Rome Must Fall Chapter 14: Initial team building
Hamilcar took Maximus into the farm, and the task given to them by Spartacus was to count the supplies in the farm.
The area of this farm is not small, but compared with the farm where we stayed last night, it lacks some buildings. There are no dung piles near the farm, no barns in the yard, no pig pens, sheep pens, or even stables, so there is no obvious odor.
In the middle of the yard is a flat stone floor. It is not a threshing floor, but a place for drying raisins. There is a pool in the middle of the yard to collect rainwater. There are two brewing rooms on one side of the yard, with presses and wooden barrels of various types placed in the rooms; on the other side of the yard are multiple wine cellars, some of which store large wine tanks, and some of which are closed. The other ones are wooden barrels for storage... There is only one relatively small warehouse in the entire farm, which stores flour, barley, and a very small amount of bacon. It is obvious that this is a farm specializing in wine production.
Finally, the two of them stepped into the only building in the farm. The ground floor was for slaves, and the rooms were small and crowded. The top floor was for the overseers and guards, which was spacious and comfortable.
Walking into the largest room, Maximus noticed a piece of papyrus on the wooden table and a torn envelope next to it.
He walked over and picked it up casually. He could understand the Latin on the letter.
"What's written on it?" Hamilcar asked curiously as he was illiterate.
After Maximus read it, he thought about it carefully and then said in a deep voice: "The man just now did not lie. This farm is indeed the property of a Roman senator. He wrote a letter to tell the steward here, It was said that the price of wine in Rome was rising, and he requested that twenty barrels of wine be shipped to Rome as soon as possible. Here is his signature——"
Maximus read word by word: "Marchus Porchius Cato."
Hamilcar asked casually: "Who is this person?"
"I'm not too sure. I just vaguely remember that my former master mentioned him. This family named Cato is very influential in the city of Rome!" Maximus said solemnly. In fact, he wrote this The person who wrote the letter knew nothing about it, but he was familiar with the family and surname of Porchius Cato, because in the history of his previous life, two people from this family impressed him deeply: The Porchius family was originally a Roman A commoner, Cato the Elder rose to prominence in the war against Hannibal. He often shouted in the Senate that "Carthage must be destroyed" which eventually led to Rome destroying Carthage. There was also a younger Cato who remained unswervingly determined. Against Caesar... This family seems to have a trait. Once the target is set, the nine oxen cannot pull it back.
"You have to tell Spartacus about this!" Hamilka's expression became serious, and he turned and walked out.
Maximus was about to follow when he saw a pile of papyrus on the bed from the corner of his eye. He immediately walked over and picked it up.
"What is this?" Hamilka stopped and asked.
Maximus glanced at the content on the first page and said: "This seems to be a book that teaches people how to grow grains and herd cattle and sheep."
"Oh." Hamilcar didn't pay much attention and turned around and walked out the door.
Maximus carefully searched the entire bed, picked up a few scattered ones, folded them, carefully put them in his arms, and then left the room.
After the gladiators killed the resisters, they gathered all the slaves on the farm together. Spartacus invited them to join, but at the same time he generously announced: If anyone is unwilling to join, they can leave on their own. They will never Don't be embarrassed.
As a result, nearly thirty slaves chose to stay.
While everyone was resting in the courtyard in the middle of the farm, Spartacus, Cross and other leaders were already sitting in the room where the letter was found to discuss matters.
After listening to the situation introduced by Hamilcar and Maximus, Spartacus said to everyone with a solemn expression: "Brothers, although we have temporarily settled down, there are still many slaves joining us. , strengthened our team, but the Romans will soon know that we have occupied their farms and kidnapped their slaves, and they will soon send troops to come. Should we fight here? Or after a few days of rest Continue running south?"
"Of course we are going to fight the Romans here!" Cross said loudly without hesitation: "We just strolled here for a long time, and the number of people joining the team was close to two hundred! There are slaves everywhere here, as long as We go out with all our strength, kill the Roman overseers on the farm, and invite the slaves to join us. In a few days, our team will number in the thousands! And there are so many farms here, and they all store enough food. , we don’t have to worry about not having anything to eat! If we give up such a good place and choose to run south, that’s what fools do!”
"Cross is right. Since we have determined to resist Rome, fighting with the Roman army is inevitable. If we can win earlier, we can establish our prestige earlier and let more people join. Us, we will be less afraid of Rome!" Altonix, who was always cautious, had a flame-like light flashing in his eyes at this moment.
"Fight Rome, we Germans are never afraid of fighting!" Enom expressed his determination concisely and concisely.
Spartacus glanced at Hamilcar.
Hamilcar nodded.
"Okay! Now that the brothers have unanimously agreed, let's fight the Romans here!" Spartacus's face was filled with enthusiasm. He looked around everyone and said in a deep voice: "However, The Roman army is no better than the soldiers of Capua. They are well-organized and well-disciplined. I once served as an auxiliary for the Roman army in Asia Minor and I am deeply impressed by this. If we want to fight Rome, we can no longer swarm like before. To fight chaos, we must organize our brothers well and strengthen training so that we can maximize our strength, so I have a suggestion.
Our team now has more than 400 people. Cross, Altonix, Enomui and I, the four of us each command a hundred people. Half of each team of 100 people are old brothers and half are brothers. The newly joined slaves, so that under the leadership of the old brothers, the newly joined slaves will not perform too poorly. And we also need to let every ten people elect a team leader, so that the whole team will become more orderly and there will be less chaos during the war. What do you think? ”
"Spartacus's suggestion is right, so that we will not be in chaos during the battle." Altonix first agreed. ~IndoMTL.com~ Just do it. " Emnoy replied simply.
Only Cross hesitated.
Spartacus somewhat understood what he was thinking, and persuaded: "Cross, we only have a few old brothers, but more and more people will join the team, and by then all the brothers may be responsible for the hundred. Captains, or even captains, lead their troops alone to fight against the Romans. If they are not trained because of your overprotection, they may blame you in the future."
Cross was slightly shocked: there were more than a hundred Gauls among the gladiators. He had always regarded himself as the leader of these people and did not want others to get involved. But Spartacus was indeed right. These people were arrogant. If these guys see that gladiators who are not as good as them can become captains and lead seven or eight slaves, but they are still soldiers under command, then their dissatisfaction will soon burst out...
Thinking of this, Cross finally nodded: "I have no objection."
Spartacus smiled: "Okay, we will follow this and then Cross will be the first to select a hundred people."
Cross nodded in agreement without any hesitation.
Spartacus continued: "We also need to establish a cavalry team to detect the surrounding situation for us, especially the possible movements of the Roman army. What do you think?"
"I agree."
"How many people are needed for this cavalry team?"
"Let's make it five people for the time being."
"But all the horses we have now will be used to carry the carriage, there are no extras." Hamilcar reminded.
"There are so many farms here, there will be no shortage of horses. If we capture another horse, we will distribute it to the cavalry first." Spartacus suggested.
Everyone agreed.