Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Well, Rome is a city without walls. The Romans in this era were so confident that no enemy could force them to build walls for defense. This transcendent self-confidence has lasted for hundreds of years, but now it is helping When it comes to these people in Orville.

The senators did not want to resist without a chance of winning, so when faced with the emperor's troops pressing down on the border, they simply chose to surrender.

After Orville's troops accepted the opponent's surrender and confiscated the opponent's weapons and equipment, he led the army into the city naturally and held a brief entering ceremony. There were even many onlookers watching the fun. It was not a big deal, and they cheered for the troops entering the city, as if it was an ordinary war.

Originally, he planned to personally handle various matters after entering the city, but Nerva, the leader of the senators, said that he had something to see him and was very anxious, hoping that the other party would come over as soon as possible.

He could only delegate the work to his adjutants first, and then go over to hear what the elders wanted to see him for.

Of course, he also had a foresight, and the lesson of Caesar's death was still fresh in his mind. He brought enough guards, and also called Cu Chulainn, the most powerful fighter, to go with him. Even if he was surrounded by three or five talented people, he would be killed. There is a high probability that they can escape alive.

In order to take care of Orville's personal emotions, the meeting place was not chosen in any chamber of the Senate, but in the emperor's residence. When Orville arrived, Nerva was already waiting in the drawing room.

The two hadn't seen each other for almost ten years, and they could clearly feel that the other was getting older. Orville suddenly realized that he was now in his thirties.

After being stunned for a moment, the other party spoke first: "We were completely unexpected that things have reached this stage. It could have ended in a more peaceful way. We just ask the current Queen Tia to relax her restrictions on us. "It's not too much to ask for something more than to postpone some radical changes."

It seems that this is testing Orville's ideas, but Tia learned these fantastic ideas from Orville. Orville is probably several orders of magnitude more radical than Tia's ideas, but now due to the actual situation, there is no way accomplish.

"You don't need to test me with this kind of language. Her Royal Highness the Queen's attitude is the same as mine. If we can reach almost complete consensus on these issues, I won't bother you."

"Really?" Nerva shrugged slightly, "Although the following words are redundant, those people have to ask me to ask this question, so it seems that our old sacred powers cannot be retained?"

"That's about it. Of course, Her Royal Highness the Queen and I will give everyone the respect they deserve. Some of your rights are still recognized by the law. All we have to do is to make everything reasonable. You should also know that some things may not always be right if they exist. represents rationality.”

From the perspective of Orville, an outsider, it is time to change some of Rome's systems and policies, such as the policy of unreserved preferential treatment for the locals, and the overemphasis on the words of some old nobles in the Senate. These are all It is a remnant of the Roman city-state era. The country's transition from a city-state to an empire was still a bit sudden, and many things did not have time to correct.

In his opinion, correcting these things would lead to better results, so he was prepared to do so. In his opinion, everything he has done so far is within the framework of rationality.

This reply made Nerva slightly nod, and he continued: "Then let's talk about Her Royal Highness the Queen. I don't have much opinion on her identity. As long as she can rule the country well, she will do anything. Those who can will be given priority. But The problem is that I don’t think Her Majesty is fully qualified to rule a country. She still has many shortcomings.”

"I will try my best to correct this, and you will see a good result." Orville ignored the other party's words and just answered the question stiffly.

"Maybe. If we have any disagreements now, the result may not be good."

"I speak responsibly," Orville's eyes flashed coldly, "I will help with some dirty work. No matter what the outcome is, I will do my part well."

If he imitated Huang X at this moment and killed all these nobles, the result should not be too bad, but the result would be that he would be put in cold storage, or that both the Senate and the Emperor would be harmed.

"Okay, okay, I will make those people obey your will." Nerva's obsession seemed less strong now.

Sometimes he was worried that the emperor would not be ruthless when he should be ruthless. From the perspective of a noble like him, Tiya had no consciousness of being an emperor at all. In essence, he still believed that he was standing with the people. She can't entirely blame her. After all, her father only registered to be emperor when she was in her twenties. She also experienced a relatively poor time with her father when she was young. These days have a great impact on people.

If it weren't for the fact that Domicia had many unknowns in all aspects, Nerva would even think that Domicia was more suitable to inherit the position of emperor than Tia. After all, Domicia believed that she was the ruler from the bottom of her heart, and she had this basic consciousness to understand herself. The location is good for everyone.

Now it seems that Orville has a very clear idea of ​​his position. If he can help with some of the dirty work, the results will not be bad.

After all, Nerva and others now have no choice. War is the final solution. In this solution, they lose and can only follow the winner's arrangements. This is an iron rule passed down from nature.

——

After the vanguard arrived in Rome, Tiya quickly followed and held a formal coronation ceremony surrounded by the army.

Due to the limited situation, the ceremony could not be held very decently, but it still meant that Tiya had obtained the consent of most people, including the Senate.

Then there were some routine work to appease the people, such as issuing a bounty for the new emperor's enthronement to the entire army, rectifying the order of the local area, and punishing criminals who took the opportunity to commit evil and were caught.

With the assistance of the violent agency such as the army, these things went smoothly, and the key point was the final negotiation with the senators.

Orville and Tiya had already set a general plan in advance, but even so, it took a fierce debate to finalize it.

First of all, many senators who participated in the coup were confiscated, and the focus was on the land they accumulated in various parts of the local area. The issue of land annexation that Caesar had paid attention to during the period was raised again. This time, Tiya's disposal method was similar to that of Caesar at that time, and it was stipulated again that the land held by each nobleman should not exceed a certain amount.

For these nobles, there are always more solutions than difficulties. Today the emperor restricts their land, tomorrow they can transfer the land to the freed slaves who are loyal to them, and then let these freed slaves manage these properties in their own names. The final profits will still be collected in the hands of the elders, but with an extra layer of gloves.

What the emperor wants to do is not to eliminate this phenomenon, but to try to curb it, so a new recognized institution came into being - Orwell called it the Procuratorate, which, as the name suggests, is a supervisory agency that operates independently of the existing system and is directly responsible to the Roman people and the emperor.

Originally, Tia did not do this, and her successor Domitia would also do it. History said that Domitia was a big snitch and did not do anything about people. In fact, it is a little unfair. The original intention of Domitia to do these things was to limit the elders whose power was over-expanded, and it did have some effect. This is why the Senate hated her and wrote all kinds of things to blacken her. Her own ability is not at the same table as Caligula and Nero.

Orwell does things better than her. Originally, Domitia relied more on spontaneous denunciations from the public, and there was no special official agency to handle this matter. Orwell likes to institutionalize this thing from the beginning. Even if the system has defects, it is much better than a group of loose sand, and it can be modified slowly later.

The Procuratorate is responsible for supervising corruption, law-breaking, treason, favoritism and fraud, etc., and it goes without saying that it mainly focuses on the Senate and the knight class below.

It must be very unpleasant to have a father who restricts them out of thin air, but with the emperor's knife on their necks, they can only accept the reality.

Orwell has accumulated experience in the specific implementation work when he was in Egypt, and now he should be able to do it more or less the same when he moves to Rome.

Then there is the expansion and specialization of the imperial bureaucracy. More professional bureaucrats will replace the patrons to carry out local governance. The things in Egypt and Britain will be good examples.

Orville didn't expect to overthrow the thousand-year-old patron system in a few years or more. This was a start, and the people behind would naturally follow this step by step. He didn't like to force things, and what he thought in his heart might not be in line with the general environment of this era.

In addition, they also negotiated with the representatives of the Senate on various clauses related to military, economic, administrative systems, etc., and even killed some people for this. In the end, they finally reached a satisfactory result. Orville felt quite satisfied with his efforts.

What he had to do next was to stabilize the country, then develop the overall productivity and economic level of the empire, solve external threats, and finally find a suitable successor who would not cause problems. After doing all this, Orville thought he had completed his merits and could relax himself. It was just that these things piled up together didn't seem to be easy to solve.

——

After establishing the position of Queen Tiya, Orville did not turn around and start fighting for power and profit as some people thought, but just assisted Tiya at the side.

He relaxed himself a little, but still maintained a very high-intensity work mode. His focus after the civil war was not even on post-war recovery. After all, the war came and went quickly, and did not cause much economic loss. He began to be busy with things that outsiders could not understand.

Under his strong demands, many fleets were mobilized to naval ports near Sicily or Rome, and he even required that the grain shipped from Egypt should not be shipped to Rome first, but should be stored in warehouses on Sicily first.

Just when everyone was still thinking about the deep meaning behind these actions, an unexpected disaster befell everyone.

On August 24, 79, just over two months after Vespa's death, Tia had just taken the position of emperor for a few days. A huge cedar-shaped black cloud rose up, and flames rose from Mount Vesuvius in the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula. The sky and the earth suddenly became gray, and then there were continuous and frequent earthquakes and the accompanying tsunamis.

This day was the day when Mount Vesuvius erupted again after hundreds of years. It had been so long that the Romans believed that Mount Vesuvius had become a dead volcano. They let their guard down and suffered heavy losses in history.

The situation at this time was fundamentally different. Under Orville's advance prevention, he was trying to evacuate civilians several days before the volcanic eruption. He linked the frequent geological activities with the upcoming eruption of Mount Vesuvius and semi-forced the relocation of a large number of civilians within the ash coverage area.

After the volcanic eruption, when the situation stabilized a little, he responded quickly and sent carriages, ships, troops, etc. to rescue the disaster area as much as possible. Batches of supplies were transported, and a large number of victims were transported away to prevent them from gathering together and then causing a major plague due to shortages of supplies.

In addition to simple supplies and manpower, Orville also transferred some special people over - they were a group of doctors with darker skin, speaking foreign languages, and carrying medicine boxes.

This was one of the gains of the Vikings opening up the "new route". Doctors from India were lured by Orville with a large sum of money, and eventually some people chose to cross the ocean to serve him, a foreigner.

In comparison, the medical level of the Romans at this stage should be significantly behind that of the Indians. They are in a leading position in medicine at this moment. Under certain conditions, the medicines they take out are really Indian magic oils in various senses, and can really treat many diseases that the Romans cannot cure at present.

Time is really not ample, and Orville's memory of history is a bit vague. It is good to be able to do this step. In short, this volcanic eruption did not cause any major casualties, and the damage to the economy was limited a little, which is still within the acceptable range, so it will not make Tia anxious.

I waited in my heart for about three or four months. Although the plague occurred, it was generally controlled within a small area and did not start to rage like in history.

It was not over yet. A fire broke out in Rome due to unexpected circumstances. Fortunately, Orville dug trenches at several key locations in advance in the name of building new roads, and kept the expanded fire brigade on alert. The fire did not cause excessive losses like in history, and it was still bearable. It was just an opportunity to renovate the city.