Guo Kang was not too surprised by Cao Xun's question.
To everyone in the Purple Horde Khanate, Egypt probably has two most obvious features.
First, of course, is wealth.
The Nile is a very special river that floods at certain times every year. The time when the river floods coincides with the crop growth cycle.
After harvesting, the river floods the surrounding farmland and then recedes at set times, leaving a layer of fertile silt on the farmland. Later, the river water will be very stable, and people can return to the fields and start the next round of farming.
Because of this unique condition, the Egyptians entered an agricultural society early. Both sides of the Nile River have therefore become the richest areas in the world.
——This "wealth" is not the result of the "comparison" between civilizations and agriculture in the Mediterranean world in the late Middle Ages today, but a real compliment.
In fact, until the 21st century, when Guo Kang lived in his previous life, the place with the highest grain yield per unit area on the earth was neither in a large country in the Western Hemisphere with very advanced agricultural technology and fertile land, nor in the Eastern Hemisphere where land has been cultivated for thousands of years and intensive farming has brought flowers to fruition. A large country, but still in the Nile River Basin where technology and industry are very backward.
This was the result when the Nile no longer flooded regularly after the construction of the Aswan Dam.
The Nile River is like a diligent mother. It personally delivers fertilizer once a year, spreads it in the fields, drowns weeds, washes away salt and alkali, and maintains this land for thousands of years.
The periodic flooding gave the Egyptians a corresponding religion, worshiping the new life after death. They also developed astronomy to determine the calendar and determine when the Nile River would flood.
The "disasters" that are feared by these religions and caused by rivers may not seem worth mentioning to everyone in Zi Zhang, because basically it means that the flooding is not very timely, or it does not bring so much silt.
Although it can cause some trouble, it is too gentle compared to some violent rivers that are also called "mothers" for some unknown reason.
The second point is that the combat effectiveness is worrying.
Generally speaking, some famous civilizations have their own peak periods. During this period, not only was civilization developed, but military force was often also strong.
For example, Persia, which is often disliked by everyone, has actually become stronger more than once. Before the disintegration of the Sasanian Persian Dynasty, it was also a big country that went east to destroy Kushan and west to annex Rome. It's just that they don't know why, but they always fall behind at critical moments, which gives people the impression that they are weak and unable to fight.
The problem for the Egyptians is that according to everyone's understanding during the Middle Ages, their "highlight moments" could not be found.
Guo Kang himself knew that Egypt was indeed powerful a long time ago. The problem is that compared to the commonly used beginnings of time in European folktales, this "a long, long time" is too long.
At this time, the Egyptians can only judge that there was an ancient civilization here based on the pyramids and other ruins. As for its ins and outs and how it relates to people today, everyone has absolutely no idea.
These Egyptians did not know that Thutmose and Ramses once lived here. It was only after the development of archeology in modern times that these things became known to everyone. Guo Kang is not a professional archaeologist, and he cannot unearth and identify those important inscriptions on his own. Relying on his strength, it is obviously impossible to change this.
And for this kind of thing, if you think about it carefully, you can't even blame the Egyptians harshly.
He had been under the influence of Seris culture for too long and had become accustomed to many rare things. But if you get in touch with other civilizations, you will find that a lot of "common sense" is counter-common sense.
In fact, forgetting past history is the most common phenomenon. If anyone has not forgotten it, it is a unique case.
The Persians next to them were also confused about the history before Alexander. They just made up the legendary Bishidadi Dynasty and Kayan Dynasty to fill in the gaps before the Sassanid Dynasty. And they already belong to the category of "can still make up myths and epics". Most other civilizations can't even make up stories like this.
In this world, the only ones left with slightly more orderly history are Seris and Greece.
Although people often laugh at the Greeks for writing random stories and wonder why others take them so seriously, as the saying goes, "Comparing people with each other will make people angry." If we compare it horizontally with other civilizations, the stories of Homer and others are already relatively reliable.
The Greeks at least knew that there had been Dorian invasions before classical times. They remember that this invasion destroyed most of the city-states, including Mycenae, and that only a few places, such as Athens, survived. Faced with the Spartans who are no longer the "Spartans" in Homer's epic, the Athenians have always been proud of this.
Although this memory may not be accurate, it is already a very remarkable achievement to have a general impression of history during this time period of 1000 BC. In the whole world, I’m afraid I won’t be able to find a third one.
This is also why later generations will have a situation where "every word must be called Greece" - this can't be helped, because apart from Greece, there is really nothing to talk about...
The situation of the Egyptians is even worse than that of others.
They even have confused understanding of who they are.
Most Egyptians consider themselves Arabs and feel that they are descendants of Arab immigrants after the era of the Great Conquest. Most of those who consider themselves indigenous are Copts who still believe in the early Christian church. There has always been a gap between the two because of their different beliefs.
But in Guo Kang's time, through modern technological research, people discovered that the later Egyptians were indeed descendants of the ancient Egyptians.
In most civilized parts of the world, the blood of local people is very difficult to change. The number of foreign conquerors was too small to make a noticeable impact. Therefore, the Turks of later generations are still the Asia Minor people of ancient times, not Turks; the Egyptians of later generations are still Egyptians of ancient times, not Arabs.
Of course, the attitudes of the two sides are very different. The Turks obviously did not want to admit this result, but many Egyptians were shaken.
The reason is not difficult to understand: Turks don’t want to change their identity; but Egyptians always feel that the church members will harm them, and they have a lot of resistance to the identity of the “Arab nation”. Once the evidence comes, it will naturally Gladly accepted.
Although they are all claimed to be ethnic groups based on blood, this identity is obviously not always based on blood. In other words, everyone just flexibly uses blood relationship as evidence. Once you understand this, you can understand the Egyptians' thinking.
In this era before molecular biology, how do ordinary Egyptians identify their own ancestry? It's actually very simple, because it's not needed at all.
The upper-class Arabs collectively called all the people engaged in farming here "Fela".
The distinction between blood and culture is far less important here than later generations thought, and may even be meaningless.
The Nile River has flowed for thousands of years, and people here have cultivated it for thousands of years. In the long history, some people have been Persianized and created the "Nairoz Festival"; some people have been Hellenized and entered Alexandria; some people have been Romanized and made Anubi wearing legionnaire armor. Sri Lankan statues; some people became Arabized and began to use the Arabic language.
But the rulers who come and go here probably don't care much about these "trivial matters." Because no matter what culture he uses, Fela is still Fela, and he will basically not be allowed to join the army, let alone enter the upper echelons.
They only had to bear taxes and labor, like the reeds on the Nile River's reed plains that withered and flourished every year. No matter how many die, they will grow back.
To put it bluntly, who cares about Lu Wei’s lineage, culture, and self-perception?
Therefore, it seems understandable that the Egyptians at that time were apathetic and numb towards regime change and religious replacement.
What's even more tragic is that the fighting ability of the Egyptians is indeed as bad as others' stereotypes of them.
Farmers in the Han Dynasty also used "leeks" and "chickens" to mock themselves. But anyone who knows history knows that these people really have enough mobility. They are neither "leeks" nor "chickens". Instead, they will give meat eaters a big "surprise" if they are not careful. And throughout Egyptian history, these Egyptians have really never done it.
Other things are fine, but if you can't beat others, there's really nothing you can do about it.
In the end, European scholars even proposed a theory that the situation in Egypt was the end of the development of civilization. All civilizations will move from an era of vitality to prosperity, then lose their vitality and move towards decline and mediocrity. This state of stagnant silence is typified by the Egyptians.
This theory itself is not of much value, because it is also a typical product of "summer insects cannot talk about ice". Researchers may have never seen the phenomenon of cycles of decline and prosperity, so they take it for granted that this "one-off" civilization is the norm.
But having said that, although the Seris themselves have always regarded the "Periodic Law" as a curse-like rule and always want to jump out of it, for most civilizations, this thing should be called a blessing.
——Few civilizations are lucky enough to have multiple cycles. Even if they are relatively powerful, they often only need to support the two to merge and then lead to destruction. And the vast majority of them didn’t even exist in their “heyday” and disappeared into the long river of history. From their point of view, the Seris people complaining and worrying about the cyclical law are behaviors that do not hurt their backs while standing up...
As for the Egyptians, they were so miserable that they changed from nouns to adjectives.
To be honest, this kind of situation is rare in Seris. Guo Kang thought for a long time and felt that only the Song Dynasty might have this potential. When describing countries like Greece and Andalusia, they would euphemistically say that they are "similar to the Song Dynasty." Perhaps, "very Song" will also become an adjective in the future...
(End of chapter)
