Of course, even if the Egyptian government could not get a financial subsidy, the priests of Memphis could requisition local labor for free and slowly rebuild the temple and the city...... In order to block this possibility, Queen Cleopatra issued an earth-shattering migration order, claiming that after the war, the capital's population had been drastically reduced and the land was barren. Therefore, tens of thousands of people near Memphis City should be relocated to enrich the population of the capital.

-- Don't you want to create a self-governing city-state in Memphis, a holy city of religion, and play the "kingdom of God on earth," and rely on your deep-rooted influence for 3,000 years, thinking that no matter which monarch can do anything about you? All right! Then I'll pull everyone away and fight you in another place! Now that the city is ruined, and the land is desolate, and the people have been taken away, build the kingdom of God on the ruins of the weeds.

As for the priests who are willing to follow the queen, since they have been stripped of their believers and traditional bases, they can only obediently work as wage earners in a short period of time.

Regarding the Egyptian queen's strategy of drawing salaries from the bottom of the kettle, the Memphis priesthood was naturally furious, but there was nothing to be done, because it was all legal.

-- Thanks to the communal mode of production in the ancient Egyptian countryside and the draconian edicts of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the vast majority of the land in Egypt was theoretically owned by the royal family, and the land near the city of Memphis was no exception. Each village leased royal land in the form of a lease, by paying rent in kind, and the title deeds could be changed at any time. The peasants were strictly controlled in the village community and were not allowed to move freely, and their labor was strictly regulated, receiving seeds, tools, and livestock from the pharaoh's officials. And the entire production process, from planting to harvesting and processing, must be supervised and arranged by officials...... In simple terms. It's about the same as serfs. The reason why the temple priests of Memphis were able to empty the royal power and turn the land into a private kingdom was because they monopolized a large part of the low-level official positions, and they were supported by gods and beliefs, so they could deceive their subordinates, embezzle taxes, do not treat Pharaoh as their master, and even forge land deeds. Take large tracts of arable land for yourself. But the trouble is that the rightful owners of these peasants are, after all, Pharaoh, and if Pharaoh orders to move the peasants away. Left uninhabited, the power of the priests was nowhere to be exercised.

Belch? You say that the priests have changed the documents and turned the land and the peasants into their property? Well...... This, the sharp tomahawk of your "disciplined" Syrian mercenaries. It would definitely be very efficient to "help" the priests to change the documents back.

Of course. In normal times, the priests could have started a popular movement against the migration and made a fuss about it—no peasant in any country would be happy to leave his homeland—but the problem was that three years of crop failure, coupled with the plundering of Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII, had wiped out the grain storage near Memphis, which was now entirely dependent on the relief of Queen Cleopatra. so that there was no outbreak of mass starvation. If the queen no longer provides relief food, the local farmers will have to stop for a month at most......

-- No matter how powerful the magic of religion is. Nor is it strong enough for believers to starve to death at home without going elsewhere to receive relief.

Moreover, the destination of this large-scale migration was not a poor country where no one would go without, but Alexandria, the most prosperous city in the West at that time...... Regardless of ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, the Beijing household registration is always a good thing with gold content, and I don't know how many people still can't ask for it!

(Imagine if the government paid for the poor people in the northwest ravines to move to Shanghai during the Republican era.) ）

Although some radical priests advocated simply pulling the flag and rebelling, using force to demonstrate against the queen and the "false gods". But where are the food, weapons, and officers of the rebellion? What was the goal of the believers in participating in the rebellion? So that he can starve to death in his hometown?

Even if the Memphis priesthood had some contact with the rebel army in Upper Egypt, the Upper Egyptian side also had no crops for two consecutive years, but this year there was no war, and there was no way to buy grain from foreign countries by sea, and they were also starving and in a terrible situation. What's more, the one-day destruction of the 30,000-strong army of Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII was just happening in front of him, and most of the pampered priests were not so forgetful and crazy.

So, despite the reluctance of the Memphis Priesthood to do so, in the end they had no choice but to bow to Queen Cleopatra.

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Under the scorching sun, standing next to the towering pyramids of the Giza Heights, looking at the vast flow of people slowly walking north with the old and the young, and the billowing smoke of the burning villages in the distance, Wang Qiu couldn't help but shake his head and sigh slightly.

In 3100 BC, Menes, the first king to unify all of Egypt, established the capital city of Memphis on the border between Upper and Lower Egypt. Nestled among the dense palm trees on the west bank of the Nile, the city has unparalleled political and symbolic significance.

Over the next 1,600 years, hundreds of pharaohs devoted great efforts to the capital, making it a temple and a majestic palace. Later, during the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, around 1450 BC, the capital of Egypt was moved to Thebes in Upper Egypt. However, Memphis still maintained its status as the capital of Lower Egypt and a religious holy city, and the bustle of pilgrims is still undiminished.

However, this glorious city, which has survived a 3,000-year-old civilization, is now about to be abandoned.

-- According to the Queen's decree, all the peasants who rented state land in the suburbs of Memphis, after each of them had been given ten days' rations, were driven and supervised by the army, and the whole village was relocated to the outskirts of the capital. Their rations and household goods before the next harvest season were provided by the government - as a result of the fierce fighting of soldiers and horses from all walks of life, almost 200,000 people died in the originally densely populated urban area and suburbs of Alexandria, thus freeing up a large amount of living space, and some of them were vacant fields and houses to accommodate them.

After all the peasants were pulled away, the remnants of the priests became water without a source and a tree without roots, and since then there have been no believers and offerings, and even their own survival is difficult. So either run to other cities and oases, or follow the migrated farmers to the capital. Only a handful of the most stubborn clergy remained in the ruined ruins, living on their former food stocks and small plots of land they had cultivated.

“…… Alas, if the Egyptian gods had seen their temples so abandoned, they would have been furious! ”

After watching for a while under the scorching sun, Wang Qiu turned his head and said to Queen Cleopatra beside him, "...... Aren't you scared when you hear that the ancient Egyptian priests were very powerful at cursing them? (To be continued......)