shadow of britain

Chapter 90 Do You Know Chinese?

On the barge on the Thames River, Arthur leaned against the edge of the railing and smoked a cigarette. Looking up at the two banks, he could only see concrete sewage pipes relentlessly discharging tons of domestic sewage into the river.

The pitch-black water is like a puddle of thick ink, with layers of viscous tar floating on the surface, almost all of these chemical pollutants come from the London Gas and Coke Company, headquartered in Westminster. .

Of course, in addition to tar, there are still some novelties that can often be seen on the river.

Like tattered clothes that are so dirty that they are almost unrecognizable, all kinds of rusty knives of suspicious origin, or all kinds of cosmetics and empty wine bottles that are mostly used.

Or, if you're unlucky, you might come across a corpse so decomposed that you can hardly identify its original identity.

All kinds of corrupt bacteria breed here, as long as a person with a normal mind would not like to stay here for a while.

But the Thames River is still flowing every day. In addition to the sailors who have to pass through here to unload at various docks in London, the dirty Thames River also supports many "river scavengers" who make a living by salvaging waste.

Although the Thames is dirty and rancid, these poor people cannot live without it.

Their daily livelihood depends on finding a little property from the corpse, or picking up some waste products that can be resold for recycling.

On the other side of the river, Arthur could see the shadow of the Tower of London standing in the distance through the foggy weather.

As a defensive fortress built in the period of William I, the Tower of London has been used for other purposes many times in its long history, such as castles, palaces, treasure houses, gunpowder stores, and mints. Of course, its most famous function is serve as a prison.

The most famous criminal ever imprisoned in the Tower of London was Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen who never married.

She was convicted of treason because of the suspicion of her sister Mary I.

But fortunately, since Mary I had no heirs, Elizabeth was finally appointed as her heir.

Elizabeth I thus became the only treasonous prisoner who was able to walk out of the Tower of London alive so far.

The other people imprisoned here are not as lucky as her.

The big figures who died here include at least 9 princes, queens, and archbishops, at least 33 dukes, marquises, and earls, in addition to dozens of low-level nobles such as barons and knights.

And the Tower of London is not always only for nobles, it treats nobles and commoners equally when it comes to executing people.

It's just that the way civilians die is relatively common, and they usually can only go to the gallows.

In order to highlight the uniqueness of the nobles, when the nobles were executed, the male nobles had to be beheaded with a long-handled axe, and the female nobles had to be burned on the stake.

But the nobles obviously don't like this special treatment very much.

Because during the execution process, there have been more than one endings where the executioner's ax was too blunt, so that there was no one-shot death.

In order to cooperate with the executioner's beheading action, sometimes the nobles even kept thinking about what posture to use to make it easier for the executioner to exert strength the night before the execution.

When it comes to how to kill people, the British aristocrats rarely envy France, the neighboring country across the strait.

Compared to being hacked to death by an axe, the semi-mechanized guillotine is indeed a great invention.

The improved guillotine, designed and accepted by King Louis XVI himself, is a stable and reliable genius idea.

This kind of thing, in the eyes of any British aristocrat, must shout out - Brilliant!

Jokes aside, but Tower Hamlets, where the Tower of London is located, has a reputation as bad as the Tower of London.

Even in the chaos of London's East End, Tower Hamlets can be called a heavyweight.

Just look at its precincts to get an idea of ​​what a region it is, Whitechapel, Ratcliffe, Hackney, Bethnal Green and the West India Docks, packed with fractious sailors from all over the world .

Male workers were concentrated in shipyards, ship repair yards, foundries, barrel factories, canvas factories, rope manufacturing and pulley factories, while women and child laborers worked in large numbers in garments, lace, shoemaking and other silk weaving industries.

But no matter how the types are divided, these industries cannot escape a summary-they are all labor-intensive industries.

These factories, coupled with the busy docks in all seasons, naturally gave birth to a large number of cheap taverns and a prosperous prostitution industry.

In Scotland Yard's daily report, these industries represent high population mobility and the resulting high crime rate.

Although Arthur often worries about the crime situation in Greenwich, every time he looks up at Tower Hamlets, which is just across the river, this complaint will be swallowed back into his stomach.

The law and order situation here was even so bad that Scotland Yard had to issue a warning to journalists who visited here.

Journalists who want to visit chaotic parishes such as Whitechapel must apply to Scotland Yard in advance and must be accompanied by at least two police officers to enter the area.

In the east of the Tower of London, where pirates and vagabonds were hanged, more than 30 poor Londoners have gathered, and they are still siphoning impoverished areas in the UK at an annual growth rate of more than [-]%.

And the destination that Arthur and the others are going to visit today is also an area under the jurisdiction of Tower Hamlets-Cambridge Heath.

As soon as they stepped off the barge, they could feel the hot breath coming from the pier.

It was June, the season when South African and South American wool arrived in London, and there were sweaty Lifu everywhere on the pier, as well as groups of sailors yelling to go ashore for fun.

According to the information provided by the counterfeit businessman Judd Martin, the criminal organization 'Cambridge's Little Brother' they were looking for on this trip was mixed in this vast crowd.

And to find these people, it is actually very easy to say.

Arthur winked at Tom and the others, and the plainclothes police officers from Greenwich District who followed him immediately understood and scattered into the bustling crowd.

And Arthur saw that everyone was already hiding, and then he opened his coat in a hurry, revealing the blue and white sailor uniform under the clothes, and checked the daggers, flintlock pistols and other weapons hidden in the coat.

Arthur took out a wide-brimmed sailor hat from his pocket and put it on top of his head after he was sure everything was in order.

He found an intersection with constant traffic, leaned against the red brick wall, took out the jug of gin in his pocket and took two gulps.

After two sips of wine, Arthur was slightly drunk, and his cheeks were covered with a blush.

At this time, it was the lunch break time of the factory, and many female workers from nearby textile factories rushed to the mobile stalls on both sides of the road, and began to snap up freshly baked lunches.

It is said to be lunch, but it is actually some fast food, and fish and chips are the best-selling items among them.

One is because the price is cheap, and the other is because it is simple and efficient to make.

After all, female workers usually only have 10 to [-] minutes of rest time, and they must solve their lunch problem as soon as possible.

Otherwise, if you fail to return to the factory in time to start work, it is very likely that today's wages for the day will be lost.

Just as the saying goes, if you don’t work, people will do it. There is a shortage of everything in the East End of London, but there is no shortage of labor.

The arrival of the female workers instantly drove the sailors, who hadn't seen a woman in months, into a frenzy. They whistled frivolously at the ladies, occasionally interspersed with a few obscene words.

Experienced sailors have already started to find pleasing girls and start talking business.

The female workers have long been familiar with such scenes. After all, such situations are staged almost every day at the docks, and it is impossible to avoid them.

Arthur also wanted to learn how the sailors whistled, but his technique was too rough, not only failed to arouse the interest of the ladies, but also drew ridicule from the sailors.

Based on Arthur's shallow understanding of linguistics, the sailors' mocking words included at least Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and authentic American English.

This is enough to illustrate the diversity of British sailor culture, and in the face of the ridicule of the sailors, Arthur also mercilessly fought back.

He pointed a middle finger at the sailors, and said in a correct voice: "Are you laughing at your mother? You idiot!"

Hearing this, Agares, who had been standing by the fried fish stand to steal something, couldn't help turning his head to look at Arthur.

The Red Devil exclaimed, "Damn it! Arthur, do you understand Chinese?"

(End of this chapter)