Great time travel

Chapter 93. Convergence of Times
Anyone who has read the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" probably knows that during the European colonization of America, the germs from the Old World caused terrible destruction to the Indians in the New World - died of smallpox Far more Native Americans died than were killed by muskets!

But on the other hand, the European colonists themselves at this time were also suffering from the scourge of the plague. At that time, the average life expectancy in Europe was no more than 35 years, and the death rate was as high as one tenth of each voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Cities without sewers The feces and urine are everywhere, the stench is smoky, the disease breeds, the child mortality rate remains high, the citizens do not have toothpaste and toothbrush at home, and the occasional bleeding gums may cause infection and inflammation leading to death.And the Christian church does not encourage believers to take a bath. Most Europeans rub their bodies with a pile of stinky mud. Modern people can faint if they stay around them... Such an unhygienic living environment naturally led to the outbreak of the plague. Repeated outbreaks, often a plague will kill tens of thousands to 10,000+ people. Thanks to the high fertility rate of Europeans in those days, as the saying goes, the poorer and the more born, not only survived the repeated harvest of death, but also have the power to launch a global campaign expansion.

In short, even in the early colonial towns established by Europeans in America these years, half of the people often died in a plague outbreak.

Therefore, when more than 500 traversers came to Manhattan Island, the first "gifts" they brought to the Native American Indians were not the ironware, cloth, plastic trinkets and carbonated drinks presented to the Delaware tribe by the traversers, but Various bacteria and viruses from the 21st century...

Fortunately, this group of traversers in North America generally has high integrity. Facing the outbreak among the Indian neighbors, they did not stand idly by, nor did they gloat or even add insult to injury (an important reason why the Chinese and American authorities are so enthusiastic is that there are many The young man who traveled through married an Indian girl from the Delaware tribe. Even if it was just for the sake of his wife and children, he had to take care of his father-in-law’s family), but he sent a medical team to try his best to treat the sick natives and pass them on to the Indians. Various advanced medical and health concepts... finally let them survive this crisis.

Next, as immigrants from all over the world continued to enter the Huamei Republic, they not only brought practical skills, unique crop varieties and exotic livestock from all over the world, but also brought diseases from all over the world...In this era, all People who can live to adulthood have strong immunity to various diseases in their hometown, but they are often very vulnerable to diseases in distant foreign countries.Therefore, in the immigrant country of the Huamei Republic, the incidence of various infectious diseases is very high. Even with the medical and health concepts of the time-travelers and the various anti-inflammatory drugs that have been "invented" one after another, frequent outbreaks of epidemics The disease still kills a large number of people, especially infants and young children.

For example, when immigrants from Europe come to North America, they are often infected with diseases that are common in Asia but rarely in Europe; East Asian immigrants are also prone to diseases that are unique to Europe and the West-because they live in The hometown is rarely exposed to these diseases, and the body's immunity is limited, causing death every time.As for the Indian aborigines, they are the most unlucky. They have no immunity to the germs of Europe or Asia.As representatives of the Americas, they can "contribute" to the terrible diseases of all mankind, but only syphilis is one of the more famous ones. Compared with other severe plagues, syphilis is really not on the table. It's easy to see...

In the face of the global germ exchange meeting held every day on its own land, the Huamei Republic has attached great importance to the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Once a patient is found, it will be isolated and treated immediately. It will be burned down, but there are still small-scale outbreaks of epidemic diseases every year, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties... But at any rate, it has not caused a nationwide disaster, which is considered a great blessing among misfortunes.

Therefore, when the large-scale introduction of oriental immigrants was introduced this time, the health department of the Huamei Republic, which had already become frightened, strongly demanded that all new immigrants must complete the quarantine and purification work in Shandong, and must not allow these "mobile pathogens" to pollute North America. The earth—otherwise, those European and Asian nationals who have been tested by germs in the Old World and have relatively strong disease resistance are nothing. The tribe is about to suffer a catastrophe.

——Although the Huamei Republic is already preparing for universal vaccination after receiving interdimensional assistance from the central government, after all, it has just started and the proportion of the population that has been vaccinated is less than one-tenth... Even with the modern world today Medicines are available, but it is better to avoid the huge cost of treating infectious diseases for so many people, as well as the economic losses caused by isolation and epidemic prevention.

On the contrary, the East Coast Republic located in South America never refuses anyone who comes.The refugees and captives captured by the Dengzhou Army just took a bath and changed their clothes, and then they were thrown directly on the Pampas prairie in Argentina to reclaim the frontiers. Confidence (in fact, their medical and health system is not more advanced than the Huamei Republic, and even slightly worse), but they don’t treat the Indian natives of South America as human beings at all... Of course, strictly speaking, it’s not that much Treat these Shandong immigrants as adults...

Unlike the Huamei Republic, which first gathers new immigrants to the capital, and then sends them to various reclamation farms, factories, mines and workshops after review and training, the East Coast Republic does not allow new immigrants to pass through the densely populated capital, Dongfang Port, and the well-developed prosperous areas. Towns, but the direct exit of [Random Gate] was placed in the most desolate wild frontier, and the immigrants started to open up wasteland as soon as they arrived.

In this way, these "mobile pathogens" can be avoided to the greatest extent from contacting the people on the east coast, thereby inducing plagues in major settlements.As for the native Indians around the border... the authorities of the East Coast Republic wished that as many of them died as possible!
——The two traveler groups in North America and South America have almost the same purpose in dealing with European immigrants, both of which are "restriction, integration and use".However, the attitude towards the native American Indians is different: in the Huamei Republic, the Indians represented by the Delaware tribe are also one of the main populations of the country, and due to years of getting along and intermarriage, early They have already been highly Sinicized and integrated into the society, and are generally used to the production and lifestyle of the traversers. The government uses them more smoothly than East Asian immigrants, and naturally treats them as their own.

Of course, there are many Indian tribes who fought fiercely against the Huamei Republic, but that is another matter-Indians are actually a collective term like "Europeans" and "Asians". People from other tribes are not treated as compatriots. The fighting between different tribes is also extremely cruel and bloody, and massacres on a genocide scale are often launched. The hatred between each other is no less than that of the colonists.

But in South America's East Coast Republic, this militaristic militaristic country, it is a different situation - in the early days of the landing, when the military power has not yet formed, the traverser regime once accepted about [-] Indians who came to defect people, including them in the national category.However, with the increase of external military threats, after entering the era of militarism, the East Coast Republic has fully corrected its previous "wrong policy". Native Indians were targeted for removal.

According to the theory of the military hardliners on the east coast, in this iron-blooded age when natural selection, the law of the jungle, and social Darwinism prevailed, the struggles of various ethnic groups have always been omnipotent. On the land of South America, they crossed As a bandit from outside, if he doesn't kill all the original owners of this land, can he live with peace of mind?Even delusional to integrate and absorb these aborigines?This is simply death without limit!
Therefore, as a foreign regime, the East Coast Republic can absorb Ming Dynasty people, Japanese, Europeans and even Arabs to become official citizens, but it cannot absorb Indians because of the aura of "indigenous people" on their heads ——In the eyes of the military of the East Coast Republic, it means that they naturally enjoy all the rights and interests of this land. Even their mixed descendants have more rights to occupy this land than pure-blood foreigners. This is also the race of later South American countries One of the important reasons for the estrangement, those who traversed by themselves must not repeat the same mistakes and leave troubles for future generations.

Under such a cruel and ruthless ruling philosophy, the attitude of the East Coast Republic towards the aborigines is naturally extremely cruel and inhumane.Western colonists in the Age of Discovery, in pursuit of commercial interests, may still leave a life of the aborigines, but in the hands of the more brutal East Coast Republic, the end of the aborigines will either be killed or exiled overseas. Immigrants free up living space—the immigrants are covered with viruses that Indians have never seen before. They hold a sword in one hand and a plow in the other. They enslave their bodies and minds, and then use the wealth they get to nourish their own people and expand the living space of their own nation and country. They are simply the most terrifying destroyers and great demons.

Therefore, at the headquarters meeting of the Chinese Alliance, when a representative of the Chinese American Republic seriously proposed that if large-scale unquarantined Shandong refugees were allowed to enter the Americas, it would probably lead to the spread of diseases around the resettlement areas and endanger the health of the Native Americans. At that time, the representatives of the East Coast Republic were overjoyed, wishing that the native Indians in the Pampas Grassland would die of the disease silently.Next, after accidentally learning about the "great cause" of Wang Qiu, Li Wei and his team in Europe in the Middle Ages who saved people while killing people, and spread the plague to destroy the world everywhere, several murderous generals of the East Coast Republic Army saw it even more. Lie Xinxi even started to discuss launching bacterial warfare against Indian natives, such as trying to release viruses and bacteria near Indian villages to pollute water sources, releasing bacteria-carrying insects to settlements, etc... But considering that these methods are too low-limit, Moreover, once the plague is released, it will be difficult to control, and it may eventually harm the traversers, so in the end, this dangerous idea was dismissed.

Next, Vladivostok, Taiwan, and Hainan Island all belong to China’s traditional territory, and Jeju Island is also within the scope of East Asia. The problem of disease transmission caused by large-scale population migration is not so serious, and what needs to be worried about is that immigrants will not adapt to the environment.

The Australian colony where the Huameng headquarters is located has not yet begun to immigrate. Even if it does, there are not many aborigines to deal with there. The idea is simply useless population.

As for the colonies in South Africa and Madagascar...well, there is nothing to worry about the disease resistance of those African black uncles.These Ming Dynasty immigrants went there, and it is still uncertain who infected whom!Don't forget, until the 21st century, Africa is still the origin of various new plagues—including the frightening AIDS and Ebola, all of which are genuine African products!
Under the test of various diseases, the African black uncle who can live to adulthood is definitely indestructible!

In short, the travelers have absolute trust in the immunity and disease resistance of African black uncles...

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Seeing that all the new immigrants from Shandong allocated to Huamei Republic this week have all arrived through the [Random Gate], and the food and supplies that Huamei Republic provided to the Shandong battlefield have also been transported to the other side of the world through the [Random Gate], Wang Qiu temporarily There was nothing to do, so I simply browsed the street scene of Manchester City accompanied by Prime Minister Qi Jianjun.

——Among the cities built by travelers from this plane, Vladivostok, which inherited the "silly, thick and black" style of Soviet Russia, may have the strongest industrial strength, but in terms of elegant layout and beautiful streetscape buildings, it is absolutely Manchester City in North America is the most beautiful.

Compared with the metropolis of New York in the 21st century, Manchester City in 1632 was naturally much smaller, with a population of about [-]. The entire urban area was only equivalent to the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island, plus a small area at the westernmost end of Long Island. Partial only.But in the Americas of this era, Manchester City is already the second largest metropolis after Mexico City, and the neighborhoods in the whole city are quite clean and beautiful, far from the dirty slums in other European colonies: at a glance, everywhere It is a multi-storey building with decent shape, bright and clean windows, geometrically symmetrical block gardens or green belts, flowery potted plants on balconies and windowsills, black and gray streets with white lines, colorful shops of all sizes along the street, It is full of people with different skin colors and clothes, and there are urban public transport carriages pulled by heavy pack horses, passing by from time to time amidst the yelling of the coachman...

——After fully experiencing various modern urban diseases such as caged dwellings, traffic jams, and environmental pollution in later generations, using the rich natural resources of the New World, the traversers in North America are like "petty bourgeoisie" and do not hesitate to work locally Building Manchester City into a garden city.

In Wang Qiu's view, the street scene in Manchester City is very similar to the European and American cities in the Victorian era in the [-]th century in old photos. Most of the buildings are built with red tiles and stone walls, and there are a few oriental styles in the middle. The cornices and bucket arches give people a simple atmosphere of the steam age.The houses are generally dotted with tall and straight street trees and large urban green spaces, which are far more beautiful than the crowded and monotonous concrete forests in modern cities.

On the other hand, due to the popularization of electricity and running water, as well as the appearance of radio stations and movie theaters, except for the absence of cars, this place has basically reached the standard of living in the old Shanghai Concession before liberation, and the law and order is more mixed than fish and dragons. The old Shanghai is much stronger.

In the eyes of Europeans in the [-]th century, this city is already amazingly magnificent, elegant, advanced and comfortable - convenient and clean running water, smooth and clean cement or gravel asphalt avenues, and blocks like stars reflected in the river. Electric lights, bustling bazaars and shops, solemn and solemn government buildings, beautiful garden-like university teaching areas, magnificent steam power stations in the outer island industrial park, and steam tower cranes like giants...all of them let them Tsk tsk admiration.In contrast, Paris and London at this time are as unsightly as smelly and dirty slums.

What attracts Europeans even more is the paradise-like living standard here—after all, no matter how beautiful those mansions and palaces are, they have nothing to do with ordinary people.According to the standard of living of European citizens in the [-]th century, Manchester City can be regarded as extremely rich. Even the most inferior citizens can afford several sets of clothes. Since every family can eat white bread, so much so in It's hard to find a place in the city that sells black bread...

——At this moment, China in the east is in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty, and Europe in the west is also struggling in the unprecedented catastrophe of the Thirty Years War.From Sweden in Northern Europe to Spain in Southern Europe, England, France, Holland, Germany, Italy... Almost all traditional powers are bathed in raging wars, especially Germany, which is the main battlefield, has five-sixths of the cities and towns Devastated and destroyed by war.

Even Ottoman Turkey, which is in a remote corner, has also fought for the hegemony of the Mediterranean in this era, fighting with the Venetians for 25 years. Looking at the entire Western world, it is almost impossible to find a quiet place.Since social production was completely destroyed by the war, even famous places of wealth such as Venice and Amsterdam are not as good as before.It is conceivable that the living standards of ordinary people in Europe are bleak.

In contrast, the relatively peaceful and affluent life of the citizens of Manchester City is, in their view, a miracle among miracles.

As in a local newspaper, a French Protestant immigrant praised in the call for contributions: "...(Manchester City) is really the most beautiful city I have ever seen, and it is hard to imagine that such a beautiful and gorgeous city exists in the New World. Although I have been to many places, from Rome to Paris to London, the sum of all the cities I have seen cannot compare with the small corner I see now... Her luxury, nobility and cleanliness make her son The people feel extremely proud, and it also makes all outsiders feel at a loss of humbleness and inexplicable fear..."

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In short, after riding in Prime Minister Qi Jianjun's private carriage and taking a cursory look at the street scene of Manchester City.Wang Qiu came to a street park in the southern district of Manchester again, and sat in a membership-only high-end open-air cafe recommended by Prime Minister Qi Jianjun. While listening to the blues saxophone on the radio, he tasted green and natural freshly ground coffee and various Small pastries, look at the two- and three-story buildings with red roofs and white bricks, and the potted flowers of various colors on the windowsills and balconies. They are really clusters of jacarandas. .

Next to the park in the middle of the street, there is a commercial street across the iron fence, and people and cars pass by on the street.Residents in the southern district of Manchester are mostly high-salary and wealthy people in this country. At this time, the pedestrians in the commercial street, no matter men, women, old or young, are all well-dressed. They generally wear improved European-style suits made by later generations of time-travelers, and their faces are quite healthy. And Hongrun, it is almost the same as modern society, and there are basically no unkempt and hungry people - but at this time in most cities in the East and West, such disgusting slovenly poor people are everywhere.

Although in order to ensure domestic harmony and stability, the Huamei Republic spends huge sums of money trying to collect immigrants from East Asia, and at the same time strives to attract native American Indians, while controlling the number of European immigrants entering each year. Legally, only 30 to [-] Europeans are allowed each year. Immigration and naturalization, such a two-pronged approach, is an attempt to maintain a high proportion of yellow people in the country.But Wang Qiu was sitting on the coffee seat, looking at the street here, and found that among the pedestrians, whites and mixed races still accounted for the majority—no way, Europe is now in a period of great turmoil during the Thirty Years War, Britain, France, Germany, and Spain are all engaged in tragic foreign and civil wars. The common people were displaced in the flames of war and fled overseas one after another, trying to find a peaceful and prosperous new homeland. The Huamei Republic is obviously a very ideal goal. land.Since the trade exchanges between Europe and North America became more and more frequent, the number of illegal immigrants pouring into the Huamei Republic every year is quite alarming, and it is impossible to keep them out with a single law.

Therefore, just judging from the modern Western-style (time-traveling) clothes of the passers-by on the street, as well as the yellow, white and black skin tones, it is almost impossible to tell whether this is Manchester City in the [-]th century or New York in the [-]th century. ...Of course, as long as you listen carefully to their conversations, you can immediately find a huge difference-although it can also be called a "melting pot of nationalities in the world", the official language of the Chinese American Republic is not American English, but The Chinese language that the traversers use their dominance to forcibly promote...

— But...why do their accents sound so weird?Also mixed with some inexplicable words?

"...Hi, dear sir, here is the 'sugar' and milk you want."

A red-haired European maid came over and brought Wang Qiu a small plate of sugar cubes and a small glass jug of milk—although she seemed to speak Chinese, she had an indescribably awkward accent. It was completely different from any dialect that Wang Qiu had ever heard.

"...Uh...thank you. By the way, Prime Minister Qi, Fang Tang can be called Fang Tang. How do you call it 'Suge Tang'?" Wang Qiu picked up two cubes of sugar and threw them into the coffee cup. Then use a teaspoon to gently mash and stir—he was never used to drinking bitter coffee, and asked curiously.

Qi Jianjun also seemed a little confused, turned around and called one of his personal servants of European origin, and finally figured out the origin of this "new vocabulary" - Suge, which is the homonym of Zucker in German, plus The word sugar constitutes the special vocabulary of machine-made square sugar in the Huamei Republic of this era, and the literal meaning is also very consistent: crispy square sugar.

Because the 30-year war with Germany as the main battlefield created a large number of refugees, as well as the excessive expectations of "high-quality German workers" by the traversers of the Huamei Republic, many German immigrants were assigned to settle in the capital Manchester City over the years. As a result, some German immigrants Vocabulary has also entered the daily conversations of citizens-in fact, the current "Mancheng dialect" is very different from the later generations of Mandarin Chinese and any Chinese dialect. If a modern traveler is directly thrown away If you live in Manchester City, you will definitely encounter many communication barriers in your daily life.

But this is also a helpless thing. At the beginning of the founding of North America, the time travelers also tried to formulate certain rules for the standard spoken language.But from the very beginning, few of these modern people from all corners of the country (mainly Cantonese) could pass the Putonghua level test and really speak the standard Mandarin of later generations.Later, it was only in the small inner circle of the time-travelers that they could speak an "authentic Manchester City accent".In the wider popularization of Chinese language education, even if the advanced pronunciation method of Latin letters is used in later generations, there are still problems in the daily popularization teaching and the problems of the teachers themselves-many teachers trained in this time and space, themselves I can't speak Mandarin well.

Those Chinese immigrant teachers with the southern accent of the Ming Dynasty or the European immigrant teachers with the European accent of the seventeenth century are destined to "learn the same" in each class of their students... The result is that the students from the East and the West Among the citizens of Manchester City, there gradually appeared a Manchester accent that was quite different from those who traveled through the city, and was also very different from any Chinese dialect. It even mixed with a large number of European Chinese-speaking pronunciation characteristics.On some occasions, even the time-travelers have to imitate this "local dialect" in order to communicate smoothly with the teenagers in Manchester City...

"... Now sometimes when I go around the school, I find that I don't quite understand the words of those children—especially those children who were born after time travel, all kinds of strange new words Jumping outside non-stop! It’s something we old people can’t understand at all. We are also scratching our heads for such a situation! But even in China in the 21st century, with such developed information exchange and 12 years of compulsory education , have not been able to eradicate dialects, especially Cantonese... let alone the conditions on our side."

Prime Minister Qi Jianjun shook his head while drinking coffee and said with a wry smile, "...the same is true for the East Coast Republic in South America. Those immigrants from all corners of the world, if they want to pass the Chinese crash course in a few years, they must Lower the standard. As long as you can barely understand and communicate with each other, it’s okay to have a little deviation in pronunciation. If you want to make Mandarin education more standard, unless we time travelers do nothing and replace all Chinese teachers for a day Going to spend decades of language teaching for hundreds of thousands of immigrants at night..."

"...Uh, I think I can understand your difficulties, but things like dialects are always produced and cannot be eliminated."

Wang Qiu shrugged his shoulders and drank the coffee in his cup, "...For example, in modern society, computer networks have only been popularized for how many years, and all kinds of network terms are already overwhelming. People who surf the Internet can’t understand or understand even if they go all the way to Ph.D. Spanish vocabulary, and even a small amount of Chinese vocabulary... This is something that cannot be avoided in any immigrant country..."

"...Well, what you mean is that...any social influence is interactive. Of course, we traversers have greatly changed the world, but the aborigines of this world are also constantly affecting us, right? ?”

After thinking for a while, Qi Jianjun said to Wang Qiu, but then the conversation was interrupted by two crisp sounds of "ding, ding" at the same time, "... eh? It's just a coincidence, why are our mobile phones together? Is it ringing? Oh, it’s today’s "Daily Military Information Internal Reference"..."

——Using the magical props of Doraemon, sixteen [mini communication satellites] launched into orbit in this time and space as a transit, the traversers around the world, at least within the capital urban areas of several republics, currently rely on The signal transceiving device on the ground, the traversers have realized the network communication between computers and mobile phones.The Huameng Headquarters also often issued some latest announcements to all traversers in the form of short messages or emails.

"...News from the North China theater of the Chinese battlefield: Lu Xiangsheng defeated Jizhou, and the Tianxiong army retreated across the board? The capital was closed to martial law, and the Guanning cavalry vanguard has arrived in Tianjin? Tsk tsk, the Guanning army has repeatedly fought and failed against Jiannu, but Once you turn around and chop off your own people, it's really sharp!"