Douluo: The Adventures of King Skin

"The marriage of Alexander I and Cleopatra was personally facilitated by Philip II. It was precisely because of this that Philip was punished by God and was looked down upon by the guard and righteous man at their wedding. Pausanias executed Heaven.”

——Selected from "The Proclamation on the "Declaration on the Prevention of Incest" issued by King Pyrrhus"

When he got up early the next morning, Pyrrhus and his friends went out to the city for morning exercises.

As a combatant, this is a required course every day, and under the current situation, Pyrrhus feels that it is also beneficial to maintaining morale.

When he came back last night, he held a brief meeting with his friends, explaining that he would join his future brother-in-law Dmitry, and then talked about the good situation of Antigonus and his son in the Diadochi War, and finally promised that when the time comes After defeating Cassander, everyone returned home in glory.

Epirus is worthy of being a barbarian country on par with Macedonia. Especially young people like his friends have used Alexander's unparalleled achievements as their life guidance since childhood. They were all excited when they heard that they could participate in the Diadochi War. Their eyes shone brightly, and they all expressed their emotional stability and optimism about the future, and were willing to continue to fight for the great cause of the people of Epirus with the only legitimate Basileus.

Pyrrhus was relieved. Since the assassination, he had been showing confidence in front of his men, but in fact he was still a little stressed.

Although he had been in exile before he ascended the throne at the age of 12, he was in the land of his adoptive parents at that time, and he basically enjoyed the treatment of a prince; it was the first time that he was the mainstay like he is now.

After sweating it out with enthusiasm, my friends and I returned to the hotel in Ellis City.

The accompanying chef had already prepared breakfast, and everyone gathered around several long tables to eat.

The staple food is barley bread and some random beans. In addition, each person has a glass of milk, as well as some condensed milk and honey.

The barley bread that the Greeks eat is as hard as a brick, so most people will eat it with a glass of wine and soak the bread in the wine to soften it.

But Pyrrhus felt that alcohol was harmful to the brain, so he asked his friends to drink less and to replace the wine with milk.

The milk of this era did not taste good and had a strong smell, but my friends had no complaints.

This is partly because of Pyrrhus's outstanding athletic talent, which made them think that this was the recommended diet for the strong.

On the other hand, it may be because Pyrrhus told them that drinking more milk would be an aphrodisiac.

Pyrrhus sometimes thought that these days, instead of following the crowd and not offending others, it would be better to be unique and win the respect of others.

He is relatively easy-going with others and has no idol baggage. His friends are also more casual when eating, chatting on the sidelines.Pyrrhus also asked Metilas some specific details while eating.

Knowing that the goods hidden in Passaron could not be transported out for the time being, Pyrrhus did not show his disappointment on his face, but secretly calculated the funds on hand.

According to the current market price, 1 drachma silver coin can buy almost 10 kilograms of grain. Pyrrhus and his party of more than 30 people would need 600 kilograms of grain in one month, and as combatants, they also need to eat good food, plus they bring The war horses are running around, and in a month just eating horse chews will cost 200 drachms.

This does not include accommodation and other miscellaneous expenses.

And if you are fooling around with you without any regrets, even if you don't pay me a salary, you should still give me some allowance.

This means that there is a fixed expenditure of almost 1000 drachmas a month.

And he now has less than 3000 drachmas in total - this does not include the 1500 drachma bonus given by yesterday's Olympic Games.

My source of income was suddenly cut off, and my life was really tense.

Counting the days, the future brother-in-law Dmitry signed a contract with the Rhode Islanders, and he was almost done cleaning up the battlefield in a few days. He should be on the sea route to Athens now.

Although the money should be enough to hold on to Dmitry, everything can be done in advance, and failure in advance can lead to failure. You cannot place all your hopes on others.

In addition, it is not that he himself has no use for money, such as interpersonal relationships, or maintaining some necessary pomp, and he also needs money to open some cheats - cheats also need to be realized with real gold.

And the most important thing is, when we get to Dmitri, do we have to maintain a certain degree of independence or even organize a force of our own?

If so, the money needed would be gone.So now I have to think of some ways to make money.

Speaking of golden fingers, Pyrrhus asked Metellas what was going on with the workshops he had set up in Passaron.

Epirus itself is not a particularly poor place, but it is relatively backward and has no decent handicraft industry. Therefore, in the Mediterranean economic circle with developed trade, it has been in a state of overproduction all year round.

It has only been three years since Pyrrhus took the throne. Although he has not yet taken charge of the government, he should strongly support the industrial development of Epirus due to emotions and reasons.

It's just that it's hard to find relevant talents. After three years, workshops for pottery and copper smelting, which are common in this era, have been established and a certain amount of output has been achieved.

But how could Pyrrhus be so easily satisfied?

But until he left, almost all of his forward-thinking inspiration came to nothing.

There was only one crucible for making steel, with a very low success rate, which he had started tinkering with when he was a son in Taolantia; and the other was a papermaking workshop.

Speaking of which, although the use of papyrus has been very widespread in this era, widespread use is only relative. Places like Epirus are still at the stage of paperless offices.Moreover, papyrus relies on papyrus produced in Egypt, which is unique in the entire Mediterranean, not to mention a unique processing method unknown to outsiders.

In Pyrrhus's view, the use of paper should not be limited to writing and painting, but a "polymer composite material" that is most easily available to humans and should be used more widely.This is why papermaking is known as the four great inventions.

I only did a small amount of work and I feel very ashamed.

I only heard Metilas say: "The workshops were confiscated by Neoptolemus, Ptolemy, and Alexander in the name of the Council, but in fact they divided them up privately."

"These people have never been decent people... Just give it to them. Anyway, when we go back, it will be ours or ours," Pyrrhus said, saying it didn't matter: "And we have lagged far behind in the handicraft industry for too long. As long as the workmanship There are still people running the workshop, which is also a good thing for Epirus."

Metilas and several other friends listened with admiration and praised Pyrrhus for his foresight and open-mindedness.

Pyrrhus just waved his hand modestly.

Then I heard Metilas continue to say: "However, the steel-making workshop and the paper-making workshop... Neoptolemus didn't know what they were for, so he set them on fire..."

"What the hell?!"

"Neoptolemus didn't know what 'steel' was, nor what the use of 'paper' was, so he drove the craftsmen away and burned the workshop."

Pyrrhus was almost mad at the bastard.

Those are all the results of his hard work for so long!Is it easy for him to spend his own money to develop such a national industry?

The friends knew how much Pyrrhus attached great importance to these two workshops. Pyrrhus even led them to do many things personally and put their efforts into them.So some comforted him and told him some truths about "if your heart is in your dream, you will be there"; others angrily cursed Neoptolemus.

The younger ones were particularly aggrieved, and had already discussed returning to Epirus to "cruel the false king" - the output of the steel-making workshop was really low, and Pyrrhus promised to give priority to each of his friends to build a steel weapons, but it was not their turn yet.

**

The friend who had been kept on guard outside the hotel entered the room. He was a little confused when he saw the angry crowd, but he still performed his duty first and reported to Pyrrhus that Pharsalus was coming.

"Pharsalus? Mother's messenger?"

Due to practical considerations about the political environment in Epirus, his remaining relatives rarely stayed in Epirus.

His mother, Phthia, took his sisters Deidamia and Troas to live in seclusion in their natal family, the city-state of Pharsalus in Thessaly, where Pyrrhus's grandfather left a manor.

Although Thessaly became part of Macedonia very early, and Cassander now has a large number of troops stationed there, he does not rule there directly, but through the Grand Council of the Thessaly Alliance.At the same time, his late grandfather Memnon is still very prestigious in the local area. Cassander is like a deaf and blind man there. As long as he keeps a low profile, he is even safer than Epirus.Occasionally we get together at Taorantia's adoptive mother Beroya's place.

The visitor soon appeared in front of Pyrrhus.

"Lord Hippias!" Pyrrhus was very surprised. "Is your mother okay there?"

"King Pyrrhus." The dusty middle-aged man replied calmly, "I am relieved to see that you are safe and sound. Don't worry, everything is fine in Pharsalus."

"You must not have eaten yet?" Pyrrhus learned that Pharsalus was fine, so he was not in a hurry to ask, and quickly asked Hippias to take a seat.

Hippias was one of the few people who led Pyrrhus to escape with Underclyde and Angelus. He was also the only remaining friend of his father. He was almost like a biological uncle to Pyrrhus.

The old uncle didn't show up either. He was really hungry after traveling for days. He grabbed the food on the table and put it in his mouth.

Pyrrhus's friends were almost all his juniors, and they did not dare to make any mistakes in front of him, so they immediately stood up to greet him with food and drinks.

A young man eagerly wanted to pour him wine, but Hippias glared:

"I heard that the king requires that no one around him should drink wine with his meals, are you all turning a deaf ear?"

Then he poured himself a glass of milk.The young friend had no choice but to step aside with a grimace.

Pyrrhus laughed at this.After Hippias had almost finished eating, he asked:

"Lord Hippias, what news did mother ask you to bring me?"

Hippias wiped his mouth, put his luggage on the table, and made a loud noise:

"This is the news from Barcelona—six thousand drachmas—every month from now on."