046 Ancient Castle

This passage through the ground is narrow, dark and smelly. Under Lin Xiao's inquiry, Xue Rui blushed and said that it was her summoner "Xiao Diu" who was found when drilling randomly in the ground, and Xiao Diu Diu was a round pangolin... Is it really a little girl? Otherwise, she would not have taken such a loving name. Lin Xiao confirmed another question.

"This passage leads to the backyard of a European castle..." Xue Rui wanted to speak but stopped and said softly, "It's a realistic era building similar to 'Magelan Wan Chai Pier'."

Realistic era style... Lin Xiao suddenly realized.

While talking, the two followed Xiao Di and finally came to the backyard of the "noble".

A tunnel jumped from the ancient Egyptian civilization on the banks of the Nile to the center of future civilization opposite the Mediterranean Sea, Europe around the first millennium. Unfortunately, what he saw and heard disappointed Lin Xiao, a guy who wanted to enjoy the medieval Europa style.

......

What is everyone's impression of medieval Europe?

Through the Grimm's Fairy Tales and Andersen's Fairy Tales that I read when I was a child, and the countless Hollywood blockbusters I saw as an adult, modern people should generally have such a romantic association with medieval Europe:

- a magnificent castle, a knight with bright armor, an enthusiastic lady, an elegant and shy princess, a witch in a black or purple robe, a vampire hiding in a cemetery, a werewolf who turned into a howling in the moonlight... Huh? It seems that something strange has mixed in?

To talk about the realistic Middle Ages, we must first exclude most of the fantasy products fabricated by later generations, such as witches, vampires and werewolves at the first time... God knows if these magical guys will open a space-time door in their fireplace. As long as they sprinkle a handful of strange powder on their bodies and drill their cat's waist into the fireplace, they can go to the Champs Elysees in Paris in the 21st century to buy new fashion?

The main theme of medieval Europe is knights and castles. In Lin Xiao's imagination, the owner of the medieval castle should live in a large and beautiful castle, holding a fragrant princess, go to the knight martial arts competition every year to stand out, and occasionally go to the countryside to find a few favorite farm girls to exercise ** rights, change The "winner of life" with an appetite to fight in the field...

But unfortunately, the ideal is very plump, but the reality is very skinny. The medieval aristocratic life is not as comfortable as imagined.

First of all, the castle, which alone disappointed Lin Xiao.

In essence, a castle is a military fortress, not a luxury palace, let alone a holiday villa to enjoy life... These strong fortresses guarded by rocks, surrounded by deep trenches, iron gates and suspension bridges, in medieval Europe, which is full of beacon fire, can indeed make uninvited guests peeping at the wealth of the aristocracy, but they may not necessarily make the owner comfortable to live.

To give a simple example:

In the decade of turmoil, all the large, medium and small cities of the Great Heavenly Dynasty were desperately building three defense fortifications and dug an unknown number of air-raid shelters, but after the reform and opening up, it seems that not many people who are greedy for cheapness have moved to live in it... Where can there be livable military fortresses under the world?

The main bad things about medieval castle life are as follows:

First of all, in order to facilitate long-term persistence, most of the castles are built in steep terrain, such as cliffs, mountaintops, and islands in the center of the river. But the synonym of steep terrain is inconvenient transportation. If your castle is located on the top of a rugged and dangerous mountain, it seems to overlook the majestic masses, but every time you go home, you will be exhausted. If there are not enough wells in the castle, it will be tiring to get water and transport food every day.

After seeing the surrounding environment clearly, Lin Xiaoxu looked aside and complained, "God knows how that tunnel was opened from the beach to the top of the mountain!"

Of course, these trivial chores are naturally done by servants. As long as the owners worry about how to let the carefully built luxury carriage drive through the winding and narrow mountain road, pull up the extremely inclined hillsides, and then get into their castle.

Secondly, in order to guard against the enemy's bows and arrows and stone throwers, window holes were rarely made on the outer wall of the medieval castle, so the interior of the castle was always dark and the sun was not exposed to the sun. In addition, the construction level at that time was not up, and there were inevitably some cracks in the walls and roofs, so it leaked heavily in the rain, which made the cleaning in the castle very problematic.

However, medieval Europeans also had a poor concept of hygiene, so those seemingly majestic castles are usually full of dust, cobwebs, bedbugs, fleas, mosquitoes, flies and household garbage, which are probably not as clean as the cardboard houses of contemporary Japanese tramps.

In addition, the large cloth in medieval Europe is still very expensive. In those poor places, generally only the owner of the castle is qualified to sleep in a bed, and others, even if they are knights and attendants, can only sleep on straw piles like animals, and by the way, they are bitten by bedbugs with their horses...

How did you ask Lin Xiao?

Because the entrance of the passage is under a pile of straw with the smell of feces, okay?

You said that the German castle you saw in the travel brochure is gorgeous and comfortable, and it is not so sad at all? You're probably talking about Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany!

That castle is a "royal theme park" built by the Grand Duke of Bavaria in the late 19th century. Many gorgeous structures such as spires are made of concrete. You can imagine it as a modern Disney park - the real medieval castle is not so cute!

In addition, there are some gorgeous castles in Europe that are often regarded as tourist attractions. In fact, they are also modern nobles who like style. They were built after the Renaissance, even in the 18th and 19th centuries, or were rebuilt on the original site of the old castle on a large scale, which can hardly be regarded as the real Middle Ages. Ji Castle can only be said to be "a palace that looks like a castle", which is almost the same as the castle in Disneyland - it has no practical significance and is limited to viewing.

In fact, in modern Germany and Austria, there are many descendants of the ruined nobles who inherited the ancient castles. They are afraid of avoiding the inheritance of these ancestors and are willing to transfer them for only 1 euro on the Internet, but there are still few people to care about them - medieval castles are mostly built in poor transportation and sparsely populated wilderness. Not to mention that there is no water or electricity, even if you have to drive around a supermarket, you have to run dozens of kilometers. No one wants to live except archaeologists.

Moreover, these castles are not only subject to a large inheritance tax, but also have high maintenance costs - not to mention how big the castle is and how complex the structure is, just let the construction team take the heavy construction materials and related machinery to cross the mountains and mountains to the castle. If you go there, you have to bring your own dry food, drinking water and generators... This labor cost is much more expensive than doing decoration in the city.

However, these castles are still historical and cultural heritage, which are recorded in government archives. If the descendants let them collapse or be randomly converted into warehouses, the relevant cultural relics department will come to you for a lawsuit...

In short, after inheriting the castle, whether you move in or not, you need to maintain the castle as it is. Any decoration that changes the appearance of the building, even if it only pulls a wire to install several air conditioners, must write an application and report a few months in advance. And all repair materials must also use special brand products from government-designated manufacturers, and the price must be expensive. And you have to hire professionals to carry out construction, and the labor cost is enough to frighten you... It is normal to spend more than 100,000 euros a year. If you are not a local tycoon, you usually can't afford it at all.

Looking at the wet, dark, dirty and smelly room around him, the corners of Lin Xiao's mouth twitched, "Sure enough, it's a realistic style, completely different from what I imagined~~"

Lin Xiao was quite disappointed. He even felt that this damn medieval Europe was not even as comfortable as the Wan Chai Pier. He couldn't wait to return to the Nile to take a bath and receive various shames such as shaving and urinating by the way...