Chapter 3178 Giant Whale and Elephant (2)
Compared with the 200,000 French textile workers who were "directly" unemployed due to the 1787 Agreement, the 2,500 people who lost their jobs in the UK due to imported silk were still within the "controllable" range, not to mention that the Spitalfields area was already a recognized place of chaos. , how can it be messy no matter how messy it is?
On the contrary, it is about the timber scandal at the Royal Warship Dockyard. This matter has been ignored in British newspapers, but is reported in neighboring countries. After all, the British Naval Dockyard is also involved in overseas storage yards, and the wood has already rotted before it is used. .
Some of them are because they have been piled for too long, and some are because they paid for the dead wood at the price of fir trees when they were purchased. However, these are not the places where the most serious "corruption" occurs.
There is a saying in "The Fable of the Bees": Without the opportunity to build new ships, the first-class shipbuilders and all their men would have died if they had not died of hunger or died young.
The First Minister of the Navy established a special investigation committee, and they submitted 12 reports. Whether it was a warship or a civilian ship, pulleys were used in the sailing era. This "consumable" was consumed at an astonishing speed.
Anchors and anchor chains are not easily damaged, and a set of anchor chains can last a boat a long time. However, if there is a storm for an hour, the consumables will be lost much faster than ten days of good weather. The reform of the First Minister of the Navy is to establish a military factory to achieve self-sufficiency in such consumables without having to buy them from external contractors. Buying inferior products that endanger sailors’ lives.
Prior to this, his reforms mainly involved "people". This does not mean that the First Minister of the Navy has the power to appoint officers, although many people wrote letters of recommendation to him. If you want to find a sure and feasible "doorway", perhaps the mistress of the Duke of York is more reliable.
Sailors will also grow old, and some old, weak, sick and disabled people were placed in the shipyard by the former commanders to do work similar to "night watchmen", that is, patrolling the warehouse area to see if anyone is stealing anything.
There are also some workers on the shore, but they are paid the wages of sailors on the ship. There is something wrong with it, but it is not a problem. After all, the ship cannot go ashore again after it is launched into the sea. Workers are required to go to the ship for maintenance.
The entire shipyard was almost reduced to a shelter, and the First Minister also built one outside to house orphaned sailors. The apartment where Severus used to live in London was located near the Foundling House. The Foundling House was also set up by a navigator and originally housed the children of sailors. In the early 19th century, it became a dumping ground for "nearby residents".
In the "New Orphanage" in Paddington, there is a very polite little bear who always uses honorific titles such as "Mr." and "Miss" when addressing people. However, he always causes a lot of trouble. Although everyone knows He "tried very hard to get things done."
In short, things at the Navy Yard were in shambles and in need of a complete "spring cleaning." In order to "deal with" various naval committees, military and civil administrations, the First Minister asked the king to add a "royal" title to the Portsmouth shipyard.
Everyone was referring to those shipyards as the Royal Dockyards because most of the oak used to build the masts and keels of ships in the early days grew in the Royal Forest, and royal permission was required to cut them down.
However, after so many years of felling, there were very few British oaks suitable for making masts. They had to be found from colonies such as New England. However, foreign oaks were very easy to rot, so fir was used instead. But cedar is too fragile to be used in large ships.
Lyon, unlike Rouen, would only allow banquet guests to wear clothes made in France, but they banned the advertising of British goods.
Originally, Georgiana thought that Bonaparte summoned Mr. Martin to Aachen for the silk trade, because with the support of Frederick II, the silk textile industry there had already reached some scale.
Due to long-term division, poor Germany has philosophers and poets such as Kant and Goethe, and there are also many people who feel that education is a kind of compulsion and needs to be enforced by law. Their literacy skills are extremely weak.
Strictly speaking, the illiteracy rate in Italy is much higher than that in Germany, but Italians have good understanding and imagination. They will understand when they read a leaflet. But if they don't believe the person who sent the leaflet, it will be in vain. hair.
What's more, under the feudal system, traffic in Germany was congested and people's range of activities was very restricted. Merchants not only brought goods, but in many cases people learned about the outside world from the merchants' mouths.
What use is it for a landlocked peasant to know about the seaside?
Anyway, she just needed to be careful when spreading the news. With things like this, she began to worry about Padma's situation in London. After all, the Witchcraft Act still existed in Britain in this era.
If Edgeworth was a courageless person, he would probably have gone back to London to "explain" immediately after the incident occurred, instead of leading Georgiana here to talk and laugh with others.
"Woof!"
She followed the sound and saw a big black dog outside the window, standing conspicuously in the snow.
"How did you come up with the idea of letting Wormtail be the secret keeper?" Pomona asked Sirius Black, the "wanted criminal" who escaped from Azkaban, in the Order of the Phoenix headquarters.
"I thought no one would notice him." Sirius took a bite of the cream on the cake. "The others easily guessed that I was the secret keeper."
"Then they also need to know that Dumbledore used the Fidelity Charm." Pomona lowered his voice. "There are many hidden magics in this world."
At this time, there was a sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor, and soon Snape appeared at the door of the kitchen. He seemed to be shrouded in suffocating darkness.
"Would you like to have a taste too?" Sirius asked Snape, holding up the cake in his hand.
"I thought I was here for a meeting today." Snape said glibly. "No one told me about the party."
"Let's go first," Sirius said to Pomona while holding the cake, and then passed Snape at the door.
When Sirius disappeared, the two of them were left looking at each other.
Her heart was pounding, but he just turned his head indifferently and left with Sirius.
"Are you okay?" Edgeworth said in her ear.
"I'm fine." Georgiana said, and when she turned her head again, the black dog outside the window had disappeared.
Then the face of Peter Pettigrew appeared before her eyes, the way he looked in Gryffindor uniform when he was a student, the way he killed Cedric in the tomb of the Riddle family, and the way he fell in the snow. There was no blood color, and it was impossible to tell whether his face was frozen or dead.
As a traitor, he was never trusted.
That silver hand was the "compensation" Voldemort gave him, and it was also the instrument of torture that ultimately took his life.
When they arrived at the ballroom, Bonaparte was already waiting for her on the dance floor.
He wore no hat and a green marshal's uniform.
He raised his hand as if to invite her, and Edgeworth handed her hand over, as if completing a certain ritual.
No one can dance until they have the opening dance. There is no fireplace in the hall, and the single-layer glass cannot block all the cold air. The guests who are gorgeous but thinly dressed are shivering slightly.
"Are you cold?" he said to her in a gentle tone.
"Kind of," she said automatically, though she wasn't actually shaking about it.
Lucien whispered something to someone in the crowd, who waved behind him, and the music started.
"Dance, it will keep you warm." He said as he put his hand on her waist. It was obvious that what he wanted to dance was not a minuet.
After being taught by her dance teacher, she already knew that she had to hold up her skirt when dancing. Not only would she not be tripped by the floor-length skirt, she would also be more elegant.
But she remembered the phantom that Hathor showed her in the Louvre. A group of people were dancing, but when Bonaparte walked in, they stopped dancing.
The waltz was too fashionable and too frivolous for the middle-aged man who was as serious as a German king, although he did not order it, as was the case with tennis.
In fact, he could dance the waltz, which Pomona, who had only seen his portrait in the 20th century, did not know.
As she began to spin under his guidance, she felt dizzy and nauseated like motion sickness.
Soon she saw Hathor in the crowd, a glass of red wine in her hand.
"It wasn't me who was dancing in the red dress that day!" she shouted to Bonaparte, but he didn't respond, as if he didn't hear what she was saying.
"I want to redecorate my room," said another Georgiana. "There will be flowers everywhere."
"How do you want it to be decorated?" said Bonaparte with a smile.
"At first I wanted an Egyptian style, but I changed my mind." Another Georgiana said with a smile, "Have you ever seen Botticelli's "Primavera"?"
"You want to be decorated as Venus?" asked Bonaparte.
"No, it's her maids. Aristotle called them the goddesses of grace. They represent all the beauty and kindness in the world." Another Georgiana sounded like a curse, and sent out echoes, "In the distant future, Mr. Goodwill will It will come, and every winter will turn into a spring breeze.”
"Is this a prophecy?" Bonaparte asked eagerly.
"Don't you think this is very poetic?" The other Georgiana smiled mysteriously.
He stared at her blankly, like a boy who had never seen a beautiful woman before.
She couldn't stand it anymore, so she turned around and tried to keep out of sight.
But then she thought about it, Hathor took away her body last time, this time...
She looked up and looked around. This was no longer a magnificent dance floor, but a dark palace.
After there were no tourists, the place was deserted, and the famous paintings hanging on the walls were "looking" at her.
She tried to leave through an exit, but was blocked by a sword-wielding man.
"You can't leave," the sword-bearer said.
"Are you...Eugène?" Pomona asked. She was not sure because he was still a teenager.
He said nothing.
"Are you controlled by Hathor?" Pomona asked.
"No, I owe her a life." Ou Ren raised his sword and said, "Go back."
"How could you..." Before she could finish her words, she felt movement behind her, and with a sudden spin, she returned to the splendid dance floor.
By this time the opening dance had ended, everyone was clapping, and some people were joining in pairs.
"Okay, just do as you say." He said with a smile.
"What did I say?" she asked subconsciously, but he thought she was talking nonsense and left the dance floor to talk to an old man.
