At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 605: Treasures Under the Land and Foreign Colonists

After a day's work, these hired laborers do not rest immediately after dinner. Instead, they drag their tired bodies to the drying yard beside the farmland because they still need to go to night school to learn knowledge.

Although studying is an annoying thing, if it can fill your stomach, then it is worth working harder on your brain.

The agricultural technology of the entire Daqin Continent is only slightly better than knives and fire. After the farmers came to this land, they began to help popularize agricultural technology among the local people on a large scale.

These farmers were reluctant at first. Although they were afraid of offending the Han people, they had to come to learn. However, what they learned went in one ear and out the other. After a year of study, they learned nothing.

What really made the local farmers pay attention to these agricultural knowledge was that the Yanzhou Governor's Office actually turned a piece of wasteland into fertile land before their eyes. The cultivated land here can harvest two to three times more grain than that in their hometown.

This is equivalent to increasing their income two or three times, allowing them to go from being starving to being able to have a few full meals. With such huge benefits, the enthusiasm of local farmers is naturally high, and even many migrant workers have begun to take agricultural classes.

There were already several giant lanterns on the field, illuminating the area brightly.

People sat in groups of three or four, either taking small stools or sitting on the ground. Soon, hundreds of people filled the drying yard.

At this time, Liu Ruyi was carrying a blackboard on a wooden frame, and then he took out a book on agriculture and opened it, saying, "Today we will talk about the four methods of making soil fertilizers and the time to apply fertilizers."

Then Liu Ruyi began to read from the book and wrote on the blackboard as he read. The farmers below listened and took notes on clay tablets. Although they did not understand the Chinese characters on the book, they did not even recognize their own characters.

But after writing it down, they will mark it with symbols that they can understand (don’t say this is impossible. I saw a child on the Internet who wrote an oracle bone script). Normally, they can ask people who know Chinese characters for help, and they can probably understand it by guessing. Of course, the most important thing is that Agricultural Economics is a spoken book with no difficult-to-understand sentences. In addition, they have work experience, and they can easily understand these theories by comparing them with their daily farming practices. This is also one of the most critical factors.

The reason why Liu Ruyi became a teacher is that there are too many people listening to the lectures now, with thousands or even tens of thousands of people attending each class. There are dozens of open-air classrooms like this, and there are not enough teachers from farmers' homes. They can only find people like Liu Ruyi who are knowledgeable and have certain farming experience to read from the textbooks.

After listening to the class, these students did not leave. Instead, one of them said, "General, I heard that you led troops to fight the Romans last year. Tell us about the war."

"Yes, yes, we also want to hear how you, General, fought the Romans." Other students also cheered.

The Ptolemaic Empire was the granary of the entire Mediterranean. In this continent which was still in the slave society, food was the most precious wealth. Therefore, the powerful countries in this area all greedily eyed the Ptolemaic Empire, and the Seleucid Empire would attack them every ten years or so.

The country is rich but militarily weak, which has led to the country maxing out its diplomatic skills. As long as there is no direct conflict of interest, they have good relations with the Mediterranean powers. When Macedonia was prosperous, they were allies of Macedonia. When Carthage was prosperous, they were allies of Carthage. When Rome became strong, their relationship with Rome was not bad either.

But if you want to have a good relationship with the alliance, you must pay a price. The price paid by the Ptolemy Kingdom is food. As long as you become its ally, you can get the Ptolemy Kingdom's food at a low price.

For the nobles, it was extremely worthwhile to lose a little bit of food profit in exchange for gaining a powerful ally and ensuring the security of the country.

But it was not a good thing for the local farmers. They themselves could not eat enough, and their families had to go hungry or even starve to death. They saw with their own eyes that the grain they grew was sold to foreigners at low prices by the nobles. During these decades, Rome was the most steadfast ally of the Ptolemaic nobles, and naturally became the object of the most hatred of the lower-class farmers.

Liu Ruyi felt a little embarrassed when he heard this, and was even a little angry towards Rome. At the beginning, he was very enthusiastic and stationed his army in Carthage. He thought that this little overlord of the Mediterranean would lead the army here, and then he would defeat the enemy and make great achievements. As a result, the Romans did not even fight in the Mediterranean. After a great defeat in a naval battle, they retreated across the board. He fought in vain in this battle.

But Liu Ruyi did not spoil everyone's fun. Instead, he found a piece of wood from somewhere and slapped it on the blackboard, saying, "It is said that the Roman Empire, known as the little overlord of the Mediterranean, is a bully, tyrannical and unreasonable."

Next to the farming team, Zhang Pijiang and Ding Yue were also watching the crowd listening to the storytelling.

Ding He smiled and said, "Although this land looks barren, it is not bad if it is reclaimed. In five years at most, my Yanzhou Governor's Office will be self-sufficient and can also provide high-quality forage grass to Daqinzhou. The farmer's night school has made great contributions and trained a large number of high-quality farmers. Now our Yanzhou Governor's Office has become an agricultural base. Merchant ships come here every few days to buy alfalfa."

Because of the large-scale planting of alfalfa to improve the soil, the forage grass in the territory of Yanzhou Governor's Office far exceeded the demand for pastures. And it happened that the countries in the entire Mediterranean region were all in the midst of a breeding boom for foreign exchange. The big countries were fine as they could always create some pastures, but the small countries in Asia Minor had a small land area. Even if they learned mixed farming and animal husbandry in the Han Dynasty, the demand for forage grass was far less than the increase in the number of their dairy cows.

When these countries were looking for forage everywhere, it happened that the Yanzhou Governor's Office had a surplus of forage every year, so these countries came to the governor's office to buy forage. This was also the largest forage trading place in the entire Mediterranean region.

Zhang Pijiang said: "It is better not to conflict with the local natives."

The Ptolemy Kingdom traded a piece of land the size of a county to the Governor's Office, but the Yanzhou Governor's Office continued to expand into the Nabatai area, absorbing tens of thousands of local people. At the same time, the area of ​​the Governor's Office also expanded more than ten times. Zhang Pijiang was helpless about this situation. The Han Dynasty had no shortage of land at all, and it would be bad to cause dissatisfaction among the local people of Daqinzhou for this little bit of land.

But Dante said: "The land traded by the Ptolemy is too unsafe without a strategic buffer."

Then he spent five years continuously expanding the so-called strategic buffer zone, the buffer zone within the strategic buffer zone, so that the area directly under the jurisdiction of the Yanzhou Governor's Office was almost the same as a small country in the Mediterranean region, and more than five cities were established.

Fortunately, what Zhang Pijiang worried about did not happen. Only nomads from the Mesopotamian region lived in this area, and the Mediterranean countries did not care about these natives at all. In order to survive, these natives were even willing to join the Yanzhou Governor's Office. Over the course of five years, about 5 natives joined the Han Dynasty, so that the Governor's Office helped the natives build a city.

Ding He pretended not to hear Zhang Pijiang's dissatisfaction and said, "Our deal with the Seleucid Empire has been completed. The Characeni area has become our territory. Now the Tianzhu fleet has begun to build a port."

Zhang Pijiang was surprised and said, "This is a good thing for our Han people."

The Chalaseni area is more than 2000 miles away from the Yanzhou Governor's Office. He wondered why Ding He cared so much?

Ding He said: "Some time ago, Liu Bi wrote to me, saying that if a railway is built between the Chalaseni area and the Yanzhou Governor's Office, the connection between the two sides will be opened up. It can form a strategic complement."

Zhang Pijiang was surprised and said, "Commander-in-chief, this area does not belong to our Han territory."

Ding He smiled and said, "I have already explored this area. There are no countries in the desert Gobi, only some desert tribes. They make a living by grazing and looting. It is not right to say that this is unowned land. Our army only needs to send a battalion of soldiers to occupy this vast area. This is a land of 3,000 miles in length and width. It will be a great military achievement if we can conquer it."

As a soldier of the Han Dynasty, there is no one who does not want to expand the territory, so the Yanzhou Governor's Office has expanded more than ten times in five years. In this respect, the soldiers of the Han Dynasty are similar to Niu Niu. In order to defend Mumbai, they expanded to the Middle East, and in order to defend the Indian colony, they expanded to the plateau. Zhang Pijiang said unhappily: "This peninsula is all desert, and the difficulty of building a railway can be imagined. Even if a railway is built, it doesn't make much sense. The Tianzhu fleet can support the Yanzhou Governor's Office from the Red Sea, so why spend huge manpower and material resources to build such a railway."

Ding He said seriously: "How can you say it is meaningless? Who knows what treasures are under this land? If we, the Han people, find out in the future but don't occupy this land, future generations will curse both of us."

Zhang Pijiang was at a loss whether to laugh or cry: "You can apply to the court, but I won't sign my name."

He really couldn't see what wealth there was in this peninsula that was entirely desert. He thought it was the habit of the Dinghe soldiers, who wanted to occupy this wild land.

After inspecting the autumn harvest at the Yanzhou Governor's Office, Zhang Pijiang returned to Alexandria by carriage.

During this period, Zhang Pijiang was observing the movements of the countries in Daqinzhou. Among them, the impact and changes in Rome were the most intense. He could see that many of Rome's policies were influenced by the Han Dynasty. Because of the Han Dynasty's obstruction, Rome was now expanding northward. In the short term, this was a good thing. The Romans would not seek to expand in the Mediterranean region, and the Mediterranean region would be stable. But in the long run, the Gauls and Germans in the interior of Daqinzhou should not be the opponents of the Romans. The Romans' occupation of this vast land would increase their development potential.

The new king of Seleucid Empire was quite ambitious. He used the loan from the Han Dynasty Bank to develop cotton plantations. This was a step in the right direction. Based on Zhang Pijiang's experience, the development of the textile industry in all countries could absorb employment and create wealth, accumulating funds for the development of heavy industry. Of course, given the internal corruption problem in Seleucid Empire, Zhang Pijiang doubted whether the wealth created by the textile industry would flow into heavy industry.

After defeating Rome, the Carthaginians were greatly encouraged. As a small country with a population of less than one million, they actually began to vigorously develop the Celtic Island, intending to control the entire Mediterranean sea transportation channels. However, Zhang Pijiang did not like this ally. They occupied the Celtic Island mainly to sell slaves to the New World.

Although Zhang Pijiang disliked this small country in his heart, the Carthaginians were extremely understanding. The last time the railway plan was formulated by the Consulate General of Daqinzhou, only Ptolemy and Carthage agreed. Now the engineers of the Han Dynasty were exploring the route of railway construction along the line. With such an obedient younger brother, even if Zhang Pijiang did not like their actions, he could only pretend not to see it.

As for the Ptolemaic Empire, Zhang Pijiang could not understand it. Five years ago, the queen of the Ptolemaic Empire died, and their king Ptolemy VI and his wife Cleopatra II began to become the king and queen of this huge country.

But they were eleven and ten years old respectively, and it was obvious that these two little kids could not grasp this power. He was still wondering which powerful official in the country would stand out, but he never expected that the queen's death had little impact on the country, and no powerful official stood out. The country remained stable in the hands of two teenagers.

This state is a bit like the model of joint governance by the Ptolemaic Empire. What is even more confusing to him is that the area of ​​joint governance in this country is only in the capital city of Alexandria. As for other cities and territories in this country, to put it nicely, it is called laissez-faire governance, and to put it bluntly, it is a situation of separatist rule by princes, which can be compared to the Spring and Autumn Period of the Han Dynasty. Of course, the good thing about the Ptolemaic Empire is that it has maintained stability despite this chaotic model, and there has been no war in this country.

After Zhang Pijiang thought deeply, he also felt that this made sense. Alexandria was the most populous and economically developed city in the country. Its fiscal revenue accounted for half of the country. The Nile Delta also controlled most of the country's food. Controlling this city, to some extent, was like controlling the country.

But the nobles were not even interested in fighting for power and profit, which was too abnormal. Zhang Pijiang was interested in the state of Ptolemy. He could hardly imagine that the nobles of this country were not even interested in fighting for power and profit. If such a thing happened during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the royal office would definitely be replaced.

There was an endless stream of carriages on the streets of Alexandria. Zhang Pijiang's carriage followed the flow of people. There were a lot of sounds of selling goods all around. There were also many chambers of commerce one after another, some with carriages, and some with horse and camel teams.

At this time, Alexandria was in its golden age of development, because a large amount of funds were invested in the construction of the Suez Canal. This money spread to Alexandria, making this famous Mediterranean city more prosperous and its urban construction became better and better.

It can even be said that most of the wealth earned by the Ptolemaic Empire was used to build this city. The entire city of New Alexandria is laid out in a rectangular grid, and all the streets are very wide and can accommodate several carriages.

This was built with the help of engineers from the Han Dynasty, so the layout is similar to the streets of the Han Dynasty, with parking lots and horse farms reserved, as well as some sports facilities of the Han Dynasty. Of course, these facilities are only available to nobles, and it is still difficult for ordinary people to enter. They are usually only open during national holidays.

Not far from the port are huge warehouses like palaces, where almost all the specialties of the Mediterranean are gathered. Some of these specialties are consumed by the Yanzhou Governor's Office, and most of them are shipped by sea merchants from the Red Sea all the way to the Han Dynasty tens of thousands of miles away.

Zhang Pijiang's carriage returned to the Consulate General of Daqinzhou. Looking at the imperial palace and temple complex that had not yet been fully built not far away, he couldn't help but sigh. After staying in this magical area for a long time, he felt that even the First Emperor could not be considered a tyrant.

The consulate area was one of the richest areas in the country, and in terms of wealth, it could be compared to Chang'an in the Han Dynasty. There were all kinds of magnificent manors and mansions of the nobles, and he could understand the extravagance of the nobles.

The key point is that no one knows what the ministers of this country are thinking. They have no intention of using the dividends from the great voyages and the construction of the Suez Canal to develop industry, or even infrastructure.

They used this wealth to continuously build palaces and majestic temples, which were magnificent in scale and luxurious in decoration. Even the Han Dynasty could not compare with these buildings. Perhaps only the Afang Palace Hotel outside the city of Chang'an could compare.

Zhang Pijiang found it hard to understand why the Ptolemaic people had no sense of urgency. Whether they were kings or nobles, they loved to waste money on building these grand buildings and temples. These buildings were almost as big as a city. Even in the Han Dynasty, it was a rare spectacle.

With this doubt in mind, Zhang Pijiang asked his scholar friend Otaydotus.

Otaydotus asked, "Do you know who built Alexandria?"

Zhang Pijiang hesitated and asked, "Who?"

"It was built by the Greeks," said Otaydotus. "Do you know where the royal family of Ptolemy came from?"

Zhang Pijiang asked curiously, "Isn't this Ptolemy's native land?"

Otaydotus shook his head and said, "No, although the Ptolemy family is the pharaoh of this area, they are more Greek monarchs. Their language and traditions are completely Greek."

Zhang Pijiang was surprised and said, "Greeks!"

Outsiders can be kings in a local area? What kind of ruling model is this?
Then he realized that India, which was next to the Han Dynasty, was just like this. Their rulers were all foreign invaders, and even the Han Dynasty could be considered an invader. After this realization, Zhang Pijiang had a sudden realization. No wonder Ptolemy and India were so similar.

Otaydotus began to introduce Zhang Pijiang to the internal situation of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. The Pharaoh's family came from the Greek region, and most of the king's ministers also came from other regions, including Greeks, Macedonians, Jews and some Romans.

These people constituted the aristocratic ruling class of the Ptolemaic Empire. Most of them were outsiders. According to the laws of the Ptolemaic dynasty, native Egyptians were only allowed to live in the suburbs and were prohibited from living in Alexandria.

Of course, this was only a decree from a few decades ago. Now that the population of Alexandria is approaching one million, those nobles require a large number of servants to serve them, so naturally they must be allowed to enter the city.

(End of this chapter)