sweeping the world

Chapter 826 The largest city in Greece?

After becoming the supreme ruler, one cannot be domineering and do whatever one wants, so the attractiveness must be reduced a lot.

Among all the countries in the world, only a few supreme rulers can do whatever they want, which is based on the premise that all violent institutions belong to the supreme ruler, and those who have mastered the force naturally have the power to do whatever they want.

Although Augustus on the Roman side has armed forces, such as those legions, not all legions are loyal to Augustus, and each family has its own private army.It's the same with force in hand, not one party holding a knife and the other paralyzed on the ground, waiting to be beaten to death if they want to do it, naturally they have scruples.

In many countries, as long as they have sufficient financial resources, they can form a family private army. The ruler can easily wipe out one or two families who control the family private army. However, once they do it, it will inevitably cause panic and make countless people control it. When the families of the private army unite, even if the ruler wins, he won't be able to gain much, and if he loses, he will be overthrown.

The cost of doing it is too high, and it becomes a rational choice not to do it if you can do it, and it constitutes a political balance point. When the ruler cannot be domineering, he usually has to learn to compromise if he doesn't want the country to be chaotic.

"So for a long period of time, each family has its own expansion direction?" Wang Meng is very curious about the rise of Rome, and has asked a lot, and when it comes to the most critical point: "Caesar, Sulla, Crassus... They established the strength of Daqin?"

"Publius Cornelius Scipio is a sage." Marcus Marca said that this man was a famous Roman general in the war with Carthage: "The most critical war for our rise It was the victory over Carthage, and the final destruction of Carthage."

In short, Carthage’s indestructibility will always be a stumbling block to Rome’s expansion. If Carthage is not resolved first, the rise of Rome will be impossible to talk about, and there will be no such thing as Caesar and others. Rome will always be A regional powerhouse trapped in the Italian peninsula.

"What you're talking about is the law of Rome's expansion." Marus Utansis said very seriously: "We all have our own responsibilities, which is to use the sword in our hands to open up more land for Rome and obtain more land. slave."

"We are also doing this now." Cai Mian thought of the Indochina Peninsula, and said in a low voice, "All the families are doing the same thing now."

Wang Meng knew one thing, although the situation was similar, there was a fundamental difference inside.

As the ruler of the Han Dynasty, Liu Yan encouraged all families to go out to find their own interests. Families with financial resources and ability in the south organized thousands of armed men to have fun in the Indo-China Peninsula. Families in the north could go to the Western Regions or grasslands, but no matter how wealthy they were People cannot be recruited endlessly and unlimitedly. There are strict restrictions on the number of armed personnel. Even the formed armed forces belong to the national order in terms of laws and regulations, and are not real family private troops.

It's different here in Rome.The private army of the family belongs to the family. Each family recruits and selects people to form the private army, provides weapons and equipment, various food and drink, and pays the soldiers. The soldiers swear allegiance to the family or a certain person in the family.There is even such a situation that the country does not have enough money to pay the army, and the army leader who leads the army pays the army out of his own pocket. The soldiers who receive the army leader's army will change their allegiance very consciously, even if the army still maintains the national designation , but it has actually become the personal arm of the legion commander.

"So we're breaking out in a civil war." Marcus Marcus said with a wry smile: "There are more than 20 legions in Constantinople, but in fact more than half of them only have a serial number."

To put it clearly, if the head of the legion is still loyal to Constantius, then the legion will naturally fight for Constantius.When the head of the legion doesn't want to fight for Constantius, the best result is to directly neutralize the army. Maybe as the head of the legion turns to the enemy of Constantius, the legion will definitely attack the king without hesitation. The power of Constantius.

By the way, there is no such thing as military pay in Zhuxia. In fact, ordinary soldiers don’t have military pay at all.However, when soldiers enlist in the army, they have already received benefits, such as land, which is equivalent to a buyout type.

"What we envy the most is that you don't need to pay the soldiers." Marus Utansis is really envious, maybe complaining, so he said: "The Utansis family just pays military expenses every year. Two years ago, our family was able to maintain three legions, but now it is almost impossible to maintain even one legion."

It seems that the trade from Rome to the Gupta Dynasty was really profitable, and could it maintain the Utansis family to raise three legions?

Wang Meng and others have learned that the family of Marcus Marca has a large area of ​​land, but they do not have their own legion. They can only maintain a family armed with 200 people at most, even if the entire Rome can form three There are not many families in this legion, so it can be understood how dissatisfied the Wutanxis family should be with Han.

"They used force to frighten each other, and they have been maintaining a fragile balance." Wang Meng waited until there were no Romans around, and then said: "Compared with us, Rome needs enemies more."

"That's right." Cai Mian was lost in thought, and after pondering for a while, he said: "They pay attention to blood, but they don't pay attention to blood, but they haven't blocked the way to make progress."

No one can say for sure whether Zhuxia's system is better or which country or nation's system is better. No matter what the system is, it is actually people who create the rules.

On the other side of Zhuxia, whether it was the ancient period when the family had a private army or the stage when there was no family private army, according to the long-established rules, opposing the emperor is opposing the country, especially after the former Han became the home of the world. The authority of the Son of Heaven was strengthened to the greatest extent.

The country is the property of the emperor's family, and everyone except the emperor has become a domestic slave.It's just that whether the emperor really treats him like a slave, the results will be different.If the Son of Heaven wants you to be good, me to be good to everyone, then he will naturally live in peace, but once the Son of Heaven really doesn't treat people as human beings, troubles will definitely be inevitable, and the most serious thing is being overthrown.

The emperor of Zhuxia, as long as the subjects do not want to rebel, the emperor has always been restricted by morality, and theoretically no one can restrain the emperor.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu came up with the theory of the induction between heaven and man, in order to further restrain the emperor, but Liu Che was not a person who could be restrained. The result was naturally that the Confucianism who held high the banner of unification and shouted for revenge got support and support. Pay attention, but Dong Zhongshu, who proposed the relationship between heaven and man, has not been reused in his life.

In terms of political power, in fact, the prime ministers of the early Han Dynasty were used to restrict the existence of the emperor. The problem is that the emperor felt very bad. For example, Liu Che repeatedly suppressed the power of the prime minister. It's because the Xiongnu have not been solved, otherwise the country really doesn't know which direction it will go on a rampage.

In the current state of Han, Liu Yan is of course the supreme existence. It has to be said that he is in a very special period. He has mastered not only military force, but also divine power, without any constraints.

The result has already emerged. The whole country can do anything according to Liu Yan's will, even if countless people think that the war should be stopped to restore the country from the dilapidated state after the war, but as long as Liu Yan feels that it is necessary to continue Expansion, the army's conquest will not stop.

For a wise ruler, mastering absolute power can let go of his hands and feet to make the country grow stronger and stronger, but not all rulers who master absolute power will do the right thing, then the ruler will The bitter fruit of decision-making mistakes time and time again, for example, people really can't stand that ruler will revolt, the country becomes full of wars, and then the ruler becomes the king of subjugation.

They walked while talking, passed through the market area of ​​the pier, and entered a residential area.

I don't know if it's because Rome doesn't have the habit of planning cities, or because the officials here are negligent. The market is not the most chaotic place, but there is no order in any place, and it is the same with people and buildings.

The buildings in the residential area are in disarray, which leads to the fact that there are no straight roads at all, and many places even have to take small alleys, but the small alleys are blocked. If you don’t want to take a detour, you can only move things that block the road .

"This place will be a nightmare for the invading army." Dou'a turned around and was already confused: "There are messy alleys everywhere, and things are placed randomly, and it is difficult to find the way in the messy buildings. Any house needs to be contested, and if you encounter a determined defender, you will have to pay a high price."

The Romans were actually very good at urban planning. The city of Rome was built quite magnificently, but the problem was the division of high-level, middle-level, low-level and lowest-level areas.The high-end area is naturally inhabited by great nobles. The buildings and various facilities are planned in the form of manors, and there must be wide roads and passages.A medium manor is a smaller manor, and its land occupation and various facilities are inferior to those of a high-end manor.The low-level houses are very ordinary folk houses, which won't look good to see where to go, and the passages will mostly be paths and laneways.The lowest level area looks exactly like where they are walking now.

There is only one thing that Han people can't bear the most. The air is full of feces and urine. If you are not careful in the alley, you can step on poop, and some people will even pour feces and urine without looking to see if there is anyone below.

"This is a city of feces and urine." Cai Mian had already wrapped his mouth and nose with a cloth towel: "If you only compare the hygiene of the city, the Persians are more civilized than the Romans."

Everyone subconsciously looked at the muddy road, and many people vomited at the first glance. It was full of filth at first glance.

In any city in the Han Dynasty, you can’t see a situation like this one anyway. It doesn’t mean that there is no excrement and urine in the corner alleys, but it is not such a horror.Furthermore, the excrement of the residents is collected at fixed points, so they will not be thrown on the streets indiscriminately, and the city will definitely not be full of feces and urine.

After a while, everyone finally came to a road paved with stone slabs. The key point is that the stone slab road is full of footprints and mud, and it is really not clean. The better thing is that you don’t have to step on those dirty mud. .

The stone road leads to the temple of the Goddess of Wisdom. After walking through a residential area, you can see a rather large square, and you can see some very thick and tall pillars at a glance, which support the roof of the building. .

There are fountains and several erected statues in the square. If the Romans hadn't driven them in advance, it would have been crowded with people who came to relax.

The temple is located on a high platform. If you want to go to the temple from the square, you need to go up three steps. There are two statues on the left and right sides of the main entrance passage. One is a female knight riding a horse in a charging posture, and the other is standing and holding A stone mold.

"The goddess Athena can dress up as a warrior, and she can also hold a book and spread wisdom."

With the introduction of Marus Utansis, everyone came to their senses. It turns out that the two statues are different postures of the same god.

"Athens has always been one of the largest cities among the Greek city-states, and the local people are all believers in the goddess Athena." Marcus Maccabee made an inviting gesture, and continued to introduce as he walked: "Athens is a historical city. It is a very long-established city with a permanent population of about [-], and its commerce is also very developed."

When everyone was walking through the alley just now, they had already seen many handicraft workshops for making everything, and it was indeed clear that the business atmosphere was very high.

"A city with 10 people is a bit more than Constantinople." Marus Utansis added: "She has always been the most populous city in Greece."

Cai Mian was very interested in the population distribution under Roman rule, so he kept asking.

According to the Romans themselves, the former city of Rome was the most prosperous place, with a permanent population of nearly 30 at one time, but now there are only about 10 left.Within the territory of Rome, there are very few cities with a permanent population of more than [-] people. Most of them are on the coast to have this scale. There are even fewer places where they can be called cities. The vast majority of people live in towns or villages. .

"Constantinople has only been the capital for 27 years, and it was a very ordinary city before." Marus Utansis would say such a sentence, he learned about Han from Marcus Maca. The state owns at least three cities with a population of over one million: "We have been working hard to build it, and it will become a prosperous city."

Now, Wang Meng and others have at least learned that the territory of the Romans is very large, but there are few big cities. The Romans are distributed and the population is not overly concentrated.

(End of this chapter)