His warnings to them that he would be killed were undoubtedly that: warnings. “Shut up, you are going to get me killed.” No, he told the disciples He would die. When Peter took exception to that (like you Peter was expecting a worldly kingdom) Jesus recognized Satan's ideas working through Peter.
Jesus' kingdom is far superior to any on earth. The real kingdom is a perfect one...not of this world.
I suspect those twists were made up after he died. No one knows what he really said to anyone. All we can gather is that he probably did really exist, and if the records are accurate, he traveled about Israel and spoke to the Jewish people on getting along with one another and returning to the covenant. He was thought to be the messiah of the Old Testament (whose job was indeed to create the kingdom of Israel) and he denied it, but there had to be a reason people assumed it, even down to the soldiers who crucified him.
The most logical conclusion is that he was indeed one of the many men who thought he was capable of united those 12 tribes. Like all the others, he failed. UNLIKE the others, however, he had well-educated followers whose stories were picked up years later by the emperor Constantine... and the rest is history.