Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 366 Volcano (4K)

As luck would have it, Rome was a city without walls. The Romans of that era were confident that no enemy could force them to build walls for defense. This transcendent self-confidence had lasted for hundreds of years and now helped people like Orville.

The elders did not want to put up a resistance without a chance of winning, so faced with the emperor's army approaching in large numbers, they simply chose to surrender.

After Orville's troops accepted the enemy's surrender and confiscated their weapons and equipment, he led his troops into the city naturally and held a brief entry ceremony. There were even many onlookers who enjoyed the fun and cheered for the troops entering the city, as if this was just an ordinary war.

Originally, he planned to personally handle various matters after entering the city, but the leader of the senators, Nerva, said that he had something to see him about and was quite anxious, and hoped that the other party could come as soon as possible.

He could only push the work to his adjutant first, and then go over to listen to what the elders wanted to see him about.

Of course, he had also become more cautious. The lesson of Caesar's death was still vivid in his mind. He brought enough guards with him and even called upon the most powerful Cú Chulainn to go with him. Even if he was surrounded and attacked by three or five talented people, there was a high probability that he would be able to escape alive.

In order to take Orville's personal feelings into consideration, the meeting place was not chosen in any of the Senate's meeting rooms, but in the emperor's residence. When Orville arrived, Nerva was already waiting in the reception room.

The two hadn't seen each other for almost ten years, and they could clearly feel that the other had aged a little. Orville suddenly realized that he was already in his thirties.

While I was stunned, the other party spoke first: "We were totally unexpected for things to have come to this point. We could have ended it in a more peaceful way. We just ask the current Queen Tia to relax the restrictions on us and postpone some overly radical changes. This is not a very excessive request."

It seemed like this was a test of Orville's thoughts, but Tia learned all these wonderful ideas from Orville. Orville's ideas were probably several orders of magnitude more radical than Tia's, but they could not be realized now due to practical circumstances.

"You don't need to test me with such language. Her Majesty's attitude is the same as mine. We can almost reach a complete consensus on these issues, so there is no need for you to bother."

"Really?" Nerva shrugged slightly. "Although the following words are redundant, those people have to ask me this question. It seems that we can't keep those sacred powers we had before?"

"That's about it. Of course, Her Majesty the Queen and I will give everyone due respect. Some of your rights are still recognized by the law. All we have to do is to make everything reasonable. You should also know that the existence of some things does not necessarily mean that they are reasonable."

In the eyes of Orwell, an outsider, it was time to change some of Rome's systems and policies, such as the unreserved preferential policy towards the natives and the excessive emphasis on the words of some old nobles in the Senate. These were all remnants of the Roman city-state era. The country's transition from a city-state to an empire was somewhat sudden, and many things were not corrected in a short time.

In his opinion, correcting these things would lead to better results, so he was prepared to do so. In his opinion, everything he had done so far was still within the framework of rationality.

Nerva nodded slightly at this answer, and he continued, "Then let's talk about Her Majesty the Queen. I don't have much opinion on her status. As long as she can rule the country well, it's fine. The capable ones will be given priority. But the problem is that I don't think Her Majesty the Queen is completely suitable to rule a country. As an emperor, she still has many shortcomings."

"I will do my best to correct this, and you will see a good result." Orville ignored the other party's implication and just answered the question stiffly.

"Maybe. If we still have any objections at this point, the consequences may not be good."

"I speak very responsibly," Orville said with a cold light in his eyes. "I will help with some of the dirty work. No matter what the result is, I will do my part well."

If he imitated Huang X at this moment and killed all these nobles, the result should not be too bad. At the very least, he would be put on ice, and at the worst, both the Senate and the emperor would suffer losses.

"Okay, okay, I will make those people obey your will." Nerva's obsession now seems not so strong.

Sometimes he was worried that the emperor would not be able to be ruthless when he should. In the eyes of a noble like him, Tia had no awareness of being an emperor. In his heart, he still believed that he stood with the people. This could not be entirely blamed on her. After all, her father registered to be emperor when she was in her twenties, and she went through a relatively poor time with her father when she was young. These days had a great impact on people.

If there were not so many unknowns about Domitia in all aspects, Nerva would even think that Domitia was more suitable than Tia to inherit the position of emperor. After all, Domitia believed in her heart that she was the ruler, and she had this basic consciousness and clear understanding of her position, which was good for everyone.

Now it seems that Orville has a clear understanding of his own position. If he helps to do the dirty work and handle some of the things, the results will not be impossible.

After all, Nerva and others have no choice now. War is the ultimate solution. In this solution, they are the losers and can only obey the arrangements of the winner. This is an iron rule passed down from nature.
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After the vanguard arrived in Rome, Tia quickly followed and held a formal coronation ceremony surrounded by the army.

Due to the circumstances, the ceremony could not be held in a very decent manner, but it still meant that Tia had obtained the consent of most people, including the Senate.

Then there were some routine tasks to appease the people, such as issuing a bounty for the new emperor's accession to the throne to the entire army, restoring order in the land, and punishing criminals who were caught taking advantage of the opportunity to commit crimes.

With the help of the violent military, these things went smoothly, and the key point was the final negotiation with the elders. Orville and Tia had already made a general plan in advance, but even so, it took a fierce debate to finalize it.

First of all, many senators who participated in the coup had their property confiscated, especially the land they had accumulated in various parts of the country. The issue of land annexation, which had been concerned during Caesar's time, was raised again. This time, Tia's method of dealing with the issue was similar to that of Caesar, and it was once again stipulated that the amount of land held by each nobleman should not exceed a certain amount.

For these nobles, there are always more solutions than problems. If the emperor restricts their land today, they can transfer the land to the freed slaves who are loyal to them tomorrow, and then let these freed slaves manage these properties in their personal names. The final profits will still be gathered in the hands of the elders, but with an extra layer of gloves.

What the emperor wanted to do was not to eliminate this phenomenon, but to curb it as much as possible, so a new recognized institution came into being - Orwell called it the Procuratorate. As the name suggests, it is a supervisory agency that operates independently of the existing system and is directly responsible to the Roman people and the emperor.

Originally, if Tia had not accomplished this task, her successor Domitia would have done it as well. History records that Domitia was a big snitch and did not care about her own business. In fact, this is a bit unfair. Domitia's original intention in doing these things was to restrict the senators whose power had expanded too much, and it did have some effect. That's why the Senate held a grudge against her and wrote all kinds of things to slander her. Her own ability was not on par with Caligula and Nero.

Orville does things more perfectly than her. Originally, Domitia relied more on spontaneous denunciations from the public, and there was no special official agency to handle the matter. Orville, on the other hand, likes to institutionalize this thing from the beginning. Even if the system has flaws, it is much better than a group of loose sand, and it can be modified slowly later.

The Procuratorate is responsible for supervising people from all walks of life to investigate corruption, law-breaking, treason, favoritism and fraud, etc. Needless to say, it mainly focuses on the Senate and the knight class below.

They must be very unhappy to have a father who restricts them out of nowhere, but with the emperor's knife on their necks, they can only accept the reality even though they are unhappy.

Orville had accumulated experience in the specific implementation work when he was in Egypt, and he should be able to do it almost the same way now that he has moved to Rome.

Then there is the expansion and specialization of the imperial bureaucracy, with more professional bureaucrats replacing patrons in local governance. The events in Egypt and Britain would be good examples.

Orwell did not expect to destroy the patronage system that had been accumulated for thousands of years in just a few years or even a dozen years. This was just a start, and those who came after him would naturally follow suit step by step. He did not like to force things, and what he thought in his heart might not necessarily be in line with the general environment of this era.

In addition, they also negotiated with the representatives of the Senate on various terms regarding military, economy, administrative system, etc., and even killed some people as a warning to others. Finally, they reached a satisfactory result. Orville felt quite satisfied with his efforts.

The next thing to do is to stabilize the country, then develop the overall productivity and economic level of the empire, resolve external threats, and finally find a suitable successor who will not cause problems. After doing all this, Orville thinks he has accomplished his mission and can relax. It's just that these things piled up together don't seem easy to solve.
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After establishing Tia's position as Queen, Orville did not turn around and start fighting for power as some people thought, but just stayed by Tia's side to assist her.

He relaxed a little, but still maintained a very high-intensity work mode. His focus after the civil war was not even on post-war recovery. After all, the war came and went quickly and did not cause much economic loss. He began to busy himself with things that outsiders could not understand.

Under his tough demands, many fleets were mobilized to Sicily or naval ports near Rome. He even required that the grain shipped from Egypt should not be shipped to Rome first, but stored in warehouses on Sicily.

Just when everyone was still pondering the deeper meaning behind these actions, an unexpected disaster befell them.

On August 79, 8 AD, just over two months after Vespa's death and just a few days after Tia took the throne, a huge cedar-shaped dark cloud rose up, flames rose from Mount Vesuvius in the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula, and the sky and the earth suddenly became dark, followed by continuous and frequent earthquakes and the accompanying tsunamis.

This day was the day when Mount Vesuvius erupted again after hundreds of years. It had been so long that the Romans believed that Mount Vesuvius had become a dead volcano. They let their guard down and suffered heavy losses in history.

The situation at this time was fundamentally different. Thanks to Orville's advance prevention, he was trying to evacuate civilians several days before the volcanic eruption. He linked the frequent geological activities with the impending eruption of Mount Vesuvius and semi-forced the relocation of a large number of civilians within the area covered by volcanic ash.

After the volcanic eruption was over and the situation stabilized a little, he responded quickly and sent carriages, ships, troops, etc. to rescue the disaster area as much as possible. Batches of supplies were transported in, and a large number of victims were transported away to prevent them from gathering together and causing a major plague due to shortages of supplies and other reasons.

In addition to simple supplies and manpower, Orville also transferred some special people over - they were a group of doctors with darker skin, speaking foreign languages, and carrying medicine boxes with them.

This was one of the rewards of the Vikings opening up the "new route". Orville bribed the doctors from India with huge sums of money, and eventually some of them chose to travel across the ocean to serve him, a foreigner.

In comparison, the medical level of the Romans at this stage should be obviously behind that of the Indians. At this moment, they were in a far leading position in medicine. Under certain conditions, the medicines they produced were really Indian magic oils in various senses, and could really treat many diseases that the Romans could not cure at present.

There was really not enough time, and Orville's memory of history was a bit fuzzy, so it was good enough to have achieved this step. All in all, the volcanic eruption did not cause any major casualties, and the damage to the economy was limited to a certain extent, which was still within the acceptable range and did not make Tia anxious.

I waited in suspense for about three or four months. Although the plague did occur, it was generally contained within a small area and did not wreak havoc as it did in history.

But that was not the end. Due to unexpected circumstances, a fire broke out in Rome. Fortunately, Orville had dug trenches at several key locations in the name of building new roads in advance and kept the expanded fire brigade on alert. The fire did not cause excessive damage as in history, and the city was still bearable. They took the opportunity to renovate the city.

(End of this chapter)