[Infrastructure] After being mistaken for a god

Sure enough, after being reminded, King Astyages of the Medes remembered the prophecy about "destruction of the country", and his troubles arose suddenly.

Kurosh, the little prince of Anshan Kingdom, is the grandson of King Medes.But the king of Medes was superstitious about the oracle, so that his kingdom would not end up in the hands of the "princess' son", he sent his confidant to Anshan, intending to conspire to murder the child.

Unexpectedly, An Shanren protected the little prince very well.

Not long after, even Astyages' confidants were turned against him, and they turned their backs on their master's "random order" and stayed in Anshan directly to protect the young prince.

The young and innocent little prince asked the strangers who came to him and silently protected him: "Where do you come from? Why do you always follow me?"

The visitor only replied: "Although your grandfather didn't want you to grow up smoothly, you have a very kind aunt and grandmother. She wants you to know that there are not only malice and hatred in this world, but also goodwill and love." Tolerance. She hopes that when you grow up, you will treat the world with the same attitude."

The little prince nodded ignorantly, and silently wrote down: malice and hatred should be no match for kindness and tolerance.

Since the little prince of Anshan Kingdom is safe and sound, the King of Medes's mind is restrained elsewhere, temporarily ignoring the neighboring Kingdom of Babylon.

Taking advantage of this short period of peace, Yinan quickly built the [-]-kilometer-long Medes Great Wall in the Kingdom of Babylon.

The construction techniques of the Great Wall and the Babylonian wall are exactly the same, but in line with the principle of minimizing unnecessary labor, the style of the entire city wall is very simple, without using any fancy decorations.

The city wall is extremely thick, with a spacious top, and even Babylonian soldiers can be stationed inside the wall.The highest point of the city wall reaches 10 stories high, which can be regarded as a fortress that provides excellent defense and lookout.

When the city wall was nearing completion, Queen Inan, the acting regent of Babylon, visited the construction site in person.

At that time, countless craftsmen, full of loyalty to Babylon and reverence for the royal family, prostrated themselves on the ground, wanting to kiss the queen's shoes.

Yi Nan asked them to wake up all of them, and shook hands with them one by one.These craftsmen were moved to tears.

After the completion of the Great Wall, all craftsmen received the generous salary promised to them by the Babylonian royal family.Babylonian officials relayed the queen's meaning: I hope they will use the money wisely, not let the money lie in the cabinet from now on, but let the money be used as an investment, and build more industries, so that they and the people around them can benefit from it.

The Babylonians have inherited the business acumen that originated from the Sumerians, and they can see it through.

These craftsmen from all over the Kingdom of Babylon, when the project was over and returned to their hometown, followed the Queen's advice, rolled up their sleeves and worked hard, and used the money they got from building the Great Wall to invest in various industries.

Babylon thus once again experienced a period of rapid agricultural, industrial and commercial development:

The barns were all piled up, and people started to build new, bigger and more breathable barns;

The ports on the Euphrates and on the banks of Phoenicia are full of goods waiting to leave the port all day long, waiting to be transported to the South Asian subcontinent and the Mediterranean coast.

And the taxes paid from all over the country were continuously collected to Babylon.

Gurwin was very surprised: "Queen, why does it seem that all the money you paid for building the Great Wall has now been returned as taxes?"

Inan smiled and said nothing.

Her trick is to vigorously develop infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy in later generations, thereby promoting the virtuous circle of the real economy.

However, the funds for building the Great Wall were spent from her own property; and the money returned to Babylon as tax money became the public wealth of the country.

At the same time, Inan set out to use the growing tax money to build up the cavalry of the Babylonian kingdom.

The Kingdom of Babylon did not raise large-scale cavalry before—the main reason is that there is no pasture suitable for large-scale horse raising.

Domestication of horses requires a suitable temperature, enough forage, and a grassland suitable for horses to gallop.

However, the Kingdom of Babylon has an advantage that other countries do not have: technology.

Horseshoes provide protection to horses, allowing them to have better stamina and reduce the chance of injury.

So the merchants of Babylon set out again.This time, they rushed to the peninsula of Asia Minor, where they signed an agreement with the shepherds to buy horses.From then on, the horses were transported to the port of Phoenicia one by one, and the horses were coded with dyes as soon as they got off the pier, and then they were grouped immediately, and the horseshoes were nailed on in turn, and then they were delivered to the military and began to be trained as army horses.

In addition, Yinan also ordered the improvement of the chariot, changing the original extremely bumpy two-wheeled carriage to a four-wheeled carriage, and added partitions for defense on the carriage.

Experienced Greek mercenaries came to Babylon and began to teach Babylonian soldiers the experience of fighting on horseback.

They taught soldiers how to handle horses, how to use spears and bows on horseback, how to attack infantry condescendingly, and how to deal with opponents who were also on horseback.

The generals of the Babylonian army gathered in the royal court of Babylon one after another, and Guerwen explained various macro tactics, how to use cavalry to raid the opponent's infantry and camp, and when should the cavalry be withdrawn, and the infantry should be sent forward to clean up the battlefield. ,etc.

"Privy Minister, it turns out that you have studied the art of war and battle formations so well—"

"That's right, it's a shame to keep you in the royal court to handle government affairs!"

The military praised Gurwin's abilities.

Gurwin could only smile, and secretly stretched out his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

You must know that these tactics and battle formations were all shared with the military after he discussed them with the queen.Among them, Gurwin's contribution was less than one-tenth, and he himself knew how much he had.

The queen is the only one! ——Gurwin thought secretly, if she was born in the royal court of Babylon, the king might not be her opponent.

Queen, should be a queen!

Gurwin is not the only one, many people secretly think this way.

King Astyages of the Medes, unable to help his grandson, turned his head to vent his anger on the kingdoms of his "sister" and "brother-in-law".

The Median army finally reached the border between the two countries.

The Medes’ spies in Babylon had already informed the Medes of the news of King Yuanhang of Babylon.The news that the queen is in power makes the Medes military feel very inflated.

"A woman, isn't she afraid of being beaten?"

"Forget it, let's keep some morals. After all, she is also the princess married by our Midi, although the king doesn't seem to like it very much."

"You said, our king ordered to attack his sister. If this news spreads, will the neighboring countries laugh at our immorality of the Medes?"

"Come on, do you really think that the royal court raised those 'princess' as their own relatives? Those are all tools for marriage. After the princesses are married, have you ever seen the king really care about their lives?"

"Hey, so to speak, we are actually just tools of war..."

Although the generals of Medes are getting more and more frustrated, they are still very confident in the victory-they think that at most it is a question of where to fight: whether to plunder cities and villages on the border, or to fight all the way to Babylon go.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the two sides fought, the Medes began to feel that something was wrong: When did the Babylonians have cavalry?

The key point is that the cavalry is still invincible, charging back and forth in the battle formation, specifically picking up the weak links of the Medi army.After rushing several times, the infantry part of Midi was already defeated and retreated.

The Medes cavalry is still insisting.

But they found that the damage rate of the opponent's mount was much smaller than that of their side.The war horses galloped on the battlefield, but never had their hoofs worn out—their war horses seemed to have no need to rest at all.

Is this because the Babylonians were more devout to their gods, so the gods favored their opponents?

At this time, the spies sent by the army of Medes had rushed back from the front and told the army: Let it go, let it go.The Babylonians had already built a wall that could not be seen at all, from the Euphrates to the Tigris.There is no breakthrough at all.

As soon as the news came out, the morale of the Medes army suddenly fell—they still thought about entering Babylon, who gave this courage!

It was originally thought that the Kingdom of Babylon was governed by a woman, but this woman was smarter than anyone else.

The Medes army could only change their strategy, preparing to plunder several cities and villages on the border, and then headed back home.

Unexpectedly, just as they passed the order and the army was about to turn around, Babylon's new cavalry came back again, this time killing the opponent directly.The army of Medes who entered the border of Babylon was defeated and retreated back to the border of Medes in a state of embarrassment.

The king of Medes was furious when he heard the news, and cursed loudly in his court, accusing the Babylonians of reneging on their promises, not keeping their promises, and even attacking their allies.

The ministers of Midi were very speechless: after all, Midi himself did it first.

Finally, some courtiers couldn't stand it any longer, and advised the king of Medes: "Our country is lucky this time. King Saar of Babylon is not in the country, and the queen is in charge. The queen is unwilling to use more swords, so just keep the original border. If it is King Thrall is..."

King Medes was stunned, he almost forgot what a terrifying general Sal was.Babylon was originally just a small province of Assyria, but now Assyria is gone, and the entire Mesopotamia is under the rule of Saar.

Thinking of this, the King of Medes couldn't help but curse sinisterly: "It's been a long time since Saar went to sea? I heard that the Babylonians themselves haven't heard from their king for a long time?"

"Saar, it would be great if he never came back in his life!"

Indeed, not even the Babylonians themselves had heard of their king.

As time went on, Babylonian courtiers grew more and more worried.At the beginning, someone wrote to Yinan, asking the queen to send a fleet to search along the route Wang went to sea.

Yi Nan rejected the request: looking for Saar in the sea is a real "needle in a haystack".Besides, Babylon can't send another ocean-going fleet with the same strength as Saar's back then.In this era of long-distance voyages, if you are not fully prepared, then going to sea is death.

But Yi Nan's attitude was quickly misinterpreted by others.

A courtier jumped out to accuse Yi Nan of ignoring the king's comfort. It must be the power in Lianzhan's hands, and he wished that the king would disappear overseas.

Looking at the ugly appearance of these people jumping up and down in the hall, Yi Nan couldn't help sneering: I don't think I know who is behind you?

Saar's younger brothers, they all think that they are more suitable candidates for regent than Yinan.They talk about the royal court of Babylon behind their backs, always saying: Why, a woman...

Yi Nan didn't get angry, she ordered the courtier who came forward to propose to be sent to Phoenicia, gave him two boats, and commissioned him to go to sea to find people.

This courtier only went out to sea once, encountered a little bit of wind and waves, and got a little bit seasick.But the minister immediately ordered to turn around and return to the port, and wept bitterly on the pier holding the pillars in public, saying that he would never mention sending people to sea again.

But the turmoil in the court did not stop immediately because of this.

Due to Saar's absence for a long time, some people began to raise objections to the rationality of Yinan's "regency".

It was the high priests of the Temple of Babel who first proposed it: they seemed to have forgotten that this giant tower reaching the sky was built by Yinan and his craftsmen.In the name of the gods, the priests asked Yi Nan to give a reason for her "regency".

When Saar handed over the kingdom to Yi Nan, the priests did not raise any objections, because the kingship was in Saar's hands.

But now that Saar has not returned all year round, and Yinan still dominates the power of Babylon, the priests feel that it is inappropriate.

Therefore, Yi Nan held a closed-door meeting with the high priests. After the meeting, all the priests temporarily had no opinion on Yi Nan's ruling.

After that, Yinan went ahead and brought up the "House of Elders" and "National Assembly" system again, replacing the situation where she was in power alone with public decision-making.Between the government and the opposition, the voice of controversy finally gradually died down.

But everyone wondered: Sal, their king, where is he?

In this life, can he return to Babylon safely?

When Inan's watch pointed to 588 BC, some news came from Egypt.

At this time, it had been three years since Saar went to sea.Most of the neighboring countries believe that: Saar, the king who thinks highly of himself and is arrogant, must have been conquered by the ocean when he conquered the vast sea.Even the Babylonians themselves are not sure whether the king can return to the royal court of Babylon.

However, news came back from Egypt that there were ships docking in the Red Sea, claiming that they were one of the ocean-going fleets that went to sea with Saar.

The news is not very solid, and does not provide any information about Thrall.

Babylonian merchants in Egypt acted immediately, quietly rescued these people from the hands of the Egyptian rulers, escorted them back to Babylon, and sent them to Inan.

Yi Nan saw these exhausted sailors for the first time.

When the sailors saw Yinan, they all knelt down and sobbed, "We...we lost the king."

Hearing this, even Dolly, the always reserved and upright female officer, exclaimed, and accidentally dropped the clay pot she was holding on the ground.

Yi Nan was very calm: "Don't cry in a hurry, tell me about the situation you encountered."

This scene fully proves that a calm leader can quickly free everyone from bad emotions.

When the sailors saw that the queen was so calm, and didn't mean to blame them, they were embarrassed to kneel and burst into tears.One of them, a Babylonian who spoke clearly, slowly told about Saar's experience after going to sea.

When they arrived in Carthage, the fleet had 38 ships, most of them were in good health, and the supplies on board were very sufficient, and everyone set sail from then on in high spirits and continued westward.

Indeed, as described in Saar's letter, they passed through a narrow strait, and to the north of the strait stood towering stone pillars.

Sal decided to sail along the edge of the continent on the left (that is, Africa).Sometimes they went to the southwest, sometimes to the southeast, and in short they kept going south.

During this period, nine of the 38 ships sank or could not be repaired because they encountered a reef, and the sailors abandoned the ship and escaped.

The density of people on board began to increase significantly, supplies dwindled, and disease became prevalent.

Saar made a decisive decision and found a natural harbor sheltered from the wind on the shore, and everyone went ashore to rest.

They regained fresh water on the shore, and relied on hunting and gathering near the coast for food.

The craftsmen in the fleet repaired some of the damaged ships with the tools they carried, and reinforced the structure of the ship according to their experience in fighting the wind and waves.The rest of the sailors were responsible for solving the water problem, and they even quickly planted a crop of peas on the land by the coast.

This stay is the longest stay of the ocean-going fleet on land. When the fleet finally departed, there were only 2000 ships and less than [-] people—some of them decided to stay in the local area and did not want to step into the waves again. involved in risk.

Thrall respected their choice, left them some weapons and tools, and took the rest of them to continue on the journey.

After that, Saar's fleet encountered a strong west wind.The sea is full of strong winds and waves all day long—it’s not the sea at all, the waves on the sea seem to be walls one after another.Even the best sailors can't control the ship steadily in such weather conditions.

Naturally, damage to ships and personnel is unavoidable.In the most desperate time, people can't even find a place to go to shore.The shore is full of strange rocky cliffs, showing a terrifying face in the violent wind and rain.

At this time, almost everyone was in despair, thinking that they had escaped the favor of the gods and came to the abandoned world.

Saar was the only one who still had faith, commanded fearlessly in the wind and waves, and finally led the remaining ships and personnel around a towering promontory.

From then on, the fleet no longer sailed south, but began to turn north or east.

At this time, the entire voyage team had lost half of its ships and manpower, and the last ten ships had gathered the most determined and powerful people.

The rest of the journey is much more peaceful - the most treacherous seas have been left behind them.Where they passed, lush vegetation began to appear.Although the aborigines on the land did not speak their language, they were much more gentle. They instructed them to hunt and feed, and provided them with a lot of help.

They went all the way north, passed through large and small islands, and saw that the landforms and vegetation on the land were getting closer and closer to those of Babylon, and the climate was getting warmer.Everyone felt that they should have regained the blessing of the gods, and the day to go home was not far away.

Unexpectedly, at this time, the fleet encountered another big storm.In the storm, the fleet of ten ships was broken up.After the wind and waves calmed down, the sailors could no longer find the king's ship.There were also no remains of ships on the water.

In the words of the sailors, Saar's ship was either "taken away by the gods" or completely capsized on the bottom of the sea.

The sailors who lost their leader were devastated, but they had no choice but to continue driving along the edge of the "left-hand continent" in the direction pointed out by the former leader.

Finally, they found that the accent of the people on the shore could gradually be understood.The only remaining Egyptian sailor recognized his accent and was very excited.

Next, they were detained by the Egyptians on land until the Babylonian Chamber of Commerce in Egypt managed to rescue them.

After listening to the sailor's statement, Yinan rested his chin and thought quietly: The route Saar chose was the route around Africa, and the most dangerous section of the cape was the "Cape of Good Hope" at the southernmost tip of Africa. stormy sea.

And these sailors and ships that came back to Egypt actually traveled along the African continent and went all the way into the Red Sea, so they appeared near Egypt.

As for Saar, Inan carefully asked the sailors where exactly the last storm happened, how many days they stayed after it happened, and how many days they marched before arriving in Egypt.

At this time, she finally determined the direction of the rescue: ordering people to set off from the Euphrates River, sail into the Persian Gulf, and search repeatedly from both sides of the Persian Gulf to find the whereabouts of the king.

The queen finally sent people to sea to find the whereabouts of the king——

The news immediately spread throughout the entire Kingdom of Babylon, causing a sensation throughout the country.

But the returning sailors brought people not only hope, but also disappointment.

Although some of the ocean-going fleet made it back, the stories they told confirmed that Wang was indeed missing.Some people returned, but the king didn't—doesn't this just mean that the king was already in danger?

Undercurrents are raging up and down in the Kingdom of Babylon, and the princes who want to seize power from the queen are more eager to plan.

The high priest, who had been standing still, couldn't sit still at this time, and began to prepare their "backhands"—in case the bad news about the king was confirmed, what position the temple should stand on.

The sights from everywhere were focused on the royal court of Babylon, on Inan.

Yi Nan behaved as usual.

She was quite sure that Sal was still alive—after all, he was a man who had experienced the violent storm at the Cape of Good Hope. If he would disappear without any trace in an ordinary storm, Yinan thought it was very unlikely.

The biggest possibility is that Saar and his fleet were separated by the storm.And Saar also missed the entrance of the Red Sea because of this storm, but mistook the Arabian Peninsula for a part of the African continent.Adhering to the principle of "the continent on the left hand side", he chose to continue east along the edge of this piece of land.

If her deduction is true, then Saar will travel along the Arabian Peninsula to the Persian Gulf - where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers enter the sea.

Eridu, the Babylonian metropolis, is now an inland city.The Euphrates created large tracts of land beyond Eridu.Even so, Eridu, as the first place where "kingdom descends from heaven", still enjoys a pivotal position among the major cities of Babylon.

At the port tens of miles away from Eridu, a ragged man staggered onto the trestle.Judging from his frivolous footsteps, it should be that he has spent many years at sea, making him completely unaccustomed to walking on solid land.

The man's features were almost impossible to see, for his hair was thick and knotted and hung thickly behind his head.His beard, which had never been groomed, covered almost his entire face.

But this man has a strong body.The strong muscles on his arms made all the sailors envious;

And only those who have been directly looked at by him can understand that this is a person with leadership qualities.Every look in his amber eyes seemed to be a strict order from the king.

The man staggered from the trestle onto the land of Babylon.His footsteps were vain, and he didn't walk very far, but his feet softened accidentally, and his knees fell on the ground.

Holding the ground with both hands, he couldn't help but laughed out loud.

The people around him avoided him in fear, probably thinking that there was something wrong with this person.

But I saw this person kissing the ground in front of him affectionately:

The homeland, and the old people...I, Saar, have returned.