Only by recognizing the weak and accepting the strong can we make progress. A nation that does not understand this truth can never escape the fate of being eliminated.
When accepting the culture of the strong side, if we do not maintain our national values, then although our national "body" is still alive, without "spirit" and "inner" is also dead.
The Roman culture is Hellenized, but their "spirit" and "inner" are pure Rome. Even because they accepted the Greek culture, they enlarged some good aspects of Greek culture, so that the gain of the Romans is not as simple as one plus one equals two.
For a long time, the Romans conquered many nationalities. They always absorbed them after conquering a nation. At the beginning, it was religion, such as continuing to worship the gods of the conquered nationalities. Later, they slowly absorbed their culture and values.
The Romans never refused to learn good things. After they found the strength of the Han people, the more powerful the nobles were, the more they took the lead in learning the Han culture.
If the Han Empire sent envoys to Rome now, it will be found that the closer Rome is to the provinces in the East, a large number of nobles no longer wear traditional robes, but wear gorgeous Han clothes.
The imitation of clothing style is only one thing. If you can be invited to participate in the banquet of the great nobility, you can also find that the banquet is not the same as before.
In the past, Roman banquets were nothing more than putting rich food on people's own. Food was generally cold dishes. If you wanted to eat hot food, you either had a barbecue on site or brought soup.
Now, the middle and small nobles are still like that, but the big nobles are basically not like that.
No matter what the aristocrats learned, they just learned the way the Han people held banquets. Some learned well, others didn't even learn the form, but they were always changing.
Those great Roman nobles who studied well had family children who went to the Han Empire. Those family children were invited to dinner hosted by the Han people.
Depending on who the noble children were invited to participate in the banquet, the Romans who participated in the Han grand noble banquet many times and the Romans who only participated in the Han little noble banquet learned a completely different form of banquet.
They will keep some cold dishes in the form of buffet, but basically to take care of those ignorant guests.
The newly learned way to hold a banquet is to arrange a place to put a table and futon, and serve dishes one after another in order.
Many Roman nobles learned a form. Most of them had never eaten Han food at all. Even if they changed to hot food, only a few nobles could provide Han dishes.
The Romans kept a great curiosity about anything new. They were even interested in some arts of weak and small nationalities and imitated interesting things.
It's just fun to learn something about the weak and small nationalities, but learning from the strong is to become stronger.
The Romans deeply know that they can never fall behind the pace of progress. They never exclude learning. That is the crucial factor for Rome to become the overlord of Europe, without one!
The Persians were surprised when the Romans learned from the Han Empire, and then the Persians came back.
Although the Romans in the eyes of Persians are strong, Persians always have a trace of arrogance. They admit that the Romans are a little better than themselves, but the Persian culture is more diversified and better than the Romans.
In fact, the Romans had some cultures and living habits that they learned from the Persians, which is also the place where the Persians could not beat the Romans but despised the Romans.
Like the Romans, the Persians did not approach the Han people in everything. For example, the Persians did not learn from the clothes of the Han people.
In terms of diet, Persians are very similar to Han people. The difference is only the different dishes. In fact, cooking is almost the same, but the taste is different.
The history of the Persians is much longer than that of the Romans. Although the Persians had a period of depression, didn't they stand up again?
A nation with a long history must have something to be proud of. The Persians are willing to learn from the Han people, but they will not independently sinicize like the Romans. They will not change their clothing characteristics, are more reluctant to abandon their traditions, and even deliberately retain their traditions.
"Actually..." keshias was just talking about relevant things and asked Julian curiously: "after you fully study the Han people, are the Romans still Romans?"
Julian was very puzzled by kesias' view and asked, "what do you mean?"
"You have completely changed your clothing style and living habits..." kesias said a lot and finally asked, "Rome or Rome?"
"Rome will be Rome, of course." Julian had some aftertaste, smiled and said, "it's like we once fully accepted Greek culture. Aren't we Romans?"
Cassias was said to be a stunned God and thought, "yes, the Romans are completely Hellenistic, but they are still Romans."
They followed the Han Army to the southeast and were arranged in the middle of the whole team.
The ice and snow on this land have begun to melt, and the soil on the ground is quite wet. After repeated trampling, it becomes muddy.
Fortunately, the Han Army did not lack animal power. With a large number of carriages and walking horses, people didn't have to get stuck in the mud step by step.
However, there are not many troubles. For example, after the soil becomes muddy, the wheels often get stuck. It must take animal power and people to deal with it.
Later, Li Tan changed the way of marching. The whole team was distributed to the greatest extent and became a team moving south in a fan way, which is not the very common way of marching with long snakes.
After the repeated trampling is minimized to the greatest extent, the muddy difficulty is greatly solved. The marching speed is the slowest 80 Li per day, and it can be close to 120 Li when it is fast.
Because there are huge animals in the team, they need to stop and repair every 500 miles. A repair usually takes two to three days. After seven days, they are still more than 400 miles away from Junji mountain.
It's not that the more animals, the faster the March.
Like cavalry troops, they can march on horseback within 500 miles, but they don't March indefinitely. If they don't want their horses to be abandoned, maintaining them is a must.
The cavalry force is only short-distance and has strong mobility. Although the pure infantry walk slower than them every day, the infantry marching on foot will actually be much faster than them in long-distance marching.
The infantry will march faster than the cavalry because the infantry don't need to stop a few days apart to let the horses enter the recovery period. In this way, although the infantry marched 70 miles a day and the cavalry marched 120 or 30 miles a day, the infantry marched 70 miles a day, but the cavalry marched for two or three days and had to repair it for two or three days. Many times, it took more than a thousand miles for the infantry to walk for three or four days before the cavalry arrived behind their hips.
Therefore, the so-called fast of the cavalry is the distance beyond the range of 500 Li on the premise that the distance does not exceed 500 Li. The price for the cavalry to keep fast is to make the war horse useless.
The Han army withdrew from the border of xigaoche.
Xigaoche didn't seem to know that and didn't send large-scale troops to catch up.
During the retreat of the Han Army, there were sporadic attacks. When they caught the living, they were some people who had been hiding. They didn't attack after receiving orders. It was pure self-behavior.
After withdrawing from the border of xigaoche, even sporadic attacks did not occur again. The scouts who stayed behind to spy reported that xigaoche had no sign of sending troops.
"Maybe..." Dou a said hesitantly, "Ding Ling doesn't even know about our invasion?"
"Who knows." Li Tan said sadly, "maybe our invasion is in the wrong direction."
They have more or less figured out one thing. The selected invasion location will be ice and snow when it snows. After the snow melts, it is not conducive to marching. Once it enters the rainy season, it will become a land of Ze. No matter how you look at this environment, it is not suitable for habitat. No wonder there are no signs of residence in large areas.
"We just left before. It rained locally." Li Tan has more information than Dou A: "it's only two days of heavy rain. Not far from the area where we were originally stationed, the low-lying position has directly become large and small pools. If the rain continues, it's not impossible to form a lake."
The Han people can tell that the place is a basin at all. With the amount of melting ice and snow and the rainfall in the rainy season, it is inevitable that low-lying areas form lakes. Areas without lakes will be full of streams. Only some places with relatively high terrain will have less humidity, but not much better.
"Tortured some prisoners." Li Tan said with a wry smile, "in summer, there will be swamps over there."
The subtext is that their withdrawal behavior is completely correct, or they should get out at the right time. If they are a few days later, they should face the rainy season, and if they continue to drag on, they will face the swamps everywhere.
"What a pity..." Dou a said with great regret, "the big man has occupied the land and won't get much."
This statement is completely correct, that is, after modern times, whether the Soviet Union or Russia, when that land does not exist, they do not even have the idea of development, so that they maintain the original style.
That piece of land is not without resources. It is more expensive to develop that piece of land than other places. So who will develop it on the premise of some choices?
"Not without harvest." Zhang haole said happily, "estimated, the value of fur and medicinal materials is very high."
Now there are Dingling people. I didn't know how many nomadic troops there were before. Looking at the small number of Dingling people in that place, considering the local appearance and climate, if there are not many people, they won't consume the gifts of nature, and there must be many natural resources left.
The Han army paid attention to revenue when they went to xigaoche. They didn't kill many Ding people. At the beginning, they didn't take the initiative to hunt and collect resources. They really couldn't find the enemy behind, so they wouldn't stay in the camp and do nothing. They must be trying to create revenue.
Under constant hunting and exploration, a large number of animals were killed and their fur was collected.
The harvest of plants is more than fur. There are a large number of medicinal materials that are difficult to find in the Central Plains. Some plants that have never been seen will never turn a blind eye if they can be found.
"Plus the harvest of the Northern Expedition..." Zhang Haomei said Zizi, "make a lot of money!"
The harvest of killing Rouran and donggaoche is more than one million livestock, with the largest number of sheep, the second number of cattle and the second number of horses.
Unfortunately, because of the military affairs of invading xigaoche, those prisoners of war can only be solved, otherwise they can increase profits.
If you share the spoils of war, you will be a small soldier who goes out with the army. It is estimated that you can get at least more than 1000 five baht.
Wealth is secondary, and the most important thing for soldiers is merit.
According to the rules of the Han Army, those who have made meritorious service on the battlefield are also counted. Those who are unlucky enough to fail to make military service are determined by their original official titles and titles. For example, those who are not even public servants are bound to get public titles when they go back.
This is part of the "subsistence allowance" for participating in the war. The rules have been formed since the Pre-Qin Dynasty, and have been continued in the western and Eastern Han Dynasties. Up to now, the Han Empire also chooses to retain them.
There are more or less gains. Moreover, the casualties on our side are not serious, and the army has always maintained high morale.
It seems that the morale of the Han army is high all the time. It is really shocked. Some small countries and few people have limited experience. The more powerful the country is, the more it can understand what it represents.
"Their morale was high during the northern expedition. It was also high in ice and snow. Now they are still high on the way home." Flavis said puzzled, "are the Han people always like this?"
"What you should ask is, is it like this for every army in the Han Empire?" Julian did not believe that any army of the Han Empire was like this: "the troops of the northern expedition of the Han Empire must be elite. They destroyed two countries at a slight cost and obtained amazing capture. They must be happy."
Flavis thought about it and thought so.
If the Roman Legion went through such a expedition, I'm afraid it would show greater excitement than the Han people. After all, there are not many people killed or injured, but there are so many materials seized. It's strange that the living people can share the spoils.
"I know a Marquis of the Han army. He said he could get at least 500 gold coins." Flavis is not a poor man, or even a rich man. He still feels jealous: "he doesn't seem to be keen on wealth. He's happy to be promoted to the rank of Lord."
Julian was very clear about what the title represented in the Han Empire and put forward a topic he wanted to discuss for a long time: "Rome did not establish a title. Should we also establish a title?"