Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 292 The situation worsens
After careful consideration and planning, Belisarius bypassed Jeanne d'Acre and some local nobles, secretly organized two battalions of soldiers, and led these soldiers to attack the camp of the most restless barbarian at night.

The barbarians had low vigilance and discipline, and were used to the fact that the Romans would not cross the border to reach their territory, so they had almost no vigilance. When the Romans shot javelins and arrows into the camp, they finally reacted, but it was too late.

The night attack coupled with the difference in military skills resulted in a completely one-sided outcome. Belisarius easily controlled more than a thousand people in the camp, then he crucified the entire family of the tribal leader, and sold many tribal leaders as slaves into the empire. If nothing unexpected happened, they would never be able to return to Britain in this lifetime.

As for the remaining barbarians, Belisarius dispersed them and sent them to the province of Gaul, allowing them to develop the local area and integrate into the Celtic group in Gaul.

Relatively speaking, Belisarius was a kind and moral person. Even Procopius, who particularly liked to criticize people in his books, mainly attacked his emotional life for being too tolerant and restrained, and did not criticize him much in this regard. But being kind and moral does not mean being a saint. When necessary, he could still do some things that seemed cold-blooded at first glance. For example, during the Nika riot in history, he was the one who protected the king and was said to have killed tens of thousands or even more rioters (some say 35,000, but the author personally doubts the authenticity of this number). Many records used words such as "massacre" when describing this period of history.

This is probably what it means when people say that a kind person cannot lead an army. People with truly saintly hearts rarely lead troops to fight. War itself is a cruel thing. Being kind to the enemy is not necessarily a good thing. It will only cause a lot of extremely troublesome things.

After getting rid of the main culprit, Belisarius did not stop there, but continued to kill other barbarian tribes that had crossed the border. The time he was silent was not a sleepwalking or idle time, as he had already figured out the other party's background by various means.

Due to the lag in information dissemination in tribal society and Belisarius' strong sense of purpose, before the locals could react, Belisarius had already wiped out those tribes that frequently plundered the Romans and used force to drive them out of the British province, actually breaking up and destroying their tribes.

This move caused an uproar in the British province. Not only did Boudica have a lot of opinions about him, but even Jeanne and others also had complaints. Belisarius ignored all these opinions and just repeatedly reiterated and insisted on his own point of view.

Jeanne understood him a little bit because she had tried her best to contain the conflict between the two sides. She knew how difficult it was to persuade these barbarian tribes to behave themselves and do business with the Romans. She couldn't blame Belisarius because it was indeed the locals who took action first and the Romans fought back later. She also knew how the Romans normally dealt with such problems, which was definitely more radical than Belisarius.

So she basically kept silent about the matter and just continued to do her best to prevent the war from happening.

Boudica was extremely angry. She repeatedly emphasized her indignation in her letters and even threatened to mobilize the tribes and Romans to have a good argument.

In the end, she still couldn't make up her mind to really go to war with the Romans, because although her vision was somewhat limited, she also knew that there was no need to fight now. The Romans now seemed to have no desire for their land, and had no interest in establishing rule on their land. This contradiction between the two sides could be reconciled. Moreover, there was another key point - she had fully witnessed Belisarius's command ability and the military strength of the Romans. They couldn't handle the Anglo-Saxons alone, let alone the Romans who conquered the two. Although they claimed to have an army of 100,000 or 200,000, they might not be able to defeat a reorganized legion stationed here.

The same situation was also true in history. When a large number of Celtic tribal warriors faced a legion, the result was described by historians as a "massacre". It was definitely not a good idea for them to engage in a head-on battle with the Romans.

Boudica's concession led to her impeachment within the tribal assembly, and her authority and power declined. This gave some other tribal leaders an opportunity. To put it bluntly, the tribal assembly was just a loose alliance, and the leader had no clear power. His authority and status depended entirely on the recognition of other leaders. Once the recognition was lost, Boudica would go from being the leader of the alliance to an ordinary leader of a large tribe.

Several other tribal leaders took the opportunity to rise up by inciting confrontational sentiments. They instigated various tribes to rise up against the Romans. Many tribes actually agreed with this approach and really began to mobilize and prepare for war.

They also understood the basic logic of making friends with distant countries and attacking nearby ones, and tried to find ways to get in touch with the Franks on the other side of the continent, hoping to get some material and military assistance from King Charles. However, this was much more difficult than before because the Romans were gradually gaining control of the ocean.

The joining of Rollo and the surrender of Ivar have shifted the balance of power. In addition, when Orville and Tia were governors respectively, they also made great efforts to expand the navy. Now only scattered Viking pirates can harass the coastline, and large-scale fleets have no way to get close to the coastline. It is extremely difficult to transport weapons to the Celtic barbarians on a large scale, let alone send troops up.

This behavior also touched the bottom line of the Romans: whether they had looted or resisted before, the Romans saw it as a barbarian problem, a little emotionality coupled with barbaric customs and culture. They had seen many such examples and would not get anxious or angry.

But now that the Franks were involved, the nature of the matter changed completely. The Franks were the empire's most direct rivals, and eight legions were deployed on the Germanic defense line to guard against these people. Colluding with the Franks was considered by many Roman soldiers to be a typical example of "their hearts deserve to be killed", so Belisarius simply ordered the entire army to gather at the western border, and asked for help from the Governor of Lugden Gaul, and was ready to fight too.

Now the most sober person who tried to get both sides to lay down their arms was Boudica. She tried her best to restrain her own tribe and other small tribes from participating in the war, and also angrily denounced those tribal leaders who advocated war at the tribal meeting. But all this was just a drop in the bucket and could not stop the gears of war at all.

PS. There are two more chapters that will be posted later. Something unexpected happened yesterday. I will make up for it tomorrow at the latest.

(End of this chapter)