Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 288: The Best in History
"Brother, are you saying we have a guide?" Ubbe continued to perform a double act with his brother.

"His Royal Highness found an experienced merchant ship captain to guide us, and also a navigator who is proficient in astronomy to accompany us. He even gave us this thing."

Ivar pulled out the scroll he was carrying and when he opened it, he found a very detailed map of the Red Sea with detailed footnotes and additional information. In an era when shipping routes were basically passed down from generation to generation through human memory, such maps were extremely valuable.

"I see! That's fine then, no problem for me." Ubbe held the map and looked at it carefully, then nodded repeatedly.

Seeing that Ivar was well prepared and not planning to sail on the ocean, the sailors felt a little relieved. Both sides of the strait had exchanges with the Romans or Egyptians, and this was an inland sea with calm waters. The only possible accident was a run-aground. The safety factor was relatively high. With these preparations, even if they were new to the game, there shouldn't be any serious accidents.

After making sure that the sailors understood his request, Ivar quietly took back the Red Sea map, then gave his brother a cold look, and the other party also tactfully stepped aside, and the play was over.

In fact, whether it is a long voyage or not depends on the situation. Anyway, he has prepared supplies for a real long-distance voyage. When they arrive at the mouth of the Red Sea, if they are in good condition and familiar with operating these ships, then he is really prepared to continue sailing and drive all the way to India.

Orville was very interested in the Indian route and hoped to get spices, medicine, precious metals and other things from there, but he was not in a hurry. The one who was really anxious was Ivar himself.

He knew that Egypt was in a critical period of reshuffle recently. If he could not show his usefulness now, it would be difficult to get a bigger piece of the pie in a few years. However, it was not difficult for Ivar to get a bigger piece of the pie now. As long as he was useful, Orville would naturally give him more benefits.

If he could open up the Indian trade route, the Vikings would be a more useful group. Orville might hand over the foreign trade work to the Vikings in the future. After that, the Vikings would no longer have to worry about their livelihoods, as they could make a fortune from trade alone.

Orville was indeed not lying. After arriving in Egypt, Ivar also saw the prosperity of this place.

"The market is the meeting place of all merchants. There are hundreds of tunnels and thousands of stalls. Bribes and goods are piled up like mountains, and fine goods are everywhere. The men and women in the city are dressed in fine clothes and beautiful makeup. Merchants are trading and making troubles. Strange things are rising and falling, and they are strange in all directions. Cloth has tangled flowers, and flour has tangled palms."

If Ivar had the literary talent of Zuo Si (a Jin Dynasty writer) that could make paper in Luoyang expensive, he would probably use such words to write about the prosperity of Alexandria and Rome. For him, a man who grew up in the harsh north, everything aroused his greater ambitions.

Ivar had been thinking seriously about how to realize the "Indian Ocean Trade" that Orville mentioned, and finally he found the answer beside him.

He also inherited his father's ability to learn. After learning that Ptolemy, Orville's aide, was an accomplished astronomer, he humbly learned relevant knowledge from him.

After Orwell's instruction, Ptolemy reluctantly taught him some practical knowledge, a large part of which was the knowledge in Ptolemy's "Almagest". Later, Arab navigators regarded it as a guiding principle and called the teachings of this book "the greatest art". Ivar himself was also an experienced navigator. Although he had not learned knowledge systematically, he really learned a lot of knowledge from him with his talent, experience and perseverance that surprised Ptolemy himself.

This time, Ivar planned to apply the knowledge about astrology to actual navigation to see whether the practice was as accurate as the theory.

"Get everything ready! Cheer up, we'll be ready to set sail tomorrow!"
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On the other side, Alexander and Orville felt that Tia had been a little confusing since she came back - she was sometimes nice to him and sometimes bad to him in the first few days, often daydreaming and looking lost in thought. In the next few days, she returned to normal, but always seemed to be venting her anger with him, and often got angry with him over trivial matters.

By eliminating the possibility through the control variable method, it is not difficult to guess that something must have happened between her and Cleopatra on the Nile River. However, no matter whether he asked Tia or Cleopatra, there was no direct answer. It can only be said that it is quite mysterious.

Leaving aside Cleopatra, Orville also knew Tia's character. It shouldn't be a national event that affected her, otherwise she would have taken the initiative to tell Orville at the first opportunity and would not have kept it secret.

Most likely, it was some family matters that were not convenient to talk about. Tia was also a little awkward in this regard. Orville fully understood this. His desire for control and curiosity were not that strong, so he did not necessarily have to know. As Tia gradually returned to normal, the matter was forgotten in his mind and he did not pursue it.

However, these military affairs once again attracted most of his attention - Trajan completed the screening of part of the Egyptian army.

Originally, among the 70,000 Egyptian troops, there were about 5,000 Nubian black mercenaries. Now he simplified the situation and sent away 4,000 of them, leaving only about 2,000 people.

There were about 15,000 Egyptian tenants in the army, and Trajan picked and chose about 3,000 of them to stay. In his eyes, these were barely qualified soldiers, not legionaries, but auxiliary soldiers.

Orville roughly checked the quality of these soldiers and after confirming that they were probably fine, he handed them over to Trajan for training and waited a few weeks to see the results.

The Nubians simply dismissed the remaining people and sent them back to Nubia, while the Egyptian Ower arranged for them to be converted from military to civilian use and serve as a construction team to repair the city.

Now there is no place to find jobs for 10,000 or 20,000 people, and there are still a lot of unresolved employment issues for Greek soldiers. Orville can't solve these problems all at once, so he can only use this method to delay it for a while. Anyway, Alexandria was burned quite badly, and it will take at least more than a year to repair it. This period of time is enough for Orville to think of another solution.

Through these Egyptians and Nubians, Orville's men roughly understood how to select warriors. Then Orville asked them to select the best 10,000 Greek immigrant soldiers. He planned to use these people as auxiliary troops.

(End of this chapter)