Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1471 The Fall of Rome
Shangluo had never expected that the city of Rome, one of the six Romes, would perish in this way - he had indeed planned to demolish it before, but he had not really done it yet.

As an outsider, he felt that directly demolishing Rome would be troublesome and a pity. Unexpectedly, Agathocles acted even faster than he did. Just when he was about to give up the best strategy and choose the middle strategy, the Roman emperor sent Rome to the sky, so fast that even Shangluo could not react.

He didn't even give Shangluo a chance to refuse, but directly helped him get the job done.

At this point, among the six aspects of the Roman Empire, after the new Antioch, which symbolizes practice, the city of Rome has also become a ruin. The city of Rome has not completely fallen, but its fall is inevitable, and its value as a city no longer exists.

"Then I wish us a pleasant cooperation in the future."

"Wait a minute, Master Agathocles, I said we should relocate some important buildings or demolish some areas, I didn't say we should blow up the whole city!"

"The restoration of the Colosseum will be completed in a few hours, and I'm going to supervise its relocation. Also, Shangluo, what happened just now has nothing to do with you. It was entirely my personal decision. So, you just need to accept the help brought by this decision, and you don't need to be responsible for it. Okay, that's it."

After saying that, Agasocles hung up the phone.

Here, not only Shangluo was shocked, but Zhu Xianxun as well.

"Good fellow." Zhu Xianxun was caught off guard by the sudden destruction. "They really have the guts to do this. This is their old capital."

Zhu Xianxi would never do such a thing. The Red Land of the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces was supreme in the entire empire, and the rules for ruling this land were set by the ancestors. According to the rules of the ancestors, he could not order takeout to be delivered to the Grand Palace, and could only ask the Jinyiwei to pick it up on his behalf. When there were really no Jinyiwei, he even went to pick it up himself. Anyway, there were Xiaolingwei standing guard at the door who would pass it to him through the guard room, so it was not a big problem.

And he had never expected that magic of mass destruction would be used in his own city.

"So Shangluo and Rome are really fierce. I think they are quite polite to us?"

"Rome is very kind to us - the Romans are very kind to their own people."

"Then why bomb Rome?"

"Maybe it's because this strike didn't actually hit our own people - this strike was actually very precise. I learned before that there are two types of residences in Rome: Insula Apartments and Domus Palaces. All Roman citizens lived in Domus Palaces, while free people without citizenship lived in Insula Apartments. These two types of apartments were mixed together. It is possible that 30% of a block was Domus and 70% was Insula. So this means that if the city of Rome is demolished according to the designated blocks, the properties of the Roman nobles will definitely be affected."

But the current practice is quite different.

Agathocles cast an unprecedentedly powerful magic on the Colosseum, directly and accurately blasting all the buildings that had taken building materials from the Colosseum. Even if he took just a small brick, it could break the load-bearing structure of the entire building, and even if it didn't collapse immediately, it could become a dangerous building.

But obviously, Roman citizens would not directly dig building materials from the Colosseum - from an economic point of view, it is entirely possible, because not all Roman citizens are rich. Coupled with Rome's high inheritance tax, it is easy for Roman nobles to face a large reduction in assets when passing on their property. In fact, even not long ago, this behavior was not uncommon. However, after the Roman Empire embarked on the path of mysticism, these building materials taken from old public buildings could be accurately located and sanctioned by sensitive magic.

After all, magic is best at making a fuss about cause and effect. And finding the suspect through traces at the scene is a completely reasonable means of solving the case, because even mortal detectives investigate cases in this way, but magicians' investigative methods are more advanced.

Under such a blow, no Roman nobles dared to do this in the empire. Those who had done so before had already paid the fine.

Those fines are extremely important. Because the Colosseum was the property of the Roman government, the Roman government had the right to punish the theft of building materials. However, due to the principle of double punishment, as long as the fine was paid according to the prescribed amount at the time, it would not be punished a second time now. To a certain extent, it can be said that the owner had already "bought" this part of the building materials directly.

Therefore, all the Roman nobles who had paid the fines were able to escape this destruction, but for the common people who lived in Sulla's house, there was no such forgiveness.

Because if the fine was levied based on the property standards of the Roman nobles, then no commoner would be able to afford it. In addition, most of the owners of Insulla's houses were tenants, not homeowners. They certainly could not decide what the house they rented was like.

With this up and down movement, the entire Domus Residence in Rome was almost intact, while all the Insulla Apartments were almost destroyed. This attack was precise and efficient, and now all the parts of Rome that needed to be demolished have been completely demolished.

"Shangluo, will this speed up your mission?"

Shang Luo nodded: "Strictly speaking, yes. Although I still decide to move the Colosseum to Lake Nemi, I want to build not only Lake Nemi, but also the entire city of Rome. From our perspective, the city of Rome should be replanned and arranged to adapt to the rhythm of the new era. However, the original people in Rome should still be dealt with."

"Do they have any plans?"

"I don't know." Shangluo wondered, "If I knew they had already started preparing for the refugees, I wouldn't be so shocked by their sudden behavior."

After all, Shangluo couldn't guess how someone could suddenly uppercut himself on the chin while walking. This kind of behavior of hitting oneself is really hard to understand.

A moment later, at home.

"You can't understand? That's right." Victoria drank tea. "I've been his daughter for so many years, and I don't know what he is doing. It's like he has a big plan running in his mind. He can always connect many things that seem to have no cause and effect, and then direct things to the side that is most beneficial to him. In order to achieve his goals, he will do anything - but he doesn't intend to drag you down."

This is also the truth. Because Shangluo really didn't know about this, and Agathocles issued the order in his own name rather than in the name of the King of Rome. So from the outside, this matter was entirely Agathocles's own business and had nothing to do with Shangluo. In this matter, Shangluo was the complete beneficiary - he didn't know, so he had no responsibility. The decree was issued in the name of Agathocles, so he didn't need to bear the blame for this matter. However, if we look at the motivation of this behavior, it is actually quite outrageous.

Agathocles didn't care about those he looked down upon. In order to carry out his plan, he could feint, he could start laying the groundwork long in advance, and then wait for a critical moment to explode the situation he had set up in advance.

Those who might have opposed him were dazzled by his hat trick with Shangluo. He successfully dribbled past everyone, even Shangluo, his teammate, and then shot the ball from a tricky angle. All of this was to implement his plan: to send Rome into history, establish the sole authority of Constantinople, and thus unify the opinions of the Senate.

The senators were all quite pragmatic, and it was not an exaggeration to call most of them political machines. As long as they found that they had to support something, they would support it. After losing Rome, many senators who took Rome as their foundation had lost their strength to confront Agathocles in the Senate.

There was another group of people who surrendered before them, namely a group of veterans whose assets were cleared out with the explosion of New Antioch.

The elders of the Senate were all part of the Roman citizens, and their assets mainly came from real estate and the various powers accumulated over history attached to the real estate.

However, these powers also disappeared with the explosion of Rome.

The fact that the Roman elders were not killed in the bombing does not mean that they can escape unscathed. Because if the entire city is gone, their land will become worthless. In the future, Shangluo will move the construction center of Rome to Lake Nemi, so the elders in Rome will face a complete loss of power.

After two of the six Romes were blown up, Agathocles and his allies in the Oracle and the Palace of Muses successfully gained an absolute majority in the Senate. Many agendas that were previously impossible to advance can now be forced through - this is the rule of the Senate. Some matters can be passed with a simple majority, but when encountering important matters, the number of votes in favor must reach a certain proportion.

The most important matters, such as deciding the future of Rome, generally require the approval of at least 75% of the senators before they can be passed. However, now, this number has indeed been reached. After losing their property, not to mention that they can influence the decisions of the Senate through financial sponsorship - in fact, if the property does not reach a certain amount, the status of a senator will be directly expelled.

In other words, the real target of this explosion was the political life of these senators. And what was very targeted was that since the senators who placed their main assets in Rome were generally Latins, or "Latin Romans", the Greeks and Romans did not suffer any losses in this process.

This move achieved multiple goals and directly overturned the situation in the Senate in many ways.

"This is my father."

"Your father is so... terrible." Agasocles's method was not so strange or profound, but it was too sudden. It was so sudden that people could not guess what he was going to do next.

"Yes. He is scary because, although he has principles and will not do anything he thinks is wrong, he usually does not do bad things. But when he acts suddenly, he will do something incredible beyond everyone's expectations."

"Was it the same when he went to decide the fate of Rome?"

Victoria nodded. "That's right. He also dribbled past everyone and then cut off the future of Rome by cutting off fate, thus confirming that Rome would eventually fall. After that, Rome's path was also determined. He always does this, quietly creating a big event and then blowing everyone away."

"and you."

"Me too. I was also caught off guard by him being chosen. Perhaps when he was co-emperor, he was more suitable to handle these affairs than he is now."

Now at least one thing is certain: Shangluo's actions in Rome will not be hindered in any way. On the one hand, Agathocles has just physically removed most of the costs of developing Rome. On the other hand, he can now control most of the power of the Senate, thus providing legal support for Shangluo's actions.

"If you think about it this way," Victoria thought for a moment, "maybe your appointment, as I said before, will come soon. Rome will eventually complete the transition by appointing you to some positions."

"Like a one-man committee?"

"You may be directly appointed as Caesar, and concurrently as a tribune. Previously, they said they were going to set up a committee for you to oversee many affairs - this is indeed reasonable, and I do know that this matter is being promoted. But with this explosion, these compromise strategies are completely unnecessary. You can just become Caesar without any problem."

"Caesar? Can I be Caesar too?"

"Yes." Victoria nodded. "In theory, the empire should have two emperors, two Caesars. But...eh? Will my father just give you the title of emperor?"

"Is there still such a practice?!"

"Since you are going to be Caesar, it wouldn't be unreasonable to just go one step further and become the Roman emperor."

"No. I am not a Roman."

"You talk as if I'm Roman. I'm Greek. It's normal for the Roman Empire to be ruled by people other than Latins, so you won't make a difference. It just so happens that the explosion in Rome destroyed the Latin base, and they really need you, the real King of Rome, to help spice things up. So, I'm ready to make you my colleague. Being an emperor is actually pretty good, you can eat Iberian ham every day."

(End of this chapter)