Chapter 2396

On the day of the Great Halloween Earthquake in 1755, many people attended All Saints' Day Mass in the church. Thirty-five of the city's 40 churches collapsed, causing tragic casualties.

The church was packed with people, and many of the churches were hundreds of years old and already crumbling. About 15,000 people were buried in the collapsed churches.

The Marquis of Pombal was in charge of disaster relief, but the first thing he did when he arrived at the scene was not to save people, but to ask the police to arrest those who robbed and stole in the ruins, or shot them on the spot. On many high points in the city, the army erected gallows and hanged some thieves, so that the people could see them from a distance.

The disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow" that Georgiana watched did not show this scene. People have various reactions in the face of disasters. Catholicism has many gorgeous religious-themed jewelry, such as crosses inlaid with rubies. Even if the church is still at risk of collapsing, or if there are many people crying for help, the money-seekers only have gold and gems in their eyes.

The earthquake sparked a fire, but it was quickly extinguished by the tsunami as panicked people rushed to flee the city, and the roads outside the city were packed.

In addition to mobilizing regular troops, the Marquis of Pombal also called in the militia, but they were blocked on the road. So he ordered that all those who wanted to escape be driven back to the city, the regular army was responsible for removing the corpses, and the militia was responsible for maintaining order in the capital.

As long as they see the corpses floating on the "flagpole", most people will abide by the rules and not touch the money buried under the collapsed buildings. But even if Portugal is relatively south, it is not acceptable for people to sleep outside. When the homeowners wanted to rebuild, the government ordered that construction not start until the master plan was announced, so the privately built houses were pulled down, and the homeowners had to bear the cost of demolition.

The king did not live in Lisbon at the time, but lived in the Mafra Palace built by Joao V 28 kilometers away from Lisbon. It was very close to the royal hunting ground and there used to be a Franciscan monastery. By the time of João V's reign, the Wars for the Spanish Crown had ended, and the House of Bourbon had replaced the Habsburgs as kings of Spain.

But the pretender to the throne of Austria did not give up because of this, and instead used Portugal as a base to invade Spain. At this time, France had entered Spain and occupied a large area of ​​land. In short, the two sides signed the "Utrecht Peace Treaty" in 1715, which ended the conflict. The peace treaty stipulated that Britain obtained a large area of ​​​​French America, and at the same time, the trading rights in the Spanish colonies were also guaranteed. Although Portugal was allied with the United Kingdom and was also a victorious country, the benefits it gained were only the border area of ​​Brazil. Its ownership of the coast of Brazil and the banks of the Amazon River Basin was recognized. Spanish attempt to occupy Sacramento.

During this period of time, Brazil’s gold poured into Portugal like a rolling wave. The gold made the king and the court rich, but Joao V used the money to build an extremely luxurious palace, not as his father and grandfather wished. As expected, the provinces and the commercial ports that were taken away by the Dutch were restored.

Thanks to this, the royal family did not live in the royal palace in Lisbon in 1755, and the old palace had been reduced to ruins in the earthquake.

Together with the old palace, the royal library in the city and the newly built royal opera house also fell into ruins. Despite Brazilian gold, tobacco taxes, and revenues from port wine and salt, building these massive buildings planned by João V not only drained the treasury, but also bankrupted the city of Lisbon.

In addition, Portugal also recruited 45,000 strong workers from all over the country, working around the clock under the surveillance of 7,000 soldiers, but even so, Joao V still failed to move into Mafra before his death Palace day. It was built in 1750 and may have used a lot of wood from northern Europe, so it was not damaged in the earthquake.

King Jose, who was still in shock, planned to move the capital from Lisbon to Coimbra after this incident, which was also the city carefully built by Joao V, but he agreed to rebuild Lisbon at the suggestion of the Marquis of Pombal. In the third week, the Marquis of Pombal began a new urban plan.

The main designer of this reconstruction plan is named Santos. In the new urban planning, regardless of whether the original house collapsed or not, the homeowner must rebuild according to the new plan. Those who do not rebuild within 5 years will be disqualified from building houses, and the land will be rebuilt. was re-sold. In this way, many real estates have been transferred from the poor nobles to the property owners. The newly built houses must be built according to a uniform standard, and there are cleverly designed elastic wooden structures inside to prevent new earthquakes in the future. occur.

In addition to the interior, there are also regulations on the appearance of the building. The facades of all houses adopt linear geometry. In order to prevent inconsistency, it is not even allowed to build flower ponds or place carnation flower pots around the windows.

The newly-built Lisbon is full of Pombal's unified vision under the protection of the royal power, but most of these houses are vacant, no one wants to live, or has no money to live, and most people live in temporary and simple houses outside the new city inside. Later, a new decree ordered that all low bungalows be demolished on the pretext that these houses did not meet the building standards and were built when building was prohibited.

There are no tiles left in the old palace, and the palace square has been transformed into a "commercial square".

There is a bronze equestrian statue of the king on the square, and the horse's hoof is stepping on a poisonous snake that symbolizes a treacherous person. The new Lisbon has a rectilinear network of streets, wide streets, with vehicles and horses in the middle, and sidewalks on both sides, but what does this have to do with the poor whose houses are about to be bulldozed and who have no money to live in the new city?

Someone attempted to assassinate King Jose in 1758. In fact, it is also possible that the target of the assassin was the Marquis of Pombal, but Pombal managed to convince the king that it was a conspiracy planned by the Jesuits and the old aristocracy, and used this opportunity to launch a bloody suppression against the old aristocracy. More than 1,000 people were arrested.

Then the Marquis of Pombal pointed the finger at the Jesuits, the religious properties were confiscated, the convent was declared illegal, and they were permanently expelled from Portugal.

Therefore, the Portuguese royal family could not live in the good Mafra Palace, but lived in a temporary wooden palace. There used to be a church, but it was also destroyed in the earthquake. But the royal family could not live in such a house for a long time, not to mention that it also encountered a fire. It happened that Rabuchel was "cruising" to Portugal. The royal family hoped that the banker could provide a loan to build the palace.

The "collateral" is still diamonds produced in Brazil. If Hope had the right to trade diamonds before, these diamonds belong to them now. Both he and his partner Henry Hope want to rebuild the diamond trade in Amsterdam.

In the 18th century, Brazil produced 2 million carats of diamonds, which was four times that of India. As a result, the price of European diamonds dropped by 75%. Everything is rare and expensive, even gold and silver. If you find silver mines In the end, it will become worthless to ship to Europe as desperately as the Spaniards.

But the buyer does not know, that is to say, the actual price of 300,000 francs of jewelry is only 25%, 75,000 francs is enough, and the remaining 225,000 francs can be understood as design fees or IQ taxes, such as George Anna's "Mughal Diamond", also known as the "Portuguese Diamond", is said to have come from Brazil, but it is now "known" to have been set in the crowns of Mughal and Persian kings diamond.

Legend has it that the diamond was pink, so it was cut into a rose shape, and Georgiana's belt was also designed according to the shape of the center diamond.

But is it pink? You have to take a good look at this, even she didn't notice it herself.

That thing is as heavy as a lead ball, not to mention that she knows that diamonds can be artificially synthesized. It only needs to imitate the high temperature and pressure inside the earth. This can already be done in the "future", so she chose a pair of swan necklaces made of artificial crystals. And a pair of snowflake earrings.

The happiest dressing up in her life was wearing a pearl hairpin and a moonlight-colored dress to attend a celebration ball because he improved the Wolfsbane potion. After the dance was over, what she regretted the most was that she didn't stay outside much, but went back to school obediently.

She is an adult now, and she doesn't need to go home before the door control time like a girl disciplined by her parents.

Nor is her dress Cinderella's magic, which disappears when the time comes.

And that idiot, he didn't even think of making excuses to keep her, like a teenager who was afraid of the girl's father and sent her back when the time came.

How angry do you think she is?

She found a place where no one was around and cried loudly. Although she didn't have the power to destroy the world like a volcano or an earthquake, she could cry loudly.

It's just that no matter how much she cries, she can't drown the world like the great flood that Noah encountered, and she can't even wet the second floor like the crying myrtle.

But she won't stop until the tears run out, and until then, let her cry.