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

Chapter 630: The Weird Emperor System

The Gallic Legion's counterattack came very quickly, just like a violent storm. The Germanic barbarians, who were still immersed in looting, had never expected that the counterattack would come so quickly.

Tens of thousands of cavalry quickly maneuvered and interspersed, and combined with the beacon fortresses in northern Gaul, they directly surrounded a large number of Germanic people.

In order to guard against these Germanic barbarians, northern Gaul built a large number of beacon towers and stronghold castles along the Rhine. Previously, because of the attack on the Visigothic Kingdom, this place could only passively defend, allowing the Germanic barbarians to escape these defense lines with small troops and plunder outside the city.

Now the army came back to help, tens of thousands of elite cavalrymen blocked the retreat of these Germanic barbarians. Then the army pressed forward.

These small-scale fighting Germanic barbarians were no match for the organized army. If they relied on their small numbers and flexible guerrilla warfare and hid in the mountains and forests, they could still hold on. However, these Germanic barbarians believed that it was glorious to die in battle and they simply did not have the IQ to do so.

Except for a few Germanic barbarians who fled into the mountains when they saw the situation was not good, the vast majority of the rest were dealt with by the Gallic Legion.

These Gallic legions have been fighting the Germanic barbarians for decades, and in recent years they have been suppressing the Germanic barbarians. They have no pressure in dealing with them.

In just one month, the invading Germanic barbarians from the north were all eliminated, and the cavalry also rushed across the Rhine and carried out retaliatory looting on the Germanic barbarian tribes on the north bank of the Rhine.

These elite Gallic cavalry came and went like the wind, equipped with bows and arrows, long swords and armor. Some of them were mounted heavy infantry, and some were rangers. They were very effective in dealing with these Germanic barbarian tribes.

Finally, when these elite Gallic cavalry returned, they captured thousands of Germanic barbarian slaves.

Although Richard has abolished slavery, slaves obtained through war looting will be sent to mines in various places to work for three years. If they are just ordinary people, they will need to open up wasteland for five years before they can regain their civilian status.

After this war, the Visigothic Kingdom was directly destroyed by Richard. Several small countries in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula also surrendered to Rome and expressed their willingness to become vassals of the Roman Empire.

Richard did not continue to attack these small countries, but accepted their surrender. At the same time, Richard divided the Iberian Peninsula into two parts, one of which was the Spanish province, which covered the area near Toulouse, the territory of the Visigothic Kingdom, and part of the area west of the Pyrenees.

The remaining area up to the Strait of Gibraltar was divided into the Iberian province, and the area near the Strait of Gibraltar was divided into the North African province.

Richard did not divide the provinces according to the terrain of mountains and rivers, but deliberately separated the gateway of the Iberia province. This is like the ancient Dongda, which separated Hanzhong and Bashu.

The advantage of this division is that even if the local governors rebel, all the strategic passes and terrain in various places are in the hands of the central government. The rebels cannot occupy the strategic passes, making it easier for the central government to send troops to suppress them.

Similarly, Richard divided the Gaul province into two provinces, Gaul and Rhine. Richard also planned to divide the North African province into two provinces, Carthage and North Africa.

Although doing so would increase fiscal costs, it would also create checks and balances, making it difficult for local governors to become powerful.

This also increases the number of official positions, allowing more people to be assigned to manage them.

This will provide more official positions and recruit talented people into the country's management, rather than letting them start causing trouble after they see no hope of advancement.

After the implementation of the equal distribution of land and the slave liberation order on the Iberian Peninsula, there was still a lot of land to be reclaimed. Although half of the Iberian Peninsula is mountainous, there are also many plains.

These plain areas would require a large population to cultivate, and the entire Roman Empire was now short of population.

During the heyday of the Western Roman Empire, the population was almost 23 million. After years of war and barbarian invasions, the current population of the Western Roman Empire is only about 10 million.

This is because many barbarians and Huns migrated here. If these people were removed, the population might only be seven or eight million.

After all, Italy has a Mediterranean climate, with different periods of rain and heat, which is not conducive to agricultural production, and its food is highly dependent on the outside world. At the same time, Italy has many mountains, which is not conducive to farming.

Therefore, Richard has been migrating Italy's population to Gaul and North Africa during this period to increase the local population density and to relieve the pressure on Italy.

The equal distribution of land is not a panacea. If a place has little farmland, many mountains, and a large population, then even if the land is distributed equally, people will still not be able to eat enough.

So the best way is to migrate the population and move more people to areas suitable for farming.

In North Africa, Gaul and the Iberian Peninsula of this era, the population-to-land ratio was very low, so it was more suitable for development to migrate the population to these areas.

In fact, with the agricultural level of the Western Roman Empire at that time, it could only feed a population of 30 to 35 million at most.

But humans are not statistics, and it is impossible for them to be absolutely average, not to mention natural disasters and man-made disasters. Therefore, the peak population of the Western Roman Empire is estimated to be between 25 million and 27 million.

In comparison, the environment of the Eastern Roman Empire was much better. The Balkan Peninsula and Asia both had vast plains.

These places are more suitable for farming than Rome, but there are also more nomads here. But overall, they are much better than the Western Roman Empire.

The Eastern Roman Empire was not in a good state at the moment. Egypt was in rebellion, the Balkans were in chaos, polytheism reappeared in Greece and spread rapidly, and Asia was not peaceful. The good news was that the Huns, the original enemy of the Eastern Roman Empire, had split up. Without the pressure of the Huns, the Eastern Roman Empire could rely on its own capabilities to regain control of those lands bit by bit.

However, Richard would not give them this opportunity.

After solving the Visigothic Kingdom, the Western Roman Empire had basically recovered most of the land. The Germanic barbarians in the north were beaten up by Richard and at least they could behave themselves for a few years.

The local lords in northern Italy no longer dared to confront Richard, and Richard was going to recover the Eastern Roman Empire next.

Regarding the policy of dividing the Roman Empire into two and governing them separately, Richard felt that the emperor at that time was just stupid. You can appoint governors to govern and divide the land into provinces and appoint governors, but you must never divide the emperor into two.

Two emperors ruling separately is a natural way to cause division. If there are two emperors in the empire, which emperor will the ministers listen to? What if there are serious disagreements between the two emperors?
What’s even more bizarre is that the Roman Empire was not just divided into two emperors, but for a period of time it was directly divided into four emperors. Yes, four emperors.

Richard didn't know whether to say that this person was generous or stupid.

He not only divided Rome into East and West Rome and had two emperors, but on this basis, he also divided the Eastern and Western Roman Empires into two vice emperors.

Thus, the Roman Empire saw the strange phenomenon of having four emperors.

How can you allow others to snore on the side of the bed?

This practice eventually led to a fierce power struggle in the Roman Empire and also laid the groundwork for the decline of the empire.

Richard turned his attention to the Eastern Roman Empire. If he wanted to conquer the Eastern Roman Empire, the most important thing was Byzantium, which was once a fortress city built by Greece.

The city is easy to defend but difficult to attack, as it is surrounded by the sea on three sides.

At the same time, if you want to attack here, you need to conquer the Balkan Peninsula first. As for the sea route, you also need to take control of Greece first.

The Greek Islands are strategically located on the shipping route from Rome to Byzantium.

Richard was prepared to have two armies attack Greece by sea.

In fact, Richard had started preparing to retake Greece a long time ago. As the stronghold of polytheism, the Greek Islands have never been interested in monotheism.

Otherwise Athens would have been renamed long ago.

After Richard occupied Rome and announced the abolition of monotheism as the state religion and freedom of religion, polytheism began to revive in the Greek peninsula.

After the split, the power of monotheism was greatly reduced and it could no longer suppress polytheism.

Although Greece is still under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire, as long as Richard sends troops, the polytheists in Greece will respond.

So it was not difficult for him to capture the Greek peninsula. The difficult part was to capture Byzantium.

The city of Byzantium is not easy to conquer. You have to know that when the Eastern Roman Empire fell, it took a lot of effort to conquer this city.

Even after several failed attacks, they had to retreat. Thanks to this city, the Eastern Roman Empire escaped several catastrophes. Now it was Richard's turn to attack this city.

More importantly, as the base camp of the monotheistic Gnostic sect, the resistance here is bound to be very fierce, and he must take these situations into consideration.

After conquering the Visigothic Kingdom, Richard taught the Germans a lesson and then led his army back to his loyal Rome.

Next, Richard began to immigrate to Italy, moving more people to Spain, Gaul, and North Africa.

At the same time, farming was encouraged, and improved agricultural tools and horse or ox plowing were promoted.

It has to be promoted. The Roman Empire implemented a crop rotation system, and farming could only be done once a year.

If this level of farming is not improved, the empire will not have enough food. This world consciousness restricts extraordinary power, otherwise Richard can directly use extraordinary power to transform some seeds, and he won't have to worry about food problems.

After the army returned to Rome, Richard began to reward the soldiers who had made meritorious services. Richard was not stingy with these people.

He had all the titles and fiefs. As for the extraordinary knights under his command, Richard began to assign them to remote areas with inconvenient transportation or imperial management.

(End of this chapter)