Chapter 57: Turn Britain into India! (Part 2)
Autumn 1348, Kingdom of England, suburbs of London
As the alluvial plain of the lower reaches of the Thames River, it was already a fairly developed farming area long before the Roman Empire. It was rich in succulent pasture and was suitable for raising horses, so the livestock industry was also prosperous. After the formation of the Kingdom of England, the London Plain, the richest and most developed area on the island, has been the core of the rule of successive kings, and is dotted with pastures and farms under the name of the Plantagenet royal family.
However, in this dark summer, with the rapid spread of the horrific Black Death and a series of other unknown plagues, shepherds and farmers on this land died in droves from the plague. The plains of London were suddenly strewn with corpses, and there was no smoke in the abandoned villages. When you walked into those small mud houses or thatched huts, most of the things you could find were just a few corpses that had rotted or been eaten by animals. Bones can be seen everywhere along the road, and there are too many corpses to bury. Fruits and wheat can only rot in the ground, while poultry and livestock are scattered all over the ground... There are dead or half-dead people everywhere, and occasionally there are a few living people who are wandering around like zombies, mouths He muttered some meaningless words: "Lord, I am guilty!" "Lord, please don't rush to call me to your kingdom!" "Oh, am I crazy, or is this world crazy... ”
——Such a desolate, absurd and chaotic scene, it seems as if the history of mankind has ended and the end of the world has arrived.
However, in autumn, some abandoned farms near London actually began to become lively again, and busy figures appeared again in those fields covered with weeds... Of course, these villages were originally Most of the serfs living there have gone to heaven and can no longer let their souls work hard for the lords. At this time, the farmers working on the plains of London have changed to a completely different group of people.
These new farmers are generally thin and their skin is much darker than that of most people in England, but they are a little worse than the black people in the south. They were naked from the waist up, with only a loincloth wrapped around their crotches. Their backs were hunched over from the heavy farm work, and their spines looked like pieces of hemp rope, the kind used to draw water from wells. The clavicle sticks out high, like a collar worn by a dog. The whole body is covered with scars. From the vagina down, to the waist, and then to the buttocks, there are large and small wounds and scars everywhere it touches, like The marks carved by the whips of time on their bodies...
——These brown-black farmers come from India thousands of miles away, and most of them belong to the lowest class of ancient Indian society.
Under the whips and scoldings of the overseers, the untouchables in India used various tools such as hoes, sickles, and shovels to clean up the long-abandoned fields and sow seeds of fast-growing crops. For some reason, these Indians are a little unfamiliar with their farm work, but they are definitely working very hard.
According to the original historical trajectory, these Indians would not appear on British soil on a large scale as colonial subjects until the Victorian Era, five hundred years later. But here, relying on Doraemon's [Random Door], the Kingdom of England has a large number of Indian subjects five hundred years in advance. They can rely on them to fill the labor shortage caused by the great plague and save Her Majesty Queen Joan's estate from being abandoned.
——It is very sad that just a year ago, the monarchs of various European countries were still troubled by the huge pressure of overpopulation. But at this moment, if these monarchs are not dead yet, they are having to worry about how to get them. New subjects came to fill their empty country and were worried.
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"...Hey, these Indians seem to be quite hardworking at work, but...why are they all so skinny? They are simply skinnier than the serfs in the poorest counties in England, and most of them are too poor to wear clothes. Put on clothes...don't they know shame and are not afraid of the cold?"
Looking at the dark figures busy in the fields, Queen Qiong blinked and asked the "angel" Wang Qiu beside her, "...According to legend, India is not a place where the four seasons are warm, rich in spices, and flowing with the happiness of honey and milk. Land? And the Indian scenery I saw with my own eyes through that magical door was also so warm, rich and beautiful... But the lives of these Indians are so miserable!"
——For the medieval English people who lived in darkness and cold all year round, India was rumored to produce many good things such as spices, dyed cotton cloth, and gemstones. It was like spring all year round and would never suffer from frost and snow. It was definitely a dream. A beautiful place worthy of fascination, just like an imaginary paradise country: most medieval Europeans had the above-mentioned beautiful fantasy about the legendary East. Queen Joan apparently thinks so too.
When Venetian merchants and travelers went to India to "collect" these immigrants through the "Random Gate", the Indian scenery that Her Majesty Queen Joan saw with her own eyes seemed to confirm the above impression: the tropical sun is so bright, the wind The fragrance of various spices seems to be wafting in the river. The land on both sides of the Ganges is so fertile that it can be called a land of fish and rice. There are green rice fields everywhere, golden waves of wheat, and countless clear ponds. The pond was covered with round water lilies, and lazy buffaloes stepped on the mud beside the pond, chewing lotus leaves... However, the vast majority of ordinary Indians living in such an idyllic and pastoral scenery did not What a wonderful life like heaven.
In fact, at first glance, most of them seemed to live similar to the serfs in medieval Europe. They had no clothes on their bodies and no food to eat. They were so hungry that their eyes turned green and they were half-dead. A small number of people even seem to have a worse life. They can't even live in the simplest thatched hut. The whole family can only sleep on the roadside or under a tree, just like beggars or refugees, but there is rarely a look of sadness on their faces. , it’s hard to understand why they can still laugh so happily.
In addition, there are many weird people who are so poor that they don’t even have clothes to wear. They don’t think about how to work to make money to buy clothes and support their families. Instead, they squat against the wall all day long in a strange practice posture, starving themselves. Until they finally starved to death under the wall, the Indians were in awe of them, saying that they were great ascetics who had the power to communicate with the gods. But outsiders looked at it very puzzled-could it be that the Indian gods like believers? suicide?
"...There is nothing we can do about it! India is indeed a rich place. Even if you only took a look at it from a distance, you should know how splendid and magnificent the temples and palaces of India are. But the problem is that no matter where they are, the rich and the poor, the nobles and the common people, always live completely different lives, regardless of the land. How rich the products are, and only the upper class can enjoy all the benefits. The lower class are the same poor no matter where they are. It is like this in England, it is like this in India, it is still like this in China... that part of India The wealth and abundance of the place only mean the luxurious life of the monarch and the nobles, and what does it have to do with these lower-class people.”
Regarding this too naive question, Wang Qiu curled his lips, "...If Indians, no matter noble or low, all seem to live in paradise and are as happy as if they were soaked in honey, how can we get them to England?" , sowing and cultivating your estate? ”
——Although human trafficking was not a rare thing in India at this time, due to the shameless raids carried out by the time travellers, neither the Kingdom of England, the Venetians, nor the Papal States could produce anything. How much hard currency such as gold, silver and precious metals.
Therefore, most of the Indians appearing in the suburbs of London are actually deceived - as far as the specific method is concerned, let Doraemon appear first and find the poorest, dirtiest and most ragged India. In villages, most of which are inhabited by untouchables, miracles such as "fire raining down from the sky" or "day turning into night" are performed in public, which shock these Indian farmers or untouchables and make them prostrate themselves to the ground and worship them. Then he concocted an "oracle" to announce that he would take them to a better place to live, and at the same time used lightning to strike down those village elders who dared to jump out to obstruct and speak against him... In this case, although some people would panic and flee, But most of the remaining people will be scared to death and accept their fate.
——India is a highly hierarchical society. The priests are Brahmins, the military nobles who own large areas of land are Kshatriyas, businessmen and small landowners are classified as Vaishyas, and general laborers such as farmers and craftsmen become Shudras. . Their occupations correspond to their surnames, and are inherited from generation to generation. Those who farm the land for generations, those who boil sugar for generations, and those who dig excrement for generations. They have performed their duties for thousands of years. You will know this just by hearing their names. What do Indians do? People of different castes are isolated from each other. Not only are intermarriage generally prohibited, but even communication with each other is very rare. The advantage of this is that it eliminates the ability of the lower class Indians to unite and resist collectively, allowing them to rest assured in their lowly status and just hope for a good afterlife.
In addition, there are Dalits, who account for one-seventh of India's population, who are outside this caste hierarchy and are despised as "untouchables". It was difficult for them to own land and they were destined to engage in professions considered unclean, such as hunters, fishermen, butchers, executioners, gravediggers, undertakers, cobblers, scavengers, etc. Even if you want to work as a tenant farmer for a landowner, it is difficult to grow crops - in rural India there are many Sudras who compete with them for work. Moreover, untouchables cannot stay in cities and can only live in isolated and remote villages. They must be very careful to avoid contaminating members of various castes. In other words, they must not have any physical contact with the latter. , in extreme cases, even cannot enter the sight of the latter. Therefore, whenever they step out of their homes or villages, they must bang a pair of clappers to warn others that an untouchable is approaching.
In this way, even if the travelers evacuate the entire untouchable village, other Indians may not know anything about it in a short period of time. Of course, these untouchables may not be very skilled in farm work because they don't farm much, but under the whip and knife of the overseer, I believe they will learn quickly.
However, even if you just take away some lowly and unnoticed Shudras and untouchables, if the movement is too big, it will attract the attention and perhaps a bit of hostility of the Indian princes who rule these lands. At this time, it was the turn of the powerful Venetian businessman to appear. While using Doraemon's tiger skin, he casually threatened and frightened these princes, and at the same time presented some Chinese porcelain, silk scarves, glass mirrors, aluminum alloys and Small plastic jewelry These gadgets are very valuable in India these days, but not worth much in the modern world... So after weighing the pros and cons, the Indian princes, who thought that their interests had not been harmed much, all acquiesced to these gadgets. The "powerful" people's efforts to attract people.
There are even some Indian princes in densely populated areas, in order to relieve the pressure of overpopulation in their territories, they simply take the initiative to escort groups of untouchables as trading goods to exchange with Venetian merchants for more things they want... India Although the place has been warm, humid and fertile since ancient times, population pressure has been severe due to long-term overpopulation. Moreover, since any job under the caste system is hereditary from generation to generation, it cannot be People with the same profession are isolated from each other, so that it is difficult to change the surplus population to other professions - for example, in ancient India, families named "gravediggers" could only work as gravediggers from generation to generation, even if there were too many gravediggers. If the market demand exceeds the market demand, it will be difficult for them to switch to fishing or carpentry, because people who are hereditary fishermen and carpenters do not want anyone to compete for their jobs - so simply driving out the excess population is also a way to solve the problem. .
So, just like this, there is deception, abduction, and a certain degree of trading and bribery. If that doesn't work, let those unscrupulous European knights put on armor, wave their swords, and make a guest appearance on the slave-catching team - they were originally on the slave-catching team. This was often done during wars: if all the serfs at home were killed and there was no one to cultivate the land for themselves, then they would go to the enemy's territory and snatch some serfs back. However, going deep into a foreign country to capture slaves is really a very laborious task. It is often extremely cost-effective and quite dangerous for knights to go into battle in person. If possible, even the stingiest Venetian merchants would be more willing to spend a little money. Collecting supplies from local powerful figures... No matter what means they used, they finally managed to get tens of thousands of Indian "immigrants" in a short period of time and sent them all to London to farm. This was considered the first large-scale "Pilot" for imported labor.
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At this moment, there was a loud noise not far away, as well as the sound of trumpets and bells. Wang Qiu looked up and saw that it was a priest and several soldiers holding long guns, driving a group of newly arrived Indians into a small river, forcing them to be baptized collectively and convert to Christianity... If they refused, they would be beaten immediately. Fat beat them and suppress them violently. If they don't obey, they should be hanged or burned on the rack.
——The British these days, unlike their descendants who have been fooled by the "multicultural theory", have no advanced concepts of religious freedom at all. They only know that all heretics and heretics should be put on the fire and played alive. Barbecue, Christians who cannot grill heretics and heretics are not good Christians... On the contrary, there are countless missionaries who are keen to promote the Christian faith and expand the "Lord's flock". If they can "civilize the barbarians", Converting them to Christianity would be a great merit. As for whether to preach with a knife or with words, it doesn't matter.
Anyway, after hanging and burning a very few stubborn ones who refused to submit, the remaining Indians naturally converted obediently.
——Isn’t it just to go down to the river and take a cold bath (baptism)? As for risking your precious life for such a trivial matter?
Even such a slight resistance can only be felt by people of the Shudra caste. If they are untouchables, it simply doesn't matter. Anyway, in the original history, because they were not treated as human beings by Hindus, they first worshiped Buddha, then worshiped Allah, and then knelt at the feet of missionaries and believed in Christ, and some even entered Judaism and Zoroastrianism - because Excluded from the Hindu system, the beliefs and concepts of Indian untouchables and The Chinese are similar, always changing and worshiping whichever god they think is more efficacious. However, no matter how hard they try and change their beliefs, they can never get rid of the despised and sad status of untouchables. I don’t have the courage and determination to break the situation through violence...
All in all, the vast majority of Indians are docile, obedient, and fairly hard-working guys. Their rebellious spirit has long been almost wiped out under the caste system. In the barbaric era when the concept of human rights has not yet appeared, they seem to be born to Become a slave—otherwise, in the era of Queen Victoria, the British colonists would not have easily ruled the entire South Asian subcontinent with only 3,000 civil servants and 17,000 white soldiers.
Therefore, Wang Qiu does not think that adding a group of Indian subjects to Queen Joan will cause any real trouble - speaking of it, the ancestors of the Plantagenet Dynasty are from Northern Europe, and strictly speaking they should be considered Vikings (Normans). Neither native of France nor native of England.
Since they were able to successfully rule the Saxons and Celts in Britain, as well as the French across the Channel, and win the loyal support of these foreigners (until modern times, the British royal family is actually a descendant of the Plantagenet dynasty), naturally they also There is no reason why the more docile Indians cannot be managed.
——In India, through repeated brainwashing of religion, caste, and traditional concepts, the small number of ruling classes have completely domesticated the remaining 99% of the lower class, allowing these lower class people to always associate with servility. This kind of servility has reached such a climax that if you throw the key to liberation in front of him, he will spit on the key! Even if the owner changes, this servility will not disappear quickly.
But the problem is that the British in this era still know nothing about the character of Indians in distant places, and they have some "fear of the unknown".
"...Dear Lord Angel, although these Indians seem quite honest, they are pagans after all. Even if they have been baptized and converted to our Lord, I am afraid they are not the same as us born Christians. Is it possible? Difficult to control and unwilling to serve the lord faithfully? ”
A British nobleman frowned as he watched these Indians working under the whip of the overseer. He said somewhat unconfidently, "...I heard from several noblemen from Spain before that there are many religious believers in their country. The Moors who were Christian (Spain at that time was still in the tug-of-war between the two major faiths), even though they had surrendered to the Christian king, they were still very unruly and unruly. They never truly consider themselves to be someone's subjects, even if they are forced to be baptized and converted to our Lord Christ, they still cannot forget their pagan beliefs and are always deeply hostile to us Christians whenever we have the opportunity. If they have to flee or rebel, taking care of them is just as troublesome as taking care of prisoners... Will these Indians be like this in the future? ”
"...I don't think so. These Indians are almost the most docile coolies in the world. Although they are all pagans, they originally believed in another false god, which is completely different from the Moors who believe in the so-called Allah. Different, not so aggressive. According to the Indian theory of karma, a person's status in this world is determined by his actions in his previous life. Therefore, the untouchables in India have always believed that their current plight was caused by their past sins. The only hope for untouchables in reincarnation is to improve their status in the next life, and this can only be done through respect. to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations in this world, so they will definitely not be more difficult to control than European serfs..."
Wang Qiu replied, "...What's more, as untouchables who are discriminated against, they have been abandoned by Indian society and have become accustomed to being enslaved. Well, what are untouchables? That is to say, their social status is originally lower than that of serfs , a bit like the gypsies in Europe. If you treat them as serfs and give them land to cultivate, you are already elevating their status. How can these untouchables cause trouble before they are happy?
Even if the worst happens and riots break out, don't worry too much - even though these Indians look similar, they actually belong to dozens of ethnic groups. They don't understand each other's language and can't communicate with each other at all. It is impossible to unite and cause chaos. If only a small group of people jumped out to make trouble, they would surely be able to suppress it easily: haven't you suppressed serfs to cause trouble a few times? ”
"...But if this happens, wouldn't we be unable to communicate with them? How will we give them orders then?"
Queen Joan muttered with a headache, "...I have had to learn French and English at the same time since I was born. After finalizing the marriage to Spain, in order to prevent me from not being able to understand the words of my future subjects, I even spoke with my husband in front of me. I needed a translator in bed, and my father urged me to learn Spanish for another year. It was really miserable... Do I have to learn Indian languages again, or dozens of them? Oh, God——"
Speaking of which, it seems that it is not easy for European royal families to be competent these days. Learning foreign languages alone can drive people crazy. For example, if Queen Joan, who has just ascended the throne, wants to communicate directly with all her subjects, then she must master English, French, Irish Gaelic, and Low German of the Netherlands (the future Dutch) at the same time. and Latin as the international language of the Middle Ages (the standard of the Roman Empire Language, but in the Middle Ages it had become a "dead script" used exclusively by the church and intellectuals, and was basically extinct in the lower classes. The difference between Italian and Latin is roughly the same as the difference between Chinese vernacular and classical Chinese - so even Italy. Not everyone can understand Latin). If it were Her Majesty Queen Joanna of Naples, then she would have to master French, Italian, Provence (a minor language that was eliminated in later generations) and Latin. Fortunately, the Jerusalem that bears her name has been lost, otherwise she might still be able to I have to learn Arabic!
Not to mention that intermarriage is common among royal families in European countries. If you don’t want to sign in bed with your future husband, you poor princesses have to prepare in advance and work hard to learn more foreign language courses - of course, those who are considerate of their future wives The princes are probably the same.
But it is very obvious that no matter how knowledgeable these medieval European royal families were, they could not speak the language of the Indians.
——Fortunately, for the powerful and omnipotent Doraemon, these little troubles really are nothing. If they can't even pass the most basic language level, how can Doraemon and Nobi Nobita explore the multiverse and go on adventures beyond imagination?
"...Please feel free to worry about this issue, Her Majesty the Queen, and your Excellencies, you don't need to worry at all. Our Lord is omniscient and omnipotent, and there is absolutely no way he can't solve even this little trouble, at least for now. So far, everything is still under our control..."
"Angel," Wang Qiu said calmly. At the same time, he took out a bag of [Translation Konjac Jelly] that he asked for from Doraemon and handed it to Queen Qiong. "...As long as you eat this magical pastry in advance, , you can communicate with any foreigner, and the effective time is about half a day to a day... Of course, this is only an emergency temporary measure, and we have already prepared it for you..."
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In addition to tricking a large number of Indian untouchables and Sudras, in order to try to make the British society of the fourteenth century in line with the British society of the twenty-first century, the time-travelers also tried to pass through the [Random Gate] to escape from this dimension of West Africa. A group of strong black slaves were brought to the area.
Because the tropical forests of West Africa were so infested with poisonous insects and raging plagues, even the most ferocious and brutal slave-catchers were deterred by them. Therefore, these black slaves did not come through wars and plundering, but purchased glass beads, bells, cloth, swords, spears, salt and other things from some black tribes (black tribes have always captured enemies during wars). The custom of using tribal captives as slaves).
Compared with Indians who are generally short and skinny (there are tall and mighty Indian Asans, but they usually have some status, and generally do not appear among untouchables and Shudras, let alone be easily taken over as Coolies), most of the black slaves from Africa looked tall and powerful, with strong muscles, more robust and hard-working, and with much stronger vitality. Naturally, they were more favored by the English ruling class who were hungry for labor.
But it is also inevitable that with the arrival of these West African blacks, various parasites and infectious diseases native to tropical Africa also followed them - because the slave traders did not have enough knowledge and experience to understand tropical Africa. The disease was so terrible that the Venetian merchants who dealt with it had no idea The black slaves had to shave their heads and undergo a series of quarantine and purification procedures such as washing, drying and killing fleas... Fortunately, at this time, Europe had almost become a museum of epidemic diseases. Worry, even if a few new infectious diseases are added, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
In this way, Indian and Pakistani immigrants and black people already exist in England today. As for the yellow Asians... Doraemon and Wang Qiu were too embarrassed to attack the ancient compatriots of their homeland, so they [Random Door] opened to America and bought a small group of Mayan slaves with plastic jewelry, metal knives and green glass beads, just in time for them to teach white and black people how to grow corn, pumpkins, peppers and potato crops.
In short, after importing nearly 100,000 people into England through this series of shameless means, the extreme labor shortage caused by the Great Plague has finally been slightly alleviated, at least for the time being at most of the royal family's farms in the London Plain. There are hands to take care of it. Queen Joan and her courtiers don't have to cultivate their own land with their own hands, and they don't have to worry about feeding the Plantagenet court next year.
Wang Qiu is also very happy to see that London, the capital of the Kingdom of England, has become a world ethnography museum like India, with white, black and yellow races, which can practice the multiculturalism of the European Union five hundred years in advance. doctrine theory. And the Anglo-Saxons can also broaden their horizons and try how to coexist with neighbors of different skin colors day and night. Perhaps they can successfully evolve into a melting pot of nations like the United States in the future - which can also be regarded as allowing the Anglo-Saxons who will colonize the world in the future. , conduct an advance rehearsal in their island homeland...
But even so, for the Kingdom of England, which is almost becoming a country of the dead, some problems have not been completely resolved. First of all, whether they are Indians, Mayans or black people, I am afraid that they are not very cold-resistant... Fortunately, this was not a big problem in the Middle Ages that ignored human rights. After those who were most afraid of the cold were frozen to death in the first winter , the remaining people should be able to adapt to the climate of the Kingdom of England better.
Secondly, and the most fundamental problem is that Europe is still in the haze of the plague at this time. Whether it is a prosperous city or a remote country, they are all trembling under the scythe of the black-robed god of death. If an effective method cannot be found to curb the epidemic, So no matter how many people are imported from all over the world, they will probably be summoned to heaven by the terrible plague soon, turning the world of Europa once again into a desolate and silent country of the undead...
Fortunately, after paying off the debt, Doraemon, whose moral integrity index has begun to rebound significantly, has already worked with the time-travelers to help these poor medieval Europeans prepare countermeasures - the "cure-all" Healing" was taught to them, allowing Europe to truly enter the Magical Age! "...Her Majesty the Queen, Excellencies, the 'Hogwarts School' that we renovated on the old site of Oxford University has now been basically completed. The first batch of students gathered from all over Europe have also arrived in Oxford. I don't know. Are you interested in attending the opening ceremony next Monday? ”