Rome must fall.

Chapter 341 Brix's Anxiety

Nine department heads were directly promoted to knights by Maximus without any military merits. For example, the legion commander Pecot was only one merit away from being promoted to the third-class viscount, and Maximus encouraged him. Carminus, Phesalus, Toleruge, Aulus, and a few other officers with outstanding military merits were only a few merits away from being promoted to the third-class viscount...

Maximus found a balance and did not focus on one or two troops to win the entire war. Instead, he divided the big pie of the war equally among the four legions. Of course, the four legions performed very well and did not lag behind.

In any case, this tribal commendation meeting was a big dividend given by Maximus to his loyal subordinates. Not only did he give them 20 acres of land as a reward, bringing their respective land holdings to 100 acres, but he also announced in public:
These tribesmen who have been promoted to knights are the nobles of the Nix tribe. When other tribesmen meet them in public, they must greet them, give way to them, and address them as "Sir So-and-so". They enjoy priority when riding in boats, cars, and shopping. In the villages where they live, they have the right to assist the village chief in resolving disputes among villagers, the right to supervise the village chief and his subordinates, and the right to make suggestions...

Although the Ministry of Justice had previously sent personnel to read out the details of the twenty-title system to each village, Maximus' public speech at this time left a greater impression on the tribesmen.

Finally, Maximus also announced that the Nix tribe would hold a grand festival of the goddess Danu every midsummer to pray for a good harvest. At the same time, each town would select a rugby team to compete in Ophidalia, and the final winner would represent the entire tribe to offer sacrifices to the temple.

After the conference, the tribesmen returned to their respective towns (villages) and told their neighbors and friends about the grand occasion of the conference, which greatly stimulated the tribesmen's ambition to make achievements and advance, and also made them look forward to the summer festival next year.

At the same time, all the new members of the tribe have the same question: What is football?
Just when they took the initiative to consult the old members of the Knicks tribe, a new decree came from the Council of State: the football team members sent by each town to participate in the summer festival must be composed of one-third of the old members of the tribe, one-third of the new members of the Segestica tribe, and one-third of the new members of the Scodischi tribe.

Then, the Chief Executive of Ophidili, Sikrops, conveyed the decree to all villages: Starting from the beginning of next year, Ophidili will hold a rugby competition, and each village must send a team to participate. The team must be composed of one-third of old tribesmen, one-third of new Skodiszi tribesmen, and one-third of new Skodiszi tribesmen. The final winning team will be decided before the summer festival begins, and then this team will represent Ophidili in the rugby competition of the tribal festival.

So the village chiefs, while urging their people to farm, also began to rack their brains for the establishment of a football team.

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Brock Chief Brix is ​​now regretting his decision.

He was the first one to escape back to the territory, but in order to bring the remnants of other tribes back safely and to make up for his mistake, he stayed in a temporary military camp on the western edge of the territory for more than half a month.

During this period, he learned the news that "the Nix army invaded the territory of Segestica and occupied its main camp." Although he was surprised, he was not anxious, because he did not think that the Nix army with a small population could annex such a large Segestica tribe.

After consulting with several other great chiefs, the Pannoni tribal alliance sent a group of envoys to the main stronghold of Segestica, preparing to negotiate a temporary peace and truce with the Nixes. The purpose was to reclaim the Pannoni warriors captured by the Nix army, so that the major tribes could recover faster and better appease the warriors' families.

During the more than 10 days that the envoys spent traveling back and forth, Brix had already stopped searching for the defeated soldiers. Of the more than 4 main forces of the Pannonian coalition, only more than returned alive. In order to ensure the expedition of the army, Brix had exhausted the entire tribe's food reserves and was unable to support the returning army, so they were stranded in the Brochi territory. Therefore, the soldiers returned to their own tribes one after another.

Only a few big leaders did not leave. They were waiting for the return of the envoys.

However, the envoys brought back bad news: the Nixes refused to negotiate with the Pannonian tribal alliance.

This made several chiefs angry: a year ago, the Nixes agreed to the peace talks requested by the chief of Segestica, Kabudes, and signed a one-year truce agreement, releasing many captives. However, today, this emerging small tribe actually ignored their peace talks, which meant that it would continue to be the enemy of the Pannoni tribal alliance. As for the other sentence that the Nixes asked the envoys to bring back: "The Nixes are willing to have separate peace talks with other Pannoni tribes except Brochi and Mazii..." The envoys did not say it in front of the five chiefs, but the envoys of each tribe would naturally tell their own chiefs in private.

Although the Pannoni chiefs hated the Nix tribe with a vengeance, the current conditions of their respective tribes prevented them from launching another war.

Under Prikas's pleading, everyone only reached a rough agreement in the alliance meeting: the Nixes have become a major threat to the Pannonian tribal alliance, and they must be eliminated by all means! The chiefs returned to their territories and had to appease the tribesmen as soon as possible, raise military funds, and strive to form another army after the autumn harvest to defeat the Nixes, recapture the territory of Segestica, and then look for an opportunity to completely annihilate the Nixes.

When bidding farewell to the four great leaders, Temajis, Demikas, Metilis and Pachilas, Brix always felt that the expressions of these four people were a little strange, perhaps because of the influence of what his own envoys told him privately.

A month had passed since Brix fled back to his territory and the leaders left. During this month, he felt more and more that the Nix people were threatening his territory.

The Segestica people who escaped from various villages first came to the Gonamai Lake area. When the tribes in the Gonamai Lake refused to accept them, they had to pour into the Brochi territory one after another, which led to some conflicts with the Brochi people.

Bricks did not drive these fleeing Segestica people out of the territory because Broch suffered heavy losses in the war and became short of labor. So he tried his best to persuade various tribes to accept these refugees as much as possible and hire them to work for the tribe.

Due to the vigilance of the Nyx people, the envoys of the Tribal Alliance were blindfolded with black cloth when entering and leaving the territory of Segestica, and were not allowed to go out when they were in the Ophidilla village. Therefore, Bricks had no way of knowing from them the situation of the Nyx people in the territory of Segestica.

Instead, I learned some information from these refugees: the Nixes used methods such as giving them more land and making them tribal nobles to lure the Segestica people to join their tribe. People like them who were unwilling to surrender could only quietly flee the tribe to the south. Some people who were unwilling to surrender but did not want to escape became slaves of the Nixes, and many greedy and ignorant Segestica people joined the Nixes... Because the Nixes sent small fully armed troops to various tribes in Segestica, these tribes did not dare to resist at all due to the lack of warriors. At least when they fled, there was no conflict in their tribes...

The news he got made Brix very uneasy. Although these refugees did not have a comprehensive understanding of the measures taken by the Nixes in the Segestica territory, it was still obvious from the few words they told that the Nixes' invasion of the Segestica territory was not just out of revenge and plunder. The Nixes had a greater ambition - to annex the entire Segestica!

They stationed troops in various tribes of Segestica and formulated special laws to lure the people of Segestica... This was obviously a carefully planned plan in advance, and it seemed to be very effective, because these refugees came from the core area of ​​Segestica, from the tribes near the main village of Segestica to the tribes near Lake Gonamami. This shows that the Nixes have already controlled the core area of ​​Segestica, and the speed was completely beyond Brix's expectations.

Bricks misjudged the Nyx's intention to invade, and hoped that the Nyx army would consume its strength in the constant conflict with the people of Segestica. In addition, he had to spend a lot of energy dealing with matters after the defeat. Later, he also hoped that the envoys sent to negotiate peace would bring back good news... Therefore, more than a month was wasted.

Bricks is now getting anxious: if the Knicks gain a foothold in the territory of Segestica, it will be a disaster for Broch!
But as soon as he revealed his intention to help the Segestica people drive out the Nix army at the tribal meeting, he was unanimously opposed by the leaders for one reason: there were no soldiers and no food.

Because the tribal army he led suffered such heavy losses, some leaders even criticized him at the meeting. They not only demanded that he make compensation to the tribes, but also proposed to deprive him of his command over the tribal army as the chief.

Fortunately, the recuperation policy that Brix had been implementing over the past decade had kept the entire tribe in a stable order and developed well, and everyone was grateful for that, so in the end he managed to pass with less than half of the votes.

But this was the first time that Brix had encountered such a severe criticism since he took office as the chief. While he was angry, he also became cautious. For this reason, he did not dare to discuss with the tribesmen under his direct jurisdiction, but instead set his sights on Plicas and his gang who were stranded in Brochi's territory.

(End of this chapter)