Great time travel

Chapter 22, Cyrenaica Colony

Crete, Knossos, an open-air balcony of the Minoan Palace

Under the cloudless and clear sky, the young king in fine clothes leaned on the railing and looked up at the sky, watching the huge airship gradually go away with a look of melancholy.

The golden daughter of the Nile, and the gods who brought countless magical goods, finally bid farewell to this island country.

The queen dowager, who was also well-dressed, looked at her newly recovered son with concern, "...I'm sorry, dear Minos. I know what you are expecting in your heart. If it is only the daughter of the Nile River, I would rather fight for it." In order to offend King Memphis of Egypt, I want to keep this blond girl as your princess—although the Egyptians are the kings of the desert, they are powerless to compete with our country at sea. But the problem is..."

"...I know, mother. We must not offend those gods who can soar in the sky and perform countless miracles."

Minos waved his hand, and said to the Queen Mother very calmly, "...not to mention that they not only saved my life, but also brought great benefits to our country. Our country cannot be so ungrateful. As a member of Minoa King, I will not harm the country with my own selfishness.

Please don't worry, dear mother.I knew from an early age that everything in life is impossible.I should be very satisfied to be able to recover and get out of the hospital bed.To be able to get along with the daughter of the Nile River whom I have missed for a long time these days, and to see so many new and unheard-of gadgets is even more unexpected to me. The generosity and consideration of the gods, even if the daughter of the Nile River returns to Egypt, she can often chat with me to relieve boredom..."

"...Even if she returns to Egypt, she will still chat with you often? How is this possible?" The Queen Mother frowned in confusion.Just as Minos was about to explain, he heard a small golden gadget on a stone table not far away suddenly start making a sharp "beep beep" sound.

Then, under the signal of King Minos, a flaxen-haired court lady picked up the video communicator that was screaming "beep beep" and walked over cautiously.Minos reached out and pressed a red switch at the bottom of the thing, and Kyrol's bright smile appeared on the screen.

"...Yo! Minos! Are you happy to see me calling so soon? After I leave, you must continue to be full of energy! By the way! I'm currently at sea, and I'm still at sea. Dolphins can be seen! Now let's move the camera over..."

Looking at the charming appearance of the blond girl smiling on the screen, the young and ignorant His Majesty Minos couldn't help being crazy for a while...

At the same time, Wang Qiu, who was in the cockpit of the airship, also saw with satisfaction that there was a new line of writing on the "Book of Time Traveling":
"...End the story of the Minoa Kingdom ahead of schedule and get 1500 reward points. The current total points are 47000 points, please continue to work hard."

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

After about a day's air journey, the airships of the traversers successfully flew across the Mediterranean Sea and arrived at the coastal fishing village of the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt.But then, they did not continue to return to the Egyptian capital city of Thebes in the south, but let Princess Kairol and her entourage land there, and transfer to the local Egyptian ship to go home.He took off again and sailed west along the coastline of North Africa.

As you can see along the way, one side is the ocean and the other side is the desert.

——The scorching sun scorched the hot gravel. Looking up, besides the sand dunes, there were countless sand dunes. The undulating and continuous sand dunes constituted this boundless and vast desert.

This is the Sahara Desert, the most extensive and thirsty place on the planet.Extending from the savannah in the south to the Mediterranean Sea, it forms a tawny coastline.In this barren desert, only a handful of nomads riding camels can survive.

Everyone who examines North Africa on a map should first feel that it is big.It seems that the volume of this place is larger than that of the whole of Western Europe.Combined with history, North Africa and Europe have competed with each other for more than 2000 years across the Mediterranean Sea. It is easy to give people the wrong impression that this is an area with great potential.It is even possible to be a chess player in global competition and play the leading role in the world geogame.

But when we take a closer look at the map, we will find that in the hinterland of North Africa, the five characters "Sahara Desert" are all printed vertically from east to west—that is to say, the entire hinterland of North Africa is basically covered by this kind of desert. Covered by dry land uninhabitable.The geographical structure of this "embroidered pillow with a bag of grass" is somewhat similar to Australia, Siberia, and Canada.In addition to exciting those fanatical expansionists who only look at administrative maps, I am afraid that there will not be much change in the past history and the foreseeable future.

Like those flashy extreme places, if humans want to build large-scale settlements in North Africa, they can only choose a small part of them.In other words, there are only a few small environments in North Africa that can meet the minimum requirements for the survival of human civilization.

Obviously, given the extremely hot and arid conditions of the Sahara Desert in North Africa, the first element that determines the value of its geographical location is “water”—where there is water, there will be a large number of human beings.Where there is a lot of water, it will be the center of geo-civilization.From this point of view, human settlements in North Africa can only exist on a large scale in two areas: one is the northeastern part of Africa, where the Nile River basin nurtured the ancient Egyptian civilization; the other is the northwestern edge of North Africa, where the majestic Atlas Mountains.

Relying on the Mediterranean water vapor intercepted by the majestic Atlas Mountains, on the southwestern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the ancients obtained a long strip of green land for survival—this is the former place of Carthage, a famous ocean power in history, and was once called The province of Africa, which was designated as the ancient Roman Empire, has formed the three countries of Morocco, Algeria, and Japan in modern times... Of course, in the fourteenth century BC, this land in North Africa was still in a wild and ignorant state. Sleeping in the endless darkness, yet to enjoy the light of civilization.The Phoenicians who will establish Carthage in the future have just tried to build ships and go to sea in their hometown in Palestine. Only a few barbarians wander around among the ravines and vegetation in the Atlas Mountains.

Between the Nile Delta and the Atlas Mountains lies the arid and barren Libyan desert.At first glance, this coastline without the shelter of tall mountains can neither intercept enough ocean water vapor to ensure sufficient surface water supply; nor can it resist the invasion of southern sandstorms for the coastal plain.So except for a few sporadic oases and the nomads living there, almost everywhere is dead and lifeless.But if you look down carefully on the satellite map, you will see that on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea with thousands of miles of yellow sand, in the middle of the Nile Delta and the Atlas Mountains, there is a very small green land - this is where the ancient Greeks once crossed the sea to colonize Cyrenaica, or modern-day Benghazi.

In the North African battlefield of World War II and the Libyan civil war in the 21st century, it was repeatedly mentioned by the news media as a battleground for military strategists.

This is what Wang Qiu, Ma Tong, Doraemon and other traversers gave to the Japanese refugees in the doomsday world of "School of the Dead" after careful inspection, careful selection and repeated discussions. The chosen foothold.

——Of course, strictly speaking, this place doesn’t seem to be a good place either.

Therefore, after the more than 200 Japanese immigrants arrived here, they were severely shocked by the harsh natural environment.

——The gray dust permeates the air, which is a little choking. The summer sun penetrates the dust and shines on the gravel road, evaporating the dry land.The scenery in the distance was distorted and shaken violently due to the heat radiation... Miyamoto, the leader of the immigrants, spat on the ground, spit out the sand in his mouth, looked down from the top of the mountain, and found In the Gobi Canyon, apart from the desert, there are stones, and apart from stones, there is sand and dust, and at the end of the horizon, there is a piece of golden sand dunes.Only on the Mediterranean coast at the back, there is a touch of intoxicating green, which forms a sharp contrast with the khaki hot purgatory just a few feet away, and draws a clear dividing line.

"... Is this... our future home? It's so desolate! Is this still a place for people to stay?"

The former Japanese police officer snorted dissatisfiedly, and complained to Wang Qiu, Doraemon and the others as if in reproach.

—Indeed, compared with the rainy and wet green mountains and forests of the Japanese archipelago, the environment in Cyrenaica is really quite miserable.

On the coast of Africa between ancient Egypt and Carthage, Cyrenaica is the only place capable of significant human habitation.To the south of it is a veritable sea of ​​dead sand, a forbidden zone of life.In addition to the occasional scattered bones, there are huge sand dunes as high as seven or eight hundred feet, and it is almost impossible to find a gerbil, a scorpion or even a thorn.Its northern part is basically a plateau.Because there are some evergreen shrubs and other plants growing on the plateau, it is also called Green Mountain.This is also the only place in Cyrenaica that has vegetation and can survive.

But even in Green Mountain, the natural environment is still quite harsh.The climate here is complex and changeable, basically divided into dry season and rainy season.The annual precipitation is 500 mm, which is barely enough.The problem is that precipitation is generally concentrated during the three months of winter, resulting in short but violent thunderstorms and flash floods.This mountain torrent rushed down and rushed out of countless river beds. Unfortunately, the water was too dry and there was no water left. It didn't take long for the river beds to dry up!
——Cyrenaica's dry riverbeds, like Norway's fjords and Finland's lakes, are the land's greatest feature.

As a result, the Green Mountain and its coastal plain are covered with countless dry riverbeds and dry river valleys, cutting the land to pieces, and there are huge gravels and pebbles everywhere. Until modern times, it was impossible to build a mountain road. Can rely on camels and donkeys to maintain land transportation.

In addition, in Cyrenaica, the northwest wind blows all year round, making it hot and dry, which is uncomfortably hot.But it is nothing compared to the hot wind blowing from the hinterland of the great southern desert—the kind of terrible hot wind that happens every year, blowing the yellow sand from the great desert of Libya, blowing the green mountains and the coastal areas yellow. The sand covered the sky and even blew it all the way across the Mediterranean, blowing the sand into Italy and France!In Cyrenaica, anything exposed, no matter how well you cover it, including watches, will be blown into layers of fine sand by this hot wind.

Moreover, Cyrenaica has frost and snow in winter, but the temperature can climb to [-] degrees Celsius in summer, which is really not a suitable place for recuperation.In many areas of the Green Hills no tree grows at all except the Mediterranean juniper, a tree that is hardy and wind-resistant.

In short, this is a land that tests human perseverance very much - it is not impossible to survive, but it is absolutely impossible to live more comfortably.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Therefore, after witnessing the barrenness and harshness of the land of Cyrenaica, Miyamoto began to retreat in his heart.

——Although today's West Asian civilization is very developed, there are masters along the eastern Mediterranean coast from Egypt to Turkey.However, the European continent in these years is still very empty, and no country has yet been born in later generations, and even the Greek civilization has just emerged in its rudiment.From Britain to France to Italy, there are vast lands that can be cultivated and built everywhere, so why stay in this poor place in North Africa and eat sand?
Therefore, speaking from a rational point of view, the fear of difficulties in the minds of Japanese refugees cannot be said to be completely wrong.

After all, North Africa, where the sun is scorching hot and thousands of miles of yellow sand, is far worse than the Japanese archipelago, which has four distinct seasons and is humid and rainy.

Relatively speaking, it seems that it is still on the north shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and the natural environment on the European side looks more beautiful in the eyes of the Japanese.

However, in this barbaric era where there is no law and order and everything is spoken by force, other human beings are sometimes more dangerous than nature.

For the 200-odd Japanese immigrants who were few in number, weak in strength, and without support, plus the 100-odd newly-bought female slaves from various countries, with their little power alone, in this wild and turbulent world, There really wasn't a safer place to colonize than Cyrenaica.

——"...Mr. Miyamoto, I know that the natural environment of Cyrenaica is indeed far from your hometown. And the European continent on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea does have a better natural environment. But the problem is, Can you stand there?"

Wang Qiu persuaded him very sincerely, "... You know, for a small group like yours, safety comes first!"