Chapter 18, Cat Purgatory (Part 2)
"...Wow! Only five people died in the whole city? This is really tragic. It deserves to be a real city of death! There is no exaggeration from an artistic point of view!" Wang Qiu exclaimed with wide eyes. Whistle, "...but what exactly do you want to express? Professor?"
"...What I mean is, Comrade Xiao Wang, the severity of the epidemic in the Marseille Port area may far exceed your imagination."
Professor Guo sighed and said, "...According to your original thoughts, it is estimated that one-third of the people in this place will die from the Black Death, and the remaining two-thirds will be so scared that they would rather go bankrupt." I want to come to seek medical advice, even to the point of bowing before you saviors... But the problem is Yes, if you continue to proceed slowly and step by step, the citizens of Marseille may not only be frightened, but probably very few people will die! By then, who should you sell the medicine to? Who do you want to get money from? Are you trying to make money from others? ”
He pointed to a line of text on the screen describing the situation of the Black Death in Marseille, "...you know, even in terms of the entire European Catholic world, southern France has one of the highest mortality rates. Up to 75%, second only to Sicily in Southern Europe
The Provence region, centered on Marseille, is the most severely affected area in southern France, with the mortality rate estimated to be as high as over 85%! Not so different from Sicily! According to the historical data listed above, in the spring of 1348, within one month of the introduction of the Black Death, 57,000 of Marseille's 80,000 citizens died. There was no record after that, because the person responsible for recording People died too. Only God knows the extent of the death toll in Marseille... It might be even worse than Smolensk in Russia, where all the people in the city might die in one breath!
In this case, when almost everyone in cities and villages is dead, who should you sell the medicine to? And what's the point of Mr. Li Wei's hard-earned connections, power and reputation in a deserted ruin? Will we have to go somewhere else and start all over again? ”
After hearing Professor Guo's reminder, he imagined himself stupidly pulling a cart of antibiotics, vaccines and syringes, standing in a daze on the ruins of a ghost town with only corpses and skeletons left. Wang Qiu and Duo La A Meng and others were all horrified for a moment!
Well, although it is not impossible to unearth treasures from an uninhabited ghost town - just like the adventurers in an RPG game team up to explore ancient ruins, the efficiency of this fundraising will be greatly reduced: The speed of rummaging through boxes and cabinets to search for money is definitely slower than others actively giving money. What's even more terrible is that the seemingly powerful and omnipotent Comrade Doraemon, what he lacks most right now is time!
——There is only more than a week left before the next monthly loan interest payment! ! (Based on the time flow rate of Doraemon world)
"...Well, what you said makes sense, Professor! It seems that we should really speed up the progress. Otherwise, with such a high mortality rate, the market in the Marseille region will be finished, and we will have to make a guest appearance. Return to 'Tomb Raider' and search for riches among skeletons and wights..."
Wang Qiu touched his chin and sighed with palpitations, "...without further ado, let's set off to discuss it with Li Wei!"
However, what they never expected was that when they set foot on Levi's manor again, they would see such a shocking scene!
——The countryside outside the Jihadist Manor has suddenly turned into a purgatory execution ground for cats...
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
"...dang——dang——dang——dang——"
Under the warm sunshine in early spring, alarm bells rang and smoke ignited in the Mujahideen Manor located on the seaside promontory. The suspension bridge entering the manor has been pulled up high, and every crenellation on the wall is flashing with the cold metallic light of swords, arrows and armor.
The red eight-pointed white cross flag of the Knights Hospitaller fluttered in the wind on the tower of the manor, seeming to be waiting for the war to come.
On the other side of this small battlefield, outside the trench of the Mujahideen Manor, there was an invading team of about three hundred people scattered. This group of enemies could hardly be called an army, because they included knights in armor, priests in robes, and armed citizens mobilized from nowhere. Under the afternoon sun, they carried various flags and surrounded the outside of the manor in a chaotic manner. They kept shouting and cursing, and used all kinds of obscene words to threaten the people guarding the jihadist manor, asking them to be suspected of being witches. The guy confessed his crime and quickly opened the door and surrendered.
Unfortunately, the people in the manor were completely unmoved by such childish remarks. With only cannons and no siege equipment, the invaders had no way to attack this manor, which was equivalent to a small castle. Although its walls were not high and the trenches were not wide, at least it was not a war horse that could jump. past. Even the legendary "ant siege" would require at least a few strong long ladders!
The problem is that the thugs who besieged the manor seemed to have nothing prepared. They could only circle back and forth in front of the manor like fools, shouting and cursing in different ways, and then were shot by arrows from the defenders. I was so frightened that I crawled and ran away... It was really embarrassing!
Looking at this depressing scene, the red-haired Mr. Pomeroy, the vice-president of the Marseilles Pharmacists Guild, couldn't help but put his hand to his forehead and let out a helpless sigh: The overconfident and ignorant people of the Inquisition You fool, you messed up everything!
——The prestigious name of the Inquisition is indeed enough to stop children from crying at night and to silence strong men in the Western European Catholic world. But the problem is that that kind of deterrence is only for ordinary people, and it is not very effective when applied to the ruling class: belief in God and fear of the church are two different things!
The people of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhode Island are not country fools who blindly believe in priests, nor are they the kind of nerds who are stupid from reading the Bible. They are the powerful people within the church. They have witnessed countless ugly strife within the church. And he has been fighting on the front line against the heretics all year round. Although this military order has always been known as the sharp sword of God in the East, it has been stabbed with many black knives by church insiders in history, and the lessons are profound. It would be too fanciful to expect them to bow before a mere local inquisition.
Not to mention, the Knights Hospitaller branch in the Mujahideen estate outside Marseille has been operating for several years under the leadership of a group of future world travelers who do not believe in God at all. Although these modern people did not deliberately do anything to enlighten their minds and get rid of superstition, as a pastime in their free time, they also boasted a lot of shady stories, scandals and dirty jokes about the church to everyone, which made the entire manor talk about it. Ledao...
As a result, the people in the manor became less and less reverent towards the Catholic Church, at least the local bishop.
In fact, even those ordinary noble lords are mostly guys who talk about piety and faith, and value land and interests more than their lives. It is extremely difficult for the church to collect their tithes. There are often misers who refuse to pay the taxes they have owed for decades, and the church has nothing to do with them. There are also many robber barons hanging with crosses who actually regard robbing monasteries and churches as a daily pastime. While shouting for God's blessing, they hack monks to death, knock down nuns, and loot all kinds of gold and silver sacred vessels... If only the bishops Your Excellency wants to deprive them of their territory and title with just one official document, and without the support of the army, do you believe that they will teach you how to behave with a long sword every minute?
However, perhaps because too many old women and poor widows have been burned over the years, or perhaps because they were stunned by the recent Black Death, after setting up an ambush and capturing Livy, the head of the Inquisition in Marseille It seems that they have completely forgotten how unruly the knight nobles holding swords are. They have not organized a strong enough army - in fact, based on this guy's actual authority, and the current outbreak of the Black Death of In the context of the disaster, we couldn't actually organize many troops - we also forgot to tie up Knight Levi himself as a hostage to call the door. We didn't contact or bribe the internal agents, so we just brought one knight, two priests and five followers. They rushed to take over and seize the jihadist manor, intending to personally search for evidence of heresy, witchcraft and devil worship, and tie every sinner to the pyre and burn them, without thinking about which side was stronger.
What was even more unfortunate was that the person in charge of the Marseille Inquisition had just taken advantage of the other party's unpreparedness and broke into the gate of the Mujahideen Manor. Before he could scold him for a few words, he suddenly staggered, vomited blood and fell, and he never climbed up again. Can't get up - obviously, this guy is also suffering from the plague! Next, his followers did not dare to help him because they were afraid of their lives. Instead, they were frightened and turned around and dispersed, thus missing the best opportunity to seize the manor...
As a result, two hours later, Levi's cheap cousin in this world, the Knight of Nice, got the news and excitedly recruited a large number of people to accept the property of his unlucky relative Levi, Pomeroy from the Apothecary Guild. The husband also hurriedly brought some people over, hoping to find out about the elixir that could cure the plague. The Jihadist Manor had already reacted, closed the door tightly, put away the suspension bridge, sounded the alarm, and was ready to respond. Prepare. The guys from the Inquisition were thrown out of the manor together with the body of their leader, and were wandering outside the trench, not knowing what to do.
Faced with the embarrassing situation of the Jihadist Manor openly disobeying orders and not allowing "enforcers" like themselves to enter, the three groups of people all lost their minds for a while.
A forceful attack is obviously impossible. Although there are more than 300 of them, and the armed force in the manor does not exceed 30, the battle is not a head-counting contest - the defenders are either professional infantry long-term employed by the Knights Hospitaller, or subordinate The vassal warriors of the Bacon family could be said to be professional soldiers of this era, and they also had stone walls and trenches as a defensive location. As for the guys outside the manor, except for the Knights of Nice and three other real knights, as well as the retinues of these knights, they are just a temporary ragtag group, and they don't have siege equipment. They can't win no matter what. .
Therefore, they could only send envoys to report to the Bishop of Marseille in the city and request reinforcements, while wandering around outside the manor out of boredom, trying to break into the workshops and hospitals located outside the walls - unfortunately, while During the short gap before, the craftsmen in the workshop had taken refuge in the manor, and the nuns and patients in the hospital had also been evacuated. The intruders only found some abandoned cats. So, under the instigation of the members of the Inquisition, these thugs who had nothing to do for a while turned into cat torture maniacs and began to use various horrific tortures to torture these poor people from the future world extremely cruelly. Cat...