Harry Potter’s Morning Light

   Chapter 2396 "Refining Love" (Part 2)

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

  The churches were full of people at that time, and many churches were hundreds of years old and were already crumbling. About 15,000 people were buried in the collapsed churches.

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

The disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow" that Georgiana watched did not show this scene. People have various reactions when facing disasters. Catholicism has many gorgeous religious jewelry, such as crosses inlaid with rubies. Even if the church is still at risk of collapsing, or there are many people wailing and crying for help, those who see wealth only see gold and precious stones.

The    earthquake started the fire, but it was quickly extinguished by the tsunami, panicking people eager to flee the city, and the roads outside the city were crowded.

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

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

  The king did not live in Lisbon at that time, but lived in the Mafra Palace, which was built by Joao V 28 kilometers away from Lisbon, which is very close to the royal hunting ground. There used to be a Franciscan monastery. The Spanish Wars of the Throne were over when Joao V ruled, and the Bourbons replaced the Habsburgs as kings of Spain.

   But the pretenders of the Austrian throne did not give up because of this, but invaded Spain with Portugal as a base, at which time France had entered Spain and occupied a large area. In short, in 1715, the two sides signed the "Utrecht Peace Treaty", which ended the conflict. The peace treaty stipulated that the British would acquire large territories in French America, and at the same time, the trade rights in the Spanish colonies were also guaranteed. Although Portugal was allied with the United Kingdom and was both victorious, it only benefited from the border areas of Brazil. The capture of Brazil's coastal areas and the ownership of both sides of the Amazon River Basin were recognized. At the same time, the border with Spain in southern Brazil was established, which eliminated Spanish attempt to occupy Sacramento.

During this period of time, the gold of Brazil poured into Portugal like a rolling wave. The gold enriched the king and the court, but Joao V used the money to build a very luxurious palace, not as his father and grandfather wished Restoring the provinces and the commercial ports robbed by the Dutch.

   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 great earthquake.

   Along with the old palace, the Royal Library in the city was also reduced to ruins, and the newly built Royal Opera House was also reduced to ruins. Despite Brazil's gold, tobacco taxes, port wine, salt and other income, the construction of these large-scale buildings planned by Joao V not only drained the national treasury, but also bankrupted the Lisbon city government.

In addition, Portugal also recruited 45,000 able-bodied workers from all over the country, working around the clock under the surveillance of 7,000 soldiers, but even so, Joao V failed to live in Mafra before his death. Palace day. It was built in 1750, probably using a lot of wood from northern Europe, so it was not damaged in a major earthquake.

The terrified King José had planned to move the capital from Lisbon to Coimbra, which was also carefully built by Joao V, but at the suggestion of the Marquis of Pombal, he agreed to rebuild Lisbon, after the disaster. In the third week, the Marquis of Pombal started a new urban plan.

The main designer of this reconstruction plan is named Santos. In the new urban plan, no matter whether the original house collapses or not, the owner 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 resold. In this way, many estates were transferred from the hands of the financially-strapped aristocracy to the owners of the property, and the newly built houses had to be built to a uniform standard, with cleverly designed elastic wooden supports inside to prevent new earthquakes in the future. occur.

  In addition to the interior, the exterior of the building is also regulated. The front facade of all houses adopts a straight line geometry. In order to prevent disunity, it is not even allowed to build flower ponds or place flower pots for dianthus flowers around the windows.

The newly built Lisbon is full of the unified vision of Pombar 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 in, most of them live in temporary houses outside the new city. inside. A new decree later saw all low bungalows demolished on the pretext that they did not meet building standards and were built at a time when building was prohibited.

  There are no tiles left in the old palace, and the palace square has been transformed into a "commercial square", and a large area of ​​land from the square to the seaside has been filled up, making it look empty and flat, which is spectacular.

  There is a bronze equestrian statue of the king on the square, and the horse's hooves step on the poisonous snake symbolizing the treacherous person. The new Lisbon street is a linear network of wide streets, with cars and horses in the middle and sidewalks on both sides, but what does this have to do with the poor who are about to be levelled and have no money to live in the new city?

In 1758, someone attempted to assassinate King Jose. In fact, it is also possible that the assassin's purpose was Marquis Pombal, but Pombal tried to convince the king that it was a conspiracy planned by the Jesuits and the old nobles, and used this opportunity to launch a **** suppression of the old nobles. More than 1,000 people were arrested.

  The Marquis of Pombal then pointed the finger at the Jesuits, the church property was confiscated, the order was declared illegal, and he was permanently expelled from Portugal.

  So the Portuguese royal family could not keep the good Mafra Palace, but lived in the temporary wooden palace. There used to be a church, which 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 Rabochel "parade" to Portugal. The royal family hoped that the banker would provide a loan to build the palace.

  The "collateral" is still diamonds produced in Brazil. If Hope had the right to trade diamonds in the past, then these diamonds are now theirs. He and his partner Henry Hope want to rebuild the diamond trade in Amsterdam.

The diamonds produced in Brazil in the 18th century were 2 million carats, which was 4 times that of India. As a result, the price of diamonds in Europe dropped by 75%. Anything is rare and precious, even gold and silver. Afterwards, it will become worthless to transport it as hard as the Spaniards to Europe.

But the buyer doesn't know, that is to say, the actual price of jewelry of 300,000 francs is only 25%, 75,000 francs is enough, and the remaining 225,000 francs can be understood as design fees, or as IQ tax, 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 on the crowns of Mughal and Persian kings diamond.

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

   But is it pink? Take a good look at this, even she hadn't noticed it herself.

That thing weighs like a lead put, not to mention she knows that diamonds can be synthesized artificially, just need to imitate the high temperature and pressure inside the earth, which 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 dress in her life was wearing a pearl hairpin, wearing a moonlight-colored dress, and attending a celebration ball because he improved the wolf poison potion. After the dance was over, what she regretted most was not staying outside more, but obediently returning to school immediately.

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

   Her clothes are not Cinderella's magic either, they will disappear when the time is up.

   And that idiot, he didn't even think of finding an excuse 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 there and cried a lot. Although she did not have the power to destroy the world like a volcano or an earthquake, she could cry a lot.

   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. Until then, just let her cry.

   (end of this chapter)