Chapter 243 The Village Guarded by Wadjet

Seeing the city of Knossos turning into a hell on earth due to food problems, Roy's biggest feeling was that this kind of thing must not happen in the Kingdom of Athens.

But to truly solve the food problem, and to make the Kingdom of Athens rich enough in food to support Roy's expansion of the Kingdom of Athens, the Kingdom of Athens must have a grain-producing area.

Egypt, which was regarded as a grain-producing area by the Roman Empire, was obviously the most suitable target.

If it weren't for the fact that the number of soldiers in the Kingdom of Athens was too small, Roy would even want to get involved in the war between King Cephes of Egypt and Pharaoh Kamos of Southern Egypt, and directly seize the rule of the entire Egypt.

Although Roy does not have the strength to conquer Egypt now, Roy feels that turning the western part of the Nile Delta into part of the Kingdom of Athens is not completely hopeless.

The day after Loy's fleet landed on Pharos.

Roy took Aries and fifty Athenian soldiers to the land south of Pharos Island and walked towards the local village.

The Nile Delta is formed when the main stream of the Nile River enters northern Egypt and then spreads out into the Mediterranean Sea. This area has low terrain, fertile soil, criss-crossing river networks, and dense canals, and it contains two-thirds of Egypt's arable land.

Because of the hot and dry climate, strong sunlight, abundant water resources, developed irrigated agriculture, and the highest population density in the world.

The Egyptian fishing village across the water from Pharos Island is not very large, but it still has a population of about a thousand people.

Roy and others entered the fishing village consisting of mud houses and wooden houses, and saw many children running around with only a piece of linen wrapped around their waists.

When the Egyptians in the village saw Roy and others, they would return home in panic with their children, and then hide behind the door to secretly observe the heavily armed foreigners.

Because Roy has a huge fleet, the locals do not regard Roy as a pirate, but they are still wary of seeing foreigners.

After walking for a while in the village, he saw a skinny old man sitting outside his house. Instead of hiding out of fear of outsiders, Roy came to the old man, took out a bag of salt and said to the old man.

"Old man, I have some questions to ask you. As long as you answer my questions, I will give you these salts as a reward."

"What did you say?"

Not knowing whether he couldn't hear Roy's voice or didn't understand Roy's words, the old man said with confusion.

"What did you just say?"

"I just said that as long as you are willing to answer my questions, I will give you these salts."

After Roy said loudly, the old man immediately looked at the salt in Roy's hand with bright eyes and said.

"Are you really going to give me this salt?"

Roy didn't say anything, and directly handed a bag of salt weighing about a pound to the old man.

After the old man took the salt, as if he was afraid that Roy would regret it, he deliberately put his dusty and dirty hands into the white salt.

After smearing the beautiful white salt like snow, the old man showed a sly smile and said to Roy.

"Dear stranger, you can ask me any questions now, and I promise I won't hide anything."

"Then tell me now, which city-state your village is ruled by, and who is the chief of this village?"

"Dear foreigners, our village is nominally ruled by the city of Sais, but in fact it is ruled by the city of Buto. Our village chief is a priestess who serves the goddess Wajit, the patron saint of Buto City."

"Then do you know the number of people ruled by the cities of Sais and Buto?"

After Roy finished speaking, the old man immediately looked at Roy in confusion.

"How can you ask me to answer this kind of question? I can only tell you my guess. The ruling population of Buto City is more than 50,000, and the ruling population of Saiis City is more than 100,000. But I cannot guarantee that the number I guessed is Really, maybe the error is 10,000 to 20,000.”

"It doesn't matter if there is an error of ten thousand or twenty thousand."

Roy turned his head and looked at the stone house made of stone and wood in the center of the village.

"Now I want to know, is that stone house the house of your village chief? How many soldiers does your village chief have—how many men are willing to fight for her with weapons?"

The old man looked at the stone house and said.

"That is the temple of the goddess Wadjet, and it is also the place where the village chief and his family live. Our village chief has five sons and twenty grandsons. Plus the male servants, there are sixty-two men willing to bear weapons for her. And fight. Distinguished foreigner, even though you have fifty soldiers, don’t provoke the village chief easily, because the village chief’s descendants and male servants are very strong, and they are not inferior to the soldiers who have been on the battlefield.”

Roy nodded with a smile, then took out a cloth bag containing salt and said.

"Old man, I want to trade salt with people in your village for grain. You can trade with me at the price of fifty pounds of grain for one pound of salt. Is there anyone in your village willing to trade with me?"

After hearing what Roy said, the old man suppressed a smile and said.

"Young foreigner, it looks like we have extra grain in exchange for your salt? After paying taxes to the village chief, the remaining grain is not enough to feed ourselves, so we must often fish to fill our stomachs. If you want to exchange salt for food, you can only go to the village chief to trade."

"Old man, thank you for answering my question. This bag of salt is given to you."

After handing the second cloth bag containing salt to the old man, Roy led Aries and others towards the Wadjet Temple.

Aries couldn't help but said as he followed Roy.

"Your Majesty, you are so amazing, you can actually speak the Egyptian language."

"What do you mean? Is the language of the Egyptians different from that of the Greeks?"

"How can our language be the same as that of the Egyptians? We can't understand or speak the Egyptian language, and the Egyptians can't understand our language either. So when you said the first sentence to the Egyptian old man, his reaction was also that he couldn't understand what you said. Later, you used the Egyptian language, and he could communicate with you."

"I was communicating with the old man in Egyptian language just now?"

Roy's eyes widened in surprise. He didn't expect that he could not only understand other languages, but also speak other languages ​​naturally.

Seeing that the Temple of Wadjet was already in front of him, Roy didn't bother about such trivial problems, and began to look at the Temple of Wadjet seriously.

As the place where the village chief's family of dozens of people lived, the scale of this temple was very large.

After all, he was the village chief who ruled a thousand people, and this temple was even more than the palaces of some small tribal leaders.

At this moment, sixty fully armed men rushed out of the Temple of Wadjet and blocked Roy and others.

Half of the sixty men wore rattan armor and held bronze weapons, while the other half wore thick linen clothes and held wooden weapons.

After Roy's fifty Athenian soldiers confronted the sixty men, an old female voice immediately said.

"Strangers! This is the sanctuary of the goddess Wadget, you can't approach this temple at will."

Then, an old priestess with white hair and a wooden scepter walked out of the temple accompanied by two middle-aged men.

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