Xia now has a population of 30,000 people and maintains an army of 2,500 people, which is already quite high, almost reaching the ratio of eleven to one.

In ancient times, cities needed large areas of rural areas to feed, and if the countryside was abandoned, the common people in the cities would not be able to support themselves, let alone raise soldiers.

Historically, if we look at the proportion of the population of the country as a whole, the ratio of population to military strength in a centralized country like China in non-war times has been between 200 to 1 to 50 to 1.

For example, at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, its population was nearly 100 million, and there were about 2 million troops, compared with 5.2 million soldiers when the country was founded. This is redundancy, which will place a very serious burden on the country's financial institutions.

And like the feudal fiefdom system in Europe, the population ratio is much lower than that of China, even in wartime, the number of population and army is only one hundred to one, most of which are temporary conscriptions, and the militia is less in peacetime, so the ancient wars in Western Europe are the scale of thousands of people, such as the Normandy landing, the famous Battle of Hasting, this battle decided the fate of Britain and France for hundreds of years, but the total strength of the two sides involved in the war was only 20,000 people.

As for the nomads, they have no state to speak of, and there is no distinction between civilians and soldiers, they have as many men as there are soldiers, and sometimes even as many soldiers as there are men.

And now the Xia State, although it is a country with a centralized system. But maintaining a standing army of 2,500 men is already the limit.

If you want to expand the army, you must increase the population, and after thinking about it, Wang Lang decided to send an army of 500 people to the north. Go capture the scattered human tribes.

Three days later, Wang Lang drew an army of 200 people from Yancheng and Linhe City, and another 100 troops from the other three cities, and slaughtered to the north with great momentum.

The march was led by the captain of the Fourth Expedition, and Wang Lang demanded a new stronghold 100 meters to the north, and asked for a garrison of 50 troops there.

Wang Lang estimated that if all the people in the north could be gathered, it would probably increase nearly half of the population of the Xia Kingdom, and the grain output of the Xia Kingdom would be bumper every year in the past few years, and the grain would be enough to feed about 100,000 people, and there would be absolutely no problem in feeding these people.

A month later, the Ministry of Industry built the animal power forging hammer.

After seeing this huge animal forging hammer, Wang Lang was very satisfied with the efficiency of the Ministry of Industry.

In order to test the effect of this forging hammer, three strong horned dragons were brought in.

The ceratosaurus with its nose ring on it was honest and at the mercy of weak humans.

With the swing of the whip, the ceratosaurus began to move slowly, and with a cacophony of friction, the hammer began to work.

The huge bronze hammer rumbled down, and its speed and strength were unknown how many times stronger than manpower.

"Your Majesty, this is really a miracle, with this thing, it is not difficult to forge iron weapons at all!" Li Tong said excitedly.

"Li Shilang, how long do you think it will take to produce an iron knife with this thing?" Wang Lang said with a smile.

"Your Majesty, if there are three of these things, I don't dare to say more, but it is not difficult to produce ten iron knives a day." Li Tong said respectfully.

Wang Lang nodded, ten a day is already enough, with the current number of horned dragons can only maintain four forging hammers, and said in a deep voice: "Send this to the iron-making workshop first, try it for a few days, if there is no problem, you can make a few more." ”

"Yes!" Li Tong said respectfully.

At the same time that the Ministry of Industry was in full swing to make steel, the "archaeological team" finally made a discovery.

It took more than a month to clean up the ruins, and the people found some traces of civilization in the buried ruins.

According to Wang Lang's request, they carefully preserved these things and sent them to Yancheng overnight.

It was already noon the next day when the things were delivered, and when Wang Lang got the news, he immediately ordered these things to be sent to his "palace".

Looking at the pile of miscellaneous things in front of him, Wang Lang frowned.

Most of these items are strange-looking bronzes, which look like some kind of sacrificial objects or living tools.

These things have no research value for the time being, and what Wang Lang cares about the most is those frescoes.

Wang Lang carefully pieced together these murals as if playing a jigsaw puzzle, although they were a little incomplete, but they could also see the general content.

The mural was painted with brightly colored dye, and it is not known what kind of substance this dye is, and it has not faded after being buried in the soil for so long.

In this mural more than three meters long, groups of strange-looking people are depicted, although they are relatively abstract, but Wang Lang feels that they are similar to those dinosaur people found, and they are probably the same species.

The group knelt on the ground with strange expressions, bowing to a tall statue, and below the statue was an altar-like thing, next to the altar, there were cages, and inside the cages were naked human beings.

Several dinosaur people stood on the altar and hung a human upside down, cutting off his head, spurting a large amount of blood from the broken part of his neck.

The blood flowed down to the altar below, following an eerie pattern to the ground.

After reading the content on this screen, Wang Lang pondered.

This mural is supposed to depict some kind of sacrificial ritual of dinosaur people, but I don't know why humans are used as sacrifices, and looking at the expressions of those dinosaur people, it is clear that they hate human beings very much, as if there is some blood hatred.

The humans' sluggish expressions didn't look like they could threaten the dinosaur people, and he couldn't figure it out.

With the strength of the dinosaurs, it should be easy to eliminate uncivilized humans, how could humans survive in the end, but they became extinct, this question has always plagued Wang Lang.

Shaking his head, not thinking about these unsolved mysteries, Wang Lang picked up a bronze and looked at it, this bronze is very exquisitely made, if the patina on it is removed, it should be a very beautiful work of art.

This can't help but make Wang Lang feel impressed by the artistic achievements of this extinct dinosaur civilization, although the bronze smelting process of the Xia Kingdom is also very mature, but for the new country with no cultural accumulation, everything is practical first, and the things made have no appreciation value at all.

The advanced nature of a civilization is not only reflected in science and technology, art also occupies a large part of it, through these unearthed items, this civilization has reached the peak of the Bronze Age in both technology and art, and is definitely a powerful civilization.