Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 192 The tacit understanding between both parties

At present, even after the Battle of Hastings, the locals were not particularly convinced of the newly arrived Romans. The attack on Orville was a microcosm of this, because they had a backer behind them - the covetous Frankish Kingdom.

Their backers had not shown any sign of weakness, which left some of the local diehard noble priests with the illusion that the war was still possible and that everything would be fine as long as the Franks launched an attack.

This idea was not wrong from the perspective of the time, but the Franks needed to think carefully about whether they were ready to challenge the old hegemonic countries.

While Orville was in a remote part of Britain, fighting against the local barbarians, some new news came from the European continent.

The new king of the Frankish Kingdom was once again preparing to assemble his army, eyeing the Roman territories in Gaul and Germania, and seemed ready for another fight.

The central Roman Empire could not show weakness either. Emperor Vespa commissioned Senate Senator Pliny to lead more than 10,000 recruits to the German provinces to support the new German legions that had been replaced there.

The two sides deployed their battle lines along the Rhine River, and the situation seemed to be tense and war could break out at any time.
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Almost at the same time that Orville received the news, a heated debate broke out in the Frankish royal court.

King Charles sat on his throne in silence, listening to the many nobles below talking at once, spitting at each other, losing their composure and arguing until their faces turned red.

"This is our best chance! The Romans have just experienced a civil war and are now in financial difficulties. If we don't take action now, we won't be able to turn things around in a hundred or two hundred years!!"

"Are you sane? I don't know if they are weak or not, but there are nearly 100,000 Roman troops on the border. We don't stand a good chance of winning. They have built fortresses and strongholds along the coast. With these soldiers stationed there, we have no chance of breaking in. It will only result in more casualties."

"You guys missed the chance to fight! If you had attacked them earlier, they wouldn't have reacted!!"

"So what if we can win a match? Their main forces are not damaged. Even if we can defeat one of their main forces, what about two? Three? More? What will you do?! We should accumulate strength now, instead of seeking our own ridiculous sense of existence. What's the use of a sense of existence without the support of strength?"

"The consequence of accumulating strength and pretending to be dead is that the Romans will become more aggressive. Now their hands have extended to Britain. We cannot lose this land and the people on it, otherwise their behavior will definitely become more excessive! ”

"Is it right for you to keep seeking war like this? Our army was not ready to fight the Romans, but now they are ready. You insist on fighting this battle even though you can't win? You want your relatives to bleed with you, but I don't want that."

Seeing that the quarrel among the people below was getting more and more intense, Charlie did not say anything to stop it. He just watched it all coldly, and at the same time, he couldn't help feeling a little discouraged.

He was an experienced general who knew when his soldiers were most likely to win a war, which was definitely not the case now. To win, the commander needed to have confidence in winning. Charles could see that even those who advocated war did not truly believe in winning the war. Many people were just agreeing with the ideas of his monarch, subconsciously hypnotizing themselves, and did not truly realize the possibility of the Franks winning.

It is impossible to win the war at this time. Perhaps it is possible to defeat the more uncivilized barbarians in the east, but there is absolutely no way to defeat the Romans who are stronger than themselves.

After realizing this at the meeting, Charlie actually had no interest in fighting this war. He liked fighting, but he didn't like losing.

After waiting for a few more minutes, he stood up. With his tall stature, he looked down at all the ministers from the high throne platform. All of them bowed their heads respectfully to him, expressing their heartfelt admiration and obedience.

"Have you guys quarreled enough?" His voice was calm and peaceful, but people who knew him knew that Charlie was showing signs of being unhappy at this moment.

One of his relatives, who was more familiar with him, also said frankly: "We will follow your decision unconditionally, but we will inevitably have different ideas. We have a big disagreement on whether to fight the Romans at this time."

Everyone couldn't help but nod in agreement, and their views were generally the same.

The current King Charles ascended the throne through military merit and power. Although this inheritance model where whoever has the bigger fist is the boss is very unstable, before King Charles' power is shaken, his subordinates will still remain loyal to him, and the loss of one or two wars will not shake the domestic nobles' confidence in the king.

In the final analysis, everyone actually knows that if the Frankish Kingdom wants to develop further, it must wrestle with the Romans. In order to wrestle, they need a spokesperson. Maybe King Charles' current performance has problems, but no one else can be more perfect.

Under everyone's expectant gaze, King Charles finally made his own decision: "I understand that you no longer believe that we can win, so there is no need to continue this battle. From now on, you go back and mobilize your troops and prepare to leave the border. Don't waste time here.

The army has been mobilized, so we can't waste so much food and money, so we still have to fight a war. As for Britain, we can secretly support the local nobles and civilians to resist. The Romans only have 10,000 or 20,000 troops there, so let them run around and bleed in Britain. No matter what, they will need several years or even longer to deal with the resistance. We can take advantage of this time to do something else.

Since the kingdom has lost in the west, let's make up for it in the east. We have a significant advantage over the Romans. Their known world has either been occupied by them, or is not worth occupying or is very difficult to occupy. We still have a large area of ​​land to open up in the east. We just need to defeat the barbarians in those lands. Only the barbarians on the Danube River have become a little difficult to deal with because of years of exchanges with the Romans. Many of the remaining guys are still in the chiefdom state. I believe my warriors will not be unable to do even this kind of thing. "

As he spoke the latter part of his voice, his tone became a little gloomy, and everyone heard the warning in it. The less courageous nobles were even frightened and trembled all over, and nodded hurriedly to agree with King Charles.

(End of this chapter)