Rome Must Perish-Chapter 323 - 202: Dividing Land (Continued)

Pequot’s heart was moved: "Where can we find these Illyrians who are willing to help us farm the land."

"I’m afraid it will take some time before they arrive. If you’re willing, you can periodically check with the Agricultural Department. I have to rush over there now and take some people to inspect the land."

"Thank you!" Pequot watched the other party leave and then sat by the rocks, gazing longingly at the fields for a while before deciding to return to the village and share this joy with his wife who was resting at home due to illness...

One by one, Nix tribesmen were called up to the wooden platform, emotionally receiving their land certificates. During the land verification process, some shouted, some cried, some sang and danced, and some rolled on the ground... The full spectrum of human emotions was on display, an unreserved expression of the joy filling their hearts, accompanied by the sincerest gratitude to Leader Maximus for realizing their dreams.

This is one of the reasons why Maximus made the land distribution so grand and elaborate, even personally presiding over it: such an important opportunity to gain the people’s favor and earn prestige could not be handed over to the Labor Department. No matter how hard it was, he had to do it himself.

Another reason was to show the reserve tribe members.

In fact, this large tribal assembly did have some effect. The Skodisqi people were quite envious, and many were looking forward to the day, two years later, when they would be allocated land.

Of course, some raised doubts: "Stop dreaming! All the land will be distributed to these people; where will there be any left for us in two years?!" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Many quickly retorted, "You’re foolish! Where do you think the land officially distributed to the tribe members came from? Didn’t we seize it from the Pannonians?! Hasn’t the sage often said that Leader Maximus aims to conquer the Pannonians and avenge us? Didn’t he capture two Segestica villages shortly after arriving here? Who knows how much Pannonian land he will seize in the future! Then, you’ll see there’s plenty of land to distribute!"

"Exactly, if we follow Leader Maximus to avenge ourselves on the Pannonians, we can also gain their land. It’s such a wonderful thing!"

...

Over on the side of the Pannonian reserve tribe members, the situation was different.

"Damn it! These outsiders are dividing our land right in front of us, a huge humiliation! I shouldn’t have listened to that woman of mine, foolishly running to their tribe, serving them as a slave!"

"Yeah, just thinking about having to help them farm in the future makes me want to kill myself!"

"If that’s the case, why don’t you go tell these outsiders that you don’t want to stay here anymore and would rather return to the Illyrians, getting whipped every day, eating dirty food, and doing endless dirty and tiring work..."

"I... Curse you, Cronus, you coward, you surrendered to these outsiders and became a dog wagging its tail for them!"

"I’ve just accepted reality. The land they took isn’t originally ours; we seized it from the Illyrians, and now they’ve taken it from us, plain and simple: the stronger ones own it."

"Cronus, you traitor! When the Great Chief leads the army to eliminate these outsiders, you will be expelled from the tribe, no, you must kneel before the Holy Stone and receive countless lashes!"

"The Great Chief?! Stop hoping! Last time, he led all the warriors of our tribe, far outnumbering these outsiders, and what happened? A crushing defeat! And although we didn’t see it ourselves, we’ve heard the Great Chief subsequently brought in reinforcements from other tribes with even larger forces, yet still couldn’t defeat these outsiders...

The Great Chief is the most famous warrior of our tribe, but these outsiders are even better at fighting. They’ve lived in our village for so long already, and by the Great Chief’s usual temper, he would have led an attack, yet there’s been no sign of him doing so. The Great Chief must be afraid—"

"You’re spouting nonsense! Didn’t they say? The Great Chief has never feared enemy forces; he’s just slightly injured—"

"You heard wrong; the Nix people said the Great Chief wasn’t just slightly injured but severely wounded. Otherwise, with his combat experience, he’s always been able to regroup and fight again shortly after—"

"Cronus, you bastard! Are you determined to betray us and join these outsiders occupying our homeland?"

"Prisus, I don’t understand why you’re so hell-bent on supporting the Great Chief and a tribe that has abandoned us in such dire circumstances! Don’t forget, we’re just ordinary tribe members. Our leader Wallis never heeds our wishes but forcibly moved us from the Sava Riverbank to here, constantly fighting the Illyrians, causing so many of our comrades to die.

We’ve sacrificed so much, but we own less land than these outsiders do, and more than half of our harvests are forcibly taken to support the war efforts.

In contrast, the Nix Tribe members are much happier. They only need to contribute ten percent of their annual harvest, and those who perform well in battle can get promoted, receive rewards, and even become nobles. Can we achieve that in our tribe? Prisus, don’t you want to become a noble?!"

"These... these are outsiders’ lies!"

"They carved these promises on wooden boards, placed just outside the courtyard wall of the main house for everyone to see. If they dared to deceive, they would be scorned by all tribesmen!"

"I think Cronus is right; the promise by the outsiders called the Twenty Peerage System is absolutely real! We all saw the two wooden bridges the outsiders built; real large wooden bridges completed in less than a month! It’s a miracle! These outsiders must be blessed by the Divine; the Great Chief wouldn’t be able to defeat them! We’d better settle down and work here, and I believe our future here won’t be worse than before!"

"Indeed, the leader of these outsiders is Illyrian, and most of them are Illyrians too. Didn’t they say that our Pannonians are a branch of the Illyrians, and the two tribes formerly had great relations? So they don’t consider us true enemies.

I suffered a severe injury in battle and recovered thanks to their careful treatment! I believe if we just work properly here, they will treat us much better than the Skodisqi people, after all, due to our close blood ties..."

"Traitors! You traitors! I’ll kill you!"

...

Such conflicts occasionally occurred within the team composed of Pannonian reserve tribe members, but the soldiers maintaining order ensured that these did not significantly impact the land distribution ceremony.

The land distribution ceremony lasted three days, and by the end, more than half of the people in the venue were gone, mostly staying on their just-allocated land. Yet Maximus, still as spirited as at the start, held a bark microphone, speaking with fervor: "A month ago, we were still troubled by how to get from the south bank of the Kupa River to the north bank, yet now we can freely cross back and forth! Tell me why that is?!"

"Because we have bridges!!..." Many tribesmen shouted in unison.

"That’s right, we have bridges, and not just any bridges—true large wooden ones that allow boats to pass underneath, and they were constructed in less than a month! This has broken the history of no bridges in this region, providing great convenience for the tribe’s development and earning our tribe prestige in this area!

Given their significant contributions, the tribe has decided to promote the engineer Spukala, who oversaw the entire bridge-building, to first-class citizen, and promote Tetilipus, who, with his skill, led the carpenters in building the bridge and offered many good ideas, to first-class tribesman! Please, both of you, come to the stage!"

In fact, Maximus originally intended to promote not only Skala but also the organizer behind the wooden bridges, Chief Officer of the Public Works Department, Capito. However, Capito, in his pride, felt he hadn’t significantly contributed to the bridges and declined. Therefore, Maximus chose Tetilipus instead, not only because of his outstanding performance but also because his status as a carpenter served as a great encouragement to all craftsmen in the Nix Tribe.

Although fewer people remained in the venue, the cheers the two received when ascending the stage were nearly equal to those received by the first to go up, Pequot. Perhaps because Pequot’s promotion seemed much harder to achieve for many, but these two, especially Tetilipus, gave the people hope for advancement—precisely the effect Maximus aimed for.

The last tribesman to receive land was Maximus himself, totaling eighty acres, including what his wife Nexia received, no different from other tribal families. As such, everyone not only refrained from complaint but respected the leader even more since he placed himself last and received very remote land.

When Nexia gleefully pulled Maximus to verify their family’s land, she did have some complaints about this. Maximus merely smiled and didn’t argue.

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

In the morning, after breakfast, many Nix tribesmen gathered in the Agricultural Department’s experimental field.

At Maximus’s suggestion, the Agricultural Department’s Chief Officer Volenus approved a meeting in the Political Affairs Hall to delineate a hundred-acre patch of land north of the Kupa River, directly opposite Snowdonia Village, as a public experimental field for the Agricultural Department. This allowed them to practice new farming methods or select and breed crops on this land, promoting successful techniques in the tribe to enhance tribesmen’s harvests.