Great time travel

Chapter 23, The Coming of the Magic Age

In the European Middle Ages, where the religious atmosphere was extremely strong, the power of faith was amazing.

After the "angels" wearing cat ears publicly promulgated the "God's oracle" on the square in front of the church, Marseille, the second largest city in France, soon bowed its head and bowed its knees in front of the traversers— —without further coercion, the City Hall, the courts, and the churches all opened their doors to "Saint" Livy, and the whole city obeyed with reverence.

However, due to the attack of the plague, the city's management organization has completely collapsed, and Li Wei had to bring the group of people from his manor to the city. The shelf of a government agency.

During this period, there was actually a little mindless nobleman who believed the rumors and brought his own private soldiers to make trouble, trying to expel Li Wei, the "heretical usurper who used witchcraft"... Fortunately, after being struck by the angels with lightning, After turning over a few fools, the rest of the people will be honest.

Then, through the latest intelligence data collected, the traversers learned of the current tragic state of Marseille Port with a tingling scalp.

——According to Li Wei's original estimate, this prosperous city with a population of 8 in January, no matter how heavy the loss is now, at least 8000 people should still be able to remain.But in fact, Marseilles carried out 1000 corpses in February, which is about [-]% of the city's population.More than [-] Marseille residents died in March.After counting those who fled in a hurry, there are only about [-] people left in the city, and more than [-] of them have already suffered from the Black Death. If they don't pay close attention to treatment, most of them may not survive a week.

Under such a horrible death rate, Marseille's military power and administrative organs have all collapsed.

Marseille's city defense force originally had [-] standing troops, that is, mercenaries who had signed long-term contracts and received military pay every month. The size of such a standing force was not small in Europe at that time.However, because the living conditions in the barracks were too dense and the environment was very unhygienic, these strong professional soldiers were the first to suffer under the attack of the Black Death, and all of them died before March.

The courts and government of Marseilles were not much better, the last judge in the city had just died in his hospital bed on the morning when Chevalier Levy was burned, and the last lawyer had died the previous week.By the time Li Wei took his men down to take over, there was only one dazzled and deaf janitor left in the law enforcement agencies of the entire city, and all the case files and official documents were also reduced to ashes in a fire.

As a medieval free city, Marseille was governed by a municipal council of ten to 15 people.Professional bureaucrats and professional politicians are not very popular in Europe these days, so the mayor of Marseille (actually the chief committee member) and other committee members are generally composed of the most famous local businessmen and gentlemen (mostly the leaders of a certain guild) ) and aristocrats (the land belongs to them), and occasionally there are foreign guys who "airborne" with royal appointments.But before the "angel came", all the members of the entire municipal committee had either been summoned by the Lord to go to heaven, or they fled in a hurry by abandoning their posts. There were only a few clerks left in the city hall, and all of them were sick...

Well, on the bright side, Knight Levi doesn't have to worry about someone coming to fight him for power, at least for the time being.

The only relatively complete official institution in the city is the church right now.In the time after the collapse of the city hall, it was entirely relying on a guard under the church and a few dedicated clergy to maintain the minimum order in the city... But even the church was lost in the black death With about three-quarters of the manpower, it can barely control a small urban area near the church, and the rest of the place is completely anarchic.

This is true for the powerful officials, but the situation among the people is even more appalling.At this time, the city of Marseilles was on the verge of disintegration. Except for those medicinal herbs that could only be used as placebos, which were hyped up to sky-high prices, all other shops were closed, and all trade business came to a standstill.The pier was full of "dead ships" whose owners and sailors could not be found, and no ships entered or left for a full forty days-Marseille became a dead port!
However, what is surprising is that even though all the shops have been closed, the remaining citizens can still live on, and there is no danger of hunger or cold in a short period of time-the food reserves that originally supplied 8 people are still enough 7000 people fill their stomachs.No money to buy food at home?What money do you need at this time?Anyway, most of the people in the city died or fled, and the food, wine and firewood in their homes became destitute.Anyone who is hungry can go to the extinct neighbor's house and "bring" some food back...until he himself dies of the plague, black and festering.

There are even quite a few citizens who live in a difficult life, simply give up on themselves, take advantage of this opportunity of the collapse of laws and regulations, and try their best to satisfy all their desires, as if they were dying for pleasure, drinking to their heart's content day and night, getting drunk like mud, They break into other people's houses on a whim, do whatever they want, and take whatever they see, and no one stops them—because everyone is alive today and can't keep tomorrow, and they don't care about property or not Woolen cloth?Therefore, most of the residences in this city, whether they are magnificent palaces or narrow and simple huts, have almost become public property. .

Of course, the above-mentioned "carnival on the eve of destruction" is just the frantic reaction of the citizens of Marseille when the end is approaching.After the miraculous "angel came" and promised to save them, those crazy guys immediately became good law-abiding citizens for the survival of themselves and their families, and cooperated with great enthusiasm to implement Any decree issued by the Knights of Levi.

Even Levy's public request for "donations" that he felt a little embarrassed about: asking citizens to bring their belongings to the church as an expression of piety and repentance, miraculously caused little resistance-not to mention How strong is the atmosphere of faith in this era, even in later generations, there are very few guys like Grandet who want money and life.When a person is about to lose his life, he must be very indifferent to property.

Not to mention that so many people have died in the city recently, and countless rich and wealthy households have all died of their families. As long as the properties of those dead people are donated, it will probably be able to satisfy the appetites of the angels... Those who have been evacuated The citizens who came to borrow flowers from the neighbor's family property thought very optimistically.

Regrettably, they seem to have slightly underestimated the greed and thirst for money of Doraemon, the billionaire "loser"...

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"...the woolens of Florence, the blankets of Flanders, the sheepskins of the Alps, the pewter, copper and jewels of Aquitaine, the native cheeses, dried fishes and natural soaps of Provence, the natural gems of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, There are also champagne and Bordeaux wine... Even in the modern world, these things should be considered good things! Why is the price given by the [Automatic Pawn Machine] so low? Of course, those natural gemstones still sold well The price, unfortunately, the quantity is too small, and I can't make up 15 billion yen..."

On the cobblestone-paved large square in front of the main entrance of the church, all kinds of "tributes" piled up like mountains, including luxurious and gorgeous gold and silver vessels, precious stones and coins, as well as relatively simple sundries such as wine barrels, blankets and cloth, etc. There are also "big-ticket items" such as carriages.Nan Lixiang and Doraemon are taking turns stuffing them into the [automatic pawn machine], and at the same time put away the stacks of Japanese yen bills that the machine keeps spitting out.

Unfortunately, the [Automatic Pawn Machine] estimated the price of these tributes was far less than Nan Lixiang's minimum psychological expectation, which made her quite critical of it.

"...Is there any way? These things were found from the houses where the plague patients died of illness. They were covered with countless germs. The pawn shop had to sterilize them before selling them. The price given was natural. It's very low." Doraemon explained with a helpless sigh.

But these "bacterial weapons" mentioned above are not the most deceitful.In contrast, the more deceitful "tributes" are those oriental porcelains, silks and spices that were considered invaluable in the eyes of medieval Europeans... In this era, a mere colored porcelain vase, in Western Europe It can sell thousands of gold coins, but for the [automatic pawn machine] evaluated according to the modern Japanese market price, it is not as valuable as a gold coin.Not to mention those silks and spices—no matter how you count, it is more profitable to trade spices and silks from the modern world here!
Therefore, when the various tributes sent by the citizens of Masai, which seemed to pile up like a mountain, were all thrown into the [automatic pawn machine], they were only sold at an ultra-low price of 150 million yen.Not to mention the 15 billion principal of the debt, even the monthly interest of [-] billion yen is very different.

Fortunately, wherever religious places are pious and ignorant, religious places always gather the largest amount and type of wealth, whether it is a church in medieval Europe or a Tibetan lamasery before liberation... After carefully searching the port of Marseille After the cathedral, two major monasteries, and the official villa of the bishop of Marseilles, Doraemon finally found some good things that seemed to sell for a high price-the first was a small bronze statue of a half-naked muscular man, with rust on the surface, and There are many traces of bump damage, and it is said to be an antique from the Roman Empire era.Calculated in this way, even if it is only 1348 now, this thing should have a historical value of thousands of years, no matter how you calculate it, it should be able to sell for a high price... However, the final result disappointed Doraemon very much, "... What? Just pawned [-] yen? Hell, this thing must be a fake! And it's new!"

(As early as the Renaissance period, there were already many professional merchants selling fake antiques in Europe. Just the holy gun that stabbed Jesus to death, at least dozens of them were sold, and the skulls of St. Peter were enough for bowling , the shroud of Jesus can be used as a sail when put together...)
Instead, Nan Lixiang found a very gaudy cloisonné enamel wine glass, decorated with roses and vanilla, and had a crystal handle.Although cloisonné enamel is fancy, it actually appeared quite early, at least in ancient Rome, it was already known to Westerners, and after it was introduced to China, it was called cloisonné.Craftsmen coil copper wires on the surface of utensils to form shapes, then fill them with enamel raw materials, and finally fire them into various bright and pleasing colors such as red, green and blue.The wine glass in Nan Lixiang's hand is in the style of ancient Rome, with the Roman Colosseum embossed on it... Because the color of this thing is still very bright and the craftsmanship is very exquisite, it doesn't look like it has faded for a long time, Nan Lixiang didn't treat it as an antique at first Look, it wasn't until I put it into the [automatic pawn machine] that I was shocked by the quotation, "... Scared? It sold for 5000 million yen!! I didn't expect it to be a real cultural relic!"

Comparing the rough medieval gold and silver utensils next to her, she had to admit that medieval Europe seemed regressive in many ways.

However, in the antique collections of the Marseille church and the rich, fakes still account for many times, and the real ones may not be very valuable.Eager to raise money, the doraemon even disregarded the twitching brows of the priests and almost fainted. They even removed the Renaissance-style murals on the church walls, but because they were not masterpieces, they still failed to sell for much money.On the contrary, the altar used for preaching in the church and the large carved bed where the bishop sleeps are all made of precious mahogany. How many thousands of yen...

Of course, Doraemon didn't just dismantle it and ignore the aftermath. Instead, he pasted a modern three-dimensional painting with a Christian theme on the wall, and took out a fiberglass podium to place the altar, and then let these short-sighted priests They were surprised and delighted to see it, and they cried out for miracles.

But even so, the imminent payment of 15 billion yen in monthly interest is still not enough, and it is too late to go door-to-door, tear down walls and dig the ground to find the inheritance of those wealthy citizens... So, the robot cat's eye that is about to go crazy As soon as the beads were turned, the idea came to the port again——as a maritime trade city that has flourished since the sixth century BC, there are naturally many warehouses full of goods by the wharf of Marseilles. Died and all became ownerless.Now it happens to be all dedicated to the "angels" for confiscation and emergency relief.

——Wheat, wool, ore, wood, olive oil... Every unowned warehouse was swept away, no matter what goods were stuffed in it, even many owned warehouses were given a receipt by Doraemon expropriation without compensation.In the end, he even frantically spared the ships in the port full of dead people. He used the [shrink lamp] to make them into palm-sized pieces and threw them all into the [automatic pawn machine].

In short, after sweeping half of the city under such inhuman and brutal raids, Doraemon finally made up the loan interest that should be paid this month.This shows that the production capacity and wealth accumulation in medieval Europe were poor...

On the other hand, when the red-eyed doraemon is searching everywhere and making money crazily, in the chapel of Marseille Cathedral, the blond and busty female school doctor Shizuka Marikawa with angel wings spread her full play. The professional quality of medical workers, with a holy smile of compassion (naturally?), gave every plague patient and healthy person who came to ask for help, the grace and salvation from the kingdom of heaven.

"...Don't worry, don't be afraid, the power of God will soothe your physical pain. (French or Italian) Meow! In the name of the holy cat, bathe in the holy breath, eliminate the pain of the body, and bloom the vitality of life Vitality, complete healing meow! (Japanese)"