Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 205 Gauls’ Cooperation
From a geographical point of view, Franks and Denmark share land borders, and the Franks have a very powerful army. Maybe it is not enough to deal with the Romans, but it is more than enough to deal with all the surrounding barbarians.

Due to simple geopolitical issues, the Danish king had to obey the Frankish king in many aspects. This time, the Franks gave an order and the Danish king had to do it whether he was willing or not.

There were already more than 10,000 Vikings before, and this time there are more than 10,000 more. Unless the other side pulls all the regular troops in the country, it will be difficult for a small country like Denmark to gather so many people. Orville doesn't believe that the King of Denmark is so determined to gamble this time. Even if he wins the bet, it won't be that good for him, because the territories all belong to Ivar, not His Majesty the King.

So if the number of troops this time is true, it is estimated that there will be some "volunteers" among them, that is, the Franks disguised as Danes to fight the Romans. This is basically a tacit fact between the two sides, but they are not sure how determined the Frankish King Charles is and how many troops he can send to fight Orwell.

I heard that King Charles is currently mobilizing troops to conquer the barbarians in the eastern border of the country. If the information is true, they will not be able to gather too many people in the short term, only a few thousand or tens of thousands of people. Such a small fight will cause trouble to Orville, but it is far from being difficult to handle.

Orville was not interested in wrangling with the other party diplomatically, because it was useless to talk. He just needed to solve the problem. There was no point in considering so many things.
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Half a month later, a massive campaign was in full swing throughout the British province.

From south to north, residents everywhere found that ferocious investigators came to every village to check and count the land, livestock, population, and even farm tools and seeds in each village.

The gentry in some places instinctively resisted investigations from the upper level, so they wanted to turn these people away. However, they did not expect that a few days later, fully armed Roman troops would come to their homes to physically assist in the investigation. The gentry who dared to resist would have their land and property confiscated directly. The rest of the people were immediately silent and dared not act rashly, and obediently cooperated with the Romans in the inspection.

Most of these investigators were Celts from Gaul, accompanied by Romans. They were not the local gentry and nobles that they were familiar with, so it would be difficult for them to do anything even if they wanted to. They were not familiar with these outsiders and had no vested interests in them. Thanks to this, the land inspection work went more smoothly than expected.

Orville had previously taken the time to meet with Gilles de Rais and offered him an olive branch of cooperation - the Gauls would help the Romans conduct a land survey in Britain.

If it was Jeanne, as long as this matter was more beneficial to the public, she would probably agree to it directly without talking about the exchange of interests. However, there were only a few people like this. Gilles Dress, like other noble children, received a complete political education.

So the first question he asked Orville was not what benefits the British would gain from doing this. He didn't care about that at all. He wouldn't care even if all the British died. What he cared about was what he and the Gallic nobles could gain.

Orville did not hesitate and offered a suitable price: agricultural and medical knowledge from the Eastern Provinces, silver dinars, a large number of livestock and land in the British Province. Needless to say, as for the latter, Orville clearly promised the other party that as long as the land inspection work was carried out completely, he would allocate a piece of land in the British Province for the Gauls to cultivate, live and live.

These conditions were very tempting, because as a foreign race under the rule of the Roman Empire, unless they completely abandoned their identity as Gauls, they would have few opportunities to expand their territory. Without much hesitation, Gilles Dress accepted the conditions proposed by Orville on behalf of a group of Gallic nobles.

Orwell himself did not mind muddying the waters in Britain. The more chaotic the local structure was, the more suitable it was for Roman rule. Previously, at least in England, the vast majority of the locals were Anglo-Saxons who had merged into one, and were very different from the Romans.

If there were only Romans and Anglo-Saxons in England, it is conceivable that the conflicts between the two sides would be very direct and sharp. Any problems would be directed directly at the Romans as the rulers. The Romans had at most 10,000 or 20,000 standing troops stationed in the local area. If they had to keep paying attention to the rebellion of the locals, then ruling Britain would be a loss-making thing.

So he chose to stir the pot. Since the locals were united, he would disrupt the composition of the locals. Not only did he want to bring the Gauls from the south into Britain, he also wanted to settle surrendered Vikings like Rollo here. The more chaotic the population, the better. This way, their future conflicts would become more complicated, and they would not be directed at the Romans, but would be limited to internal consumption and fighting. This situation would undoubtedly be beneficial to the Romans in the long run.

After all, their goal is not to turn Britain into a real honey island. As long as they can ensure the stability of the northern border and the British province does not suffer losses, their goal will be successfully achieved.

Gil Dress could vaguely see Orville's general idea, but this did not conflict with his interests. Anyway, he finally got the land, and Orville promised that as long as things were handled well, his family would become the leader of the British Gauls. As long as it went smoothly, it would be a sure win.

Because of this, he worked particularly hard and used various methods to mobilize hundreds of intellectuals who were literate, able to do math and measure from Gaul. It is unknown how much he paid behind the scenes. This has nothing to do with Orville. He just needs to see the results.

Through this inventory, at least he could roughly know how much land and population he had under his control, and what the approximate situation was, instead of being completely clueless like those other barbarian leaders. Knowing that he could mobilize good resources was a basic skill.

Although the Gauls were certainly not professionals in this field, Orville did not have more manpower to do these things so far, and could only rely on these Romanized barbarians who had received some education. The person in charge of checking the statistics was the astronomer Ptolemy. With his ability, it was not difficult to calculate and count the land, and the deviation should not be too outrageous. At most, he could recheck it later when he had more manpower.

(End of this chapter)