Chapter 3: Welcome to the era of gentlemen and ladies The village of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, where the Bennet family lives, is about twenty-five miles from the capital London, even closer than the distance from London to Windsor Castle.
If yznn were left in the future, at most he would just step on the accelerator on the highway and drive for half an hour, or at most an hour.
But in England at the end of the 18th century, this short twenty-five miles meant a long journey from early morning to afternoon, at least half a day.
When the seven members of the Bennet family drove into London in a private carriage that was suspected to be severely overloaded, swaying under the afternoon sun, they were greeted not only by the hustle and bustle of the big city, but also by the smelly, dirty, floating...
Dirty air harboring various disease-causing bacteria Although London, the foggy capital at this time, had surpassed the turbulent and chaotic Paris and became the largest city in Europe, many of the famous buildings that were often visited by later generations of tourists were actually built half a century later in the Victorian era.
For example, Tower Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Regent Street, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament in London, and most of the neoclassical-style squares, parks, residential areas, hospitals, libraries, schools, and public fountains and street centers that appeared during the heyday of the British Empire.
Sculptures, etc., are nowhere to be seen today.
On the contrary, the urban area of London at this time was full of winding ancient streets.
These roads can be traced back to the Middle Ages.
They were often so narrow that even a carriage could not pass, and there was no complete drainage system at all.
Everywhere stunk, the air filled with the smell of garbage, sewage and feces.
Braving the unpleasant stench, the carriage meandered all the way and soon reached London Bridge.
But today's London Bridge is of course not the majestic suspension bridge with two granite square main towers in later generations, but a very shabby one.
The wooden bridge looks quite old.
London Bridge was also very crowded, and carriages moved slowly, almost slower than walking.
But it just made it easier for the Bennet family to enjoy the disgusting view of the Thames.
There is no way, a river that is as turbid and black as ink and exudes a pungent stench is really no match for the beautiful scenery.
Although the water quality of the Thames River is quite disgusting, there are many sails and boats on the river, and there are countless wooden sailboats crowded in the Thames River, which is not open.
Ship high-quality and low-priced British industrial products to all parts of the world, and then transfer massive wealth back to the UK.
However, in fact, the current foggy city of London has not yet entered the worst nightmare era for the environment.
Because in this day and age, even in Britain, which was the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, the Industrial Revolution has only just begun.
Trains and ships had not yet appeared, and it had only been only a dozen years since Mr.
Watt invented the new steam engine.
The actual large-scale production of Watt's steam engine did not happen until recently.
And it is mainly used in mines, and there are few factories that use steam engines as power.
Just as the earliest computers could fill a room, the earliest Watt steam engines were riddled with problems and took a long time to improve before being put into production.
The first steam-powered cotton textile mill in human history was only completed and put into operation in the "cotton capital" Manchester in 1792.
As for London, where land is expensive, the number of new factories is even smaller, and it is possible that there is not even one.
Therefore, when viewed from the bridge, there is not yet a terrifying scene of chimneys and soot covering the sky.
What is even more impressive are the various high and low spiers in the city, which are unique architectural styles of churches.
In Britain during the early industrial revolution, the religious-based social organization and life model inherited from the Middle Ages did not change much.
In London, this dominant position is reflected in the large number of luxurious churches and private chapels of nobility located in the city center.
Basically, London is now just a financial, religious, commercial center and consumer city, and the problem of industrial pollution is not too serious.
But even for the time being, there are not a large number of factories discharging sewage into the Thames around the clock.
Just the garbage and excrement produced by London's millions of residents and hundreds of thousands of horses every day, accumulated over time, is enough to make the water of the Thames so dirty that no animal or plant can grow.
The smoke produced by so many people living together burning coal for heating and cooking is also enough to reduce the city's air quality to hell levels.
Most of the time every year, the sky in London is gray, with no trace of blue sky and white clouds at all, as if it is shrouded in endless haze.
After crossing the Thames River, there were still a lot of horse-drawn carriages going back and forth on the street, so the speed of the cars could only be maintained at a turtle speed, crawling forward slowly.
The sounds of English hawking and bargaining were lingering around, making it very noisy.
From time to time there would be dirty children carrying baskets and rushing to the carriage to sell goods, causing the turbid stench to come in through the carriage window.
Bennett obviously couldn't accept such a harsh environment.
He covered his mouth with his white and tender hands, feeling that it was difficult to breathe.
"Tsk, tsk, you can't stand it anymore.
You newcomers are so young.
Compared with the rotten death cities in the biochemical apocalypse, or the smoke-filled Stalingrad battlefield with bullets flying everywhere, this little battle is really...
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It’s nothing.”
Seeing Miss Jian's disgusting and uncomfortable look, Mrs.
Bennet, whose soul had been changed by the senior reincarnation master of infinite space, couldn't help but sigh in disappointment, "If you can't even withstand this level of test, How will you survive in this cruel world in the future?"
Jane and Elizabeth: ""I always feel that life in the future will be scary.
How long can we survive?
All in all, after night fell and the lights came on, before all the bones in their bodies were shaken to pieces, the five Bennet sisters finally arrived at the destination of their trip to London, their relative in London, Uncle Gardiner on Tianen Temple Street.
Home.
An ancient Greek sage once wisely declared that every Greek city-state in his time could be divided into two, namely the city-state of the poor and the city-state of the rich, and these two city-states were always in a state of hostility or war.
In the same way, London, the capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, was actually composed of two completely different worlds, one belonging to a very small number of upper-class people, and the other belonging to the majority of lower-class people.
The former includes about hundreds of thousands of nobles and wealthy people, as well as the servants, housekeepers, coachmen, etc. who serve them.
They live in upper-class communities with good security and elegant environment.
The so-called London of gentlemen and ladies refers to this.
A small area.
The population of the latter has exceeded one million, gathered like rats in several filthy and smelly slums, full of street children, criminals and beggars.
Since these poor people were so poor that they could hardly pay taxes, Britain's rulers never cared about policing the slums.
If a gentleman occasionally had to go to the slums, he usually had to bring his own firearms for self-defense, and he could kill the dregs of society without causing any trouble.
In fact, such places still exist in the modern world, such as the black areas of Detroit in the United States and the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
So, in this era of Britain, how should we distinguish between the upper class and the lower class?
Wealth is obviously an important factor, but in Britain, which has just entered the capitalist era, title, lineage and land are also very important.
Reference standards.
The entire social class from top to bottom can be divided into royal family, nobility, gentry and common people.
The concept of gentleman is generally the British middle class.
It covers a wide range of people and is very different from each other.
To sum it up simply, the gentry are landowners, large or small, who own their own real estate and make a living from real estate income, but they are promoted to the nobility without a title.
The longer a family has been in charge of a territory, and can even use the name of a place as its surname, the more respected the surname will be and the higher its status.
This is a legacy of the feudal tradition of noble lords in the Middle Ages.
Only those who own real estate are the ones with real status.
Although people who live on real estate income may be poorer than those who do business, their status is higher.
Many place names in modern Britain, such as Salisbury, where Stonehenge is located, are the surnames of local hereditary nobles.
To summarize it more simply, if the mainstream value of socialist countries is "labor is glorious", then the mainstream value of modern Britain is the completely opposite "labor is shameful".
To evaluate the status of a family, we must look at the family's source of income.
Only families where the landlords earn something for nothing by collecting rents have the highest status.
Those who need to work to support themselves, unless they are officials, are all regarded as lower class, whether they are lawyers, doctors, businessmen, or farmers.
No matter how much money your family has, you can only be regarded as a disgraceful nouveau riche.
Later American lawyers who regarded themselves as social elites were actually expelled from the ranks of "respectable people" in Britain at the end of the 18th century.
To put it more simply, landlords are supreme.
Only those who own land are considered gentlemen.
Unless they are nobles, only the landlord family is the most noble.
Roughly speaking, it can be compared to the ancient Chinese saying "Everything is of inferior quality, only reading is superior."
In Britain it is said that "only the landlords are high" Of course, although this is the mainstream view, it is also very common for the wealthy upstarts to dislike the poor and love the rich, and look down on the down-and-out squires.
In fact, with the emergence of the industrial revolution and the expansion of overseas colonies, the gentry class, which relied solely on real estate income to survive, was rapidly becoming poorer than the wealthy industrial and commercial owners.
Although land rent income has not decreased, the average income of the upper class has The level of daily social expenses has been rising day by day with the birth of a large number of nouveau riche, making the traditional squires begin to make ends meet in order to maintain the living standards of the upper class.
If there is not much land or it is too barren, it is actually just barely enough to maintain dignity.
The truly wealthy upper-class people, in addition to being large landowners at home, usually also have to obtain additional income from emerging manufacturing and trade and plantations in overseas colonies, so that they can live a luxurious life.
As for their manors in England, they were reduced to mere status symbols, no different from famous horses, fancy clothes and yachts.
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The Bennet family from the village of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, although not a wealthy family, at least has a piece of land that has been passed down for many generations, and can barely be regarded as the upper class.
Their relative in London, Uncle Gardiner, is a businessman.
Although he is not considered poor in terms of wealth, his status in this era is still quite embarrassing because he has no land.
Therefore, their house is in London.
The location is also relatively marginalized, belonging to the transitional zone between "upper-class London" and "lower-class London".
The public security environment in this place is pretty good, at least people are less likely to be robbed on the street, so we can't be too particular about hygiene.
Outside the curtains of the house is a street filled with sewage, and a few streets away is the real slum, a place nicknamed "the crow's nest".
There are homeless people wandering around every night, and some orphans looking for food in the garbage.
Even so, as long as the curtains are drawn, this place can at least be a place where people can sleep peacefully.
After resting for a night at Uncle Gardiner's house, the changed souls of Mr. and Mrs.
Bennet, or rather the two veterans of Infinite Space, left their five "daughters" who were newcomers to Infinite Space behind without breakfast.
Go out shopping and scout out future battlefield conditions.
And the three old ladies in girlish skins, Mary, Kitty and Lydia, finally drank the tea they had been waiting for for a long time at the breakfast table at Uncle Gardiner's house.
Starting from the second half of the 18th century, the British had a relatively common habit of drinking tea, and every year they imported 2.4 million pounds of tea from the Qing Dynasty at that time.
And the problem of exporting tea to North America led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and the Boston Tea Party.
But the problem is, the small lump of gray-green stuff placed in front of them looks nothing like tea bricks.
Can this be drunk?
The three old ladies, dressed as girls, studied these strange-looking "suspicious green teas" in the clay pots for a long time, but in the end they still maintained the mentality of eating them without getting sick, and put the small lump into a small cup.
Put the grey-green stuff into a glass, drink it with boiling water, and then taste it Take a small sip and almost spit it out.
Oh my God, are they still on earth?
When did China have this kind of top-quality tea?
It’s worse than the worst quality tea stems.
Didn’t these British people just get some leaves to pretend to be tea?
Their imagination is even more terrifying, so I won’t go into details for now.
On the other side, seeing the tangled expressions on the faces of the three "sisters" that were about to wrinkle up, Elizabeth, who was leisurely drinking hot coffee, couldn't help but admire her own foresight.
However, she only dared to put sugar in the coffee, and They didn't dare to add milk, because there was something wrong with the milk they drank in London.
If we say, the fresh raw milk they drank in the Longbourn countryside, Although milk is a bit fishy, if it can still be eaten after boiling and adding sugar, then the milk I drink now at my uncle's house in London is simply like swill, and the taste is indescribably weird, except that it doesn't look like milk. , it has all kinds of flavors.
I really don’t know what kind of things the black-hearted businessmen these days have added to it.
It’s better not to touch it.
But what she didn't know was that the sucrose she sprinkled into the hot coffee was not actually a safe food.
Next, the bread, which is the staple food, is still as hard as ever, while the corned beef, which is a must-have for English breakfast, is even harder, and its appearance can be compared with a piece of wood.
The taste of butter was also very strange.
Elizabeth always had the illusion that she was eating soap, so she did not dare to touch it again after just one taste.
In addition, the eggs on the table are not scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, or fried eggs.
Instead, they are broken into pieces and boiled until they are medium-cooked, sprinkled with a little pepper to make a half-cooked egg sauce, and then eaten with bread.
People may like this approach, but many Chinese people cannot stand it at all.
Especially the pre-travel Elizabeth herself hated the half-cooked omelettes in the cafeteria when she was a student.
As a result, the only edible thing on the entire table is lettuce leaves, which are spread with some unknown strange meat sauce and then put into slices of bread to make a sandwich.
For pampered modern women, Eating in this dark country of cuisine is really a skill.
At the same time, her "sister" Jane was lying in the bedroom upstairs, enduring another, more horrific torture.
As an adult woman, she naturally doesn’t know anything about monthly periods.
But the problem is, because she traveled to another world and changed her body, she really doesn’t know her current menstrual cycle.
As a result, on the night she arrived at Uncle Gardiner's house, her period came suddenly, so heavy and violent that it stained the sheets red.
What's even more terrible is that she didn't discover Jane until this moment.
Bennett's body still suffers from menstrual cramps To make matters worse, perhaps due to the fatigue of the journey, Jane's pain this time was extremely severe, as if she was being rolled bit by bit from the abdomen by a meat grinder.
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No matter how tenacious she was, she was still tortured by such non-stop torture.
Gotta have some mental breakdown.
However, the real problem is not menstrual cramps.
After all, this is something that modern women cannot avoid.
The really most terrible thing is that he noticed Jane.
After Bennet suffered "heavy bleeding" and moaned in pain, her enthusiastic Aunt Gardiner not only immediately made arrangements to change her sheets and clothes, but also took good care of her and took a dose of "home-made medicine" that seemed to be curative.
It was very obvious that Jane quickly fell asleep peacefully after taking the medicine.
Elizabeth was pleased with this at first, until she happened to notice the name label of the dose of "home medicine" after breakfast.
"This is opium ointment."
Elizabeth's eyes widened in disbelief, "You gave Jane this" What made her even more unexpected was that in the face of her own condemnation and questioning, Aunt Gardiner actually admitted it with a smile.
"Well, that's right, opium ointment.
This is a common medicine that every household in London must keep.
For colds, coughs, headaches, diarrhea, and when women can't get rid of the stuff every month, they have to take a little bit of it.
Yes.
Don’t you have one at home?
This is not good.”
Aunt Gardiner very diligently thrust an unopened box of opium cream into her hand, "Then take some back to Jane by the way."
She looked down at the opium cream that was stuffed into her hand, and then looked up at Aunt Gardiner, whose face was glowing with red.
Elizabeth's mouth twitched for a moment, and she didn't even know what to say.
This aunt didn't seem to realize it at all. , Opium is a drug
Then, in addition to being shocked, she couldn't help but feel a little confused: According to her aunt, she and her uncle's family should have been taking opium regularly, but now it seemed that although her aunt's skin was a little loose, her appearance was also He was average, but his complexion was still very good, and his figure was too plump.
He couldn't compare with the sallow-faced and skinny opium ghosts in history textbooks in his impression.
What the hell is going on?
Why did the same opium, which caused so much trouble in modern China, be regarded as an ordinary drug in Britain and not cause any problems?
However, this is a historical fact.
At that time, there were no serious social problems caused by opium in Europe as a whole.
What many modern Chinese people find unimaginable is that before the Opium War, opium was probably more prevalent in Britain than in China under the Qing Dynasty.
In major pharmacies in London, opium is generally regarded as a "panacea" to treat all kinds of diseases.
From cough syrup to analgesic ointments, at least half of the medicines contain opium ingredients.
What is particularly shocking is that for those women who were tired of taking care of babies, British pharmacies in this era also commonly launched a baby medicine: For busy women, a noisy baby all the time is a nightmare, right?
The problem is that as long as you take this medicine, your children will be able to calm down immediately and will no longer bother you because it contains opium.
As a result, many unlucky British children became so quiet that they never cried again because they took too much opium-containing medicine.
Then, because they were too quiet, they did not cry for milk in time, and just fell asleep, as if Just like the little match girl in the fairy tale, she died of starvation quietly However, even with the above-mentioned frightening risks, opium cream is still the drug with the largest stockpile in ordinary households in the UK.
It is regarded as a commonly used medicine to treat headaches and brain fever, similar to modern aspirin, and it is quite popular among people: because at that time The medical conditions are backward, and there is no clear understanding of germs and viruses, and the causes of diseases are not clear, so as long as it can make patients feel more comfortable and relieve some of their pain, it is a good medicine.
In this case, the anesthetic and analgesic properties of opium are naturally of great use.
In fact, humans can survive many minor illnesses such as colds and gout by relying on their own immunity and eventually recover naturally, but the pain during the period is really unbearable.
And opium can just relieve the pain during this period, allowing people to survive this difficult time.
Of course, if you encounter inflammation that your own immunity cannot deal with, then the abuse of opium will mask the symptoms and delay treatment.
But the problem is that at the end of the 18th century when all antibacterial drugs had not been invented, even if the cause of the disease was diagnosed, those What effective Western quack doctors can come up with?
The treatment plan allows the patient to die from bloodletting like the founding father of the United States, George Washington, or to induce vomiting, which is even more disgusting.
Let's live a little more comfortably Generally speaking, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not many people in Britain or even Europe thought that opium was a bad thing, and there was even a British litterateur named De.
Quincy wrote an ode to opium, praising opium to the heavens.
Even church ministers who once accused "opium of depravity" only regarded it as a recreational drug similar to spirits and tobacco.
During the Victorian era, nearly every British person took opium at some point in their lives, and taking opium was as much a part of life as drinking or smoking.
On the one hand, they regard the Chinese people's enjoyment of opium as a "unique oriental custom"; on the other hand, they pour opium into their bodies without any scruples in the name of medical treatment.
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However, although opium was abused in such an uncontrolled way and many lives were lost, there were not many social problems caused by opium in Europe.
Even though almost all Europeans have used opium to one degree or another, the number of people who are truly addicted to the drug is extremely limited, and even far fewer than the number of drunkards who die of excessive drinking every year.
So, in this way After comparison, on the issue of the Opium War, it really makes people think deeply.
Is it necessary to fight this war?
Is there a problem with opium or a problem with Chinese society in the Qing Dynasty?
Because of this huge cognitive gap, when the Opium War broke out, the Chinese thought it was a war on drugs, but the British refused to admit it, because at that time the British really did not regard opium as a drug, but as a drug.
Opium dens and coffeehouses were legal in London as a pastime, much like spirits, tobacco, tea, and coffee.
Modern British people view the smoking ban of the Qing Dynasty in the same way that modern Chinese view the alcohol prohibition in the Arab world.
Their first reaction is that the government of that country is restricting the people, and there must be something wrong with their minds.
The Chinese think that opium dealers are heinous drug traffickers who deliberately harm people's health, but the British think that this is probably just like secretly selling alcohol in Arab countries, and it just violates the unreasonable local laws.
The Chinese are simply overly nervous. , making a fuss out of a molehill.
Why should opium be banned if it is smoked too much and it will kill people?
How many drunkards drink to death every year?
Do we need to ban alcohol for this reason?
In short, according to the thinking of the British government and upper class society at that time, according to the principle of reciprocity, since the Chinese can export tea to Britain, then the British should naturally be able to export opium to China.
We have to admit that the Chinese are very important in the field of anti-drug control.
Seems a little too ahead of its time.
There is a proverb: Half a step ahead of the times is a genius, but one step ahead of the times is a tragedy.
Closer to home, I was shocked to learn that my uncle’s family had been addicted to opium since childhood.
Several of my cousins had been taking opium since they were 0 years old.
Aunt Gardiner also bought the kind of baby medicine that contains opium ingredients, and At present, the main countermeasures for the British to treat a lot of common diseases such as colds, gout, stomach problems, arthritis, etc. are the ignorant Elizabeth after taking opium.
Miss Bennet couldn't help being frightened, but she couldn't think about it.
She could only stare at the opium ointment in her hand, wondering how to explain this to Jane when she woke up.
In fact, in this world, in addition to dark cuisine and opium abuse, there are many more disasters they need to face next.
For example, they lose their "parents" in this world unexpectedly and bear the full malice of this cruel society alone oshow7: