Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 368 Nomads (4K)

Now it is difficult for opponents to raise objections, because Orville did this thing perfectly, and it was exactly what they wanted to do.

They claim to be the ones who define civilization, and of course they hope to promote their culture to all parts of the world. Since the new senators selected by Orwell do recognize Roman-Greek culture, even if it is only superficial recognition, it is in line with their expectations.

Moreover, they are the top leaders of a country, and most of the time they are reasonable and think, and they know that this is the right thing to do.

Allowing the Greeks to continue to dominate Egypt will, on the one hand, easily stir up more ethnic conflicts, and on the other hand, will allow the Greeks to have too much political power, which is actually not a wise move for them.

It would certainly be much simpler to let the Greeks and Egyptians reach a certain balance while the Romans were responsible for maintaining a stable balance locally. Orville also considered this aspect.

As for whether this would strengthen the emperor's power in the Senate to a certain extent, they had already been mentally prepared for this. After the civil war, Tia only dealt with a few senators with particularly bad circumstances and deprived them of their seats, but did not punish the entire faction that provoked the civil war.

The punishment could not be skipped, it was just moved to the present. Orville had already informed them about this, and it happened to be solved at this time.

It is actually reasonable to view this matter as the price of losing the civil war. Forty seats will not cause an absolute imbalance, but will only cause the senators to lose some of their advantages, which is still within an acceptable range.

Moreover, no one is sure that these forty positions will always obey the emperor, and the old senators obviously still have a chance to regain these positions.

The elders were more or less surprised, as if today's situation was designed and planned by Orville when he just served as governor of Egypt. The ability to plan specific things in the future eight or nine years in advance and to ensure that these things are realized is actually quite rare.

However, most people were just relieved and did not think too much about it. After all, there must be a reason why Vesper chose Orville as his son-in-law. If Orville was a fool, they would find it strange and think that Vesper was too old and had no ability to judge people.

Now, at most they would just sigh that the late emperor was indeed a great man, and his ability to judge people was worth learning from, but they would not think more about it.

So after another round of bargaining, the two sides made no further progress and the matter was basically decided. It was barely a happy ending, at least that's what Orville himself claimed.
-
After leaving the Senate, Orville did not go directly back to the royal residence, but followed Cleopatra back to her villa.

According to some writers of the classical era, Cleopatra had endless wealth, and a single pearl on the pearl necklace around her neck was worth the price of one of the finest villas in Rome.

In fact, although it is not that exaggerated, considering the cultural value, it is indeed possible to exchange it for a normal country villa, and you may even be wealthy.

According to Cleopatra, she planned to stay in Rome for a while this time. It was not good to live in the emperor's mansion all the time, so she bought another place with her own money to make do with her job. She was still searching for a large mansion that suited her status.

Orvel spoke to the other party only after he entered the villa: “I thought you would be more active, after all, this is related to your vital interests.”

Cleopatra didn't care: "Anyway, haven't I discussed it with you? I accept the current conditions. As for whether you can reach an agreement that meets my requirements in the Senate, it depends on your efforts. It has nothing to do with me.

In short, you just need to find a way to meet the conditions. I have a lot of things to think about while I'm waiting over there."

"Okay." Orville was not interested in refuting the other party. "What do you need my help with? You said it all in one breath."

"Just help me prepare the ingredients, chefs, travel attendants, city guides, and other things. I will naturally find a way to take care of the rest."

"Of course, you don't have to worry about these things, what about other things?"

"It's gone for now. By the way, do you want another son? It seems that your wife gave birth to a daughter for you, which is not conducive to the succession of the throne." She said this in a joking tone.

"Forget it." Orville rejected the other party straightforwardly without making any jokes.

He had to admit that he had made some mistakes in the past few years, such as having sex with his partner, and he had also had some fantasies that a normal man would have. In fact, if he persisted, maybe they could have come true.

But after several years of struggle, the remaining modern thinking finally prevailed. He later paid attention to keeping a little distance from the other party, and this was even more so after Tia had a child.

He should reflect deeply on his mistakes. After communicating with Tia, she reluctantly forgave him, and then something happened now.

Seeing the other party's serious look, Cleopatra knew that there was no point in talking further, so she could only sigh slightly: "I don't really understand. You Parphi people are clearly polyandrous, right? And the Romans verbally say they are monogamous, but in fact they are quite open to mistresses, lovers, and cohabitation. How can you have such a weird moral standard?"

"That's the result. And if you and I have offspring, it will be very troublesome, right?"

"That's true, regardless of gender. I'm saying that I don't care what you do, but if I have a daughter or a son, my maternal instinct and the instinct to make profits for the family might take over. Seriously, this doesn't seem to be a bad thing. Just think about how good it would be to have an heir who inherited both the blood of the diadem and the Roman royal family. It would be perfect from a legal point of view, and he would be able to obtain the wealth of both parties."

"In my opinion, there will be more trouble. You know, I don't want you to bring your family's court fighting methods into the palace. It is better for the heirs to the throne to fight to the death than to be decided by court murder. At least the former chooses the bravest one. Being petty and scheming does not mean that one can govern the country well." Orville was already saying something nice. In fact, the nobles of the empire could not allow the Egyptians or Greeks to interfere too much in the core affairs of the empire. It was okay for someone like Orville who was alone. Entering the core layer was just the emperor's support. Cleopatra's family had too many supporters, and it was impossible for them to become foreign relatives.

To put it bluntly, the empire does not need to rely on the power of external relatives to stabilize the situation. Instead, it is worried about external relatives interfering in politics. No one will say anything if Orville "plays around" with the other party, but he cannot accept the other party. This is absolutely not acceptable.

"Well, I can understand that. It seems that the family business will have to be handed over to Arsinoe. She has been doing well recently. She married into a very capable husband to help manage the business. I have to thank you for not killing her at the time, otherwise I would have a headache for a while."

"It wouldn't matter if you found the right person to marry, if you wanted to."

"I'm not interested right now. Let's talk about it later," Cleopatra waved her hand casually. "Maybe I'll ask my sister to adopt an heir or something. Anyway, I'll arrange my affairs after my death in a way that satisfies you Romans. If you want, it's not impossible to adopt your extra daughter or son. This should be able to shut up a lot of people."

Orville felt that Caesarion (the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, the illegitimate son of Cleopatra and Caesar) and the like would do more harm than good, and would sow the seeds of instability. They did not need to rely on this method to maintain their rule, and it would instead give the Ptolemy family an opportunity to intervene in political affairs. This might be the reason why the other party was so active now, so he declined the offer and did not respond.

Cleopatra wisely changed the subject: "Let's talk about this later. You told me before that you might go to war again. Is that true?"

Speaking of war, Orville's expression immediately became much more serious: "Basically, the enemy is a nomadic people from the prairie."

"prairie?"

"To the north of the Kingdom of Bosporus (Crimea) is an endless steppe, which is said to stretch to the end of the world, which is the boundless sea that Alexander pursued."

After several years, Orville used spies and diplomatic envoys to almost figure out the matter. The other party could basically be considered to be nomads who were dispersed and retreated to Eastern Europe. After a period of reorganization, they reappeared in front of Orville and others.

There has always been a lot of debate about whether the Huns were Xiongnu in history. At least in this world, there are indeed some descendants of the Huns who were dispersed and mixed with the local people and reorganized, and they occupy a relatively important position. It should be said that there is a certain Hun element.

As for why these people should have come into contact with the Roman Empire in the late 4th century, but now poured over in the 1st century, it may be that on the one hand, the higher productivity caused a faster population expansion, and on the other hand, the Han Empire across the continent was probably also given some kind of strengthening patch, which could have dispersed the nomadic peoples earlier.

Orville could tell from the armor and saddles of these people that their technological level was obviously higher than that of the real Huns in history. They were not exactly barbarians. At least they did not use tribal weapons such as bone arrowheads. Instead, they had their own metallurgical system. But he could not tell much more because he did not know much about history in this area. Objectively speaking, the Romans did not record anything useful.

They had little dealings with nomadic peoples, and for a long time they referred to the grassland nomads as "Scythians". Later they realized that the Huns were different from the entire Scythians, but the records are still very fragmentary.

"I heard that the nomads from the grasslands recently had some conflicts with the Danube Legion, and there were also occasional wars with the Frankish Kingdom. Is the problem serious?"

"That's not the case. It's better to say that it's a good thing these people are here to stir up trouble now."

It is undeniable that the Huns did cause some trouble to the Roman Empire in history, but in fact, generally speaking, they were just that, and the threat they posed was completely inferior to that of the Goths and other nations. The Roman Empire was destroyed more by drastic climate change and internal corruption. Foreign invasion was only one of the reasons, not the fundamental reason, and the contribution of the Huns to it is also debatable.

At least judging from the current situation, Orville judged that the nomadic peoples would be a problem, but they were far from threatening the destruction of the nation and the race.

The main problem is that the Romans had never dealt with nomadic peoples seriously before, and did not have rich experience in fighting against nomadic peoples like the Eastern countries. Moreover, the development level of their saddlery was ahead of the Roman Empire as a whole, which meant that the cavalry in their hands would be more flexible and impactful than imagined.

But at the same time, the Roman Empire that these people faced was also in a thriving state. There was no problem with its national strength, and it was a fairly large country in terms of size.

If it weren't for Orville, he estimated that the Romans would suffer some losses in the early stages of the confrontation, and at most would lose a few layers of skin, but would soon sum up a set of effective methods to fight against the nomadic peoples.

Now, Orville has a whole set of methods to fight against the nomadic peoples in his mind, so he said, "Fortunately, it's over now." At this point in time, encountering a nomadic crisis is not a major event that shakes the foundation of the empire, but in another three to five hundred years, it will be really different. If the Huns who invaded in the fifth century were a few levels stronger, there might be a chance that the Western Roman Empire could not withstand it.

"Really? It seems you have a plan, which is great. If you need anything, please contact me immediately. I will help you with my duties. After all, the Romans have suffered a great loss, and it is not easy for me either."

"I will do it if necessary."

After chatting with the other party for a while, Orville returned to the emperor's residence. The new palace was now under construction and would be presented to the public soon, but now was not the time to unveil it. Orville planned to wait until the problem of the nomads was solved before suggesting that Tia move there.
-
Someone was waiting for Orville at the gate. It was Procopius who was transferred back to the capital to stand by. In fact, Orville had prepared a high position for him, such as the provincial financial prosecutor, but he seemed to think that it was better to be closer to the emperor, so he chose to be one of Orville's adjutants.

Seeing him, Orvel asked directly, “Is there any problem with the recent public opinion?”

PS. This part of history is quite confusing, and the phenomenon of different opinions is quite obvious. The author has only read a book and a half, and time is really tight. I can only say that this statement is what the author thinks is in line with the current plot, but it is not necessarily true and credible.

(End of this chapter)