My XX deal with Sister Nero

Including the previous rewards and the pocket money given by Nero later, the total amount is almost one hundred gold coins. In addition, Tony is about to take office as the lord this time. Nero also took a look at the current income of the town and decided to give Tony an additional 300 gold coins as financial start-up capital.

In addition, considering Tony's safety, Nero selected a cavalry battalion from his personal guards to serve as Tony's guard. You know, every royal member like this should be equipped with a cavalry squad as a guard, and each cavalry squad has twenty-four people, and two squads form a battalion, so the number of people in a battalion is about forty-eight.

Now, the only direct troops that are absolutely loyal to Nero are these two cavalry battalions. The fact that Nero can send one of them to guard Tony at once is enough to show how much he likes this adopted brother.

In addition to this cavalry unit, Nero also equipped Tony with other talents.

For example, some craftsmen, several administrative staff, and some other items. Considering the safety along the way, Nero even mobilized a reorganized legion of more than 4,000 people to serve as guards.

There were still some bandits in the Roman Empire, but no bandit was blind enough to challenge an entire legion.

Early that morning, after saying goodbye to Nero, Tony put on his armor and headed towards the British province.

It generally takes nearly two months to travel from Rome to the small town of Odini in the British province. By the time Tony arrived at the town of Odini, it was already autumn.

The Governor of Britain, Decianus, had long known that a prince would live in the province under his jurisdiction. Considering that he was the emperor's younger brother, Decianus had made preparations early in Camulodunum, the capital of the British province, to welcome His Royal Highness the Prince.

When a large army sets out, there must be outposts ahead. By the time they cross the English Channel and set foot on British soil, it was already almost early October.

Tony didn't know the exact location of Kamlodunum in the original world, but in this world, Kamlodunum was roughly located in Essex County, northeast of the later city of London. It only took a week to reach Kamlodunum from the southernmost tip of Britain.

On the morning of October 12, Decianus, who was still asleep, was awakened by his subordinates, who said that a cavalryman had come to report that His Royal Highness's large army would arrive in the afternoon.

"Is this Britain?" Tony couldn't help feeling a little disappointed as he looked at the scenery in front of him.

We just landed at sea a few days ago. Tony can understand why you said this place is remote and there are not many people, but why haven’t we seen many people after passing one or two small towns?

The Province of Britain! This is the 43th province of the Roman Empire! Almost ten years have passed since it was designated as a province by the Roman Empire in AD. Why is it still like a barbarian country? It's called a small town, but it's not even as good as a village!

It seems that I have miscalculated. I thought that this place has been part of the Roman Empire for ten years and it should have begun to be Romanized. However, I didn't expect that this place doesn't look Roman at all. Even most of the houses in the small towns I came across are still thatched huts with mud walls.

Oh my god, is this still in the Neolithic Age?

Tony just felt that he had a long way to go.

Fortunately, Camulodunum, the capital of the province of Britain, still resembles a Roman city.

Although the city wall is not high, it is built with stone slabs. The whole city is not big, but there are still some brick and wood houses in the city. Except that the roofs are not covered with tiles, Tony generally feels like he has returned to his rural hometown in his previous life.

Of course, many rural areas now have small Western-style buildings, and brick-and-wood structures like this are rarely seen.

The Governor's residence in Kamlodunum is not big, a small two-story house with a small front yard. The only decoration in the front yard is the small pond.

"Tsk, Governor Decianus, you live a pretty poor life." After being welcomed into the Governor's Residence by Suetoius, Tony took a close look at the small Governor's Residence and said.

ps1: Now the total collection is 571, the recommendation vote is 505, the monthly ticket is 22, the reward is 1300, the valid comment is 1, the valid intermittent post is 19, and the current owed update is 79. The next update condition is 581 collections, 529 recommendation votes, 32 monthly tickets, 1500 rewards, 50 valid intermittent posts, and 50 valid comments. Any one of the conditions will be met.

ps2: The cover is the April Fools' Day card illustration of "Marry the King". Well, this was made by the editor and an artist. The picture I chose at first was full of energy, but it was rejected because the reason was too revealing. Later, I said I would take a photo of my own figure, but it was rejected, so the cover became this picture

ps3: I have a cover now! I don’t know who can say I don’t have a dick! [Justified]

【%

Chapter 56: Future Territory

Having said that, Tony simply didn't believe that the Governor lived in poverty.

He might have no impression of the name Decianus before, but it would be strange if he had no impression of the identity of Governor of Britain.

Decianus was a close confidant of the previous emperor Claudius. In 43 AD, Claudius conquered Britain and established the th province of the empire, namely the province of Britain, in southern Britain. Decianus became the first governor of the province of Britain.

The Decianus of this world, like the Governor of Britain in the other world, is secretly planning something.

After Claudius conquered Britain, he reached an agreement with Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni Kingdom, that is, Prasutagus would hand over half of the territory to Nero, the successor of Claudius, and make it a direct territory of the empire in exchange for the nominal independence of the Iceni Kingdom.

Now that Claudius is dead, Prasutagus should hand over half of his territory according to the agreement. Although it is not known whether he is willing to hand it over, at least, as a good governor who is willing to help his boss solve problems, Decianus decided to force Prasutagus to death and then seize the entire Iceni Kingdom from his successor.

However, because Prasutagus had no sons but only daughters, Boudica was the heir to the Iceni Kingdom. Therefore, the reason why Boudica later rebelled was that in order to obtain the Iceni Kingdom, Decianus used force against Boudica and her two daughters.

In that era, I think you can guess what methods could be used on women without me specifying them here.

In short, this incident became the direct fuse of Boudica's uprising.

Then everyone knows that the Iceni Kingdom was no match for the Roman Empire. At that time, the Roman Empire was dealing with rebellions in other places and had no time to deal with the Iceni Kingdom. But a year later, the wars in other regions ended and the Roman Empire finally had enough energy to deal with the Iceni Kingdom. So Boudica's final fate was defeat and death in battle.

But nothing has happened yet, so Tony can't say anything now.

At Decianus' invitation, Tony attended the welcome party that Decianus had prepared long ago, along with the captain of the guard and the general of the reorganized legion responsible for protecting him.

In addition to local government officials, some wealthy people in the city also participated in the welcome party. When they heard that the Governor was going to hold a banquet to welcome His Royal Highness the Prince, almost everyone in the city who had a little money or power was trying their best to bring their families to attend the banquet to see if they could curry favor with him.

Honestly speaking, Tony was rather disgusted by such political banquets, because such banquets meant that he had to deal with people he didn't want to deal with and couldn't eat to his heart's content.

"Your Highness, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Victor. Mr. Victor is a wealthy slave owner in our British province. He has a lot of cheap and high-quality slaves under his command. Your Highness, please go to the town of Odney. I know that your Highness is kind-hearted and always cares about the people. If you need slaves to do any construction work there, you can ask him for help." As he spoke, Suetous turned sideways and pointed at the fat and big-eared Mr. Victor.

"Hello, Mr. Victor." Tony raised the glass in his hand as a greeting.

Looking at the orange liquid in the wine glass, Victor smiled and raised his wine glass filled with wine, saying, "If Your Highness is interested in slaves, you can come to me in the future. I will definitely give Your Highness the lowest price."

As a man from the future, Tony has never had much good feelings towards class enemies like slave owners. But after thinking about it, he realized that the town has a small population and many things cannot be done. Buying slaves to fill the labor gap may be a good choice.

Thinking of this, Tony shook the wine glass in his hand and said, "I'm still young, so I can only drink juice instead of wine." As he spoke, Tony drank the juice in the glass.

"It's okay. Your Highness is still young, and it's normal for you to drink less." As he said this, Mr. Victor drank the wine in the glass.

After finishing the glass of wine, Victor wiped his mouth, pulled a blond girl of about sixteen or seventeen years old from behind him, and said, "Your Highness, this is my daughter, her name is Tiffany."

"Hello, Your Highness..." The girl named Tiffany hid most of her body behind her father, only sticking her head out and looking at Tony timidly.

After taking a closer look at Tiffany, Tony felt that this girl was still a little cute, but only a little bit. Using the scoring standards of modern society, this girl would only score 3.5 points, which was slightly better than an average-looking girl.

"Hello." Tony nodded at her and said.

Tony understood Victor's tactics. To put it simply, he was just going to arrange a blind date for his daughter to see if the prince would like her so that he could get rich overnight.

But his daughter was not pretty, so this plan of achieving success overnight was doomed to fail.

After attending the social event for an entire afternoon, Tony was exhausted both physically and mentally. When everyone finally left in the evening, Tony didn't want to do anything. He just wanted to go to bed early so he could go directly to Oddney Town tomorrow.

Early the next morning, Tony bid farewell to the Governor and marched towards the town of Odney.

The province of Britain is not very large, and it only takes about a week to reach the border town of Oddney from the capital.

Dilapidated and backward, this was Tony's first impression of the town of Odney.

The town is not big, surrounded by only a circle of half-man-high earthen walls to protect the town. The best house in the town is the official residence of the chief executive. It seems that the previous chief executive did not live a good life. It has mud walls and thatched huts. The only difference between this house and other houses is that it has an extra half-man-high mud wall.

"Your Highness..." Inside the carriage, the maid who was responsible for taking care of Tony's daily life frowned as she looked at the dilapidated town.

Tony shrugged, looked at the town after getting out of the car, and said, "The only good thing about this town is that the air is good and fresh."

Just as Tony was sighing, a middle-aged man in a robe walked over quickly in the town and said, "Your Highness, I am Thomas, the chief executive of Odney Town."

Tony nodded, looked back at the large army behind him, and said, "The legion responsible for escorting me, please help everyone set up the tents first. Hmm, there should be an open space nearby."

The legion commander nodded and said, "Okay, Your Highness. I will take people to do it."

"Then let's go, Lord Mayor. I want to see what my future territory will look like first."

There will only be one update tomorrow, and as for the day after tomorrow... it depends on the situation. It's already 1 a.m. when I get home, and I have to see if there's anything to clean up at home.

Chapter 57: Formation of a Town Hall

Walking on the soft muddy path, Tony looked at the villagers who were looking at him curiously. Tony said to the mayor, "As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. This infrastructure project must be started. How many main roads are there in the town?"

"There's only one main road, and it's only about half a mile long," the mayor answered truthfully.

Half a mile is only 800 meters. Looking at the so-called road in front of him that would be completely unrecognizable when it rained, Tony said to the administrative official following behind him: "Write this down first. We have to repair the main road in the town first."

The official nodded and kept the matter in mind.

The mayor's house is located in the center of the town. Compared with other people's houses, it just has a small and useless yard. It seems that this house is not as good as Antonio's house.

"What is the current financial situation of the town?" Tony asked as soon as he walked in and sat down.

Thomas said, "The town's annual income last year was 28 gold coins. The town has also had various expenses in recent years, so there are currently about 36 gold coins in the treasury."

Thirty-six gold coins? What the hell is this?

For an ordinary family, thirty-six gold coins is already a huge sum of money, but for a small town, thirty-six gold coins are of no use at all, right?

One gold coin is equivalent to one thousand yuan. Go to the future society and see which country has a small town with an annual income of only more than 20,000 yuan? A small town has a deposit of only more than 30,000 yuan. Are you embezzling?

Taking a deep breath, Tony said, "Well, what is the main source of revenue for this town?"

The mayor replied: "The main source of income now is the income from hunters selling their game to Sanoni City. In addition, there is also the income from selling a small amount of timber."

Is it mainly income from hunting?

Tony touched his chin. Hunting was not a long-term solution. Hunters had a limited range of activities. What if all the prey in the area was hunted?

"Hunting is not a long-term solution. We have to find a way to make money and sustain it for a long time." Tony touched his chin and muttered.

Thomas, who was sitting next to him, almost laughed out loud when he heard what Tony said. Find a way to make more money and maintain it for a long time? It's easy to say, but how can it be so simple? If it really can be thought of in a snap, Thomas would have thought of it long ago. How can it be your turn as the prince? Oh, yes, now it should be called Your Highness the Prince.

But it's good that His Royal Highness has this intention, even though he's not very reliable.

"Mr. Thomas, do you have a map of the town?" Tony thought for a moment and asked.

Thomas shook his head and said, "We are just a small town. There are few educated people here. No one knows how to draw a map, so there is no map."

"Okay." Tony nodded.

At this moment, a female soldier in armor came into the house and said, "Your Highness, your tent has been set up."

The small town of Odney was divided into the territory of His Royal Highness the Prince. Although the people in this town did not understand what this news meant, at least they all knew one thing, that is, the Emperor's younger brother would live in this town.

So when the British province learned the news, Governor Decianus allocated a special sum of money and, led by the treasurer of the city of Sanoni, built a castle south of the town of Odni.

In this era, most castles only have two functions. One is to be a frontier fortress, used for border defense, supplemented by buildings such as watchtowers, to form a more three-dimensional defense unit. The second function is to be used for garrisoning troops in inland areas.

The town of Odni is located on the frontier. Although several kingdoms and tribes to the north of the town are vassal states of the Roman Empire, the possibility of their rebellion cannot be ruled out. Taking this situation into consideration, Decianus decided to build a fortress-like building, which has a certain city defense system and is also suitable for the residence of nobles.

Although this building has been under construction for almost a month and a half, it is still quite large after all. The area of ​​a castle is basically equivalent to half a town, so in this month and a half, only the foundation has been laid and the first floor of the main building has been built.

Through the foundation, Tony could roughly judge what the castle looked like.

According to the craftsmen, the main building is a three-story stone building, which will become the future office and resting place for His Royal Highness the Prince. Behind the main building is a small back garden, and in front is a relatively open small square.

On both sides of the square are some servants' rooms, a small armory and a storage room. The entire castle will be guarded by a six-yard-high wall, and there will be a small number of arrow towers on the wall to provide a certain degree of support.

In short, compared to those gorgeous castles that have been commercially transformed later, this castle gives people a gray and ugly feeling just by looking at the design drawings. But it is undeniable that if it is really built, the defensive power of this castle is still quite considerable!

However, the construction of the castle takes a lot of time. During this period, the city of Sanoni built a temporary residence for his prince. It has a separate entrance and courtyard, and is made of stone bricks, a typical Roman residence.

The courtyard is almost completed, but before it is completed, Tony has to live in a tent temporarily.

"It seems that this town has a lot of problems." Tony said as he immediately gathered a group of his subordinates after returning to his tent.

"Your Highness, I took a look. The organization reported by this town is a guard team composed of townspeople, with a number of thirty people. But when I inquired, I found out that the town's guard team actually has only ten people, and the only weapon they are equipped with is a piece of sharpened wood." Tony's guard captain Mary said.

"So weapons and equipment are not allowed either?" Tony raised his eyebrows.

Mary nodded and said, "Yes, the quality of the soldiers is also very poor, but considering that this place has never experienced war, it is already very good that there is a force responsible for maintaining law and order in the town."

"Okay, things have to be done one by one. Let's do this. You guys go and make the arrangements. First, reorganize the administrative agencies here. The administrative power will be transferred to the City Hall. The administrative issues of the town will be the responsibility of the City Hall in the future. The director of the City Hall will be Varo. The Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Agriculture will be set up below. Well, let's set up these four departments temporarily. You guys go down and assign them. Who will stay in which department according to their expertise. Sister Mary will be in charge of the military of the entire town. After two days when everything is completely settled, let the blacksmiths prepare first. At least they have to make some iron gun heads. They will use a wooden stick to fight. What if the enemy comes?" Tony arranged.

Seeing everyone nodding, Tony was very happy.

I've wanted to try farming for a long time. Now that I'm giving out orders, at least I look like a leader, right?

In fact, what this author really wants to say is that it is fortunate that the instructions issued by Tony were rather vague. If he had really issued some more detailed decrees, the entire city hall might have been led into trouble by him!

PS1: The total collection now is 650, the total recommendation is 542, the total monthly ticket is 22, the reward is 1400, the valid book review is 3, the valid intermittent post is 26, and currently 82 updates are owed. The condition for the next update is 681 total collections, 559 recommendation tickets, 32 monthly tickets, 1500 reward, 50 valid book review, and 50 valid intermittent post. Any one of the conditions will be met.

PS2: I’m really sorry for the late update today. I was tidying up in the afternoon and had no time to write. I’ll write a little more in the evening and try to update one chapter tomorrow.

PS3: Tomorrow is Wednesday. Logically, the new round of activities should end tomorrow, December 12th at 19:23, but when I arrived at the airport it was already past one o'clock and I had no time to count, so the activity time is extended to December 59th at 12 o'clock. The new conditions for additional updates will be announced tomorrow.

Chapter 58 Damn Capitalists

As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. After Tony had just set up the framework of the town hall, the first thing the town hall had to do was to gather a few stonemasons and ask them about road construction.

Due to the conditions at the time, it was basically impossible for Tony to build a cement road. However, building a gravel road that did not require much effort was something that Tony could do alone, let alone a stonemason, as long as he had enough time. There was a shortage of labor, so Tony had to let these stonemasons serve as temporary labor.

There were not many stonemasons brought from Rome, only about ten in total. Even if all of them were mobilized, they could not repair a road in a short time, so Tony decided to recruit thirty people in the town. Although the people recruited were his subjects and this project was also a livelihood project, Tony did not intend to use this as a threat to recruit a group of free laborers. So after inspecting the main road, he said to the former mayor Thomas who was following him: "I don't know much about the market, so I just want to ask, how much does it cost to hire a laborer?"

"Your Highness, it doesn't cost money to hire a laborer. I don't know what big cities are like, but in the small towns near us, if you want to hire laborers, I think you only need to say that you can provide two meals a day, and that will attract many people."

My mother is so cheap? Hearing this, Tony seemed a little unbelievable.

In the future, or in the world where he originally lived, even if you hired a coolie, you would have to pay him two to three thousand yuan a month.

"So what do these workers usually eat?" Tony thought for a moment and asked.