Another time and space, Alexandria, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt

After an unprecedented catastrophe, the most prosperous port city in the ancient Mediterranean was devastated at this time.

Thousands of corpses are scattered in every corner of the city, whether it is streets, alleys, courtyards, or shops, they are filled with the terrible stench of corpses. They died in a variety of ways, their belongings looted, and swarms of buzzing flies lingered on their bodies.

Many of the corpses had begun to decompose, or had been pecked by birds and beasts, revealing the white bones inside. Herds of wild dogs were gnawing at the carcasses, their eyes red. When a large group of soldiers passed, the wild dogs would bark in fright and run away, but would never go away, but kept loitering in the vicinity, waiting for the "intruder" to leave, so that they could return and continue their feast.

Many ragged, homeless and hungry women and children were helplessly digging through the rubble with sticks and hands, desperately searching for anything to eat, and even fighting each other for a piece of clothing or a salted fish.

However, with the arrival of Queen Cleopatra, the gradual restoration of order, and the acquisition of several containers of wheat through a wormhole across time and space for the relief of refugees, the ruined city finally began to gradually come back to life.

-- In the dozens of relief sheds outside the city, there is always a fire burning under the cauldron where wheat porridge is boiling. In front of the shed, refugees waiting to receive relief are lining up all the time. Relying on the meager relief of two bowls of wheat porridge per person per day. Most of the remaining citizens survived half-starved. The able-bodied men were also requisitioned and organized by the Queen's officials to pay them three extra bowls of wheat a day. The royal family hired them to clear the rubble, bury the bodies, and reclean the aqueducts and drains so that the ruined city could be restored to habitable conditions as quickly as possible. Others, led by a handful of stonemasons and bricklayers, had reluctantly assembled hastily assembled construction teams to build improvised houses for the displaced civilians, and to make the city more and more praise for the kindness of Queen Cleopatra.

In general, the situation is getting better little by little, almost everyone thinks. This bustling metropolis will be rejuvenated and reborn.

At this time, in the grand imperial tent on the outskirts of the city, the queen of Cleopatra, Bixia, was wearing heavy makeup and graceful and luxurious. Sonya, who has been transformed into a werewolf and disguised as Anubis, the god of death, is being worshipped by the remaining nobles in the city and the nearby magistrates.

However, although the queen of Cleopatra, Bixia, at this time, seems to have the power in her hands. Even the invincible Roman legions were wiped out in front of her. But in the land of Egypt, there are still people who dare to jump out and embarrass her.

-- That is, the Egyptian priesthood that has been in charge of the religious shrine of Memphis for 3,000 years since the birth of ancient Egyptian civilization.

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Although at the beginning of Queen Cleopatra's exile in Syria, the Egyptian priests of the ancient capital of Memphis had given her a lot of support, and it was they who sent people to fool the queen back from abroad.

But the problem is that when Queen Cleopatra actually led her troops to the Egyptian border, these little brave guys shrank back again. Except for the small amount of grain and money that was barely delivered, the promised response to the uprising was completely gone. Forced Queen Cleopatra to retreat, and almost had to follow the trajectory of history. Wrap yourself in a rug and give it to Caesar...... It wasn't until Queen Cleopatra relied on the help of the "people of the future" to successfully defeat the strong enemy and recover the capital Alexandria, that in the course of the previous series of wars, the Memphis City priesthood, who had been slow to react and ambiguous, finally sent messengers to negotiate: several bald priests with arrogant expressions and luxurious clothes.

At the beginning, the attitude of the bald priests was really quite arrogant, not only did they not bring any gifts, but they were also very rude to the queen Bixia - they had just stepped into the royal tent, and they just reluctantly congratulated the queen on her victory, and then they offered a lot of extravagant conditions, not only for money, power and land, but also for a large number of people to be stuffed into the queen's court, as if they wanted to completely set up Queen Bixia as a puppet. And the price they are willing to pay is nothing more than a fluttering sentence of "recognizing Cleopatra as the pharaoh of Egypt".

In addition, these priests from Memphis also angrily accused the queen of messing around with evil ways during the war, and actually made a group of weirdos to pretend to be messengers of the gods. As Egyptian priests serving Anubis, the god of death, and Bastet, the cat god, they could not tolerate this...... But when Sonia turned into a werewolf and screamed and pounced on them to the ground, they were all scared and full of urine.

However, scared urine is scared of pee, and if they don't admit it, they don't admit it or don't admit it - although the living "God Anubis" is in front of them, and although Sonya's wolf paw has been put on the necks of these priests, they still have a hard mouth, and they refuse to admit that the thing in front of them is the real god!

No way, you have to know what religious people are most afraid of? The first fear is that a large number of believers have apostasy or become atheists, and the second fear is, of course, that the true God has descended to earth - as the saying goes, "the closer to God, the less religious", generally speaking, the more senior the clergy, the more aware they are of what their gods are...... They may be happy to make a clay sculpture and wood sculpture, and spend a lot of money to decorate it with gold and beauty, so as to help themselves fool the believers into donating money and materials to offer beautiful women, but they absolutely cannot bear that this clay sculpture suddenly becomes a living thing, and asks them for this and that, and gives orders.

For example, medieval Europeans were known for their devotion to their faith, and the clergy of the Church proclaimed themselves "servants of the Lord." But the problem is, if there was an angel who was sent by God to give his will. The Holy See's first reaction must have been: "...... The stake is ready, and the Inquisition is fully mobilized! Hurry up and send that birdman bitch who claims to be an angel on his way! ”

Previously, in the time and space of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453, the reason why the Orthodox Church and the time-travelers cooperated quite happily. It was because the Orthodox Church in Constantinople was cornered by Turkish Muslims at that time, and its destruction was only in the blink of an eye, and it was already desperate to survive. Then the former Prime Minister of Kotori Yu Mahaku used the "Evil King True Eye" to control the Orthodox Patriarch, plus the traversers have not directly come to the front desk to give orders in the name of God, the priests and nuns have reluctantly lost their temperance and cooperated closely with these unknown guys.

And the Egyptian priesthood in Memphis City in this time and space obviously did not have such a strong sense of crisis - although it had been since more than two hundred years ago. Since the Macedonian army entered Egypt and established the Ptolemaic Dynasty, their local religious elites have been greatly reduced. But there was no real threat to the survival of the Egyptian priesthood...... Seeing that the dynasty was crumbling in the face of external and internal troubles, the Egyptian priesthood in Memphis became more and more ecstatic, repeatedly instigating civil strife and trying to fish in troubled waters. Restore your former power and glory in the midst of chaos.

However. It never seemed to occur to these Egyptian priests, who thought highly of themselves, that the Ptolemaic dynasty, as a foreign colonial power, had many restrictions on them, preventing them from doing whatever they wanted in the days of the native Egyptian dynasties. But when Cleopatra was defeated and replaced by the Romans, could she be more polite to these pagan priests?

(During the reign of the Roman Empire, Egypt bore the heaviest taxes of the entire empire, paying more than half of its grain harvest each year without compensation.) It was shipped to Italy by sea, where it was used by the Roman emperor to distribute free bread to the citizens of Rome. Buying people's hearts. Prior to this, the pharaohs of ancient Egypt had levied only one-sixth to one-quarter of the tax. In terms of political power, the Egyptians were strictly excluded from the Roman Empire's political system, and among the many provinces of the Roman Empire, only Egypt never had an emperor. ）

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Seeing that these Egyptian priests, who originally seemed to enthusiastically support themselves, first cheated themselves fiercely, causing themselves to almost fall into a desperate situation outside the city of Pelusim, and now after the "true god descends to earth", they are even more arrogant, and they are bent on embarrassing themselves, and the angry Cleopatra has begun to think about whether it is time to carry out another "Memphis massacre" or "Memphis plague"!

Thankfully, before Queen Cleopatra, Bixia, could figure out what to do with the frustrated Egyptian priests, her brother's husband was already doing the work for her—a few days later, one evening, several bald priests, covered in wounds, escaped from Memphis on a clipper, bringing with them the shocking news that Ptolemy XIII had stormed Memphis and burned all the temples!

It turned out that Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII, who had been on a personal expedition before, saw that the front-line army was defeated by his sister without knowing what evil art he used, and Alexandria behind him was raided by Pompey. With thousands of miscellaneous soldiers, he was caught in a dilemma between the front and back. After some deliberation with his cronies, he unexpectedly jumped out of the battlefield and retreated up the Nile to Upper Egypt in the south.

From the perspective of military science, the most correct strategy is to dance out of the enemy's chosen battlefield without dancing to the enemy's preset beat. So, from a purely tactical point of view, this choice of Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII was undoubtedly quite clever.

But the problem is that when Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII left the capital, he only planned to launch a quick and decisive small campaign in the suburbs, and was not prepared for such a long expedition, and the military salaries, food and other materials he carried with him were seriously insufficient. Moreover, the soldiers under his command saw the capital Alexandria and half of the country fall in an instant, and now they are also panicked and restless, and they urgently need a large reward to appease the army.

So, in order to raise funds and food and grass to maintain the army's battle, as well as to vent his anger that the Romans who were defeated by his sister and robbed of his nest by the Romans, Ptolemy XIII simply broke through the Egyptian religious holy city of Memphis on the way south!

-- Under the bloody sword and bow, the originally invincible Memphis priesthood finally revealed their greatest weakness: although it had a huge appeal and influence on the Egyptian people. Huge wealth has been hoarded, but the most critical military power is missing!

And the high status and psychological shock of many Egyptian temples in Memphis are limited to the indigenous Egyptians. For the Ptolemaic army, which consisted mainly of Greeks and Macedonians, around the pharaoh. It simply doesn't make sense.

As a result, after a rather short street battle, Pharaoh's army successfully stormed the holy city. The red-eyed pharaoh first took all the rich savings in the city for himself, and then washed all the Egyptian priests who had been working against the Ptolemaic royal family for many years, and Zuihou also set a fire to burn a series of temples dedicated to the god Amun, the god of the Nile, Habi, the god of death, and other Egyptian gods.

Relying on the countless gold, silver, treasures, and food supplies stolen from the temple of Memphis, Ptolemy XIII finally had a temporary respite.

Then. At the suggestion of his second sister, Princess Arsino, who had managed to escape from Roman surveillance and flee from Alexandria, Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII reformulated the battle jihua. He was going to leave a force in Memphis to monitor movements in the Nile Delta, and then he would take his entire court up the Nile River and continue to move towards the rebellious Upper Egypt region. Wait until after the counterinsurgency field forces in Upper Egypt have been assembled. He can use the wealth he just looted. Recruit the best from among the Greek and Macedonian immigrants from the Faiyum region and reassemble a strong legion to once again compete with the Elder Sister and the Romans who were entrenched in the coastal areas.

However, no matter what Ptolemy XIII had for the future, for the Memphis priests who had escaped from the slaughterhouse, none of this had anything to do with them, because their shijie had already been destroyed.

-- Even the temple is gone, and the holy city is occupied by enemy soldiers. What else can they, monks, and priests do?

Well? Go to the countryside and organize believers to launch an armed uprising and counterattack the holy city? I'm sorry. These pampered and fat-brained Egyptian priests are not the thieves and monks of the Japanese Warring States Sect who hold a knife in one hand and chant scriptures in the other, and they cannot do such a difficult and high-risk life-playing business.

As a result, the priests of Memphis, who had lost the temple, had to make a miserable journey north, preparing to flee to the temple on this side of Alexandria for temporary refuge. When I got to the ground, I found that the situation was just as bad, and the landlord didn't seem to be very friendly......

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“…… The greatest and most powerful God in the world! The incarnation of the Nile, the spokesman of the god of water, Amun? Son of Ra, reincarnation of Osiris, beloved Pharaoh of Egypt, help us rebuild the temple! There is no place for the gods of Egypt now! ”

A chubby, bald priest stood in front of the queen, wringing his hands, and cried out in regret, looking unusually depressed, "...... There is hardly a single temple in the city of Alexandria that is intact! The magnificent altar of Agora was reduced to a pile of rubble, and the roof of the Temple of Thrabys (the patron deity of Alexandria, similar to the relationship between the goddess Athena and Athens) collapsed. The sandalwood idol of Horus was split into firewood. The temple of the god Amun seemed to have been overturned by a strong wind...... Now, we can only live in tents and burn incense and pray in front of the clay statue! This is a great disrespect to the gods! O great Pharaoh! We hope that you will immediately allocate the money to restore the abode of these gods! ”

However, in the face of the tearful Egyptian priest, Queen Cleopatra Bixia only glanced at him with mocking eyes, and was very disdainful of this creature's character—seeing so many rotting bones that had not yet been buried, as well as displaced women and children, the priests did not feel the slightest sadness and sympathy for the plight of these living people, but were so concerned about the dead things piled up with stones.

“…… Unfortunately, I can't afford to use what little savings I have to build these cumbersome and useless temples! Don't forget, my palace was also reduced to ruins in this disaster, and I, the daughter of the gods, can live in tents, but you servants of the gods cannot? ”

The Queen of Egypt pursed her lips and categorically refused, "...... The immediate priority is not to build these flashy ornaments, but to invest financial resources in the relief of refugees in the first place, so as to avoid famine and riots; The second is to clean up the ruins of the urban area, re-clear the roads and blocks, and build simple shelters for the poor; The third is to expand and strengthen the army to deal with the enemy in all directions surrounding the country. Only when the common people of the city were settled, and the clouds of war had receded, would I consider whether or not to spend the remaining money on the construction of the temple. ”

She raised a hand and stopped the Egyptian priest, whose face was flushed and seemed to be trying to argue, "...... Alright, please go down! You are not welcome in my tent right now! When I'm in a better mood, I'll summon you again! ”

Looking at the priest who was leaving in embarrassment, the queen of Egypt suddenly felt a sullen breath in her chest, and her mood was much happier...... However, in the next moment, a small piece of paper hurriedly sent by Cynthia, the personal maid, made her mood rise again.

“…… What the? Another Roman?! So fast?!! (To be continued.) )