Short video spoiler history: The beginning of modern warfare

Chapter 165 Black Tea
[The theory of evolution has influenced countless people, but Darwin, who proposed the theory of evolution, has no descendants.]

[His 10 children either died young or had mental problems and lost their fertility. Was all this really the price that those extreme Christians paid for shaking the authority of God?]

[Darwin's eldest son William, second son George, third son Francis, fourth son Leonard, and fifth son Reilus all had one or more marriages, but all ended in tragedy because they could not give birth to offspring. The fourth daughter Elizabeth was born with mental illness and never married.]

[Even Darwin himself had his faith in science shaken after his beloved daughter Anne died of scarlet fever]

[In order to explore the cause of his child's misfortune, Darwin began to look up his family tree, and soon he found a clue: starting from his grandfather's generation, his family had been engaged in close-kin marriage for four generations, and Darwin was one of them. His wife Emma was also his cousin.]

[Among the 62 family members who married close relatives, 38 died young or were infertile, a number far higher than that of family members who did not marry close relatives]

[Our current definition of consanguineous marriage includes three generations of direct and collateral blood relations, including parents, grandparents, grandparents, etc., as well as children, grandchildren, grandchildren, cousins, aunts, nephews, and nieces.]

After finding the possible reason of inbreeding, Darwin began to verify his hypothesis with experiments. In 1876, through multiple experiments, Darwin discovered through plant mating that compared with plant hybridization, plants produced by self-pollination not only had a lower survival rate, but also had worse quality seeds and fruits.

[When the same scene occurs in humans, it is not difficult to explain why the child mortality and disease rates in the Darwin family were so high. But at that time, inbreeding was considered a good way to ensure the purity of blood.]

In front of the Fengtian Palace, everyone was in danger. Many people began to reflect on whether their families had similar inbreeding. In fact, according to the range given by Tianmu, the entire Ming Dynasty had
Because cousin marriage is so common.

On the one hand, it is the idea of ​​strengthening the relationship between relatives, and on the other hand, it is the local clan's attempt to consolidate power and ensure that "the water does not flow to outsiders". For example, if your cousin is handsome/virtuous, it is basically because they have liked him since childhood and know him well.
In addition, there are transportation issues. For example, the road permit system restricts people to a certain area, especially ordinary farmers, who live in a few villages around them and occasionally go to the county town. They have rarely left the county town in their lives, and the only time they went out of the county town was probably to perform corvee labor.
Moreover, people from the same village and with the same surname, especially those with the same surname, cannot marry. The narrow social circle exacerbates this situation.
Or, for parents who want to find a wife for their son, brothers and sisters are always easier to please than outsiders. Brothers and sisters' children are also easier to please. They are all family members and there is no need for so much calculation.
In short, due to various reasons, marriage between cousins ​​is really very common.

Even if we only look at the past royal families, this situation is more common. For example, Emperor Taizong of Tang took Yang, the daughter of Emperor Yang of Sui, as his concubine. Yang was his cousin. The two sons born to them, Li Ke, the Prince of Wu, and Li Yin, the Prince of Shu, were typical mentally retarded and could not speak until they were four or five years old.
Liu Ji's heart skipped a beat. His wife, Fu, was unable to bear children. Could this be the case?

But on second thought, the relationship was not right. Fu was his mother's distant niece and was not among the three generations of collateral relatives listed by Tianmu.

The group of copyists were all inexplicably shocked by this custom that had lasted for thousands of years. How many innocent children had been implicated by this?

[The famous Queen Victoria married her cousin. Her youngest son was a hemophiliac, and her second and youngest daughters were carriers of the hemophilia gene. The Queen's hemophilia gene, along with her many descendants, polluted the gene pool of the entire European royal family.]

[This indirectly led to the deaths of Prince Frederick of Germany and Prince Valdemar of Prussia due to excessive blood loss from hemophilia. Even the last crown prince of Russia carried Queen Victoria's hemophilia gene.]

[Research data now shows that the incidence of genetic diseases in children born to close relatives is 150 times higher than that of non-close relatives. The incidence of albinism is 13.5 times higher than that of non-close relatives, and congenital ichthyosis is 63.5 times higher. In addition, it can also cause problems such as intelligence and congenital malformations (polydactyly or syndactyly).]

[The Habsburg dynasty, which had the most prominent rule and the largest territory in European history, suffered the most. The Habsburg dynasty was a huge dynasty supported entirely by close blood ties. In its heyday, the Habsburg dynasty once ruled most of Europe for nearly a hundred years.]

[However, long-term inbreeding also brought a devastating blow to the Habsburg family. The gene pool of the entire family was very disordered, and various genetic diseases emerged one after another, constantly eliminating the population of the Habsburg family.]

[The most famous feature of this family is the Habsburg's jaw, which is deformed and protrudes forward. This feature has become a characteristic of the Habsburg family. It is a bit like the portrait of our Ming Taizu handed down.]

[There are many examples of close relatives, such as the royal family who live a good life, Egypt's Pharaoh Tutankhamun, etc., I will not list them one by one, and my country has also banned close relative marriage since 1980]

Zhu Yuanzhang was shocked. The dangers of consanguineous marriage were also spread among the people, but because of the mentality of taking chances and the serious situation of infant mortality, those children with congenital defects often died prematurely due to various diseases, which made this phenomenon seem not so serious. Now there is specific data for comparison, it is simply horrifying.

As early as one year before he ascended the throne, he ordered Li Shanchang, Yang Xian, Fu Lin, Liu Ji, Tao An and others to formulate the "Great Ming Law", which detailed the marriage system and stipulated that marriages between people with the same surname, aunts, uncles, and cousins ​​were prohibited. Violators would generally be treated as adultery, and the officiant and both the man and the woman would be punished with a cane and forced to "divorce".

This law was indeed enacted, but the implementation is predictable.
"Now with the publicity and explanation of Tianmu, this phenomenon should be alleviated." Zhu Yuanzhang comforted himself. In fact, this situation has a history of thousands of years among the people and it cannot be banned in a short period of time. He can only hope that the authority of Tianmu can alleviate these situations.

As for the royal family, he had already made plans. In the future, he did not want close relatives to marry, and he also did not want them to marry the daughters of court ministers. Of course, this was mainly to prevent external relatives from interfering in politics.

The atmosphere in Hexing Tea and Snack Shop is somewhat solemn.

Manager Wan was full of sorrow. Unfortunately, his wife was his aunt's daughter, and his cousin.
Now she has three children, the eldest son is nine years old, the second daughter is seven years old, and the youngest son is three years old and can't speak yet. Now his wife is pregnant at home.
Listening to the intermittent sighs in the store, he felt a little depressed. It is true that family members know their own business.
Cases like his were not uncommon in Jinling City, and were even less common in the twelve provinces of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the harm of inbreeding left a deep impression in people's minds.

Similarly, there are many couples who feel fortunate. Only parents feel sad and regretful about the diseases and defects their sons and daughters suffer due to inbreeding.

At the same time, in another time and space, Li Shimin was thinking of the name "Li Ke" in his heart, and he felt complicated for a moment.

"The higher the society, the narrower the scope of marriage. The major families have been intermarrying for generations, and the quality of the population is far inferior to that of the common people. This is the case all over the world."

What is hemophilia?

"A recessive genetic disease, the main manifestation is coagulation disorder. If the skin is broken and bleeding, the bleeding will continue. "

"Be content, Darwin is still normal. 4 generations of inbreeding, terrible."

[No wonder Europeans only drink black tea, because they can't drink authentic green tea]

[For a long time, European tea had to be imported from China, but the sea transportation time was very long, and the shelf life of green tea was only one year. Therefore, the green tea sent to Europe generally had problems of mold and deterioration, and the tea fragrance was only one tenth of it.]

[It was not until around the Song Dynasty that my country mastered the tea fermentation technology, and Wuyi Mountain black tea was not produced until the late Ming Dynasty. Because of the fermentation process, the shelf life of black tea is usually more than two years, so the tea sent to Europe at that time was basically black tea]

[In addition, the over-industrialization of the UK has led to an extremely poor local environment. The acidity of rainwater is very high, and the taste of drinking water is also very bad. When brewing Tieguanyin or Oolong tea with such water, the taste is astringent and difficult to swallow. On the contrary, it can produce a rich aroma when brewing black tea.]

[Early British black tea came from China. Since the East India Company did not trade directly with China, all tea was purchased through the Netherlands, which made tea a scarce commodity.] [In the 17s, the price of tea was 60-6 times that of coffee. The British also tried to grow tea trees until they successfully planted them in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and then they gradually reduced the import of Chinese black tea.]

[The basic process of making black tea is also very simple. First, the unopened young leaves are picked in the early morning or evening, and then the tea leaves are withered. There are two types of withering: dry withering (spreading the tea leaves in a hot pan and frying them) and steam withering (steaming and dehydrating them).]

【Then comes rolling, the purpose of which is to destroy the cell walls of the tea leaves, allowing the cell fluid inside the tea leaves to come into contact with the air and promote oxidation reactions. Then comes the fermentation process, which is to wait for the polyphenols in the tea leaves to react with the oxygen in the air, which usually takes 2-3 hours, and then it can be dried.】

Jinling City.

The gloomy atmosphere just now was slightly broken, and many tea merchants were overjoyed.

Most people have never been to the legendary Europe, and have never seen many Europeans in their lives.

If the black tea making process had been developed earlier, tea trade with Europe could have been launched. More markets are always good.

Nowadays, there is a new process for making black tea, and its taste is very different from green tea, and its shelf life is longer. For people who don’t like green tea, it may be another choice, and the tea market may be able to expand further.

Green tea is divided into pre-Qingming tea, pre-rain tea and spring tea.

Generally speaking, the best green tea has a bright green and clean appearance, a fresh and rich aroma, and a refreshing, mellow and sweet taste.

Although Tianmu does not have the taste of black tea, I think that if it is high-quality tea, the taste of the tea should not be bad.

Tang Dynasty, Chang'an City.

Li Shimin and others frowned as they watched Tianmu brew tea with hot water. "This later tea-making method is quite strange. Don't they boil tea?"

This is very different from the way of brewing tea that is popular today.

To make tea nowadays, the tea leaves are first roasted evenly over a low fire, and then ground into tiny particles, with the goal that the ground tea powder is neither too coarse nor too fine.

Next, the tea is put into a paper bag (tea bag), and then the "three boiling" tea brewing technique is used. Finally, the tea soup is boiled to produce foam.
The process is quite complicated.

Everyone noticed that the simple way of making tea (putting tea leaves in, pouring water) shown on the dome really made the process much more convenient. There were even tea bags that solved the problem of eating tea leaves.

So they all wondered, "Is this delicious?"

"The process is different. The production of black tea has two more steps, rolling and fermentation. Perhaps the taste is really different." Because tea is a part of life and a drink that celebrities drink in their daily conversations, everyone can tell you about it.

"And the tea soup it brews is red in color and mellow in color. It looks pretty good." Wei Zheng also said. To be honest, the ruby-red color of the tea really adds a lot of points compared to the foamy tea soup.

Wei Zheng prefers black tea, if the taste is really good.

"During the production and brewing process, no oil, salt or spices are added, which may better highlight the original tea aroma."

"I really want to try it!" A group of people were itching to try it. The literati loved tea and liked to study different ways of drinking it, as can be seen from the simple method of brewing tea to the development of a series of tea-fighting cultures. Now they were excited to see the prey and of course they wanted to give it a try.

"Tea is a very strange thing. When I was young, I would not drink a single sip, even if I was thirsty, I would just have a bottle of beverage. When I got older, I started to like tea!"

《Cold Fact: When tea was first introduced to Europe, Europeans boiled the tea leaves in water, poured out the water, and then dipped the tea leaves in spices to eat [covering face]》

"When I was on a business trip in the UK, I often saw people eating like this. Some even used fresh tea leaves as a dish. They simply boiled the fresh tea leaves with hot water, rinsed them with cold water, mixed them with salad and ate them together [covering face]"

"It's horse urine at room temperature, but it tastes like Guojiao [dog head] when it's chilled"

"I've worked in a beverage factory. In fact, the black tea used is black tea powder, and the green tea used is inferior green tea leaves."

"I only like jasmine tea. It has a lingering fragrance after drinking it, and it is better than water as a drink. The taste is not monotonous. I would also like to add some fine bran if I drink plain water all the time."

Jinling City, in front of Fengtian Palace.

Everyone was a little confused. How could it be possible to only eat tea leaves and not drink tea?
"A new version of Buying the Casket and Returning the Pearl, right?"

"If I were a tea merchant, I would not sell to them no matter how high the price is!" Everyone was at a loss. This was simply
“Maybe it’s a different cultural custom?”

"You're overthinking it. It's just that wild boars can't eat fine bran."

"."

(End of this chapter)