Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 717 Now is the best time to surrender to Rome

A few days later, Guo Kang received new news. Meltem came back to tell him that the deal with Upper Egypt had been basically concluded.

Earlier, when the first phase of the battle ended, Sheikh and a group of his loyal followers were released by Toghan and others. Later, in order to counterattack, he recruited as many people as possible from outside his old subordinates. Among them, some were Mamluks and free soldiers who were loyal to him. But more were those who were very dissatisfied with Roman policies and therefore fled to Upper Egypt.

Some of these people were conservative religious people who could not accept being ruled by pagans. However, perhaps because they were used to the history of changing flags on the city walls, most of the priests did not take such active actions. Instead, they stayed in their own parishes and watched with a lukewarm attitude, just like all the previous conquerors.

Most of the people who came to him had very realistic purposes: some were dissatisfied with Tuohuan's land seizure in the name of redemption; some were dissatisfied with the cancellation of their trade privileges or tax-farming privileges; and some suffered great losses in the government's actions to forcibly stabilize market prices and currency prices, and therefore held a grudge.

The number of these people far exceeds those who stand on the side because of religious issues. When the decree was just implemented in the city, some people began to flee. At that time, Tuohuan wanted to send people to arrest them, but Guo Kang persuaded him that there would be a lot of things to deal with later, especially in the face of situations like plague. These people were reluctant to stay, but it was likely to cause trouble. Even if they didn't deliberately cause trouble, many things would be difficult to implement with them around, so it was better to let them go or even encourage them to leave. After all, it might be the best situation for such people to appear in the other camp.

Some officials were puzzled by this and thought that at least the gold and silver should be seized. But Guo Kang said that these things would not disappear. If we seize them now, we are extorting money from the locals; if we take them back after the battle, it will be considered a reasonable seizure. Therefore, under Guo Kang's thinking, Tuohuan acquiesced to these actions.

As a result, many people did choose to leave, which did reduce the population in the city and the pressure on management. However, there were still too many people who left, even more than Guo Kang expected: in Cairo alone, nearly 10,000 people left. This made him a little suspicious. We haven't even started to do anything here, so why are we so annoying?

After these people went south, they not only provided manpower, but also became unusually generous and provided a lot of financial support to the Sheikh. When the Sheikh was the Sultan, he had fought with these local tyrants a lot, and he had never seen them so generous. For a time, he regained a lot of confidence. With their sponsorship, the Sheikh reorganized the regime and hired a large number of Bedouin herdsmen from Upper Egypt to Nubia as mercenaries. For a time, his momentum grew rapidly.

However, just as Guo Kang had expected, due to the presence of a large number of fugitives, the Sheikh's Sudanese regime became extremely inefficient.

In order to repay these people's sponsorship, the Sheikh offered a lot of extra money, gave them official titles and promised to give them higher rewards in the future. However, these people did not even want to wait for this little time. As soon as some people settled down in Upper Egypt, they began to try to occupy land, monopolize trade, and return to their old business.

These actions caused dissatisfaction among local forces. However, they were not as good as the Cairo masters in terms of financial resources and interpersonal relationships, so they were suppressed everywhere and soon became resentful. The Sheikh and others tried to mediate, hoping that the outsiders would be loyal to the country and at least restrain themselves. However, these verbal measures had very limited effects. As for more effective means, the Sheikh was currently powerless.

Since the local bosses refused to cooperate, the Sudanese regime could not even effectively organize the local "felas" to serve as cannon fodder as before. The operation to collect supplies was also very slow, and only sporadic outpost battles could be carried out on the front line, and it was impossible to mobilize the army for action for the time being.

On the other hand, due to previous habits, many local tax farmers and officials and merchants were Copts, as well as pagans and foreigners such as Jews and Italians. Therefore, the Sheikh regime is now full of such people who fled south. After they fled south, they even had a numerical advantage in the Sudanese regime.

Some staunch supporters of the Sheikh regime are the clergy who strictly oppose pagans. But in the current situation, the status of the Copts has improved. The Sheikh and his emirs also obeyed these big money holders and gave them enough face. As a result, the clergy were embarrassed: everyone came to you just to oppose the pagans' rule. But in the end, there are still a bunch of pagans in power on your side. So why did they go to such great lengths to come here?

However, at this time, Rome was also busy with various civil affairs and had no energy to continue the attack. After the situation stabilized, Guo Kang announced that because of the urgent shortage of personnel, he was ready to break the previous thousand-year habit and start recruiting capable locals to serve as grassroots management. He also promised that if there were political achievements, they could continue to be promoted.

After this, a large number of local people changed their attitude towards the Roman regime. The "Ferra" in the countryside, as well as merchants, craftsmen and even some grassroots clergy in the city, chose to join the provincial government and seek a position.

The number of officials sent by the court was very limited. In order to prepare for the plague, Guo Kang greatly expanded the administrative establishment and continuously trained personnel in order to carry out more detailed management. The manpower that the legion could provide was not enough. Most of the positions at the middle and lower levels were almost filled by these people.

Therefore, below the provincial level, all government offices were filled with local Muslims in Egypt, which in turn caused dissatisfaction among the traditional "civil servant group", namely the Copts and some Muslim foreign ethnic groups.

Later, the Muslims in Rome and the Copts in the Sudanese regime cursed each other every day. Both sides accused each other of currying favor with pagans and persecuting fellow believers. But in the end, nothing came of the quarrel.

The arrival of the plague ended this chaotic confrontation.

After discovering that Guo Kang was taking precautions, Sheikh and the others also felt something was wrong. Cairo has a large population, and these large-scale personnel relocation and sanitation work could not be hidden from others. At the moment of war, they still took the trouble to make such a big move, which was obviously not right.

In addition, the Black Death was more common in spring and summer. Therefore, although he did not believe they could defeat the plague, the Sheikh became more cautious and began to try to imitate various Roman policies, especially those that were simpler and seemed to be helpful in dealing with the plague.

However, the Sudanese regime is inherently deficient in this regard. When they controlled Cairo, they were unable to control the hoarding merchants and the tax farmers who cheated the people. Now, it is even more impossible to implement this policy.

The Sheikh tried to divert people and relocate the idle people in several ports and cities. But after the order was issued, his officials soon began to profit from it. Those who had a good relationship with the tax farmers and were willing to pay money to contribute were allowed to stay, while others were deliberately moved away and thrown into the wilderness outside the city to do hard labor.

The migrants from the regime who moved south deliberately used this to deal with the local powerful groups, forcibly relocated them, and then occupied their land, real estate, and warehouses. The locals were not to be outdone, and used their high-level connections to fight against the foreign tax farmers. Both sides even sent out thugs and assassins to fight directly on the streets. For a time, the city was full of smoke and even more chaotic. When the plague broke out, the situation in these places did not improve. Different areas inside and outside the city could not establish independent management systems. Although many people moved to other places, they still ran back and forth privately, and the Mamluks could not control them. When a large number of people began to die in the city, everyone panicked and began to try to isolate them seriously.

However, it is impossible to completely cut off the connection between the various regions. Apart from other things, the port itself does not produce food, and these foods have to be shipped from outside. The Coptic merchants who control the port area took advantage of this to accept bribes and hoard goods. The price of a pancake has increased dozens of times compared to before, causing panic in the city.

On the other hand, the management of each area was in name only. As long as you paid money, you could get a pass from these people and move freely. Therefore, the plague quickly spread to all areas, including military camps and wealthy areas.

In the face of the Black Death, power, faith and money all lost their meaning. A large number of Bedouin tribal soldiers hired by the Sheikh died, and the remaining ones fled in panic, returning to the remote desert border areas and dared not come again.

Since escaping from Lower Egypt, the wealthy families and tax farmers who went south have been working together to ensure their safety. Moreover, they often traveled frequently between different regions, looking for opportunities to make money. Therefore, during the Black Death, the losses of these people were much more serious than before.

By the time the peak of the plague had passed, only one in ten of the wealthy areas of Porto Cuzco where they gathered had survived. Many tax farmers had lost their entire families, and a large number of properties that had just been occupied by them were left vacant again, with no one to take over. In broad daylight, jackals and vultures openly appeared in these mansions that people around them had once dared not dream of, looking for food.

The local tyrants in Upper Egypt followed suit and began to protect themselves behind closed doors, almost severing ties with the Sudanese regime. The tax farmers and civil servants who maintained the exchanges between the upper and lower classes were almost wiped out, causing the already fragile Sudanese regime to almost completely collapse.

The Sheikh himself lived in a camp in Luxor. This place was Thebes, the ancient capital of Egypt. There might not be much else, but there were various architectural ruins everywhere in the wastelands and islands outside the city, providing a good temporary shelter.

After the outbreak of the plague, residents habitually fled the city and took refuge in the ruins. Sheikh Do persisted for a while, but when he saw that order had completely collapsed, he was also taken away by his men and hastily fled south to Aswan and hid on an island in the middle of the Nile River. He temporarily settled down in the ruins of a pagan temple there.

It may be because there are more relics of the ancient Egyptians supporting the future, and everyone is more scattered, so the loss is relatively small. After the plague ended, Sheikh and others returned one after another, gathered their subordinates, and got a group of survivors. But the previous series of situations made him exhausted, and for a while he was unable to do anything.

Sheikhs and emirs had experienced the Black Death before. If it was just a repetition of those few times, it would cause serious losses, but everyone was used to it. Moreover, the Black Death did not distinguish which side you were on. Both sides of the civil war would be weakened, so it actually had little impact on the outcome.

But this time, the contrast between the performances of the two sides was so obvious that the supporters of the Sudanese regime began to waver.

If it was just a difference in results, it could be attributed to fate, saying that Hu Da was disgusted with everyone's sins and deliberately used pagans as a warning to believers - in short, it was beyond human control. The final losses were also inevitable punishment from heaven, and could not all be attributed to the fault of the rulers.

But this time, the various chaos that occurred in the middle were too obvious, and the consequences were very bad. The upper class's greed was too ugly, and the confrontation was too fierce, even a little dramatic. Even the locals who didn't have much culture could intuitively see that the losses this time were caused by the so-called social elites who usually looked decent. And they themselves could not escape punishment in the end. It was almost a model education story.

After the plague, not only ordinary people, but also a large number of middle and lower-level priests and officials began to doubt their previous positions. Some powerful people in Upper Egypt also began to secretly try to establish contact with the Romans, saying that they could cooperate with their policies. As long as they drove away these annoying people riding on their heads, the rest of the things could be discussed.

Compared to the previous sultans who were famous for their abstract performance art, Sheikh is actually a more down-to-earth and capable person - he even tried to stabilize food and currency prices, but he never succeeded.

In this case, those overconfident tyrants can actually hold on longer. On the contrary, such people are more likely to learn to reflect, and as a result, they fall into self-doubt and begin to collapse.

The Sheikh's advisers also suggested that it would be meaningless to persist in the current situation. It would be better to negotiate with the Romans while no one reacted, the Romans had no time to organize their army to go south, and the local forces in Upper Egypt had not arranged surrender with them. If it was delayed for too long, the situation would change further, and they would have even fewer bargaining chips.

In this way, they quickly sent envoys to start contact. After more than half a month of negotiations, they finally reached a result that everyone could accept.

With Elder Nasreddin, who currently lives in Cairo, as guarantor, the two sides reached an agreement that the Sheikh would leave the army and go on pilgrimage to Mecca - in the tradition of the Muslim world, this move is probably equivalent to "resigning by telephone," a dignified way of exiting.

The Mamluks in the original controlled areas were incorporated by the Roman side, just like their previous counterparts. In name, they would retain the iqta and title, but would no longer carry out actual management. Instead, the government would send people to replace the original tax farmers to manage these fiefs in exchange for positions and annual pensions. Many Mamluks were already exhausted from managing the fiefs, so they easily agreed to this one.

Due to the serious lack of management personnel, the Egyptian province sent officials to take over the Upper Egypt region and guaranteed that a new round of elections would be held within a year, allowing everyone to participate, regardless of origin or faith. However, local tyrants and clergy insisted that financial management positions must be reserved for locals - at least Copts, and that outsiders such as Jews and Italians must not be allowed to hold positions. The province understood this and agreed.

After these most important points were finalized, there was no need for anyone to worry too much. The agreement was quickly passed, and the two Egypts were back in business.

(End of this chapter)