Since Philip II's accession to the throne, his greatest wish was to bring Macedonia into the Greek world. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 But he knows very well that it will take a lot of effort to achieve this goal. To do so, he first worked to transform his country from a tribal state of pastoralists and farmers into a new type of power. He recruited skilled craftsmen from the islands and the Greek cities of Asia Minor, developed agriculture on the plains, and intensified the mining activities of the Panguios Mountains, from which he could extract thousands of tarrants of gold and silver every year. He did the right thing, and he succeeded in meeting his expectations, and in ten years he became the overlord of Greece.

One morning, Olympias called out to Alexandria early in the morning.

"Put on Trazia's trousers and a wool cape, no embellishments, and we're ready to go."

"Where are you going?"

The sleepy-eyed Alexander didn't know what was happening, and was picked up by Arestonos. So I had to reluctantly put on my clothes.

"Where are we going?"

"I've prepared my rations and horses, let's go to the gold mines of Pangues, everything is arranged, and I've told them in Polybocon, so you can come with me with confidence."

Although everything was so sudden, Alexander had always wanted to see how the gold mines worked, so he followed Olympias's ass without asking any more questions, he stopped for a moment at the door of his mother's room to say goodbye to her, and then ran downstairs, where a Royal Horse Guard and a carriage were already waiting there, and the two of them got into the carriage and headed east.

They walked for many days, first along the coast, then inland, then on the coast, passing through Terme, Apollonia, Amphipolis. In the evening, they spend the night in a small country inn and eat a traditional Macedonian meal: roasted goat, beaten spore meat, cheese, charcoal toast. The road was criss-crossed and bumpy, and the cavalry was used to it, and both the ancestors and grandchildren were tired enough.

After leaving Amphipolis, they began to climb up a steep path, and suddenly a desolate scene appeared before them—the forest that covered the mountain was gone, full of broken trunks and charred tree stumps, and the bare earth was full of potholes, and at the entrance of each hole was a large pile of rubble, like a mole burrow.

It began to rain heavily, and the royal cavalry wore their caps over their heads and rode forward slowly. Soon Alexander saw a labyrinth of innumerable trenches, many ragged and emaciated men carrying baskets full of rubble, who were obviously working hard and living with great difficulty, and whose inhuman treatment made them basically dark-skinned and rough-skinned, staggering step by step, and staring dull and lifeless. They live numbly, mechanically repeating every movement, not so much as human beings as talking machines. No, they can't even speak, because everything around them doesn't seem to have anything to do with them, and everyone doesn't say a word and doesn't talk to each other.

Alexander knew that miners were the worst of all slaves, and that even in the 21st century, mining was a dangerous operation, and that the lives of miners had not improved much, and that mine owners mostly regarded human life as a matter of care. Alexander's heart was unbearable, his eyes were already moist, he hated slavery from the bottom of his heart, not only emotionally, from the perspective of efficiency, the efficiency of slaves could not be compared with that of salaried workers, under the stimulation of scientific management systems such as the piecework system, human potential was greatly stimulated. But here, even if there is the constant whipping of the overseer, it can't change the low work efficiency, and how can people do things well if they don't even have hope!

Further on, you can see a lot of thick black smoke forming columns of smoke reaching into the sky, and this area is basically filled with a puff of smoke, making it difficult to breathe. Alexander knew that there must be sulfur dioxide in it, but I am afraid that this is not the most poisonous.

At this time, the captain of the royal guard asked everyone to cover their noses with their cloaks, and Alexander was very depressed, muttering: "It's really bad luck to come to this place without even a gas mask." ”…,

But no one heard his muttering, and the area was shrouded in a strange silence, not even the sound of feet on the ground, all the sound was lost in the mud of the dust mixed by the rain, like the eternal kingdom of Hades.

At this time, Alexander remembered Homer's verse:

There are the nations and cities of the Cimmerians

Surrounded by clouds:

Whether the sun rises into the starry sky

Or return from the sky at dusk

It never shines here with its light

Only the eternal darkness hangs over the unfortunate. 1

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a low, rhythmic voice, like the sensation of Kiklops' fist hitting the hillside. So Alexander urged the crowd to keep going, for he wanted to see what machine in this age could make such a loud noise when working.

After turning a ridge, Alexander saw the end of the road. There was a huge machine, similar to the current mill, except that it was made of wood except for the hammer: a tower supported by four stout pieces of wood, with a very primitive pulley at the top, and a huge hammer hung from a very thick hemp rope at one end of the rope, and a winch attached to the other, which was also huge, and was dragged by dozens of unfortunate men. The man carrying the gravel poured the stone directly under the hammer, and when the hammer fell, the gravel became more broken, so that the fine stones were moved to another place by another group of people, and others put them in a bowl and then processed them again into powder, and finally poured the powder into the stream water and washed it, and after a series of sand washes, the gold dust and stone dust were separated.

"This is the gold mine of Mount Pangaios, with which your father and grandfather equipped the Macedonian army, built palaces, and established Macedonian supremacy." Olympias said.

"Why did you bring me here?" Alexander was in a very confused mood. As he spoke, one of the porters collapsed, and the overseer had the body dragged away after confirming that he was dead.

"You haven't seen anything worse?"

"What else?"

"There was no light in the caves day or night, and you had to turn on the lights to walk, and because the caves were so narrow, you had to crawl forward when you entered. In addition, it was filled with the stench of sweat, urine and feces, which would make you feel suffocated, and the continuous sound of hammers, rapid breathing, coughing, and the hoarse moans of the dying could be heard everywhere in the narrow and slender passage. Do you want to go down? ”

"I think it's better to forget it, grandmother, have you ever gone down?"

"No, but if your father and grandfather have gone down, but I can't bear it, you are still so young, if you are infected with any disease, then your mother should not die of distress." Olympias said with a smile, she clearly hadn't thought about going into that hellish place. In Alexander's view, it was a black hole of death.

"Look, there's another dead man over there!"

"The crowd saw another corpse on the edge of a mine. The overseer explained: "There are a lot of suicides here, either by throwing themselves on pickaxes or by digging themselves through with chisels. ”

After listening to the overseer's words, Alexander's right eyelid couldn't help but jump, and what he wanted now was to get out of here as soon as possible, out of this hellish place. He didn't say a word, turned around and walked back. Olympias pursed his lips and returned with him, in her opinion, this grandson's character was not as strong as his father and grandfather's, his heart was too soft-hearted, too kind, and it was not a good thing for an emperor.

"What did they do wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong with it." Olympias replied, "Except to come into this world." ”

Concentrate:

1 Homer, The Odyssey, Vol. XI, lines 14-19.

2 Kiklops: i.e. Cyclops (k?kλwψ/cyclops), the giant of Sicily in Greek mythology.

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