Chapter 17, Twenty-seven moments in the four years of Chongzhen (Seventeen)
The seventeenth moment: #Australians are not miserable
Go back in time to December of the third year of Chongzhen, on the northwest coast of Australia, thousands of miles away from China
The vast and turbulent sea is like a blue dream. The color of the waves is as gorgeous as gems. The rising sun throws golden brilliance from the eastern sky, jumping between countless troughs and crests, until it meets a long line. The half-mile-wide golden halo gathered together, blooming rapidly like a mandala gathered on a bunch of vines, and finally turned into a dazzling bright halo.
The beach, the jungle, the blue sea, the blue sky, everything looks so beautiful.
Under the baptism of the gentle breeze, Levi sat on the beach by the sea with a melancholy face, enjoying the green and pollution-free fresh air, the absolutely original tropical forest and grassland scenery... and a series of other things that are enough to make modern petty bourgeoisie. Something to get excited about. But at this time, Levi would rather curl up in his little kennel in Harbin, smell the car exhaust and industrial smog every day, and listen to the noisy square dance of the street aunts...
——Because he is currently in Australia in the first half of the seventeenth century!
What is Australia in the twenty-first century?
——A vast land of 7.7 million square kilometers, a melting pot of different races around the world, countless high-quality mineral deposits that can be mined in the open pit and of extremely high quality, the famous Sydney Opera House, and the colorful seabed of the Great Barrier Reef The world, the koalas and kangaroos as national symbols, the cute little penguins, and Palm Beach, where supermodels and rich men from all over the world gather...
What about Australia in the seventeenth century?
——There were only 700,000 backward indigenous people living in the Stone Age, as well as kangaroos, koalas, platypuses and other marsupial mammals that were also behind the times... At this time, Australia was still an isolated continent, until The British only began to colonize this land in 1778 - so welcome to the Stone Age without industrial pollution! Dear modern travelers from the 21st century!
Alas, how did such a ridiculous thing happen?
Mr. Levi, a Chinese-Russian man of mixed race, sighed more and more melancholy, recalling the sea fog that brought him here.
At that time, the "former Paladin" Levi, who had just been rescued by Wang Qiu and Doraemon and successfully traveled back from medieval Europe with his wife and children, and his wife Zhao Na, who had just given birth to a child, and their family of three, took them with them. Some wealth collected in the Middle Ages was returned from Shanghai on the "Cosco Star" Back home in the Northeast - this is an all-metal structure, 147 meters long, 165 meters wide, with a registered tonnage of 5,000 tons and a full load displacement of 11,000 tons. It uses green and environmentally friendly tourism as a gimmick and is mainly used as a modern luxury passenger ship on domestic routes. Five-mast intelligently controlled sailboat.
Unexpectedly, not long after the "Cosco Star" weighed anchor and set sail from Shanghai, it traveled through the fog to the west coast of Australia in 1630. Immediately afterwards, a rear-end collision occurred across time and space, and it collided with an approximately 300-ton ship. The Spanish galleon sank the poor little guy on the spot... Then, from the sunken Spanish galleon Radziwill From the words of the owner of the ship, a frustrated Polish nobleman, Baron Andrew, the crew and passengers of the "Cosco Star" learned in disbelief that the current location was-south of Java Island, south of the Timor Sea, and Derby Port in Australia. Nearby... Well, this is not the biggest problem. The really scary thing is that the time at this moment is January 2, 1630! ! !
Green tourism has gone too far in the 17th century before the industrial revolution. This is too green!
In addition, the fact that the Poles in Eastern Europe, who have never had a sailing tradition, are also following the fashion of sailing and colonizing in this era is equally shocking.
In short, the above-mentioned earth-shattering news made the whole ship go crazy, but no matter how much the spirit breaks down, the cruel reality must be faced... After showing some magical props obtained from Doraemon , as well as various photographs and videos taken in medieval Europe Afterwards, as "senior time travel experts" and paladins canonized by the Holy See, Levi and his wife were unanimously elected as top advisors and members of the seven-person decision-making group by the lost and broken-hearted passengers, responsible for leading these more than 140 people. The time traveler is struggling to survive in this strange world.
——There is no way, only he and his wife on the whole ship have the experience of long-term survival in the ancient world,
The first question after the establishment of the decision-making group was whether to continue living in Australia or sail to mainland China in this era. According to the captain Wang Tiechui, although the "Cosco Star" is powered by sails, it still consumes fuel, and The remaining fuel on the ship can only travel as far as Guangzhou Bay. If you choose to go to the "homeland" of the Ming Empire, it will be destined to be a one-way journey with no return...
As a result, a big debate broke out among these time-travelers. In the end, the skeptics prevailed, feeling that it was impossible to believe without concrete evidence. The "kindness and simplicity" of the Ming compatriots. Moreover, as a time traveler who grew up in the new era, if there is no threat to their lives, I am afraid that few people are willing to kneel down and beg for mercy like a pug. The most important thing is that based on Levi's experience, for newcomers like them, other humans may be more dangerous than nature!
And among all the lands suitable for human habitation in the world in this era, the Australian indigenous people probably have the weakest combat effectiveness - even the most useless otakus on the time traveler's side have a per capita combat effectiveness of only 0.5. As a goose, I guess I can't beat the Europeans, Ming Dynasty people, Japanese and African black uncles of this era, but I can't even beat the Australian aborigines!
In this way, the travelers on the "Cosco Star" finally chose to land on the Australian continent and settle down on this land for the time being.
From then on, their identity in this world automatically became "Australian".
However, landing in Australia does not mean the beginning of a great epic, but represents the endless hardships and obstacles, as well as all kinds of endless and unimaginable troubles and difficulties... After the novelty at the beginning of the time travel passed, everyone I found that I was actually on the stage of an absurd drama, starring poor and hysterical poor actors.
——As soon as they landed ashore, the travelers and the Poles they rescued were besieged by the natives. Fortunately, the Australian Aboriginals in the Stone Age were basically scumbags in terms of combat effectiveness. They were left behind by those tall Polish guys with baseball bats, steel bars, kitchen knives, long-handled iron pots... and other messy things and only a match rope. Once the gun is fired and beaten hard, then The indigenous people who play stone artifacts were soaring, and there were more than two hundred slaves. In any case, Poland's big nose can kill each other like Russia's Maozi, which is obviously a bit fighting for hundreds of years.
Next, there is a vigorous construction movement-first of all, logging, road construction, and transporting materials from ships through rafts. From the containers in the cargo hold, the travelers discovered a total of 7,000 tons of various metal tools and manufactured products, as well as motorboats, forklifts and machine tools. There is even a rather cutting-edge device for converting microalgae into biodiesel: the research team for this device happened to be among the passengers! In other words, as long as the biodiesel conversion equipment is successfully installed, travelers will soon no longer have to worry about the fuel problem of the "Cosco Star".
The landing place of the traversers - Derby Harbor in northwest Australia, facing Golden Bay, is roughly located in the transition zone between tropical rainforest and savannah. Although the local trees are relatively sparse, it is not suitable for just a few hundred people. It's still enough for use.
Then, all kinds of hastily processed wood were carried by the traversers to the seaside slope planned to be the camp by manpower. There was no need to lay a foundation. They only needed to lay a few piles and start nailing the boards to build the wooden house - the climate in this part of Australia It's very monotonous. There are only two seasons in a year, one dry season and one rainy season. There are no typhoons or anything like that. Not to mention being used as temporary residences, these built wooden houses are also suitable for long-term living.
The next step was to build the trestle with wood, earth and stone: all the hundreds of laborers went into battle together, lining up in several long lines, holding baskets and baskets filled with soil and gravel, pouring the soil into the sea like a conveyor belt, making a Rough trestles slowly extend from the shallows on the shore. When ancient China built the Great Wall, it relied on such a "human conveyor belt" to transport bricks and stones to the high mountains.
Later, the travelers built brick kilns, burned red bricks, tiles and pottery, and built several red brick huts outside the wooden houses. In addition, extremely high-quality open-pit coal mines, iron ores, copper mines and silver mines were miraculously discovered, just like the scene in the science fiction novel "Mysterious Island"... Then cement was produced, and even small cement There were more than a dozen boats!
A few months later, a small village took shape. At the general meeting to discuss the name of the settlement, the traversers first rejected the "New Warsaw", "New Krakow" and "New Vienna" proposed by Baron Andrew and other Poles. " and other proposals, and there was a lot of internal quarrel over names such as "New Shanghai", "New Tianjin", "New Henan", etc., and finally had to choose a name that had no national or regional color at all: "Zhongnan City".
But the problem is that although the construction of houses and docks in "Zhongnan City" is gradually getting on the right track, the food crisis has not been solved. The daily supply of staple foods such as rice and noodles is getting less and less, and finally the supply has to be limited, making everyone Everyone feels a sense of existential crisis.
——Although the land of Australia is full of kangaroos, and they are stupidly easy to shoot and capture. Since landing in Australia, travelers have been grilling skinned kangaroos on bonfires almost every day. But the problem is, the taste...hey, there is a strong smell of urea. If it were not driven by hunger, I believe no one would be interested in kangaroo meat. Its special smell is enough to drive away all gluttons. As a result, in later generations, except for a few indigenous people in Australia, few Australians were willing to eat kangaroos. Almost all kangaroo meat exported is sold to the Japanese. It is estimated that this strange nation is the only one on earth who has a soft spot for kangaroo meat, which is rumored to "effectively improve reproductive capacity"!
Judging from the eating habits of modern Chinese people, kangaroo meat, a stinky thing, definitely needs to be cooked with strong flavors such as spices, salty sauce and chili peppers before it can be eaten. Otherwise, just by smelling it, you would stay away from it - but as time goes by, the number of condiments on the ship is also rapidly decreasing, and they will soon have to be used in limited quantities. Only salt is sufficient for the time being because the time travelers built salt fields. .
So everyone could only eat the stinky stewed kangaroo meat, and get some turtles, seabirds, shellfish and fish every now and then to change their appetite... Although Chuanzhong's agricultural team had reclaimed some fields, there was no suitable land at all. Grain seeds - there was only one old couple on the ship who brought some vegetable seeds with them, and planned to plant them in flower pots after returning home. Now they have donated all of them, plus some wild fruits and vegetables collected, which can barely guarantee that everyone will not get sick. scurvy. But no one had the seeds of rice and wheat: when the Poles weighed anchor and set sail, they took some seeds with them to cultivate on the newly discovered land. Unfortunately, they all sank to the bottom of the sea with the sailing ship. .
In addition, the unsatisfactory construction of power and water conservancy projects also makes people scratch their heads - even though "Zhongnan City" is located in a coastal area, Australia's dry season precipitation is too little. The traverser initially planned to build a small dam to generate electricity by relying on a creek with a relatively large drop. Unexpectedly, just a few days after the simple dam was completed, the creek disappeared at a speed visible to the naked eye, leaving only a slight The wet river bed made people stunned... It was only then that a guy among the travelers who claimed to have seen kangaroos in Australia for three years remembered: Australia only has two seasons, one rainy season and one dry season, and the dry season is often longer than the rainy season. . That’s why Australia is full of deserts, and most rivers are seasonal...
Seeing that water conservancy power generation might not work, everyone had to build windmills and try to generate wind power. But before the light of the electric light came on on the Australian continent three and a half centuries ahead of schedule, the real doom finally struck:
The dry season is over and the rainy season is coming. The moody nature fully demonstrates to the travelers what it means to be truly earth-shaking...
- Thirty days of continuous heavy rain caused the sea level to rise by more than ten meters in one breath, turning the lush coastal jungle into an undersea forest, and the inland grassland with rich water and grass into a reed swamp. The continuous stream turned into a sparkling river, and most of the traces of civilization created by the Australian travelers were submerged under the vast expanse of blue waves:
The dock that was built just a few months ago has disappeared, and only a section of gray-white trestle is vaguely exposed through the blue water; the road that was painstakingly dug to haul wood has also strangely turned into a canal; travelers are walking by the stream (For the convenience of irrigation) dozens of areas were reclaimed acres of farmland, first changed from dry fields to paddy fields, and then from paddy fields to fish ponds; as for Zhongnan City, which was just completed, it first turned into the water city Venice during the heavy rain, and then further turned into the lost Asia. Atlantis...the whole thing went to the bottom of the sea!
On the eve of Zhongnan City being submerged, someone finally thought of measuring the altitude. They were shocked: the average altitude here was actually minus fifty meters! ! ! The guy who claimed to have seen kangaroos in Australia for three years also vaguely recalled that according to the introduction of the travel magazine, the entire city of Derby Port in Australia, which is the Zhongnan City in their time and space, is surrounded by huge beachfront tidal flats. , the soil brought by the tide will become hard and exposed on the seashore during the dry season, turning into a large area of lush grassland. If there is a drought for several consecutive years, it will even turn into a forest... But if humans really develop these tidal flats as land, then the huge waves in the rainy season will teach you how to behave in minutes...
Fortunately, the rainy season here is just heavy rain, there is no typhoon, and the sea water is rising little by little, so the travelers still have time to move all kinds of materials to the high ground like ants moving, without being too affected. Serious losses.
The problem is that the unlucky Australian travelers made another mistake while they were busy - their only means of transportation to leave the continent, the "Cosco Star", was washed into the depths of the bay by the tide in the chaos. When the heavy rain finally stopped, Captain Wang Tiechui discovered to his shock that his ship had been trapped in a newly formed coastal lagoon, separated from the open sea by a large and extremely shallow tidal flat and a sand bar. If you want to sail, you either have to dig an artificial canal - which is obviously beyond the ability of the traverser, or you have to wait until the water rises in the next rainy season...
Of course, the good impact is not without - the travelers who had previously built cement boats on the beach were still worried about how to launch the cement boats into the water. As a result, the rain has been pouring non-stop for more than thirty days. I went to the beach again and saw: Yes! Don't bother, the cement ship has already entered the sea by itself.
The problem is that this kind of heavy and fragile cement ship cannot go to the open sea at all, let alone carry the travelers out of the Australian mainland.
Then, another more terrifying nightmare came: the rainy season brought not only floods to Zhongnan City, but also all kinds of uninvited bad neighbors: first of all, swarms of salt water Crocodile - But for well-equipped travelers, crocodiles are actually not scary. After being hunted by the Polish big noses, they gave everyone a bunch of good leather shoe materials. The ones that really make people feel hard to guard against and make their hair stand on end are the box jellyfish, Taipan snake, blue-ringed octopus, red-backed spider... These are the most terrifying killers in Australia!
——First, someone accidentally fell into the water while fishing, and was greeted by several box-shaped jellyfish. Then he twitched to death and sank to the bottom of the sea: According to the records in the biological illustration, this kind of jellyfish is highly poisonous! lethal! No antidote! No antivenom!
Then, a little time traveler girl screamed and was chased down a street by a coastal taipan snake. Fortunately, she was discovered in time by two strong Polish men. After a fierce battle between humans and snakes, the little girl escaped and got a piece of belt material. However, the strong Polish men were all admitted to the ward. Fortunately, the snake's venom was not fatal enough. After these two brave men lay groaning in pain on the hospital bed for a full week, they finally recovered slowly.
Next, someone was going to the toilet and a red-backed spider fell from the top of his head, so he immediately went to see God: Compared with its scientific name, the other name of the red-backed spider is more widely known-the black widow! Even in Australia in the 21st century, people die every year because of it!
——The series of such deaths immediately plunged the entire settlement into a serious panic. The time traveler decision-making group immediately issued relevant policies: first, they banned swimming in the water, and then launched a "pest control and sanitation cleanup". Within a week, they filled in several stinking ditches and pools and killed two people who were raw materials for leather shoes. More than ten animals were killed, more than ten belt materials were killed, and a total of more than 70 kilograms of reptiles and flying insects were eliminated... But even so, it seems that it still cannot bring enough security to the travelers, and many people are scared to death. Dare to go fishing.
At the same time, by the end of November 1630, the last bit of rice and flour in the "Australians'" inventory was completely exhausted, and the vegetable fields were soaked in water, making it impossible to resume production. Apart from a small collection of biscuits and cans, the only way to survive is by hunting turtles, birds and kangaroos - although there is also a koala called the "koala" to choose from, and once you hear its name It seems that I know that I should bake this cute thing, but what happens after it is actually baked... Even the Australian aboriginals who are the least particular about their diet will have a hard time swallowing it...
Seeing that everyone's living conditions were rapidly declining towards the level of savages, Advisor Levi couldn't help but sigh, but he couldn't think of anything else - first of all, there were only two of Doraemon's magical props left as souvenirs around him. A bamboo dragonfly and a shrinking lamp are surveying the landscape and carrying supplies. It is very useful when collecting ore, but it can't be made out of nothing... During the days in the Australian wilderness, Levi regretted more than once, why he didn't think of getting a piece of [Gourmet Food] in the days when he was with Doraemon. Tablecloths] or a [chronological vending machine] come over?
Moreover, with the "Cosco Star" stranded and stranded, no one will be able to leave this corner of the northwest coast of Australia for at least a year. Even if they want to start over in a more resource-rich place on the Australian continent, it will be impossible. It became impossible.
Under extreme pessimism, Levi even began to have nightmares every day, in which more than a hundred travelers on the ship and those Polish big noses were all dressed in ragged clothes, and some were even dressed in leaves. Then ship doctor Xie Jierui said with a lonely face: "...Comrade consultant, there is bad news and good news... The bad news is that we have run out of ammunition and food, and I am afraid that starting tomorrow, we will have to imitate the koalas in chewing eucalyptus leaves; OK The news is that there are a lot of leaves in this place.”
On the other side, a fat man was chasing his Labrador with a kitchen knife, shouting "I want to eat meat, I don't want to eat leaves!". Farther away, Captain Wang Tiechui was leading a group of passenger representatives to negotiate with several indigenous leaders about incorporating into their tribes...
Fortunately, in these dark days, an incredible savior finally arrived - after nearly a year of arduous and lonely life, more than a hundred travelers on the "Cosco Star" were surprised to find that they It seems that I am not alone in this world...
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On that gloomy morning as usual, Levi and others sat around the burning bonfire and handed a piece of roasted kangaroo tail meat and a boiled bird egg he just took out to his wife Zhao Na—— Among the kangaroo meat that is difficult to swallow, kangaroo tail meat is considered to be the best tasting part. Then he picked up a piece of grilled kangaroo thigh meat that was full of strange smell, sprinkled it with a little salt, and frowned as he was about to bite it.
However, before he could take a bite of the barbecue, he heard a warning gunshot from the cliff not far away, and then thick smoke ignited from the top of the watchtower on the top of the mountain - since it was built, there has been This is the first time that the beacon smoke has been used!
From the radio intercom, the lookout on the watchtower stammered and shouted: "...Ship! Ship! A ship is coming!"
Everyone who was having breakfast by the campfire was caught off guard and suddenly panicked, and everyone was at a loss for a moment. Comrade Li Wei, who was the quickest to calm down, only had time to comfort his wife Zhao Na for a few words before he pressed the [Bamboo Dragonfly] on top of his head, then jumped into the air as quickly as possible and flew over the bay. At the same time, He raised the telescope hanging around his neck and squinted to search for the sudden arrival of uninvited guests.
Then, from the sparkling sea, he discovered a ship with a strange red-backed double-sword goshawk flag flying on the top of the mast. There was a chimney on the deck, and the steam-sail hybrid was emitting billowing black smoke. Large sailing ship? ! ! !
In an instant, Levi felt a "click" in his head, as if something was broken.
"...Oh God! Where did the steamship come from in the seventeenth century?! This is unscientific!! Wait, is that Polish man lying and deceiving us? It is actually 1830, not 1630?" For a moment, the wind blew. The messy Levi couldn't help but speak incoherently. As everyone knows, while he was suspended in mid-air and messy in the wind, on the deck of the large sailing ship below, there were also several time travelers raising their heads and holding telescopes, watching Levi's "heroic appearance" from a distance, and each of them was dumbfounded. , mental breakdown:
"... Taishang Laojun? There are actually houses on the west coast of Australia these days?! There are people flying in the sky?! This is unscientific!"