NOVEL FROG Chapter 59 Irish History
"Damn executioners -" After reading the letter, before Liang En could say a few words to express some of his feelings about the cruel war, Pierce cursed from the side.
"This regiment participated in the suppression of the Dublin Uprising." Seeing the puzzled look on Liang En's face, Pierce took out his cell phone and pressed a few times, then opened a page and said.
"Look, these are all records." Although Pierce is an Englishman by nationality, the other party always thinks of himself as an Irishman, just like Liang En always thinks of himself as a Chinese.
Therefore, Pierce did not have much favorable impression from the bottom of his heart towards this group of British troops who participated in suppressing the 1916 Irish Uprising.
Even though the Irish and the British are neighbors, they almost even speak the same language. But the relationship between them can be said to be similar to the relationship between China and RB. Various conflicts between the two sides have continued for hundreds of years.
The British rule over Ireland originated from the invasion and occupation of Ireland after Cromwell came to power in the 17th century. Under the British butcher's knife, 400,000 people died on the island of Ireland, which had only 1.5 million people at the time.
After that, the British plundered on a large scale the most important means of production that originally belonged to the Irish: land.
At that time, the British confiscated and auctioned 11 million acres of Ireland's total 20 million acres of cultivated land, through this method of direct plunder. The British took away more than half of the Irish land.
In addition, the other party used its identity as an invader to initiate large-scale land annexation. In 1648, Irish Catholics still owned 59% of the land in Ireland. By 1751, they only had 5% of the land in Ireland. %.
The evil things the British did in Ireland were not limited to land grabbing. Under their orders, Irish people did not have the right to vote, could not hire more than two apprentices, could not study abroad, and could not apply for degrees and scholarships at universities.
He could not hold public office, serve on juries, lawyers or teachers, could not attend parliament, was not allowed to buy land, and even the value of personal property was restricted, such as not owning a horse worth more than £5.
The British even completely controlled the import and export of the island of Ireland, forcing the Irish to export grain to Britain cheaply, while they could only eat potatoes with higher yields.
As a result, this monoculture caused the most tragic famine in Irish history. In the four years from 1845 to 1849, Ireland's population dropped from 8.17 million to 6.55 million, which should have been 9 million if normal growth had occurred.
Among the island's lost population, 1.5 million people immigrated to the Americas, while another 1 million people starved to death. But in the past few years, the island has continued to export grain to the British mainland.
Under such circumstances, the Irish naturally launched many uprisings in response to the British invaders. This was the case with the Easter Rising of 1916.
Unfortunately, due to internal differences among the rebels and the lack of weapons, the uprising only lasted five days and failed.
At first, the Irish were not very supportive of the uprising. But later British repression gradually aroused Irish patriotism and nationalism.
So in 1921, after the end of World War I, the independent Irish Free State recognized these insurrectionists as the pioneers of the Irish independence movement. Of course, the British troops who came to suppress them were naturally brutal colonial troops.
"Let's see what's in this tin box." After scolding the British for their barbaric aggression and colonial behavior, the two men carefully opened the tin box.
Because the outside of the tin box is also covered with a layer of wax, and the interlayer of the pillar is sealed very well. Therefore, there is no rust even on the tin box, and the contents in the box are naturally intact to this day.
"This is - gold!" After opening a newspaper, a golden metal ingot the size of a gasoline lighter fell on the table and made a snapping sound after colliding with the iron plate on the table.
It is not difficult to recognize that this is gold. On the one hand, it is the feeling of gold falling into the hand, and on the other hand, it is the dull sound made by the collision between this piece of metal and the table covered with a layer of iron sheet.
"Sure enough, those British robbers robbed wherever they went." Looking at the gold bar covered with trachoma on the surface, Liang En muttered in his heart.
Soon, Liang En and Pierce opened newspaper packages one after another, and a total of 28 metal ingots were taken out of those packages.
However, what is different from what I imagined is that only six of them are gold bars, and the remaining 22 are all silver bars that have begun to turn black.
But whether they are gold bars or silver bars, they do not have the purity and weight marks that regular precious metal ingots should have. Instead, they all look extremely rough, and some even have traces of jewelry or even gold teeth on them.
It seems that the number of such rough gold and silver bars cast during the chaos of the war should not be small. And the owners of these gold and silver are obviously unlikely to give away these treasures voluntarily.
Pierce's face suddenly became uglier after seeing these precious metal ingots clearly. Apparently, he also thought about what these things represented.
"There seems to be something down here." In this awkward atmosphere, Liang En discovered that the box had not been cleaned out, so he quickly changed the topic.
After cleaning the paper balls wrapped with precious metal ingots in the box, it seems that only the wooden board is left at the bottom, but if you look at the depth of the inside and outside of the box, you will find that the wooden board is just a compartment.
However, it turned out that there was also a layer of black wax inside the box, so the illusion caused by this color prevented the two people from noticing the interlayer at first.
Prying open the wooden board, what appeared in front of the two people was a piece of faded green silk that still smelled of gunpowder smoke, with many bullet holes and traces of being torn apart by external forces. On top of this piece of silk was a small book covered in cowhide.
"This is a photo album." After dimming the light of the desk lamp, Liang En slowly opened the book with his gloved hands. It turned out that there were a total of ten thin cardboard pages in this book, and each page had black and white photos on both sides.
These black-and-white photos all look a little blurry. After all, although cameras that could be carried around appeared a hundred years ago, the clarity of the photos taken at that time was only about this level of technology.
"This should be the process of this regiment going to Dublin to suppress the uprising." Liang En muttered quietly as he turned through the pages of photos.
The black-and-white photos showed Liang En and the two of them the brutal battle a hundred years ago. In the photos, there were British soldiers cooking food around a fire in the field, charging at the barricades, and the burning remains of buildings in the center of Dublin. Of course, there were also A group of people stood in front of the white cross and bowed their heads in silence.
"War, war has never changed." Liang En looked at these old photos and shook his head, and then read out the famous line. Because he felt that only this sentence could express what he wanted to say.
"This thing is-" After lamenting the cruelty of the war, Liang En also turned to the last page of the old photo album, and unexpectedly found some traces left by the regimental commander back then.