Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Orville was definitely welcomed by the other party. Relatively speaking, the food was simple, just some home-cooked dishes that often appear on the tables of ordinary small landlords or small businessmen. The chef's skills were also not good or bad. It tasted a bit bland in Orville.

However, he did not come here to satisfy his appetite. After a simple meal, Orville quickly got to the point: "I am very curious about one thing. Why would a world-famous scholar like you leave your hometown and the familiar city of Rome and travel across mountains and rivers to Egypt to be my sister's tutor?"

Quintilian is a middle-aged man with some gray hair on his temples. His face is serious as if he is always frowning. His eyes are a little small and slightly squinted. His body and hair are always clean. With his elegant temperament, he looks like an intellectual with some talent.

He answered seriously and word by word: "I have a request from His Majesty the Emperor. Although His Majesty the Emperor has provided me with a generous salary, this money is still not enough to achieve my goal. After talking to His Majesty the Emperor, he agreed to fund my career, but the prerequisite is that I follow Her Royal Highness the Princess to Egypt and teach her academically. His Majesty the Emperor promised me that he would meet my request when I come back."

"Specifically, what is your request?"

"I want to open a school that can accommodate about 300 to 400 people. I can't support so many people alone, so I need to hire professional scholars to help me. In addition to the venue and construction costs, this is not a number I can afford."

The education of this era is closer to one-to-one elite education, so this is a very exaggerated number. Of course, it sounds like this to Orville. Not to mention 300 to 400 people, Orville has also heard of schools with a zero at the end.

He knew the whole story from Vespa's letter a long time ago, and now he just confirmed it. He came to Quintilian for a purpose. A teacher with rich teaching experience is also a huge asset.

After careful consideration, Orville invited him: "How about this? You haven't taught Domitia for a long time, with only one or two classes a week on average. You should have more free time outside of that. King Cleopatra of Egypt and I agree with your ideas and teaching philosophy, and we also want to open a large school. Can you try teaching here for a while?

You can freely arrange the teaching mode and content, and we will provide you with excellent teachers. You don't need to worry about the venue and other aspects. We can solve them ourselves. You just need to preside over the school work, and we promise not to interfere too much in the rest of the things."

Quintilian wanted to accumulate experience, so he was quite interested in this proposal, and Orville also needed to accumulate experience in founding and running schools, and needed Quintilian to demonstrate. It was a win-win situation for both parties, so they almost hit it off, and Quintilian agreed without much hesitation.

"I can't guarantee you a good result, but I can promise to do my best. If you can agree, I am willing to take this job."

——

The other party is a very efficient person, and so is Orville. When he went to the other party's house to lobby, Orville asked Agricola to prepare everything. Quintilian learned the address of the venue the next day and met with the relevant teachers to get familiar with each other. After all, they are people who will work together in the future.

Although it is said that he is setting up a school, Quintilian's thinking is not so advanced that he wants to start directly from elementary school. What he wants to do is similar to high school or university, allowing talents with a certain level of knowledge to study, which is understandable.

The teachers and the venue are ready. The next step is to deal with the student problem. This is a little difficult, because class teaching has not been widely recognized. People in this era are more accepting of hiring teachers to teach one by one. Unfortunately, people who can afford to read books in this era generally have good family conditions and can often afford to hire special people to teach. This makes Orville's school not very attractive. After all, this is an experimental teaching model, and the results are still unknown. No one wants their son to be a test subject for others.

After Orwell discussed with Cleopatra, he also got her support. After all, she was more aware of the importance of education than most people in this era. Orwell was trying to improve the level of education in Egypt. Apart from other things, she was very supportive of this matter.

After a little hesitation, she used a crooked trick - directly recruiting Egyptian students from all over the country.

It should be said that the Egyptians or Romans of this era had some awareness of education for all, but the phenomenon of setting up barriers for local Egyptians did exist. Although many Egyptians had the conditions to receive primary education, they were restricted by explicit or implicit conditions and could not receive higher-level education. Faced with this situation, the locals had no good solution. After all, the right to education and cultural rights were mainly in the hands of the rulers.

Cleopatra opened up the educational restrictions for these people, allowing them to come to Alexandria schools to complete their studies at a low price. Although the proportion of local people receiving education was also quite worrying, it was not unreasonable to find hundreds of qualified people from millions of people.

Recruiting students takes time, and basically all you have to do next is wait, there is nothing to worry about.

——

In the summer, Egypt's harvest was carried out as scheduled. The output declined significantly due to the war and unrest, but Orville was well prepared and had been slowly purchasing various low-priced grains, so it was not a fatal problem.

After the grain was harvested, the tax portion was sent to Alexandria, and then shipped to Rome to enter the emperor's granary. This was Egypt's contribution to the empire and a guarantee for peace and existence.

Except for some minor chaos that did not even need to be reported to the higher authorities, everything went smoothly, and Orville was relieved - at least the task for this year was completed, and he would not be impeached by those people in the Senate, and Vespa would not be embarrassed.

Due to the special hydrological environment of the Nile River in Egypt, the next farming will have to wait until the flood season ends. Except for some lakes and irrigation facilities, most areas in Egypt will be temporarily fallow. It can be said that the most difficult task in recent years has been completed.

At this moment, Jeanne finally arrived in Egypt from Gaul and met Orville.