Chapter 57: Turn Britain into India (Part II)

Kingdom of England, just outside London

As an alluvial plain of the lower Thames, it was already a fairly agricultural area long before the Roman Empire, and it was rich in succulent pastures, suitable for raising horses, so animal husbandry also flourished. After the formation of the Kingdom of England, the London Plain, the richest and most fertile and largest in the island, has been the core of the reign of successive kings, and is full of pastures and farmsteads in the name of the Plantagenet royal family.

However, in this dark summer, with the rapid spread of the terrible Black Death and a series of other unknown plagues, the shepherds and farmers of this land died in droves. The plains of London were littered with corpses, there was no smoke in the abandoned villages, and walking into the small mud huts or thatched huts would mostly find only a few rotting or eaten by animals. Morisen's bones could be seen everywhere along the road, and there were too many corpses to bury. Fruit and wheat rot in the ground, while poultry and livestock run all over the ground...... There were dead or half-dead people everywhere, and occasionally a few alive people were also wandering around like the walking dead, muttering meaningless words in their mouths.

-- Such a desolate and dead scene is as if the history of mankind has come to an end, and the end of the world has come.

However, in the autumn, some of the abandoned farms near London began to come alive again, and the fields overgrown with weeds were once again busy...... Of course, the serfs who used to live in these villages have basically gone to heaven and can no longer let their souls toil for the lord, and the farmers who worked on the plains of London have changed to a completely different group of people.

The new farmers were generally of thin stature and much darker than most of the English, but a little worse than the blacks of the South. They were naked, with only a loincloth wrapped around their crotch, and they were so tired from the heavy farm work that they were hunched over, and their spines seemed to be knots of hemp rope, the kind used to dig well water. The collarbones protruded high outward, like a dog's collar, and they were scarred all over their bodies, from the chest down, to the waist, to the buttocks, and everywhere they touched, there were wounds and scars of all sizes, like the whips of time carved on their bodies......

-- These brown-skinned peasants came from India, thousands of miles away, and most of them belonged to the lowest strata of ancient Indian society.

Under the whips and reprimands of the overseers, the untouchables of India took hoes, sickles, shovels and other tools to clear the long-abandoned fields and sow the seeds of the raw crops. For some reason, these Indians are a little rusty in their farming work, but they are definitely very hard-working.

According to the original historical trajectory, these Indians would not appear on a large scale in Britain as colonial subjects in the Victorian era 500 years later. But here, relying on Doraemon's [random door], the Kingdom of England had a large number of Indian subjects five hundred years in advance, and they could rely on them to fill the labor shortage caused by the Great Plague and save Queen Joan's estate from abandonment.

Sadly, just a year ago, the monarchs of Europe were still suffering from the pressure of the population explosion, but at this moment, if they are not dead, they are worried about how to get new subjects to fill their empty lands.

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“…… Well, these Indians seem to be quite industrious, but ...... Why are they all skinny and skinny? Weaker than the serfs in the poorest counties of England, and too poor to wear...... Do they not know shame and are not afraid of cold? ”

Looking at the swarthy figures who were busy in the fields, Queen Qiong blinked her eyes and asked Wang Qiu, the "angel" beside her, "...... Legend has it that India is not a happy place where the seasons are warm, spices are abundant, and honey and milk flow? And the magical door I passed through Guò before, and the Indian scenery I saw with my own eyes is also so rich and beautiful...... But these Indians are doing too badly."

-- For the people of medieval England, who lived in darkness and cold all year round, India, which was rumored to produce many good things such as spices, dyed cotton and precious stones, and which was like spring all year round, and never suffered from frost and snow, was definitely a wonderful place to be enchanted, like an imaginary paradise: the vast majority of medieval Europeans had these beautiful fantasies about the legendary Orient. Queen Joan apparently thinks so too.

And when the Venetian merchants and travelers went to India to "collect" these immigrants through the guò [random gate], the Indian landscape that she saw with the eyes of Her Majesty Queen Joan in the past seems to confirm the above impression: the tropical sun is so bright, the wind seems to waft the smell of spices, the land on both sides of the Ganges is fertile, it can be called the land of fish and rice, everywhere is green rice fields, there are golden wheat waves, and countless clear ponds. The pond is full of round water lilies, and lazy buffaloes trample on the mud on the edge of the pond and chew on lotus leaves...... However, the vast majority of ordinary Indians living in such an idyllic setting did not live a paradise-like life.

In fact, at first glance, most of them seem to be living like the serfs of medieval Europe, without food and clothing, starving and half-dead. A few even seem to be doing worse, not even living in the most humble thatched huts, and the whole family can only sleep on the side of the road or under a tree, like beggars or outcasts, but there is a rare sadness on their faces, and it is difficult to understand why they can smile so happily.

In addition, there are many strange people who are so poor that they don't even have clothes to wear, and they don't think about how to work to earn money, buy clothes and support their families, but they squat by the wall all day and pose in a strange posture of practice, starving themselves until they finally starve to death at the base of the wall.

“…… India is indeed a rich place, although you only look at it from afar, you should also know how splendid and magnificent the temples and palaces of the Indians are. But the problem is that no matter where you are, the rich and the poor, the nobles and the commoners, always live completely different lives. No matter how abundant the land is, only the superior can enjoy this qiē benefit, and the inferior can be equally poor everywhere, as it is in England, in India, and in China......"

For this too naïve question, Wang Qiu pouted, "...... If the Indians, noble and lowly, all seem to live in paradise and are as happy as if they were soaked in it, how can we get them to England to sow and cultivate your estate? ”

Although human trafficking was not uncommon in India at this time, due to the wanton looting by the traversers, neither the Kingdom of England, nor the Venetians, nor the Papal States could get much hard currency such as gold, silver, and precious metals.

Therefore, most of the Indians who are now appearing outside London have actually been fooled - as far as the specific method is concerned, Doraemon is to first make Doraemon appear, find the poorest, dirtiest and most dilapidated Indian village, most of which are inhabited by untouchables, and perform a miracle in public such as "rain of fire from the sky" or "day turns into night", so as to deter these Indian farmers or untouchables, and frighten them to bow to the ground. Then he instigated an "oracle" announcing that he would take them to a better place to live, and by the way, he used lightning to slash the village elders who dared to jump out to obstruct and disagree...... In this case, of course, some people will flee in panic, but most of the rest will be frightened and obediently accept their fate.

India was a hierarchical society in which priests were Brahmins, military aristocrats owned large tracts of land were Kshatriyas, merchants and small landowners were classified as Vaishyas, and ordinary laborers such as farmers and artisans who cultivated the land became dharas. Their occupations and surnames correspond to each other, hereditary from generation to generation, generation to generation, generation to sugar, generation to dung, thousands of years to perform their duties, as long as you hear the name, you know what this Indian is. People of different castes are segregated from each other, and not only are intermarriage generally forbidden, but even communication between them is scarce. The advantage of this is that it eliminates the ability of the low-level Indians to collectively resist together, so that they can feel at ease in a lowly position and only want a good afterlife.

In addition, there are untouchables, who make up one-seventh of India's population, who fall outside this caste hierarchy and are disregarded as "untouchables". It was difficult for them to own land and were destined to work in professions that were considered unclean, such as hunters, fishermen, butchers, executioners, gravediggers, funeral bearers, cobblers, and scavengers. Even if they wanted to be tenants of the landlords, it was very difficult to grow crops - in the Indian countryside, there were dharas who fought with them for work. Moreover, the untouchables cannot stay in the cities, but can only live in remote villages isolated from the rest of the world, and must be very careful not to stain the members of the caste, that is, not to have any contact with the latter, and in extreme cases, not even to enter the latter's sight. Therefore, whenever they leave their homes or villages, they must strike a pair of clappers to warn others that untouchables are approaching.

In this way, even if the traversers emptied the entire untouchable village, the other Indians would probably not know anything about it for a short time. Of course, these untouchables may not be very skilled in farm work because they don't farm much, but under the whip and knife of the overseer, it is believed that they will learn quickly.

However, even if it is just to take away some lowly and unnoticed dharas, if the movement is too great, it will attract the attention of the Indian princes who rule these lands, and perhaps a hint of hostility. At this time, it was the turn of the Venetian merchants, who casually threatened and frightened the princes with the tiger skin of the god Doraemon, and at the same time presented Chinese porcelain, silk scarves, glass mirrors, aluminum alloy and plastic trimpets, which were valuable in India in those days, but were not worth much in the modern world...... So after weighing the pros and cons, the Indian princes, who thought that their interests had not been harmed much, acquiesced in the actions of these "mighty" people.

There were even some Indian princes in densely populated lands, in order to alleviate the pressure of overpopulation in their territories, Yu Crisp took the initiative to escort hordes of untouchables over as trade goods, exchanging more things with Venetian merchants for what they wanted...... Although this part of India has been warm and humid since ancient times, the population pressure has been very strong due to long-term overproduction, and because any job under the caste system is hereditary from generation to generation, people of different occupations are isolated from each other, so that it is difficult to convert the surplus population to a career - for example, in ancient India, the family surnamed "gravedigger" can only be a gravedigger from generation to generation, even if there are too many gravediggers, after the market demand, it is difficult for them to switch to fishing or carpentering, Because the hereditary fishermen and carpenters did not want to be robbed of their jobs - simply expelling the surplus population was also a solution to the problem.

So, even the deception and abduction, as well as a certain amount of dealings and bribes, if it really didn't work, let the unscrupulous European knights put on their armor and wield their swords, and make a cameo appearance in the slave catcher - they used to do this in the war: if their own serfs were killed and no one planted for them, then they went to the enemy's territory and robbed some of the serfs back. However, it was a very laborious task to go deep into foreign countries to catch slaves, and the knights and lords were often very inefficient and dangerous to go into battle in person, and if possible, even the most stingy Venetian merchants were more willing to spend a little money to collect supplies from local real power figures, no matter what means were used, they finally got tens of thousands of Indian "immigrants" in a short period of time, and all of them were sent to London to farm, which was the first large-scale "pilot" of labor import.

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At this moment, there was a noisy noise not far away, as well as the sound of trumpets and brass bells. Wang Qiu looked up and saw a priest and several soldiers armed with spears, driving a group of newly arrived Indians into a small river and forcing them to be baptized en masse and convert to Christianity...... If you refuse, you will immediately be beaten up**, and if you don't dare, you should be hanged or burned at the stake.

-- The British people of these days, unlike their descendants who were deceived by the "theory of multiculturalism," have no advanced concept of religious freedom at all, and only know that all heretics and heretics should be put on the fire to play live barbecue, and that Christians who do not barbecue heretics and heretics are not good Christians...... On the contrary, there are countless missionaries who are keen to promote the Christian faith and expand the "flock of the Lord," and it would be a great merit to "convert the barbarians" to Christianity. As for whether to preach with a knife or with a mouth, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, after hanging and burning to death the few thorns who refused to give in, the rest of the Indians naturally obediently converted.

――Isn't it just to go down to the river and take a cold shower (baptism), as for the precious life of your own family for this little thing?

Even such a slight conflict is only available to people of the Dhara caste, and if it is a pariah, it doesn't matter at all. Anyway, in the original history, because they were not regarded by Hinduism, they first worshipped Buddha, then Allah, and then knelt at the feet of missionaries and believed in Christ, and even entered Judaism and Zoroastrianism - because they were excluded from the Hindu system, the beliefs of Indian untouchables are more similar to those of Chinese, and they always change back and forth, feeling that which god is more effective to worship, but no matter how they hollow out their minds and change their beliefs, they cannot shake off the despised and pathetic identity of untouchables. But I don't have the courage and determination to break the situation through violence......

All in all, the vast majority of Indians were docile, obedient, and industrious, and their spirit of rebellion had long since been wiped out under the caste system, and they seemed to be inherently fit to be slaves in the barbaric age before the concept of human rights had yet to emerge - otherwise, the British colonists would not have ruled the whole of South Asia in Victoria's time with only 3,000 civil servants and 17,000 white soldiers.6

Therefore, Wang Qiu did not think that adding a group of Indian subjects to Queen Joan would lead to any real trouble—speaking of which, the ancestors of the Plantagenet dynasty came from Northern Europe, and should technically be considered Vikings (Normans), neither French natives nor English natives.

Since they were able to successfully rule over the Saxons and Celts in England, as well as the French across the Channel, and win the loyal support of these foreigners (until modern times, the British royal family was actually descendants of the Plantagenet dynasty), there was no reason why they should not manage the more docile Indians.

-- In India, the few ruling stratums have completely domesticated the remaining 99 percent of the inferior people, leaving them forever in the company of servility. This servility has reached such a point that if you throw the key of liberation in front of him, he will spit on the key, and even if you change the master, this servility will not be worn out quickly.

But the problem is that the British of this era still knew nothing about the conduct of distant Indians, and had some "fear of the unknown".

“…… Dear Angel, although these Indians seem to be quite honest, they are pagans after all, and even if they have been baptized and converted now, I am afraid that they are not the same as us born Christians, will it be difficult to restrain and refuse to serve the lord faithfully? ”

An Englishman frowned as he watched the Indians survive under the whip of the overseer, and said with some uncertainty, "...... According to the Spanish aristocracy, there were many pagan Moors on their side (Spain was still in a tug-of-war between the two faiths at that time), and even if they had surrendered to the Christian king, they were still very unruly and never really considered themselves to be someone's subjects. Even if they were forced to be baptized and converted to Christ our Lord, they would not forget their pagan faith, and they were always deeply hostile to us Christians, and they would flee or rebel at the first opportunity, and it would be as troublesome to watch over them as if they were prisoners...... Shouldn't these Indians be like this in the future?"

“…… I don't think so, these Indians are pretty much the most docile coolies in the world. Although they were all infidels, they originally believed in another false god, which was completely different from the Moors who believed in the so-called Allah, and was not so aggressive. According to the Indian doctrine of karma, a person's status in this life is determined by his actions in his past life. Thus, the untouchables of India believe that their past sins have led to their present misery. Reincarnation and improvement of their position in the afterlife are the only hope of the untouchables, and this can only be achieved by respectfully fulfilling their responsibilities and obligations in this world, so that they will never be more difficult to control than the serfs of Europe......"

Wang Qiu replied, "...... What's more, as discriminated daliahs, they have been outcasts from Indian society and have become accustomed to being enslaved. Well, what is a pariah? That is to say, their social status was originally lower than that of serfs, a bit like the gypsies in Europe, and if you treat them as serfs and give them land to cultivate, you are already exalting their status. It's too late for these untouchables to be happy, so how can they make trouble?

Even if the worst happens, if there is a riot, there is no need to worry too much - these Indians do not look like they look alike, but in fact they belong to dozens of ethnic groups, they do not speak each other, they cannot communicate with each other, and it is impossible for them to unite and make trouble. If it were just a handful of people jumping out to make trouble, they would surely be able to be easily suppressed: are you still playing the serfs less often? ”

“…… But in that case, wouldn't we be able to communicate with them? How will you give them orders when the time comes? ”

Queen Joan muttered with some headache, "I've had to learn both French and English since I was born. After the marriage to Spain was finalized, my father urged me to learn Spanish for another year in order to prevent me from being unable to understand the words of my future subjects, and even needing an interpreter in bed with my husband...... Is it necessary to learn the languages of the Indians now, or dozens? Oh God—"

Speaking of which, it is not easy for European royal families in these years to be a little more competent, and foreign languages alone can make people crazy. For example, if the newly enthroned Queen Joan wanted to communicate directly with all her subjects, she had to master both English, French, Gaelic in Ireland, Dutch Low German (the future Dutch), and Latin as the international language of the Middle Ages (the standard language of the Roman Empire, but in the Middle Ages it had become a 'dead script' reserved for the church and intellectuals, and was largely extinct at the bottom of society). The difference between Italian and Latin is roughly the same as the difference between Chinese vernacular and classical Chinese - so not everyone is Italian who understands Latin.) If it were Her Majesty Giovanna, Queen of Naples, she would have to master French, Italian, Provençal (a minor language that would later be obsolete) and Latin, and Jerusalem, which was in her name, would have been lost, or she might have to learn Arabic

Not to mention that intermarriage is still popular among royal families in European countries, and if you don't want to play sign language in bed with your future husband, those poor princesses have to prepare in advance and try to learn more foreign language courses. Of course, the same is true of the princes who are sympathetic to their future wives.

But it is abundantly clear that no matter how knowledgeable these medieval European royals were, they could not have spoken the language of the Indians.

- Fortunately, these little troubles are really nothing for the powerful and omnipotent cat. If they can't even pass the most basic language barriers, how can Doraemon and Nobita break into the multiverse and embark on one more imaginative adventure after another?

“…… Rest assured, Her Majesty the Queen, and Excellencies, you have nothing to worry about. Our Lord is omniscient and omnipotent, and will not be unable to solve even this little trouble, at least for now, a situation is still within our grasp......"

"Angel," Wang Qiu said calmly, and at the same time took out a bag of translated konjac jelly that he had asked for from Doraemon, and handed it to Queen Joan, "...... As long as you eat this magical pastry beforehand, you can communicate with any alien, and the effective time is about half a day to a day...... Of course, this is only a temporary measure for emergencies. If you can really solve it once and for all, we have prepared it for you......"

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In addition to the large number of Indian untouchables and dharas, in order to bring fourteenth-century Britain on par with twenty-first-century Britain as much as possible, the traversers also managed to bring a group of able-bodied black slaves from West Africa in this plane through the guò [random door].

Because the tropical forests of West Africa are so full of poisonous insects and plagues that even the most ferocious slave catchers are deterred. So these black slaves did not come through wars and raids, but bought them with glass beads, bells, cloth, and other things with some black tribes (black tribes have always had the habit of capturing hostile tribes as slaves during wars).

Compared with the generally thin Indians, the tall and powerful Indian Ahsan is not nothing, but they usually have a bit of status, and generally do not appear among the untouchables and dharas, and are unlikely to be brought over as coolies), and the black slaves from Africa are mostly tall and powerful, muscular, more robust and hard-working, and much more vigorous, and more favored by the ruling class of England who are thirsty for labor.

But it was also inevitable that with the arrival of these West African blacks, all kinds of parasites and infectious diseases native to tropical Africa followed--because the slave traders did not know enough knowledge and experience to know the terrible process of African tropical diseases, and the Venetian merchants who handled them did not think of shaving their heads and carrying out a series of quarantine and decontamination procedures such as washing and drying and exterminating fleas...... Fortunately, at this time, the land of Europe has become a museum of epidemic diseases, and it has long been that there are many lice and debts, and it seems that it does not matter if there are several new infectious diseases.

In this way, Indian and Pakistani immigrants and blacks already exist in England today, as for the yellow Asians...... Doraemon and Wang Qiu were too embarrassed to attack their ancient compatriots in their homeland, so they drove the [random door] to the Americas, and bought a small group of Mayan slaves with plastic ornaments, metal knives, and green glass beads, just so that they could teach whites and blacks how to grow corn, pumpkins, peppers, and potato crops.

In short, after the importation of nearly 100,000 people into England by this series of unseemly means, the extreme shortage of labor caused by the Great Plague was finally alleviated slightly, at least most of the royal family's farms in the London Plains were temporarily manned, and Queen Joan and her courtiers did not have to cultivate their own land with their own hands, nor did they have to worry about the food of the Plantagenet court next year.

Wang Qiu was also very pleased ♂ to see that London, the capital of the Kingdom of England, had become a world ethnographic museum like India, with white, black, and yellow people, and could put the European Union's theory of multiculturalism into practice five hundred years in advance. The Anglo-Saxons can also broaden their horizons and try how to live with their neighbors of different colors, perhaps evolving into a national melting pot like the United States of the future - and allowing the Anglo-Saxons who will colonize the world in the future to have an early rehearsal of their island homeland......

But even so, for the kingdom of England, which was almost on the verge of becoming a land of the dead, certain troubles were not completely resolved. First of all, whether it is Indians, Mayans or blacks, I am afraid that they are not very frost-tolerant...... Thankfully, this wasn't a big deal in the Middle Ages, where the most cold fears froze to death in the first winter, and the rest of the population should be able to adapt to the English climate better.

Secondly, and the most fundamental problem, is that at this time, Europe is still in the haze of the plague, whether it is a prosperous city or a poor countryside, they are all trembling under the scythe of the black-robed god of death, if you can't find an effective means to curb the epidemic, then no matter how many people are imported from all over the world, they will be quickly summoned to heaven by the terrible plague, making the world once again become a dead and silent country of the dead......

Fortunately, after paying off his debts, Doraemon, whose temperance index had begun to rise sharply, had already worked with the time-travelers to help these poor medieval Europeans prepare a coping strategy - to teach them the "healing technique" that would cure all diseases, so that Europe could truly enter the age of magic

“…… Your Majesty, Excellencies, Hogwarts School, which we have converted from the old site of the University of Oxford, is now almost complete. The first batch of students from all over Europe have now arrived in Oxford. I wonder if you're interested in attending the opening ceremony next Monday? ”

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