Chapter 427 Meeting

Luca's arrival broke the silence of New Carthage. In the middle of the night, the silence of the streets had been broken by the rolling wheels.

"Oh my God, has the devil come?"

Citizens woken up by the noise complained, and they opened the windows to see what was going on. What they saw was carriage after carriage. As fast as a flash of light, the accompanying guards rode out of the wealthy area with torches, passing through the streets and alleys, and marched towards the final destination, the council hall.

"Today is really hell, aren't these rich people tired?" Enduring such an unbearable thing is already the greatest misfortune felt by these citizens, but what makes them even more unbearable is that they can only be angry but not speak out.

The citizens were filled with resentment, but the nobles were not much better. Luca summoned them late at night, and no one knew what this meant.

Luka sat on the podium in the meeting hall, watching the nobles rushing in. Their clothes were disheveled and their faces were haggard. It seemed that they had just gotten up and rushed in. They sat in the audience, staring at Luka on the stage and the scepter he kept playing with with his hands with bloodshot eyes. They were all knowledgeable people and knew that this thing was not fake.

As time went by, more and more people came to the meeting place, but this did not meet Luca's expectations, because the number of nobles seated did not even reach half of the seats in the entire meeting hall. In other words, half of the nobles did not come, and they might have received the notice but were still sleeping in their homes.

"It seems that the colleagues in New Carthage are still used to the days of being far away from the emperor, so the sudden tension will make you uncomfortable!" Luca stood on the podium. Except for the nobles who were seated, all the people standing around were Luca's soldiers. Among them, there were clerks who were recording one by one on parchment with reed pens. They had a detailed list of local nobles, so their current job was to record the nobles who came.

Luca was extremely patient at this moment. He stood and sat on the podium, waiting silently for these damn nobles to arrive, but time passed by minute by minute.

The nobles sitting in the audience were staggering here and there, and some of them even tilted their heads and fell asleep. Luca was still on the podium, and saw a beam of sunlight shining on him from the hole in the ceiling above his head.

Perhaps he was not used to it, Luca still shivered in the sun, and then his whole body warmed up. However, the number of people in the audience did not increase much, which made it difficult for the nobles who had been waiting here for a long time.

Andrew's eyes were also red. He forced himself to cheer up, came to Luca and said to him, "Luca, we have waited until dawn, is it okay now?"

"Of course, Andrew." Luca nodded and continued, "Now you can lead the soldiers out according to the list and do it as we planned in the beginning!"

"Yes, Luca!" Andrew nodded in understanding, turned and left the meeting room.

"Okay, okay, everyone!" Luca finally spoke after Andrew left, and he smiled at the nobles in the audience. They sat up in a hurry, and did not forget to wake up the nobles who were sleeping beside them. A group of people pricked up their ears, their eyes were fixed on Luca, and they were concentrating.

"Of course, you don't know how long it has been since you last walked out of the city wall. I don't know how much you know about the situation outside." Luca said this, and the audience was surprisingly quiet, and no one spoke.

"Now, I have discovered a very disturbing phenomenon. It is the autumn harvest season, and Alans have appeared outside our city walls. They seem to be very interested in the money and food in the hands of the Roman people. I have seen many such cases along the way, but the only thing that surprised me was that I did not see any patrol soldiers belonging to us. What is even more unacceptable when I came here is that there is no garrisoned duke in New Carthage. So all this is in the hands of you nobles."

When the nobles heard this, they looked at each other in confusion. They didn't know what Luca meant.

Luca looked at their astonishment without any hurry. He just raised the sergeant's staff in his hand and said to the nobles in the audience slowly: "Don't be nervous, everyone. I am just here to exercise my authority as the Roman sergeant. Of course, I mainly want to know what you think about the Alans' riders everywhere outside the city. Then, I want to ask you, how much do you know about the Alans' riders acting recklessly on Roman land?"

"There are many of them, sir!" one of the nobles said, "We have tried our best to protect our manor from being occupied by the Alans, and we have also lost a lot of our guards!"

"In order to ensure the safe harvest of grain, some nobles even mobilized the soldiers guarding the city! Let them guard their own manors!"

At this point, the voice stopped abruptly, but Luca was the only one who heard it clearly.

"Didn't I just say that there is no duke stationed in the city of New Carthage?" Luca leaned on the stone podium and looked down at the nobles sitting there. Then he asked, "So, everyone, who has the power to mobilize the garrison guarding the city?"

The nobles were silent for a moment, and then one of them stood up and said, "The Empire hasn't given us money to maintain the army for a long time, but we know that if we want to be protected, we must maintain the army, so we voluntarily maintain the army's salary."

"Is it just that you don't have military pay?" Luca asked.

"Not just us?" Another older noble said from his seat, "The cities in Numidia province basically have no military pay, so the guards are all the local nobles' private guards."

The nobles' words left Luga silent. He didn't know how to answer the nobles' questions. This seemed to give a good explanation for their disloyalty. If you don't protect me, why should I work for you?

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"Marenius." Luca turned around and called Marenius to him, "Let Andrew come back and tell him that I have changed my mind."

Watching Marenius leave, Luca straightened his chest and said to the crowd below the stage: "Everyone, I have a general understanding of the situation you are talking about. Just as you are worried, the Purple Chamber is already stretched to the limit, and we are also gradually reaching the point where we can no longer continue."

"Then what should we do?" An aristocrat in the audience could not bear it any longer and stood up to question Luca: "Now the Alans are getting more and more rampant every year. If we do nothing, then Rome will lose New Carthage!"

This was a naked threat. Even though it sounded uncomfortable, Luga still had to endure it. After all, he had his reasons. He began to repent for his thoughts at the time. After all, it was the Purple Room that let them down.

"Of course, don't panic!" Lu Jia said to everyone with a smile: "I am here, standing in front of you, of course, I promise to solve the problems you encounter."

(End of this chapter)