Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 39 Another New Emperor

Tia had sent a letter to Alexandria a few days ago, but three weeks had passed with no reply. Just when Tia was losing her patience and thought the messenger had been intercepted, a fleet of astonishing size arrived at the port of Caesarea.

Along with the army came the latest news from Rome - the leader of the Germanic Legion, Emperor Vitellius, was defeated, and the Danube Legion and the Eastern Legion led by Syrian Governor Mucinus met in Rome.

After a fierce street fight, Vitellius was killed.

The Danube Legion, the Eastern Legion and the Senate jointly elected Vespa as the new Roman emperor. Vespa is currently leading his men to Rome.

It was said a few days ago that Vitellius was a Dong Zhuo-like figure. After disbanding the Guards, he appointed his own men as Guards.

The Roman Guard camp could only accommodate 10,000 people, but Vitellius brought 60,000 men with him. Many of them were Roman citizens from Gaul who had no residence in Rome, or even came to Rome for the first time. Intermarriage with the local Gauls and Franks had tainted them with a lot of bold and even vulgar culture.

These people did not burn, kill, or rob in Rome, but they would inevitably bully men and women and occupy public spaces. This continued for several months, and the citizens of Rome became dissatisfied with the Germania Legion.

After Vitellius ascended the throne, he did not promulgate any policies to maintain stability or benefit the country and the people. Instead, he spent most of his time in enjoyment and decadence. The entire country's government affairs were basically at a standstill, and the country was entirely supported by the senators in the Senate.

He did not have a definite governing philosophy and only wanted to live happily from day to day. Being a mountain king, bandit or warlord was no problem for him, but being a Roman emperor, at least the current Senate and the Roman people could not stand it.

On the other side, the Danube Legion, which had been severely humiliated and whose members were basically in a red-hot state, and was furious, also rushed over.

They vowed to take revenge, both old and new, and fought another battle with the German Legion in the place where the former Emperor Otto had been defeated and their fellow legionnaires had been sentenced to hard labor.

This time the Danube Legion was in excellent condition, and the German Legion was defeated. The furious Danube Legion did not even take any prisoners, and killed all the captured German Legion soldiers. However, anger can make people lose their minds, and they also massacred a town that had insulted their legion when they were doing labor service.

This was something that was difficult to imagine at the time. There could be civil wars and political struggles among the Roman legions, but they would rarely point their swords at Roman civilians. The Danube Legion had violated this taboo.

According to the original history, the Danube Legion marched straight into Rome, killed Vitellius, and crowned Vespa as emperor, but at that time the army of the eastern provinces had just entered the Apennine Peninsula by land.

In this time and space, Vespa was better prepared and better informed. He landed directly by sea and encountered no resistance along the way. He happened to meet up with the Danube Legion outside the city of Rome and surrounded and attacked the remnants of the Germanic Legion.

Everything went smoothly. The people of the Danube Legion now knew that they had violated a taboo, and that provincial troops were not allowed to stay near the city of Rome for a long time. So they only left one team behind to ask for credit and reward, and the rest of the main force all returned to the Danube front, waiting for the reward.

The Syrian Governor Mucinus was also very well-behaved. He transferred most of the soldiers back to the Syrian front, did not stay in the capital for long, and had no intention of proclaiming himself emperor.

The Senate recalled 10,000 Praetorian Guards and waited for Vespa to come to Rome and be officially crowned. The Roman people were waiting to see if this emperor could stabilize the situation and get the country back on track. Some people in foreign countries or at home were also waiting to see what kind of emperor Vespa would be, which would determine their next move.
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After receiving such good news, Orville and Tia were naturally overjoyed, but what made them more relieved at the moment was the reinforcements from Alexandria.

After confirming that Rome did not need reinforcements, the reserve troops that were originally on standby in Alexandria were able to move, and the first thing they did was to reinforce Tia.

Two elite reorganized legions, twenty battalions of legionnaires drawn from various places, more than ten thousand auxiliary troops of various types, and more than 20,000 troops outside the city now add up to a total of 60,000 people, and a large number of military slaves. If that is not enough, more soldiers will be sent from Egypt later.

Considering that two-thirds of them were professional soldiers who had undergone five years or more of training and combat, this was already a considerable number, and a similar number of people were mobilized in several representative large-scale wars in history.

In addition to the soldiers, the Governor of Egypt also came along. He was not a brilliant general, but his planning and coordination abilities were good, and he was able to assist Tiya, who had no experience in leading large-scale troops, in combat.

Originally, the enemy troops in the city could still launch several surprise attacks with their numerical advantage, but now it is much more difficult. These regular troops have built the surrounding mountain camps in a neat and complete manner, and they are very vigilant. Any rash action will only result in casualties.

They watched as the Romans built their camp and leveled the ditches and stone walls around the holy city in just a few days. On May 1, the siege officially began.

To the north of the city, which was easier to attack, the Romans began to build earthen embankments to provide cover for their equipment.

In order to build a sufficiently long earthen embankment, several surrounding hills were completely flattened, and all the trees within a radius of more than ten kilometers were cut down to build bunkers and siege weapons on the spot.

During this period, the Palfi people continued to organize small groups of people at night to carry out harassment, but with little success, and the earthen embankment was still built as planned.

With sufficient manpower and perfect technology, the Romans quickly built an earthen embankment and pushed up scorpion crossbows and catapults to suppress the defenders on the city wall.

Although the defenders in the city also seized some catapults and scorpion crossbows, not everyone can use such weapons, and they cannot compare with the Romans in terms of quantity and accuracy.

The catapult is not a big deal, but the scorpion crossbow, also known as the torque crossbow, has a significant disadvantage - it is sophisticated and not durable. It often needs to be overhauled or even scrapped after several high-intensity battles. The Romans mastered the manufacturing technology and there was a large amount of wood available around, so they were not too afraid of consumption and could just build new ones on the spot. However, this was not the case with the scorpion crossbows on the city walls. They would be scrapped soon.

Even if the Palphi people could reverse engineer and produce a replica in a short period of time, the materials needed for manufacturing would not be abundant, so they would not be at an advantage in a battle of consumption.

Because of this, it wasn't long before they could only fight back with bows and slings. Most of the scorpion crossbows were scrapped, but the accuracy of the trebuchets was really impressive, and they were just enough to show off their strength.

(End of this chapter)