Chapter 828

People basically need a spiritual sustenance, which can be relatives or pets, but generally they choose religion as spiritual sustenance.

In modern times, it is clear that various legends have long been broken. For example, there are palaces of the gods above the clouds, or the moon as the temple, but the aircraft fly back and forth from a distance every day. No one has seen any palaces of the gods, and there are only dust and rocks on the moon, but religion has not died because of it.

Even people with superb scientific knowledge will believe in a God. For them, what they believe in is not a God, but a sustenance in their hearts, eager for comfort.

For a long time, people have too many things they don't understand. It is because they don't understand that they think in the direction of God, and the religious atmosphere is naturally strong.

People in more than one country believe that they have gods. Even if no one has really seen gods, they still believe that there is a great existence in the world, and they fear and admire them. That gives some people in power an excellent opportunity to use gods to frighten the ignorant, so as to make their rule more stable.

Athens is indeed a big city. There is no lack of beautiful places, especially some naturally formed beaches. In the city, there are gorgeous manors, wide and clean stone roads, beautiful and charming fountain, but more chaotic and full of shit and urine alleys.

"The rule of the people of the Qin Dynasty over the conquered land is very general. For example, in this big city with 100000 people, they appointed the city Lord, built a parliament and established a garrison, but..." Cai Mian looked around, There are no Romans around: "the city master is a local tyrant, the congressman is also a rich man in the city, and most of the army are local residents. They just control the positions of the civil protection officer and the financial officer."

To say what position the Romans attached most importance to, in fact, it was not the city master of a city, but the protector of the army and the treasurer of finance.

"What I heard was that the people of Daqin contracted out tax collection." Dou a never understood what was going on: "how much tax share is set for the city, and some rich people collect taxes from the citizens, can they do so?"

Wang Meng knows more. For example, Constantinople asks Athens to pay 50000 gold coins a year and Rome asks Athens to pay 40000 gold coins. In addition, he doesn't care anymore.

The so-called no longer control also includes the right not to recruit troops from Athens. On the contrary, once Athens is attacked, Constantinople and Rome are obliged to send troops for support, so those tribute is equivalent to a kind of protection fee. The result is that Athens is only nominally owned by Constantinople and Rome, but Athens is actually a state of autonomy.

"There are many cities like Daqin." Wang Meng's understanding is: "the civil war broke out in Daqin for the throne, which made them lose their control over conquering foreign nationalities. If the three parties fail to decide the victory or defeat, it can be predicted that those foreign nationalities will get real independence and Daqin people will lose a large area of territory."

Wang Meng is not wrong. It was this civil war that really split Rome. Part of Europe became western Rome, but there was only one sign of Rome left in this western Rome. Although there were Romans in the ruling class, Germanic and Frankish people were the real masters. Later, they simply abandoned the country name of Rome and directly established the country in the name of Frankish. In the real sense, the Romans were driven to the eastern Rome, and then there was no Eastern Rome and transformed into the Byzantine Empire. (Western history has only Byzantine records, not the name of East Rome)

They visited Athens for two days and boarded the ship again in the early morning of the third day.

The trip to Athens was a great harvest for the Han people. They saw a lot of strange things. On the one hand, it was also a result to purchase goods (mainly plant seeds) and slaves they had never seen before. The most important thing was to further understand the essence of Rome.

After leaving the Greek peninsula, the fleet will no longer rely on the coastline. They will pass directly through the middle of the Aegean Sea.

The Aegean Sea is very famous in Europe. Many stories revolve around it. One of the more famous stories is the Trojan War.

"The Greeks used to follow this route. They gathered more than 20000 people to cross the sea in order to get back the gorgeous woman named Helen." Marus Utansis pointed to the sea. Today's waves are larger than before. The shape of the ship determines that slightly larger waves will make the ship bumpy: "in fact, it has been ten years since Helen eloped with people and the Greeks sent troops. At that time, Helen was a woman in her forties."

A war for interests had to find an excuse to recapture a woman. As a result, Helen became famous. Whether she was a beautiful woman or not became no longer important. How many people died in the two countries was only a number. A Trojan horse slaughtering the city was handed down through the ages and also buried a very famous warrior.

The waves are getting bigger and bigger. The deck with too low horizontal line makes the sea water rush through the guardrail composed of tower shield. The fatal thing is that a passage through the first floor of the cabin is reserved in the middle of the Roman style deck, so that even if you stay on the first floor of the cabin, you will be wet.

"We may have to turn around." Marcus Maka looked ahead and felt the wind: "return to LAK Island temporarily and go to Asia Minor when the wind and waves subside."

Asia Minor is the later Turkey. At present, Rome has set up several provinces there. Asia Minor is the continental plate closest to Europa, and Troy was in the southwest of Asia Minor near the Strait.

The Han people said that they were very helpless. If the ships of the Han country came in, they would not exaggerate the bumps of the ships in the face of such storms, let alone return. The problem is that they are now in the Roman ship.

Lak island is one of the islands in the north of the Aegean Sea. There are several other large and small islands around it. There are several small villages on the island. Look at the boats and boats tied to the coast, and then look at the fishing nets put up for drying. There are dried fish in the yards of each family. There is no doubt that they are fishing villages.

Seriously speaking, most of the inhabited islands in this sea area are fishermen. There is too little arable land on the island, or there is no arable land at all. Survival naturally depends on the sea.

"Most of our sailors come from this side." Marus Utansis took off his helmet with a broom on his head and stroked his long blond hair: "most Greeks have experience at sea, and their fishermen will be experienced sailors."

The Han people have seen the Greek sailors all the way, and have to admit that the Greek sailors do look good.

The ingredients of rowing at the bottom will be mixed. The white skin race with blond hair and blue eyes will not be lacking. More are the fine black skin race with dark skin. They can even see the Romans, but they all have a common identity, that is, slaves, not sailors.

Don't think that an island should have white sand beaches, and don't think that the scenery of the island should be very beautiful. Most of the beautiful islands are artificially transformed. Otherwise, even if there are beaches on the shore, in fact, in addition to the sand with different colors and mostly yellow, it is more smooth rocks beaten by the waves.

Lac Island obviously has not been artificially transformed. There is no beautiful beach, nor rows of coconut trees or greening. On the contrary, there are all kinds of sundries on the beach, such as broken fishing nets, or rotten wood floating from nowhere. It can even see the wreckage of the ship pushed up after the crash.

The fleet did not stop at the port or wharf, but actually washed into the beach and landed directly. This also made the Han people understand that most of the Roman ships were flat bottomed ships, which could enter the shallow water area. They were so brave that they drove the ship directly into the Shanghai beach.

"It's no wonder that a little wind and waves make the hull so bumpy." Doua sneered and said, "their hearts are really big with flat bottomed boats on the sea."

That was determined by the sphere of influence of the Romans. For a long time, they have been sailing around the Mediterranean. It is not surprising that they do not understand the difference between flat bottomed ships and sharp bottomed ships.

For Rome, the Mediterranean coast, which is full of shallow water, is worse to set up ships that can eat water at any time. The water depth of docks and ports in most areas is really not so deep, and ship berthing will become a problem.

"I got a message from marus utansis." Cai Mian squatted down and spent a map. No one could see clearly the terrain of the known area. He gestured and said, "this is their Gaul area. There is a super big island across the Strait, called... Saxon or something?"

In fact, it was the British island, but when the Romans fought in the past, most of the local people were Anglo Saxons. According to the Romans' habits, for example, after beating Gaul and occupying territory, they called their national names place names.

"They spent a lot of money to conquer the south of that big island, and the middle and North have not been able to fight for a long time." Cai Mian is not talking about the war between the Romans and all ethnic groups on the island: "they call that strait the devil's Strait. Do you know why they call it?"

The weather in the English channel is too bad. It was sunny at the last moment and stormy at the next moment. When the Romans conquered the British island, it was because of the channel climate that ships were fed fish, and the army often suffered heavy losses in the channel.

The climate of the Strait is changeable, and now there are not enough means to predict. There are huge risks in every shipment of materials by the Romans. As a result, the Roman garrison in Britain has been limited. It is difficult to maintain the garrison in the middle, not to mention continuing to march to the middle, so they have to do the project of building the great wall there.

"The biggest reason is that the people of Daqin didn't make sharp bottomed ships." Cai Mian didn't know whether to laugh or despise: "the people of the Qin Dynasty are either stubborn or the people in power are out of their mind. They have fought with the Persians for so long and have frequent trade with the Gupta Dynasty. It's impossible not to know the existence of sharp bottomed ships. They haven't figured out that it's more advantageous for sharp bottomed ships to sail on the sea."

Who knows what's going on? Anyway, the Romans don't want to see the sharp bottom ship. They will soon be unable to maintain the material supply to Britain. Then the Roman garrison over there is constantly attacked and harassed, waiting for several thousand captains to die, and they take the initiative to withdraw their troops. The south of the island is no longer owned by Rome.

"Maybe it's not stubborn or anything else..." Wang Meng knows that any reform is not easy. Reform will always affect interests. Only when greater and more interests are driven, can reform power be generated: "there should be no materials that Daqin people have to get on that island."

The state of Han focused on the Japanese islands. At first, the courtiers could not resist Liu Yan and wanted to meet Liu Yan's mind of opening up new territories. Later, the whole country found that the Japanese archipelago not only had sufficient human resources, but also had so many reserves of gold and silver. It had to be said that Liu Yan would roar that he had to march into the Japanese archipelago even if he wanted to stop it.

In terms of exploring the ocean, the Han people also discovered the benefits brought by the ocean. Seafood is only a small part of it. The discovery of precious resources on each island is the driving force. Undoubtedly, the discovery of spices is one of them. Not to mention the discovery of copper mines with amazing reserves, as well as luxury goods such as fragrant wood, gemstones and jadeite jade.

"If there are gold mines, gemstones, spices and other resources on that island, believe it or not, the people of Daqin will swim there even if they swim?" Doo ah is not joking. Now someone in the state of Han runs to the other side of the peninsula and dares to swim to the Japanese islands with a gourd tied to his body: "it is reasonable for people to die for wealth and birds to die for food!"

What they said is not wrong. The Romans really didn't find any precious resources in Britain. The barbarians above were very arrogant and afraid of death. They obtained less benefits than expected, but the price was higher than expected. It's no wonder the Romans didn't pay attention to the British island.

"In fact, there is a wealth of resources." Cai Mian didn't ask less. He subconsciously swallowed a mouthful of water: "I heard that black stones can be found everywhere. You know what it is."

The black stone can be anything but coal. At present, coal is useless in most countries. The Han country has improved smelting, so a lot of coal is needed. The burning temperature of coal is much higher than that of wood, which is conducive to removing more impurities during smelting. As long as more material formulas are found, coal is an indispensable strategic material.

"The big man also has a lot of coal, but never too much." Wang Meng smiled and touched his chin's beard: "the island is too far away from the big man..." he stopped halfway, thought for a while, and asked tentatively, "maybe we can buy a lot from the people of Daqin and give them the power to continue to conquer the island."

Hundreds of thousands of miles of sailing, without buying anything else, bought a ship of coal back to Han? It sounds unreliable, but for the purpose of letting the Romans continue to bleed, that's another matter.