Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 638 Spartanism Gym
At around nine o'clock in the morning, Guo Kang could already vaguely see the Nile River beach in the distance from the boat he was on.

The warships in front began to deploy their formation. However, Guo Kang and his cargo ships had poor maneuverability and could only gather together roughly, not daring to get too close. In fact, there was no formation to speak of. The entire fleet was still moving slowly forward.

Half an hour later, he could already see the port of Alexandria and the ruins of buildings on nearby islands. Joanna said that there were still some buildings and residents on these small islands and sandbanks. The most famous large island was Pharos Island, where the lighthouse was located.

However, more than a hundred years ago, the Crusades launched by the Kingdom of Cyprus completely destroyed Alexandria. These facilities on the island were also destroyed by the all-pervasive Crusaders. Until now, they have not been restored. These buildings serving the waterway have been abandoned since then.

At this time, the shadows of many masts can be seen on the sea outside the city. Looking closely, there is also black smoke rising. That should be the battlefield of the siege. The enemy has obviously noticed them. Even here, they can see that the ships over there are organizing and gradually forming a battle line.

On their side, the flag was also raised on the legion commander's ship.

In this era, the warships in the Mediterranean were mainly paddle boats. The same was true for the Roman navy. Compared with large sailing ships, paddle boats were faster and more flexible. They were equipped with special rams, as well as ballistae or newly emerged artillery.

However, their sailing ships were not very maneuverable in this era. They were fine for transporting supplies, but too clumsy for combat.

If we must say, it is not that sailing ships cannot be used as warships. In the northwest of the European continent, in the North Sea where the wind and waves are higher and more violent, large sailing ships also have some advantages. However, if conditions permit, people would rather use rowing ships. During the Anglo-French War, a few rowing ships of the Genoese defeated the much larger English fleet. It can be seen that this technical advantage still exists.

The advantage of sailing ships is that they can save a lot of rowers. Rowers are also the most expensive part of the fleet. A common "Gali" type galley has nearly 200 rowers. The number of rowers in a mature fleet can easily reach the scale of a legion.

Therefore, maintaining a navy is a very expensive task. Even for a country located on the coast and having a need for warfare all year round, it is difficult to maintain a fleet that is always available.

When the Eastern Roman Empire was still prosperous, it could maintain hundreds of oars with its huge financial resources. During the Komnenos Dynasty, Manuel I went on an expedition to Egypt and attacked the port of Damietta. At that time, he brought more than 150 oars, including allies. In addition, the Italian city-states at that time were still a little in awe of the Romans, who still had some power - they were still vassals of Rome in name, and were willing to accept the dispatch at a reasonable price. The Venetians could provide another ships, and they could also let settlements everywhere provide supplies and maintenance services to the Roman fleet.

However, Rome declined rapidly in the midst of civil strife. The maritime forces especially needed constant maintenance, as the decline was particularly obvious. In 1203, the entire country had only 20 dilapidated ships that could not even be used as warships. When Michael VIII recaptured Constantinople and managed to rebuild the fleet, he only had 80 ships.

In the Palaiologos dynasty, only the founder had some ability. After him, his successors were even worse. In order to save money, Andronicus II directly disbanded the fleet and rented the Genoese fleet instead. After that, although the local fleet was rebuilt, the size was less than 20 ships; in each battle, less than 10 ships could be deployed at a time.

Fortunately, the pirates along the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea have also declined a lot. Although there are some Turkic nomads in Asia Minor who work as pirates part-time, they are obviously not very professional. Although there are many people, they can't even fight this fleet. So, they just make do with it...

As for the Purple Tent Khanate, it simply had no navy for a long time, and at most had only some transport ships along the river. The only fleet was taken over after entering Dadu. Later, the country gradually prospered. In order to maintain the security of trade in the Black Sea and not rely on Italians, it began to expand the navy and formed a fleet in Dadu to block the Sea of ​​Marmara. However, at most it was still a scale of dozens of ships.

Most of the oarsmen in the fleet were Greeks—not the "Greeks" in the metropolitan cities who relied on their ancestral inheritance, did nothing every day, drank tea, sang plays, wrote articles and boasted. Instead, they were the real Greeks in the Morea region who were not well-off and often had to go out to sea to make a living.

Morea is the ancient Peloponnese. The Greeks along the coast have been sailing around in oared boats since the time of Homer. Even now, there are still excellent oarsmen there. According to Guo Kang's memory, in their history, until the Ottoman period, the Sultan registered oarsmen in the Greek communities along the coast and hired them to fight.

Although the barbarians of later generations liked to regard the Greeks as their spiritual ancestors and praised their greatness, the Greek mainland was not actually rich. Therefore, when the population was slightly larger, everyone had to risk their lives and go to sea to make a living. It may be this kind of environment that led them to develop this custom.

When the Purple Tent Khanate first moved south to control the Greek region, the local situation was still very chaotic. The Latin lords and mercenaries from the West were rampant everywhere, and local bandits were also rampant. The entire Greek region was originally mountainous, and it became a den of bandits. Later, the Purple Tent Khanate sent troops to drive away the Latins and mercenary gangs, wiped out most of the bandits, and encouraged farming in the mountainous areas, promoting cash crops such as cotton and olives. The coastal areas were also organized, and the government rented tools for fishery production. In this way, the local area was stabilized.

After their lives became stable, the locals also began to have spiritual pursuits. Around the reign of Basil III, the "Warrior Commune" movement arose in the Morea region. This kind of organization was originally a simple mutual aid group among mountain people. Sometimes, it was also used to organize people, participate in fights, and carry out vigorous actions such as grabbing water in the mountains. Later, this custom spread to Athens and then to Dadu, attracting the attention of some scholars. At this time, the rule of the Purple Tent Khanate had been very consolidated. While scholars accepted the reality, they began to think about a question that was simple to describe but very complicated to explain: What exactly is Rome?
In the past, this question did not need to be thought about. In the general public's perception, they were Romans, and Greek was simply an insult, meaning the same as "pagan". As for why this was the case, most people were illiterate and would not think about it.

However, due to its own traditional problems, the Purple Tent Khanate attached great importance to education, and inexplicably attached great importance to historical education. With the promotion of this kind of education, more people's minds became active and began to examine the history of themselves and their hometowns.

The common characteristics of these people are that they received public education in the village school or the army, knew Chinese characters, and understood some Greek. They all served in the army and later became grassroots backbone personnel in the army or in the local area. Therefore, they not only have basic historical knowledge, but also know the situation in their hometown and other places.

They urgently need to know that their hometowns have different names and have established different countries. Especially in the north, some places have never been ruled by ancient Rome. What is the relationship between these regimes and Rome? Why are the people in these places Romans? The languages ​​in different places are also different, so what is the connection between these Greek, Bulgarian, Latin, and Chinese characters? Even in Roman history, religion has changed, so is Rome tied to religion? Will it continue to change... These messy questions all need to be explained.

The official statement of the Khanate is relatively simple. The official statement is that Rome is a legal system that transcends regions, languages ​​and ethnic groups. Rome's mission is also simple, which is to achieve unification, revive the prosperity of ancient times, and allow everyone to live a better life, and even approach the ideal society of the ancient sages. When Patriarch Yin was in office, the church formally summarized this idea and classified it into two slogans: "Great Unification" and "Peace".

Under this understanding, local history and Roman history do not conflict. The excellent parts of local customs should be promoted, and even let others learn and introduce them into the habits of all Romans. Different religions, especially the polytheism of ancient times, are considered to be one-sided conclusions drawn because of the underdeveloped culture at that time and people's unclear understanding of the world. There is no need to go back, but there is no need to be taboo. The valuable parts, such as the artistic creations of the Greeks, can be learned, and in fact have been borrowed by the sages of all ages.

As for written language, the Khanate recognized the idea of ​​"original language" and believed that language and writing were separate. Although the Old Testament was not considered a doctrinal book, the story of the Tower of Babel was considered a metaphor for the development of language and was often used to describe this principle. Therefore, the Khanate encouraged everyone to learn to use Chinese characters and a unified language, but local dialects were also the natural result of development and could not be changed in a short time, so there was no need to force it.

Driven by this idea, the "Warrior Commune" was favored by many people. Their ideas were called "Spartanism". These people believed that different regions of ancient Greece represented different aspects of Greek cultural personality. Among them, the most advanced was the Spartans; and the negative representative was Athens.

The Spartans believed in discipline and force and advocated collectivism, while Athens was full of all kinds of smooth-talking debaters who liked to promote personal interests; the Spartans were engaged in agriculture and war, while the Athenians liked business; the Spartans advocated military authority, while the Athenians liked primitive democracy; the Spartans valued comradeship between men, while the Athenians indulged women and could even pardon female prisoners just because they were good-looking... All these things show that Sparta was the best representative of Greek culture at that time.

Of course, Sparta was by no means an ideal country. On the contrary, they had a lot of problems - for example, they advocated strength but ignored morality; they only knew how to fight but did not know how to unite their compatriots, and even enslaved them. These problems directly led to the collapse of the warrior commune and the decline of Sparta. This is also what people today need to learn from after standing at a higher position and reflecting.

In Guo Kang's opinion, this theory is obviously very imperfect, and can even be said to be full of outrageous arguments. Many of the arguments in it are probably made up by scholars due to insufficient historical materials, or even misinterpreted. However, "Spartanism" quickly became popular in Greek-speaking areas - after all, its audience is adult male warriors from the legions, and it has also achieved both affirmation of local fine traditions and integration of Roman characteristics, successfully realizing the "three unifications". Even if some of them are misinterpreted, they are misinterpretations that everyone likes to see.

These "warrior communes" did provide Rome with a lot of soldiers. Guo Kang had previously gone to the camp at the port to find Shi Ke and talked to the soldiers in the camp. Many of them came from fishing villages along the southern coast of Morea and on various islands.

These people often regarded themselves as "Spartans" and thought that the wealthy old Greek nobles in the capital were all "Athenians" who only knew how to rap. Someone also told Guo Kang that when he was a child, his parents asked him to study hard and exercise, and they would scare him, saying that if he didn't study well, he would have to sell his ass to the Athenians when he grew up, which scared him to death...

The number of sailors in the navy is not small, but they are scattered. Most of them are not in the army at ordinary times, but are engaged in production in the local area to reduce the high maintenance costs. They will only go back when they are rotated. However, the fleet will still give them subsidies every year to allow them to maintain training as a reward for joining the army.

The subsidy was quite high, higher than that of the army, and enough to feed a family, so people along the coast were very keen to join the army. The combat performance of a galley was closely related to the strength, endurance, and proficiency of the rowers, so rowers would train whenever they had the chance and were generally in good physical shape.

In the camp, there were a large group of strong men pulling ropes and lifting dumbbells all day long. Moreover, according to Greek tradition, it is best not to wear clothes when exercising - the word "gymnasium" in later generations comes from the Latin form of the Greek word "gymnazein", which means exercising naked. Therefore, although it is strictly prohibited, there are always idle women and "Athenians" wandering around in this place, and the guards can't drive them away...

These highly qualified sailors were the essence of the Roman navy. Shi Ke's confidence largely came from this. Compared with them, those pirates who lacked systematic training, or even the miscellaneous navy that used slaves to fill the numbers, were definitely no match, even if they were more numerous.

As for Guo Kang's ship, he didn't even have this worry. At present, it seemed that he could only stand here and watch how the front army killed the enemy.

(End of this chapter)