Bi Fang rode a camel and ran wildly in the desert, kicking up a cloud of wind and sand.
Behind you, the pyramid gradually shrinks and finally disappears above the horizon.
After being delayed by the mummy for two days, Bi Fang did not forget about business. The completion prompt for the mission to cross the Sahara has not yet appeared.
The surrounding scene gradually changes, from dunes to sandy land, and then to grassland. The surrounding colors gradually become richer and brighter, as if they are far away from the blazing world of yellow sand.
Finally, the drone that was constantly filming in the sky captured a river on the ground.
A fluffy reed-like plant grows on one side of the river bank, swaying in the wind, green and lush.
Although summer is hot and dry, it is also a season full of vitality.
After climbing over a hillside, Bifang looked down at this deep and wide river from the highest point, which is the longest river in the world.
When seeing this extremely wide river, its name invariably sounded in everyone's mind - the Nile River!
【Nile! Nile! Nile!】
[Go, go, go, I succeeded, I really crossed the Sahara!]
【World number one!!!】
【What is a world-class explorer!!!】
[Prince Mu presented a spaceship*66 to the anchor - No. 1 in the world!!!]
[Lift into the sky and give 6 spaceships to the anchor - No. 1 in the world!!!]
[Fifteen centimeters are given to the anchor’s spaceship*1 – No. 1 in the world!!!]
Bi Fang got off Alpha, stepped on the hillside and slid down with some grains of sand, ran staggeringly for a few steps, and stopped at the river bank.
Two months, two full months, he could clearly feel the changes in his body, like a sponge that continuously absorbed water and was squeezed dry again and again.
Tiredness, sleepiness, hunger, thirst, heat.
Excited, excited, full, lanze, cool.
Complex emotions and body sensations intertwined to form a large net of memories, and the net turned into a rich fruit, which was planted in the forest of memory. Finally, it was teetering, falling from the branches and falling into the soil.
It takes root, sprouts, branches, leaves, and finally turns into a towering tree, completely becoming a member of the forest.
Bi Fang's eyes became brighter and deeper, and the fatigue all over his body was swept away.
[Congratulations to the host for completing the mission: ocean currents, crossing death, and leaving ancient tombs, the rewards are being counted]
[The final reward is: high-level skill enhancement coupon*2, muscle control enhancement coupon*1, mitochondria enhancement coupon*1, enhancement points*5, wilderness points*5047.]
Bi Fang showed a happy smile and had a great harvest.
But he temporarily suppressed the system prompts and returned his attention to the river in front of him, as if a heroic spirit rose in his chest.
"Most of the territory in northeastern Africa where Egypt is located is the Gobi desert, and the climate is dry and rainless. Even with today's advanced technology, its development value is not very great."
"It was the Nile River that created the civilization of ancient Egypt."
"Relying on the nourishment of the Nile River, the ancient Egyptians thrived and lived, and created an ancient Egyptian civilization that was unparalleled at the time."
"The Nile River is the longest, but it provides limited freshwater resources. The annual runoff is only 84 billion cubic meters, which is completely dwarfed by the annual runoff of our Yangtze River of 950 billion cubic meters."
"The amount of runoff determines the amount of freshwater resources, the basic resource for human production and life, and the area of the river basin directly determines the living space of human civilization."
"But it has a period of flooding that is a blessing in disguise."
"The Nile River has the characteristics of regular flooding. In northern Sudan, the water usually begins to rise in May, reaching the highest water level in August. After that, the water level gradually decreases, and the water level is low from January to May."
"Although flooding occurs regularly, the amount of water and the timing of high tides vary greatly."
"The cause of this phenomenon is the Blue Nile and Atbara rivers, which are fed by seasonal heavy rains on the Ethiopian plateau."
The audience listened patiently.
They knew that this three-month live broadcast was coming to an end.
Now may be the final live broadcast.
More than 80% of the water of the Nile River is provided by the Ethiopian plateau, and the remaining water comes from the East African plateau lake.
When the flood comes, it will submerge the farmland on both sides of the bank. When the flood recedes, it will leave a thick layer of silt, forming fertile soil.
Four to five thousand years ago, the Egyptians knew how to control the flow of floods and utilize the fertile land on both sides.
For a long time, the Nile River Valley has been filled with continuous cotton fields and fragrant rice flowers. Caught between the Sahara Desert and the Arabian Desert, the meandering Nile River is like a green outline, full of infinite vitality.
"The river rushed down with the black soil of the East African Plateau, and slowly slowed down until it reached the middle and lower reaches, forming a moist fertile soil area."
"So, the ancient Egyptians only needed to sow the seeds in October every year, and God would reward them. There would be a bumper harvest the next spring, and due to the hot climate, the crops could reach an astonishing three crops a year."
"According to the records of Dodd in Greece, the farmers there only need to wait for the river to overflow on its own, flow to the fields for irrigation, and then return to the river bed after irrigation. Then each person scatters the seeds on his own land and asks the pigs to step on them.
The seeds are just waiting to be harvested from now on.”
【This is too careless】
[This is Dodd again, the appearance rate is too high]
[Maybe there is an appearance fee (dog head)]
Bi Fang whistled and asked Alpha, who was watching on the hillside, to come down.
The huge Alpha looked at the steep slope and tried many times. Finally, he carefully stepped on the slope and slid bit by bit to the river bank.
Bi Fang just led the camel and walked beside the Nile River, feeling the water vapor blowing on his face, and every deep breath seemed to fill his lungs with wind and sand.
"This kind of farming method that depends on the sky is most suitable for the development level of early mankind. The Egyptians in the Nile River Basin, in the ancient times when production technology was extremely low, easily enjoyed the fruits of agriculture."
"With a sufficient material base, ancient Egypt became the first country in the world to get rid of the primitive tribal form and establish a slave state."
"However, there are so many rivers in the world, and it is not just the Nile that floods. Basically every one of the world's four major rivers will do so. But the Nile River Basin has a typical tropical desert climate. Although it is hot and hot all year round, as long as there is water, it will flood.
Coupled with fertile soil, as long as there are seeds in the soil at any time, the crops will naturally grow well."
"Take our Yellow River as an example. Although it floods regularly every summer and autumn, when the flood season is over, the weather has become cold. In winter, it is very cold and may even freeze."
"Everyone knows that the temperature is too low for the natural growth of crops."
"When the temperature rises next spring and summer, the seedlings in the ground have not yet fully grown, and the flood season comes again. At that time, the floods flood, and the dry land turns into paddy fields. The Loess Plateau is not a water town in the south of the Yangtze River. If you can't grow rice, you will have to suffer.
.”
"Therefore, people in these places only sought shelter in some higher-lying mountain and forest areas, and the corresponding agricultural harvests would be greatly reduced, and there would not be enough material guarantees to build a relatively large and advanced national civilization."
"The tropical desert covering almost all of Egypt's territory outside the Nile River Basin has also become an important factor in Egypt's leadership in the world."
"Perhaps many people doubt that tropical deserts are suitable for human survival. This is certainly reasonable, but in special historical periods and special circumstances, there are exceptions."
【Is it so complicated?】
[Human development ultimately depends on the earth]
"There are more complex ones."
Bi Fang casually broke off a piece of papyrus that looked like a reed.
"Tropical deserts have two characteristics. One is the fluidity of sand, which determines that it can fill ravines but cannot build mountains. Therefore, desert areas must have flat terrain. Even though the sand dunes may seem very high, they are tens of meters tall.
One hundred meters is just a small slope."
"The second is the extremely arid climate, which determines the evaporation of water in a desert environment. At the same time, the sandy surface has good water permeability and has a strong ability to absorb surface water."
"These two points may not seem to matter, but they were extremely important to the formation and development of early Egyptian civilization."
"The terrain is flat, so when the Nile floods it can cover a larger area."
"Secondly, when the desert surrounding the basin is washed away by the fertile soil threatened by the Nile River's overflowing floods during the flood season, it is possible to form a fertile plain."
"When the Nile River floods, due to the huge amount of evaporation and strong surface permeability, these advantages, coupled with the natural characteristics of sand cutting mountains and filling ditches, there will be no large lakes and swamps around the Nile River after the flood season.
"
"This point may seem to be a huge disadvantage now due to the serious lack of natural water storage function, but five or six thousand years ago, this point was very beneficial to the development of Egyptian civilization."
Lakes and swamps have natural water storage functions, which are difficult to develop and utilize.
To be used for agriculture, humans need to build embankments, dams, and canals to guide them.
As for swamps, it is more difficult to develop them into farmland.
The Egyptians, who have lived for thousands of years, can only rely on the weather for food. Their technology and resource reserves are extremely backward, and they are unable to effectively utilize lakes and swamps.
Not to mention building dams, they don't even know how to use canals.
Don't have that ability.
The special geographical environment of the lower reaches of the Nile does not allow the formation of large lakes and swamps.
After the flooding, there was sufficient water and fertile soil around the basin, which became the most suitable place for primary agriculture, and Egyptian farmers could sow and harvest to their heart's content.
This is not available in many other areas.
"In the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, until the period of the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors, human beings were still fighting for their lives against floods."
"It wasn't until Dayu succeeded in controlling the floods that we finally had a certain scale of farmland, from which we could obtain enough resources to support our evolution from a primitive tribe to a national civilization."
"After Dayu's death, his son Qi established the Xia Dynasty, the first dynasty in Chinese history."
【Dayu is awesome!!】
【Society, I am Brother Yu!】
【It has to be us!】
Bi Fang smiled.
"China is facing greater pressure to survive, so it quickly pointed out the technology of dams and canals, which can make use of lakes. In fact, it is a latecomer in development."
"The current tropical desert environment and the Nile River are no place for good human vitality. However, at one time and another, the ingenious combination of the two thousands of years ago gave birth to the leading civilization of ancient Egypt at that time."
"When we expand, we will find that the fundamentals of advanced civilized countries in ancient times are very similar to the Nile River."
"Among the four major ancient civilizations, except for Egypt, the middle and lower reaches of the Mesopotamia where Babylon is located, and the middle and lower reaches of the Indus River Basin where India is located, they are all a combination of large rivers and tropical desert environments. The only exception is China."
Those who could cause floods fled.
Those who don't make a big splash don't point out higher development of science and technology.
Only Huaxia was the scorpion daddy. Not only did he not escape, he also cured the flood.
"In short, due to the extremely low ability of early humans to transform nature, the emergence and development of civilization was extremely dependent on the innate natural environment, and the role of human subjective initiative seemed too small."
"In this case, only if the innate environment is very suitable, and as long as humans master a few low-level farming skills, it is possible to produce enough food, then a civilized country can be born at the earliest."
"So everything is not static, it's always changing."
"At the beginning of the development of civilization, this combination of tropical deserts and large rivers had obvious advantages. However, as human civilization progresses, its disadvantages gradually become apparent."
"After all, the development potential of desertified land is limited. When human technology develops to the point where it is capable of fully developing and utilizing difficult land areas such as lakes and swamps, Egypt will be beaten to death on the beach by the back waves."
"Among the four ancient civilizations, although China took shape relatively late, it caught up from behind and became the leader in one fell swoop."
“Indian civilization arose in the Indus River Basin, but its center of civilization shifted with the development of the Ganges River Basin.”
"Although the Mesopotamia where Babylon is located has always maintained its status as a first-class geological plate in the Middle East, the preservation of this status is largely due to the advantages of its geographical location. However, due to the production potential of its plate itself, it has long been
It was left far behind by China and India.”
"Although Egypt is the forerunner of the four ancient civilizations, it is also the one that has declined most completely."
"As other plates were developed one after another, Egypt's comprehensive strength was surpassed one after another. When the geographical strength of these plates developed to the point of being capable of external expansion, Egypt was reduced to a target of conquest by foreign forces."
"Persia, Macedonia, Rome, Byzantium, Arabia, and the Ottoman Empire all powerfully incorporated Egypt into their territory."
[Hey, things are changing.]
【There is no eternal empire】
【Is it coming to an end?】
Bi Fang used his nails to peel off the outer skin of the papyrus stems he had just broken off, and then used a knife to cut into long strips along the direction of growth, and placed them horizontally and vertically.
"Did you see the 'reed' on my hand? This is actually not a reed, but papyrus. It is a plant that looks like a reed and is abundant in the Nile Delta."
"I want to cut it like this and then overlap it, then hit it with a mallet to make the grass juice ooze out. After drying, these long strips will be permanently stuck together. Finally, they can be polished with pumice and used as paper."
"This was papyrus, the most advanced writing medium in the world at that time, and it became an important document for later generations of scholars to study ancient Egyptian civilization."
"But because papyrus is not suitable for folding and cannot be made into books, many pieces of papyrus must be glued into long strips and rolled into a roll after writing, thus forming a scroll."
"So we can often see that some ancient documents in the West are scrolls. If it were in ancient times, maybe my adventures this time would be recorded on such scrolls and passed down from generation to generation?"
With a little knowledge as the final conclusion, Bi Fang stopped delaying and gave a two-finger salute to the drone that was gradually rising and flying over the other side of the Nile River.
"This time the story ends here, but it is not the end. I am Bi Fang. See you next time."
As the drone flew over the Nile River and passed through the small oasis, Bi Fang finally turned into a black dot.