Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 361: Emergency (4K)

Cleopatra had expected Orwell's attitude, and it was not surprising now. If he really wanted power so much, he would have kicked her out and taken over the power. But now, instead of turning her into a rubber stamp, he gave her a certain amount of power. This rare generosity was also the reason why Cleopatra had a good impression of him.

After taking a deep look at the other party, Cleopatra added: "As long as you don't regret your choice, I will support your decision within limits. You can use the manpower, material resources and financial resources of this country as you wish, as long as you can mobilize them."

Orville heaved a sigh of relief when he heard this. If the other party was willing to support him, then everything would be easy. He could now prepare for the most important war with peace of mind.
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A few years is neither fast nor slow. If you stay in one place and concentrate on doing your work, it will pass quickly.

Time flies to 79, and Orville has been the governor of Egypt for five or six years. In the past few years, he has not started a new foreign war. At most, he sent a few battalions of soldiers to help the Nubians fight against the Aksumites, and that's it.

Over the past few years, the news coming from the capital has become increasingly pessimistic, including but not limited to: Vespa's health is deteriorating, the senators have raised reasonable concerns about the choice of the emperor's successor, and conflicts have broken out between new senators belonging to the emperor's faction and the old clans.

Orville stayed in faraway Egypt and watched the situation develop. He did not have so many anxious thoughts in his mind. All he had to do was to wait for time.

Finally, a letter dictated by Vespa reached Orville.

"My health has been deteriorating recently. I have left Rome and am now spending my last days in a country villa in my hometown. I have informed Tia of the news, and she has made the necessary preparations. You should also be prepared for my death at any time."

His fingers unconsciously crumpled the letter, and after reading it, Orville put the letter on a candle and burned it to destroy the evidence, while calling his men over.

The person who was finally called to the Governor's Palace was Stilicho, a half-barbarian and therefore unpopular among the Romans, but he was promoted by Orville and lived with him for a long time. In terms of loyalty, he should be the most reliable besides Belisarius.

Orville looked at the other person. When he met Stillco, he was in his early thirties. Now he is almost forty years old. Even though he is a gifted person, the years have left many marks on his face and body due to years of marching and fighting. It can be clearly felt that he is no longer as energetic as before and looks more stable.

He slowly said, "Don't tell anyone else what happened next, do you understand?"

Stilicho nodded with excitement in his eyes. He was the only one who responded to the call, and now he had to tell him confidential matters. This showed that Orville trusted him. As a marginal figure in the Roman Empire society, trust was as important to him as money, status, and honor. In some ways, it was even more important. After all, only with trust could one be more likely to obtain the latter things.

"The news from my family recently is the same as the rumors. As you know, my father's health is gradually deteriorating and has reached a point where he can no longer continue. In addition, those people in the Senate and our faction have some disputes over the issue of succession. The princess and I are trying our best to avoid it, but I am afraid that we will end up fighting.

If this is the case, we should prepare for it in advance, just as I have planned with you before."

"Yes! I will go and gather the soldiers to prepare for battle!" He felt a little heavy-hearted. No one liked the war to spread to their home, but Stilicho also knew that some things could not be avoided from the beginning.

Now the conflict between the royal family and the Senate is no longer limited to such "small details" as the gender and origin of the heir. Influenced by Orville, Tia's policies and views have become more "progressive", or more "terrifying" from the perspective of the elders.

When Tia was in Rome, she would from time to time express her desire to take back the land of the senators and to allow bureaucrats to participate more in specific governance work instead of the nobles. In the eyes of the senators, this was to deprive them of their ancient sacred power and was an unacceptable act of crossing the line.

Although Tia's performance was not very tough and she was also open to negotiation on many issues, now that they had this idea, looking back at what happened in Egypt, it felt a bit like killing the chicken to scare the monkey and causing grief for the fox.

Stilicho could also see these things clearly, so he knew very well that the possibility of this war was very high and there was a fundamental conflict between the two sides.

In this conflict, he would choose to support the royal family without hesitation. After all, it was the royal family, not the elders, who gave him everything he has now. Orwell was the one who promoted him. He was a direct descendant of Orwell, and if he defected to the elders, he would be considered a traitor at best. Unlike some people, he did not have much choice.

"How would you like to arrange it?"

There were many local or foreign citizens in the two legions originally stationed in Egypt. They were not bound by so many patrons, but their loyalty might not be that high. As for the Ninth Legion, which he had raised little by little, their loyalty was fine, but they were likely to face the difficult choice of loyalty and filial piety, and their hearts might not be firm.

"Move all three legions over. The Egyptians now have four legions that can fight, so move two of them. Make preparations based on this. Once the war starts, move the fleet directly to Brindisi. After landing, the rest of the work should not be difficult to handle."

He trusts his subordinates. Since these people are paid soldiers under his command, as long as the battle is resolved quickly enough, there won't be so many troubles.

At this time, Orville was still very confident, because he had been preparing for this war for several years. He had been doing targeted training in the past few years. He didn't know what the overall attitude of the Senate was, but it was definitely not as firm as his.

No matter how deliberate or unintentional it is, the disadvantages of winning or losing the war will definitely be greater on our side.
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At the same time, in the home of a certain elder, more than ten people were sitting together, discussing things with expressionless faces.

"The Emperor has recently returned to his country villa in his hometown, under the pretext of recuperation, but in fact he is just looking for a place to spend his last days. We should be prepared for this, and this should be the case in many ways. I think we should have reached a consensus." He looked around with an inquiring look. "Of course," someone took over the conversation, "Tia or Orville are not suitable to inherit the throne, and the ignorant girl Domcia is even more unsophisticated. She does not have this qualification in many ways. Once the Emperor is in trouble, we should make some changes when necessary."

Everyone nodded silently and said nothing. Of course, it was difficult to reach a consensus among the nearly 600 people in the Senate. People from this faction did not support the current emperor's descendants to ascend the throne and chose a coup d'état.

"It's not easy to communicate with the Guards, but after the efforts of Nerva and his men, Aurelian and other Guards officers finally agreed to our proposal. Most of them will help us capture Rome, that's not a problem. Those people sent by the emperor are no match for us, the main thing is what should we do next."

Everyone present knew that once the conflict broke out in the form of a war, the legions in the East that were loyal to the emperor would certainly not give up, and the two sides would fight again, just like what happened when Vespa ascended the throne. They were now preparing to deal with this war, and there was still no concrete result.

Everyone began to discuss whether or not to win over any officer from the Danube Legion or the German Legion to help, and whether or not to spend a huge price to win over the governor of a province to assist.

Just when everyone was at a stalemate, another senator, regardless of the rule that horses were not allowed in Rome, rushed into the villa with his guards and shouted directly to everyone: "The emperor has passed away! The emperor has passed away!!"

Everyone's spirits were lifted. Nerva, the leader, was the first to react and made a decision: "Quickly notify Aurelian and have the Guards move first!"
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While some members of the Senate were busy, Belisarius, far away in Britain, was also preparing his army.

He is a fellow townsman of the emperor and was also promoted to governor by the emperor's family. Of course, he is a die-hard emperor faction. His loyalty is unquestionable and he has always been trusted.

So like Orville, he could receive letters directly from Vespa, and the content of the letters was slightly different from those sent to Orville.

The content of the latest letter was that the emperor was in poor health, so Belisarius was asked to prepare for war as soon as he received the letter and to cross the English Channel to confront the German Legion if necessary.

The current Germanic Legion is the group of soldiers transferred from the Danube that year. They are not confidants of the Senate or the emperor, but just a group of speculators. Helping Vespa defeat the old Germanic Legion is more of a personal grudge. Vespa was worried that these people would turn to the Senate, so he gave this difficult task to Belisarius.

You have to know that there were eight legions on the German defense line, and Belisarius had only two legions (he expanded another one when the financial situation improved later). The strength of the two sides was completely unequal.

This was the first instruction Vespa left for Belisarius. It was easy to understand. Although it was difficult, Belisarius would do his best. The second one made Belisarius sweat.

The letter said that after the civil war was over, Belisarius should help Tia as much as possible. If Tia was really not suitable for the throne, she could boldly turn to support Orville. The specific criteria would be left to Belisarius to judge for himself. He would not blame the other party if he knew about it.

Belisarius was a little confused about what the emperor meant, but he temporarily put these doubts in the deepest part of his heart and made plans after this matter was over. In his opinion, the emperor's vision must be longer-term than his, and he might understand things in the future and not be in a hurry.

After nearly eight years of development, countless lives were lost, and Belisarius himself worked day and night and lost countless brain cells, he finally built a rough framework for this wild land of the province of Britain.

He built thirty-three small forts throughout Britain to defend against pirates, and also established three larger colonial cities. The road network took shape, and trade was finally fully integrated with the European continent. After having enough spare capacity to set up a second legion, he finally managed to basically control the country's nobles and make them fight for him.

So if we want to send troops now, Belisarius can actually pull out a lot of babies to fill in the gaps, but the quality is not very good.

Some generals might think that these people were just a burden, but Belisarius thought that they could be useful.

He immediately notified his messengers to deliver letters to the chiefs of each chiefdom, noble lords and Vikings, asking them to bring their soldiers to gather in Londinium. There were military orders from the center of the empire for them to complete, and he would decide his military strategy based on the number of soldiers recruited.
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Being far away from the political center of the empire always has some disadvantages. Orville didn't learn about the military coup in Rome until many days later. At that time, he had just received the news that Vespa went to a country villa for recuperation, but seven or eight days had passed since the coup.

As most of the Praetorian Guards had rebelled and the city's guards were bribed by powerful figures in Rome, the messengers sent out with official backgrounds were stopped directly. At this time, Nicanor, a relative of Stilicho and quite loyal and reliable, played his role - he used the passenger ship that originally belonged to the hotel to urgently take the news out of the city, and then obtained supplies through the inn in Orville, and traveled day and night to deliver the news to Orville as quickly as possible.

But that was all. Many of Orville's properties were then seized and confiscated. It seemed that the other party was really planning to break off relations with Orville or the royal family, and did not care about face at this time.

At this time, Orville's army was not fully prepared. There was still one and a half legions on the border between Fayum, Thebes and Nubia, and they could not be directly mobilized for the time being.

Since the Egyptians were more responsible for local defense and public security, Cleopatra could only give Orwell one legion in addition to the Guards. The combined armies of both sides had about 10,000 soldiers, which was not a large number.

Nevertheless, after confirming that the navy was capable of transporting so many people and was basically ready, he decided to launch a special military operation immediately after the Senate.

PS. There should be one or two more updates later, but you don’t have to wait until late at night.

(End of this chapter)