Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 358 Tribute and Weapon Raw Materials (4K)

The situation in the Nubian Kingdom was generally good. The prince that Orville had met before had now successfully succeeded to the throne as the new king and was exercising his rule.

At the critical moment of the transition between the old and the new, the Aksumites from the south once again launched an attack and began to invade their territory, making Nubia's situation somewhat dangerous. At this time, the Nubian king naturally remembered the agreement between himself and the Egyptians and asked Cleopatra to send troops to support.

The problem is that Cleopatra only has such a small number of troops at her disposal, which is barely enough to maintain local security, let alone go out to defend against the enemy.

Although there are relatively few examples of black countries that have been strong and prosperous in history, Aksum is indeed one of them. They later became the so-called Ethiopians. Their history is longer than most civilizations in the world. It is not a problem for them to call themselves an ancient civilization. They are indeed capable and have some dominance at sea.

Faced with the difficulties from such a country, Orville did not waste any words. After discussing with Cleopatra, he ordered a legion to be transferred over to quell the incident. He let them be stationed on the Nubian territory and keep an eye on the Aksumites opposite.

This was a sure win for Orville. To be fair, he didn't really want to care about the southern affairs. After returning from Rome, the changes in Rome had occupied his mind too much. From his point of view, he just needed to deal with the southern affairs. In fact, the Nubians were enough to resist the Aksumites. The Romans were called because they didn't want to lose too many people. Orville also didn't want to waste the lives of elite soldiers in the upper reaches of the Nile.

So he thought of a solution that seemed to have the best of both worlds. He sent the soldiers directly there to prepare to station there. If the other side was worried about letting in a wolf and the Romans stayed there, then the legion could take this opportunity to get less involved. If the other side agreed, the Romans would not suffer much, as they could increase their influence and control in the local area and at the same time weaken the prestige of the Nubian king.

After all, a king who cannot protect himself and has to rely on external forces is unlikely to gain full support, and people's recognition is likely to shift to the Romans.

Due to the gap in national power, the Romans could easily gain an advantage in inter-state exchanges, after all, they could easily use their power to overwhelm others, while the other side had no power to bargain. This was also a helpless move for the Nubians, as they did not have much choice.
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According to Orwell's plan, Egypt should have about 20,000 new-style troops to be able to deal with various situations. Now this number is barely halfway achieved. If the army is expanded with a militaristic attitude, this number is actually not a problem at all. It is not impossible for this place to support 60,000 to 70,000 professional troops.

But before that, Orville planned to solve some other problems first, and talk about other things after securing the financial resources. He wanted to let the locals feel some benefits, and recognize his and Cleopatra's rule before slowly expanding the army.

If we sort out the various financial sources of income, the main options for increasing revenue are nothing more than these: increasing agricultural output by building water conservancy facilities, repairing roads to collect customs fees and commercial taxes, obtaining trade profits through trade with southern countries, and collecting customs duties through maritime trade.

These options are not contradictory, but the focus is definitely on tariffs and maritime trade. The profit margin of more than twenty times would make everyone jealous. After deducting the part that has to be handed over, there will still be a lot left. He has also made preliminary preparations. The Nabataeans have already surrendered. His main commercial enemies on this side of the Red Sea are the Aksumites and other dark-skinned peoples and the Arabs in Yemen.

Orville had been busy building a navy after the fire of Alexandria a few years ago. Fortunately, there were quite a few fishermen and sailors in Egypt, and some Greek officers also had considerable naval experience. With the help of Pliny the Elder, Orville built a Red Sea Fleet with impressive parameters on paper.

He then ordered the Nabataeans to assist them in patrolling the Red Sea, and if any ships flying the flags of countries such as Rome and Egypt were attacked, the fleet would retaliate.

At this time, he hardly considered the economic accounts, and did not care so much about the loss of ships and supplies. His core concept was only one - those who made mistakes must pay with blood. Only this kind of bloody lesson could remind the surrounding pirates not to provoke Roman merchant ships.

In terms of familiarity with the sea and the skills of driving ships on the sea, the other side is not necessarily worse than our side. Most of the people on Orville's side are sailors rather than soldiers, but their national strength is strong enough. They can kill people by piled up against pirates, and they are willing to spend money to clean up these unstable factors. After a month or two of security battles, the situation is much better than before.

The Aksumites had been busy waging war with the Nubians on land recently and had no time to care about what was happening on the sea, so they acquiesced to Orwell's cleanup work. The Arabs in Yemen were relatively weak, and Orwell threatened to launch a punitive sea expedition if they did not restrain their fleets. He also left the fleet at their doorstep, which finally frightened them into cooperating with the Romans in maintaining law and order. After all, it was not completely unprofitable for them.

At the same time, another group of Vikings represented by Rollo also sent troops over. Orville was very clear about his idea, but there was no need to stop him. He was happy that the other party wanted to form a check and balance between him and Ivar. Dynamic balance is always better than monopoly and rigidity. Sure enough, Ivar showed a sense of urgency after the other party arrived, and did things much more disciplined than before.

With the Red Sea area being temporarily suppressed, maritime trade with India was restarted, this time on a larger scale than before. The fleet had more than ten ships including the escorting warships. It was obvious that Ivar and others were determined to win this time.

The variable lies in the Indians on the other side. There are also some seafaring nations there, and Orville is really out of control. However, there is no way that there will be no risk. If there is no risk, there will not be twenty times the profit. He and Ivar have a thorough understanding of the matter and have been prepared for it early on.
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The remaining infrastructure work can be carried out by Cleopatra, who is capable enough and Orville does not need to worry too much.

He took time out to visit Kun Tiliang and had an in-depth exchange with him, mainly on the subject of educational development.

"I hope you can stay in Alexandria for a while. Due to some political issues, the situation in the capital will not be very stable in the coming days. I admire your talents and I also agree with your educational philosophy. It is a general trend to popularize education so that more people can read and write. The country needs more officials and more military talents who understand the art of war. All of these require a certain level of education.

I am willing to provide you with venues, funds, and most of the teachers, recruit students for you, and allow you to open a school here with peace of mind, as long as you agree. But I hope you can focus more on basic education. Advanced education should certainly exist, but I think the basics are more important. Do you think this is okay?"

The concepts of the ancient world and the modern world are not exactly the same. For the Romans, they certainly believed that the state had the responsibility to protect the country and the people, maintain order, maintain the Mediterranean trade network, etc., but in their eyes, education should not be considered part of the basic responsibilities of the state. There is no such thing as compulsory education or public education. It all depends on the ability of the family and parents. Putting aside the issues of human rights and morality (in fact, they cannot be completely ignored), this is not a good thing from a utilitarian perspective. The state needs officials to rule, and officials must have a cultural level. Education could not be fully popularized in ancient times, but it would definitely not be good if it was not popularized at all.

Orville had a master who was good at education right in front of him, and it would be a pity not to find him to test the waters. The school Quintilian opened in Rome focused more on advanced education. Now that Orville asked him to return to basic education, there must be some room for consideration, so Orville was not in a hurry and waited patiently for Quintilian's answer.

Finally, Quintilian nodded and agreed: "I can't guarantee that I can meet your expectations, but I can promise to do my best, and my ability should be considered outstanding. As long as you help me open a school, it will also satisfy one of my wishes. My financial ability does not support me to do this. Now someone is helping me, I should be happy."

"Please rest assured that I will do what I say and give you satisfactory help. My idea is that it should not be limited to this school. If the system of this school is successful, it should be further promoted. Not only in Egypt, but also in the entire empire after my wife ascends the throne. Therefore, what you are doing now is crucial and is related to the future of the embryonic form of the entire empire's education system."

Orville is now very good at fooling people, and Quintiliang was very excited when he heard his words. At the same time, he has many educational concepts and cognitions from later generations, and can give the other party a lot of valuable suggestions, which make Quintiliang suddenly realize and see the light from time to time.

After more than an hour of conversation, Quintilian looked at Orville with more than just respect, but also some heartfelt admiration. He could feel from the conversation with Orville that the other party really cared about education and had put a lot of thought into related matters. This was an extremely rare thing, and he felt like he had met a confidant.

When he first traveled through time, he might have felt extremely happy to have celebrities in later generations treat him with respect, but now he is almost numb. Now Orwell's perception of historical figures is more of curiosity. He wants to see what they are really like, whether they live up to their names or not.
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The next day, at a parade ground outside Alexandria, Orville was watching cavalry training.

Covering the saddles with linen vests, the cavalrymen formed a dense formation and launched a group charge, with more than a dozen horses running in a line at high speed.

After one row of cavalry has passed, the next row will start to sprint, and the instructors will loudly comment and correct each team's behavior to see if it is correct and standard.

Orville looked at it for a long time, nodding repeatedly with satisfaction.

After solving the education problem, the next most important thing is the military problem. Conventional weapons don't need to be a headache, he already has an arsenal here, and the output is increasing little by little, so there is basically no problem in meeting his needs, not to mention that there is Syria's production capacity and reserves that can be borrowed.

The problem lies with two new things - bows and crossbows and cavalry.

The former's limitation lies mainly in the materials. Orville knows that the Romans have no archery tradition at all, so he simply lets the main legion use crossbows on a large scale, and only a few elite soldiers practice bows and arrows. The threshold for using crossbows is much lower, and it doesn't take long for these soldiers to master it with the training intensity.

But the materials are a bit difficult to find. The materials needed to make excellent bows and crossbows are harder to find. The six materials summarized by the ancient Central Plains are relatively common in various places: wood, horns, tendons, glue, silk, and lacquer. That is, wood, animal horns, animal tendons, glue made from fish and animals, silk, and surface paint.

Wood is relatively easy to deal with, animal tendons and glue are also easy to deal with, but animal horns are quite difficult to deal with, because the best thing to use is cow horns, and as we all know, many places in Europe are plowed by horses, and there are not so many oxen to provide horns. Only in Egypt and Iberia and other places do cows are used more frequently for plowing.

So Orville had to find a way to make up for the shortage. He set his sights on the Parthians and southern Africans. As far as he knew, the Persian Plateau and some places in the Mesopotamian Valley still used cattle for plowing. Of course, they had cattle horns to export. There were also wild African buffaloes in central and southern Africa. Maybe he could find an African chief to help export some to fill the gap.

He is still discussing the specific measures with others, but in short, there is a gap at present.

Orville is going to give up on paint, or lacquer, for the time being. Maybe he can get some lacquer trees to plant if he has a chance in the future, but forget about it now. Not to mention that it is difficult to contact the country on the other side of the Eurasian continent. Even if he can get in touch with the country, the price of imported goods will be too high. Even if the imported tree species can really be planted, it will take a long time for the trees to grow into timber. By that time, it is unknown how many rounds of civil war will have been fought.

Anyway, lacquer is mainly used to increase the service life and prevent moisture. It does not have a big impact on the performance of the bow and arrow. It can be maintained by applying oil, etc., so just do it this way for now.

Orville felt that the focus was on silk because it was not just a matter of tactical equipment, but also an economic account.

In the future, Pliny the Elder would denounce the Romans for their extravagance and spending hundreds of millions of sesterces every year on importing luxury goods from the East. The biggest spenders were spices and silk, but silk was the main spender.

This kind of light, comfortable, breathable clothing that can highlight the beauty of the body was of course welcomed by the nobles, especially noble women. Every year, the Romans spent a large amount of money in trade with the Parthians like paying tribute.

(End of this chapter)