The two river basins are the cradle of western civilization.

These two river basins are what we call the Euphrates and Tigris river basins in eastern Syria and Iraq today. Six or seven thousand years ago, these were two big rivers that spread in the Middle East today. There is a beautiful delta between the two river basins. This delta has a very beautiful ancient Greek name called Mesopotamia. What does Mesopotamia mean? It's in the middle of the river.

In the Bible, Mesopotamia is described as very beautiful. It is described as Adam and Eve's Garden of Eden and paradise on earth. The earliest human civilization was born in this place.

We can say that the four elements of civilization are city, agriculture, smelting technology and writing. In 3500 BC, this place had all these elements. There are the earliest cities, the earliest facilities, the earliest myths, the earliest pharmacopoeia and so on. It can be said that this is the cradle of the whole western civilization. In this place, Sumerian civilization, Akkadian civilization, Babylonian civilization and Assyrian civilization were born.

Among the four great civilizations, ancient Babylon impressed us the most.

Speaking of ancient Babylon, everyone's first impression is that this is a country with a very long history. In fact, the history of ancient Babylon is only 300 years, which is much shorter than we thought. In the late 2nd/Kloc-0th century BC, the third Sumerian dynasty perished. The Amorites established two countries, Ishin and Larsha. At the beginning of 19 BC, the Amorites' Amner Num tribe got rid of the control of Babylonian Yixin, and its leader Sumabu established the Babylonian kingdom in 1894 BC, also known as the first dynasty of Babylon.

The most glorious age of ancient Babylon was around 1792 BC, because at this time a great monarch appeared in the kingdom of ancient Babylon, and this man was Hammurabi. Hammurabi was a king who tried to govern the country. He actively developed agriculture, built water conservancy projects, developed economy, expanded troops to prepare for war, strengthened military training, exercised centralized rule at home and expanded territory abroad. BC 1787, Hammurabi began to expand his territory, conquered a series of countries in the two river basins, and successively destroyed Yixin, Larsa, Mali and other city-states. Except Assyria, the whole two river basins are under the iron fist rule of Hammurabi.

Hammurabi not only conquered these countries, but also brought them real civilization. These civilizations include the laws and policies he formulated. Code of hammurabi best represents Hammurabi's great achievements in law.

When I went to France for a civilization inspection the year before last, I went to the Louvre on purpose. In the Louvre, I visited the exhibitions of many civilized sites in the world. But what excites me most is to see a dark stone tablet, which completely records a legal classic with cuneiform characters created by the ancient Sumerians. This classic is code of hammurabi.

Code of hammurabi is the first complete code in human history. Although the content of the code is to establish jurisprudence for Hammurabi's own secular regime to prove his theocracy, we have seen a very gratifying three-stage expression in the code-preface, text and conclusion, which is a very important legal normative text. Moreover, the concepts of criminal law and civil law have appeared in this code, emphasizing the basic spirit of justice and fairness. What is more gratifying is that this code covers almost all basic areas of law, including civil and criminal proceedings. In addition, this code is basically a compilation of judicial precedents. Although this code is about God's will, it particularly emphasizes that this code is not a God's code, but a secular code. What is the concept of secular code? In other words, everyone must abide by the code, which is also commendable.