Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 334: Failure
The other party was indeed knowledgeable and dug out this word from his mind: "I've heard that it seems to be a branch of the Germanic people. Many people migrated to the British Isles. Did you meet him on the island?"

"Yes, I met him on the British Isles. I have several Germans under my command. You may have some impression of him. He is the leader of these Germans. Their help was indispensable for you to ascend the throne and for me to kill Antonius, the governor of Egypt.

But one thing is for another, they did something very unfair to you and the local people, and after the coup, he said goodbye to me and went to the south to take risks."

Orville briefly talked about the glorious deeds of Astolfo and the adventurers. Cleopatra's expression was fine at first, but later on she looked a little embarrassed.

They went upstream along the Nile River, initially wanting to see the source of the Nile, but because the Nile River was too long, they had to give up the trip. Even so, they successfully reached Aksum, which was the area of ​​the future Ethiopian Kingdom, and met the people there.

After wandering around there for a few rounds, Astolfo led the team back, passed through the land of the Nubian Kingdom and returned to Egypt. They even obtained some "confidential information", such as the locations of several gold mines in the Nubian Kingdom. Up to this point, they were quite successful.

But after returning to Egypt, they started to act abstractly. Not to mention other things, after they came to a group of tombs, they actually started to dig up graves and rob tombs. They even succeeded in the robbery. Astolfo returned to Alexandria with a large number of treasures.

After hearing this, Orville probably understood the seriousness of the matter - they were not robbing the tomb of an ordinary rich man, but the famous Valley of the Kings, where the tombs of many Egyptian pharaohs were located.

Although the Valley of the Kings has only reappeared in the eyes of Europeans in modern times, it seems to have been developed into a kind of "tourist attraction" in the ancient Roman era. The evidence is that we can now find thousands of "I was here" inscriptions from that era in the Valley of the Kings: Greek, Latin, Phoenician, Aramaic, Coptic.
At this time, only about one-third of the tombs discovered by the ancients in the Valley of the Kings were still intact. The rest had been visited by tomb robbers, and now there was one less tomb that had been visited by Astolfo.

Perhaps it was a problem caused by cultural differences, Astolfo was still very happy, thinking that he was on an adventure to find treasures, and that it was a great success. He planned to give Orville a few of the best treasures first, and then send the rest back to his hometown for display. Orville was also very helpless about this idea. What had been done had already been done, so he could only admit his mistake to Cleopatra first, and then discuss how to end this matter.

To be honest, tomb robbing has always existed in Egypt. The Valley of the Kings existed because the pharaohs were worried that their tombs would be dug up. Unfortunately, it has not played any substantial role.

When the dynasty existed, tomb robbers naturally did not dare to think about robbing the pharaoh's tomb, but after the change of dynasties, it was very common to dig up the tombs of the pharaohs of the previous dynasty. The Egyptians did more than the British, Americans, French, German and other countries in later generations combined.

Even during the period of warlordism, one of the financial sources of some warlords was to dig up the tombs of the pharaohs. When the kingdom was unified again, this phenomenon would generally be curbed a little, but when the dynasty's ruling power declined, tomb robbing became rampant again. After going back and forth like this, I'm afraid the locals have become accustomed to it. Astolfo was just taking advantage of the lack of manpower in Ptolemaic Egypt.

In terms of right and wrong, there is definitely a lack of virtue, but Astolfo is not the only one who lacks virtue. The main problem is that some people do not see the matter that way.

In the eyes of some people, Astolfo is an outsider and a follower of Orville. His tomb robbing is almost the same as Orville's tomb robbing, which is almost the same as Orville coveting the wealth of the pharaoh and the gods. It may not be something that can be made into a fuss.

Egypt cannot be said to be a powder keg that will explode at any time, but it is obviously flammable and explosive. This place has been full of sharp conflicts since ancient times, and there have been many uprisings and unrest.

Orville is afraid of this kind of thing, and so is Cleopatra, so the two of them need urgent "crisis public relations" now, to shut up everyone before someone makes a fuss and leave no handle. After thinking about it, Cleopatra said carefully: "You have come to discuss with me, which obviously means that the matter cannot be concealed, so we should deal with it in a way that cannot be concealed. I will take out a part of the treasure from the treasury and sell it together with the treasure of the pharaoh. The money from the sale will be used to help the Egyptian civilians. There is no need to push the matter onto Astolfo. This is meaningless. They will still point the spearhead at us, which will only make things worse.

They said the treasury was empty and they had no money to provide disaster relief, so they could only take the treasure. I have some accounts of taxes owed by some temples, so I turned the tables and said that these temples did not pay taxes and hid people, which made it difficult to collect taxes. If the temples were more obedient, the matter would be over. If they make trouble, I can just deal with them and the resistance should be much smaller. "

To various extents, this was a relatively appropriate solution. Orville didn't find any major problems with it, so he nodded in agreement with the other party's idea.

"That's fine, and there's one more thing. Ivar has returned from the sea."

Hearing this, Cleopatra couldn't help but stand up, with a little excitement in her eyes: "What's going on?"

She also knew that the Indian Ocean trade was extremely profitable, so naturally she was very concerned about this matter. This was a profit that could really support the country's finances, so it was hard not to pay attention to it.

Seeing her excited, Orvel scratched his head and said, "It's not a success. Only two ships came back, half of the crew are still alive, and Ivar himself was slightly injured."

"How could that be? Isn't he a very good warrior? And he is familiar with the sea conditions, so he shouldn't run into a storm or run aground on a reef or something like that."

"The problem is not the ocean, it's that people everywhere are not welcoming to them"

The Romans wanted to steal the business, which was not a good sign, so both the Arabs near Yemen and the blacks in Aksum on the other side of the river were quite hostile to Ivar.

It was fine if it was just a warship before, but now it’s a small merchant caravan, they will definitely have some bad ideas.

Ivar's martial power was indeed astonishing as his reputation. He could easily kill a small fleet with his sword, but he could not withstand the frequent disturbances from pirates from all over the place. It was only because of his desperate efforts that he was able to return, otherwise this fleet would have been sunk into the sea.

Cleopatra fell silent after hearing this. This was indeed a big problem. The trade network had already been formed and was even basically complete. It was not easy for them to intervene. The cake was so small and no one liked to share the profits with others.

(End of this chapter)