Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 223 Ship Burial
All in all, the situation can be summed up in one sentence: the situation is stronger than the person, or one has to bow his head under the eaves, and these captured nobles did not have many choices.

After Orwell expressed his intention, some nobles hesitated and finally chose to stand on Orwell's side to help the Romans. The number of these people was about a quarter, and it was estimated that many of them were just pretending to be cooperative. In fact, only about half of them were truly willing to cooperate with the Romans, and there might even be fewer.

In fact, Orville was quite satisfied with the current number of people. Changing camps was not a simple matter. It required a great price and sacrifice. Any help would be a big help to Orville. Anyway, these people were unexpected gains. Even if they did not join him, it would not be a big deal. It would not have any major impact on Orville's own plans.

If he emphasized Judith's identity as a descendant of the Merovingian royal family, he might be able to attract some supporters, because in these people's minds, the agreement between feudal lords and vassals should be sacred and cannot be abolished by anyone. Although Judith is not the legitimate heir to the throne now, it can only be said that she has a certain legal basis, but there is no more authoritative person who has come out to claim the throne. People who are more legitimate than her have either been eliminated or had to remain silent. If Judith is pushed out as a puppet at this time, it might have unexpected results and make King Charles uncomfortable for a while.

However, Orville did not do so considering Belisarius's thoughts and the current situation. Instead, he deliberately downplayed the matter when negotiating with these nobles. He was the one who arranged the marriage between Belisarius and Judith, and now the relationship between the two seems to be pretty good. If he used his new wife as a political bargaining chip at this time, it would be too unkind.

Therefore, he would not take the initiative to use Judith's identity to promote anything. It was the nobles' own business to think too much. His current plan did not involve the Frankish Kingdom itself. Making plans in advance was more of a habit.

He had spread the news that some of the captured nobles had defected to the Romans. Based on Orwell's understanding of King Charles' straightforwardness, he would definitely take advantage of the fiefs of the families behind these nobles. The less powerful ones might be directly deprived of their territories, and the more powerful ones might be stripped of their skin. This had nothing to do with Orwell. In essence, these actions of the Franks were internal friction, and for him, the more internal friction, the better.

Unless these people can bring him other benefits, such as a generous ransom, Orville currently has no intention of releasing them. He will lock them up for half a year or a year before considering other matters.
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While Orville was dealing with the captives, a funeral was held in Dublin's harbour.

A long ship of nearly 15 meters in length was being buried by the continuously transported soil. Under the watchful eyes of a group of Viking leaders, the ship gradually turned into a tomb made of soil.

Northerners do have the custom of ship burials, but they do not set the ships on fire at sea or send them into the depths of the ocean. They simply use the ships as coffins and bury the deceased deep in the earth.

Now buried is Ragnar Lothbrok, the father of many Viking leaders and a hero of the Vikings.

Ivar looked at the boat calmly, but he was a little absent-minded.

This was a funeral held for his father, who died in a shipwreck and no body was left, so the empty ship could only be buried as a formality to express the respect and mourning of future generations for Ragnar.

The funeral should have been held earlier, but Ivar wanted to have an excuse to invade England, so he linked Ragnar's shipwreck to England and quickly assembled a large army to invade the kingdoms of England, leaving him no time to hold a funeral for his father. The war with the Romans also distracted him to a great extent. At first, he wanted to return to his hometown to hold a funeral for Ragnar, but now it seems that he may not be able to return to his hometown normally for the next ten or twenty years, so he had to hold the funeral in this foreign land first.

Except for his mother and eldest brother, all the main members of the family were actually present. This was considered a relatively formal funeral. In addition to the family members, all the Vikings who could be present participated in the funeral. The dock was filled with a large group of people, and there were dozens or even hundreds of longships parked on the sea. It can be said that everyone who could be present was already there.

According to their cultural tradition, the more powerful and heroic a person is, the more worthy of a good ship to be buried with him. Ragnar's status is completely worthy of the most powerful dragon-headed warship to be buried with him. Even if Ivar does not send out the ship, there are still many Viking pirates willing to put together a dragon-headed warship for Ragnar's burial. Even the Danish king, who has always disliked Ragnar, would not mind donating a dragon-headed warship for the sake of face.

However, Ivar not only rejected the other party's offer of a dragon-headed warship, but he also did not use the dragon-headed warship to bury his father. The ship tomb he chose was an ordinary Viking longship, more than ten meters long, with decorations and materials as ordinary as its length.

This ship has special commemorative significance for his family. It was on this ship that Ragnar made his first pot of gold - he rode this longship to and from Denmark, Frankia and the Baltic Sea, and earned his first pot of gold through trade, looting and slave trading. Then in the following years, his business grew bigger and bigger, and he became more and more famous. Thousands of Vikings united under his flag, and he became a hero in the Viking world.

Ivar believed that if Ragnar was watching him in Valhalla, he would definitely prefer this longship as his coffin. He had a deep affection for this ship, and Ivar indeed believed that this ship was more worthy of commemoration than those magnificent dragon-headed warships.

The purpose of a large ship for show is to show off manpower and material resources, but in fact it is only applicable in very narrow occasions. But for the Vikings, this ship can almost be said to symbolize an era.

Ragnar never considered himself a lord or a king. He had always been very clear about his own positioning - he was a robber, he was a businessman, he was a Viking who made a living on the sea. For someone like Ragnar, dying at sea was probably the most suitable destination.

Ragnar's death may not mean the end of an era, but it does foreshadow some kind of change. As Ivar watched the soldiers fill the ship shovel by shovel, his thoughts gradually turned to the present.

He patted his youngest brother Wu Bi on the shoulder and asked, "How are the preparations going? Have you taken all your belongings with you?"

(End of this chapter)