Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 198 Business Expansion
In the end, Orville and Astolfo hit it off immediately. The latter, out of a sense of justice, could not stand the locals being bullied, and he also had some personal grudges against the Vikings. Without much thought, he decided to help Orville deal with the Vikings in the north.

His joining was of great significance, because he had almost established a good relationship with the locals and could serve as a bridge and guide between the Romans and the locals. Orville only needed to convey the general goals and intentions to Astolfo, and he would go to negotiate with the locals. More importantly, the locals trusted him, saving the trouble of contact and testing.

But Orville didn't quite understand why Astolfo would help him fight the Vikings. Even though he looked quite rough, he should have received an orthodox aristocratic education. He should know that the Germans were now on the same front. Helping the Romans against the Vikings was helping the Romans against the Franks, which was aiding the enemy in every sense.

Although Astolfo seemed to be a rough man who didn't care about politics, Orville still believed that he should understand things, but he just pretended to be stupid most of the time and pretended to be confused even though he knew the truth.

He didn't really care what Astolfo was planning. Anyway, Astolfo was in his favor and on his side, and that was enough. There was no point in worrying about too many unnecessary things.

.........

"Your Highness, there is a letter for you. It should be sent from Rome."

"Put it over there. I'll go look at it later."

Orville stretched his stiff neck and decided to take a short break, but suddenly he thought of something and added to the servant, "Call Stilicho over to me. I have something to ask him."

The servant withdrew and went to find someone as ordered. Orville then picked up the letter on the table, opened the envelope and began to read.

The content was not very complicated. It was mainly a financial report sent from Rome. Orville's industries in Rome had always been running smoothly. After all, no one would be so foolish as to offend the emperor's adopted son.

Even without the false title of adopted son, Orville has now been officially appointed by the emperor and the Senate as the governor of the province of Britain, and naturally has a corresponding seat in the Senate. In other words, even if he has little experience and a shallow foundation, he is now a member of the highest power circle in Rome.

There are a total of 600 senators in the Senate. Usually, some of them are absent. Some people simply covet the dignity and preferential treatment of senators and do not participate in the specific governance of the country. Some people are old and have retired to the second line and do not participate in specific affairs. After removing these people, there are about 300 political participants in the Roman Senate. These people are the core power layer of the Roman Empire.

If you don't count the royal status, Orville's power is probably above average among the many elders. It should not be underestimated but it is not very impressive either. After all, most of these people are aristocratic families with hundreds of years of history and deep foundations. The accumulation of a core base is not something that can be easily caught up with in a short period of time.

Taking this opportunity, Orville counted his property in the four borders of the empire, which was much more than before.

The hotels in Ostia, Rome, Brindisi, Sicily, Athens and other places would bring him a considerable amount of income every year. Orville only collected a small part of it to subsidize the army, and used the rest of the money to expand the industry. In addition to the war profits made during the Gallic War, Tia also took care of her business openly and secretly, and Orville's business had expanded to more and wider places.

Needless to say, although he didn't make much money in the province of Gaul, Orville opened hotels in Paris, Marseille and Lyon at the beginning, and took great effort to open up stable transportation routes, mainly to facilitate the transportation of talents and resources from Rome. It didn't matter if he lost some money, because the money was mainly made in the East.

In the eastern part and the mainland of the empire, Orville opened new branches in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rhodes. Although the Greek province was the industry concentration area of ​​the Senate, they were not very resistant to Orville coming to share a piece of the pie. After all, they had the emperor's order, and these hotels would not take much money from the profits.

More importantly, Orville has enabled more local people to come to Greece. These people will have huge expenses when traveling and studying, and this money will most likely go into the pockets of the elders in the end. Considering this, there is no need for them to join forces to boycott Orville. At most, they can compete with him, which has no impact on Orville at present.

In addition, Orville opened two branches in the eastern provinces - one in Antioch and the other in Alexandria.

These two places will become the five major patriarchates of Christianity in the future. Being able to become patriarchates means that the local economy and culture are relatively developed and can produce relatively new ideas. Both Alexandria and Antioch were prosperous and wealthy cities at the time. After expanding his business here, Orville's basic framework in the east was completed.

He plans to expand his business in the future, such as banking, to provide loans, deposits and exchanges, and investment services to truly provide a one-stop service. However, he still needs to accumulate more experience. Orville plans to build a general institutional framework in the British province and then gradually expand it to other places.

While he was imagining the future, Stilicho was also called over. He simply saluted Orville and asked, "You're looking for me?"

"The Governor's Palace in Londinium (London) has probably been repaired, and our officials are also pouring into the British province. Are there any problems? For example, the locals are constantly resisting, they are not used to the local climate, and there is a shortage of supplies."

Stilicho frowned: "We all have these problems, but we can overcome them. There is one problem that is quite difficult to deal with. Our officials don't speak the same language as the locals, so it's quite difficult to carry out our work. I haven't come up with a good solution."

Historically, after the Norman conquest of England, Britain fell into a more abstract situation - the priests recorded documents in Latin, the nobles from France spoke French, and the common people spoke English.

The Romans were now facing a similar problem. There were only so many social elites who could speak Latin, and the rest of the people had communication barriers with the Romans. Among these rough soldiers, there were very few who could speak the Germanic barbarian languages.

The two sides were communicating in a cacophony, so there was no need to talk about what happened later. There was no such feeling when they were busy in the city at the beginning, but now as the Romans moved a little further out of the city, this phenomenon became more and more obvious.

(End of this chapter)