Chapter 4693 4696 [Expanding Again]
Twenty years passed quickly, and Ansuna had already moved the capital from Thebes to Mazarakh.
During this period, apart from clearing out the remnants of nomadic peoples in the south and some friction with the Assyrian Empire in the east, Egypt had not made any major expansionary moves, and everything was waiting for the opportunity.
During these twenty years of recuperation, Egypt's total population increased from 7 million to 18 million, doubling. Moreover, the treasury was full, and many warehouses were even full of wheat, corn, and corn.
After moving the capital to Mazarakh, Egypt's shipping and foreign trade began to develop gradually.
Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, and Cretans all began to come to Mazarakh to trade.
They brought olive oil, wine, textiles, pottery, fish, etc. They exchanged precious metals, bronze, iron, spices, etc. with the Egyptians.
The development of overseas trade not only increased Egypt's tax revenue, but also broadened the horizons of the Egyptians.
More and more Egyptians participated in overseas trade. They traveled by ship to Cyprus, Crete, Tripoli, Athens, Rome, Sparta, Mycenae, Troy and other places for trade.
It not only increased the exchanges between the two places, but also increased their understanding of the ocean.
In terms of military strength, Egypt now has a standing army of 200,000, guarding Egypt and Hittite respectively. Especially the Hittite, a total of 160,000 troops were stationed.
Among them, 50,000 troops were used to deal with the Assyrian Empire in the east, 50,000 troops were used to deal with the Roman Empire in the west, and the other 60,000 were stationed in the Hittite territory.
The literacy rate of the people also increased from 5/1000 to 3%, which means that 540,000 people are literate. Although this proportion is not high, it is not small.
The proportion of Xiangnan's believers in the national population has also increased from 10% to 20% to 70% to 80% today. Almost all newborns are believers of Xiangnan.
This is partly because Xiangnan's doctrine stipulates that if the parents are believers, the children are automatically counted as believers. If one person joins the association, the whole family will join.
On the one hand, it is also because Xiang Nan preached well, giving away noodles, medicine, clothes, free teaching, regular gatherings... Through a series of measures, Xiang Nan's faith has now been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
In comparison, the priests of other gods have not yet realized the crisis, and are still resting on their merits, and have not taken any measures to save it.
Therefore, Xiang Nan has more and more believers, while other gods have fewer and fewer believers.
...
In the past 20 years, Xiang Nan's strength has been greatly strengthened.
In the past 20 years, believers have continued to enter his kingdom of God, and together with the believers of Ulensem before, the number of his believers has exceeded 10 million.
These believers can enter his kingdom of heaven, and they are his loyal believers. Even if they die, they can still provide Xiang Nan with the power of faith.
And the power of faith becomes divine power, which makes Xiang Nan have powerful strength.
He can use divine power to transform gold, silver and jewelry, and can also use divine power to strengthen himself, and can also use divine power to deal with opponents, and even use divine power and rules to make artifacts.
Artifacts are the solidification of the power of rules and divine power. The power of rules is actually the complicated patterns on the godhead, and each pattern represents a rule.
For example, the rules of wealth, death, war, sunlight, etc. It is these rules that ensure the orderly operation of the entire world.
In addition to the increase in divine power, Xiang Nan himself is also practicing hard.
Because he often went to Astarte to comprehend the great joy meditation, his understanding of Buddhism became increasingly profound, especially the superior doctrine of "color is emptiness, emptiness is color, color is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from color", and he has a lot of understanding.
After Xiang Nan's profound attainments in Buddhism, the Shiva Eye at the center of his eyebrows gradually opened up the second supernatural power "Wisdom Eye".
The so-called "Wisdom Eye" is a higher level existence than the Heavenly Eye, which can see all visible and invisible things, including worldly affairs and human hearts, so there are idioms such as "Wisdom Eyes to Recognize People", "Wisdom Eyes Like Torches", "Unique Wisdom Eyes", etc.
Moreover, the fire of destruction can be shot out from the Wisdom Eye to burn everything in the world, so it is also called the "Eye of Destruction".
According to Xiang Nan's estimation, in another thousand years, the wisdom eyes will be fully opened.
Although a thousand years sounds ridiculously long, it is just a blink of an eye for gods.
...
In this year, Ansuna led the army to attack Greece.
At that time, Greece was mainly a city-state, and its territory was mainly distributed on both sides of the Aegean Sea, including the Attica Peninsula, the Peloponnese Peninsula and some islands in the Aegean Sea.
Its land area is smaller than that of Egypt, and its population is also smaller than that of Egypt, and it can even be said that the difference is too great.
For example, the total population of Egypt reached 18 million, while the population of Greece was less than one million, only about 700,000, and the total force did not exceed 50,000.
No mistakes, just read it in one 6-9 book!
Especially when Egyptian soldiers were already wearing full iron armor, iron swords and spears, Greece still mainly used bronze. Therefore, the military strength of Greece was far behind that of Egypt.
Ansuna led an army of 100,000 troops to set out from the sea and land. The land army crossed the Bosphorus Strait, while the sea army went straight to Greece and Mycenae.
Under the two-way attack, many Greek city-states were quickly captured, and even Athens was in danger.
Although the Greek people prayed to their gods, hoping that these gods could help them resist foreign enemies, in the end these gods did not respond to their call.
Because most gods have long been accustomed to being high above, they don't care about the lives of mortals unless it is exactly related to their own interests and is already close at hand.
The reason why the gods came out last time was because their temples were destroyed by Ansuna, which directly violated their actual interests, so they were angry.
Now only Greece is attacked, and their temples are safe, so they will naturally not make trouble.
In the end, the Greek city-states were defeated and captured one after another under the attack of the Egyptian army by land and sea.
The first to be conquered was Troy, which was right next to the Hittites, followed by Crete, Cyprus, Sparta, Mycenae and Athens.
Although the warriors of these city-states fought to defend their land, they were weak and their original sin. They did not even popularize iron weapons, and used bronze weapons to fight the Egyptian army.
Bronze weapons were brittle and broke when they came into contact with iron weapons, so they collapsed at the first touch and were crushed like a dead tree or rotten wood.
As a result, a large number of Greeks were plundered as slaves, a large amount of fertile land was occupied, and the wealth accumulated by the Greeks from hundreds of years of overseas trade was also seized by Ansuna and transported back to Mazarach.
The Greek Kingdom, which had a history of hundreds of years, was destroyed.
Subsequently, Ansuna divided the Greek Kingdom into three provinces, the Peloponnese Province, the Attica Province, and the Crete Province. The Egyptian population was moved to the three provinces, and officials were appointed to manage them respectively.
The three provinces were required to uniformly use Egyptian writing, calendars, and weights and measures. At the same time, temples of Xiangnan were built in the three provinces, and priests were sent to preach to the local people.