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Chapter 2040 "Taobao" plan

Paris, France, once the fashion capital. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info (--net.)

As the sun appears on the eastern horizon, shedding light and heat on the earth, a new day begins.

On a narrow street behind the church of Saint-Ère, south of Paris, sparsely populated, in the middle of the street to the east, a three-story brick and concrete building, a heavy wooden door painted with black paint slowly pushed open from the inside, a beautiful girl of medium height, blonde hair and blue eyes walked out, with a faint melancholy on her white and flawless face.

"Hey, Catherine, are you going to line up with us to buy bread?" Two white boys in felt hats, who had been waiting at the door, hurried up to say hello.

"Tom, Jack, my mom is sick, she's having a fever, but I don't know where to buy medicine." Catherine said in great distress.

"Huh!?"

The two boys looked at each other, and both saw a deep concern in each other's eyes—Catherine, like them, was now attending the nearby Moulin Middle School. The difference is that both parents are there, while Catherine's father died in the war against Germany in the 39th century, and her mother Lisa works as a conductor at the Monte Pass train station. Lisa's illness saw that the pillars of Catherine's family were about to fall.

At the request of the Germans, all the hospitals in Paris are now open for business, but due to the extreme lack of medicines, even the patients cannot be effectively treated, and often a flu breaks down, and hundreds of people die in the whole of Paris. The German army was very strict about medicines, and drugs were listed as munitions almost as soon as they left the factory, and a small amount was sold on the black market, but the high price was not affordable for ordinary people.

In fact, the situation in the whole of France, including Paris, the "City of Peace", is very bad today, and France, once one of the great powers, has now become a de facto semi-colonial country.

Back in the early days of the war, "where was the war?" was a common question in French cities and villages, where life was largely unchanged and the French still seemed to be playing a game rather than actually fighting a war, even though the army had been recruited.

At that time, elegant Parisian women tried to make the war chic and beautiful, and the latest and most fashionable evening wear in France in the second half of the 38th was a cropped suit with an RAF top, and the hostesses of the social world used the way they knew how to make their own contribution to the war, holding a glittering charity ball for the Red Cross or the army.

In the same spirit, top women fashion designers quietly shut down their salons and hired seamstresses to make gloves and knitted garments for the army, each with the designer's unique label.

The effects of the war were not long in coming!

In the winter of '38 and '39, when the temperature was cold and the supply of coal was insufficient, the French were still very optimistic, believing that the war would not last long, and many families were huddled in a windproof room leaning south to save precious fuel, and although there was no shortage of food or wine to warm up and strengthen the body, the French cake slowly became difficult to find, because the bakers turned their full attention to the bread rather than the cake, and the coarse semolina containing bran was not yet in vogue at this time. (--net.)

In France at the beginning of the 39th century, faced with a severe decline in industrial production, class antagonism, and war apathy, the government ordered a price freeze and fuel and food rationing, with the aim of establishing a certain national unity and gaining the support of the working class for the war by halting inflation and ensuring that all citizens shared.

The continuation of the war fully hit the good appetites of the French!

The French are known for their love of food, but the government has enacted laws restricting eating and drinking. Parisians ate in hotels and restaurants, which were strictly limited to two courses, only one of which could be a meat dish, and the sale of alcohol was strictly limited to four days a week.

Parisians were also restricted from eating at home, with government-issued ration cards being used, and food items, including bread, pastries and chocolates, either severely limited or simply banned.

The catastrophe of war has finally arrived in full force!

After France was defeated and occupied by the Germans in June 39, the Vichy government began to implement a wartime economic policy throughout France, and all sectors of the economy had to implement a wartime economy without exception to serve the German war machine, from agricultural products, meat, wine, to military products, aircraft engines, and the French manufacturing began to give a steady stream of blood to the German war machine.

The Germans also imposed on the Vichy government the so-called occupation fees, which amounted to four to five hundred million francs per day, and these occupation fees amounted to about thirty-five percent of France's national income during the same period. In addition, France paid Italy a monthly occupation fee of about one billion francs.

Due to the large amount of funds and materials plundered by the Germans, coupled with the huge war reparations, the wealth and resources of France were rapidly depleted.

After the defeat of France, the Allied navies went all out to blockade the sea transportation routes, and France lost 90 percent of its imported textile raw materials, 60 percent of its pulp supply, and all imported coal, which slowly declined from 68 million tons of consumption in 38 years to 23 million tons, and finally could only use very inefficient substitutes, with the result that the entire industrial production declined year by year.

Based on the index of industrial production before the outbreak of the war, which was 100, 41 fell to 70, and in 42 it was estimated that it was only 55, an astonishing decline. Since becoming a vassal of Germany, the Nazi government has plundered 74 percent of France's iron ore, 61 percent of its steel, and 64 percent of its automobiles.

In a radio broadcast in August the previous year, Petain protested that the British blockade was starving the French to death, and announced a German government proposal that all food allowed from overseas would be left for French civilians. As it happened, just one day later, the German government demanded that the French non-occupied areas immediately hand over 500,000 cattle, 1.5 million pigs, and other supplies, and that the regions that were required to surrender these things could not be self-sufficient even in food in normal times, let alone when refugees were flooded.

In the winter of '39 to '40, the food ration situation in Paris was already very serious, and the whole train of grain and coal was sent from the non-occupied zone to the "peaceful city" Paris, and in the winter of '42, almost most of the citizens of Paris were starving and freezing. --Net.

Most of the young adults in the French countryside were recruited by the Nazi government to serve in factories and army logistics to serve in the war effort, and there was a severe shortage of agricultural labor and a shortage of agricultural tools and fertilizers, which caused a significant decline in production. By the end of last year, the total output of French agricultural products had fallen by 40 percent compared with the pre-war period, and the total output of wheat, barley, bird's nest, and cereals had generally declined; for example, last year's total wheat output had more than doubled from 98 million quintals before the war to 45 million quintals. The number of livestock has dropped significantly, from more than 7 million pigs before the war to just 4 million last year. Due to the continuous decline in agricultural harvest, resulting in a shortage of agricultural products, the price of agricultural products has risen,

France's foreign trade since the fall can be said to have completely revolved around the needs of Germany and Italy, and France has obtained a large amount of grain and imported raw materials from its overseas territories through its port cities in the northern Mediterranean, 80 percent of which have flowed to Germany and Italy, while the goods imported by France into North Africa, such as grain and fuel, have even been used to finance the German and Italian troops in Libya.

The biggest shortage in France is food.

Like the Parisians today, they had to use several ration cards at the same time for their daily necessities, bread, fruit and vegetables, jams, textiles and cigarettes, and then queue endlessly, but there was no guarantee that the items on the cards would be available. A few months after the German occupation, it was found that butter, potatoes, meat were gradually disappearing from store shelves.

The Vichy government began rationing food in September 39, which was later extended to include fuel, soap, and many other commodities. By January of the following year, the French bread ration was reduced to 300 grams per person per day.

Due to the lack of fuel, rubber and locomotive cars, it is difficult for food from the countryside to be transported smoothly to the cities, or simply rot on the way, and the lack of bread and vegetables in the cities is especially scarce, and the only meat that can be bought is the small animals that can be raised in the cities, such as pigeons, rabbits, etc., and even the former pet Dutch pigs and cats. People are so hungry that the trade in cat meat is becoming more and more popular, and the composition of sausages is becoming more and more suspicious, and people suspect that there may be human flesh in them, so more and more people are actively or passively becoming vegetarians.

In the autumn of the 39th year, because of the scarcity of all kinds of ordinary supplies, soap was gone, housewives used lye as detergent, in France there were few new shoes, all the slaughtered animal skins were preserved to make shoes for the German army, private cars were basically idle because there was no gasoline, and the owner of the Carlsbad Brewery Company in Denmark dragged his Rolls-Royce on two horses without gasoline, causing imitation, and many people adapted to the current situation of gasoline shortage, commuting to work on bicycles with trailers, and "drivers" pedaling in front. The bicycle and the small trailer behind it became a sight to behold in the fashion capital of Paris.

During the war, when caloric intake was generally inadequate due to the lack of food, and the winters seemed to be unusually cold, coal became a scarce commodity because heating oil was not available, and people rummaged through the garbage, searched the railroads for valuable small pieces of coal, and some used waste paper or scraps of wood as fuel. The best and most economical way to heat your home is to spend the cold time at night, wearing thick clothes and lying in bed to read.

By last year, the citizens of Paris were eating only about 40 percent of the calories they had before the war, and children were generally malnourished, stunted, and short in stature. People with weakened immunity lack resistance to infectious diseases, and epidemics are often rampant.

The lack of supplies led to a rampant black market, and the way to avoid starvation was to buy food on the black market at a price ten times higher than the official price of rationing, but because French wages were still at the pre-war level, most people could not afford to buy black market goods - Paris implemented a wage freeze policy in 41 years, and the Germans forbade companies to increase wages, because the wages were low they could use higher wages to attract workers to work in Germany, and now the average family in Paris only has more than 800 francs, which is only enough to buy four and a half pounds of butter on the black market.

In France at this time, 70 percent of a family's budget was spent on food, a toothbrush was twenty-three times more expensive than before the war, a shirt was 140 times more expensive, soap was 90 times more expensive than before the war, and laundry detergent was forty times more expensive. And because of the hardship of life, the number of prostitutes increased tenfold.

The year before last, 30 percent of the butter, eggs, pork, potatoes, and chickens of French peasants entered the black market, and only 190,000 tons of the 1.15 million tons of meat slaughtered and processed in France last year entered the legal market, making the lives of ordinary people even more difficult.

All of this is the current situation in Paris, imagine that even the food for the stomach is not guaranteed, what can the children use to buy more expensive cold medicine?

Jack, who used to be a nobleman in the family, thought for a moment and said, "Catherine, why don't you go to my house and get an antique porcelain and exchange it at a nearby pawn shop, I think there is a cold medicine you urgently need." ”

Tom was very surprised: "Jack, I remember that your parents used to exchange the valuable things in your house for money and then went to the black market to buy food and daily necessities, and those antique porcelain and vases were not accepted by others...... You say you can exchange it for precious cold medicine, is that true? ”

Jack shrugged his shoulders and said with some uncertainty, "I also heard from my neighbor, Uncle Michael...... In the past, those coastal cities had special pawn shops to collect antiques, including food, clothes, shoes, medicines, etc., and it is said that there were nylon stockings! Half a year ago, there were pawn shops near the Musée Guimet, the Palais d'Échery, and the Louvre on the north side of the Seine, and three more similar pawn shops have opened in our vicinity, the Musée de Rodin, the Place de Joan of Arc, and the street behind it. ”

Catherine's bright eyes flashed with a gleam: "Is one of them some new store on Mann Street near the train station where my mother works?" Two weeks ago, I was passing by and saw someone coming out with a new cotton coat from inside, and I thought it would be nice if I had a cotton shirt like this for my mother's birthday, so she wouldn't have to brave the snow and wear very thin clothes to work! ”

"That's it!" Jack replied.

When Tom heard this, he hurriedly said: "I also have a few old gadgets at home, which my grandfather brought back from Africa back then, and he said that he may not be able to exchange for some cold medicine!" ”

"It's a pity that I don't have anything at home, but I have a lot of books—" Catherine's eyes suddenly lit up, and she called out, "Wait for me," and turned around lightly, and after a while, she came out with a few thick thread-bound books: "This is what my grandfather brought back from China, when he was a bishop in a church in Shanghai, and spent more than ten years in the East......"

The three of them quickly gathered their belongings and went to the pawn shop on Mann Street, and when they entered the nondescript gate, they were surprised to see a dazzling array of goods on the surrounding shelves.

There were already more than a dozen people in the pawn shop, and they lined up to put porcelain, vases, calligraphy and paintings, statues, etc. on the appraisal table in turn, regardless of whether they were satisfied with the price given, and finally they all left in a hurry with suits, shirts, leather bags, leather shoes, tea, candy, butter, and coffee.

Half an hour later, it was finally the turn of the three of them, Catherine put a few of her books on the table, and an Oriental man in his thirties glanced at him casually, "Huh", and looked up at Catherine: "This book should be a set, right?" ”

Catherine said with some nervousness: "There are a lot of books at home, but I don't know how much they cost...... I want to buy some life-saving cold and anti-inflammatory medicines, and I want to buy a warm cotton coat for my mother! ”

The Oriental was silent: "These books are a complete set, if they are only sold in pieces, the value is not guaranteed!" Well, if it's not convenient for you to get it, we'll send someone to your house to bring all the books over, and I'll give you a correct estimate, otherwise you'll have to exchange these books for a box of cold medicine and a box of sulfonamide pills. ”

"Yes, sir, come to my house now!" Catherine said happily.

The Oriental nodded, and soon six able-bodied French employees followed Catherine home, and an hour later it took two pick-up trucks to bring all the books back.

It took nearly two more hours to sort out the books, and in the end, the price given by the Oriental for all the five thousand nine hundred and eighty-six books was:

Ten boxes of cold medicine, ten boxes of sulfonamide pills, two boxes of panmoxicillin injections, four sets of cotton clothes and trousers, two sets of quilts, twenty meters of cotton cloth and a cold cloth of the same size, two pairs of women's high-heeled leather shoes, two pairs of women's sneakers, two pairs of nylon stockings, four toothbrushes, four bags of laundry detergent, four soaps, two towels, ten cans of beef and mutton, two cans of butter, two cans of candy, two cans of tea and two cans of coffee, and the voucher that can be redeemed at the pawnshop for 400 toasts in the future.

The pawnshop sent a car to deliver the goods to Catherine's house, which caused a huge stir among the citizens in the streets, who had many good hopes for the pawn shop, and began to rummage through the boxes and cabinets to find out if they could redeem anything.

Catherine was very satisfied with this harvest, and in the future, in addition to the daily necessities of the family, she would not have to go hungry for a long time, but it was a pity that the little girl did not pay attention to the covetous, hungry wolf-like gaze around her.

Tom and Jack also exchanged two pieces of antique porcelain and two pieces of ancient Egyptian metal ornaments for four meters of cotton cloth, twenty loaves of bread, ten bags of instant noodles, two toothbrushes, two towels and two pairs of leather shoes.

When the delivery cart returned, the Oriental, who had been acting indifferent, hurriedly ordered the temporary closure of business, the closure of the store, and the sorting of the harvest. He knew that he had caught a big fish this time, and if nothing else, he would say that among the nearly 6,000 books, there were 3,532 volumes of the "Yongle Canon", accounting for almost one-third of the total 11,095 volumes, which could be said to be of great value.

In addition, the rest of the books also include the original fragments of the "Collection of Ancient and Modern Books" and "Siku Quanshu", as well as the fragments of the Song version of "Zizhi Tongjian", local chronicles of various parts of China in the Ming and Qing dynasties, etc., and the harvest is unimaginable.

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ps: Thank you for the big tips from the people who carried the yellow eel and the gun, and thank you brothers for your subscription, recommendation tickets and monthly passes!

The Son of Heaven continues to plead for all support such as subscriptions, monthly passes, etc., and is grateful!