Northeast of Alexandria, Egypt's second largest port, the city of Nokratis, home to Greek immigrants

In the salty sea breeze of hunting, old Pompey's eldest son, Graus. Pompey, also known as Little Pompey, was parading his army in a bright red wool coat on the port square. The eagle banner representing the Romans and the six-pointed star banner of King David representing the Jews

Near the smoky wooden trestle, groups of Roman infantry, with short swords at their waists and shields in their hands, were methodically stepping on the springboard to land ashore. The cavalry struggled to pull their horses, trying to get their mounts through the narrow gangplanks and preventing the cattle from falling overboard.

And the streets of the city of Nokratis were scattered with some slashed corpses, both Egyptian defenders and ordinary citizens. In the scorching sun, the corpses had begun to rot and stink, attracting countless mosquitoes and flies to buzz around them.

Although the outnumbered city of Nokratis was in chaos, it was unable to organize a stubborn resistance. However, some of the most stubborn Greek citizen soldiers in the city inflicted some casualties on Pompey the Younger's army, and at the same time greatly angered the Romans, who took brutal revenge on the resisters. Not only were corpses strewn across the streets, but even the houses in the city of Noklatis were ablaze with a huge fire, and large puffs of smoke rushed into the sky. The blue sea, the red firelight, and the black smoke are intertwined to form a tragic picture. It was as if the ancient city was wailing in pain. However, for Roman soldiers who made massacres and looting their daily routine. A city like this was the most beautiful sight in their hearts, because it usually meant countless slaves and countless booty.

All in all. The city's resistance was quickly razed by the Romans, who then turned it into a bridgehead for further Roman invasions of Egypt.

At this time, in Graus. Pompey was accompanied by the generals who had previously gone into exile in North Africa with him, as well as Marcos Murphy, who had recently changed his flag again. Brutus, the Roman republican governor of Syria who escaped from prison, Cassiyo? Yukina, and the rabbinical priest Antipater, who led the Jewish army to aid in the war. Herod - the biblical King Herod.

Of course. At this time, Herod was only a powerful Jewish priest, and he was still far from the throne of Judaism.

-- With Caesar's violent death and the crushing defeat of his generals in Asia Minor, the situation in the entire Eastern Mediterranean was once again turned upside down.

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Since anchoring in Cyrenaica in North Africa, he has set sail. After breaking up with Cato the Younger and others, Pompey the Younger first took advantage of the south wind to cross the sea to the north, and collected some old parts in Greece and the Aegean islands. He then crossed the Aegean Sea to the port of Tarsus in Asia Minor. with Marcos stationed in the local area. Brutus met in secret. Trying to get his help in contacting the veterans of Pompey's old army, who had surrendered to Caesar, to return to his tent once again - Domitius, the commander of Caesar's Eastern Dispatch Army in Asia Minor? The troops under Calvinus were basically the old troops that Pompey had surrendered on the battlefield of Pharsalus, and had only recently defected to the enemy camp in desperation, so their loyalty to Caesar's party was naturally quite limited.

What's more, before that, Calvinus and his thirty-sixth legion, because of the light enemy rash advance. It had just suffered a major defeat at Nicopolis, in the hinterland of Asia Minor. Then, as the news of Caesar's death spread. The disorganized Calvinus not only continued to lose repeatedly, being chased back by King Pharnacisse all the way from the Anatolian plateau, but also caused his and Rome's prestige in the East to plummet, and the port of Tarsus, which was the rear base, was also panicked. With the cooperation of Brutus, the inner ghost, the 36th Legion, which hastily withdrew to the port of Tarsus, quickly broke out into a mutiny and expelled Domitius? Calvinus, the defeated general, reverted his allegiance to Pompey the Younger.

At the same time, the two legions that had been sent south by Calvinus to Syria by land to support Caesar in Egypt had just arrived in Damascus, Syria, and were in chaos after learning of Caesar's death. Cassiyo, the governor of the Syrian province of the Roman Republic, who was originally arrested and imprisoned for supporting the republicans, also took the opportunity to escape from prison, and at the same time sent henchmen to stir up the tandem, successfully shaking the two Roman legions, which were also dominated by Pompey's surrenders. Immediately afterward, Cassiio launched a short but fierce bloody mutiny, in which Caesar's two legionnaire commanders were killed, some of the soldiers fled from the ranks, and the rest fell to their knees again under the Roman republican banner.

When Cassillo, Brutus, and Pompey the Younger joined forces in southern Syria, Pompey the Younger had three legions under his command. However, due to a series of defeats and attrition from internal strife, all three legions were seriously understaffed, and the total number of troops was only 10,000, which was only half of the quota. Moreover, the young and middle-aged Roman expatriates in the East have now been requisitioned, and this gap cannot be filled in a short time.

So, in order to strengthen his army, Pompey the Younger forcibly recruited 10,000 Jewish auxiliaries - after being completely defeated by Pompey's army more than a dozen years earlier, the Jewish kingdom surrendered to the Roman conqueror, and changed from an independent state into five autonomous regions under the Roman Republic, with a parliament modelled on the Roman administration, with the Jewish priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple as the de facto supreme ruler.

At this time, Pompey led the army to break through Jerusalem in the past, and the Jewish elders did not dare to disobey under the conscription order of his son Pompey the Younger. After some deliberation, Hukenu II, the high priest of the Jerusalem Temple, managed to recruit 10,000 young Jews from all over the Jerusalem area, equipped them with the cheapest spears and other weapons, and let his personal companion Antipater. Herod the priest led the army and went out with Pompey the Younger.

Zuihou, Glaus. Pompey also recruited a merchant fleet from Rhodes and Crete to carry the smorgasbord task force.

However. Although Pompey's army had been pulled up, the food, baggage, and pay to sustain the war had not yet been settled—and the allies of Asia Minor were too busy dealing with the attack of Pontic king Pharnaciss, and now was the time to defend themselves. There was nothing to squeeze out to satisfy little Pompey's appetite. On the contrary, he begged Pompey Jr. to send troops to help him - to this, Pompey Jr., who was anxious to fight back to Italy, naturally refused all of them.

As for Rome's eastern provinces, Asia Minor and Syria, the wealth of this land had already been squeezed out by the republicans in the first two years to raise a large army capable of fighting Caesar, and then lost all of them in the battle of Pharsalus. Now, if we want to carry out a wanton expropriation against these two provinces, which have exhausted the people's wealth, I am afraid that we will immediately put up anti-flags everywhere. There was smoke everywhere.

The Jews further south, who still had some savings, were now holding their noses and going into war, ready to let the young men of the Jews shed their blood for the cause of the Roman republicans. That's a lot of effort in itself. If Pompey the Younger had been greedy enough to insist that they provide the whole army with heavy food and wages, and cause the Jews to lose money and their lives...... He feared that the disgruntled Jewish army would turn against him on the battlefield.

So, after carefully taking stock of the rich and poor in the city of Jerusalem in his neighborhood. Naturally, Pompey Jr. once again set his sights on Egypt, the "bread basket of the Mediterranean". I'm ready to find Queen Cleopatra to "eat big".

-- Affluent Egypt is an extraordinary attraction for people living along the Mediterranean coast. The huge lighthouse towering outside Alexandria is an iconic architectural marvel that every traveler will be amazed by, just like the Statue of Liberty in New York in later generations.

It is a pity that behind the lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, there was not a strong army like the Americans. Egypt and her wealth are like a weak maiden draped in a thin veil. Always helplessly waiting for the strongmen to arrive. The Persians came here, and the ancient Egyptian royal family disappeared; Alexander the Great came. The Macedonians and Greeks then firmly controlled the country; After that, there was the time of the Romans......

From the end of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, Egypt, with a population of 5 million, provided more than one-third of Rome's food output with less than one-tenth of the entire population of Rome, so it was regarded as the granary and lifeblood of the Romans.

In the era of Caesar and Pompey, there was a saying in the Roman political arena: "If you master Egypt, you will control the food supply of Rome, if you control the food supply of Rome, you will control the mob of Rome, and if you control the mob of Rome, you will control the Senate and the supreme power!" ”

Therefore, whether it was the Roman warlords at the end of the Republic, or the Roman emperors of the later imperial era, once they found out that they were short of money and food, they immediately thought of going to Egypt to fight the autumn breeze - and Pompey the Younger, who had just extorted a full sixty boatloads of wheat and a large sum of money from Queen Cleopatra a year earlier, was now familiar with the "old land" in Egypt......

As for the unlucky Queen Cleopatra, soon after Pompey Jr. left, because of that terrible amount of extortion, domestic prices skyrocketed, public resentment boiled, Zuihou caused the regime to fall, and the tragedy of the queen's hasty escape, little Pompey did not pay attention to it at all.

As Lu Xun said: If a lion is fat, it is not good, if it is a pig or a sheep, it is not a good sign if it is fat.

Pompey the Younger, with 20,000 troops, marched by land and sea from Judea (Palestine did not exist at the time) through the city of Pelusim, a fortress in northeastern Egypt that had just been burned to ruins, and then continued to attack the port of Noctis in the middle of the Nile Delta.

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So far, Pompey the Younger's Egyptian robbery has generally gone smoothly, because the country's defense system has just been crumbled in the fierce civil and foreign wars, and there is no way to stop the movement of the Roman army.

The city of Pelusim, the fortress that guarded Egypt's eastern trade routes, had just been blown into ruins by Cleopatra's modern travelers with high-explosive and incendiary bombs, and has not yet been restored, leaving the entire eastern border of Egypt undefended. At the next stop, in the city of Nocrates, Queen Cleopatra only symbolically left a few dozen soldiers to garrison. The administration of the city was still left to the Greek citizens' assembly within the city for self-government - of course, on the premise of recognizing the queen's rule - and the defense liliang was likewise almost nil.

Hence the Roman army that came from the Sinai Peninsula. Encountering almost no decent resistance, the small half of the Nile Delta was easily seized. After seeing the banner of the Jerusalem Temple, there were even a large number of Jews living in the area of Lower Egypt who joined Pompey the Younger!

-- During the Ptolemaic Dynasty, in order to suppress the overwhelming number of Egyptian natives, successive pharaohs had been trying to recruit immigrants and migrate other peoples to settle in Egypt, in order to change the ethnic composition of Egypt. Facilitates the implementation of rule. Because of the Jews' warlike war, tens of thousands of Jews moved into Egypt from Palestine with their families in the form of Ptolemaic mercenaries. A large community was formed in Egypt, almost as it was in the Exodus before Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. But when Egypt was in crisis, these Jews did not hesitate to lead the way...... Thus. Later generations of Westerners were not completely unreasonable.

Next. In the port of Nocrates, little Pompey, who was running out of supplies, finally reaped the first spoils of war - due to the effects of war and famine, there was not much food hoarded in the city, probably only enough for the Roman-Jewish army to eat for about half a month, but there were many other luxuries such as spices and cloths, which made the Romans and Jews who entered the city to sack all their pockets bulging and smiling.

And when the Romans succeeded in intercepting an Egyptian royal caravan under the flag of Cobra on the outskirts of Port Nokratis, and brought out of the wagons the novelties they had never seen before. Even the self-proclaimed most well-informed travelers were all breathless in amazement!

“…… This is silk from the country of Seris in the East! Or the noblest purple! It looks even better than the Parthians! ”

Stroking a gorgeous purple pattern textile taken from a wooden box. Glaus. Pompey couldn't help but let out a somewhat gaffe exclamation.

“…… That's right, it's silk, and it's the best of the best! Look at the bright colors and delicate patterns, and the smooth feel, much stronger than any silk I've seen in the past! Oh! A piece of silk like this can definitely be exchanged for a villa in Rome! ”

Brutus, who was standing behind him, also picked up a soft and light silk from the box and examined it into the sunlight, admiring its beauty and suppleness. He knew that the most comfortable cloth on the shijie was called silk, which grew on a sacred tree in the far east, and was sold by Greek merchants from Bactria, the easternmost part of the Parthian Empire (present-day Afghanistan). And even this place, which sounds like the end of Shijie, is not the origin of this wonderful product - in the east of Bactria, across the Pamir Plateau, where no bird can fly, there is a mysterious country called "Seris", where the people of Seris who live there cultivate this magical and wonderful species.

Although even the most learned Romans had never seen such a silk tree with their own eyes, many even felt that it was nothing more than a story concocted by cunning Greeks to raise prices. But the Roman magnates, who really had the money to buy silk, usually didn't care about giving these rapping Greeks a little more money. Moreover, this fabric, called silk, is indeed wonderful, and only such a material is worthy of their noble status.

In the past, when he was in Rome, Brutus once bought a very commendable silk undergarment from a Greek caravan specializing in luxury goods, and this silk garment felt so comfortable to wear, when the soft fabric touched the skin, it was as if the fingers of a virgin were gently caressing him. But the problem is that the price of just a few feet of fabric can be exchanged for a small farm!

Seeing this excessively high price, Brutus also questioned it, but the Greek merchant who sold silk immediately cried out.

According to these merchants, in order to transport these wonderful silks to Rome, they had to start from distant Bactria, through the steppes and deserts, over the snow-capped mountains, to reach the valley between the upper reaches of the two great rivers, and from here the road was split in two to the west - the merchants, who did not want the Parthian tax collectors and the checkpoint soldiers to steal most of their profits, had to risk their lives through the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and Armenia to reach the Greek colonial city-states on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Then take the sea route to reach the civilization Shijie; Willing to be tortured by the Parthians, the merchants followed the royal routes left over from the ancient Persian Empire through the dry and scorching Syrian desert and finally boarded a port on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.

Either way, in order to transport the silk from the other end of Shijie to Rome, the merchants had to endure not only getting lost, hungry and thirsty, snowstorms, sandstorms, and their lives being attacked by wild beasts and bandits, but also enduring the exploitation of countless checkpoints along the way. Generally speaking, if someone is able to walk this long road back and forth three times unharmed, he is already the lucky one who has been blessed by the gods.

Not to mention that even in the origin of the East, silk is an expensive luxury. Moreover, it was already difficult for the Seris to transport silk from their capital (Chang'an) to the Greek merchants of Bactria. As a reward for their survival along the way, the Roman buyers at the end of this trade route should naturally pay a sky-high price for these hard-won silks.

As a result, Brutus had to pay the bill in full, and was distressed by this large expense for several days. (To be continued.) For mobile phone users, please go to read. )