Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Orville had some understanding of the life experience of this famous Byzantine general. He was not a brilliant general at the beginning, but a brave and indomitable general. The first few battles he commanded were of average level. The loyal emperor gave him opportunities to accumulate experience again and again.

It is not easy to learn and improve from experience. The last Belisarius can indeed be called "the last Roman".

Orville was not sure whether this was a coincidence of the same name or a real person. The historical "Flavius ​​Belisarius" was a local prominent family in Thrace, Greece. This Flavius ​​did come from the Flavian dynasty founded by Vespa, but it was more of a title, like "Caesar" and "Augustus". The reason is that the later Roman Emperor Constantine "claimed" that he was a descendant of the Flavian dynasty, so he added Flavius ​​to his name. Later, the word "Flavius" became an honorary title, and many people had it.

But in this time and space, it seems that the other party's surname is really Flavius, which was a common surname in the Sabine region in the past. They may not be related by blood, but they are fellow townsmen after all, which is closer than strangers.

Orville was entangled for a while, and finally decided not to entangle. Regardless of whether the other party is capable or not, he is also a good person with a good personality.

Vespa should have seen this point and introduced Belisarius to him. Unlike Tia, Orville is not good at leading troops to fight, and he really needs such a person to assist him.

He continued to ask: "Is there a blacksmith shop or weapons factory around? Can you take me to see it?"

"No problem, please follow me."

——

As we all know, there are certain differences between Eastern and Western civilizations, and the technology trees of both sides are different. In many aspects, Eastern civilization is indeed ahead of Western civilization, such as the metallurgical technology that Orville thinks is very important.

In theory, Europe at this time only had iron smelting technology, that is, to pile up a furnace and put iron ore in it, and then dismantle the furnace and take out the iron ore after the iron ore is heated.

This method is time-consuming and laborious, and the furnace temperature cannot reach the melting point of iron ore, so it can only produce sponge-like porous solid iron blocks, not molten iron. There are many impurities in it, and it is very troublesome to remove the impurities. This inefficient technology is called block ironmaking.

Eastern civilization has developed another technology, called blast furnace ironmaking or pig iron smelting. The furnace temperature can reach the melting point of iron ore, melt it into molten iron, and a furnace can melt a large amount of iron.

This ironmaking technology has significant advantages in both output and average quality. This technology was invented by Orientals in the late Spring and Autumn Period in the sixth century BC at the latest. As far as Orville knows, the earliest blast furnace in Europe only appeared in Sweden around the 12th century. There is a gap of nearly two thousand years between the two, which is indeed far ahead.

Knowing that there are certain technical differences between the East and the West, Orville's eyes almost popped out when he saw the super-large blast furnace in front of him.

The diameter of these blast furnaces is about three or four meters, and the height can reach six or seven meters. The whole presents an oval shape. There are four tuyere and seemingly perfect blasting equipment to blow air, which is pulled by slaves or donkeys and horses.

In addition, there are a lot of things such as iron melting furnace, mold warehouse, water pool, anvil, grindstone, etc. This is a very complete metallurgical base, covering a large area, and it is about 200,000 to 300,000 square meters at a glance.

As a royal relative, such a loss of composure does damage the dignity of the royal family. He tried his best to correct his mentality and asked casually: "How is the output here?"

The accompanying craftsman replied respectfully: "Each blast furnace produces about 3,000 pounds of iron (Roman pounds, about one ton) each time. There are more than 40 blast furnaces here to maintain work, but they are not fully opened at ordinary times. About ten or twenty furnaces are smelted every day, and they will work overtime during wars."

Putting aside the possible water in the other party's words, the annual production of iron is about several thousand tons, which was already very high in ancient times.

"I haven't seen anything like this in the Eastern Province. Is this a technology developed by Rome itself?"

"It's an oracle from Vulcan (Hephaestus), the god of forging. We have improved it over the past few hundred years and it has become what it is now."

The other party told a story mixed with myths, and Orville roughly understood the development of this world.

Obviously, the history of human civilization in this world is longer, and the gods at least once existed. They either used oracles or various messengers to let humans master more skills, so the productivity level of this world is much higher than historical facts, and the development of some areas is more thorough.

For example, Gaul, Britain, Germanic and other places were originally in a state of being largely undeveloped in the 1st century, but now they have been basically developed and have more people.

There were more "talented" people like Tiya in ancient times, but their number has been decreasing in the past few hundred years, and the gods have not issued oracles for a hundred years. It seems that Orville is in a relatively "end of the law era".

The composition of talents is actually diverse, and the mainstream of each nation is different. For example, Tia can enhance her physical fitness while stabilizing the emotions of people around her, which is equivalent to adding a morale buff on the battlefield. This talent is more common in Rome and is considered to be a gift from the god of war Mars (Ares), the goddess of wisdom Minerva (Athena) or a god in ancient Greek mythology who is in charge of war and power.

In addition, there are various more niche talents, such as healing, night vision, sharp vision, photographic memory, extraordinary speed, natural proficiency in musical instruments, great strength, thick skin, natural ability to ride horses and drive chariots, poisonous blood, ability to talk to animal friends, and accurate shooting, etc., highlighting a diversity. These talents are all considered to be gifts from the gods.

The identification of these gifters is more metaphysical. Of course, there is no dispute about those who can be seen as non-human at a glance, but some talents are not so outstanding, which gives some people room for operation. For example, people who are well-educated and can speak multiple languages ​​claim that they are favored by Mnemosyne, excellent blacksmiths claim that they are blessed by Vulcan, and noble children who buy paintings and poems claim that they are liked by the Nine Muses and Apollo. In short, chaos is frequent and order is in disarray.

It is precisely because of this that the original gifted people enjoyed privileges and subsidies, but now they have none of these. They only have citizenship rights and corresponding citizen obligations, and the qualification certification requires multiple senators and judges to certify together. In this way, the chaos seems to have been finally solved.

PS. Diejia. Blast furnace ironmaking was a Chinese technology in ancient times. The plot needs to be patched. The explanation is relatively clear. I think this method is more reasonable than pure fiction of magic. I don’t have the ability to make up a new technology out of thin air, so the reference material is "History of the Development of Ancient Chinese Iron Smelting Technology". Please don’t blame me. If there are any technical errors, please comment and I will correct them if I see them.