save the bachelors

Chapter 4693 4696 [Expanding Again]

Twenty years passed quickly, and Ansuna had already moved the capital from Thebes to Mazarah.

During this period, apart from clearing out the remnants of nomadic peoples in the south and having some friction with the Assyrian Empire in the east, Egypt has not made any major expansion moves externally, and everything is waiting for the opportunity.

During these twenty years of recuperation, Egypt's total population doubled from 7 million to 18 million. The treasury was full, and many warehouses were full of wheat, corn, and rice.

After moving the capital to Mazarah, Egypt's shipping and foreign trade began to develop gradually.

Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians and Cretans all began to come to Mazahra to trade.

They brought olive oil, wine, textiles, pottery, fish, etc. They exchanged with the Egyptians for precious metals, bronze, iron, spices, etc.

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, traveling by ship to Cyprus, Crete, Tripoli, Athens, Rome, Sparta, Mycenae, Troy and other places for trade.

It not only increased 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 the Hittites respectively. Especially the Hittites, with a total of 160,000 troops 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 remaining 60,000 troops were stationed in the Hittite territory.

The literacy rate of the people also increased from 0.5% to 0.3%, which means that 540,000 people can read. Although this ratio is not high, it is not small either.

The proportion of Xiang Nan's followers among the people has also increased from 10% to 20% before to 70% to 80% now. Almost all newborns are Xiang Nan's followers.

This is partly because Xiangnan's doctrine stipulates that if the parents are believers, the children are automatically considered believers. If one person joins, the whole family joins.

On the one hand, it is also because Xiang Nan preached the gospel well. He donated noodles, medicine, clothes, taught for free, held regular meetings... Through a series of measures, Xiang Nan's beliefs have now been deeply rooted in people's hearts.

In comparison, the priests of other gods have not yet realized the crisis. They are still resting on their laurels and have not taken any measures to save the situation.

Therefore, Xiang Nan has more and more believers, while other gods have fewer and fewer believers.

……

In the past twenty years, Xiang Nan's strength has been greatly enhanced.

During these twenty years, more and more believers entered his kingdom of God, and together with the believers of Ullensem before, the number of his believers exceeded tens of millions.

These believers can enter his heaven, and they are his loyal believers. Even if they die, they can still provide Xiang Nan with the power of faith.

The power of faith turned into divine power, giving Xiang Nan great strength.

He can use divine power to create gold, silver and jewelry, he can also use divine power to strengthen himself, he can use divine power to deal with opponents, and he can even use divine power and rules to create artifacts.

The artifact is 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, rules of wealth, rules of death, rules of war, rules of sunlight, etc. It is these rules that ensure the orderly operation of the entire world.

In addition to increasing his divine power, Xiang Nan himself was also practicing hard.

Because he often went to Astarte to comprehend the great bliss meditation, his understanding of Buddhism became increasingly profound, especially the superior doctrine of "form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form". After Xiang Nan's profound attainments in Buddhism, the Eye of Shiva at the center of his eyebrows gradually opened up his second supernatural power, the Eye of Wisdom.

The so-called "wisdom eye" is a higher level existence than the heavenly eye. It can see all tangible and intangible things, including worldly affairs and human hearts. Therefore, there are idioms such as "knowing people with a wise eye", "wisdom eyes as sharp as a torch", "unique wisdom eye" and so on.

Moreover, the wisdom eye can shoot out fire of destruction, burning 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 eye will be fully opened.

Although a thousand years may sound ridiculously long, to God, it is just a blink of an eye.

……

In the same year, Ansuna led a large 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 Egypt's, and its population is smaller than Egypt's. It can even be said that the gap is too big.

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 military strength did not exceed 50,000.

Especially when Egyptian soldiers were already wearing full body iron armor, iron swords and spears, the Greeks still mainly used bronze weapons. Therefore, the Greek military strength was far behind that of Egypt.

Ansuna led an army of 100,000 troops from both land and sea. The land army crossed the Bosphorus Strait, while the sea army headed straight for Greece and Mycenae.

Under the pincer attack from both directions, many Greek city-states were quickly captured, and even the city of 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 calls.

This is because most gods have long been accustomed to being high above others. Unless it is absolutely related to their own interests and is very close to them, they do not care about the life and death of mortals at all.

The reason why the gods showed up last time was because their temple was destroyed by Ansuna, which directly violated their actual interests, so they were angry.

Now only Greece was attacked, and their temples were safe and sound, so they naturally would not interfere.

In the end, the Greek city-states were defeated and captured one after another under the Egyptian army's land and sea attacks.

The first to be conquered was Troy, which was right next to the Hittites, followed by Crete, Cyprus, and then Sparta, Mycenae, and Athens.

Although the warriors of these city-states fought to the death to defend their land, they were weak. They did not even have iron weapons, so they used bronze weapons to fight the Egyptian army.

However, bronze weapons were brittle and broke at the first touch with iron weapons, so they collapsed at the first touch and were destroyed like a rotten wood.

As a result, a large number of Greeks were captured 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 all 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, Attica, and Crete, moved the Egyptian population to each of the three provinces, and assigned officials to manage them.

The three provinces were required to uniformly use Egyptian writing, calendar, 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.