Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

At present, even after the Battle of Hastings, the locals are not particularly convinced by the newly arrived Romans. The attack on Orville is a microcosm of this, because they still have a backer behind them - the covetous Frankish Kingdom.

Their backers have not yet shown weakness, which makes some of the local die-hard noble priests still have an illusion: the war is not impossible to fight, as long as the Franks launch an attack, everything will be fine.

This idea is not wrong from the perspective of the time, but the Franks need to think carefully about whether they are ready to challenge the old hegemonic country.

While Orville was in a remote area of ​​Britain and fighting with the local barbarians, some new news came from the European continent.

The new king of the Frankish Kingdom has once again prepared to assemble troops, eyeing the Romans in Gaul and Germanic territory, and seems to be ready to fight again.

The central Roman Empire cannot show weakness either. Emperor Vespa commissioned the Senate elder Pliny to lead more than 10,000 people to the Germanic province to support the new Germanic legions that were replaced there.

The two sides deployed their forces along the Rhine River, and it seemed that the situation was tense and that a war might break out at any time.

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Almost at the same time when Orville received the news, a fierce debate broke out in the Frankish royal court.

King Charles sat on his throne without saying a word, listening to the many nobles below spitting at each other, and each of them lost their composure and argued until their faces turned red.

"This is our best chance! The Romans have just experienced a civil war and are now in a state of financial difficulty. If we don't take action now, we won't be able to turn things around in a hundred or two hundred years!!"

"Are you sane? I don't know if they are weak or not. There are nearly 100,000 Roman troops on the border. We don't stand a chance of winning. They have built fortresses and strongholds along the coast. We won't have a chance to break in if these soldiers are stationed there. It will only increase casualties."

"You missed the opportunity! If we had fought earlier, they wouldn't have reacted!!"

"Even if we can win a battle, so what? Their main force hasn't been damaged. Even if we can defeat one of their main forces, what about the other two? What about three? What about more? What are you going to do?! We are now We should accumulate strength instead of seeking our own ridiculous sense of existence. What is the use of sense of existence without this strength? "

"The consequence of accumulating strength and pretending to be dead is that the Romans will get more and more aggressive. Now their hands have reached Britain. We can't lose this land and the people on it, otherwise their behavior will definitely become more and more excessive! ! "

"Is it right for you to keep seeking war like this? Our army is not ready to deal with the Romans, but now they are all ready. Why do you insist on fighting this battle when you can't win? ? You want your relatives to bleed with you, but I don't want that. "

Seeing that the quarrels among the people below were getting more and more intense, Charles did not stop them, but just watched it coldly, and at the same time, he was inevitably a little discouraged.

He was an experienced general who knew when the soldiers were most likely to win a war, which was definitely not the case now.

To win, the commander must at least have confidence in winning. Charles could see that even those who advocated war did not believe in winning the war from the bottom of their hearts. Many people were just echoing the ideas of their monarch, hypnotizing themselves subconsciously, and did not really realize the possibility of the Franks winning.

It was impossible to win the war at this time. Maybe they could defeat the more uncivilized barbarians in the east, but they would never be able to defeat the Romans who were stronger than themselves.

After realizing this at the meeting, Charles actually had no interest in fighting this war. He liked fighting, but he didn't like losing.

After waiting for a few minutes, he stood up. He was tall and looked down at all the ministers from the throne. Everyone bowed their heads respectfully to him, expressing their admiration and obedience from the bottom of their hearts.

"Have you quarreled enough?" The voice was calm, but those who knew him knew that Charles was a sign of some unhappiness at this time.

One of his relatives, who was more familiar with him, also said frankly: "We will follow your decision unconditionally, but we will inevitably have different ideas. We have a big disagreement on whether to fight the Romans at this time."

Everyone couldn't help but nod in agreement, and their views were roughly the same.

The current King Charles ascended the throne by military merit and power. Although this inheritance model of the big fist is the boss is very unstable, before King Charles' power is shaken, his subordinates will still remain loyal to him, and one or two defeats in the war will not shake the confidence of the domestic nobles in the king.

In the final analysis, everyone actually knows that if the Frankish Kingdom wants to develop further, it must wrestle with the Romans. In order to wrestle, they need a spokesperson. Maybe King Charles' current performance is problematic, but no one else will be more perfect.

Under the expectant eyes of everyone, King Charles finally made his own decision: "I understand that you don't believe we can win in your heart, so there is no need to fight this battle anymore. From now on, you go back to mobilize your troops and prepare to leave the border. Don't waste time here.

Since the army has been mobilized, we cannot waste so much food and money, so we still have to fight a war. As for Britain, we can secretly subsidize the local nobles and civilians to resist. The Romans have only 10,000 or 20,000 troops there, so let them run around and bleed in Britain. No matter what, they will need several years or even longer to deal with the resistance. We can take advantage of this time to do something else.

Since the kingdom has lost in the west, let's make up for it in the east. We have a significant advantage over the Romans. Their known world has either been occupied by them, or it is not worth occupying or very difficult to occupy. We still have a large area of ​​land to open up in the east. We just need to defeat the barbarians on those lands. Only the barbarians on the Danube have become a little difficult to deal with because of years of exchanges with the Romans. Many of the remaining guys are still in the state of chiefdom. I believe my warriors will not be unable to do even this kind of thing. "

His tone became a little grim as he spoke, and everyone heard the warning in it. The less courageous nobles were even trembling with fear and nodded in agreement with King Charles.