Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

After a few words, Orville began to analyze the situation with Tia.

Vespasian let Tia consider things with full authority, which was actually training her thinking ability and problem-solving ability. The Egyptian governor Antonius who was sent here would not interfere with her decision unless the decision was too unreliable. He was just an insurance mechanism in this matter.

In their view, there are several parties that need to be dealt with now: the Herod royal family and others who did not rebel, the old nobles who surrendered, such as the priest party, the captives of the Zealots or the Dagger Party, and the surviving civilians.

There is also a crucial issue: how to deal with the holy city that has been reduced to ruins, how to deal with this place that is crucial to the locals.

After the two discussed, a slightly rough plan gradually took shape.

The Herod royal family that supports the Flavian dynasty is still the supreme ruler of the local area, and their territory will not be reduced. This is a reward for their correct standing.

But in addition to this, their management rights over the holy city will be temporarily deprived, and it will become the garrison of the Roman legion. Locals are not allowed to live in the holy city, and they are also not allowed to go to the Temple Mount for pilgrimage and priestly activities.

This is a punishment for the locals. The military occupation of the city will continue for a few more years until the Romans reluctantly leave their garrisons at the "earnest request" of the Herod family, and then the Herod family will preside over the reconstruction of the temple.

For local rulers who obey the Romans, the main approach is to win over and support them. Orville knows that if the Romans are allowed to rule directly, there will be no such buffer between the two sides, and the problem will sooner or later become bigger.

At least the Herod family, as king, can still talk directly with the Roman high-level officials. Otherwise, the locals can only talk to the Roman high-level officials through the governor. Most of the time, ethnic conflicts are provoked by the local governor. It is strange that this dialogue mechanism can run smoothly.

Like this war, if there is no local governor who has been provoking conflicts, it would not be so big at all. If Emperor Nero could receive the complaint letter from King Architas II and replace or hold the governor accountable in time, it would not have come to this point today.

The problem was that not only did the governor not do his job, but Nero was not in Rome at the time, and was on tour in Greece, so all the complaints fell on deaf ears.

Orville and Tia had no good feelings towards the surrendered priests. Such fence-sitters who were waiting for a price were indeed unpopular, but they were still useful, and they could not all be cut off or crucified.

Tia, at Orville's suggestion, decided to demote these people and let them continue to exist as nobles in the kingdom. The purpose was to check and balance the Herod royal family, not to let them completely exclude dissidents, and to moderately mix sand in.

The auxiliary troops under Orville also played this role. The support of the Romans would not be without cost. One of the costs was that the king needed to distribute part of the land in the country to these auxiliary troops who were more loyal to the Romans.

In this way, the king would at least not increase his strength because of obtaining too much land at one time. Most of the old nobles died or were demoted, and the land they vacated could not be all taken back by the royal family. The king's strength should be changed within the range that the Romans would like to see.

As for the captured prisoners, Tiya didn't spare their face.

The siege lasted for nearly three months. Those who surrendered and were captured at the last moment were diehards. No matter what their reasons or grievances were, the Romans thought they were hopeless.

Tiya still didn't kill people on a large scale. She just asked the surviving civilians to identify several extremely evil leaders and crucify them. The rest would be auctioned off as a bonus for the soldiers' spoils of war.

This scope also included the wives and daughters of the Zealots or the Daggers. War was such a ruthless thing. The last thing Tiya could do within the scope of her authority was not to execute the unwanted old people, children and women, but to give them a little bit of money and let them make a living like other civilians persecuted by the war. The result depended on themselves. In fact, she could only feel at ease.

Orville and Tiya sympathized with these civilians persecuted by the war, but they had no ability to arrange the lives of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, so they could only hand over the matter to the local Herod royal family.

Palfy is now in a state of few people and much land. It should not be difficult to give them a piece of land and ask them to cultivate it. But it will be very difficult to have no harvest this year. There is not much that Orville can do. At most, he will continue to maintain the grain business with King Herod Archita, import cheap grain based on his personal relationship with the Governor of Egypt, and transport it to Palfy at a relatively low price.

He also plans to continue to do some business on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, but this is just a private behavior, and it will not help the locals much. Generally speaking, it can only rely on the locals and the royal family to pay to resist.

Those who can bear it will survive, and those who can't will starve to death or sell themselves into slavery. That's basically it.

——

The plan is far from perfect, but it is feasible and realistic. It was successfully implemented without any resistance.

Generally speaking, the winning parties are very satisfied.

For the local royal family, their rule is stable, and the kingdom has not been reduced. It's just mixed with some sand, which is not without.

For the Roman officers, this battle brought them experience, honor and money. The process was difficult, but the result was good.

For the legionaries and auxiliary soldiers, they got money and survived, and they didn't have to go to war for a while in the future. This result was not bad.

Of course, for the locals, this result was not perfect, but they could not withstand the protracted war. The wounds needed decades to heal. They had not thought about how to go in the future. Surviving the next few years was the key.

At least in the two generations of Vespa and Tia, they did not have the spare energy to fight another war. This result was undoubtedly good for Rome. The province was stabilized and could continue to provide tax revenue and manpower.

After staying in the same place for another two weeks, the preliminary finishing work was basically completed, the simple celebration banquet and the distribution of spoils were also completed, and the 12th Legion was left in the Holy City as a garrison. The remaining legions were transferred back to their respective garrisons. Only a few people followed Tia back to Rome to prepare for the triumphal ceremony. They were mainly veterans who just happened to retire and go home.

Orville counted his gains from the war - a fleet of twenty small and medium-sized cargo ships, about 300,000 dinars in cash, a small amount of fine spoils that had not been sold, and a guard team of about 500 people. He could be considered to have a small fortune.