My XX deal with Sister Nero

"This is not a solution!" In a villa in the suburbs, Marcus looked at everyone in the study and said anxiously.

"Do you have any solution to the problem?" Otto asked, sitting at the desk, picking up the glass beside him and taking a sip of wine.

Just as Tony had guessed before, the citizens of Rome had no idea who Cefalu was or how strong he was. They could only know Cefalu's strength through the battle damage ratio.

But if we look at the battle damage ratio, how strong is Sefalu?

An army of more than 100,000 men defeated the white giant at the cost of more than 4,000 casualties.

Therefore, it is easy for these people who are not familiar with military affairs to come to the conclusion that the so-called white giant is not as powerful as the rebels.

After all, there are 6,000 rebels.

With an army of more than 100,000, is it necessary to cede half a province to win over the rebels to deal with such a thing? No need, right? There are even many people wondering why His Majesty didn't take the opportunity to destroy the Egyptian rebels while destroying this white giant?

The most important thing is that the Senate did not spread rumors. His Majesty really ceded half of the Egyptian province to the rebels!

"We must first understand what His Majesty wants to do." Seneca tapped the table lightly. "If you just want to prevent rumors from spreading in the city, it's very simple. Just notify General Finius and have him take the guards to the streets to arrest people. That's it."

"That's impossible." Vitellius waved his hand and said, "This is only a temporary solution. Although it can stop the spread of rumors, in reality, everyone still thinks that Your Majesty is selling out the country."

"That's right." Finius nodded and said, "It's not that simple. If we want to solve it, we must first know what happened on the front line and why His Majesty did this. Only then can we handle this matter according to His Majesty's ideas... Nerva!"

"Yes, General Finius." Hearing someone calling him, Nerva, who was standing outside the gate, pushed the door open and walked in, looking at Finius and asked, "General, what can I do for you?"

"Is there any news from His Majesty?" asked Finius Zhou with a frown.

"This..." Nerva looked at Finius awkwardly and scratched his head.

"Alas..." Finius sighed. His Majesty has not replied to them. How do you think they should deal with this?

"Master Nerva." At this moment, a young man dressed as a guard suddenly appeared beside Nerva and knelt on one knee: "Master, here is a secret letter from the city of Kyria."

coming!

When they heard the name of the city of Keria, everyone present's eyes lit up almost instantly. His Majesty believed it!

Nerva took a piece of cloth in a small wooden tube from the guard, glanced at it briefly, and then handed it to his father Marcus.

"I see." After reading the whole letter, Marcus nodded and handed the piece of cloth to everyone to circulate. After everyone had finished reading the secret letter from His Majesty, Marcus said, "It seems that the matter has been clarified. His Excellency Caesar and His Royal Highness originally planned to get something for nothing, but unexpectedly the plan went wrong, resulting in the Egyptian rebels who should have been annihilated suffering little loss. And His Majesty took the initiative to bear the stigma for His Highness for His Highness's honor."

"In some ways, Your Majesty... is a good sister." After two minutes of silence, Seneca suddenly sighed and said.

As Nero's teacher, Seneca naturally knew that although Nero seemed to be very playful and not doing his job properly, her grades in various subjects were still quite good. She was a typical academic master. Even before she became emperor, she gave advice to Claudius and came up with many good policies, which were unanimously praised by the senators in the Senate.

Now... I'm just being a little playful.

"Okay, now that everyone knows where the problem lies, we can probably guess that the public opinion problem in the city is most likely caused by those old guys in the Senate. The rest... is that we should think carefully about how to guide public opinion in the city." Marcus sat back in the chair in front of the desk and said calmly.

PS1: Three additional chapters will be added, so there are still 90 chapters to be added~

PS2: I have to go out for something tomorrow, and I don't expect to be home until pm at the earliest. I will code one chapter today, and then set a time to post it tomorrow. If there is a second chapter, it may be very late. Well, everyone should go to bed early, and you can read the second chapter the day after tomorrow morning~ So~ Good night~

Chapter 300: Find a few logicians to fool them strategically and that's it.

How to guide public opinion in the city is indeed a problem.

The cession of territory is a real fact. No matter how you guide public opinion, you cannot get around this hurdle. So from this point of view, Nero's side has always been at a disadvantage in public opinion.

"What do you think?" Seneca asked, frowning and tapping the table.

"Hiss..." Everyone frowned and lowered their heads, trying to think about what to do.

"Sir Marcus, what do you think?" Seeing everyone keeping their heads down and keeping silent, Seneca suddenly looked at Marcus and asked.

"This..." Marcus smiled bitterly and shook his head. "Mr. Seneca, this is really a rather troublesome problem. On the one hand, the whole city of Rome has basically spread the news that your Majesty is a traitor. Secondly, your Majesty did cede half of the province to the Egyptian rebels. We can't deny this fact, right? Even if we deny it today and the people believe it, it will be a foregone conclusion in a few days. The Senate only needs to take out the relevant evidence and put it in front of everyone. By then, it will deal a greater blow to your Majesty's prestige."

At this point, Marcus paused for a moment and continued, "And we can't tell the truth and say that this was decided by His Excellency Caesar and His Royal Highness, and that Your Majesty was just taking the blame."

"I bet that if you tell this to anyone today, His Majesty will kill you when he comes back," Vitellius joked.

"So I think we can't rush this." Otto suddenly said, "Because the situation is a bit tricky, it's not something we can come up with a solution to in a short time. Plus, this rumor has probably been circulating in Rome for a few days, so we don't need to rush today."

"There is no rush, but we need to come up with a countermeasure. If we allow rumors to ferment, it will not be good for your Majesty's reputation." Seneca said in a flat tone.

Although what Seneca said made sense, but...but no one could come up with any ideas at the moment.

Just as everyone was thinking hard, a guard suddenly appeared at the door, knelt on one knee and said, "Master Nerva, there is a secret letter from the city of Kyria."

Hmm? What else does His Majesty want?

Nerva was stunned for a moment, took the bamboo tube from the guard and waved the guard away, then took out the cloth from the bamboo tube and glanced at it roughly.

"This is... Your Highness is truly worthy of being called Your Highness!"

"Huh? What's wrong?" Seneca raised his eyebrows and asked Nerva.

"Your Highness has anticipated that the Senate will launch a propaganda war, so he has already formulated corresponding countermeasures. It's just... there's just one thing I don't quite understand." Nerva handed the cloth to Seneca while speaking: "What does your Highness mean by the logician he mentioned?"

Taking the cloth from Nerva, Seneca carefully read it from beginning to end, then he let out a sigh of relief and nodded, saying, "It is undeniable that the young prince... is truly a genius!"

To put it bluntly, the so-called war of public opinion is actually about who can set the pace best. If anyone completely masters the pace, he will be the winner of this war of public opinion.

In his previous life, Tony was a moderator of a forum with 300,000 members while he was in school. He was active in the forum all year round and could be said to be a well-known rhythm master.

Public opinion war? In my previous life, I had been active in Tieba for seven or eight years and I had never lost!

Tony's strategy is actually very simple. Nero ceded land. This is a fact, a fact that cannot be avoided. Since it cannot be avoided, then don't avoid it. Just make a fuss about it!

As for how to write this article...it's really simple.

What a strategic deception!

Why were Roman farmers more concerned about practical matters than medieval farmers? The reason is simple. The Roman Empire was a vast and prosperous empire, not a kingdom or city-state like the Middle Ages, which was constantly at war and divided by warlords. The Roman Empire under Nero was especially prosperous economically, and it was also a rare period of luxury and decadence in the history of the empire. Why did the farmers of this period care about practical matters? It's simple, because they had nothing better to do.

That's right, as grain production increased and people's basic needs were met, farmers naturally had to find something to do to pass the time, like drinking and bragging.

Whether they are Roman citizens or country farmers, in essence they are a group of people who have nothing to do and just brag. There is a characteristic of these people when they brag, that is, they like to add fuel to the fire, giving people a feeling that they are there at the scene.

So everyone just needs to set a tone, or a rough story, and these guys who have nothing to do will help fill in the details and correct the mistakes.

As for the tone... it's simple. Your Majesty is definitely smarter than you commoners, right? Then doesn't Your Majesty know that ceding land is wrong?

Of course Your Majesty knows!

Your Majesty, knowing this, why did you cede the land? Selling out the country? You know, since Augustus, the province of Egypt has been the private property of His Majesty the Emperor. Even if His Majesty wanted to sell out the country, he shouldn't have ceded the province of Egypt. But His Majesty has ceded the province of Egypt now... It's obvious that His Majesty must have other plans!

As for what your majesty is planning... you can just make it up. Since it's just a scam, there can't be only one version. Prepare several different scam versions, and then make one that looks more real and credible, such as an official speaking out of turn after drinking, and you're done!

Everyone here is a smart person. Tony didn't explain everything in detail. He just gave a general idea. The rest... depends on how you improve this tone.

In terms of wisdom, any one of you here is not necessarily dumber than Tony. But in terms of political tactics, I'm sorry, Tony is really no match for any of them.

What makes Tony better than them, apart from the knowledge accumulated as a keyboard warrior two thousand years later, is his open-minded thinking.

He knows his strengths and weaknesses. If he tells some things thoroughly, he might expose his true colors. Instead of doing that, it is better not to tell them clearly. He keeps things vague and gives people a feeling of being mysterious and foggy, making people unsure of Tony's true colors. This way, it will be easier for Tony to handle some things.

Of course, there is another reason why Tony didn't say a lot of things this time, that is, the piece of cloth is not big enough, and Tony can't write down all his ideas...

In short, Tony wrote down a general response method and now handed it to Seneca and others to perfect his ideas. Afterwards, Seneca will arrange for people to throw these stories out into the city to carry out a new round of strategic deception.

Chapter 301: Let’s open a market and make some money!

"Brother, how do you know that the Senate will launch a public opinion war against me?" Standing on the deck at the bow, Nero looked at Tony with some curiosity and asked.

"Isn't this simple?" Tony shrugged. "We are all logicians, so who doesn't know who? The Senate is bent on restoring the Republic. When the Senate learned that my sister ceded half of the Egyptian province, it would be strange if they didn't take advantage of the situation, right? Especially when there is a piece of shit like Windykes among these senators."

"Eh?" Nero was stunned. His younger brother... seemed to have a strong hostility towards Windex?

You know, although Vindex was radical at that time, he had not yet dared to rebel openly, especially because he was the governor of Gaul, and Vindex had a good reputation in Gaul.

So…why does my brother dislike Windex so much?

Why did Tony dislike Vindice? The reason is simple. Vindice's rebellion was a fuse. In 68 AD, Vindice started a rebellion. The Senate took this opportunity to lie that there were rebellions all over the country. After Nero fled Rome in panic, they declared him an "enemy of the people" and forced Nero to commit suicide. How could Tony not dislike Vindice?

Sometimes Tony even really wanted to hire two mercenaries through Zero to assassinate Windex.

"Senate... I'm afraid it's time for some elders to step down." Tony muttered to himself as he took a deep breath and looked at the setting sun not far away.

"Your Highness, the information you want is all here." Tony returned to his cabin, took a document from Mary, nodded, and spread out the cloth with a serious face.

Spurius, a senator of the Roman Senate, was also a member of the secret group "The Glory Society".

The so-called "Society of Glory" is actually a more radical group within the Senate. After all, the Julio-Claudian dynasty has ruled for almost a hundred years. The Senate at this moment is much more complicated than the Senate during the reign of Augustus. The senators have formed small factions for their own interests. The two most famous factions are the royalists led by Seneca and others, and the other is the "Society of Glory" who are determined to restore the republic.

"Spurius, this guy...tsk tsk." In the Glory Society, Spurius is not as radical as Windex. It can even be said that his style of doing things is more conservative and stable. At least, Tony has never heard of this elder Spurius taking the initiative to raise any issues related to the restoration of the republic.

After reading all the materials about Spurius, Tony had a general understanding of this person. He could not be called a bad person, but he was not a good person either. If he had to make an evaluation, he could only say that he was a qualified politician, a qualified politician who was very good at gaining power and wealth for his family.

"This information is definitely not collected completely. I think this elder...is not that clean!" Tony muttered to himself, tapping the table lightly.

From a modern perspective, Spurius's background is not clean. If he were placed in the modern officialdom, he would probably be shot in five minutes for what he did. However, in the Roman Empire, in that slave society, everything Spurius did was within certain rules. What Tony called clean only meant that his actions did not go beyond the rules.

"Forget it, let's talk about it when we get back. There is no professional intelligence organization, and I am not very convenient to arrange many things at sea now... I can only talk about it when I get back."

As Tony thought this, he opened the window, put the cloth on the candlestick, lit it, and threw it into the sea through the window.

Tony didn't think of shifting the blame to the Senate, but it would be troublesome if he did so, and Tony...there was no way he could write so many words on the cloth given to Nerva, so Tony simply let them disrupt public opinion in Rome.

Just as Tony himself commented, just find a few logicians and use their strategies to fool people and that's it.

However, this incident was a warning to Tony. Although he now had more than 10,000 troops, he did not have the corresponding intelligence agencies and some subordinates who did the dirty work. To put it bluntly, he might not even understand the senators he knew in the Senate.

Without an intelligence gathering department, he couldn't even collect the most basic personal intelligence.

It seems that I still have a lot to do after returning to Rome.

For example... the Nero Festival that everyone has been waiting for! 【%

Before heading south to resist Cefalu, Tony had already made written preparations for the Nero Festival. All that remained was external publicity and preparations for other venues.

According to Tony's plan, the scale of the Nero Festival should be almost the same as the future Olympic Games, but the problem is that the Roman Empire is too large. Let alone promoting the Nero Festival abroad, Tony now has neither the time nor the energy to let everyone in the Roman Empire know that the Nero Festival is about to open.

But it doesn't matter, Tony can at least guarantee that all the nobles in the city of Rome should have heard about the Nero Festival.

According to Tony and Nero's plan, the entire Nero Festival will be officially held on the third day after they return to Rome. For this reason, the nobles throughout the city of Rome are gearing up, hoping to achieve excellent results in this Nero Festival.

Compared to those Roman citizens who have nothing to do but mindlessly follow the crowd, whether His Majesty is a traitor or not has nothing to do with them. The older generation cares about whether this will have any impact on the interests of their families, while the younger generation cares about... what the hell, what does this have to do with them???

So, instead of paying attention to the gossip in Rome, it is better to be down-to-earth, practice more, prepare more, and strive for a good result in the Nero Festival.

In a small room of a bathhouse in Rome.

"Are you... sure?" Vitellius asked, looking at the man in front of him with a charming smile.

"Of course, this is what Your Highness meant." The young man nodded and said to Vitellius, "Your Highness is short of money, Your Highness must know this. There is no other way, Your Highness has to do everything he can to make money, so Your Highness plans to make some pocket money through the Nero Festival, but Your Highness has no connections, and Your Highness Vitellius happens to have one, so..."

"I understand, but how does Your Highness plan to divide the profits?" Vitellius nodded and asked.

His Highness intends to use his place to open a betting site and make some money, which is harmless. Even if he loses in the end, he can afford this amount of money. The point is... in this way, he and the young prince can be said to be a community of interests.

Almost all officials in the Roman Empire knew that His Majesty doted on His Highness. To what extent did he dote on His Highness? That's right, this little prince was currently the most likely to become the next emperor.

If I could establish a good relationship with this young prince in advance, then... my future prospects would be limitless!

PS: I’m exhausted after a busy day, so I’m going to sleep!

Chapter 302: Isn’t it natural for a sister to marry her younger brother?

Tony is poor. Even though he is a prince and is above everyone else...or is it possible that that person is below him?

Well, in short, even though he is a prince, to be honest, he may be the poorest nobleman in the entire Roman Empire.

Generally speaking, although the salary of a noble in the Roman Empire was not very high, they had various ways to make money. In addition, they would open their own wineries, estates, etc. to make money and increase their income.

But what about Tony?

Although he is the only fiefdom noble in the Roman Empire, this fiefdom cannot bring him any benefits.

The reason is simple, there are too many Sarmatians.

Before the arrival of the Sarmatians, the Odeni Territory could rely on taxes to achieve self-sufficiency and still have some money left over. However, since the arrival of the Sarmatians, given the Odeni Territory's current financial situation, they had to bear the Sarmatians' initial financial expenditures. In less than a month, all of the Odeni Territory's previous savings were basically consumed.

In order to prevent his brother's territory from experiencing a large-scale irreversible fiscal deficit, Nero secretly asked the British province to provide a certain degree of support to the finances of the Lords of Odeni through various means. It is precisely because of this that the Lords of Odeni can now barely maintain a balance between income and expenditure.

Therefore, Tony's territory currently cannot bring him any additional financial income.

As for him? He had no manor, no winery, or any other sweatshop. His biggest source of income was the pocket money his sister gave him every day.

I don't know why I suddenly feel sad.

In short, after sailing on the sea for several days, Tony and his crew finally arrived in Rome.