Chapter 1178: Misunderstandings (6)

She has a beautiful face, a slender figure, and elegant manners. She holds the magic power of the lotus flower, and the charm of a woman in love is full.

——The Mausoleum of Nefer Hotep in "The Lover Who Has the Charm of Water"

During the 464 years from the eighteenth dynasty to the nineteenth dynasty, Egypt gradually became the world's first great empire.

At the beginning, there were only 70 Israelites who migrated to Egypt. After hundreds of years, the descendants of Israel prospered and became more prosperous than the population of Egypt. This made Pharaoh feel a hidden worry.

He feared that one day the Israelites would unite with Egypt's enemies to attack the Egyptians and rule the land. So Pharaoh asked the Israelites to do the hardest and most tiring work, so that they would have no experience to reproduce.

Later Pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew male babies be drowned by midwives. At this time, a desperate mother gave birth to a boy. She couldn't bear to drown the child, so she took a straw box, painted it with stone paint and asphalt, put the child in the box, and pushed the box to the reeds. In, let the children float down the Nile.

Except for those few days of flooding, the Nile River is usually very calm and very suitable for sailing.

In addition, there are animals such as hippos and crocodiles in the river. The older sister of the little boy was really worried about his brother drifting in such a dangerous river, so she followed him all the time, wanting to see what his final fate would be.

The lucky boy escaped the giant mouth of the crocodile, the fight with the hippopotamus, and the collision of the big ship, and finally came to the place where the Egyptian princess took a bath.

She ordered the lady-in-waiting to open the box and found that it was a Hebrew boy.

Babies are annoying when they cry, but they are adorable when they laugh. The baby who had been sleeping in the basket smiled when she saw the Egyptian princess, which touched the princess's compassion, so she decided to adopt the child and named him Moses, which means "the child picked up from the water". ".

The baby boy grew up to be Moses, the prophet who led the Israelites out of ancient Egypt in the Book of Exodus.

It is not surprising that women were regents in ancient Egypt. Even in several times of crisis in Egypt, it was because women assisted the pharaoh to turn the tide.

In addition to Yakhhotep, in the early days of the Eighteenth Dynasty, there was another woman who also took credit. She is the wife of the "son of the moon god", the great queen Yahmos-Nefertali, whose name means "daughter of the goddess, as beautiful as Yi". Not only did she pay homage to Yakhhotep, but she also paid homage to the pharaoh in a special way.

In the war with the Hyksos, Ahmose I promised a lot of power to the great nobles everywhere in return for their support for the Thebes regime. Not only that, he also used earth grants and rich gifts to maintain the center of the great nobles. His colleagues built temples all over the country. God Amon expanded rapidly in Upper and Lower Egypt. After the great sacrifice, he became the "Second Servant of God".

The queen asked Pharaoh to allow her to set up a new institution, and all the people living in it were "the wives of Amun God" - priestesses. Her request was approved by Pharaoh, and the relevant decrees were engraved on the temple of Karnak. On the stone pillar.

In this way, the pharaoh took control of the military and political power to ensure the smooth operation of the living world; one of the duties of the queen is to ensure that the sacrificial ceremony can be completed smoothly, so as to prevent future generations and Egypt from suffering bad luck.

The pharaohs lived a long life, enjoyed each other happily, and raised many children together.

However, the pharaoh eventually went ahead of the queen, and Amenhotep I, who should inherit the throne, was too young, so Ahmose-Nefertari began to regent like Princess Yakhhotep and became The "Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt", who also served as Prime Minister and Superintendent of Buildings, ensured the continuation of power.

Whether it is Princess Yakhhotep or Queen Ahmose-Neftari, their thoughts have been deeply integrated into the new dynasty. Future queens of the New Kingdom followed their example.

It is a pity that Pharaoh Amenhotep I, who had grown up with great difficulty, had no "male" heirs, but had quite a few daughters, and his pharaoh position was inherited by the military leader Thutmose.

He married Princess Amos, the daughter of Amenhotep I, but gave birth to only one daughter. This girl was the Egyptian princess Hatshepsut, the foster mother of the legendary prophet Moses.

Thutmose II was born to Thutmose I and a concubine. Not only was he of humble origin, he was not of full royal blood, but he was also weak and sick. To legitimize his rule, he married his half-sister.

The Egyptian princess was clever, courageous and strong since she was a child, and she was always proud of being the only orthodox heir of the pharaoh. Unfortunately, this family seems to have suffered some kind of curse, and she only gave birth to a beautiful daughter.

A few years later, Thutmose II died of illness. At this time, Hatshepsut's foundation was unstable. She arranged for a 10-year-old boy born to Thutmose II and his concubine to marry her daughter. The boy became Thutmose III, and the princess took full control of the affairs of state as regent.

Egypt was very prosperous and prosperous during her reign, and Hatshepsut used the wealth to start a large-scale construction of temples, including the temple of Karnak in Thebes.

As Thutmose III grew up, he was not willing to be a puppet anymore, so Hatshesut dared to exile him to a remote place when Thutmose III became an adult.

She hoped that her daughter Neferului could inherit the throne, but Neferului had no intention of it. She devoted herself to religious food and stayed away from the world.

The pyramid was the main building in the Middle Kingdom. In the New Dynasty, the high priest of Amun and the prime minister Hap-Seneb, as the master of the mystery of the Egyptian nine-pillar god, had a great say in the world.

It was also during this time that the prototype of the Valley of the Kings began to appear, and the person who presided over the construction of these glorious buildings was named Senmut.

He is the high priest of Amon and also an architect, but he was an officer in the army at first, and later became the "only friend" of the female pharaoh.

In the east there is also a man named Xue Huaiyi, who presided over the construction of Wu Zetian's heaven and Mingtang.

Men rely on women to be promoted, and it is inevitable that they will be "viewed differently". Whether Senmut is really knowledgeable, has grasped the secrets of the pillar gods, is enough to become a princess' tutor, or other reasons have not been verified.

In the 22nd year of Hartshept's reign, Thutmose III returned to the throne through the power of sacrifice. The female pharaoh, the high priest and her daughter were all missing. All traces of Hatshepsut have been erased, and there is no corpse of a female pharaoh among the royal mummies on the west bank of the Nile. The whereabouts of the female pharaoh's body has become an unsolved historical mystery.

Thousands of years later, a group of "explorers" from Europe came to the Valley of the Kings. After thousands of years of looting by tomb robbers, except Tutankhamun's tomb, almost all the pharaoh's tombs were looted. The mummies of pharaohs and queens were gathered in a small cave, including Seti I, Ramesh Sis II, among other famous pharaohs.

The Bible mentions that Pharaoh hunted down Moses and the Hebrews. If Moses' adoptive mother was Hatshepsut, the princess of the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, then it was impossible for the pharaoh Ramses II of the nineteenth dynasty to hunt them down. There was a gap of more than two hundred years, unless Moses' His lifespan is super long, but Moses was 120 years old when he died, and he wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and Moses was about 80 years old when he left Egypt.

Legends are legends after all, just like some people believe that the ten plagues of Egypt are real, it is groundless, unless older documents and other circumstantial evidence can be found, this is the biggest difference between archaeology and tomb robbery.

Napoleon also went to the Valley of the Kings during his expedition to Egypt. His purpose was not just for the Egyptian cultural relics, but also for the survey team to map and map the Valley of the Kings.

This is his disguise, and his purpose is to survey how feasible the Suez Canal is. As early as the twelfth dynasty of Egypt, pharaohs tried to dig through the Suez Canal to transport spices directly from the source to Egypt, with the intention of avoiding middlemen, obtaining myrrh, balsam, resin and fragrant wood to make mummies, and gaining huge profits. .

The ancient Egyptians linked the Great Bitter Lake with the Nile River, so that ships from the direction of the Red Sea could only enter the Nile River Delta and enter the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, the ancient Egyptians also built an irrigation canal so that it could also be used for water transportation during the flood season.

Aristotle concluded in his writings that the canal could not succeed because the sea level is higher than the land. Once the canal is dug, the sea water will flow back into the land, and everything it goes will become a flood country.

Later scholars also believed that the ancient Egyptians tried to dig canals, but they gave up halfway because of the difficulties. Napoleon brought scholars to confirm this matter, whether it can be done, and if it is feasible, then the ships leading to the Mediterranean will not need to go to the Cape of Good Hope in the future, and will pass directly through the Suez Canal, a West African port managed by the British painstakingly. It will all be useless.

I don’t know if the news leaked, or the British guessed Napoleon’s intentions, or there was a problem with the real measurement results. In short, the final survey report showed that the Suez Canal could not be repaired, and the sea level drop was too large.

Coincidentally, news of the defeat of the French navy came at this time, and Napoleon also turned around and left Egypt, returning to France to fight for power.

During the period when the French ruled Egypt, many irrigation projects were built. Coupled with the climate of Egypt, the grains that were originally harvested once a year became two or even three crops a year.

In addition, there are more places in Egypt where crops such as coffee and cotton can be grown. Pasha Muhammad Ali's rule in Egypt can be roughly divided into two periods.

He is an Albanian who was engaged in tobacco trading in his early years. He was drafted into the army in 1798 and participated in the war against Napoleon's invasion of Egypt twice. Later, he took advantage of the power vacuum in Egypt and gained the support of the local people. In 1805, he was established as the governor of Egypt. He nominally surrendered to the Ottoman Empire, but was actually an independent regime. Although the French defeated the Mamluk cavalry, they did not clean up the Mamluk nobles. In 1811, the last batch of Mamluks were invited by Pasha to participate in the celebration and were ambushed and assassinated. The deputy fell in a pool of blood.

During the Mamluk rule, it was believed that agriculture for export should be expanded. The Mamluks needed money to launch civil wars among themselves to seize dominance. Because of the American Civil War, the Egyptians made a lot of money through the cotton trade, but as other countries followed suit With the restoration of peace, the number of countries producing commercial crops such as coffee increased, and the income of the Mamluks began to decrease. The urgent need for money made the Mamluks use a lot of means, including imposing "heavy taxes" on workers, illegal and legal confiscation, and the army no longer protected local merchants and handicraftsmen, because they had to obey and squeeze out all the value of civilians. Fuck Beys.

Muhammad Ali and his supporters were mercantilists, and Ali and the others hoped to introduce industry, from a raw material exporter to self-sufficient, to prevent gold and silver from flowing overseas.

At that time, there was no concept of cultural relics protection, and foreigners enjoyed special privileges. The tax on the export of cultural relics was not as much as the money saved by demolishing temples and building factories.

The first step of Ali Pasha’s industrialization was to make guns and cannons, imitating imported guns and cannon parts. The second step was to establish textile factories, using Egyptian cotton and flax to make expensive cloth, plus silk and goats imported from Kashmir. Increase wool production.

Marx once praised Ali as "the only person who can replace the 'exquisite turban' with a real mind". Ali had many sons, and the one he was most satisfied and proud of was Ibrahim Pasha, who was killed at the age of sixteen. Sent as a hostage to the Ottoman Empire, Ibrahim was allowed to return to Egypt after defeating the British major general.

The historical significance of Muhammad Ali is that he was the first ruler of the Middle East to realize the significance of Western technology and effectively use Western technology to serve his own goals. Ibrahim led a war that is ancient. Asian feature, when Muhammad Ali went to Arabia to launch a war against Al Saud. Ibrahim stayed to lead Upper Egypt and continued to fight against the remnants of the Mamluks.

Ibrahim wanted to Egyptianize the entire army and promote Egyptians to serve as senior officers. He often said that the scorching sun in Egypt roasted him into an Egyptian. If his father was independent from the Ottoman Empire in terms of brokerage and military, While maintaining cultural ties, Ibrahim wanted total independence. During his reign, all the senior officials and below were replaced by Egyptians, leaving only the senior officials still Ottomans.

Ibrahim was capable and full of energy, and Ali Pasha, who was supposed to be treated by his family doctor for dysentery, suffered severe brain damage from a dose of silver nitrate, leaving him in a state of lucidity. , In a state of madness from time to time, he didn't even know that Ibrahim replaced him as a pasha.

Unfortunately, Ibrahim contracted tuberculosis, before his father died. The rest of the family were mediocre or immature, Napoleon said imagination ruled the world, and the misfortune of Egypt was that none of Muhammad Ali's successors had half his imagination, let alone political skill.

Abbas is a great name, but Abbas Pasha wanted to return to the embrace of the Ottoman Empire. He believed that industrialization was a waste of money and focused on extracting more income from agriculture. The British tried to convince him, Instead of building a canal, build a Suez railway.

He sharply cut military spending for the Army and Navy, which he believed to be useless, so he angered the military and was assassinated by his bodyguards in 1854. His reign was succeeded by Muhammad Ali's son Saeed.

Syed was a big fat guy whose childhood was made difficult by his father who constantly pressured him to lose weight. Ali hated being fat. He sent letters to his son every week, asking him to lose weight. He was unhappy with his flabby fat and forced him to go on a diet and exercise to lose weight.

Said, who served in the navy, was often asked to climb up and down the mast, run up and down the stairs of the palace, or run along the walls of Alexandria.

The obese, insecure child who never lost weight became close friends and mentors with the French consul, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who, according to rumors, often secretly fed Said Italian food. noodle.

At this time, 50 years have passed since Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. At that time, the explorer who said that the Suez Canal could not be built was dead, and the French raised their plan to build the Suez Canal. Said was easily captured by his friend. Persuaded.

This canal caused the death of 10,000 Egyptian workers and 60,000 Egyptians lost their labor force. It can be said that the Suez Canal is full of Egyptian bones, but this is not the worst.

Saeed's successor was supposed to be his nephew Ahmed, Ibrahim's eldest son. While Britain and France were fighting on the Suez Canal, they were also vying for the right to operate the railway. Ahmed originally wanted to join a group of princes on a swing bridge and attend the opening ceremony of a new railway across the Nile. Someone "forgot" to close the bridge deck, and the entire train rushed into the Nile River. All the crown princes and flight attendants on board were killed, except Prince Halim, the youngest son of Muhammad Ali.

Ahmad's brother Ismail was the only prince who did not attend the ceremony, reportedly because he was unwell, even though the other surviving family members People suspected that he had a hand in it, but there was no evidence to substantiate this suspicion, so in the end Ismail became the pasha of Egypt.

In 1869, the Suez Canal was completed and opened with the most solemn scene. All European celebrities participated, including Queen Eugenie, the Crown Prince of Prussia and nobles. Ismail imagined himself as the hospital of this royal elite club, giving personal and national He put on extravagant pomp with his best efforts, not only installed street lighting in the city, but also asked Verdi and ancient Egypt scholars to write an opera on ancient Egypt.

Unfortunately the costumes were not completed in time, and on opening night it was Rigoletto, not Aida.

Ismail tried unsuccessfully to bribe the Ottomans to declare Egypt independent, and instead managed to get them to recognize him as Khedive, the Persian word for ruler, a title his grandfather had used informally.

They allowed Ismail to change the law of succession to primogeniture in exchange for doubling Egypt's tribute to the Ottoman Empire.

Egypt spent a lot of money on the construction of the Suez Canal, but if it is properly managed, it is not too late. The problem is that Ismail is still carrying out a lot of useless reforms in the country. He built three railways covering the delta area and transporting cotton to Porting or transporting grain from Upper Egypt sounds like no problem at first glance.

The construction of the Grand Canal has reduced the agricultural population of Egypt by 160,000. To restore the population and develop agriculture, the French have built some irrigation projects, but they are still too small compared to the grand plan in Ismail's mind. . It may be because Ismail heard too much about the fame of Napoleon I and did not know the real situation of Napoleon III. Ismail tried his best to please Napoleon III. He not only gave Napoleon III a golden dagger of Pharaoh Kamose, but the capitalist Mummies can be squeezed out of oil, let alone living people. The Suez Canal Company claimed that the Egyptian government owed them debts, and also handed over the arbitration right to pay compensation for the Suez Canal land to Napoleon III.

Napoleon III also adjudicated the financial dispute between the Suez Canal Company and Egypt in the same way. Before the Suez Canal was dug through, it was a desert. The arbitration was estimated at the price of this desert. The Suez Canal was estimated at the "future" price, that is, It is said that the Egyptian government will not only pay the Suez Canal Company for land loss, but also dig a ditch to bring fresh water from the Nile River to the new city beside the canal. This river will irrigate the desert and turn it into "future" arable land. The arable land and the water in the canals have to be sold to the Egyptian government by the canal company.

Ismail agreed, on the condition that the central city of the Suez Canal area be named after him, which would later become known as Ismailia.

At that time, the price of cotton soared due to the American Civil War. He needed French technical support to dig irrigation projects, which forced him to borrow money from European banks. He braked suddenly and plummeted.

The following year a rinderpest killed all the cattle in the country, and new cattle had to be imported from abroad.

The country's labor force is already small. After building infrastructure such as roads and railways, no one will grow commodity crops such as cotton and coffee for export, which slows down the export of raw materials. In the end, he found that he could not pay the foreign debt owed by Egypt. , So he turned to Europe, and the debtor countries formed a coalition, supervised by an Englishman and a Frenchman, to supervise Egypt's fiscal revenue and expenditure. The supervisor was appointed by Ismail and could also be dismissed by him.

He gave a chance for a foreign country to intervene in his internal affairs reasonably and legally. These European ministers tried to cut the financial funds, so they fired the military officers. As a result, these soldiers led their soldiers to mutiny, and the two foreign supervisors were thrown out of Egypt.

This gave Ismail an excuse to dismiss the cabinet to show that only he can control the country.

According to the customs of the Arabs, women have to wear a veil on their faces. The "veiled protectorate" refers to the century-old ruler of Egypt. Advisors are placed in various confidential departments to provide advice to Egyptian ministers. They ruled Egypt behind Egyptian ministers.

But the hearts of these advisers are towards their own country, and they naturally will not remind Ismail that the subjects and soldiers under his rule have already planned to change their families.

During the last years of Ismail's reign, many wealthy landowners, many of whom held Ottoman and Egyptian titles of pasha, had been trying to create a constitutional state to protect them from despotic rulers. And is a member of Freemasonry. The war with Ethiopia had left Egypt mired in debt, and European powers often used this as an excuse to force Ismail to back down.

When Ismail was the governor, the national debt was only three million pounds. When the Europeans became "generals", the national debt owed by Ismail was as high as one billion pounds. Debt, the situation caused by compound interest, creditors began to worry. The International Court of Justice ruled that Ismail could no longer borrow. He could only sell his shares in the Suez Canal. As a result, the British Prime Minister borrowed 3.97 million pounds from the Rothschild family overnight to buy 44% of the shares in the canal, thus controlling the entire Suez Canal. the Suez Canal.

Not only that, but the UK has replaced France as the "Veil Protectorate", and no one in Egypt regrets that Ismail Khedif's title was deposed by a regulatory agency that was only for show.

After he was deposed, his son Taufik Pasha succeeded to the throne. This child was weaker than his father and was more obedient to the British. At that time, the Egyptian army was no longer loyal to Pasha, Khedive, or even the Egyptians. Four native Egyptian colonels, the rest are all Turkic Circassians.

When the mutiny occurred, the Khedif asked the British or the Ottomans to send troops to suppress it, while pretending to agree to the requests of the people and the soldiers, formulate a constitution, change the form of government, and expand the size of the army to the 18,000 people stipulated by the London Jump.

France and the United Kingdom had an excuse to send troops to Egypt. The British army landed in Alexandria, and another army went south along the Suez Canal, landed in Ismailia, entangled the Egyptian army, and the Egyptian army was defeated. Then the British army It became a true protectorate of Egypt, and even that veil was unnecessary.

"During that war, the Egyptians saw people in short skirts appearing in British tents. They thought it was the British who brought women and decided to kidnap them at night to destroy the morale of the British army. Those wearing short skirts are the Scottish Gordon Highlanders. When the Egyptians planned to kidnap those 'women', they encountered fierce resistance. They were still surprised when they returned to the tent. British women are so powerful. Men How violent it would be to fight, the commander left the field before it was over, took the train back to Cairo, and surrendered." Gonceil told a long story in a comical tone, then asked "I heard that the British The school of magic is in Scotland, where is your husband's kilt?"

"Hahaha." Pomona laughed dryly, and she couldn't think of anything clever to say at this time.

"You have to be more careful later, the Egyptians will kidnap women to destroy morale, and those ghosts may be the same." Goncey said again, "If Mr. Smith brings back the pharaoh's lion amulet, please be sure to wear it."

"Is this your gentlemanly demeanor?" Pomona asked indifferently.

"I prefer 'Knight's Honor', although many people privately call chivalry a fool's rule." Goncey smiled, and his blue eyes looked at her affectionately. "It is my duty to protect women."

"You know I'm married, right?" Pomona asked.

"This does not prevent you from finding a long-distance lover."

"No." Pomona immediately refused. "He will kill you."

"Mr. Smith is a duelist?" asked Conseil.

"That's right."

Conseil smiled strangely again.

"Are you talking to me?"

"No, you have to ask someone with a story, you don't seem like a person with a story." Gong Saiyi took another sip of wine, "Muggles are not as stupid as we think, I can't believe my grandpa was so easily He fanned it, thinking that wizards could rule the world."

"Why do you mention Napoleon?" Pomona asked, "Is it out of emotion?"

"I saw him, in the Pensieve." Conseil frowned. "That's a strange thing."

Well, the amount of information in this chapter is a bit large, and there are three chapters in one chapter.

The well-known antiquities dealer, Giovanni Battista Belzoni claimed to be in order to build hydraulic machinery and irrigate the fields

After the failure of irrigation machinery, Belzoni lost his source of income, and suddenly remembered the bust of the Temple of Memnon, and then he began to rob graves.