Chapter 978

The state of the Han Empire really had to be frightening.

For waiguoren, they think that the Han Empire seems to be a country that will suffer from depression after a year of armistice. They don't know what to do without war. It seems that they are looking for the object of war all the time.

"If any country just drives away and destroys its enemies, what it should do most is not to cultivate students and raise interest?" Keshias continued his wry smile: "as far as I know, the Han people did not do that. They fought at least one war every year from before to after the restoration of the country."

Julian's understanding was the same, for which he had great admiration.

For thousands of years, small wars have been fought at a certain border of the territory every day, and a large-scale military operation is bound to be carried out every five years.

They firmly believe that if a country wants to be strong, it should conquer the outside world endlessly. If it waits for Rome to stop the war, that day will also be the time for Rome to fall into weakness.

Foreign conquest is a process of plundering, seizing enough people as slaves and freeing more Romans to devote themselves to a new round of foreign conquest. In addition to the population, every step outward is to obtain resources. More developed places mean that the Romans have more resources.

The rise and growth of Rome was based on the continuous conquest of the outside world. They obtained an exaggerated number of slaves and used those slaves as various labor forces. At one time, ordinary Romans did not need to participate in labor, and the official distributed food every day.

The constant plunder not only made Rome strong, but also made Rome the most powerful country in the known world for a period of time. Looking up, it can be regarded as a worthy opponent in West Asia.

"So the Han people are strong. They continue to conquer their enemies, obtain population, wealth and resources, and will continue to be strong." Julian didn't mind revealing one thing: "we are consolidating the sea and have found the object of war."

"Britain, or central Europe?" That's all kosias can guess. He said firmly, "you will fight Britain first."

The Romans once killed across the Strait and occupied most of the island of Britain. However, with the chaos of Rome and challenges in other directions, and the determined resistance of the barbarians above Britain, the Romans gradually paid less attention to Britain.

The present situation is somewhat special. The Romans attached unprecedented importance to the sea and frontier. They desperately needed to accumulate enough sailing experience.

Not Mediterranean sailing experience. The Mediterranean is actually an inland sea. Compared with the Atlantic or Pacific, the sea state is not the same at all.

Of course, there will be waves and ocean storms in the Mediterranean, but to be honest, the waves in the Mediterranean are nothing compared with the Atlantic and Pacific, let alone the level of ocean storms.

Although the Romans ruled the Mediterranean, they could not control the weather. Even a storm of the Mediterranean level destroyed the Roman fleet more than once. Considering the bad sea conditions of the Atlantic and Pacific, the Romans had to be frightened.

"We have purchased 87 ships from the Han Empire." Julian knew that these could not be concealed at all. The main reason was that the Han Empire did not mention the need for the Romans to keep secrets: "once they return to Europa, after necessary maintenance, we will put them into the battle against Britain."

In the long history, because the Romans have always been the most powerful and dangerous opponents of the Persians, the Persians have been spying on Roman intelligence, and they will have a basic understanding of the terrain even if they can't know it well.

"Do you want to use the ships you bought only in the North Sea?" The North sea called by keshias was named by the Romans. Seeing that Julian did not refute, he continued: "do you want to learn from the Han Empire's raid on the Gupta Empire and choose to land from the waist of the British island?"

"It's really good to be guessed!" Julian really didn't think there was any surprise in being guessed: "the North Sea and the Strait, both sides landed."

The central part of Britain is a relatively narrow terrain, or the whole British island is actually an irregular long shape except for the open terrain in the south.

"We will use a pincer attack. After landing in both directions, we will get through to each other from the land and meet." Julian was sure that the Persians knew the general situation of Britain. Since they were guessed how to fight, there was no need to hide: "the Saxons, Celts, angles and Picts were not very friendly to each other, but as long as we entered, they would always unite."

The Celts are now the most powerful on the British island, occupying all the territory in the west of the southern part of the British island.

The Saxons and the angles are allies. One is to occupy the southeast territory in the south of the British island, and the other is to occupy the northeast region in the south of the British island.

When the Romans had no military action, the Saxons and the angles fought the Celts together.

But if the Romans had any military action, the Saxons and the angles would immediately truce with the Kate to deal with the Romans.

The Picts are a tribal alliance entrenched in the northernmost part of the British island. They are only willing to stay in their own territory all the year round, and have a neutral relationship with the keters, Saxons and angles.

However, the neutrality of the Picts was limited to the civil war within the British island. Once the Romans showed a slight sign of going north, they would send warriors south, usually with the Celts to fight the Romans.

"It's just a simple military training..." what clethias knows is that Rome is very poor now. He asked suspiciously, "can the nobles in your country agree?"

"We found a super large iron mine over there." What Julian didn't say was that he didn't know who first spread the news. Later, it was confirmed that what he said was true: "there are a lot of associated silver reserves."

Iron ore? Or super large? Cassias was a little extremely Roman for a time.

The current world island, except for some extremely uncivilized nations, as long as it is a formed country, even if it does not master mature smelting technology, it is basically entering the era of contact with iron.

Since it is the iron age, the value of iron ore goes without saying.

For some countries, especially regional powers and Overlord empires, iron ore has always been the more the better, and no country will be too few.

At present, the Romans say it is super large, and the storage capacity will not be less than 20 million tons.

Of course, the Persians have their own mineral resources, but they still want to go crazy when they hear that the Romans have discovered a new iron ore with a storage of at least 20 million tons. They use so many iron ores, but they are basically large, medium and small types. There is really no super large iron ore.

"I don't know why, the Han people are very interested in collecting silver and seem to be more obsessed than gold." Julian did not say what the silver reserves in Britain were. He guessed: "there seems to be not many gold and silver mines in the territory of the Han Empire. The value of silver was higher than that of gold before. It has changed only in recent ten years."

It is true that there are not many gold and silver mines in Zhuxia, especially the number of silver mines is less, and most of the gold mines are concentrated in the South and southwest.

Perhaps it should be said that there are some minerals in Zhuxia except coal mines, but in terms of land size and reserves, the quantity is really not much.

Whether before or after, in fact, Zhuxia earth is a situation of extreme lack of precious metals, that is, with the continuous development of science and technology, more and more elements are discovered, and the application types of elements are also increased. Only those minerals such as rare earth, manganese... That have not been discovered can produce their due value.

Kesias understood that the Romans thought that the Han people liked silver, and the Romans did not want too much gold to flow to the Han Empire. The Romans did not pay so much attention to silver. If they could trade with the Han people with silver, they would not choose gold.

In fact, the Persians have long found that the Han people prefer silver. Fortunately, Persia has a large amount of silver. When trading with the Han people, they also give priority to paying with silver.

Do Han people really like silver more than gold? To some extent, neither the Romans nor the Persians guessed wrong.

For a long time, perhaps it should be said that the Ming Dynasty needs to carry out foreign trade and constantly obtain silver from the trade between Japan and Europa. Otherwise, the gold on the land of Zhuxia was much more than silver.

If someone traded before the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, giving priority to silver rather than gold or copper, he would definitely be regarded as a fool. Or the man just passed through and didn't know the market.

On the premise that rare things are expensive, the amount of silver owned by the Han people is scarce. Although the value of silver is much lower than that of gold in the known world, the Han people really prefer silver.

"Now basically the Han has the final say." Julian said the value definition of precious metals: "they like silver, but they still use the ratio of 10 to 1. See if they are more willing to receive silver. Is there a shortage of silver?"

The Persians also made similar guesses, but they didn't understand where they needed a lot of silver.

"Could it be that they invented those things?" Julian is more willing to guess from this aspect: "for example, silver is needed in the processing of gunpowder, artillery and muskets?"

"That's what we guessed." Keshias patted the snow on his shoulder and said with less certainty, "it's very possible, but it can't be confirmed."

What brain hole is this? Even if silver is used in industry, it is only used in some Antirust Coatings at the current scientific and technological level. We need to wait for the era of electricity, and the use of silver for industry will increase sharply. After all, silver is an indispensable raw material for electroplating.

"Absolutely." Julian said with great certainty: "their Japanese island provinces are constantly transporting silver to the mainland, but silver is still preferred in foreign trade. It must be for great use, otherwise it can't be explained."

At this moment, both of them had an idea. Should they put forward suggestions to China and start the relevant reserves of silver so that they can be used in the future?

There are snowflakes in the sky. At first glance, the earth is also snow-white. If the sun is enough, no one will stare foolishly.

In fact, no matter Julian or keshias, or anyone else, they all choose to wear a thin eye mask. They prefer to see through the eye mask rather than take off the eye mask.

People are like that, as are some livestock such as war horses. Otherwise, if you suddenly go blind one day, you'll find yourself.

They were already in the territory of xigaoche, but they were not too deep. They just entered more than 60 miles and didn't even meet a tribe along the way.

"Your Highness is over there."

Julian reminded that he had driven his horse close.

Keshias didn't want to fall behind at all. He also flattered and leaned over.

In the icy and snowy environment, Liu Shen wrapped himself up. The whole person didn't even show his eyes in the air. He didn't know how Julian saw him.

The three people have been in contact for many times, from just greeting before to chatting later. At present, they can ride a horse together. They may not be friends, but they can get together and chat.

"Is it your highness patrolling again today?" Julian didn't care that he was blocked by the Knights of the Han army when he came over. He was even glad that he didn't take away his weapons this time: "Ding Ling can hide too much. He doesn't know where to hide."

In the past few times, Julian, keshias and others were disarmed within ten meters of Liu Shen.

Not everyone who approaches Liu Shen will be disarmed. It's just crooked nuts.

"Our scouts explored the surrounding area for fifty miles, but they didn't even find a herdsman." Liu Shen's mouth and nose were wrapped in cloth. He spoke in a stuffy voice: "this is not a good phenomenon."

"Yes!" Julian certainly agreed with Liu Shen: "if you don't find Ding zero people, you can't destroy them."

In fact, the season has entered the late spring, but there is no sign of snow melting in this area. Although the Han Army had expected this for a long time, it still felt a little confused.

I'm not confused why I came here. I'm confused. One day, this land will become part of the territory of the Han Empire. What's the use of this place.

According to the modern regional division, their current position should be at the junction of central Siberia and western Siberia.

The terrain of this place is extremely flat. It is difficult to find a mountain. Now they are facing a piece of ice and snow. If they wait for the ice and snow to melt, they will face a worse environment.

"I heard that after the ice and snow melt here, there will be swamps after swamps." "Once the ice and snow show signs of melting, we should withdraw our troops," Liu Shen said in distress