Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Orville knew that the news should be the fastest. Cleopatra should have just arrived in Antioch. When the news of her recruiting troops in Antioch reaches the city of Rome, the city of Rome will work hard to discuss it. Any countermeasures would take at least a month or two. Within this period of time, he could do a lot of things.

So before the news reached the city of Rome, he had to leave for Egypt. When the time came, he just pretended to be stupid and said he didn't know the situation. He could barely block the mouths of the Senate. They were privately suspicious, but they couldn't find it. The most tangible evidence is secret gossip, something Orville should have been used to long ago.

As Cleopatra took refuge in the Syrian province, this matter should not be a problem in the short term. The current governor of Syria is still Mucinus. This is an old general who is relatively upright and not easy to be bribed. He is also very responsible and obeys the rules. Unless Cleopatra wants to rebel against the Romans or the emperor's appointment letter is issued, otherwise he will He would not cross the line to interfere with Egypt's affairs, which meant that he would turn a blind eye to the exiled Cleopatra.

Even Orville and he had a slight personal relationship. If he wrote a letter outlining his interests, the other party might pay a little attention to Cleopatra. In short, there was no need to worry too much about her safety.

After confirming this, the next thing Orville was going to do was to mobilize troops - although there were tens of thousands of Roman garrison troops in Egypt, he couldn't mobilize them. In the end, he still had to rely on his own people to handle the matter. What he has to do now It was to find a way to bring the army to the vicinity of Egypt legitimately.

The soldiers he brought over were all legionnaires and mercenaries recruited by himself privately. There were no officially affiliated legionnaires. He had already thought about this matter to avoid false accusations.

After thinking about this matter clearly, he asked the messenger to send a message to the Palfi auxiliary army stationed north of the Po River, asking them to return to the Palphi area directly by boat. The transport ship was directly provided by Orville. The reason above is that these people have completed their service tasks. Now Britain's defense work is taken care of by the newly recruited German auxiliary soldiers. These Palfi people who are unfamiliar with the place can temporarily return to their homeland to station or be disbanded and retired.

Those Germans can use excuses such as "foreign guests" and "business talks" to get over it, and no one cares about what happens to these hundreds of Germans, so it's relatively easy to deal with. What really gives Orville a headache is the most powerful ones. Roman legionnaires, for a moment he could not think of any good reason to bring these people over.

After all, there are already legions stationed in Egypt, and Vespa will not appoint him to replace the governor of Egypt out of interest exchange. The Romans are also very sensitive to the military mobilization of regular legions. If they lead the army to Egypt, Rush, but when the time comes, he insists that he is here to buy luxury goods. Even if it is used as a reason to fool people into gagging, this is really too clumsy. It is the kind of excuse that you don't want to act in.

Vespa authorized Orville to act according to his own ideas in private, provided that the existing contradictions and conflicts could not be expanded. At the same time, he also specifically reminded Orville to pay attention to some people in the Senate. Not everyone agreed. Suppressing the Greek provinces and Greeks, if Orville interfered with the succession of the Egyptian throne, there would be great potential resistance, so he tried his best to suppress the situation and prevent those in the Senate from interfering with his actions.

After thinking about it, he decided to bring his soldiers into the Kingdom of Egypt in batches.

As a prince of the empire, it is normal for him to bring some guards with him when traveling, especially when traveling far away. With this excuse, he can mobilize a group of about 600 Praetorian Guards to accompany him. Orville named the guards who were originally commanded by Belisarius. Those people in that brigade are relatively familiar with themselves, so there is no big problem with reliability. As a Guardsman, their abilities are not too weak anyway, at least they are at the level of the upper-class brigade in the empire's mainstream legions.

With half of his legion of soldiers left, Orville could only think of ways to exploit the loopholes. The whole city of Rome was the spy of the Senate, and they tried their best to be secretive and not be discovered.

There are many re-enlisted veterans in the legion. These people have reached the age of retirement. Orville plans to let them retire and then be recruited by his hotel system to change jobs, and then send them out in the name of sending them to the Eastern Province to work and open hotels. The city of Rome sent out three to five hundred people in this way.

Then he prepared to recruit two brigades of soldiers in the city of Rome to supplement the number of his soldiers to the level of a second-rate legion. After recruiting the soldiers, he would send these people out of Rome on transport ships in the name of training to work on the sea. Separate some of the people with hands and feet to go to Egypt. This should be able to send out another five or six hundred people.

Presumably the people in the Senate only knew the approximate number of Orville's troops, and did not pay attention to whether the number of Orville's troops had decreased after they landed in ports such as Massilia (Marseille). This gave him an opportunity to pass The number of soldiers sent out through these channels should be barely enough for him to use his fists.

——

While Orville was racking his brains to send more people to Egypt, Astolfo was chatting with Alfred.

"The cities of the Latins are indeed quite impressive. I have never seen houses and decorations of this style anywhere else. In comparison, King Charles's court is nothing more than a large countryside, and the large castles of my natal family are nothing more than small villages." Just an ordinary military camp."

Astolfo had never been to the city of Rome and was naturally fond of watching the excitement. Of course he would be full of praise for the most lively city of Rome. As for Alfred, after all, he had been to Rome before. Although he was still surprised, the extent was limited.

"If there is anything that the Romans can pass down, one is their exquisite laws, which integrate the advantages of various national laws. Another is their buildings. The idea when they built these buildings was to hope that these things would never go out of date. I think they can definitely do it."

If Orville himself were here, he would have to praise him for his good vision. These things did come true later.

"That's right. I found something very interesting. People here add water to the wine, and even add honey to the wine like the northerners. It tastes better like juice."

Alfred did not agree with the other party this time. He just smiled and spoke to the other party politely: "I actually have a question that I am very curious about. Please help me solve it. You are obviously a relative of King Charles. In terms of bloodline, you are also a noble. Why do you have to hang out with people from our remote small country? It seems that returning to Frank is a bigger and better stage for you, right?"