On the other side of Heliopolis is the old city of ancient Egypt, Memphis, where there are many famous Great Pyramids, such as the most famous Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Giza.

Further downstream from here, the Nile River is the famous Nile Delta, which is also the main grain producing area of Egypt, and more than 70% of the Egyptian population is also concentrated in this delta.

Although Egypt is a large country, the vast majority of the area is a desolate desert, and all Egyptians live along the Nile River, especially in the Nile Delta.

Since Lü Kang's army could not cross the Nile, Lü Kang led the senior generals of the Han army and the commander of the engineer regiment accompanying the army to inspect the geographical situation from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez.

In fact, the Egyptians had already dug primitive canals thousands of years ago to connect the Gulf of Suez with the Nile, so that ships could reach the Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea.

It's just that the Nile River has this flood season every year, and those old canals are often clogged with Nile sediment.

The canal was a huge project, and it was only in the heyday of Egyptian rule that great effort was spent to dredge it.

The Gulf of Suez is the end of the Red Sea, and there is already a sizable port of Suez, where many ships carry goods, and then after a short overland journey, they finally reach Alexandria via the Nile.

And near the port of Suez, there is a low-lying gorge called the Isthmus of Suez, which winds for dozens of miles from south to north, and is dotted with several small lakes formed by the flooding of the Nile.

If you dig along the isthmus and even connect these lakes in series, it will save a lot of trouble, and it will even be possible to go directly from the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean Sea without passing through the Nile.

It's just that this project is very huge, and even with the help of explosives, I'm afraid it will take hundreds of thousands of laborers to dig for more than ten or twenty years.

But even if you want to dig a canal, you have to knock down the Egyptian province first, what about hundreds of thousands of laborers, who don't need the Egyptians?

With the current attitude of the Egyptians, I am afraid that this matter is not very easy to do, and if you are not careful, it may cause serious turmoil or even riots, provided that the Han army wins and occupies Egypt.

Since they could not cross the river, the expeditionary force followed the Nile, cleared the banks of the river upstream and downstream, and captured several Egyptian cities.

According to Lü Kang's request, both the Han army and the Persians were friendly to the Egyptians, and military discipline was very emphasized, especially the Persians.

The Han army set up a barracks in Heliopolis, and then trained the armies of the two countries every day.

The Persians, in particular, were trained by Han instructors, so much so that Shapur's Persian army became the most combat-ready of the Persian army.

Finally, in October, the water level of the Nile began to drop and the floodwaters receded.

The engineer regiment of the Han army immediately built a pontoon bridge on the river, and the skilled Han army sappers built three pontoon bridges in only one day's effort.

An army of 200,000 immediately crossed the Nile and attacked Memphis, but Memphis was left undefended at all, and the Han army easily occupied the ancient city.

The agents of the reconnaissance force and the intelligence department were quickly dispatched, and Lu Kang wanted to know the latest developments of the opponent and the deployment of troops.

The news soon came back that Musius had abandoned the defense of most of the city, instead placing all his forces in Alexandria.

To defend the city is to defend the port, and Alexandria is the last channel and window for Egypt to communicate with the outside world.

Reinforcements from the Egyptians arrived quickly, with reinforcements from Cyrenaica, Africa, and Numidia already arriving, and even four legions reinforced from Rome proper.

Together with the 30,000 men temporarily recruited by Musius, the Egyptian side also concentrated an army of nearly 200,000 men.

Soon, the Han army was under the city.

Alexandria, a pearl of the African continent, is the most prosperous and prosperous city in Egypt and even on the southern shore of the Mediterranean.

There is still a long distance from the city, and Lü Kang can see the famous lighthouse of Alexandria, which is sixty zhang high, and the entire Han Empire has never heard of such a tall building.

Lu Bu explained to Lu Kang in advance that there are two places in Alexandria, and we must try our best to keep them intact.

One is the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the other is the earliest and most complete collection of the Library of Alexandria in human history.

The latter, in particular, preserves a large number of precious manuscripts and inscriptions that have been handed down from ancient Greece and preserved to this day, and is called the sun of human civilization by Westerners.

It is said that in order to increase the collection of books in the Library of Alexandria, the kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty ordered a search of all ships entering and leaving Alexandria, and any books found were confiscated and stored in the library, regardless of nationality.

Legend has it that in this library, all the poems of the ancient Greek poet Homer are housed, and a large number of original works by the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid are collected.

There are also the original manuscripts of the heliocentric theory of the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus, the manuscripts of the three great tragedies of ancient Greece, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, the manuscripts of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, and the original works of Aristotle and Archimedes.

Lu Kang and the others may not care about this, but Lu Bu really knows the value of this, especially if he doesn't grab it now, sooner or later it will be destroyed in the war.

On the outskirts of Alexandria, the Romans and Egyptians began to put up fierce resistance and fought fiercely with the Han army, and the Egyptians who were temporarily conscripted still used bows and crossbows, but the Roman legions were all firearms.

Now the Romans have popularized firearms to the auxiliary legions, front-loading rifled guns are already standard, and more advanced rear-loading rifled guns have been successfully copied by the Romans, but because rifling is difficult to engrave, the production has not yet increased.

However, many front-loading rifled guns could be modified to become primitive rear-loading rifled guns, and the Romans did just that.

Musius's army was also armed with a considerable number of artillery, including mortars and large artillery, and the Romans' art in making artillery was improving, the length and weight of the gun body were reduced, and the gun mounted on the gun carriage could be moved in a small area.

Moreover, the Romans were very good at learning, they learned the method of digging trenches used by the Han army, and began to dig trenches from the outskirts of the city, and defended the trenches to prevent the Han army from attacking.

Since then, the progress of the Han army and the Persians has been very slow, and they can only advance a few hundred zhang a day, and the casualties are not small.

Lü Kang had no choice but to write to Fazheng to ask for reinforcements, and Shapur also asked his father, Ardashir I, for reinforcements.