Chapter 52: The Land of Dead Wine

In 1348, when the haze of the Black Death swept through Europe 6, the island nation of England, which was isolated overseas, was in the midst of the glory of martial arts.

In the past two years, under the wise leadership of King Edward III, the English army of the Plantagenet Dynasty, which seemed to have opened the golden finger, first crossed the English Channel to invade France, miraculously won the Battle of Cressy with fewer victories, and almost wiped out the entire French field force at a very small cost. Then, the British, who were blessed by the god of war, played a triumphant song again on the island of Great Britain, with the 3,000 miscellaneous troops left in their country, and the Scots who took advantage of the weakness to the south started the Battle of Neville's Crossroads, and once again miraculously won more with less, broke the 12,000 Scottish troops who invaded the south, and even captured King David of Scotland, thus completely relieving the belly and back of the north of England.

Then, after eleven months of arduous sieges, the British finally conquered the port of Calais, which held the English Channel, and established a solid base on the French coast, thus firmly grasping the initiative in the Hundred Years' War.

So far, in this great game between Britain and France, the French, who initially held a good hand of cards and allies to help them, have lost completely. Britain, on the other hand, was lucky enough to go from one brilliant victory to another. Eventually, the bruised Gallic Chicken bowed its haughty head and bowed its knees to his former courtier, John Bull, for a year-long peace agreement.

-- Break the strong, capture the enemy's chieftains, and fortify the city, so that the two old enemies of the north and the south will bend their knees at the same time...... After a series of such remarkable achievements, the proud Edward III, who was praised by his courtiers, returned home in triumph, and prepared to take advantage of the peace stipulated in the armistice to plan an unprecedented marriage—to send his daughter, Princess Joan, to marry Prince Pedro of the Spanish kingdom of Castile.

(At that time, the Spanish Peninsula was still divided and unified, and Castile was the core plate that would form the Kingdom of Spain.) ）

Although it was a political marriage, Edward III obviously still loved his daughter very much, and in order for Princess Joan to marry gracefully, Edward III, who had just received rich booty and indemnity from France, was not stingy with money: the dowry prepared by the king for Princess Joan, from robes, jewels to furniture, was enough to fill a large ship, and her silk wedding dress alone was 150 meters long, and all kinds of gorgeous jewelry and clothing were even more dizzying. An incense burner used by the princess was about 3.5 million yuan if the market price at that time was converted into RMB. On her voyage across the sea, she also brought with her a movable private chapel. This chapel is palatial and contains extravagant couches. The couch is decorated with a ring of golden vines, all made of Byzantine gold coins. The altar is covered with ornate silk, surrounded by vines, embroidered with an angry war dragon.

In order to please his fiancée, he even sent a famous Spanish singer to play in the English court to play the harp for Princess Joan, relieving boredom, and by the way, praising Prince Pedro's handsomeness and demeanor, as well as his great martial arts in the Iberian Peninsula against the Moorish pagans, and trying to create a chic and warlike Prince Charming.

So, just as the land of France was swallowed up by death, a fleet from England sailed to Bordeaux, an important seaport in southwestern France. The largest flagship carried the thirteen-year-old British princess Joan Plantagenet. She was going to travel via Bordeaux to Spain to marry the prince.

The little princess Joan Plantagenet led a large retinue: knights, civil officials, court ladies, priests, and the Spanish singer. The leader of the entourage was England's Secretary of State, Pickle. His deputy, Ulfud, was a Juris Doctor from Oxford University and an experienced diplomat. Not only do they have to take care of the little princess Joan Plantagenet along the way, but they also have an important diplomatic mission - before they are officially married, Buchel and King Castille have to finalize a treaty to ensure that the princess and Pedro's future son will inherit the throne: King Edward III has a grand plan. He was to conclude an alliance with Castille and copy France from the two sides. His daughter will become the mother of a nation after she will become a nation. A few decades later, when his grandson ruled Castile and his grandson ruled England, then France would be the prey of the Plantagenet iron clamp.

Of course, the little princess, who was only thirteen years old, couldn't think of such a long term, she only knew that she was going to sea to get married. Now, she wants to enjoy the last free moments before her marriage - a journey filled with wine and music, youth and joy. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean lap against the side of ships, seagulls fly between the water and the sky, and the afterglow of the setting sun burns brightly on the water. Not far away is the dark and dreary European Big 6. Right now, there, millions of corpses are lying in the mud slowly decomposing...... But due to the lag in the transmission of information, everyone in this dowry fleet is still ignorant of the disaster ahead.

- Even if they had learned of the plague in Sicily before they came out, who would have imagined that the plague could have spread across Europe from south to north, from such a distant place, all the way to their side?

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In 1348, the fleet of Princess Joan Plantagenet arrived at the port of Bordeaux, where they planned to rest and recuperate before going to Spain for their wedding.

At that time, Bordeaux, although located in France, was a hereditary possession loyal to the Plantagenet royal family of England. Since the Middle Ages, Bordeaux has been a famous wine capital and the largest port on the west coast of France. A refreshing sea breeze blows against it, and dense vines entangle it. Everywhere is beautiful and pleasantly viewed. Moreover, the local population was generally close to the British - at the end of the Hundred Years' War, when the French army regained the area, the citizens of Bordeaux also launched an armed uprising, expelled the garrison from Paris, and welcomed the return of the British army, thus breaking out the final battle of the Hundred Years' War.

Unfortunately, Princess Joan Plantagenet and her party arrived just in time for the darkest summer ever in Bordeaux.

So, Princess Joan Plantagenet saw a dying city. There was no welcoming crowd, no bunting and flowers, and the fleet quietly sailed into the pier. The mayor of Bordeaux greeted the mission on the quay, and there was not a single accompanying attaché. And he himself had a gloomy face and red eyes. The whole person looks like a ghost. Watching the British fleet land, the mayor smiled miserably at the princess and recited a welcome speech feebly.

All the English nobles in the fleet were very dissatisfied with this. They had expected a grand ceremony: all the citizens lined up to greet them, flowers were spread on the floor, colored flags were unfurled, and bands were played. But now there was only one mayor, as weak as a sick donkey, who even looked like he would fall to the ground and die at any moment.

To make matters worse, after the pleasantries, the mayor of Bordeaux changed his tune and announced to the visitors the startling news: a plague had arrived from the south and was spreading rapidly throughout the Bordeaux region. Although the city of Bordeaux adopted the strictest quarantine measures, prohibiting any sick people from entering the city, it was not able to stop the invasion of the plague. Right now, citizens and business travelers are dying in droves. The mortality rate is unbelievably high.

The worst thing is that the plague seems to be incurable, and the doctors in Bordeaux have tried all kinds of methods, but they have not been able to cure even a single patient, but even themselves have been plagued by the plague and gone to see God. Although they had heard of a miracle on the side of the Holy See in Avignon, and the Bordeaux City Hall had sent an emissary to ask the Holy See for help, they had not heard back from them yet. Therefore, until a solution is found to contain this plague, for the sake of safety, the mayor of the city, Princess Jianyì, should not stay on shore, but should leave Bordeaux as far as possible and return to England to take refuge.

- This construction is very reasonable and timely, but Princess Gorse and her party refused. No one knows why they made such a choice. Perhaps it was because the situation and weather conditions of the fleet at that time did not allow for immediate return, or perhaps because the marriage between the two countries was serious and could not be interrupted; Maybe they thought it was a trick, that the mayor was just trying to save a deal money, or maybe it was just British arrogance...... In short, the bridal mission scoffed at the mayor's words, left the sick old fellow, and drove straight to the royal castle of Bordeaux, which was the property of His Majesty the King of England, tall and majestic, luxurious, spacious and comfortable. The whole mission could stay comfortably in it - Her Royal Highness's wedding trip, of course, could not stay in those ordinary hotels, and only staying in the royal castle was the safest.

At first glance, this arrangement does make perfect sense, but there is a slight oversight, and that is the location of the Royal Château de Bordeaux:

The Royal Château de Bordeaux, perched on a cliff near the mouth of the river, next to the marina, overlooks the city's street and the magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean. The Gironde River flows at the foot of the castle, pours into the bay and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean, where it forms a huge quay. Like all marinas, the terrain is low and the air is humid. Countless boats ply and fro the river, bringing in mountains of cloth from overseas and selling thousands of barrels of wine overseas. This was Bordeaux's golden waterway, and even in 1348 it was not completely cut off, and the trade in cloth and wine was reduced but still transported by the river. In the cloth and the barrels, there are small guests: rats and fleas on their bodies - in all of Bordeaux, rats are the densest around the quays. The humid and warm climate here is also particularly suitable for them to reproduce on a large scale.

In other words, although the air is fresh and the scenery is beautiful, the Château is located directly above the most dangerous epidemic area in the whole city of Bordeaux, and rats not only burrow and burrow, but also climb mountains - from the dock to the castle, the distance in a straight line is only about two hundred meters, and under the temptation of the rich food scraps in the castle kitchen, there must have been many little creatures covered with germs, taking advantage of the darkness to sneak in from under the cliff......

But at the time, none of them knew this, and they strode into the luxurious castle of death, singing and laughing all day long, not noticing that the Grim Reaper was wandering the corridors of the castle. It wasn't until a few days later that the Minister of State, Buschel, suddenly vomited blood and died, covered with abscesses and dark spots...... Then, with the fall of the first victim, the game of death in this castle officially begins.

What happened next is similar to Agatha Christie's detective novel, or the death scene in the comics of "Kanedaichi Detective Incident Book" - the members of the mission who live in the royal castle of Bordeaux have since become sick and die one after another, the music, drinking parties and dances have all stopped, and no one plays or sings Spanish songs anymore. At night, all kinds of hysterical screams continued, and the rooms and corridors were littered with blood and vomit. Some broke down and screamed in the dark, others shivered and cried under the covers...... The castle is now too unsafe to look like a lavish palace and more like a slaughterhouse, where the Grim Reaper with a scythe roams roams at any moment

But they did not dare to escape from the castle either, because outside the castle, death was engulfing all of Bordeaux with even more ferocity...... It was the height of summer of the year, and the epidemic seemed to be spreading with the rising temperatures, and in just a few days, the whole of Bordeaux was completely out of control, the plague called the Black Death completely engulfed it, the situation in the countryside was not mentioned for the time being, the situation in the city was already terrifying, there were no clergy in the churches to preside over the funeral, and the streets were littered with rotting corpses that no one had to collect. In desperation, the town hall ordered a fire to the market, which had been built for generations. From the balcony of the Château Royal, you can see the golden sunset on one side and the burning city of Bordeaux on the other. Flames lit up the sky, and huge pillars of fire could be seen clearly from dozens of miles away.

The members of the mission in the royal castle were like animals trapped in a cage, anxious to turn around. Princess Joan Plantagenet, who is still a delicate little girl, is even more frightened and cries all day long, worried that she will not be able to wear the 150-meter-long luxury wedding dress until she dies.

Desperate, the members of the mission began to arrange a voyage to the sea, desperate to escape from Bordeaux, whether to Spain or England. The problem is that most of the sailors have already died of illness and escaped, and they still have to wait for the right currents and winds to set sail.

Seeing that the fleet was unable to go to sea for a while, Princess Joan Plantagenet, who had a nervous breakdown, decided to escape from the cursed castle and withdraw from Bordeaux, even if it was to be moved to the nearby countryside to camp. It was a very wise decision - it was just too late.

Just as they were about to transfer, Princess Joan Plantagenet suddenly fell ill and fell, and the countdown to her young life began......

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At the same time, the fifth group of emissaries from Bordeaux finally completed the journey of 400 kilometers and successfully reached Avignon, where the Holy See was stationed

-- The first few people were either sick during the journey, or robbed by bandits, but they all died on the way. But in the face of the emissary's cry and the letter for help written by Princess Joan Plantagenet, the paladin Levi had no choice but to spread his hands, saying that he could not do anything - although Doraemon left him the [Encyclopedia of Magic] before leaving, Levi did not speak Japanese and could not read the Japanese spells written on it...... And the [automatic medical box], which can basically cure all diseases, was taken away by Doraemon and left behind...... Well, that sounds like a sad story......

“…… So, you're going to send me to Bordeaux to save people? By the way, change history and brush points? ”

Looking at the [Encyclopedia of Magic] handed over by Li Wei's hands, Wang Qiu couldn't help but roll his eyes, "...... The question is, is the other party the princess and minister of the enemy country, England? Have you ever thought that you have participated in the Battle of Crécy, fought with the British army in real battles, and are still knights of the Kingdom of France, don't forget, we are still on the land of the Kingdom of France. ”

“…… To be exact, the knights of the Count of Provence. According to the feudal rule of the Middle Ages, 'a vassal of my vassal is not a vassal of mine, and the King of France has no reason to say anything about it, as long as the Queen Giovanna of Provence is okay with this.' And now Her Majesty Queen Giovanna seems to be eager to get in touch with the future Queen of Castille so that she can get some cheap pagan slaves from Spain back and resume production......"

Levi waved his hand and said, "...... What's more, do you think I'm going to care a lot about this knighthood? After collecting 50,000 reward points, I will leave this terrible world forever and enjoy the wonderful life of the modern world again. Of course, before I leave here, I have to find a way to make some money for my wife and children...... By the way, how many points do I have now? ”

“…… Hey, I guess it's more than 38,000 points. Wang Qiu sighed, opened the Book of Travel, and then glared at him suddenly, "...... Well? A new plus? King Edward III and the Black Prince, Edward died of illness early and received 1,500 bonus points? Hiss-"

He couldn't help but gasp, and at the same time looked up at Levi in disbelief, "...... Hey, it seems that before we can make any further moves, the historical trajectory of this world seems to have been further shattered......"

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