Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

In the end, Orville and Astolfo hit it off. The latter, out of a sense of justice, could not stand the locals being bullied all the time, and he also had some personal grudges with the Vikings. He decided to help Orville deal with the Vikings in the north without much thought.

His joining was of great significance, because he had almost established a good relationship with the locals and could serve as a bridge and guide between the Romans and the locals. Orville only needed to convey the general goals and intentions to Astolfo, and he would negotiate with the locals himself. More importantly, the locals trusted him more, saving the trouble of contact and testing.

However, Orville did not understand why Astolfo would help him deal with the Vikings. Even if he looked quite rough, he should have received an orthodox aristocratic education. He should know that the Germans were now on the same front. Now helping the Romans against the Vikings is helping the Romans against the Franks, which is an act of aiding the enemy in every sense.

Although Astolfo looked like a rough man who didn't care about politics, Orville still believed that he should understand things, but he pretended to be stupid most of the time, pretending to be confused.

He didn't care much about what Astolfo was thinking. Anyway, Astolfo was in his favor and on his side, which was enough. There was no point in worrying about too many unnecessary things.

………

"Your Highness, there is a letter from you, which should be sent from Rome."

"Put it over there, I'll go and see it later."

Moving his stiff neck, Orville decided to take a break for a while, but suddenly thought of something, and he added to the servant: "Call Stilicho to me, I have something to ask him."

The servant left and went to find someone according to the order. At this time, Orville picked up the letter on the table, opened the envelope and began to read.

The content was not very complicated. It was mainly a financial report from Rome. Orville's industry in Rome had always been running smoothly. After all, no one would be blind to offend the emperor's adopted son.

Even without the false title of adopted son, Orville has now been officially appointed by the emperor and the Senate as the governor of the British province, and naturally has a corresponding seat in the Senate. In other words, even if he has little experience and a shallow foundation, he is now a member of the highest power level in Rome.

There are a total of 600 senators in the Senate. There are usually some vacancies, and some people simply covet the dignity and preferential treatment of the senators and do not participate in the specific governance of the country. Some people are old and retired to the second line and do not participate in specific affairs. After removing these people, there are about 300 political participants in the Roman Senate, and these people are the core power level of the Roman Empire.

If you don’t count the royal status, Orville’s power is probably above the middle level among many senators. It should not be underestimated but it is not very eye-catching. After all, most of these people are aristocratic families with hundreds of years of history, with a deep foundation, and the accumulation of the core base is not easy to catch up in a short time.

Taking this opportunity, Orville counted his property in the four borders of the empire, which is much more than before.

The hotels in Ostia, Rome, Brindisi, Sicily, Athens and other places contribute a considerable amount of income to him every year. Orville only collects a small part of it to subsidize the army, and the rest of the money is used to expand the industry.

In addition to the war profits made during the Gallic War, Tia also took care of her business openly and secretly, and Orville's business has expanded to more and wider places.

Needless to say, in the province of Gaul, although he didn't make much money, Orville opened hotels in Paris, Marseille and Lyon at the beginning, and took great efforts to open up stable transportation routes, mainly to facilitate the transportation of talents and resources from Rome, even if he lost some money, it didn't matter, and the money was mainly made in the East.

In the east and mainland of the empire, Orville opened new branches in Corinth, Ephesus and Rhodes. Although the Greek province is the industry concentration area of ​​the Senate, they are not very opposed to Orville coming to share a piece of the pie. After all, there is the emperor's order, and these hotels don't take much money.

More importantly, Orville allowed more local people to come to Greece. These people also had to spend a lot of money on travel and study, and this money would eventually go into the pockets of the elders. Considering this, they did not need to boycott Orville together. At most, they would compete with him, which had no impact on Orville at present.

In addition, Orville also opened two branches in the Eastern Province - one in Antioch and the other in Alexandria.

These two places will become the five major patriarchal areas of Christianity in the future. Being able to become patriarchal areas means that the local economy and culture are relatively developed and can produce relatively new ideas. Both Alexandria and Antioch were prosperous and wealthy cities at the time. After expanding his business here, Orville's basic framework in the East was completed.

He plans to expand his business in the future, such as banks, providing loans, deposits and investments, and truly achieve one-stop services, but he still needs to accumulate experience. Orville plans to slowly promote it to other places after he has built the institutional framework in the British Province.

While he was imagining the future, Stilicho was also called over. He simply saluted Orville and asked, "You're looking for me?"

"The Governor's Palace in Londinium (London) has probably been repaired, and our officials are also pouring into the British Province. Are there any problems? For example, the local people are resisting, they are not acclimatized, and there is a shortage of supplies."

Stiliko frowned: "In fact, there are more or less these problems, but we can all overcome them. One problem is quite difficult to solve. Our officials do not understand the language of the local people, and it is quite difficult to carry out the work. I I can’t think of any good solution.”

Historically, after the Norman conquest of England, Britain fell into a relatively abstract situation - the priests recorded documents in Latin, the nobles from France spoke French, and the common people below spoke English.

Now the Romans are also encountering a similar problem. There are only so many social elites who can speak Latin, and the rest have communication difficulties with the Romans. It is really rare for these military men and women to speak the Germanic barbarian language. many.

When the two parties communicated, it was easy to talk, and there was no need to talk about the following things. I didn't feel this way when I was busy working in the city at first. Now as the Romans get out of the city a little bit, this phenomenon becomes more and more obvious.