My XX deal with Sister Nero

In addition to football, Tony also plays some other ball sports, such as basketball and table tennis, but basketballs with good elasticity and plastic table tennis balls are not available in this era, so Tony has not mentioned these two ball sports for the time being.

Well, for now, a football should be enough.

"Brother, why don't you come and be my football consultant? I'll give you five gold coins every month!" Nero said excitedly.

Five gold coins? That's five thousand dollars! When I first entered the customs, I only made three thousand dollars a month. Now I can earn five thousand dollars as a consultant. What the hell is this!

"But, Your Highness, the family that took me in before..." Tony opened his mouth. He knew that if the identity of the consultant was confirmed, he might go to Rome with Nero in the future. Although Rome was prosperous and beautiful, and the living environment was much better than that of Ximu Town, but to be honest, Tony still couldn't bear to leave Tita.

"Them? Well, you can reward them with fifty gold coins when the time comes. After all, they have taken care of you for so long." Nero replied.

Fifty gold coins are worth fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand dollars is not a small amount of money nowadays, and it would have been an even larger amount at that time!

After all, the taxes collected at that time were much higher than they are now, and the money that the family could save was not that much.

The total amount of money saved by Tita's family now is less than a hundred gold coins.

"So... you bought me?" Tony raised his eyebrows and asked.

"I guess so. You are my brother and I redeemed you." Nero laughed.

Tony sighed and said, "Your Highness... Sister, I know you like me very much, but I don't think it's a good idea to bring me back to the palace at this time. You are the only heir to the empire now, so you don't need to worry about someone competing with you for the throne. But if I go back, the consequence may be that we will go to war. Even if I don't want to be the emperor, there may be ambitious people who will force me to do so."

It is indeed possible!

Nero frowned. If things really came to this, she would never accept it.

"Okay, let's not consider this issue for now. Let's think about the football match first!" Nero thought about it and decided to change the topic.

Nero and Tony put aside their discussion about football and talked about something else.

In the evening of that day, Lius arrived at the camp. Most of the infantry in the city had now gone up to the city walls for defense, and only the thousand cavalry were left in the camp.

After all, cavalry are not very useful in city defense battles. Apart from being able to play a role in the final street fighting, they can't do anything in the attack and defense of city walls. You can't just put all the cavalry on the city walls to fight the enemy, right?

"Your Excellency, Commander of the Legion!" Seeing Liuus coming, Tolva, the vanguard officer who was in charge of leading the cavalry this time, stood up and saluted.

Lius nodded, glanced at Toleva, and said, "Thank you for your hard work today. The woods to the northwest are big enough for you 1,000 people to hide. Remember, don't let the enemy find you. Don't be careless because they don't have the habit of sending out spies!"

Toleva nodded and said, "I understand, sir."

Toleva was also an old subordinate of Lius. He was brave and careful, and one of the best fighters in the legion. It was for this reason that Lius gave this task to Toleva.

As soon as it got dark, Toleva led a thousand men out of the city from the south gate and rushed towards the grove in the northwest.

Silent all night.

At dawn the next day, Tony, who lived in the refugee area, was awakened by the sound of war drums.

"The war has begun!" Tony woke up immediately after hearing the sound of war drums. He got up and put on his leather armor and lining hanging not far away. He hung the dagger around his waist and rushed out of the tent.

"What happened? Is the enemy attacking the city?" When Tony rushed out of the tent, there were already quite a few refugees in dishevel standing in the open space in the camp, talking in low voices and looking towards the north city wall with nervous expressions.

At this time, two Roman soldiers in red uniforms without armor came in from outside the camp gate and said to everyone, "Please be quiet. The Thracian soldiers have just started to prepare to attack the city. Don't worry, the stones thrown by their catapults cannot hit here, and they have no way to attack the city, so please don't panic and stay calm."

Looking at the attire of the two soldiers and the wrinkles on their faces, Tony could guess that they were actually two militiamen. The so-called militiamen were actually veterans who had passed the service age. In today's terms, this is called a reserve force.

Tony actually fell into a misunderstanding very early on.

He had been thinking about a question before.

How could the Roman Empire, the first empire in Europe that dominated almost the entire Mediterranean coast, have a total military force of only 240,000? By this calculation, it was only slightly more than the direct forces of the Thracian Kingdom. If the Thracian Kingdom counted the forces of all the tribes, 240,000 would not be enough to cope with it.

In fact, it is not actually calculated like this.

The Roman Empire adopted a compulsory military service system. On normal days, it only had 240,000 field troops, but in times of war, all men between the ages of 17 and 46 were obliged to join the army and form a national army. Although the combat effectiveness of this national army was not as good as that of the field army, with such a large troop base and the fact that they had all undergone a certain degree of military training, the Roman Empire could mobilize a million-strong army at any time once it entered a state of war!

By the way, the so-called militia refers to men between the ages of 47 and 60. This group of people are no longer suitable for going to the battlefield, but there is no problem for them to stay in the city to maintain law and order.

After everyone quieted down, the two militiamen looked at Tony, and one of them said, "Your Highness felt that Tony... Mr. Tony should be protected, so he specially arranged two people to come and protect Mr. Tony."

As soon as the militiaman finished speaking, two female soldiers in fine armor appeared behind them. They came to Tony, knelt on one knee and said, "By order of His Highness, we will be your personal guards from now on."

interesting!

The armor of these two people is the same as that of the German guard who came before. It seems that they also belong to the Germanic Brigade, but these two people are women and should be specially used to protect Nero.

Or you can understand it from another perspective.

Nero is the princess, so naturally she cannot have a male bodyguard. These two should be specially summoned to protect Nero.

Last night...I fell asleep...

Chapter 34: A Melee

Let’s not talk about protecting Tony for now, and talk about the other side.

Outside the north city wall, Tarsa, the chief of the Ister tribe, looked at the city wall not far away and said, "General Dida, can you lead our Thracian warriors to capture this Thessalonica?"

In front of Tulsa, a middle-aged general in armor said, "Chief, please believe me! Believe in the warriors of the Ister tribe. We will definitely be able to capture Thessalonica and capture Nero alive today!"

Tulsa nodded, drew a dagger from his waist, pointed at the wall of Thessalonica, and shouted: "Warriors of the Ister tribe! Attack!"

"Charge!" With the sound of the horn, Dida drew out the Machalla machete from his waist and rushed towards Thessaloniki at the lead.

Seeing the enemies rushing up in a chaotic swarm, Levius sneered: "Although the Thracians are terribly brave, it is a good thing that they are ignorant of military strategy and don't know how to fight. Otherwise, my Roman Empire would be in danger!"

At this point, he smiled, turned his head and said to the messenger beside him: "Pass the order down, the catapults in the city can be launched."

The Roman Empire's catapults and the Thracian catapults are completely different. Let's put it this way, the Thracian catapult's effective attack range is only about 500 steps, which is about 250 meters, and its maximum attack range is only 800 steps.

However, the maximum attack distance of the Roman Empire's slingshot reached an astonishing 1,500 steps, which is a range of more than 700 meters!

As a city, Thessalonica certainly does not have many siege weapons. As for the most advanced and destructive siege weapons, there are only three catapults in Thessalonica.

Under the command of Levius and the operation of the soldiers, three catapults fiercely threw out huge stones!

How big is the stone projectile used in this slingshot? Well, it's not that big, only about one meter in diameter. One stone can easily smash a person into a pulp.

It could be said that this stone bullet could kill anyone who was touched by it, and the Thracians came in a swarm to attack the city, and the catapult, which was not very accurate to begin with, actually hit the target with three shots, killing more than ten people in one go!

However, these small casualties will not cause any psychological pressure to the Thracian warriors.

The Romans' slingshot was too large, and each time it was used it took a long time to lower the long horizontal arm to load the stones for the next wave of attack. So by the time the enemy was about to rush to the city, the slingshot had only killed less than thirty enemies.

"Heavy shieldmen, step forward; archers, get ready!" With the shout of the herald, the heavy shieldmen holding long shields stood in front of the archers, forming a thin defense to prevent the sparse arrows shot by the enemy from killing the archers. Then, the archers of the Roman Empire began to draw their bows and arrows and obeyed the orders.

"put!"

As the herald's order was issued, the archers of the Roman Empire loosened their bowstrings. With a "buzz" sound, a black cloud seemed to rise from the north wall of Thessalonica and flew towards the Thracians.

"Raise your shields quickly!" Dida shouted while commanding his guards to build a shield wall in front of him to prevent being injured by enemy arrows. However, Dida did not know how many Thracian warriors heard the shouts and raised their shields.

Although the archers of the Roman Empire were not as capable of shooting continuous arrows as the archers of the Qin Empire, the arrows of the Roman Empire were still enough to deal with the Thracians whose brains were full of muscles.

The Thracians almost had to step on the corpses of their companions as they advanced to the city wall with difficulty. Then the ladder soldiers began to set up ladders, and a large group of Thracians climbed up the city wall along the ladders, preparing to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

"Pour kerosene!" Seeing that the enemy had started to climb up, General Lius calmly gave this order.

On the city wall, the soldiers who heard the order began to pour the pots of kerosene that had been prepared long ago toward the outside of the city. Then, bursts of screams were heard from outside the city wall.

The so-called kerosene actually refers to petroleum. Pouring a pot of boiling petroleum into the water is so beautiful that even the author dare not imagine it.

In short, not long after, a strange smell of meat wafted outside the city wall.

"Send a signal and let the cavalry attack." Looking at the enemies rushing towards the city wall one after another, Lius said calmly.

"Yes!" Beside Lius, the herald took out a special arrow from the quiver on his back after receiving the order, then drew the bow like a full moon and shot it towards the sky!

When the arrow was shot, there was a huge noise and then it went straight into the sky like a monkey with a "whoosh".

The rattle arrow was originally invented by the Huns leader Maodun Chanyu more than two hundred years ago. Although the Huns were driven away by the Eastern Han Empire, they are probably still wandering on the Russian steppes, so Tony shamelessly "invented" the rattle arrow again.

In fact, there is no need to invent the rattle arrow. Just find an arrow, hollow out the shaft, and drill a few holes on the outside. Such an arrow will make a loud noise during flight and can be used to convey alarms or send signals, hence the name rattle arrow.

In a small forest outside the city, Toleva was cheered up when he heard the signal. He jumped on his horse, drew his dagger, and shouted to his men: "All troops, attack!"

As Toleva spoke, the thousand cavalrymen rushed towards the rear of the East tribe like tigers descending from the mountains!

Almost all the warriors of the East tribe went to the front line. Except for the tribal leader who did not go to the front line, there were only more than fifty personal guards left at the back.

Hearing the sound of horse hooves behind him, Tulsa frowned, turned his head to look at the smoke and dust behind him, and said, "Our warriors are back so soon?"

Hearing Tulsa's question, the captain of the guard turned around and took a closer look at the cavalry galloping towards them. He couldn't help but exclaimed: "Captain, it's the Roman cavalry!"

How could the Roman cavalry appear behind him? What on earth did these cunning Romans do? Tulsa had no time to figure out these questions, because he knew that he only had about fifty people in his hands. If he didn't run quickly, it would be over!

This cavalry unit must have about a thousand people!

On the other side, when Toleva led a large army to attack the rear of the Ister tribe, he saw a team of cavalry with sophisticated armor from a distance. He could guess the identity of this cavalry unit with just a little thought.

"Hurry! Follow me to capture Tulsa alive!" Toleva shouted loudly.

"Damn bastard!" Seeing the Roman cavalry rushing straight towards him, even a fool could guess that his identity had been exposed, so he didn't say anything and rode his horse directly to the east.

There was no way out. To his south was the city wall of Thessalonica, which had become a battlefield, and to his north were Roman cavalry. So all he could do was to run away quickly, otherwise his life would be in danger!

I will announce the new rules of the game tomorrow.

Chapter 35: Nero is a voice control

Once Tulsa runs away, things will get serious!

Logically speaking, seeing so many cavalry charging towards him, it would be a relatively correct choice to escape with insufficient manpower, but the problem was that Talsa was the leader of the East tribe and the pillar of support for the 20,000 soldiers in front!

When the leader ran away, the flag-bearing officer also ran away with the flag in hand. After all, their leader had run away with his personal guards, so if he didn't run away, would he be alone holding a big flag to attack the enemy?

As soon as the flag-bearer ran away, the soldiers on the front line were confused.

Who will give orders if the boss runs away? What happened next? Why did the boss run away? Did the boss see the danger and run away without us?

A series of questions appeared in the minds of the soldiers at the front, and almost in an instant, the morale of the entire army was in turmoil.

As a veteran who had fought on the battlefield, Lius naturally saw that the enemy's morale was wavering. If he didn't fight back at this time, when would he do so?

"Order the entire army to charge out!" Liuus drew his dagger and ordered the herald beside him. At the same time, he led his personal guards down the city wall and rushed towards the city gate.

Hearing the shouts and cries gradually fading away, Tony said to the guard beside him in a bored manner in the refugee camp: "It sounds like we won?"

When the female guard heard Tony's question, she tilted her head and listened carefully, then said, "That should be it. From the sound of it, it seems that General Leus has already led the warriors to chase after them."

The Battle of Thessaloniki can basically come to an end here.

The official record of this battle in the Roman Empire is as follows.

On July 807, 7 in the Julian calendar, Tarsa, the leader of the Ister tribe of the Thracian Kingdom, led an army of 23 to attack Thessalonica. Princess Nero led more than troops to defend the city. At o'clock in the morning, they repelled the enemy, captured Tarsa alive, killed more than enemies, and captured .

In the governor's residence, Tony suddenly asked a question while watching the entourage taking notes: "Ten o'clock in the morning? How do you know it is ten o'clock in the morning?"

Nero was stunned for a moment, and said, "Brother...Mr. Tony, don't you know? Isn't there a water clock in the city for timekeeping?"

Water clock? Tony just remembered at this time that he had learned about this thing in history class. The water clock should be the first clock invented in the world. It seems to have been invented by the Egyptians. It is normal to have a water clock to tell time in this era.

"Your Highness, you have to understand...there is no such thing in Creekwood Town." Tony shrugged indifferently and said.

"Okay." Nero heaved a sigh of relief after the follower left, and said, "I was almost exposed just now."

Tony sat on the chair with an innocent look on his face. He picked up a golden cup beside him, poured himself a glass of water, and took a big gulp. He said, "Now that the war is over, what are you going to do?"

"Let's start with rewards. After all, your contribution in this war is quite great." Nero said with a smile.

Although Tony hardly participated in the war, his two inventions were truly epoch-making!

The invention of the stirrup fundamentally changed the way cavalry fought, allowing them to play a greater role on the battlefield, while the sidewinder solved the problem of being unable to communicate on the battlefield. Before the invention of the sidewinder, due to the lack of items to transmit signals, generals could only rely on their own experience to judge when to attack from ambushes. Sometimes they attacked too early and alerted the enemy, and sometimes they attacked too late and the entire bait army was wiped out. Now with this thing, even inexperienced generals know when it is correct to attack and cooperate.

Therefore, it can be said that Tony's two inventions greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Roman Empire.

But for Tony, these two things are not a big deal at all. If you travel back to ancient times and don’t make guns and cannons, you would be embarrassed to say that you are a time traveler.

However, Tony himself knew that guns were not so easy to make, at least in this era. Not to mention that you couldn't make a gun barrel, you couldn't even make one if you didn't have gunpowder!

"Isn't it just stirrups and rattlesnakes? That's nothing. But if you want to reward me, that's fine. I don't care about the title now, but I certainly won't object if you give me something practical, hehe." Tony rubbed his hands while smiling.

Damn, those titles are just empty talk, money is the most important thing!

"You..." Nero shook his head, feeling both angry and amused.

"By the way, how about this, while I'm still here, let's have a football match, okay?" Nero suddenly remembered that now that the war is over, it seems like a good idea to have a football match!

Tony thought about it and said, "Okay, but the venue and other things must be in accordance with the standards."

"Standard? What is the standard?" Nero asked curiously.

Tony thought for a moment and said, "Do you have any white lime here?"