Chapter 106 The Difficulties of the Illyrians

Kalsipempas pointed to the laborers in front who were struggling to carry iron ore, and said in a low voice: "You see, these poor guys are the Sarapians who used to be aloof and shouted at us to beat and kill us."

Onoma Baitis suddenly said: "I said these guys are so clumsy in carrying goods, it turns out that's the case!"

"There are a lot of good things in that market. They plundered them from the homes of rich people in Sarapia, but they sold them very cheaply. The new clothes your sister-in-law is wearing, and the ones she used when we had a drink last time That beautiful set of wine sets was bought here. After we finish our work, you can go shopping in the market and maybe you can pick something good that you want."

Although Onomabaitis was intrigued by what Carl Sipempas said, he still said cautiously: "If the matter can be completed smoothly, I will consider it."

"Believe me, it will go smoothly!" Carl Sipimpas responded confidently.

Entering the warehouse, Onomabatis saw mountains of grain on one side of the warehouse, and countless bundles of wool on the other side. Several merchants in gorgeous clothes were counting and greeting the laborers. portage.

"Are those Sicilian businessmen?" asked Calsipempas.

"Yes." The accountant at the dock did not hide it before and sighed: "This time they came to sell grain and buy wool, but when they came, they ran into a patrolling Roman warship and almost got caught. They were frightened and didn’t know if they would come again next time.”

"It's so abominable that Roman warships are running rampant in the Adriatic Sea now! No one dares to mess with it except us!" Carlisle Pompas took the opportunity to promote himself.

"Yes, I will have to rely more on you in the future." The secretary agreed.

The inspection and weighing of the iron ore was completed quickly. The clerk looked at Carl Sipimpas and said seriously: "The total iron ore you brought this time is 5530 kilograms. According to the price we negotiated before, each kilogram of iron ore will The ore is 10 Asi, so in total...well, I have to pay you 55,300 Asi, right?"

Calsipempas counted on his fingers for a while, but he couldn't figure it out very clearly, but he answered simply: "That's right!"

Next to him, Onoma Baitis stood blankly with his mouth slightly open.

He remembered very clearly that before, Charles Pampas just took his ship to pretend to be a merchant ship and entered the port outside the city of Istria. He spent less than 30,000 as and pulled a shipload of Noriki ships. Iron ore, it took just over a day to get here, and I made twice as much money. This money is so good!

"Then come with me and go see Steward Alacosia."

"Onomabaitis, come with me to meet this compatriot of ours." Kalsipempas called to Onomabaitis, followed the accountant, and the three of them left the warehouse together and walked into the nearby store. A building, going up to the second floor.

As he walked along the corridor, Onomabatis took the opportunity to look out and happened to see hundreds of soldiers wearing armor and holding weapons doing formation training in the open space not far behind the warehouse. He couldn't help but feel sad. Shivering: No wonder the people at the port were not afraid at all when they saw them. It turned out that there was an army nearby to protect them. Fortunately, Carlsipampas reminded the brothers to put back their weapons. Otherwise, if they had misunderstood, then... "

Onomabatis was a little frightened, but Kalsipempas stretched out his hand and pulled him: "What are you doing? Come in quickly!"

Onomabaitis staggered into the room. Sitting in the room was a man in his 30s with blue eyes, gray hair, sunken eyes and a flat forehead. He was strong and fit, looking like a typical Illyrian mountaineer.

When he saw the three people coming in, a smile immediately appeared on his face. He stood up to greet them and complained: "Calsipempas, I haven't seen you for many days. I thought you were caught by the Romans."

"Arakosia, shut your crow mouth. I just left five days ago. How can I not see you for many days? It seems that your memory is not good." The two people complained to each other, but held their hands tightly. Together.

Onomabaitis was in a daze. He remembered hearing Carl Sepampas say that he had met this compatriot in the Free Italian Army when he first came to the port of Sarapia two months ago, but at this moment The two acted like close friends.

"Let me introduce to you. This is my little brother Onomabatis, who is also from Illyria. He once worked under me for a while. Now he has saved a ship and became the captain, working alone. ." Kalsipempas pointed at Onomabatis and introduced.

Onomabatis immediately leaned forward knowingly and said: "Hello, Alakosia, I have heard Brother Kalsipempas mention you many times before. It is my honor to see you today!"

"We are all compatriots, so there is no need to be so polite." Alakosia said with enthusiasm: "We welcome you to come here!" After that, he shook hands with Onoma Baitis and greeted the two of them. sit down.

The accountant whispered something to Aracosia and handed him a wax tablet on which was written the quantity and total price of the iron ore carried by Carlsipimpas's ship.

After reading it, Alacosia picked up the stylus and signed his name.

The accountant took back the wax plate and walked out quickly.

"There are rules for withdrawing money here. I am specifically responsible for our trade in Illyria. After I sign and confirm the trade order, I still need the signature of my boss, Commercial Officer Pygris, before I can Go to the financial officer in the city to get the money, so you two have to wait here for a while," Alacocia explained.

This was mainly meant for Onomabaitis alone. Charles Pampas had been here many times, and of course he knew it very well. He said jokingly: "Isn't it just to withdraw money? You are doing worse than the Romans." It’s going to be troublesome.”

Alacosia replied seriously: "I found it troublesome before, but Chief Maximus said, 'Although we are just a team hastily formed to resist the Romans, we must have lofty goals. If If everyone can abide by the rules and perform their duties, then the entire team will be orderly and full of vitality. If we can manage a port or a town well, then we will be able to manage a region or a kingdom well in the future... …'”

Originally, in the eyes of Carlsipimpas and Onomabatis, the Free Italy team was not much different from Illyrian pirates like them, except that they had more people, more courage, and more power.

But Aracocia's words shocked the two of them. They looked at each other in surprise, and a thought came to their minds: The ambition of a free Italy is not small!

Seeing that the two of them were a little distracted, Aracoscia changed the topic: "Onoma Baitis, this time you come to Sarapia, are you also going to help us transport iron ore?"

"Yes! Yes!" Onomabatis nodded repeatedly. Carl Sipempas made so much money from just one trip on the ship, how could he not be tempted.

Alakosia nodded and said slowly: "Let me introduce the situation to you first. There is a weapons workshop in this city that can make weapons for our soldiers, but it lacks iron ore, and the iron ore here is all Bought from the Noriki.

Fortunately, there happened to be a Noriki merchant trapped in the port on the day the city was broken. We found him and negotiated with him. At first he didn't agree because they had an agreement with the Romans and we were enemies of Rome. Later, we proposed to buy the iron ore at a price of five As per catty, and he finally expressed his willingness to go back and negotiate, because the Romans bought the iron ore from Norici at a price of one As per catty——"

"Greedy Noriki." Onomabaitis muttered.

"No, it should be that the Romans were greedy. The iron ore of the Noriki people was of good quality, but the price given by the Romans was too low." Carlsipampas said, he had been dealing with Noriki businessmen during this time, and he was very concerned about this. Got a lot of understanding.

"In the end, the Noriki agreed to sell us a small amount of iron ore at this price, but because they were afraid of being intercepted by Roman warships, they were not responsible for transporting the goods. Instead, they asked us to go to the port of Istria Peninsula and to them. We have to go to the store to buy it and we are responsible for shipping it ourselves.

But we don’t have a boat! Everyone has a headache over this. Fortunately, Carl Sipimpas sailed to our port at this time -" Alacosia looked at the pirate captain and said gratefully: "You are willing to take the risk to transport iron ore for us, which can be regarded as helping us solve the problem. Solve this big problem! "

"Arakosia, you praise me too much." Calsipempas laughed and said frankly: "I heard that Sarapia was taken over by you, and I wanted to sneak in to see if there was anything. I took advantage of this, but I didn’t expect to be discovered by you. I thought it would be over now, but I didn’t expect you to be very polite to me and my brothers. Chief Maximus even hosted a banquet for me in person...

We Illyrian pirates were either treated as street rats or hunted down in any port town in Italy. When have we ever enjoyed such good treatment? Do you think I can refuse to agree? "Karsipempas became more and more excited as he spoke.

"Chief Maximus is also an Illyrian. I once heard him say that when he sees you, he is as friendly as seeing his own relatives!" Alakosia looked at Onoma Baitis and said emotionally. : "Although you live on the Adriatic Sea, are familiar with the sea conditions, and the ships are light, it is difficult for Roman warships to intercept you, but Chief Maximus thinks that you have taken a great risk to do things for us, so he ignored the financial officer. I objected and insisted on paying you double the price.”

At this moment, Onomabatis was also greatly touched.

"Onomabatis, you were recommended by Carl Sipempas. I believe you are fully capable of helping us transport iron ore." Alakosia said, handing him a square cloth: "This is If you need to buy iron ore from the Noriki people, go to the Noriki Trading Post in Istria Peninsula and show them this voucher, and you can buy iron ore at a price of 5 As per catty... Yes Yes, do you have enough money? If not, we can borrow it on credit first."

"Thank you for your kindness. I still have enough money to buy more than a dozen baskets of iron ore." Since he followed Kalsi Pampas, Onomabatis was certainly prepared.

He unfolded the square cloth in his hand. On the square cloth was a pattern of a slave beating a wolf with a stick drawn in indigo. The painting was vivid and lifelike. There is also a line of letters below, but unfortunately Onoma Baitis is illiterate and does not know what is written.

He had never seen such a realistic picture before, and his eyes were firmly attracted.

"This was painted by Chief Maximus himself. Is it the same as the real thing? I don't think anyone can imitate it!" Alakosia said proudly.

Onomabatis nodded involuntarily.

Kalsipempas coughed twice and said, "Alacosia, can I ask you for help?"

Seeing that the other party suddenly spoke so politely, Alakosia straightened her expression and responded: "Please tell me."

"The tribe I belong to lives in a mountainous area and mainly makes a living by raising sheep. I don't know what happened in the past two or three years. It always snows heavily in winter and the weather is extremely cold. There are a large number of cattle and sheep in the tribe. They died, the people lacked food, suffered from cold and hunger... No matter it is my tribe, it is the same with other tribes in the mountains. I have been using the money I earned to buy food for them, but now the food purchase is getting more and more important. It’s getting more and more difficult…”

Kalsipempas looked hopeful and said softly in a pleading tone: "I think you have a lot of food here. Can you sell me some so that my people in the mountains can tide over the difficulties?"

Alacosia did not expect that the other party made such a request, and immediately frowned, but soon he responded seriously: "My compatriots are suffering from disasters, and I also want to help, but I don't have the right to sell food, but I can ask my commander Pigris for you. Well, you two sit here for a while while I go to find Pigris."

After saying that, he stood up and walked out.

Carl Sepimpas did not expect that he would do what he said, and he was a little surprised.

"Brother, do you really plan to buy food from here?" Onoma Baitis asked curiously.

"You have to give it a try." Kalsipempas sighed: "The food prices in the port towns we often visit this year are either too high or not for sale. And just now you saw a lot of food in their warehouses. Maybe we can get it cheap."

When he said this, Onomabaitis also cheered up, because buying food for the tribe was not what the pirates of Kalsipempas were doing.

Illyria has many mountains and little land, and the land is barren. In addition, the Romans destroyed the Kingdom of Illyria a hundred years ago and put its coastal lands under Roman control, but they always ignored the lives of its people. Illyria People's lives are difficult, and when pirates rob merchant ships, it becomes their best choice to exchange for money, buy food, and provide for their families and tribes.