Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

As we all know, Rome turned the Mediterranean into its own inland sea. Its territory is vast, but an overly vast territory can also cause problems, such as slow information flow.

In the headquarters of Caesarea, hundreds of officers were gathered together for a meeting. Vespa was undoubtedly the one sitting in the main seat, but the remaining few were not all his trusted legion commanders, but many outsiders. The leader was the governor of the northern Syrian province, who had four legions under his command and guarded the eastern border. He was also a powerful frontier official.

Vespa cleared his throat, his expression more serious than ever before: "I called you here because I just received news from Rome that Emperor Nero is dead."

As soon as these words came out, an uproar instantly occurred. Everyone didn't even care about order and military discipline, and couldn't help but whispering at the time.

Vespa carefully observed the expressions of the people below, and didn't speak, quietly waiting for the scene to calm down. He knew that such important news would take enough time to digest.

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, the fifth emperor of the Roman Empire, was a tyrant with a bad reputation in history, and his historical evaluation was similar to that of Jie and Zhou.

There are some disputes about his historical evaluation, and generally speaking, most of them are negative. Since he was an emperor without military merit, there were not many officers who were loyal to him. For example, Vespasian had offended Nero and was hated by the emperor because he slept at Nero's concert.

Vespasian called these more than 100 people here not to mourn, but to deal with a more realistic problem at the moment - Nero was dead, and they had to swear allegiance to the new emperor before they could continue the war.

Vespasian received a letter of appointment from Nero, asking him to continue to be in charge of the war, but the new emperor did not nod to ask him to continue the war. Even if everyone knew that this was a done deal, it was obvious that acting rashly would leave a handle for himself. Vespasian also had his own competitors in Rome, and being questioned by them about his loyalty to the emperor was a very serious political problem.

The governor of Syria next door was in a similar situation. He also had to swear allegiance to the emperor. If he didn't do it in time, he would be accused of treason, which was no joke.

The governor of Syria and Vespa were acquaintances. He said bluntly: "Who is the new emperor now? You have to let me know this before you swear allegiance."

Vespa didn't care and patiently explained the general situation to everyone.

Nero, who was not very popular, had a bad time. There were uprisings and unrest everywhere. The foundation of his rule was shaken. Finally, even the people of the capital Rome began to riot. He was driven out of the city of Rome and fled to the suburbs for refuge.

The Senate, as a gathering place for the famous families of Rome, had always been at odds with Nero. Seeing this situation, they simply crowned Galba from northeastern Spain as emperor. This man had previously rebelled against Nero. Seeing that the situation was over, Nero committed suicide directly. Galba became emperor in a somewhat unclear way.

Although everyone was curious about the cause of this incident, it was more out of curiosity than concern for politics. They were far away overseas and it was too late to care about Galba's policies. It would not be too late to wait until the war was over and back home to see.

In their opinion, they could not change anything anyway. Now they were fighting in the eastern provinces, and this was at most a topic of conversation after dinner.

It was reasonable for Vespa to summon them and the governors of neighboring provinces. After all, swearing allegiance to the new emperor was also a very important thing. The soldiers under the officers should also know the big news of the change of the throne, but this matter was just a formality.

Orville was among them, and he did not think this was a trivial matter.

Generally speaking, it is generally believed that the succession to the throne requires three things as support: orthodoxy, authority and military strength.

Galba did not have orthodoxy. He had no blood relationship with Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, and did not prepare any basis to replace this orthodoxy for a while.

His authority was not very good. The elders of the Senate were not familiar with him. He was elected only because he opposed Nero and stood up. Everyone knew that. That was all.

The most important thing was military strength. Galba was the governor of northeastern Spain. This place was a peaceful province with few local troops and low combat effectiveness. It was not enough to be the emperor's reliance.

Without all three, the old and mediocre Galba was not enough to become the Roman emperor. People with a long-term vision could see this.

In other words, the power center of Rome would have to be in chaos for a while.

Is it really a good choice to hand in the oath of loyalty now?

Orville looked at Vespa meaningfully, but he didn't expect that the other party was looking at him at the same time. At the same time as his eyes met, he quickly lowered his head, but Orville's eyes were still clearly captured by Vespa.

——

"Sometimes, being too smart is not a good thing."

Standing at the stern, Orville looked at the shrinking Caesarea depressedly. He didn't want to get involved in political issues so early.

Vespa probably had his own plans. The others either didn't think so much or were playing dumb. They all agreed to write this oath, and then Vespa sent his confidant to take a ship to Rome and deliver it to Emperor Galba.

The so-called confidant was Tia. Originally, King Architas II of Parphi was also supposed to accompany them. He also had to swear allegiance to the Roman emperor, but he declined because he had other things to do, so he asked his sister Berenice to do it for him.

Tiya was still in military uniform, with a smile on her face, and she was obviously in a good mood: "Don't worry too much, we have the naval guards of Caesarea, and the road is safe. If nothing goes wrong, we will be back in half a year. We will pass many prosperous and interesting places on the way, and I will ask you to experience them well at that time, just treat it as a journey."

From the results, Tiya was the only one who was happy among the three main characters living on the flagship. Orville was thinking about his nascent career, and Berenice was worried about her poor citizens.

When they heard that it would take at least half a year to go back and forth, the two of them suddenly became more worried, and they felt that they wanted to jump into the sea and swim back.

In the end, Orville's mood changed faster, just as a public travel. Vespa's daughter was still here, and considering his daughter, Vespa would also leave some military merits for them to brush, in fact, it was almost the same.

Now his thinking has changed a lot, and he will not look at things around him with the thinking of the ancients, but since he has this opportunity, he feels that he should live a decent life, otherwise it would be a pity for this healthy body of 20 years old.

He also smiled and joked, "I see that many of these ships are empty. It's a pity to make such a trip. Otherwise, we can stop a few times to load and unload goods. I think we can earn back the travel expenses and save Commander-in-Chief Vespa from spending money."

Tia, who is very serious at work, would not take the job later, but this time she made an exception and nodded in agreement: "Okay, no problem, it's great, but I'm not sure what to buy, you have to decide."

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