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As a warrior as famous as Matonis, Matius is more composed, has no great ambition, and can be loyal to his duties, so Davos always trusted him. Although the archon’s personal guards are full, they can also serve as guards in important places such as the Senate Assembly Hall, Temple of Hades, The Arena, etc. Thus the vacant positions can be fully occupied by the young men recommended by these chieftains and high-standing tribal men in the hall. Supposing Theonia wanted to integrate the Besidisians into the union as soon as possible. In that case, they should let these young elites of Besidiae join Theonia Union to understand the Theonian system as soon as possible, and learning the Theonian culture and get used to life in Theonia. Thus allowing them to integrate into Theonia, then return to influence the rest of the Besidisians.

Therefore, he needs to go back to the Senate and discuss this matter. But for now, he could agree for them to join as his personal guard as a volunteer of Besidiae. After making up his mind, Davos immediately decided.

Soon, Besidiae formed a personal guard of more than 60 men.

And Davos appointed Rodom as the captain and announced that they would be on duty tonight.

As soon as he issued the order, Drakos, Kapus and the others vehemently opposed it.

But Davos insisted and declared, “From now on, Besidiae is already the Besidiae of Theonia, and the warriors of Besidiae are also the soldiers of Theonia! So how could the officers distrust their own soldiers?!”

In the end, Davos reached an agreement with Drakos and Kapus that Martius would be the one leading the guards to patrol outside the courtyard while the Besidisian soldiers would defend the inside.

After learning about it, Rodom and the others were all greatly moved and vowed never to give lord Davos, who trusted them, the slightest fright.

And due to this move, the restless Besidisians were put to ease.

Besides the high-ranking officers of the legion, the ones who are most afraid of accidents are the chieftains like Baripiri and high-ranking tribal men. Because they know that in the event of Davos getting into an accident, the two thousand Theonian soldiers in the city and the more than ten thousand soldiers outside will turn their anger towards them and burn the city of Besidiae to ashes. Therefore, those men that would serve as guards tonight were greatly reminded by them.

And so the night passed safely.

The next day, Davos, who have gotten a night rest, and Kapus, Drakos, the three chieftains of Besidiae, as well as the strategoi of the allied troops of Heraclea and Roscianum, who had not slept much at all, discussed how to march on the Consentia Plateau.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cincinnag waited for the reinforcements he sent to return after quickly defeating the Eleans. In fact, He didn’t wait long to see Gennat fleeing back, covered in wounds, with a few hundred remnants of his troops.

“What did you say?! You were ambushed by the Theonians?!” Cincinnag could not believe what he heard, “How can there be Theonian troops outside Pyxous?! I have been watching Grumentum all the time, and they haven’t sent any troops!”

Gennat shook his head and said weakly, “Elea…I fear that they have come from Elea…I…I saw it clearly, although they were all wearing Greek armour, most of them were tall, and their hair colour…and even in their roaring voices were Lucanians…”

After the reminder of his son, Cincinnag’s thoughts were opened, “You mean that they are from Nerulum…why haven’t our spies find out about them?!”

While escaping, Gennat had already thought about this matter and said anxiously as he coughed, “They…cough…should have boarded a ship from Laos…instead of going along the coast…cough…they made a huge detour…and our ships are not a match against Laos and Elea’s ship…and could only patrol near the port…cough…it’s already good that they are not blocked…father, the enemy has about four thousand men…what should we do now?!”

“Return! We must return to Pyxous immediately!” Cincinnag had a hunch and added, “Can you still hold on?”

Gennat nodded and said, “Uh…what about the other tribes?”

“Let them come with us for now as we need more warriors. If a tribe refuse to follow us -” With a sullen look on his face, Cincinnag coldly said, “We will do what we have done in Grumentum once more!”

As soon as his voice fell, a scout came in a hurry, “Reporting to the chieftain. There is a Theonian army to the north of us, about four thousand men!”

“Reporting! The tribes in the South gathered about five thousand soldiers and are on their way towards our camp!”

“Reporting! Chieftain, Grumentum’s army has gone out of their city! I confirmed that their leader is Bagul!”

Bad news came one after another, making Cincinnag drenched in cold sweats. When he heard the reports, he became shocked, “You said that Bagul is not injured?!”

“That seems to be the case, chieftain.”

Cincinnag was petrified. After a while, he murmured, “Plot! This is a plot devised by the Theonians!”

He suddenly thought of something and said in a hurry, “Go and call the chieftain of Lud and Bren tribe. If they refuse to come, then drag them here!”

As soon as the guard went out, one of the chieftains of Pyxous came in staggeringly, “Great chieftain, not good! Lud and Bren are taking the lead in revolting!”

Cincinnag was so anxious that he sprayed a mouthful of blood on the ground.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Theonians were attacking Pyxous’ camp from the north, east and south, but the Pyxousians were in disarray and are unable to organise an effective defence and was thus easily breached.

After Gennat died in battle, Cincinnag fled to the western mountains with few men, and most of the others surrendered.

“Legatus Hieronymus, what should we do with these captives?” Bagul asked his boss for his instruction.

“According to the order of lord Davos, we will demote all of them into slaves of the city-state and take them back to Thurii as labours for mining, building roads and temples…” Said Hieronymus without paying attention to the expression on Bagul’s face, “In addition, draw out another thousand Pyxousian captives to force the tribes in Pyxous to surrender once we attack Pyxous.”

He then gave his order, “Bagul, stay and defend Grumentum. Don’t relax your surveillance of Potentia to the north, and if there is anything unusual happening, immediately send a messenger to inform me.”

“Roger.”

“Agasias, go and urge the soldiers to speed up the cleanup of the battlefield. Otherwise, we will not be able to rest once evening comes.”

“Don’t worry, legatus. I’ll keep my eyes open like a shepherd watching over his flock and will spank anyone who dares to slack off!” Laughed Agasias

The third legion carried out the decoy plan proposed by Davos and perfected it. Afterwards, they have gotten a perfect result, and Hieronymus finally showed a rare smile of relief after completing the task.

“Brother-in-law!” Asistes called out Bagul, who was walking back with his head down, “Lord Davos once said that ‘we should not be too kind to the enemies who surrender, because being too kind will make them forget their mistakes and will once more make the same mistake. Thus, we should hold up our sticks sometimes to make them fear and remember their lessons.’ Milord called it the ‘Carrot and the Stick’ method…”

Asistes looked at Bagul, who was lost in his thought and said thoughtfully, “Our law to appease those tribes in the north is good enough, not only in granting land but also selflessly allocating some livestock…but when we were in danger, rather than standing together with us through the difficulties, they instead defected to the enemy in a vain attempt to destroy us and get more land! Hence why I believe that this severe punishment will frighten all the Lucanian tribes in this land so that when making decisions related to Theonia, they will all think twice whether they will choose to accept the carrot or the stick!”

Bagul looked at the busy soldiers on the battlefield, who were either demolishing the enemy’s camp, picking up materials on the ground, grabbing the abandoned weapons and even removing the armour from the corpses…putting them on a fully-loaded cart, then lifting the enemy’s corpses and throwing them into the piles of burning corpses one after another…

The mountain wind blew and the ashes scattered everywhere in the air.

Bagul sighed and said, “I hope that after this war ends, peace can really be restored in the Lucanian region!”

Bagul breathed out his sorrows. He then slapped Asistes on the shoulder and said in a loud voice, “Anyway, Cincinnag was the one who finally solved our headache. Thus we need to celebrate it! Tonight, I will go to your house as I haven’t tasted my sister’s roasted mutton for a long time!”

A month later, tired of hiding from the Theonian soldiers while enduring the hardship of the mountains and the increasingly frantic abuse and beatings of Cincinnag, the Lucanians who had fled into the mountains finally took advantage while Cincinnag was asleep and killed him. Afterwards, they descended to the city of Grumentum and surrendered, a story to be told in the future.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The revolting tribes had long since fled by the time Pian led his troops back to Consentia.

In the following time, Pian led Petaru and Phitra to appease the people in the city and met with the other tribal chieftains…

While he was busy, a messenger from Clampetia arrived in Consentia.

Pian was astounded when he received Pangam’s request for help, as he had never expected that the city of Clampetia, which was known to be ‘easy to defend but hard to attack’, would already be unable to support itself after only defending for more than ten days. Moreover, he was shocked by the two terrible siege weapons of Theonia described in the letter.

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