Chapter 2624 Wind and Flowers (3)

In British slang, buff means trouble, love in the buff means trouble in love, but in the United States it has other meanings, such as in the buff means not naked, and it also represents light yellow, because this The slang term is the abbreviation of buffalo. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the word usually represented a kind of cowhide that was abundant in North America.

Thicker than buckskin, it was well suited to replace metal armour, so the "buff" overcoat was standard for European soldiers at this time. During the American Revolution, George Washington, who had participated in the Seven Years War, also joined it. During the Seven Years War, Washington wore the traditional scarlet to serve in the British army.

But in the summer of 1775, during the Second Continental Congress, Washington put on a brand new uniform of "light yellow" and blue and appeared at the venue. One of the symbolic colors of the United States.

However, due to overhunting by humans, the American bison that used to be seen everywhere on the American prairie gradually disappeared. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only 21 left in North America. Putting it in a national park, when Newt Scamander went to the United States to send back the Thunderbird, he could see a huge herd of bison appearing on the North American grasslands again.

However, North American rem cattle are "really" extinct. Rem cattle are often mixed with bison herds. They are larger than ordinary cattle and have golden hides, making them easier targets for hunters. By the time the wizards arrived, the Rem bulls were basically dead. Ifrmony School of Witchcraft and Wizardry kept a large number of anatomical drawings and specimens, but there was no live rem bull, and Scamander searched all over North America but could not find it.

There are still a small number of rem cattle in South America, but the export of cattle blood is very strict, and the powerful stimulating potions needed by the Aurors urgently need "a lot" of rem cattle blood, especially during Grindelwald's activities around the world. It’s just that Grindelwald’s downfall would have long since been imitated, and it happened that at this time, Voldemort rose in England, so Britain became the main consumer of imitated Rem’s blood.

The wealth of the Smith family has a lot to do with their expertise in potion and material trading and stocks. Many members of this family are members of the Goblin Finance and the Red Nose Wizard Investor Alliance.

In addition, there are quite a few people who hold important positions in the Ministry of Magic. It is said that it is a family gathering, but in fact, most of the people from the Ministry of Magic and the financial circle are here. There were also Muggles in the mix, and they were easily recognizable, after all, wizards wore Halloween clothes for them.

It's certainly impossible to have a party of that size indoors, even though the Smith family's "ancestral home" is a 17th-century castle.

The rain in the past two days made the temperature cooler, and the grass was not so muddy. Tents were set up directly on the lawn one after another. Children chased in the air on toy broomsticks, and adults chatted while drinking drinks in the shade.

"Dean!" cried Sally Smith. "Why are you here?"

Pomona looked at Hufflepuff, who was attending the sorting ceremony with Harry Potter, holding a "juice" that smelled of alcohol in her hand.

"Come to the party," Pomona said, smiling. "You're not welcome?"

"Of course not." Sally smiled shyly when she saw Cedric following behind her, "Welcome to our party."

"What's the fun?" Pomona asked.

"Look!" Sally pointed to a direction where a Ferris wheel was erected. "Uncle Dominic set up an amusement park there."

Pomona put his hands on his eyebrows to cover the sun, looked at those "toys", and muttered "rich man" viciously in his heart, then turned and asked Cedric, "Do you want to play?"

Cedric smiled and shook his head, apparently he was not interested in carousels, even though the wings of those carousels moved like real flying horses.

"What else?" Pomona asked Sally.

"Let's go, I'll show you around." Sally said briskly, "The weird sisters are here today."

Going to a concert wasn't what Pomona wanted to do, but she really didn't know where to find out about Herbazz Smith's inheritance.

However, what she didn't expect was that she met an unexpected person on the way, Snape was talking to Zacharias Smith's father.

Tomorrow will be the competition, of course, to be precise, the weighing ceremony will be held tomorrow. After the weighing, Snape and Damocles Belby will draw lots to decide the order of drinking potions, and then they will According to the order of configuring the potions, Snape "shouldn't" come out to "socialize" at this time.

"What's the matter, Dean?" Cedric followed Pomona's line of sight.

"It's okay." She said blankly, and continued to "walk around" with Sally.

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Later, after the party, Pomona and Severus went to the Fuga clothing store in Diagon Alley to buy clothes, scaring the clerk who had just graduated from school and had received Snape's education, until they When paying, she looked unacceptable and just said "welcome again" very professionally.

She chose a bachelor's gown for him, replacing the original medieval "bat cloak", and the color is not black, but a very dark green, which can't be seen in the dark underground, but can be seen in the sun up.

His robe, too, became a long coat, also invisible in the dark, but actually a very dark blue, impregnated with layers of indigo, not washable, only dry-cleaned and ironed.

In the 20th century, when there were a lot of synthetic dyes, the cost of natural indigo was more than 10 times that of synthetic dyes, and it sometimes showed a green light. In other words, although Snape was still dressed in black, it was "colorful" black, which was the best Pomona could do to improve his dressing taste.

Indigo (indigo) is derived from the ancient Greek word "indikon", which means imported from India. It was once listed as a top luxury product alongside Tyrian purple, which represents the emperor. Caesar once appeared in the ancient Roman arena wearing purple silk, which led the Romans to love silk and purple. However, the purple pigment is extracted from shells. The process is complicated and difficult to extract, and it is accompanied by a The mixed smell of urine is very pungent. At that time, the ancient Romans did not have the technology to synthesize ammonia, so they could only use the ammonia in urine.

The popularity of Tyrian purple is bad news for the snails that produce this pigment. About 250,000 sea snails are needed to produce 30 grams of dye, so that an artificial landform has been formed on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. conch composition.

Tyrian purple silk is measured in grams and calculated in gold. In the late Roman period, even the emperor could not afford it, so Justinian sent spies to find a way to make silk.

Thirteen barrels of natural indigo stems can extract about 1 barrel of indigo, which was commonly used by ancient Egyptians to dye linen and decorate mummies, and indigo robes can be seen in the tomb paintings of pharaohs and priests. It was also expensive in ancient Rome, and trade routes were a big factor in keeping the price of indigo high.

Indigo makes people feel cheap mainly because there are too many artificial blue dyes, and the early jeans are blue. Indigo is not like other dyes that require a dye such as alum. It can be dyed directly, and it happens to be planted in the United States. Lots of indigo, perfect for dyeing hard-wearing jeans and selling to gold diggers.

The gold digger was poor before he dug up the gold. He had no money to replace the non-wearable clothes, and the denim pants also needed wear-resistant. Its fabric was first used for the sails of Genoese merchant ships.

Napoleon's 800% punitive tariffs on the United States did not have the same impact on American farmers as Britain's cancellation of indigo subsidies, mainly because "neutral countries" did not impose punitive tariffs on the United States.

If Tyrian purple is gold and indigo is silver, the wealthy Rome is willing to buy a catty of indigo for twenty dinars, which is already fifteen times the average daily wage at that time.

Its price was so high that some people used pigeon droppings to fool people at the time. Nowadays, no one uses pigeon dung to make fakes, but some people use Prussian blue. People with poor eyesight can't tell lapis lazuli blue, indigo and Prussian blue.

In the United States, whenever the economy is in a downturn, the sales of lipstick will surge, because Americans feel that lipstick is a cheap consumer product, and buying it can satisfy people's still strong consumption desire.

But this kind of cheap lipstick uses synthetic pigments, and high-end lipsticks use cochineal, which is a small insect that lives on cacti. The females will gather together before and after laying eggs and lay red eggs. Red eggs are of the best quality, followed by adults, about 70,000 worms can extract one liter of dye, and an acre of cactus can produce 200 liters of product. In other words, 14 million bugs per acre, collected 3 times a year.

Because this kind of work is too repetitive, a large number of farmers use alcohol to relieve their worries. They will drink a kind of tequila wine, which is not too high, only 6-8 degrees. Only when the distillation technology is brought to South America will there be spicy wine. Mouth of tequila.

Tlaxcala is the main source of cochineal, and it is the second largest source of finance for the Spanish treasury after silver.

The Spaniards went to great lengths to keep the cochineal a secret, spreading the word that the red color was obtained from squeezing the seeds of the plant, and banning the export of the cochineal.

For about two centuries, Britain and France tried to pry into the secrets and sent spies, but it was not until the first half of the 18th century that Anthony Leeuwenhoek discovered the six-legged cochineal under the microscope. Botanist Nicolas Joseph Thierry de Menonville, posing as a Catalan doctor, secretly sneaked into Oaxaca, another origin of cochineal, where he mastered the breeding and production of cochineal. After learning the secrets, the insects were brought to Santo Domingo and cultivated in the botanical garden in Port-au-Prince. After his death, the Botanic Gardens were in ruins, and the precious cochineal insects brought back by the Royal Society at a large price also met the same fate. They were removed from the cactus by the nemesis of aphids, the ladybug. Only the Dutch managed to achieve it in Java. cochineal production.

In 1787, the Holland Hope Bank, which specializes in foreign lending and investment, was under the leadership of Henry Hope. He judged that the harvest of cochineal would be poor and the reserves in Europe would be low, so he bought thousands of tons together with Barings Bank cochineal.

He spent 2 million florins, procured them from Marseilles, Rouen, Hamburg, Italy and St. Hope imagined that the bank suffered heavy losses and was on the verge of bankruptcy.

At this time, the British and Anglo-Dutch Bank Group rescued him. Cochineal was widely used by the British army, such as dyeing the red uniforms of the Royal Guard, but this time the situation was different from the last time.

The warehouse of Hope's family in Port Thames, London was burned, and Barings Bank has withdrawn from the Louisiana acquisition. If Hope Bank wants to recover its losses and not go bankrupt, it can only continue.

As long as Napoleon sells Louisiana, not only the 26 million francs of food loans can be repaid, but the United States can also continue to move westward, open up more cotton fields, and provide the "white gold" of cotton for European industries, which has been growing The cotton index will also drop.

And American farmers need loans to expand and build their farms. They are not as lucky as Jacob, who will meet a wizard and give him the silver egg of a bird and snake as collateral.

If Jacob was a greedy man, he wouldn't find Fantastic Beasts cute when he saw those silver eggs.

"Lay your eggs, you stupid bird," Jack heard the giant say to the golden hen as he climbed up the magic vine into the sky.

Jacob, however, was not that kind of person, and he had a great time with the Fantastic Beasts.

He didn't look like a World War I veteran by any means.

Georgiana touched her lower lip subconsciously while listening to Gaston Martin's story. She once put on lipstick, then stained her lip with a handkerchief, and threw it on the ground.

Could that red liquid be related to cochineal?

Or is it related to cacti? She remembered that the wolfsbane potion used a rare kind of cactus, and animals didn't care that much. There was no difference between ladybugs eating aphids and cochineals.

But in the future, she will have to think about whether to use lipstick or not. During the "Hot Kiss", the thought of her mouth full of worms will affect her mood, although she doesn't mind the leech juice in it when drinking the potion. After all, it is "medicine".