Chapter 64: History Has Fallen into a Fog

“…… The Black Death wiped out about 25 million of the 80 million Europeans of the time, and completely extinguished the wars across Europe - because there were not enough able-bodied men to replenish the army. It brought a rare peace to Europe: a peace that was more terrible than war. ”

Standing on the corridor terrace of the Ravenclaw Tower, looking at the goose feathers and snow falling outside the window, Wang Qiu looked at the information stored in his smartphone and talked to Levi so eloquently, "...... In addition, the catastrophe of the Black Death also had a violent impact on the economy, politics, culture, religion, and science and technology of medieval European society, and had a huge impact. Many scholars see the Black Death as an opportunity for the transformation and development of European society. It is like a caterpillar's pupa that is painful, but when it breaks out of the chrysalis, it can metamorphose into a gorgeous butterfly

In medieval Europe before the Black Death, the land of the lords was cultivated by their serfs. The serfs and their families lived in small villages made of thatched huts made of reeds, turf and mud. The floor of the house was covered with leaves and grass, and a platform for a bonfire was made of stones in the middle of the house. Because there were no windows or chimneys, smoke from the fire was released through holes in the roof of the guò or open doors. The furniture in the room was a simple table, a few stools, a storage box, and a bed made of a few large wooden planks, or she slept directly on the haystack. Next to each hut is a small plot of land, possibly with chickens and pigsties, and ducks and geese in a nearby creek. Large arable animals such as horses and cattle were shared by the entire village – which was basically the usual appearance of most medieval European villages.

Most of these medieval villages were built around a large plot of land, which was owned by the lord and cultivated by serfs. The lords lived in large estates or castles with defensive functions. The serfs worked hard for the lord, and their own food and clothing were uncertain, and the amount of annual taxes was sometimes only determined by the whim of the lord. The lords also dominated the jurisdiction of these poor illiterate peasants. The church and the lords monopolized most of the economy and force, and any resistance of the peasants was meaningless, and the lucky ones among them might be able to change their situation, such as gathering a gang of thugs to take down a manor and then become the master, but for the whole social order, there was no real change.

Although some city dwellers have been freed from the feudal system, given the sad level of urbanization of this era, at least 80 percent of Europeans still live under the pervasive and complete control of their lords, repeating the same hardship from generation to generation, seeing no hope of change, and having to anesthetize themselves with religion – in fact, in rural India in the twenty-first century.

It is a dull and dead society, like a dark quagmire, in which most people, from birth to death, struggle in despair, just to be able to eat a bite to eat, to live as humble as a dog, as muddy as a pig. The expansion of society has reached a bottleneck, and the pressure of population expansion has swallowed up the capital available for technological progress, but those in power are instinctively hostile to any change. If we want to push this stagnant society forward and break the shackles and shackles of the old era, we need an overwhelming red revolution.

However, in this age of ignorance, there is no decent revolutionary theory, not even a concept of revolutionary thinking.

However, the Black Death inadvertently took the role of the revolution and changed the quagmire and stagnation.

With a significant number of peasants wiped out from the Black Death, the lords had only two options if they did not want their land to be wasted: pay a high price to hire laborers, or rent the land to the surviving freedmen. Of course, European governments sometimes colluded with the lords and forced the peasants to work for free by law. Just like the ancient Chinese dynasties forced peasants to perform forced labor, but instead of paying them, they even had to bring their own rations.

Over time, however, as the number of peasants continued to decline in the midst of the plague, this policy could only lead to revolts, which would result in either the collapse of the state and the collapse of the dynasty, or the concessions of the lords, who realized that without labor, they would not even have any income.

At a time when labor is an extremely scarce commodity and is declining rapidly, no amount of coercion can curb wage increases.

As a result, the serfdom system began to disintegrate, and the feudal lords had to relax their personal control over the peasants, only asking them to pay taxes, turning the serfs into tenant farmers. As disease and death further depleted the labour force, the tenant farmers had to recruit people to help with the work, coming from landless displaced people and those who survived in the towns. In this way, labor began to flow freely, and the feudal estates gradually came to an end.

Because labor costs skyrocketed as deaths spread, farmers were simply reluctant to accept lease contracts unless they were willing to provide additional benefits such as cattle, tools, and seeds. In the towns, too, the need for a technological revolution arose when too many artisans died, forcing the remaining bosses to dig out their minds and consider how to replace manpower with tools and machines. As the plague continued to reduce the number of guild members from all walks of life, the guilds had to expand their recruitment, which meant that the traditional rule of entering the guild only through blood and relatives and friends was abolished. At the same time, the apprenticeship period of the workers after joining the union was shortened, and the handicraft workshops began to be transformed into capitalist factories.

At the same time, the absolute authority of the Holy See was subversively challenged. Dissatisfaction began to boil in the hearts of the common people, and despair led to doubts about Christ and God. The resentment caused by the widespread inaction of the clergy sowed the seeds of the subsequent Reformation.

In this way, under the impact of the wave of death, the shackles that originally hindered the progress of society became crumbling. On the eve of the Age of Discovery, the Europeans, although still very poor, had completed their essential transformation, just waiting to rush to every corner of the earth, loot the wealth of the world, to fill their hungry stomachs and deflated purse bags, and then they could get further take-off and sublimation

On the contrary, China at that time was like a fat man full of burdens, although he had more wealth, but the feudal dross that blocked his eyes and ears could not be completely swept away in the most drastic way in the midst of blood and fire, shame and ruin.

In short, it was only because tens of millions of deaths constituted enough lubricant for the wheels of European civilization to break free from the quagmire of stagnation and move towards a new life. After the Black Death, European civilization embarked on a brighter path, and the problem of social transformation, which seemed to be very difficult, was suddenly smoothed out because of the Black Death. It not only promoted the exhibition of science and technology, but also promoted the breaking of the Catholic Church's leading status, and had an important impact on the Renaissance, the Reformation and even the Enlightenment, thus changing the direction of the exhibition of European civilization. ”

“…… However, our arrival has distorted all this qiē trajectory, right? Levi interjected with a wry smile.

“…… Yes, first of all, it must be clear that although we have been trying our best to save people since we crossed into this world, in fact, we have saved far fewer people than we have killed - the few jars of plague concentrate that Doraemon threw at Jerusalem are too lethal, and the Venetian merchants have used our [random doors] to run around the world, and the plague is spreading faster than wildfire."

Wang Qiu nodded, and replied with the same wry smile, "...... Even the cities that have been saved by us have fires in their backyards, and the epidemic has revived, and it is still in a mess. In the countryside where we didn't have time to go, the Hogwarts students who had mastered the healing spells were left to fend for themselves before they arrived—plague, dysentery, smallpox, diphtheria, measles, chickenpox, meningitis, cholera, typhoid, malaria, flu...... Hehe, so many kinds of fierce plagues exploded at once, it was really going to make the rhythm of the world's destruction

According to the latest estimates from satellite reconnaissance photographs, the plague has spread north to Norway and east to Moscow, and even Poland and Milan, which had survived the Black Death, are now suffering. More than half of Europe's current population of 80 million has died, and continues to die in a hurry - the Encyclopedia of Magic has a limited range of effects, and if we put the props in London, then the effective range of the spell can reach Poland at most east, barely reach North Africa as far south, and as for the further east, there is no way at all. Now Egypt has completely turned into a kingdom of the dead, the holy city of Jerusalem has also become a dead city, and the Byzantine Empire is estimated to have no more people left alive......

If the Black Death, which originally reduced the population of Europe by 25 million, destroyed countless families and created countless tragedies and tears of life and death, it was also conducive to reducing the population pressure of European countries and jumping out of the curse of civilization stagnation of Malthusian population theory. But if it is reduced from 80 million to 10 million, or even millions...... That's not to alleviate the pressure on the population, but that the entire civilized society is about to collapse, and if it is not done well, it will degenerate all the way to the state of barbarian tribes, just like those post-apocalyptic novels

In the history of human civilization, whether it is the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Wuhu Rebellion or the War of Resistance Against Japan, there seems to be no such a high proportion of population decline. If you have to look for a similar example, it seems that only the collapse of the Mayan civilization - the 12 million Maya who inhabited the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America died in less than a century, leading to the decline and oblivion of the entire civilization

Alas, even with the original Black Death, which killed 25 million people, it took two centuries for Europeans to multiply in history to restore their populations to pre-plague levels. Now this compound plague will kill at least 50 or 60 million people, I really don't know what will happen in the future."

Speaking of this, Wang Qiu couldn't help but shake his head and sighed, "...... So, what if we keep those European cities? Without enough rural population and surplus food to support it, the only way to reach the urban civilization is to collapse and disintegrate.

In the midst of this great plague, due to the rapid arrival of a large number of deaths, the original administrative institutions at all levels of European countries have completely collapsed, and no king or lord can maintain order, and the social contradictions that have accumulated in the past have naturally exploded. There were riots and bandits everywhere, and it was only because of the large number of deaths caused by the plague that this qiē was temporarily covered up. After the so-called gentry technique suppresses the plague, I don't know what kind of chaos will become, and the British and French countries, which have now taken shape, may be divided again into countless tribes and princely states.

Speaking of which, the Venetians have been coercing a large number of kingdoms and city-states around the Mediterranean to sign various unequal treaties by taking advantage of our power these days, as if they want to become the hegemon of the West. But the question is, when these city-states and kingdoms lose the support of the countryside, and are all forced to abandon like the Mayan cities, and the citizens are scattered in the wilderness, who will fulfill these unequal treaties of theirs? And the Venetian merchant fleet probably couldn't find a place to do business. In the end, I have no choice but to go back to those deserted farms in the suburbs, grow my own grain, grind flour, cook and eat......"

“…… In fact, even the cities that have been directly destroyed have already been several, such as the burning of London before, and the destruction of Constantinople by us with [Dragon Slash] and [Meteor Shower...... I heard that a few days ago, a group of Hogwarts graduates in France had set fire to Paris in the same way that a group of Hogwarts graduates had just been unable to control the epidemic in the capital, and the patient who had just recovered fell ill again within a few days......

Levi touched his chin and added, "But don't think of the Venetians as so far-sighted, they just didn't predict that the terrible course of this plague would lead to the collapse of civilization." Now, the Venetians are no longer doing those unnecessary things, but desperately trying to find a way to collect labor from all over the world and restore agricultural production in the northern Italian control area......"

-- In order to cope with the labor crisis caused by the Great Plague, the Venetians are now creating a "great migration" movement that can be called a large-scale even in the entire history of mankind, and with the help of the magical power of Doraemon and other traversers, they are desperately trying to stuff Indians, blacks, Southeast Asians, American Indians, and foreign people who have entered the agricultural civilization into abandoned farms all over Western Europe to fill the jobs left by the plagued serfs, and so far more than 300,000 people have been imported. It's just a fight with the later Stalin.

“…… Yes, I also know that lately the Venetians have not continued to send Indian and African immigrants to England, because they themselves have intercepted the flow and settled in northern Italy. Wang Qiu shrugged, "...... But it's also good to ⊥ them get a taste of the immigration problems of the 21st century in advance. And England is the same, if our Queen Joan solves it well, maybe there will be no problem. If it is messed up, it is difficult to say, not to mention whether Britain will become the hegemon of the Seven Seas in the future, and even whether there will be a unified Britain."

-- What many people don't notice is that England, as a small country in the middle of nowhere, was able to defeat many opponents in the fierce competition and eventually dominate the world. The famous scholar Mackinder once commented: "From the time of the Norman Conquest (the establishment of the Plantagenet Dynasty) to the development of modern industry based on coalfields, the structure of the English nation was almost incomparably simple." Before the history of Scotland and Ireland was mixed with the history of England, the history of England became epic because there was only one king, a parliament, a great river that ebbed and flowed with the tide (the Thames), and a large city as a trading center and port (London) - and England was founded on these factors. ”

On the contrary, the other countries of the Great 6 of Europe did not have such stability, and it was not until the time of Louis XIV that France eliminated all kinds of hidden fears of internal division and completed the unification of the nation and culture. Germany and Italy, the former having lost Austria and a considerable part of the German-speaking region forever, and the latter having been repeatedly invaded by numerous foreigners since the fall of the Roman Empire, had an unimaginably poor sense of national identity within the country, and into the twenty-first century, there were countless separatist forces active throughout Italy.

Although the British Empire was unable to integrate Scotland and Ireland for a long time, the latter was separated and founded, and the former repeatedly caused trouble, which was very criticized and joked in the international community. But the simplicity and unity of England is almost unshakable in its internal simplicity and unity, which has been unified throughout the long history since the establishment of the Plantagenet dynasty. Even if there is a civil war, the goal of both sides is to fight for national power, not to divide the country...... But when serfs of different colors from India, Africa, and the Americas appeared on the soil of England and became a miniature version of the future United States, could the island nation maintain its historical cohesion?

Of course, in the Middle Ages, in such a complete disregard for human rights, the migration problem that plagued the EU countries in the 21st century was not completely unsolvable, specifically genocide...... When these alien immigrants become useless and cause trouble, just find an excuse to kill them all, and the world will be restored to its original state, and the problem will be solved - but will people still kneel down and let you slaughter them when the time comes?

At the end of the Roman Empire, which practiced slavery, it had hosted numerous barbarian tribes, and as a result, the Gothic cavalry had leveled Rome. Cao Wei and the Jin Dynasty also used to settle the Hu people in the border counties, which was regarded as a good strategy to stabilize the frontier, but the result was a chaotic ......

-- But at this point in time, few people are aware of this concern. Those lords and nobles were just glad to see that, relying on the boundless divine power of the "angels", their manors and pastures, which were about to be abandoned, finally had new farmers to work on, and someone could pay their rent next year. As for the serf's complexion, it was not the same as his own...... What does it matter? As long as they can be obedient to life, anyway, they, the superior people with noble blood, have never thought that those serfs who are as humble as cattle will be the same kind of people as themselves......

“…… In short, the future of this world has fallen into a fog, and no one knows what will happen in the future. Europe will certainly not become a world of swords and sorcery. Although we will leave the magic item of the Encyclopedia of Magic, the false era of magic will not last long - the Encyclopedia of Magic will only last for twenty years at most, after which the cruel truth will return to Europeans. ”

Wang Qiu rubbed his hands in the cold wind, and finally concluded, "...... Perhaps, European civilization, which is still very young, will soon collapse again due to all kinds of chaos. However, the early collision of various cultures in Europe, as well as the demographic pressure of temporary and complete disappearance, may also allow social progress and civilization evolution to be realized ahead of schedule, thus ushering in a better and more harmonious new world...... Who could have guessed this kind of thing? ”

“…… That's right...... So, will the new era that originally belonged to the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Great Geographical Emergence still come? ”

After pondering for a moment, Levi asked Wang Qiu, "...... After we turned everything upside down? ”

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