Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

When the Carolingian royal family had just taken control of the country, and its prestige and power were still at their peak, King Charles had been leading his warriors to expand the country's territory since he was young. Most of the nobles present had fought under him and were quite impressed by this warlike king.

Now that the king has issued his order, it is reasonable, and of course not many people will openly oppose him.

After all, asking the nobles to fight to the death against the powerful Romans requires complex distribution of interests and many promises, but against the barbarians who are inferior to the Franks or other Germans, most nobles will not have much objection. They are just worried that they will get less when dividing the cake. This is a small internal contradiction.

King Charles has always been a fair king. The nobles know that as long as they obey the royal authority, the royal family will not lose their rewards. After they have such trust in the royal family, the king's orders were quickly passed down to the armies of various nobles. The large-scale army left the Rhine River in a short period of time and headed for the undeveloped land east of the Frankish Kingdom, preparing to expand the territory for their own kingdom.

Such a big move could not be unnoticed by the Romans across the river, but they acquiesced to this behavior and did not try to organize the army again, taking advantage of the empty Germanic border defense to attack the other side's border line, because the gain would outweigh the loss.

What the Romans want now is to recuperate rather than go to war with the Germans on all fronts. As long as this goal is achieved, Emperor Vespa does not intend to recruit troops to fill the Germanic defense line. The empire needs some time to recover after the civil war, and expanding the scale of the war will not benefit them as a whole.

It is precisely because of this that King Charles dared to boldly transfer most of the army at this time. He believed that the Romans did not intend to expand the war situation, and the result was indeed the case.

Under this unspoken tacit understanding, the crisis between the two sides was finally passed smoothly. As for the Roman occupation of Britain or the German erosion of the east, it belongs to the scope of "regional conflict" and will not have a fundamental impact on the situation of the entire Western world.

…………

Turn your eyes back to Orwell. He has been paying attention to the frontline and got the news relatively early, so he was relieved.

The local nobles will not be able to stay in peace immediately, but he has been prepared for this. He just needs to not face the pressure of the Franks directly. He is more confident in handling local affairs.

Let's not talk about whether the Romans are more advanced than the Germanic people who are a mixture of feudalism and tribalism. Before the Romans landed, Britain was in a state of warlords fighting each other. Normal people all yearn for stability and peace. There is no doubt that the Romans can bring these and do not exploit the locals too much. In fact, these civilians don't care so much about where the rulers are from.

Now his army is working with the locals to build various small fortresses on the eastern coast of England, which is a defense line against the Vikings. Some officers in the army also advised him that this was a disaster, and that the defense line against the Vikings might also become a fortress against the Romans, but he himself thought that there was no need to worry too much about this matter.

After all, these Germans now rely on farming as the main and grazing as the supplement, and they can run away but not the land and livestock. The small fortress he built for the Germans was not built according to the standards of a long-term fortress. In other words, there was no food inside, and the defense level could not stop the proper siege vehicles and siege weapons, and could only delay the Vikings who lacked equipment.

The construction concept of these fortresses was to delay them, and the Romans or the local powerful central army would be responsible for driving away the Vikings. The local uprising also lacked such a powerful force to deal with the Romans. At that time, they could trap the Romans to death, or burn the fields and leave directly. Anyway, the locals could do nothing about them.

However, these are all theoretical talks on paper. It depends on the practical effect when it comes to real implementation. Orville believes that the gap between theory and practice will not be large, so he gave the order.

The locals had not yet shown a stronger willingness to resist, so he took advantage of the situation and began to lay out the bureaucracy.

Although Vespa's appointment had not yet been made, his advantage was here. His father was the emperor, and there was a lot of room for maneuver in matters outside the procedure. In the secret talks before the expedition, Vespa had almost given him the inside scoop. As long as he could handle the affairs of Britain, he could become the governor of Britain. Vespa's promise to his family was certainly not false, so he could design the administrative structure of this province in the name of the emperor and as an officer before the appointment.

Anyway, all the Romans here were his subordinates and there were no outsiders. Even if someone (such as Procopius) saw that Orwell was acting on his own a lot of the time, they would not tell anyone, and at most they would complain in their hearts. This was his biggest advantage over many generals. If others did these things, they would definitely be suspected of treason by the emperor, and they would either be urgently recalled or put on ice in the future. If they met an emperor who was narrow-minded and suspicious, they might suffer a bloody disaster.

First of all, we should clarify what the "province" in the Roman concept is. This province is not quite the same as the province in China and is determined by very complex reasons.

The Latin word "provincia" literally means "the scope of power of a law enforcement officer". A "province" is the scope of authority assigned to an official and recognized when exercising governance. Probably because of the remnants of the habits and cultural concepts of the city-state era, the Romans showed some characteristics in all aspects.

Specifically, a doctrine that was supported believed that the province was the "spoils" (praeda) of the Roman people and could be exploited according to their preferences.

The Roman Empire after Augustus recognized this problem and made some repairs, but the overall effect was not good. The power of the provincial governor was still unconstrained, and the provincial bureaucracy was still seriously shrunk.

Orville did not like this situation, so he once again "fake the imperial edict" and announced that the number of treasurers, auditors and legal officers of the upcoming British province would be increased, not just a little, but tripled on the original basis.

The increase in the number of people was mainly the most basic itinerant statisticians, itinerant judges and tribunes, who were grassroots bureaucrats who did practical work. Even if the number was tripled, it would not be much.

At the same time, he also made a decision that went against his ancestors - to set up a special banking institution, separate the power of the bank from the temple, and let full-time bureaucrats do these jobs.