Chapter 179: The Approaching Storm
< 179. The Approaching Storm >
Marcus’s letter was quickly delivered across the Rhine.
The contents of the letter were so urgent that Caesar’s lieutenant, Ravius, rushed to Caesar with it.
He was so hasty that he did not even return the salutes of the soldiers at the entrance of the camp.
He was confident that Caesar would be in the commander’s tent, and he did not care about etiquette as he lifted the tent flap and entered.
Fortunately, Caesar was alone, sorting out some documents.
He looked up with surprise at Ravius’s sudden visit.
It meant that something had happened in the Rhine region, where Ravius was in charge of managing the Gallic tribes while Caesar was away.
“Did the Gallic tribes agree to send more reinforcements?”
“No, sir. They said they would send them along with the next supply of provisions. But I came here personally because a much more serious problem has occurred. I thought I should hear your orders directly if there is any change in policy.”
Ravius did not even touch the wine that Caesar offered him, but spread the letter on the table.
Caesar sensed something ominous and calmly picked up the paper.
The unusual texture of the paper was different from papyrus or parchment, and it was clearly a new medium of record that Marcus had invented.
Caesar did not understand why Marcus, who was in Antioch, suddenly sent him a message.
He stroked his chin as he read the letter from the beginning.
He was so shocked that he wondered if he had read it wrong and read it again from the start.
It was the first time he had been so shaken since he heard of his mother’s death.
“Did you show this to anyone else?”
“I only checked it myself. It seemed like a very serious matter.”
“You did well. If this rumor had spread to the other soldiers, it would have caused a lot of confusion. That could be fatal in this situation.”
Caesar’s army was currently crossing the Rhine and conquering the Elbe basin smoothly.
The Germanic tribes, known for their strength, did not even put up a decent fight in front of Caesar’s army.
That was how powerful Caesar’s army was at this point.
They had already become like war machines after going through the campaigns in Gaul and Britain.
On top of that, Marcus had turned all the iron ore from the mines in Alsace and Lorraine into weapons.
He had not yet leaked the full plate armor, but he had already supplied a large number of lorica segmentata, which covered only the vital parts.
Marcus had promised to give Caesar more rights in exchange for supplying this armor to his legion.
Caesar did not think he had lost anything by doing so.
Thanks to Marcus’s equipment, his legion crushed Germany with overwhelming force.
He also received generous support from Gaul, which had become almost completely dependent on Caesar.
Gaul traditionally hated Germany.
In fact, hate was not enough to describe their feelings.
To be precise, Gaul’s feelings toward Germany were closer to loathing than dislike.
Gaul, which had fertile land, had always suffered from Germanic invasions.
Sometimes Gaul pushed Germany back, but most of the time they were defeated and paid tribute.
They were happy to have a chance to strike back at Germany now.
Anyway, the real fight was done by the Roman army, and what the Gallic tribes did was more like local occupation.
It was a mission where they could have fun without much damage.
The major tribes that sided with Rome, such as the Haedui and Sequani, volunteered to send cavalry units.
Caesar’s army consisted of 10 regular Roman legions and 50,000 auxiliaries from all over Gaul, totaling over 100,000 men.
This huge army had already defeated several Germanic armies and occupied nearly 80% of the territory.
Caesar did not want Pompey to die and leave a big gap in Rome’s power at this time.
He wanted to avoid a situation where this news reached the ears of his soldiers and the Germanic tribes.
If the Germanic tribes thought that Rome would soon face chaos, their resistance might become much stronger.
“It will take at most a year to expand our border to the Elbe. I hope we can focus on this expedition until then.”
“Then I will enforce stricter information control as soon as I return to the Rhine region.”
“What about the Gallic tribes?”
“There is no problem there. They are already fully assimilated to Rome. It would not be an exaggeration to say that.”
It was as expected.
The project that Caesar focused on most after conquering Gaul was improving Gaul’s agriculture.
Gaul was different from Germany in that it had very fertile land, so there were many tribes that settled down since ancient times.
But they did not have systematic agricultural techniques, and the land was not properly cultivated, so the absolute production was not very high.
Caesar dramatically improved this situation and received fanatical praise from the Gauls.
Here, too, Marcus’s help was very helpful.
Marcus somehow knew the best areas for farming and easily identified them.
He sent his engineers to cultivate the land of Gaul efficiently and spread new farming methods that suited the land.
They took a lot of money as compensation, but even considering that, Gaul’s production increased dramatically compared to before.
Rome did not need to demand food from Gaul anymore, thanks to the improved situation of the independent farmers and the food coming from Egypt, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.
Caesar allowed most of the surplus food to be consumed locally in Gaul.
And the remaining excess production was used for Caesar’s legion.
Moreover, Gaul’s agricultural productivity was noticeably increasing over time.
The main goal of people in ancient times was survival, first and foremost.
The biggest threats to survival were food shortages and foreign invasions.
They were able to eliminate those two factors completely by Rome.
It was not just that they could not fight each other because they were under Rome’s rule.
The reason for fighting with other tribes disappeared when they had enough food.
They did not have to worry about Germany, which they feared the most, either, since it was almost annihilated by Rome.
Rather, they were pushing into Germany and having fun, so they felt satisfied.
Now the Gallic tribes begged Caesar to cultivate their land as well.
Some even started to say that Caesar was the messenger of the gods who came to save Gaul.
Those who spoke ill of Rome and tried to incite rebellion were rather expelled by the hands of the Gauls.
In fact, there were already some cases where some Gallic leaders were captured by their own tribes and brought to Caesar.
He thought everything was going smoothly, but his mind was complicated by the sudden major variable.
“I can’t stop the Germanic expedition anyway. When else can I suppress them so easily? And I can’t afford to lose face in front of the Gallic tribes who are having fun right now. They must not doubt Rome’s power.”
“Ah, I didn’t think about that. It does seem that the ones who are most excited right now are not Rome but Gaul. They keep asking me if there are any more victories to report.”
“They must be thrilled after living in fear all this time.”
Caesar said that and tapped his finger on the map spread out on the table, lost in thought.
He had been warned by Marcus before starting the expedition, but the Elbe was not a very good terrain for a border.
The land of Germany itself was not easy to conquer, and there was no guarantee that it could be easily Romanized like Gaul.
What Caesar wanted to gain from this expedition was the symbolic reputation of defeating Germany.
If he failed to achieve his original goal, he would not only lose his reputation, but also damage his dignity.
He could also be criticized in Rome for investing too much in a war that did not benefit him.
So he had no choice anyway.
The expedition had to continue.
And there were some elements that felt strange in this expedition.
Caesar turned his gaze back and looked at Ravius and asked him.
“By the way, have you heard any information about Germany lately? From the Gauls or from Rome.”
“What?”
Ravius scratched his head and asked back, not understanding Caesar’s words.
“Don’t you know best about Germany, Imperator, who is leading the expedition?”
“True. I guess so. I just wondered if Germany was really such an unprepared group.”
This Germanic expedition went much smoother than expected.
Germany seemed to be unprepared for Rome in Caesar’s eyes.
The Suebi tribe, which had been building up its power near the Rhine, did resist quite fiercely.
But somehow it felt like the resistance got weaker as he went east into Germany.
It was completely opposite to what Caesar had expected.
He thought it was a trap at first.
He was sure that there would be an ambush using Germany’s vast forests, so he moved his legion cautiously.
That was why he had not reached the Elbe yet, even though he had almost no casualties.
But he did not want to rush his army and suffer damage.
But Germany’s resistance was only flimsy.
There were ambush attacks, but they did not coordinate well with each other, and their tactics and troop composition were poor.
He interrogated prisoners to get information, but they only muttered nonsense without any substance.
He also heard rumors that a powerful tribe had emerged from the east, but he had not seen any sign of such a strong tribe while marching so far.
He wanted to clarify this before moving his army further.
“For now, I’ll write a reply to Marcus, so send it to Rome with a reliable soldier. And I’ll also give separate orders to Curio, so deliver them together.”
“As you command.”
“And you keep up your good relations with the Gallic chiefs as you are now. And negotiate with Marcus’s contractors for the land cultivation project as planned.”
The courier system that Marcus had installed experimentally proved its excellence in this incident.
The letter that Ravius attached when he returned to the Rhine region reached Marcus’s hand in almost three days.
He was also installing a courier system that connected the major cities in the eastern provinces, and he could roughly imagine how much easier the administration would be when this project was finished.
Marcus, who had finished meeting with the aristocrats, received the letter from the soldier who was waiting at his mansion and checked the contents on the spot.
And he froze on the spot.
“What’s wrong?”
Spartacus, who followed him from behind, asked with a worried expression.
Marcus looked at the letter with a complicated look and bit his tongue.
“I would have been in big trouble if I had received this letter at the meeting earlier.”
If he had received a reply from Caesar, Cato and Cicero would have asked him to read the contents, and then a big commotion would have ensued.
He shuddered at the thought of what would have happened.
“It seems that my father-in-law is not going to let it go. He seems to be thinking of fighting me once the situation stabilizes.”
< 179. The Approaching Storm > End
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