The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria’s Mandate of Heaven

v3 Chapter 18: the beginning of the famine

USA, Ohio.

A strange stench from a crate of grain attracted the attention of a stevedore, who opened the crate with a crowbar to find a pile of softened and browned potatoes in the hay.

The worker immediately realized the seriousness of the matter, because the virus is contagious, and not only the potatoes that have been in contact with this box of goods will rot, but even the potatoes in the whole of Ohio may not be spared.

But the employer obviously didn't care about this, and teased him in turn.

"Oh, Steven. Did you think you were a state legislator? You're just a fucking, **** stevedore now."

"Bobby, I'm not here to talk about that today. I want to tell you that you have to burn all the grain, not just the potatoes, or this disease will sweep through Ohio like the Black Death. You can't ship it away , Wherever this germ passes by, nothing will grow."

Bobby Stark had a look of utter disgust on his greasy face.

"That's what you're talking about? Then who will pay for my losses? Or do I want to destroy my career and sleep on the streets like you?

I don't have it, you are such a good friend like me, you can take me in and feed me, so that you can oppose me now! "

"You can apply for federal compensation..." Steven Sipil's words were very unconvincing, because he knew that it would be difficult to obtain federal compensation through this kind of thing, and even if there was a compensation amount, it would be difficult. Much smaller than Bobby's loss.

"Damn, you might as well pray to God for this **** mold to disappear from the world forever. I don't want to hear you scaremongering here. Listen! Steven, there's five dollars on the table, take it and shut up and move on Be your stevedore. Or **** me, choose yourself."

Bobby Stark was completely disappointed with his friend. He was a young master who was born with a golden spoon despite being sheltered by his ancestors. As a result, he stood on the wrong team every time, and now he could only live by selling coolies.

"It seems that people really shouldn't read too many books, otherwise they will become stupid." Bobby Stark came to this conclusion.

The products of Bobby's farm traveled along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to Washington where they waited to be shipped to Ireland on the other side of the ocean.

......

In fact, Steven Sipil was not alarmist. Potato late blight has been called a devastating disease to this day. Infection with late blight can lead to large-scale death of potatoes or a sharp reduction in yield, and this mold can not only spread through contact, but also through water and air as long as the temperature and humidity are suitable.

Usually, as long as a crop infected with potato late blight is found in one area, the entire area will soon be infected. Of course, the degree of disaster will vary with the local temperature, humidity, and different crop varieties.

The favorite of potato late blight is in rainy, cold and humid climates, such as Britain, Ireland...

Queens Village, Southern Ireland.

Scarha Jennings is twelve years old this year. Although she has the same name as the ancient Irish hero, she can neither use magic nor use a spear.

If it comes to something special compared to ordinary people, it is that she can read and write. Yes, as a Catholic, her ability to read and write was a remarkable skill in Ireland in this day and age.

Because the British started a colonial plan many centuries ago, confiscated the property of the aborigines in Ireland, and planned to build a large number of plantations, just like the Anglo-Saxons did in North America.

The fate of the Irish should have been the same as that of the Indians in North America, as well as the aborigines of New Zealand and Australia. But fortunately, they chose to fight and got the support of the powerful countries on the European continent. Spain and France tried to land on the island of Ireland. For this reason, even during the Glorious Revolution, the blood of the Irish did not stop.

The Glorious Revolution was a non-violent coup launched by the British bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy in 1688 to overthrow the rule of James II and prevent the restoration of Catholicism. The revolution was bloodless, and historians have dubbed it the "Glorious Revolution."

But in fact, Cromwell personally conquered Ireland, and the corpses piled up in Wexford alone were five meters high. That's right, it's landscape building, but 1688 is not considered the Middle Ages. At this time, the British have defined themselves as a model of the civilized world.

The Irish nobles were the first to surrender to Britain. In order to be accepted by the British, they put on British clothes, the British way of life, abandoned Catholicism, believed in the Anglican Church, spoke English, and were appointed by the British to manage poor Ireland aborigines.

But the British would not let them go. The way the British colonized Ireland was very primitive. First, they chose the "Tweeting Order" of the Han Dynasty.

After the local Irish nobles are forced to die, the land will be distributed equally to all sons to ensure that there will be no big landlords on the island of Ireland.

But even though he was shameless at this time, he still did bad things in the name of fairness.

Soon the British found a new excuse, that is, the Irish believed in Catholicism as much as the Spaniards, so they believed that the Irish were collaborating with the enemy.

So the British government began to openly slaughter the Irish and confiscate their property. Then took the opportunity to enact a series of punitive laws.

For example, Irish people cannot own horses or donkeys, are not allowed to go to school, cannot vote in elections, cannot become public officials, cannot own land, cannot own property exceeding 15 pounds, etc...

Some of these laws were in force even until Ireland became independent.

After the Napoleonic era, the British defined the Irish as the allies of the French and repeated the old trick.

Interestingly, however, that the Irish hadn't started asking for help from their "allies" every time the British raised their butcher knives, and their "allies" didn't notice it either.

There is a passage on January 23, 1799, British Prime Minister William Pitt's evaluation of Ireland.

"Ireland has been possessed by an evil spirit. This evil spirit has deeply rooted in this people, including their characters, manners and habits, as well as intellectual deficiency, barbarism, ignorance, and backwardness.

Their religion and their hostility to the civilized world have bred in them a prejudice against the world, and allowed superstition and cruelty to flourish...."

The short answer is that the British don't see the Irish as their countrymen, not even as whites, but as blacks, Indians, or whatever.

Historically, in 1829, Daniel O'Connell, through the efforts of several generations, finally allowed the Irish to obtain the qualifications for education.

Not an ordinary school, of course, but a school specially established for Irish Catholics to save the British from the plague of poverty and sloth.

But in fact, there are not many poor Irish people who can receive education on the island of Ireland. Skaha Jennings is one of them, thanks to the fact that there is a priest living near her home.

At that time, Irish Catholics had a miserable life, but these clergymen were not as miserable as imagined. Not as good as their counterparts in Europe, but pretty good compared to the average Irishman.

However, pure religious education also has great disadvantages, that is, the knowledge level of the local people is like that of the Middle Ages. The common sense in our mouth is so "noble" or "rebellious" in their eyes.

Scatha Jennings has an elder brother, two younger brothers, and two younger sisters. Her family has two rooms, a cottage with a roof is where her parents live, and six of them live in one In a roofless adobe house.

I haven't found out the specific reason for this, but at that time, houses with roofs were more advanced than adobe houses without roofs.

There was only one bed in the room, but Scathach never worried about it being crushed, because it was made of stone and covered with dried grass, but it was a pity that there was no bed cover.

The Scathach family farmed ten acres and sixty acres, which was far better than most of their Irish compatriots.

Since the Irish could not own their own land, the landowners leased the land to them in small pieces, usually with only 34 acres of land for a family to survive.

Some people may think that 34 acres is not a small amount, but the land productivity at that time was far inferior to that of modern times. Grandpa Yuan has been through the ages. Moreover, European landlords were generally more ruthless than Asian landlords at that time, and it was basically a routine operation to take away 60% of the proceeds.

In addition, there are three pigs, an old dog, and five chicks in Skaha's family, including a hen that can lay eggs. This is the entire property of the Skaha family.

Her family eats potatoes for breakfast, potatoes for lunch, and potatoes for dinner.

But they don't eat baked potatoes, fried potatoes, sauced potatoes, cold potatoes, or shredded potatoes, potato chips, mashed potatoes...

In fact, there was usually only one way to eat Irish potatoes at that time, and that was to eat them directly after being boiled and sprinkled with some salt.

It is this monotonous food that feeds nearly 8.3 million people on the island of Ireland.

Just imagine what a horrible picture it would be if there was a problem with this food one day.

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Archbishop Rauscher didn't quite understand what Franz meant, including sending an Austrian priest to Ireland. He felt that if he wanted the church to help gather information, he should pretend to be a member of the Anglican Church and go to London or Portsmouth. city.

As for Ireland as a whole, cities including Dublin don't seem to matter much.

"Archduke Franz, if the Irish don't want to eat potatoes, maybe they can choose to grow wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, rice or something.

Oh! By the way, cassava is also a very good choice. Archduke Franz cassava is very successful in Namibia.

The local aborigines saw that our people ate cassava without any discomfort and thought that our gods were stronger than theirs, and the development of believers was very rapid. Several major local tribes have converted to the church, and the total number has changed from 200 to 100,000 now..."

Obviously, Archbishop Rauscher is also not concerned about the life and death of the Irish. In contrast, he is more interested in the new indigenous believers in Namibia.

"Archbishop, the land on the island of Ireland is very tight. If you don't grow potatoes, you may not be able to feed so many people."

"Grand Duke Franz, you don't have to worry. At that time, they will go to mines, factories, or any other place to survive. You are such a smart person, don't you know that farmers want to survive more than just farming road?"

Archbishop Rauscher is not completely ignorant of the sufferings of the people, but what he has learned in Vienna over the years has convinced him that there are always more choices than difficulties.

Under Franz's intervention, the Austrian imperial economy has made great progress compared with the same period in history, and this progress is particularly obvious in Vienna as the center of the empire.

All seemed to be treated with tenderness, and the hunger seemed to be far away, for not even Vienna, the great famine of 1838, saw crowds dying of froze and starvation.

Compared with Ireland, Archbishop Rauscher cared more about Central America. Archduke Franz's policy of vacating cages and replacing birds almost emptied the local aborigines. In order to fill this vacancy, the church had to transfer people from other places.

However, the domestic situation in the Austrian Empire is very good and few people are willing to leave. Even if they want to go overseas for development, they will give priority to royal colonies such as West Africa. After all, almost all Austrians in the Inner Tania region are shareholders of overseas development companies. Of course, working on your own is more motivating.

"Archbishop, you don't seem to care about those Catholics in Ireland at all. I told you before that the British do not allow Irish people to do business, and there are not enough factories in the area to absorb so many people to work..."

Franz was a little dissatisfied. The magic stick in front of him obviously wanted to help the Armenians as far away as Ottoman~lightnovelpub.net~Why is he so indifferent to the Irish?

"Archduke Franz, you mentioned a sentence that Louis Pasteur said when he refused your invitation. Science has no borders, but scientists have nationality.

In fact, our church is the same. If those Irish people are subjects of the Austrian Empire on the land of Austria, like us, then the church is bound to do their best to help them.

But Ireland is in England, and the Irish are British. I am the religious leader of the Austrian Empire. I am afraid that it is not appropriate to use the donations of the subjects of the empire to save the people of the enemy country? "

After hearing this, Franz's head was full of black lines. Before, he only thought that Archbishop Rauscher was a magic stick, but now he realized that he was a smart stick.

"Archbishop, apart from worshiping God, the duty of the church should be to spread the gospel to the world. This gospel can belong to God, of course it can also belong to Austria, or to the Habsburg family."

Of course Archbishop Rauscher understood Franz's words, but he still couldn't understand what's the use of showing favor to those Irish? Can the Austrian Empire still cut a piece of land next to the British mainland?

In fact, Franz's method and the method of preferential treatment of prisoners of war are similar in purpose. After all, capital has no borders. If the capitalists lose, they will run from the United Kingdom to the United States at worst.

But whether it was World War I or World War II, the real people who died on the battlefield were ordinary people. They were either out of patriotism, or they were forced to help, or they wanted to maintain world peace, or they wanted to plow the plow for their own country. To acquire land, or to establish a government, in short, the rulers will get a high-sounding reason to make them feel that they are right.

What Franz has to do now is to fundamentally disintegrate the fighting power of the British, and the Irish are the best breakthrough.