rapidly.

The Visigothic Kingdom had a large number of craftsmen to forge armor and weapons, and the quality was also good.

Soon, these Germanic barbarians became excited after the Visigothic Kingdom was willing to sell them armor and weapons at a fair price.

One by one, they called the Visigothic Kingdom's envoys brothers in order to obtain these iron tools. At the same time, the Germanic barbarians also agreed to form an alliance with the Visigothic Kingdom.

After some discussion, the Visigothic Kingdom and the Germanic barbarians temporarily reached an alliance. However, both sides had their own ulterior motives. One wanted to obtain the ironware of the Visigothic Kingdom, and the other wanted to make the other side fight to the death with Gaul.

Another envoy from the Visigothic Kingdom also soon arrived in Rome, presenting gifts and congratulating Richard on becoming the emperor of the Roman Empire.

Richard was not fooled by the arrival of the Visigothic Kingdom's envoys. Almost a year had passed since he ascended the throne.

What was the Visigothic Kingdom's envoy doing earlier? He wanted to come after staying for so long. Richard didn't believe that he came to celebrate for himself.

And since it's not for celebration, then he can only be here to gather information.

So Richard ordered people to warmly receive the envoy of the Visigothic Kingdom, and deliberately let officials take him to various places to play, let him collect intelligence, and let people spread the word that the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire were not in harmony, and a war was likely to break out.

At the same time, in order to prevent his construction of warships and formation of a navy from being discovered, Richard specifically ordered the navy to build ships in North Africa.

In addition to North Africa, Richard also established a shipyard in Sicily to build ships.

This method cannot guarantee foolproofness, but it can delay time. As long as it takes a year or two, when his fleet is formed, he can directly lead the fleet to attack the Visigothic Kingdom.

Richard didn't think the Visigothic Kingdom would be a fool to believe that Rome would not attack the Visigothic Kingdom. He just needed to make the Visigothic Kingdom temporarily believe that Richard would not attack the Visigothic Kingdom in the next few years.

When the envoys of the Visigothic Kingdom saw that the Roman Empire did not restrict their scope of activities, they went to investigate everywhere, especially several large shipyards in Rome.

No matter what the Roman Empire says, as long as it can be ensured that the Roman Empire is building a large number of ships, it must take action against the Visigothic Kingdom.

But what surprised the envoy was that no large warships were built in the ports around the entire Roman city, and the ships built in these shipyards were basically cargo ships.

The special envoy could still distinguish between warships and cargo ships. Warships were longer and narrower, faster, and more maneuverable, while merchant ships generally looked fatter because they needed to transport cargo.

As a result, among the shipyards around Rome, there was no shipyard that built large ships, and only a few shipyards built some small speedboats.

These small speedboats are also a type of warship, but they are usually used for patrolling and are not suitable for long ocean journeys.

After seeing this scene, the envoy of the Visigothic Kingdom finally felt relieved. It seemed that the Roman Empire was just as they said. Rome now did not intend to use military force against the Visigothic Kingdom, but wanted to resolve the orthodoxy dispute of the Eastern Roman Empire first.

The Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire have been engaged in a war of words for some time. Neither side is willing to give in, and both sides say that the other is not qualified to be the emperor of Rome. Only they are the orthodox of Rome.

The struggle for orthodoxy is more important than attacking the Visigothic Kingdom.

If Eastern and Western Rome really fought, it would be great news for the Visigothic Kingdom.

In addition to this information, the envoy of the Visigothic Kingdom also quietly went to see the empire's navy. Richard did not hide the entire Roman Empire's navy.

In fact, if this were to be done, the envoys from the Visigothic Kingdom would definitely find something wrong.

After all, is it possible that such a large country, which owns almost the entire Mediterranean, has no navy? And now he didn't see the navy, so there was only one possibility, that is, the navy of the Roman Empire was hiding, or preparing to attack him and his country.

Only these two possibilities can explain it.

Therefore, Richard did not transfer all the navy away, but only took a part of it. The imperial navy here in Rome was only one-third of the real navy.

Moreover, most of the ships are ordinary ships, and the large warships are all old ships. In addition to these, there are some ships converted from merchant ships.

After seeing that the Roman navy remained the same, the envoy of the Visigothic Kingdom finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The army was not expanded, no large numbers of ships were built, and prices were stable. All of these news told them that the Romans did not want to fight for the time being.

After collecting a lot of intelligence, the envoy of the Visigothic Kingdom left Rome with satisfaction. However, he was also cautious and left his followers behind for a while.

Let these followers form a caravan, mainly engaged in trade between Rome and the Visigothic Kingdom.

These people were not only merchants but also spies who stayed here. Once there was any unusual movement in Rome, these people would report to the Visigothic Kingdom as soon as possible.

(End of this chapter)