Chapter 629 The Irish on the Shannon River
Residents on the island of Ireland are also very uncomfortable. The impact of potato late blight is much greater than imagined.
Due to the reduction in potato production, the prices of other crops have skyrocketed, and families with a small amount of savings have found themselves unable to afford those expensive crops.
The food that Franz asked the church to leave on the island of Ireland could only lighten their burden, but could not save everyone.
As a result, some people started to pay attention to the things in the cellar, and some people took them as their own and truly changed their "identity" and "destiny".
But the price is to sacrifice other people in the village. At this moment, the ugliness of human nature is fully exposed. People were robbing each other of things in the cellars. It was bloody and cruel between villages and villagers.
The result was that all Franz's previous plans were wiped out. Instead of benefiting from the contents of the cellar, people suffered more severe losses.
This was something Franz had not expected. He thought everything was too simple.
In fact, it is difficult to work together in the same boat without restraint.
But what is surprising is that the British chose to turn a blind eye to everything that happened on the island of Ireland. The living and dead seemed to not exist.
Even after some reporters published what happened in Ireland in newspapers, the attitude of the British government and mainstream media was that maybe something happened there, but no action should be taken until the matter was clear.
During the debate in Congress, many members claimed that the laws of the market are sacrosanct! Violation of it will inevitably lead to punishment, which is particularly deterrent for Britain, which has suffered two consecutive economic crises.
Although Robert Peel preferred to rely on market rules and time to solve problems, he actually made some suggestions, such as amending the Corn Laws.
Although his proposal received unanimous support from industrial and commercial capitalists, it encountered collective opposition from agricultural capitalists (farmers) and aristocrats. The latter held high the banner of free trade, and even the British Prime Minister was unable to do anything about it.
In the end, Parliament only passed a proposal to seek solutions from society. Those who solved the problems on the island of Ireland at this time would be rewarded with 50 pounds and a silver medal.
That's right, it's fifty pounds, and fifty pounds is only enough for those officials to rent a cheap carriage for a year. If it's a luxury carriage, it may not even be enough for a quarter.
The British media did not pay much attention to this matter. Among them, the "London Times" commented on it:
"The Celts on the Shannon River should be like the Reds on the Manhattan River! In order to prevent them from wasting some food, the government should be like the Americans!"
Let me tell you here that the red people on the banks of the Manhattan River refer to the indigenous people of the United States, the Indians. The most useful policy of the U.S. government is the "Scalping Act."
In 1814, the U.S. government officially promulgated reward regulations to reward brave men who scalped Indians. A male scalp was awarded $100 and a female scalp was awarded $50. This eventually evolved into today's Indian Removal Act.
But the world is not all bad people.
Queens Village, Southern Ireland.
Witnessed by the most powerful men in the village, the village chief opened the cellar door, then took out two large bags of grain and began to distribute them "evenly" to everyone.
In fact, women, children and the elderly could only receive half of the rations of adult men. This made Scathach Jennings very unhappy because there were too many women in her family and her eldest brother was often away from home.
As the door was slammed shut, the chains were once again surrounding it, and with a click of the lock, everyone began this month's mass.
Since there was no priest, the villagers had to perform baptisms themselves. It's just that in the eyes of the children, this is as happy as the Water Splashing Festival, and they have no sense of crisis at all.
The worried adults seemed to be infected by this emotion, and they no longer frowned. Perhaps the cellar gave everyone hope.
But everyone knows that the food inside cannot be endless. People will eat up the food one day. Even if they don't eat it up this year, what about next year?
But relatively speaking, they were very lucky, because some villages had starved to death, and some even killed each other for food. What was even worse was that some villages did not have such cellars at all.
Scathach's sleep has been very bad recently because her eldest brother has no idea what he is planning all day long, and Wynn doesn't feel like a good person.
"But how to remind Patrit?" she mused.
However, Scathach soon met his eldest brother again. After all, it is not easy to be a "wild child", especially on the island of Ireland at this time, the vole problem that has troubled the British big shots for many years is about to be solved. .
Patrit's face and hair must have been specially arranged, but the tattered clothes on his body still betrayed him, and he shrank and waited for his sister's rescue.
Fortunately, the elders in the village did not forget his share. It is obvious that his parents deliberately gave Patrit's share to Skahaqi.
"Hero, are you hungry?" Scathach joked.
"Stop being so pretentious, I haven't eaten for three days. If you don't let me eat anything, I'm going to starve to death," Patrit said.
Scathach continued, shaking the pancake in his hand: "Then why don't you go home?"
Although it is called pancake, it is actually made of flour and grass seeds. It has a strange color and taste.
But Patrit still grabbed it and started chewing it. He didn't know whether it was because the pancake was too hard or his gums were loose due to lack of nutrition. The pancake was soon stained with blood.
"Why don't you go home? Your parents are very worried about you. You are the eldest son and you want to inherit this family!"
Patrit was sniffing and eating pancakes.
“Irish men must keep their word!”
Scathach was not moved by the other party's speech at all, but asked instead.
"Then the oath you said before to protect your family doesn't count?"
Patrit was speechless.
"I will protect my family silently"
Patrit was obviously a little weak, so Scathach took the opportunity to continue.
"You can't even take care of yourself! Who else can you protect? Come home with me!"
"I'll be embarrassed if I don't!"
"You've blown a lot of lies, everyone knows what kind of person you are!"
Scathach picked up Patrit and walked towards home.
But in fact there are not many places like Queen Village, but this level of despair seems to be something the Irish are used to.
Compared to the following years, Ireland at this time can even be described as calm.
O'Connell continued his campaign, and at Borrez he was again given a warm welcome. The people were so hungry that they had no strength, and there was no green flag symbolizing Ireland.
But those people still shook the branches vigorously, as if to welcome the coming "victory".