Chapter 3300 King Mesa’s Garden (9)

When people travel interstellar, when the spacecraft is far away from the earth, the message sent from the earth is chasing the spacecraft. Unless the speed of the spacecraft is lower than the speed of light, the light speed information sent by the later spacecraft cannot catch up with the earth in any case.

However, when people arrive at their destination and turn back, they will go in the same direction as the information they received, and the frequency of the messages they receive will become faster and faster, creating a feeling of time accelerating.

When Georgiana headed towards Milan, logically she should have received the news earlier than Paris, but in fact the news came from behind her.

She was not surprised that Venice had tried to bribe some of the Directory's men with money orders to side with Venice and remove Napoleon. Napoleon intercepted some express messages in Milan. Not only was he not plotted against him, but he actually had the list of bribe recipients in his hand.

She estimated that this letter was intercepted by Murat and sent to Napoleon. It had not had time to be sent to the north of the Alps, otherwise it would have been Dubois' people who sent it.

Fouche always does his own things first, and then things related to himself. Everything is prioritized.

When the bells stopped ringing, Georgiana asked Osana to call her guardian, Bougainville.

She didn't have to wait long before Bougainville arrived, not wearing a navy uniform.

She turned over the letter she had just received and showed it to Bougainville.

"Leon told me that there is a situation in Gibraltar. What is it?"

Bougainville did not read the letter at all and began to report directly.

There were many countries that occupied Cape Town, and the British territory was actually not the largest. However, when the French Republic occupied the Netherlands in 1795, William of Orange had to flee to the United Kingdom. He asked the United Kingdom to prevent France from occupying the Dutch colony, so the British army sent troops Captured Cape Town.

However, not all Dutch supported the British occupation. The first thing they faced was the rebellion of Dutch peasants on the eastern border. In Cape Town at that time, in addition to Charles Bennett, the governor, there was also a general named Francis Dundas. He received an order to go to Cape Town in 1796 and became the commander-in-chief and commander of the troops. The first British Governor-General of South Africa.

However, he had been garrisoned in Scotland before that, and Charles Bennett was very familiar with the local situation, so after the chaos initially subsided, he became the second Governor-General of South Africa.

Charles tried to manage South Africa in a civilized way. He introduced many iron plows, which helped the development of agriculture. The British taxation was also very relaxed, but the Dutch introduced grapes.

After the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, the British returned the colony of Cape Town to the Netherlands, and General Francis stayed on and became the new governor. His successor, General Hill, had just returned from Egypt and had participated in the siege of Toulon in 1793, when Napoleon was still a captain.

Gibraltar was ceded in order to get Britain to recognize that a branch of the Bourbon dynasty had replaced Habsburg as the king of France, but the Spaniards have always been worried about this. Before the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, the Anglo-Dutch forces bombarded Gibraltar and occupied it. The British immediately built a fortress there and dug many tunnels in the "Big Rock".

Spain and Britain went to war again in 1727, and nearly 40,000 people were sent to retake Gibraltar. However, the British garrison on the island only had 1,500 people, which later increased to 5,000. After five months of hard fighting, Spain was defeated and Gibraltar continued to belong to Britain.

From then on, there was no war in Gibraltar for 50 years, until the great siege in 1779, but the British still defended Gibraltar with a disparity of 7,500 people to 60,000.

During this time, tunnels and fortifications became more complex and stronger, but this also resulted in no place to store daily necessities in the tunnels, let alone entertainment.

There is nothing there, including fresh water. Fortunately, the temperature difference between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean is large, making it humid and rainy. The defenders used natural rocks to collect rainwater.

Being stationed there when there is no war is very boring. Even if you want to sneak away to a nearby town, it is impossible. If you don't speak Spanish, your identity will be exposed quickly.

Whether it was to pay off debts or for other reasons, Olaha opened a bar for the soldiers as a way of entertainment for them. Even though everyone knew about his past, he was still very popular.

The new governor, Charles Bennett, wanted them to live a "healthy life," and the soldiers derided his music as being for the island's monkeys. One day, Charles cut off the drink supply in the bar. Unless the garrison could recite his Catch-69 with a "clear head", the bar would not be open.

This method worked, and most people memorized the military rules, but they became increasingly dissatisfied with the new "manager."

In addition to cooperating with the Secretary of the Navy to relocate the material stack in Gibraltar, Bennett also wanted to build a seawater desalination system. Its structure is not complicated and does not require other power sources. It only needs the sun and a glass funnel. But no one did it at all, and someone even smashed the glass funnel while no one was paying attention.

When Bennett wanted to investigate, someone in the garrison said that monkeys had thrown stones, and his words caused a roar of laughter.

When news of Spain's intention to retake Gibraltar reached the Admiralty, General Thomas Trich, who had participated in all the battles of the Seven Years' War and the Great Siege of Gibraltar, was supposed to replace Bennett, but the problem now was not to replace the general.

The fortifications and tunnels inside the Rock of Gibraltar are complex and take some time to get used to. Trici is familiar with it, but the soldiers who change defense may not be familiar with it. If they don't change defense, they can only wait for these drunkards to wake up. The effect of replacing Trici will not be much better than Bennett. Besides, the Spaniards refuse to admit that they There is an intention to retake Gibraltar.

Legend has it that during the great siege, one night, the Spaniards climbed up the cliff from the cliff and planned to attack the naval base at the foot of the mountain. The British did not notice the Spanish move in time, but the monkeys living on the boulder did. In the middle of the night, the monkeys started to attack. The screams awakened the defenders, causing the Spanish sneak attack to fail.

Henceforth these monkeys were like the crows of the Tower of London, and as long as they were there British rule over Gibraltar continued.

"Monkey again?" Georgiana said, looking at Bougainville.

"The Spanish believe that the British intend to expand the territory of Gibraltar to Torre Nueva, and that the families of the Gibraltar garrison will also live there in the future," Bougainville said.

"What is that place?"

"The Moors built the lookout in the 16th century. The most important thing is that there is a village nearby with fresh water." Bougainville replied.

Georgiana had nothing to say.

Hogsmeade is actually not that interesting, but for children in the castle, a trip to Hogsmeade is worth looking forward to. Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks are always crowded.

The school had received numerous complaints about Butterbeer, and Minerva even had Pomona empty the cellar because parents felt "it shouldn't be sold to children."

Then Dumbledore helped Mrs. Rosta turn the wine and bitter hops in butterbeer into a sweet taste. So is butterbeer without the bitterness of wine and hops still "beer"?

"Thank you for telling me this," Georgiana whispered.

"You're welcome." Bougainville stood up. "I also want to thank you."

"Thank me for what?" she asked inexplicably.

"They were betting on when you would ask," Bougainville said with a smile. "Now I win."

She watched Bougainville leave.

But she was relieved after thinking about it.

The previous official language was Latin, and no matter how boring it was, all nobles had to learn it.

Latin was now used only when naming newly discovered plants and animals, until after the Treaty of Utrecht, the Holy Roman Empire "recognized" French as the official language, replacing Latin.

Including Georgiana's British passport, it was all written in French, and the drink menu given to guests at the opening ceremony of London City Airport in the 20th century was also written in French.

On a dilapidated building in the Alps, it was written in French that "the devil is dead". At that time, those French people were going to participate in the War of Spanish Succession, but unfortunately they got lost in the mountains.

Without a guide, Napoleon would not have been able to cross the St. Bernard Pass and participate in the Battle of Marengo.

In the 20th century there was a concept called the Tulip Age. When tulip fever occurred in the Netherlands, the Turks were unaware of it, even though they had many tulips in their palaces.

From 1718 to 1730, another form of "tulip fever" appeared in the Ottoman Empire during this period. There is a tapestry in the Tuileries Palace that describes the scene of the Turkish envoy's visit to France in 1721, when Louis X Five greeted them.

Georgiana didn't understand why things from the old palace were still there, and the equerry who accompanied her on the tour couldn't explain why.

Then she stopped caring, like so many people who passed by the Barnabas Teaches the Troll to Dance tapestry.

She then rang the bell, summoning Osana to bring in the next person.