Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Since the palace was burned down and could not be lived in, Orville took the initiative to sell the Governor's Mansion, which was second only to the palace in terms of luxury, and Cleopatra moved in, which served as a temporary palace for the Ptolemaic royal family.

"Claudius, how is the library?"

In the Governor's Mansion, Cleopatra sat at her desk and asked the astronomer Claudius Ptolemy about the situation with a tired look.

"Your reminder was somewhat useful. Most of the most precious books were shipped out. For example, the manuscripts of Sophocles and Euripides (famous ancient Greek tragedy writers), the manuscripts of correspondence between Aristotle and the son of Ammon Zeus (Alexander), and other precious manuscripts were all bought back by successive kings with huge sums of money. We successfully saved most of these manuscripts.

But apart from these things, after all, time was short and there were too many books, so we could only rescue a small part of them."

Cleopatra waved her hand impatiently to interrupt the other party: "Just tell me directly how much the loss is."

"There are about 300,000 books... most of our collections were burned." Ptolemy was very distressed. He was not showing off. Such a huge loss really made him feel heartbroken.

At that time, the largest library in the West was the Library of Alexandria. According to rough statistics, the collection of books was as many as 500,000 books. It was incomparable with the millions of books in later libraries, but in this era without papermaking, it was already an astonishing number.

This library was built with the great investment of more than a dozen generations of kings. At any time, there are at least hundreds of scholars conducting research here. The stability of research is unique in this era when scientific research and academic investment are greatly affected by the monarch's likes and dislikes. Ptolemy himself served as the director of the library for quite a while, and he also has some feelings for this place.

Cleopatra murmured to herself: "Three hundred thousand volumes..."

She also has a clearer understanding of this number. This is not just a simple loss of property. To be more serious, this can be called a loss of human civilization. I don't know how many precious and rare books there are.

All this can be said to be thanks to her. She is a person who values ​​knowledge more and is very sad about this. However, if it happens again, she will still choose to do so, because it is necessary and she has to accept the loss no matter how great it is.

After brewing her emotions for a while, Cleopatra told Ptolemy: "I understand. I will discuss the specific amount with His Royal Highness later. I will definitely grant the library another sum of money for repairs and the purchase of new books. It just takes time. You can talk to the remaining scholars and ask them to be a little patient.

Don't worry about your food, clothing and daily expenses. I will give you an allowance like all kings, and research can be restored to normal. Please give me some time, I will restore things to their original state."

Having said that, Cleopatra actually knew in her heart that it would be difficult for her to restore everything to its original state in her lifetime. Three hundred thousand volumes of books cannot be bought with money, and things that are lost will never come back.

Ptolemy was not just a stubborn scholar. He was very considerate of Cleopatra's difficulties. After nodding respectfully, he left the queen's room and continued to do his own things.

After the other party left, Cleopatra stomped on the floor a few times to vent her anger. Although the treasury was full, it was not spent like this. In recent times, the money in the treasury has been flowing away at a high speed visible to the naked eye. She had no way to deal with it. Her heart was bleeding, and she had to bite the bullet to fill these holes.

In the end, she could only let out a long sigh and said to herself: "Maybe some other means are needed. Otherwise, sell some jewelry? Or it seems that it would be good to take those temples. They have always been too annoying."

——

When Orwell initially stabilized the situation in Egypt, the British province managed by Belisarius had a new situation. Since Orwell was transferred from the British province, people inside and outside the province began to stir.

Some people inside were still easy to deal with. After all, they had the army in hand, and Belisarius had also reached a marriage with the powerful Wessex royal family, which could be considered to be able to control them temporarily. The external situation has not improved recently, but has become more difficult.

There were some border frictions between him and Boudica. The small-scale private fights between the two sides had never stopped, and there was a trend of intensification. The tone of the other party was becoming more and more unfriendly. Belisarius did not show his good temper at this time, but became very tough contrary to his usual behavior.

He changed the location of the private transactions between the two sides to the vicinity of the Roman border fortress, and mercilessly killed or sold into slavery any Celtic bandits who crossed the border to attack merchants and civilians.

Boudica did not mean to go to war with the Romans yet, but some of her tribal chiefs who could not recognize the situation kept clamoring for war. Belisarius did not care about their tone and only deployed heavy troops on the border to watch them.

Now the decision on the war was in Boudica's hands. Belisarius was not familiar with her and did not trust this barbarian leader at all. In fact, he had already prepared for the war, and it depended on whether the other party dared to take action.

Beyond the western border, the southeast coast of Britain had also been harassed by pirates.

After Orville was transferred, the behavior of these pirates became much more rampant than before. Rollo did take the money to do the job and had been concentrating on clearing out the pirates, but it was difficult to eradicate the problem, and pirates still came to the British provinces to plunder from time to time.

Belissa has figured out a set of methods based on Orwell's policy, and the effect is quite good.

The legion soldiers built many small camps near the coastline, and he continued to let nobles or officials from all over the country conduct organized small-scale training for civilians.

Once the traces of pirates were found on the coastline, these civilians would immediately hide in the camps with valuables, and rely on the camps for defense, and light beacons to convey messages. As long as they could hold on until the Roman mobile forces or the local garrison arrived, these people would naturally retreat.

This did not allow them to defeat the pirates, but it greatly increased the cost of the pirates' invasion. Often, many lives would be lost in an invasion, and there was a risk of losing all their money, otherwise they would have to accept the reality of not gaining much.

In history, Alfred also used this method to deal with the Vikings, but Belissarius went a step further because he had a central force that was absolutely stronger than the pirates.