Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Gold is okay, but the recognition of a large number of jewelry is a bit high. Putting aside whether you can make money by selling it like this, it's a bit of a cover-up. Everyone can see that he has made ill-gotten gains recently, and Orville can't. Do this.

After much thought, he decided to sell a small amount of Greek and Persian jewelry first to temporarily plug his financial gap, and then send a batch of weapons and armor to Cleopatra.

At the same time, he wrote a personal letter to the Herodian royal family stating his interests, and sent it to Parphi through his fleet of armed ships.

The entire cycle is optimistically estimated to take half a year. I hope the plan can keep up with the changes. Orville doesn't have any good ideas. Just take it one step at a time. This is originally an unexpected surprise.

Cleopatra also went all out this time. Among these jewels are Egyptian treasures handed down from ancient times, trophies from Alexander's conquest of Persia, and tributes contributed by the Greek people to the Diadochi dynasty. These jewels cannot be measured by simple gold and silver jewels.

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In order to arm his own escorts, Orville had been building and purchasing weapons piecemeal before. In addition, when arming the Roman legionnaires this time, he also bought sufficient spare weapons, so he could give them at once. Cleopatra even out a lot.

Spears, simple javelins, slings and rudimentary armor for 1,500 people, swords, shields and chainmail for 300 people, 200 bows and matching arrows, it does not sound like much, but it is still It can arm two thousand people, and the configuration is relatively reasonable. Once trained, they can be recruited into battle.

Since the matter was a bit shady and Cleopatra could not reach out to the city of Rome, the two parties did business based on conscience. Ptolemy thought too well of others and directly revealed his little wealth. If Will had a dark heart, he would only suffer the loss of being dumb if he swallowed the opponent directly.

However, Orville still has professional ethics. At most, he will give the other party a slight increase in price. The current year is not good, and the price of military supplies is indeed increasing. It is quite normal to look at it this way. His offer to Cleopatra was equipment for 6,000 people and a 30% share of the future weapons workshop.

For these jewelry, he found a reliable and tight-lipped professional to come and estimate the value. The final result was between 500,000 dinars and 1.5 million dinars. Jewelry is not like gold and silver, and the amount is the same. If he wants to sell it, You need to be able to tell stories and do marketing to set prices, so prices fluctuate greatly.

Seriously speaking, this is a huge sum of money. If it is sold well, two fully equipped Roman legions will be enough for ten thousand people (just the equipment). Cleopatra can only exchange for beggar's version of equipment and one that is not equipped. The arsenal shares must have suffered some losses. But the Egyptian princess had no choice, only Orville was willing to help, it was that simple.

It took some time to sell a small amount of jewelry at a discount. Counting those gold coins, Orville's income was about two hundred thousand dinars, because everyone in Rome knew that he had brought a small amount of exquisite trophies from Parphi, and they thought it was that The inventory at that time, after all, the Parphi people had dealt with Greece and Persia, so it was normal to have some good things. Almost no one thought about the Ptolemaic treasure.

It's true that this money was enough for him to plug the financial hole, but he didn't do that.

Without any hesitation, he took the money and continued to expand his army. Instead of paying back the money, he asked Tiya to borrow some more money. In addition, he also asked Vespa and his old subordinate Valerian Ga, from a family of slave merchants. Puianus each borrowed some money and barely scraped together the basic military expenses for the other two brigades. He repeated his old tricks and recruited two elite brigades, and together with the original two brigades, he made up four brigades. That's half the legion without cavalry.

He was completely militaristic and supplied these soldiers regardless of the cost. It was very difficult to maintain two brigades with his financial resources, and the four brigades were financed by loans. In fact, the equipment of the latter two brigades has not been solved yet, so they can only make ends meet through physical fitness and team coordination training. Orville also has to find a way to find money to renovate the equipment.

When Crassus, the richest man in Rome and one of the "Big Three" real estate and silver mining magnates, went on an expedition to Parthia at his own expense, he originally wanted to spend money to form eight new legions, but because it cost too much and it was too painful, he only formed a new one. Six legions, these six legions are still a reduced version, which is actually only equivalent to five legions.

As long as the elite Roman legionnaires were commanded properly, they would often win big battles with one against ten when fighting parallel imports. These standing armies were burned with money. It would be painful for the richest man to raise legionnaires, let alone Orville.

However, you have to spend what you have to spend. None of the soldiers he carefully selected were parallel imports. To exaggerate, they were all the young talents of captains of ten, centurions, captains and even legion commanders. Grassroots officers are so important that they must be taken with them when they leave Rome.

Putting aside the issue of military expenditures that caused Orville to lose his hair, the scientist Ptolemy was satisfied anyway. The task assigned to him by Her Royal Highness the Princess was successfully completed. In fact, Cleopatra was not sure that Orville would agree to cooperate with her. , asking his teacher to visit him this time was a gamble, but in the end he was right, and getting the equipment was not a big problem.

However, Orville did not let the scientist Ptolemy return to Alexandria, but kept him and let him live in Rome for a while.

"I really appreciate some of your achievements, especially those related to geography, so I want to keep you at my house for a while. General Tiya and I want to discuss some issues with you. Don't worry about the equipment. I will send someone to Alexandria within three days. Because the sea conditions are not good now, it may take more time, but the equipment will be delivered to Palphi soon. Cleopatra can send it directly to Egypt whenever she wants it.

My handwritten letter has been sent to Alexandria now. The messenger is very reliable and is a confidant of the emperor, so Cleopatra will know the specific news soon, and it won't be long. You don't need to worry about this matter too much.

You can read all the libraries in Rome and the private collections of the royal family at will. I will also ensure your safety during my stay in Rome and treat you as a VIP. How about that? If you want, I can also arrange for you to meet some intellectuals in Rome, such as Pliny the Elder and others, as long as you are willing. "

It would be a bit unkind to refuse such a good treatment. Besides, Ptolemy was indeed curious about the Romans' collections and knowledge reserves. Although the Library of Alexandria was the academic center of the Greek world, Rome also had some of its own characteristics in it, so it would not make people uninterested in understanding it.

And Pliny the Elder of Orwell did catch his pain point-Ptolemy highly respected the works of Pliny the Elder, the founder of natural history, and referred to the contents in it a lot when drawing maps.

In the previous life, the two were decades apart in age. Now they just happened to bump into each other. They must cherish the opportunity. It would be a pity not to go right in front of them.