Yemen!

This is the choke point of maritime trade between the countries bordering the Red Sea and the East since ancient times!

It is also an important commercial and trade center for the Bedouins in the Hejaz region!

Whether it is the Bedouins, Romans, Aksumites or Persians who have just occupied Yemen in the Hejaz, they are well aware of the importance of this node, which has been a great competitor to the Persian Gulf trade routes for hundreds of years.

Two hundred years ago, in order to fight their most powerful opponents, the Persians united with the Southern Tianzhu people to defeat the merchants of the Roman Empire who were involved in the maritime trade between the East and the West, forcing them to withdraw from the maritime trade with the East, so that the maritime trade in the Red Sea has been in the hands of the Axumites ever since.

Axum, a powerful dynasty in the ancient history of Ethiopia in Africa, was founded around the 1st century AD, when it was first mentioned in the Red Sea Voyage written by an ancient Greek merchant, ethnically believed to be a mixture of white and black Arabs.

When the merchants of the Roman Empire were forced to withdraw from the maritime trade from Tianzhu to the Red Sea, the Axumites on the western shore of the Red Sea gradually took over the role of Roman merchants in this role, and after participating in the maritime trade between the East and the West, the Axumites quickly became powerful.

During the reign of their king Ezana (320-360), the rapidly growing Aksumites conquered the Ethiopian plateau, Meroe, and some of South Arabia along the Red Sea, forming a powerful state that straddled both sides of the Red Sea.

King Ezana also converted to Christianity, making Axum the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion, and the kingdom became one of the few countries in history that was quite tolerant of Jews because of its kindness to the Jews.

After the country became stronger, Ezana began to implement a new phonetic script--- Geezi, which evolved over thousands of years to form the official script of today's Ethiopia, Aham Haric.

The kingdom of Axum, which quickly became strong by maritime trade, promoted its maritime trade activities after the country quickly became strong, and it soon became a maritime trade power in the Red Sea region, and Adulis was the most important trading center of Axum at that time.

This famous city's proximity to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which makes it easy to control shipping in the Red Sea, is as strategically located as Yemen; It is not far from the Atbara River in the west, and can go north to the middle reaches of the Nile River along the river, so it is also the distribution center of the Aksu curtain and inland trade.

Here, ironware, cotton, wine, and ornaments from the Roman Viceroyalty of western Italy, the Viceroyalty of Egypt, Constantinople, and even Tianzhu were brought into Aduris, while gold, ivory, spices, rhino horn, and hawksbill turtles from the African continent were shipped out.

Because of the frequent maritime trade activities, Axum had established a relatively complete monetary system, and they used gold, silver, and copper coins with the king's head, which was undoubtedly very beneficial to the promotion of commerce.

The Aksumites not only developed seafaring trade, but they also built a large number of terraces and many irrigation projects on the Ethiopian plateau, where they cultivated wheat and grapes, and they also grazed cattle and sheep in large quantities, and tamed wild elephants.

Skilled Axumite craftsmen have carved (not masonry) churches and numerous bunkers on a hilltop not far from the city.

In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Aksumite people were the most powerful period, not only many lands in South Arabia bordering the Red Sea were their territory, but even the Hejaz, Yabrit and many South Arabian city-states also called the Aksumite country at this time, and King Ezana was called "the king of kings" at that time.

When a country becomes strong, of course, it cannot be isolated, and when it becomes strong, it will inevitably participate in various international disputes, especially when the Red Sea shipping routes controlled by the Axumites conflict with the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates trade routes controlled by the Persians, the Axumites also had to be drawn into the conflict between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire.

Because of the strength of the Axumite state at this time, it could play an important role in ancient international politics, and after the accession of Justinian I the Great (527 AD), the Roman Empire tried to make peace with Axum in order to better fight against the powerful Persian Empire.

With the support of Emperor Justinian I, just over 40 years ago (525 AD), King Gareb of Axum conquered and occupied Yemen, taking control of this important transportation artery that controlled the Red Sea and further consolidated and expanded his control over the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Justinian I not only actively supported Gareb's conquest and occupation of Yemen, but also sent two envoys to Axum, and asked Axumite merchants to buy as much raw silk as possible from China to the Lion Kingdom (Sri Lanka) and resell it to the Roman Empire in large quantities to combat the Persia that controlled the raw silk trade.

This is one of the reasons why Roman merchants were suspicious of Xia occupying the Zhiyuan Islands, because at that time, it was the Aksumites who controlled Yemen and other important places along the Red Sea coast, and they had to take into account the will of their allies. Beanie boxes

Later, Belsalika was able to agree to Wang Ze's request, and because he was only the envoy of the Egyptian governor Humouf, the interests of the Egyptian governorate were greater than the interests of the central city of the Roman Empire, which was an important reason why he gave up his support for the Axumes.

When the Aksumites occupied Yemen at first, they did not attract the attention of the Persians, partly because the Persian Empire at this time had to not only fight against the Roman Empire, which was rapidly recovering under the leadership of Emperor Justinian I, but also had to face the constant attacks of the powerful Huns in the northeast.

On the other hand, although the Aksumites occupy a part of the trade in the east-west sea route, after all, due to their limited national strength, the east-west trade route is still dominated by the Persian Gulf, and their threat to the Persian Gulf trade route is not so great.

And with the development of the Red Sea trade over the past few decades, the increasingly rampant piracy in the Red Sea has also made this trade route, which is already under many threats, face great challenges.

But after He Liang began to occupy the Zhiyuan Islands and transferred tens of thousands of people from Wang Ze for large-scale development and construction, the Persians, who had always been extremely calm, finally felt that they could no longer sit idly by!

At this time, the Persian Empire, after uniting with the Turks, had completely expelled and eliminated the Hata Huns who were entrenched in the Transoxiana region.

Most of the Hateda Huns were slaughtered and expelled, and some of the Bada Huns fled to the Xindu River Valley in Tianzhu in the northwest, where they established many large and small countries, and the threat to the inland of Tianzhu began to increase, and later the Bada Huns gradually penetrated into the inland countries of Tianzhu.

The Persian Empire, after the demise of the Huns, had completely solved its worries.

In the face of the resumption of Justinian II's large-scale war against Persia, the Persian Emperor Kusru I (Kuslao I) defeated the declining Roman Empire, forcing Justinian II to continue to accept the policy of exchanging money for peace.

The Persian Empire, on the other hand, took advantage of the defeat of the Roman Empire's army, sent a large army south along the coastline, quickly defeated the Axumites here, and not only seized part of Axum's territories and trade cities on the east coast of the Red Sea, but also occupied Yemen, a key maritime trade point located at the exit of the Red Sea.

However, the Persians did not want to participate in the maritime trade along the Red Sea coast, but their purpose was to completely cut off the Red Sea sea routes, so that merchants from all countries had to continue to trade with the Roman Empire from the Persian Gulf along the Euphrates River through Persia.

There is no doubt that the Persians' actions this time were not only against the Aksumites and Romans, but also against the Xia Kingdom's reaction to the occupation of the Zhiyuan Islands, while the Hejaz and Yabrit were purely a fish in the pond.

It is nothing for the Aksumites to participate in the maritime trade from Tianzhu to the Red Sea, but it is different for the Xia State to operate the Zhiyuan Islands, once the Xia Kingdom settles down in the Zhiyuan Islands and personally trades with the Romans and Axumes, this will be a fatal blow to the Persian Gulf commerce monopolized by the Persians.

If it were other countries, it was estimated that the Persians, who were used to domineering at this time, would probably directly crush them with their relatively strong army, but in the face of the Xia State occupying the Zhiyuan Islands, the Persians did not dare to do so.

Because at this time, the Xia State had already controlled the route from Persia to Tianzhu to a large extent through the Pearl Islands and Dingrong City occupied in the Western Ocean, and the Xia State firmly controlled all parts of the South Seas further east, and even choked the route from Persia to the East.

Although the Persians were able to easily capture the Zhiyuan Islands and easily kill He Liang and others above, they didn't dare, whether it was Wang Ze's control of the route, or Wang Ze's revenge on Nan Tianzhu at the beginning, which led to the death of Nan Tianzhu in the past, all of which made the Persians jealous.

You can't move He Liang, you can't move the interests of Xia Kingdom in the Zhiyuan Islands!

Things seemed to be difficult, but this did not bother the Persians, and they quickly found a solution, as long as they controlled Yemen, an important trade route, they could easily cut off the important trade route of the Red Sea, and even the Xia Kingdom could not say anything about it.

The Persians' actions were a great economic blow to the Roman Empire, but they not only cut off the trade routes of Roman merchants, but also all the countries along the Red Sea coast.

Especially in the barren Hejaz and Yabrit in South Arabia, the barren land in the Hejaz region could not support more people, and the Bedouins here in the Hejaz and Yabrit relied on this trade route to survive, and the Persians' practices were undoubtedly in danger of their survival.

Under such variables, the Romans and Axumes, who were originally the most resolute in opposing Xia's management of the Zhiyuan Islands, changed their previous opposition and welcomed He Liang's management of the Zhiyuan Islands, but it was the Persians who occupied Yemen who gave He Liang a strong threat.

The Persians did not make any overt threats to He Liang, but soon after they began to appear with pirates and attack the Zhiyuan Islands, He Liang had to ask Qu Xu, who was stationed in the Pearl Islands, to support him.