King's Landing in France

Chapter 4 The ex-serfs who have nothing to do with them

An Ning originally thought that she would be looked down upon by German-speaking commoners for water when she was wearing a French military uniform.

But unexpectedly, the common people did not show even the slightest bit of hostility when they saw An Ning.

When An Ning was approaching the farmhouse, an old farmer came out of the house carrying a hoe. The old man stopped when he saw An Ning, put the hoe on the ground, looked at An Ning with a dull face, and waited quietly.

Although the French army fought a big battle with the German-speaking army just one night away from here yesterday, the old farmer still just looked at An Ning dumbly, without showing any hatred at all.

An Ning was a little confused for a moment, because the memory in his mind showed that the French army drove straight into the German-speaking area, and then was beaten up by Frederick the Great's Prussian army.

It should be like this. For the people in the German-speaking area, the French army should be an invading army.

Could it be that it is really because it is the 18th century and the modern nation-state has not yet been established, so the people do not have national consciousness?

But An Ning vaguely remembered a saying that since the Hussite War, Europe has begun to awaken national consciousness.

The Hussite war was a matter of the 15th century, and it is now the [-]th century.

It stands to reason that An Ning should be facing the nationally awakened Prussian peasants at this moment, but this is not the case.

In any case, the old German farmer saw the silver coins that An Ning brought out, and immediately agreed to sell bread and water. He even asked An Ning if he needed an ox cart and a driver—probably himself.

After a while, the old farmer took out the black bread from his room according to An Ning's request, then pointed to the well in the yard and said, "I want to fetch the water myself."

At this time, a woman with patches all over her body came out of the house, hurried to the well, fetched a bucket of water, and then took a ladle and handed it to An Ning.

An Ning took the water ladle, took the bread and went back to the bushes at the door.

"Come on, let's eat."

"I'm starving. I only ate breakfast yesterday. I thought I'd have a celebration banquet in the evening after winning the battle." The young master sighed, took a big sip from the water ladle, and then spit the water on the ground. , "This water is bitter!"

An Ning took a sip from the water ladle, it was indeed bitter and tasted like earth.

The young master picked up the bread again, broke off a piece, stuffed it into his mouth, and immediately spat it out: "Damn! There are sawdust! They purposely gave us bad things to eat!"

An Ning shook her head: "Master, I don't think so. They don't care who wins the battle between us and Frederick, at least I think so. They are just a group of farmers, and they don't care who their king is against."

I don't know why, but An Ning has such confidence, probably because of the extraordinary indifference shown by the old farmer during the conversation just now.

In addition, An Ning now remembered that she also ate this kind of bread with sawdust when she was at home.

Maybe the common people in this era eat this stuff.

As for An Ning himself, he ran away with the young master all night, and he was almost starving, so he couldn't care less about it.

Eating the bread with sawdust, An Ning couldn't help but think of the famous scene in Ji Xiaolan's "Iron Teeth and Bronze Teeth": He Shen and the adults said to Ji Xiaolan: Have you ever seen the hungry people? The hungry people are not human anymore. Bran is a good thing. It is enough to eat them.

An Ning is not yet at the point of competing with the animals for feed, but it is almost the same. The hard bread with sawdust still tastes quite delicious in his mouth.

Of course, it is also possible that An Ning's body has become accustomed to this coarse grain.

However, Klotz, the young master of the Tollestel family, was not so lucky. He tried to take another bite of bread, but vomited it all out again.

"This bread has a strange smell..." Crotz complained, "How do you eat this kind of thing..."

An Ning: "Actually, the bread supplied by the military is not much better than this. It tastes like wood. If you want it to be easier to swallow, you can only throw it into vegetable soup and soak it."

An Ning recalled the memories of serving in the army that belonged to others, and then advised: "You should eat a little. If there is nothing in your stomach, you will have no strength to walk. If you are overtaken by the Prussians, you can only be a prisoner honestly." .”

In fact, An Ning felt that it was okay for the nobles to be captives. After all, they were nobles, and the Prussian side would treat them kindly if they captured them. At most, they would just ask the Duke of Orleans for a ransom.

However, Crotz shook his head: "I can't be a prisoner, and everyone in the club will look down on me!"

"Club?" An Ning couldn't help frowning, this was a very unfamiliar vocabulary for Andy Frost, the son of a cobbler.

After all, Andy Frost only had the little knowledge he had learned in church Sunday school when he was a child, and he could only recognize the little words on his order.The profound vocabulary of the club has nothing to do with the big boss of the cobbler's family.

But An Ning is different now. Not only does he know the word club, but he also knows that it is something that has become popular in France recently.

With the spread of Enlightenment ideas in France, France is now in a state of contention among a hundred schools of thought, and the emerging intellectual class has formed various clubs around different trends of thought in Paris.

When the Great Revolution broke out, these clubs were the embryonic form of various factions.

For example, the Jacobins were originally a "Breton Club" composed of a group of Brittany intellectuals, and later gradually evolved into the Jacobins Society of Friends of Liberty and Equality.

It seemed that Klotz had also joined a certain club, and being captured on the battlefield would embarrass him in front of his fellow club members.

Damn it, An Ning thought, I risked my life to save you, only to save your reputation in the club.

You people who don't have to worry about being abused can just bear it honestly, you bastards.

Of course, An Ning didn't say that.

He had already eaten the half loaf of bread he had been assigned, but his still empty stomach made him think about the half loaf of bread in Crotz's hand.

An Ning: "My little master, if you can't eat the food of the vulgar, give it to me, so that I can carry you on my back when I run away."

Crotz glanced at the bread in his hand, with a determined expression: "No, I want to eat, I must return home alive. I have troubled you too much."

With a determined face, he tore off a piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth.

As he chewed the bread, Crotz's face was like that of a fakir on a pilgrimage.

At this moment, An Ning suddenly heard the sound of horseshoes.

He immediately stood up, gripped the saber he borrowed from Crotz, and stared warily at the direction from which the sound came.

The horse team arrived in a blink of an eye.

From a modern perspective, this group of cavalry seems to be poorly dressed, wearing half of their jackets and the other half as cloaks.

But An Ning knew that this was the standard attire of hussars.

The hussars originated in Hungary, and the first hussars in various countries were basically Hungarians, so they inherited the traditional costumes of Hungary.

The jacket that is half-drawn and half-drawn as a cloak is called pelisse, which is generally translated as "leather jacket", but when this word appears together with dolman, it refers to the traditional outfit of the Hungarians.

Because the hussars of all countries have this set of outfits, the hussars of different countries are generally distinguished by the color of their uniforms.

Through the colors, An Ning recognized this group as the hussars of the French army.

But An Ning didn't let up.

Because he knew that hussars generally had poor military discipline, and they might have killed An Ning as a deserter in order to plunder money.

(End of this chapter)