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

Chapter 626: The Journey of the Empire

Richard was fully aware of the actions of the Visigothic Kingdom, but he pretended not to know and watched the Visigoths perform. He even deliberately gave orders to cooperate with the Visigoths in some actions, making the Visigoths think that their plan was flawless.

On the other side, in North Africa, Richard began to build new ships. Richard quietly transported the large wood of the Roman Empire to North Africa. At the same time, various senior shipbuilding craftsmen from Rome were also sent to North Africa.

The shipyard was also built in a specially chosen secluded area, and Alea and her witches were put in charge of the shipyard's affairs.

In order to complete the construction of the ship as quickly as possible, Alea drew craftsmen from the original shipyard in North Africa and also recruited a large number of ship workers from Egypt and other places.

At this time, Mediterranean trade was almost cut off due to the war, and many shipyards had stopped working. Now the Roman Empire paid for the acquisition and quickly recruited a large number of shipyards from all over the country.

With these craftsmen involved in the construction, the shipyards in North Africa were built very quickly.

On the other hand, all the shipyards in North Africa were used to build warships, and the construction of local merchant ships was inevitably affected, so Richard deliberately had these ships repaired in the Roman shipyard.

Let the Visigoth spies see that the Roman shipyards were busy every day and had no time to build warships.

The whole plan went very smoothly. Even the spies wrote in their letters to Thorismund:

"In Rome, trade is recovering rapidly. Various goods are shipped here from all over the country. Merchant ships outside the port are crowded on the sea. The shipyard is full of merchant ships that need repair. Rome has no time to build warships."

"The Roman emperor likes luxury and beauties. Eastern silk, sugar, lacquerware, Greek pottery, etc. are widely sought after here. I heard that the emperor has also accepted several beauties. Apart from these, the emperor is not interested in monotheism."

"The original state religion of the empire has now become an ordinary religion, even becoming insignificant. Now in the Roman Empire, the influence of monotheism is rapidly declining, but I found that monotheism has not given up. Perhaps we can support monotheism to fight against the Roman Empire."

"After all, we both believe in monotheism."

Before seeing the letter, Torismund was still a little skeptical, but after reading the letter, he immediately thought of something.

"Sure enough, supreme power will quickly corrupt people." Torismund said to himself as he looked at the letter in his hand.

From a commoner to the governor of Gaul, and then to the Roman emperor, the span of time is only a few years. It is very likely that an ordinary person will become arrogant and enjoy life wantonly.

So, after reading the contents of the letter, Torismund immediately felt that Richard was beginning to enjoy himself and become decadent.

After all, who wouldn't be proud and arrogant after such a long journey from being an exiled civilian to rebuilding an empire?
Therefore, Thorismund believed the news in the letter very much, and began to plan to go a step further in his heart, making Richard fall faster, and then he would continue to attack and occupy Gaul with the Germans, and even finally completely occupy the entire Roman Empire.

With this idea in mind, Thorismund became more active in the alliance with the Germanic barbarians and increased various weapons assistance.

At the same time, King Torismund continued to have people collect intelligence about Rome, and also sent people to contact the Vatican, expressing his willingness to believe in monotheism and establish monotheism as the state religion in order to gain the support of monotheism.

The Visigothic Kingdom's previous beliefs were monotheism and some other small religions. This time, monotheism was directly established as the state religion, which immediately surprised the monotheistic people.

The newly appointed Pope also began to use his influence to help the Visigothic Kingdom.

Time passed quickly, and Richard saw clearly the operations of the Visigothic Kingdom, even the transactions between them and Monotheism.

Richard was a little surprised that Monotheism and the Visigothic Kingdom were linked together, but this was exactly what I wanted. When the Visigothic Kingdom was destroyed, Monotheism would definitely be greatly affected.

Next, Richard continued to control North Africa and vigorously built warships and trained the navy.

At the same time, reforms within the Roman Empire were also being carried out step by step, and the first reform was the Equal Field System. Gaul and North Africa had already completed the Equal Field System, but the situation in Italy was more complicated. However, under his strong promotion, the Equal Field System was still rapidly promoted.

Those original lords were either stripped of their titles and exiled for various reasons, or simply killed, and in the end only a few remained.

In addition, due to the large number of deaths caused by years of war, the population was insufficient, and basically every citizen was allocated land.

The second order, the Abolition of Slavery, was promoted together with the Equal Field Distribution Order. After more than a year of promotion, the results of the Abolition of Slavery were very good. A large number of slaves who were originally unwilling to become free men had agreed to become free men.

They were distributed land and started to live their lives. The slave owners who originally controlled a large number of slaves were either killed, changed their careers, or were exiled.

In the past, these noble slave owners controlled land and a large number of slaves, so they had money, food, and people. As long as they wanted, they could immediately pull out an army. Richard would naturally not allow such powerful lords to appear in the empire. He gave these people two choices. Either go to the areas that the empire has not yet fully controlled. Richard would enfeoff them as lords and provide them with food and weapons to allow them to develop here.

Or he could give up most of the land and all the slaves and become a simple noble, although he could also hold an official position.

If neither of them agrees, they will be taught a lesson by Richard's army.

When Richard was implementing these reforms, the nobles would not easily give up their slaves and land, so rebellions broke out in various places. However, how could the armies of these nobles fight against the elite troops in Richard's hands?

Under the leadership of his extraordinary knights, one noble after another was directly wiped out, the men were exiled to North Africa, and the women were sent to the palace or rewarded to meritorious officials.

The family property was confiscated, the territory was directly recovered, and the land was distributed to the people in various places. At the same time, these extraordinary knights also received military merits.

Richard planned to assign these extraordinary knights to various places as vassals. These vassals would own land and troops and be responsible for guarding remote areas of the empire.

With these extraordinary knights around, those remote areas with inconvenient transportation are basically unable to escape the control of the empire.

After more than a year of development, the Roman Empire finally recovered some of its vitality. Under the influence of the equal distribution of land and the abolition of slavery, the Roman Empire's land tax would inevitably increase explosively.

At the same time, because Richard vigorously developed commerce, he abolished the tax-exempt rights of the nobles and reformed commercial taxes, which greatly increased commercial tax revenue.

In the past, commercial taxes were collected almost once every time a city was reached. In some places, lords even collected the taxes multiple times. As a result, taxes were collected more than a dozen times on the trade route from Gaul to Rome.

Except for the caravans of the great nobles, other caravans simply did not dare to go to these places, which is why maritime trade flourished.

After all, it is impossible to set up checkpoints to collect taxes at sea. Taxes are only required when entering the port.

After Richard's reform, commercial taxes were changed to a one-time collection. As long as the commercial taxes were paid once, one could move freely within the empire. Of course, ports and transactions needed to be taxed again.

His trade reforms were naturally opposed by the nobles and local authorities. However, facing Richard, these people's opposition was useless.

Eventually, the commercial tax reform was implemented, and the trade route from Rome to Gaul was restored. After the trade route was unblocked, a large number of merchants began to spontaneously go to Gaul and Rome to trade.

In the past, there were very few caravans passing through here, and those places could not collect much tax. However, after the reform, the number of caravans increased dozens of times. Even if they could not collect taxes from the caravans, they could still make money by providing food and accommodation.

These caravans would also trade along the way, and local governments could collect some taxes.

As a result, the local governments soon discovered that the profits they were now gaining were higher than before, so no one opposed the commercial tax reform anymore.

In addition to the commercial tax reform, Richard's biggest reform was to the military. All the troops were taken over by the emperor of the empire, and all imperial generals no longer had their own armies. They could only have one general guard at most.

The number of a general's guard ranges from fifty to two hundred, depending on the rank of the officer.

The general only has the power to command the army, and if he wants to mobilize the army, he needs the order of the emperor.

At the same time, the logistics and pay of the imperial army were also the responsibility of other departments. The military merits and promotions were counted and reported by the gendarmerie. After the general's approval, they were reported to the emperor for promotion.

After this reform, the personnel and financial power of the army were controlled by the emperor of the empire. If he still could not control the imperial army, then the emperor would have no need to continue to serve and should die as soon as possible.

Richard's reforms brought new vitality to the empire, and the entire empire could almost be said to have been torn down and rebuilt. After the reforms, Richard added a large number of official positions in the central government, allowing these people to assist the emperor in governing the country.

At the same time, the Senate system officially withdrew from the stage of history. The Roman Empire officially became a centralized monarchical empire.

In order to implement these reforms, Richard employed a large number of witches and scholars, who were basically Richard's die-hard fans, and the entire empire was completely under his control.

After he integrated the empire, it began to show its fangs.

After more than a year of development in the shipyards in North Africa, a large number of new ships were built. Together with the merchant ships built by Richard in Rome, a naval fleet has gradually taken shape.

(End of this chapter)