When the second secretary of the Florence government, the deputy secretary of the government, walked up to the floor of his office, he saw several familiar men sitting on chairs beside the corridor of the outside room whispering.

Seeing the next secretary of the government affairs officer, the men who looked like businessmen immediately stood up and greeted him.

"Dear Secretary, we are waiting for you," an old businessman with gray hair, who was obviously the leader of these people, came up and said carefully. Seeing the look the secretary's eyes cast at him, the old businessman shyed his slightly protruding belly, and said in a slightly proud tone, "I am Giovanni Datemila of the Florence Wool Industry Guild. I think you should still remember me."

"I do remember," the second secretary nodded. "I remember you were the first person to propose the promotion of Ladia gold coins in the industry guild, because you made a lot of money."

After hearing what the secretary said, the old businessman named Giovanni Datemila showed a smug smile on his face. No wonder he was very proud of this. It was precisely because of his long-term vision that his family became one of the few local merchants who made a fortune in the dumping war that affected the entire Florence a few years ago. Even Sazi, who was the governor of Florence, was quite envious when he mentioned it to others in private.

"Sir, you know that it's not easy to do business these days. Not only are there little money and big profits now, but we may lose all our money because we often fight wars. What's more, we can't feel at ease."

Giovanni Dartmila was nagging, and followed the secretary into the office. As for the others, they were not qualified to follow them, so they could only wait in the corridor with an anxious look on their faces.

"Okay, let's talk about something," the second secretary sat down and looked at the businessman opposite him. He knew that this unremarkable old man actually had a huge influence that others could imagine. As the leader of the 12 most important wool industry guilds in Florence, Giovanni Datemila controlled a large number of wealthy businessmen, and these businessmen were the big money owners behind many Florentine MPs. In short, this is a person that even the governor Sazi would not be willing to offend easily.

However, now this person would stand in front of him so carefully, but the second secretary was not surprised, because this person obviously knew who was the real person in Florence.

Moreover, Machiafli was obviously very proud of his current status. After all, as the second secretary, he could determine the fate of Florence. Although this has never happened in the past, it is probably not going to happen again in the future.

And he will achieve what he is now, although it is because of the little duchess who are now in Pisa, and another reason is the wise choices and brave performance he made when the Genoese tried to attack Pisa.

Even now, Machiafli is scared to wake up whenever he dreams of that experience late at night. Sometimes he is even wondering why he was so brave at that time, but fortunately, he not only survived, but also made good luck.

"Sir, the French are coming. Do you think we need to make some necessary preparations?"

The old man Dartmila's inquiry woke up the second secretary who was suddenly trapped in memories. This made Machiafli look at the old man a little unhappy, and then asked in disappointment: "So what preparation do you think we should do?"

"Maybe the French will occupy Florence. I remember that when Charles occupied this place a few years ago, he asked us to pay defense taxes. I wonder what rules will the current French king have?"

Machiafli frowned. He was not disgusted with the old man's words. He knew that there was no saying that those merchants were loyal to anyone. The only thing they should be loyal to was Huang Chengcheng Gold. What he was worried about was whether all merchants had the same idea as this old man Dartmila.

Machiafli believed in Alexander, and this actually had nothing to do with loyalty. He would trust Alexander so much, but he thought that his past experiences were.

However, if the Florentines really chose to change their minds because they believed that Roman Thesia would inevitably fail, Machiafli would not stubbornly fight against everyone. The person who did that was really stupid. Even if he still held the responsibility of the chief diplomat of Roman Thesia, he would at least be wise to not go against everyone in Florence.

Thinking of this in my heart, Machiafli decided to explore the old man's tone first.

"Is this what you mean by yourself, or the wool guild, or all the guilds?"

Machiafli asked in disrespectfully, although he knew that if the entire Florence guild had such a counter-argument, he would definitely hear the news, but he decided to be more cautious and figure out the situation first before responding.

"How can everyone agree on this kind of thing be the same? But please rest assured that if we need it, we can let everyone join in. But the key is still the Principality of Roman Thesia, aren't you?"

Dartmila showed a reserved smile. He knew that the next secretary was testing him, but he was not easy to deal with. Although he wanted to find a way out for himself before the French came, he did not completely give up on the Principality of Roman Thesia. After all, there were too many miracles that the duke had created in the past. Although this time it looked very bad, it might not happen again that no one would have thought of.

Therefore, he would not easily give up Romethes, a big ship that brought him great wealth because of the changes in front of him.

Machiafli nodded in agreement. He understood that the old man was almost telling him openly that he was watching the direction of the wind, which made Machiafli secretly annoyed and admired his boldness and freedom.

But he could not change his mind as he did with the wind as these merchants. When he chose to sell Florence to Pisa, he had no way out.

"Florence has decided to join the Holy Alliance. Whether everyone wants or not, we are standing with Roman Thecia now, and there are many people joining this alliance, so we still have to make a choice at this time..."

Machiafli, who was about to say "be careful", was interrupted by a knock on the door. As the door opened, a young man who seemed a little hurried had already rushed in without waiting for the servant to report.

Ronzo Sabatini's anxious look surprised Machiafli. The young man who originally came to Florence to study art had already suffered a great doubt about art. Especially after seeing with his own eyes that Botticelli, who had always admired him, actually burned down his precious masterpieces in his later years because of Savonalola's bewitching, and even criticized art, even called the Depraved Poison, Ronzo Sabatini no longer knew what was right and what was wrong.

Because of this, he had long given up his dream of becoming an artist, but he did not return to his hometown of Bologna, but stayed in Florence.

Now he is an agent of the futures exchange established by James Columbus in Florence, and he is doing quite well.

As far as Machiafli knows, in addition to being a hub for business transactions in various places, the exchanges in these cities are also an intelligence transfer station established by the Duke of Rometheia in various places. Through those almost omnipresent merchants from all walks of life, a huge number of intelligence will be sent to Montina, the center of the Principality. There are already some students recruited by the Duke of Rometheia from Bologna and Paveia University in the name of hiring officials. The information will be sent to this servant hall for screening and judgment.

So now seeing the strange look on Ronzo Sabatini's face, Machiafli immediately realized something big might have happened, he immediately stood up, and after seeing the situation, Dartmila had to retreat with disappointment, he waved to Ronzo Sabatini: "What happened? Could it be that the French have arrived outside Florence?"

Seeing the jokes that he thought he was humor did not make Ronzo Sabatini relax, Machiafli knew that things might be really not small.

"The Jew, named Joseph Macheney, just sent someone to send a strange letter, I think you must see it."

Ronzo Sabatini said carefully that he handed the letter that was pinched to the point where he was about to deform, and then looked at him with a keen look, as if he wanted him to solve his doubts.

Machiafli opened the wrinkled letter paper and looked at the simple words on it. He was as confused as Ronzo Sabatini, and then slowly sat down and fell into deep thought.

"Sir, if I understand it correctly, is that Macheni asking us to release all the Ladia gold coins at hand?" Ronzo Sabatini asked, "But do you know if you do this..."

Before Ronzo Sabatini could finish his words, Machiafli raised his hand to block him. He picked up the letter and looked carefully. Then he found several seemingly unimportant words in the letter. He first asked Ronzo Sabatini to wait in the room, and he went to the room alone, found one of the many Bibles on the bookshelf and flipped it.

In some specific pages, Machiafli quickly found the answer he needed. After pieced together these words and turned into a sentence with a specific meaning, Machiafli couldn't help but open his mouth slightly, then looked up at the cross on the wall.

"God forgive me." Machiafli whispered to himself, then ignited the letter.

When he walked outside, his eyes first fell on Ronzo Sabatini's face and stopped, then he stretched out his hand and put his shoulders on the young man's shoulders and walked outwards, saying, "Go and do it, some things are destined to come. If this makes us witnesses of all this, perhaps in the future, when we get old, these experiences will become the most proud wealth of our lives."

Ronzo Sabatini left the office of the second secretary of government in a worried state. Before leaving, he noticed that Machiafli once again called the businessman named Giovanni Datemila into his room.

However, Ronzo Sabatini didn't know that when Dartmila came out of the room of the second-ranked Secretary of State, the expression on her face was too strange and frightened the others.

The French army entered Romagna, and the news spread throughout the Principality of Rometheia almost in just a few days.

This made the people who had just enjoyed a brief peace and tense up again. Unlike the wars in the past, almost everyone felt that for some reason, the war seemed to be suddenly involved with themselves. This can be seen from the fact that the farmers were organized to train the use of weapons, and the announcement of the stockpiling of food, cloth, vehicles and wine in various villages and towns of all sizes.

It seems that overnight, the past that wars and civilians had nothing to do with them became gone.

Moreover, the news about the war is different from the casual talks made by travelers who used to be just passing by. Almost every day, people will go to some big villages and towns to tell everyone where the French are now and what the Duke's army is doing.

Over time, the people gradually began to get used to this kind of unrelated thing and became a part of their lives.

At the same time, people also began to use the names "their army" and "our army".

"I heard that the French have arrived in Bratan," said a woman in a village while twisting her clothes hard and said worriedly. "I don't know where the place is, but I heard that it will arrive in Florence soon. Isn't that mean they are going to come to us?"

"Don't listen to those nonsense," another fat woman retorted unhappily, "The Duke's army has defeated the Ottomans. Will the French be more powerful than the Ottomans?"

"But I heard that their army has many people, and we are less than half of them," the woman before said in a low voice, "I heard that the Duke is not in Montina now, but his wife is in charge of the entire army."

"Then you don't have to worry," although he was also uneasy, but the fat woman still insisted on her own point of view. "If it were Lucrezia, it might be a bit bad. After all, that woman is said to be so stupid that she can't find Bei except for being so enchanting that the Duke can't find Bei, but the Duchess is a powerful woman. I heard that she even defeated the Pope, so our army should still be able to defend it."

Hearing such a powerful proof, the women nearby made a cry of surprise, but the topic naturally turned to whether the Duke liked his capable wife or his lover who was beautiful and actually stupid.

Similarly, such topics can be heard everywhere else in the Principality, and people began to no longer ignore war as much as before, because they found that this was indeed a big thing that happened in their lives.

However, the rumors that were circulated very strongly were not completely unfounded. In mid-May, Louis XII's army finally captured Pesha, a not-so-important fortress.

However, this result did not make the Dharma King happy. On the contrary, he vaguely felt that the situation did not seem to be as smooth as he expected.

Pecha is a semi-military town not far from Pisa. Originally, the French offensive had been left far behind a few days ago. Then the French vanguard should have already drank the upper reaches of the Marárno River and then looked at the city of Florence.

But the development of things was quite unexpected to the French.

Pisa, surrounded by Powellian's heavy troops, was not only in danger, nor surrendered. Instead, they used the port to send an army along the coastline to Livorno, not too far from Pisa, and then sent troops from there, launching harassing attacks on the French from the south bank of the Arno River again and again.

Due to the blockade of the Arno River, although Louis XII's army was far more numerous than the enemy, every time the French army tried to send troops to eliminate the enemy, the coalition forces would immediately escape the Arno River, and then confront the French army with the obstacles of the river.

This greatly hindered the French attack, and it took a long time for a small Pesha to finally force the enemy to surrender.

When Louis XII entered Pesha, the cool weather was already slightly hot, which made the Dharma King feel inexplicably anxious, because he had heard that the Venetian army had passed by Ferrara, and the abandoned city and fled Constantine had reorganized an army of about 1,400 people and came to Romagna with the Venetians.

As for Maximian, although the Austrian army should not have entered Italy so quickly, when Louis XII thought that Milan might be threatened, he felt that he had to speed up his march.

In this situation, Louis XII had to condescend to write a letter to Caesar. While praising him for his bravery and loyalty, he also hinted that he had almost rested and should have moved.

The letter came to Caesar's hands a few days later, which made Caesar feel excited.

The previous feeling of frustration was gone for a moment because of the cold reception of Louis XII. At the same time, the army expanded by the expansion of Ladia's reserves after this period of rest and spending all his money.

What made Caesar particularly happy was the timely arrival of the officers he recruited from the Bologna Military School, which made him feel that the Pope's army was finally gradually improving. Although it was impossible to make a large number of firearms due to short time, at least one musket unit, which was not large in number, was still enough to see.

"I heard that Rusha Kosenza relies on her musket force called the Grenadier Company, so I think she already has an opponent now." Caesar looked at the army in front of him and said confidently, then he turned to a foreign officer with two beards on his lips standing bearded by the side. "I heard that you were a hero who resisted the Ottomans and one of the best students in the Bologna school. Now I handed over this army to you, and I hope you don't let me down."

"Please rest assured that Lord Duke, I will never let you down, and may even have some unexpected surprises."
Chapter completed!