Great time travel

Chapter 55, Burning London

In October 1348, a particularly deserted enthronement ceremony was held at Westminster Abbey in London.

——Joan, who had just escaped from Bordeaux, France, after confirming the death of all members of the immediate royal family of the Plantagenet Dynasty in England.Princess Plantagenet did her part to wear the crown and sat on the throne left by her father at the young age of 12: Logically speaking, a princess like her who married a foreign country would often give up her inheritance rights before marriage, but since the marriage did not As a result, when she returned to the country, she found that her parents, sisters and brothers were all dead. Unless she was planning to find an unattainable distant relative from some rural corner to take the throne, Princess Joan would have to become the Queen of England.

What's more, it seems unknown whether there are still distant relatives in the Plantagenet Dynasty today.

Finally, based on the above considerations and their own interests, the remaining nobles of the British mission who had fled back from Bordeaux unanimously elected Princess Joan who was "saved by an angel" as king, so as to find a place for themselves to stand in the throne of the dragon. achievement.As for the court dignitaries in London... It seems that there are no living people left, so there is no need to trouble these dead people to worry about mundane affairs in their graves.

In a sense, the enthronement ceremony of Princess Joan can be regarded as quite high-end and high-end. Not only the "heavyweight" guests such as the King of Scotland, the Queen of Naples, and the Governor of Venice came to London to congratulate her and wear her It was not any archbishop who was crowned, but the most supreme Pope Clement VI in the entire Christian world—because the clergy in England seemed to be too pious, they forbade the depraved vulgar thing of bathing too much. Strict, so almost died in the plague, not even a bishop could be found near London, and finally had to ask the Pope to come and preside over the coronation ceremony in person... Finally, "angels" sprinkled holy light and flower petals from the sky, for She blesses.

But from a realistic point of view, the enthronement ceremony was really deserted, without grand banquets and dances, without cheers from the whole city and pilgrimages from all peoples—now there are less than [-] living people left in the whole city of London. More than half of them are lunatics with mental problems.As for the English nobles who swore allegiance to Queen Joan, there were only a few survivors from the original mission to marry, and they couldn't even put up the airs of the new court.

Jean, on the bright side, Joan.Queen Plantagenet's hasty ascension to the throne this time, at least not met with widespread doubts and opposition in England - because the powerful nobles who have the power to oppose and question are now almost dead in the plague:
According to the records of the royal family, there were more than 80 powerful nobles with castles and private soldiers in the entire Kingdom of England at that time; among them, more than 20 nobles can be confirmed to be removed from the list, and the whole family went to hell or went to heaven. ;More than 40 nobles escaped from the castle, and I don’t know where they hid; as for the remaining dozen or so nobles, they finally stayed in their castle and received the notice. Said that he would go to London to see the face of the new queen.However, several court nobles who were organizing the ceremony in London waited and waited until the day when the queen was scheduled to enthroned, but they did not receive any visitors—because of the hygienic conditions of this era and the spread of the plague in England today, The assembly and movement of large groups of people are very susceptible to disease. Therefore, no matter whether these noble lords were planning to come to London for armed demonstrations, or to observe the ceremony, congratulate, or pledge allegiance, almost all of them died of illness on the way, or were frightened and fled back again... …

In addition, the sudden change of the throne of the Kingdom of England this time was fortunately not subject to military intervention by other countries, and thus evolved into a "war of succession to the throne" that is common in European history-on the other side of the strait, although Theoretically speaking, the smoke of the Hundred Years’ War is still lingering, and last year’s armistice treaty has expired, but the outbreak of the epidemic in the Kingdom of France was earlier than that in the United Kingdom, and the degree of destruction was even more tragic. King Philip VI simply abandoned After leaving Paris engulfed by death, he hid in some rural corner with members of the royal family and trusted officials. Even with the supernatural powers of a Venetian merchant, he could not find the king of France, or even whether he was still alive... Very soon Obviously, such a France swallowed by death is in danger of maintaining its own existence. Naturally, it is impossible to organize an intervention army to cross the strait and launch an invasion of England.According to predictions, France, which originally had a population of 2000 million, will die at least 1000 to 400 million people in this plague catastrophe!
There is some movement in Scotland in the north - as the deadly enemy of the English, when they heard the news of the great plague in England, the Scots, who had just suffered a big defeat at Neville Crossroads the year before last and even captured the king, were overjoyed for a while. mad.You devout Scots feel that this must be God's punishment for the English, and the villain will not end well after all.As for good people like them, there is absolutely no need to worry about getting sick.

In order to help God, they quickly assembled an army of nearly [-] people, and once again invaded England in a large scale.This Scottish army marched boldly across the border into Black Death-ravaged England with great audacity, looting houses along the way, but before they encountered any decent enemy, [-] soldiers died suddenly. The entire Scottish army then collapsed.From the beginning to the end, the two sides never fought a battle, and the Scots fled back in a staggering way-and by the way brought the plague and some more terrible diseases back to Scotland...

As a result, the horror scenes that just appeared in London, Oxford and other places were quickly staged again in cities such as Edinburgh in Scotland-there was no need for the devastation of war, thousands of Scots fell one by one, and the remaining The people under him fled the city in panic and scattered, and brought the plague all the way to the whole of Scotland: these Wallace's compatriots lived in remote corners of European civilization, and their concept of medical care and health was more backward than that of the English, and their bodies and residences were generally smaller. The English people are dirtier, so they are naturally more prone to diseases... Next, with the further spread of the fleeing fleet, even the extremely cold places like Norway, Iceland and Sweden are also Fallen in front of the all-pervasive plague.

——What is even more sad is that the plague that was spread this time is not even the original Black Death, but a complex and severe plague package added by Doraemon: plague, typhoid, cholera , malaria, smallpox, influenza, dysentery, yellow fever, measles, tuberculosis... most of the severe plagues throughout the ages are all available.And it still comes from the 22nd century. Although most of the heat-resistant and cold-resistant and easy-to-spread varieties cultivated with future advanced biotechnology are not incurable, they are not so easy to rely on human immunity to overcome them.

Even in the most tragic and horrifying nightmares of medieval Europeans, they probably never imagined what a terrifying situation would be like when so many plagues broke out together... But now, this catastrophe of death is like the end of the world , but it really came.

Therefore, in order to clean up a clean house from this disease-ravaged world, under the strong suggestion of the "angels", Queen Joan bit the bullet and promulgated her first decree after assuming the throne: set fire to London!Purify this filthy city with raging fire! !
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Over the lifeless and foul-smelling London sky, Wang Qiu spread out the snow-white angel wings behind his back, held the "Encyclopedia of Magic" in his hand, endured some kind of indescribable shame, and loudly recited an outrageous Spell: "...Woo meow! Red partner, please let the world feel your majesty, dye the sky red, and give meow a sea of ​​fire! Meteor fire rain meow! (Japanese)"

With the sound of the final "meow", hundreds of fireballs instantly appeared over London, illuminating the gloomy city.Immediately, it fell like a torrential rain, and quickly burned the crowded houses below, which were filled with putrid smell and lying corpses, into a fiery sea of ​​flames... In this era of underdeveloped productivity, and in England, which is relatively backward in civilization, However, most of the buildings in London are made of wood, and there are even quite a few thatched sheds mixed in. After being baked by the early autumn sun for so many days, they have already become excellent dry fuel.

Fortunately, before starting to set fire to the city, Queen Joan issued a warning to expel the remaining survivors from the city, and opened the Tower of London to accommodate those citizens who were unwilling to leave London, so there were no scorched " The scene of Burning Man running around in the street.

A gust of wind blew the flames through several narrow streets full of wooden houses, and then into some warehouses on the north bank of the Thames, sending up clusters of tiny flames.Then, the countless sporadic fires gradually merged into a large area, burning everything that could be burned.The flames frantically twisted, big and small, burning redder and redder.The forest of fire turned into a huge waterfall of fire, and there was a series of crackling and popping sounds, which eventually spread to the entire city.In a city littered with flammable buildings, any wind blowing from any direction would blow the flames into a swath.The fire turned into a fire blanket, and the fire blanket turned into a volcano, blowing out the surrounding air and turning into many fiery updrafts, blowing Wang Qiu up and down in mid-air, reeling from side to side.

And the choking smoke and the stench from the burning corpse soon made Wang Qiu unbearable, so he had to leave the sky above the fire in a hurry and re-entered the Tower of London—in this "castle" Around the "style palace", a isolation zone has been opened in advance, and the fire will not be able to burn it.

Then, as soon as Wang Qiu jumped into the corridor from an open window, he saw Ma Tong wearing a white linen robe and a golden crown from nowhere on his head, standing in front of the window fiddled A lute, which was commonly used by troubadours in the Middle Ages, hummed and sang some strange tune.

"...Senior Ma Tong, what are you doing?" Wang Qiu sighed, looking at this funny senior posing with black lines on his forehead.

"...Of course I learned to imitate the legendary deeds of the famous ancient Roman tyrant Nero, playing the piano and singing while watching the burning city!"

Ma Tong shrugged his shoulders and gave the above embarrassing answer, "...the 12-year-old loli queen was supposed to perform, but she refused to do it anyway, claiming that she couldn't play an instrument , put the crown in my hand, and then hid in the prayer room and chanted sutras with my head covered..."

"...cough cough, I think, senior sister Ma Tong, you should stop singing with your broken voice! And you don't know how to play the lute at all! Is it interesting to stand here and smoke second-hand smoke?" Wang Qiu flipped through the pages. Baiyan complained, and at the same time was choked by the black smoke floating in from outside, coughing again and again.

"...That's true." Ma Tong rolled his eyes, and dropped the lute in a dispirited manner. At the same time, he covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief, and looked out of the window, only to see waves of people rushing towards him. Like the suffocating heat wave in an iron furnace, countless brilliant golden snakes are dancing on the streets and rooftops not far away.The whole of London seemed to have turned into a sea of ​​flames soaring into the sky, which made people feel palpitating.

"...Speaking of it... Isn't it just disinfection and killing a mouse? It seems that there is no need to make such an exaggeration, let's burn the whole of London!"

She turned around from the window, and asked Wang Qiu in confusion, "...the price of setting fire to the city like this is really very heavy!"

"...No way, because this is the only successful experience in British history that can quickly extinguish the London plague!" Wang Qiu shrugged helplessly, "...in the history of our world, since the Black Death in 1348 After the plague, the plague repeatedly broke out in London several times, and the cause was never found and could not be controlled. The last London plague caused by the plague broke out in 1665. At that time, 10 people died of illness in London. The epidemic lasted for more than a year, but it was still out of control, causing panic throughout the country, and political and economic chaos. Finally, the Great Fire of London in 1666 finally solved the problem of plague in London—this fire Not only burned thousands of houses and razed half of London to the ground, but also burned hundreds of thousands of rats in the city of London. There was no hiding place, and the germs were wiped out by the high temperature of the burning city, so that the plague would not break out for a long time.

Therefore, when the entire city has been completely polluted by germs and most of the citizens have turned into rotting corpses, with the technical conditions of this era, the only effective countermeasure is to make up our minds to destroy the city, including everything in it. Burn it all: The bacillus of plague is a hardy bacillus that can survive for decades on surfaces like clothes, blankets, furniture, house ceilings and beams!Even if we can eradicate the rats and fleas in this city and cut off the regular medium of transmission of the Black Death, as long as there are some people who are naturally greedy for petty gain and secretly take the relics of the plague dead back for their own use, then all epidemic prevention measures will be in vain. It's all useless... But there must be a lot of poor people like this right now! "

"...so you set fire to burn London to nothingness, and let the germs and the city be destroyed together?" Ma Tong nodded slightly to express his understanding, "...to use flames to purify everything...this seems to be an impossible solution, right? It's a pity that it is too cruel."

"...Who says it isn't? But what else is there to do? Is London left to fend for itself in the plague and left alone? If so, the city will become a gigantic source of pollution , Turning all directions into a place of death ruled by the God of Plague. Even if we stay in the Tower of London, we have to worry about contracting the plague all the time, so we can’t feel at ease! So we still burn everything clean!”

Wang Qiu spread his hands, and then turned his attention to the burning city outside.The scene of raging hellfire in the world is really unforgettable for a lifetime - the red ground, the red sky, the red clouds, the red river water, and the red fire, everything seems to be dyed. It takes on an indescribable fantasy and tragic color like the mythological drama "Twilight of the Gods".

London, devoured by the plague, was gradually reduced to ashes in this fire.At the same time, tens of thousands of citizens of England were reduced to ashes.

And far away from London, there are still more English people who are constantly dying, and it is too late to save them one by one... According to this situation, if Queen Joan does not want to rule a kingdom of the dead, then she needs to find a way to get it. A new batch of subjects...