Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 275 A complicated situation

Without the army, neither King Ptolemy, Arsinoe nor Gaimod would be qualified to confront him and could only follow Orville's arrangements and deployments.

He now wants to see whether the other party can accept this condition. If they can, that would be the best. If not, the war will continue. He estimates that the support from the central empire will arrive soon. By then, he will not be afraid of the other party at all. The other party's elite troops have suffered heavy losses and their morale is low. He will have no problem fighting with the other party in a field battle with real swords and guns.

At this time, Orville felt much more relaxed. The situation was already very clear. As long as there were no major mistakes, things would go smoothly. It could be said that everything was settled now.

On the contrary, he could clearly feel that Cleopatra was somewhat worried about the current situation - although she didn't say it explicitly, she showed a worried or thoughtful expression from time to time. Orville understood this very well, as she was simply worried about adding competitors.

It looked like Arsinoe was ready to surrender to the Romans, and as long as they survived, they would still be potential contenders for power.

Orville chose to see through the truth but not to say it out loud. It was a good thing that she had multiple competitors. Historically, Caesar did not execute her sister. Instead, he kept her under house arrest in a place outside Egypt as a backup. Her sister was not executed until the time of Antony.

Even though they have a good personal relationship, he will not let the other party's power go unchecked, so it is necessary to create competitors.
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It was a little unexpected that after Orville asked the other party to disarm, they did so readily. A few days later, Arsinoe and Gaimod arrived in Alexandria, and as requested, they only brought a few personal guards.

Soon after that, news came from the border of Parphi that the local Egyptian army had given up the confrontation with the Roman/Cleopatra army opposite and let the Romans and Cleopatra's army pass.

By this point, their military resistance had been largely eliminated, and the next question was how to deal with the huge country of Egypt.

If we divide the issues a little bit, they can be divided into the following aspects: Romans, Egyptians and Greeks.

Orville wanted to promote a new system here and reform the governance system here with the Romans as the center. At the same time, there were many retired Roman soldiers in Egypt.

The native Egyptians had always been second-class citizens. Their numbers were huge, not much less than those of the native Romans, but they did not have a political status to match.

The Greek problem was more complicated. On the one hand, there were the assets of nobles such as Berdinos who had been liquidated, on the other hand, there were the fence-sitters who changed sides, and on the other hand, there were the factions behind Cleopatra. After these people, there was the Egyptian Greeks, a group with a somewhat awkward status. After thinking about it, Orville decided to sort things out from top to bottom, first dealing with the problems in the capital Alexandria, and then slowly dealing with things outside Alexandria after freeing up his hands.

The first thing to do was to liquidate the property of Berdinos and others. Since they were already dead and now the target of public criticism, the liquidation work on them was not difficult. Orville temporarily seized the land and property of these people for future use.

This part of the property is quite huge. Just counting the number of details will take a long time with the manpower Orville has, so it will take some time to advance the subsequent matters.

As for those fence-sitters who changed sides midway, there is no such thing as letting bygones be bygones here at Orwell. In the name of rebelling against the orthodox Queen Cleopatra, Orwell and Cleopatra dismissed them from their posts. Now they have no time to take care of them, but once they have some free time, it is essential that they give themselves a beating.

As for those who were loyal to Cleopatra, Cleopatra opened the door of the treasury, used generous money to satisfy the mercenaries, and sent them back home. After obtaining Orwell's permission, she also left herself a garrison of about 3,000 people. As the head of a country, this was a reasonable request.

As for the politicians who were exiled by Perdinus and King Ptolemy, they all returned to Egypt. Cleopatra used the royal family's private property as compensation to restore the status and property of some of them as a reward for their loyalty. She was also very tactful and did not appoint a new administrative team for the time being. She had the right to discuss this matter with Orwell, but in general, it was still up to the Romans to decide.

As for the civilians in Alexandria, it was obvious that they were not welcoming to the Romans as before, and their attitude had even become worse because of the war. Orville did not get on with them, but simply ordered that everything should remain the same and cooperate with the locals to restore the city's production and life as soon as possible.

Cleopatra was very generous in this regard. She took out large sums of gold and silver from the royal treasury, hired civilians affected by the war to repair the destroyed city, and took out enough food from the granary to provide relief to the affected civilians. With money and food paved the way, the collapsed bridges, blocked canals, and burnt ports in Alexandria were quickly repaired. It was optimistically estimated that the city would be restored to its original state in a few months.

In addition, Orville demanded that a considerable part of the Egyptian mainland army be disarmed, and the guard and public security functions would be assumed by the newly entered Roman 12th Legion "Thunder" of Egypt. As for the Roman 22nd Legion "Diotallana" originally stationed in Alexandria, which was actually subordinate to Antonius, Orville did not punish them, nor did he entrust them with any tasks, but only asked them to stay on standby.

The Twelfth Legion was a relatively obedient legion to the emperor's orders. As it had only been a few years since the Parphaic War, the army's training and quality were very good, and they also had a good personal relationship with Orville, so they were basically a trustworthy military force. As for the Twenty-second Legion stationed in Alexandria and the Third Legion "Cyrenaica" stationed in Thebes in the upper and middle reaches of the Nile, they were far from reliable in Orville's opinion, and he needed to reorganize them internally and eliminate those unstable factors before he dared to use them.

After seeing that the situation had stabilized, the Syrian Governor Mucinus immediately returned to his residence - there were changes in Egypt, and the Parthians on the border were beginning to eye the situation covetously again. There might not be a big battle that would alarm the emperor, but there would definitely be a lot of small fights in the future, so it would be safer for him to be in charge personally.

(End of this chapter)