Chapter 10, there is still money to squeeze

On the small balcony of the Mujahideen Manor, a seaside villa, Knight Levi, who had just taken a nap, was bathed in the warm sun, enjoying the undulating Mediterranean scenery, while sitting on a specially made wooden toilet to defeculate.

In medieval Europe, where there was no paper-making technique, it would have been painful, but after receiving a small packet of toilet paper generously donated by Miss Ma Tong, he finally didn't have to wipe his butt with the coarse leaves he had sun-dried - it felt like grinding his skin with sandpaper

Well? Why not use a cloth to wipe your butt? Do you know what the price of linen was in the Middle Ages before cotton was introduced to Europe? Many of the apprentice knight squires only had two changed linen shirts, and the softness and smoothness of the linen cloth was not much stronger than that of the leaves.

The next step after squatting through the toilet is to squeeze out the milky white paste from the plastic hose, pile it evenly on the toothbrush, and start cleaning the teeth in front of the mirror. A small thing that was so familiar in the past that it could no longer be familiar, but Levi did it extremely sacred and serious at this moment.

Brush your teeth, rinse your mouth, yell at the bright sun, and exercise your throat. Then Knight Levi spread the soap evenly over his face and hands, rubbed it for a moment, and washed off the foam with water poured from a clay pot.

Next, he couldn't help but sniff the back of his hand, and the fragrance on it was really refreshing.

It's been a few years since I last smelled this kind of smell

-- It's nice to be back in modern civilization

After indulging in this for a few minutes, he finished washing up and turned back to his room. And his wife, Zhao Na, who was seven months pregnant, had already boiled water with a small charcoal stove. So, Knight Levi sat down at the table leisurely, first took out a glittering and shining golden wine bowl, and then took out a package of spicy beef-flavored Master Kong instant noodles, tore open the packaging bag, put the dough cake, add seasonings, and finished it in one go.

- Hey, make instant noodles in a real golden bowl...... It's just like the legend of "the emperor ploughed the fields with a golden hoe".

But Knight Levi didn't feel half ashamed of being violent, he just calmly poured boiling water, and immediately after, a strong spicy smell unique to cheap instant noodles and very familiar suddenly permeated his nostrils.

In the old days when I was an online writer who stayed up late and had no time to cook and no money to order takeout, the smell of instant noodles that once made Li Wei want to vomit when he smelled it was more attractive than any delicious aroma in the here and now. Especially after drinking a mouthful of fragrant spicy soup, the spicy feeling from the mouth to the throat made him have an endless aftertaste, and even moved him to tears.

After peeling another ham sausage and stuffing it into his mouth to chew, Knight Levi finally sighed deeply: This is the life of modern civilization

At the same time, his wife, Zhao Na, although still not interested in instant noodles, opened a large bag of honey cake, red bean cake and vanilla cake, as well as chocolate-flavored boxed breakfast milk, and enjoyed it deliciously.

As we all know, women are always able to pack dessert into the other stomach. For example, in medieval Europe, sugar was not sold as a food, but as a luxury tonic sold in pharmacies, similar to the ginseng and deer antler velvet in later China. Even honey is expensive. With the exception of fruits, other sweet foods were rarely found on the table in the Middle Ages.

So, after several years of a boring life without sweets, the lady was already very uncomfortable.

Now that she finally had the opportunity to feast, she turned into a chipmunk in an instant, stuffing small cakes into her mouth and puffing up her cheeks, which made Levi amused, but at the same time felt a faint warmth and sweetness.

However, in this dark age, lightness and pleasure are short-lived, and only heavy death and ruin are the eternal theme......

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After their breakfast, which was either uneaten or endless, the group gathered again in Lord Levi's study to discuss the current response to the Black Death and how to make enough money from the disaster.

-- It is said that it is a study, but in fact there are not many books in the room at all, and almost all of the books piled up on the shelves are contracts and account books. After all, the art of papermaking had only just been introduced to the West by Arab merchants in those days, and most of the scribes were still using parchment, which was prohibitively expensive. The only maps of France, Provence, and Europe that are more valuable are the remnants of those veterans of the main god space.

At this moment, Doraemon had already shot a [mini reconnaissance satellite] with a [domestic rocket], and through the surveillance screen, he had a bird's-eye view of the tragic situation of the Black Death in various epidemic areas—corpse collection trucks full of corpses, trenches and ponds filled with corpses, huge pyres of wood burning corpses, empty streets and markets...... The rest of the crowd is scribbling in red pencils on a map of Europe, marking the areas where the latest plague is spreading.

“…… According to Mr. Livy, today is February 14, 1348, and although it has been almost four months since the 'death fleet' that had brought plague germs from the Crimean peninsula arrived in Sicily, at this point in time, the spread of the Black Death in Europe was not particularly severe, and it was confined to only a few cities on the Mediterranean coast, affecting not too many people......"

Wang Qiu pointed to a map of Europe with a small stick, and there were many red patches scattered on it, "...... Renaya, Pisa, Naples, Brindisi and Sicily in Italy, Marseille and Toulon in France, Barcelona in Spain – of course, Spain is not yet unified, and it is difficult to say whether Barcelona is part of Spain. Then there are Athens and Constantinople in Eastern Europe, which are all the Black Death-affected areas in Europe today. In addition, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt in the Near East, which belonged to the Muslims, were also devoured by the Black Death, and Rhodes, the last stronghold of the Crusaders in Asia, was also devastated by the Black Death......"

“…… From the map, the plague doesn't seem to be too bad."

Shizuka Jukawa, who is also a doctor, frowned and said, "...... Rome, Paris, and London, the top European cities, are still intact, and most of the outbreaks are only in some second-tier cities. And according to Mr. Levi, the alarm of this plague has spread from Italy to Europe, and all countries seem to have begun to take precautions, so how can it still spread throughout Europe and kill 35 million people in the end? ”

“…… Because with the sad level of medical care in this era, even if the official is warned in advance, it is useless in the face of the plague."

Wang Qiu shrugged his shoulders and replied, "In a sense, the Black Death was as terrible to medieval Europeans as the zombie crisis was to modern people. The zombie crisis is terrifying not only because it is incurable, but also because the sick (zombies) will get up and attack and infect healthy people. The Black Death was also an incurable terminal disease for medieval Europeans, although the Black Death patients could not run and bite, but the rats and fleas carrying germs could easily move from room to room, from village to village......"

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-- In the world where human beings live, there are actually two kinds of food chains, one is that wolves eat sheep and sheep eat grass, the big ones prey on the small ones, and the strong ones prey on the weak ones. But in nature, there is actually another hidden and special food chain, which is often more common and important for many organisms. In this particular food chain, the small prey on the big ones, and the weak ones prey on the strong, that is to say, the grass eats the sheep, and the sheep eat the wolf...... And the Yersinia pestis, which lured the Black Death in the Middle Ages, happens to be one of the apex predators of this food chain.

During the spread of the Black Death, Yersinia pestis first infected certain blood-sucking insects - fleas and lice. These fleas and lice then get used to parasitic rodents - rats, marmots, marmots, marmots, and so on. Eventually, these rats broke into cities and villages, bringing plague bacilli to humans, causing the Black Death.

In fact, many of the bacteria in humans are transmitted through guò, but most of them do not have the terrible and terrible destructive power of the plague - most of the world's bacteria will try to coexist peacefully with their hosts. There are countless bacteria that inhabit everyone's body, but they rarely kill us. These bacteria may exploit us, harass us, exploit us, but rarely kill humans quickly, just as we don't usually burn down our houses when we're okay. Even HIV can coexist with human hosts for long periods of time.

But Yersinia pestis is acting aggressively, often killing patients within a few days, like the ebola virus that later became so talked-about – a kind of suicide in a sense for germs that need to spread widely. Therefore, in the modern world, the plague has become a relatively rare thing, and once it appears in a certain place, it often causes a sensation and panic.

Unfortunately, perhaps by chance, a group of rats from the East, along with their fleas and lice, and the plague bacillus in fleas and lice, finally arrived in Europe during the Black Death. The European cities of these days were horribly filthy, rancid and damp, full of household garbage, easy access to food for rats, and easy to make nests: in the words of one historian, the construction works in medieval Europe seemed to have been approved by rat councils, and they perfectly ensured the welfare and safety of the rats, and these rats from the East happily settled in European cities - along with the plague bacillus

Even more unfortunate, the Europeans who died had just recently killed all the natural enemies of rats, cats......

So, at this point, even God could not prevent the plague from exploding in European cities. To make matters worse, when the plague had already broken out in some cities, Europeans outside the affected areas, even if they were lucky enough to receive a period of early warning, had no suitable way to fight the disease - their hometowns were as dirty as those that had already been plagued, and it was too late to start digging sewers for sanitation. Not to mention that they don't know the cause of this plague, so they don't have such a sense of hygiene at all.

Even more frightening, Yersinia pestis is not only capable of causing a staggering lethality to humans, but also has multiple routes of transmission - Yersinia pestis is a vector of bubonic plague, pneumonic plague and septicaemic plague. In the absence of symptomatic treatment, 75% of patients infected with bubonic plague will die, and 95% of patients infected with pneumonic plague will die, and septicaemic plague is a variant of the first two, and patients infected with it will die in 1oo pairs

Among them, when the plague is transmitted from rats to humans, humans are infected with bubonic plague, tumors grow in the groin and armpits, and the patients will have fever, headache and vomiting, and most of them die within a week, and those who are particularly strong may be able to survive for half a month.

If this were the case, then the Black Death would have been about as dangerous as avian flu at best. The real problem is that when humans are infected with bubonic plague from rats (fleas parasitic on rats to be exact), the plague bacillus attacks the lungs of humans, and thus the pneumonic plague is formed - pneumonic plague is more severe than bubonic plague, with terrible dark spots on the body, high fevers, violent coughing, unimaginable pain, and finally vomiting blood and dying, usually not living for more than three days. If the septic-type plague is further developed, the patient will still have skin ulceration and bleeding all over his body, as if he had radiation sickness, and it will be difficult for him to survive even a day after the disease.

Of course, this is not the point, the real point is that pneumonic plague can be transmitted from person to person. And like influenza, it spreads through droplets...... In other words, there is no need to touch people at all, and the plague can be transmitted just by breathing, not to mention that this plague has an incubation period of several days, and when someone is sick, it is often already infected

Even if the authorities succeeded in isolating every sick person, it would not be enough, because the rats were able to perform their duties as germ postmen perfectly.

In addition, unlike diseases such as smallpox, which can be immunized once for life, plague, like influenza, can be repeated many times......

The combination of these three horrific plagues is the Black Death, which is now sweeping across Europe.

Imagine that there is no cure: Ebola mortality, influenza is contagious, and many times it is contagious

This almost means that the human settlement that broke out of the epidemic is doomed to collapse

So, even with the forewarning, the kings and bishops could only watch as their territories were devoured by the Black Death, their relatives and servants fell one after another, and in the end, their lives might not be saved......

(During the Black Death, Poland was the only major country in Europe to survive, and the exact reason for this is still unknown.) As a result, when countries were in decline and collapse, Poland, the future European footpad, flourished and soon entered a golden age of prosperity. ）

-- After listening to the above terrible inside story of the epidemic, Mr. and Mrs. Levi were already pale and their legs were shaking.

Don't forget, the hospital next to their manor house is home to hundreds of patients, making it an excellent source of infection. Not to mention the fact that his cheap uncle, Knight Diderot, who had just died of the Black Death, died in this house, separated only by a wall from the couple's bedroom...... Although they have used everything they can think of from sprinkling vinegar and incense to wearing masks, who knows if it will be effective?

When I thought about it, I might have contracted the Black Death, but it was still in the incubation period...... Do you think they can not tremble?

Fortunately, seeing their trembling appearance like chaff, Doraemon was still kind enough to check them with the [automatic medical kit], and then gave Mr. Levi a good news: they are currently in basic health and normal.

At the same time, Shizuka Jukawa, the female school doctor, gave another piece of good news to the Levis: although the plague was so terrible, it was not so dangerous in the modern world. First, there is actually a vaccine available. Although it is not possible to achieve lifelong immunity like the smallpox vaccine, it can at least achieve an effect similar to that of the rabies vaccine - immunity begins to develop 1o days after vaccination, peaks in 1 month, begins to decline after 6 months, and disappears after 1 year......

Moreover, even in patients who have already been infected with plague, there is a specific drug called streptomycin injection, and sulfonamide also has some effect.

Of course, none of this is free – in the end, it's all about money.

“…… Is this a problem with money...... If I squeeze it on my side, there will still be a little bit. However, the amount may not be as large as you would like, after all, you will only accept cash such as gold and silver coins. And the matter of selling medicine here is not as simple as you think...... If you really can't do it, I have some gold and silver utensils and jewels here, and if you like them, you can take them all......

After being injected with the plague vaccine by Teacher Shizuka Jukawa and asking for a lot of streptomycin injections and sulfonamide powder, Li Wei finally calmed down, but said with a somewhat embarrassed face, "...... By the way, since my wife has gotten rid of the mark of the main god system because of her pregnancy and can get out of this damn world, can you help take her out first and find a better obstetrics and gynecology hospital to live in? ”

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