"everything will become better."
Whether in Rigal or Crescent Continent, when life is hopeless, people will always use these words to comfort each other.
Even if they are not ancient sayings that actually have magic power, these words are magic in another sense - the past and the present are tragic, then at least in the future, at least after experiencing all this, things will get better - Such simple words have the power to make you ignore reality for the time being and keep moving forward.
But do people really change, and does everything really always move in a better direction?
If you are a historian, a noble or a businessman who knows history, and you happen to have enough funds to buy those expensive books, you can read about the local customs and various major events and disasters over thousands of years.
When hearing such remarks, I am afraid I can only smile bitterly.
Forces interact, and when you punch someone, you feel the impact on your own hand—and so is human nature.
Will people get better?
Yes, there is no doubt about it.
Even nice people can turn bad.
This sounds like an extremely correct nonsense, but it explains countless puzzling phenomena - why are these people still unprepared when it happens again despite having experienced such a disaster?
Why do humans keep making the same mistakes over and over again?
Because of inertia, because of the environment, because of others.
A person's knowledge and understanding of the world is almost always completely finalized around the age of 25, and it is difficult to be completely changed after that. If you don't have the intention to change, the so-called "getting better" is temporarily forced by the current situation or imposed by others. Once the external factors disappear and you return to your original life, your original shape will be revealed - this is the so-called inertia.
The environment and other people are independent of each other but also closely related.
Moments of suffering create the strong, and the strong will bring stability and peace. If the peaceful years last, they will inevitably breed the weak.
Tolerance to the weak allows them to survive.
It is called "civilization".
This is certainly something to be proud of, but many people tend to misunderstand people who are harmless because they are "weak" and "powerless" as "kind".
This is where so-called "civilization" is most vulnerable.
When civilization reaches its peak, weak people who are incapable of seeing the nature of the problem or solving it can thrive safely and accumulate a large enough base.
Disasters will occur at a scale and speed that almost no one can predict.
——On August 10, panic swept the entire territory near Minamata.
The news of the loss of contact in Taizhou came belatedly, and the moment they heard about the accident in this important northern grain-producing area, the first reaction of Minamata residents was to rush to buy daily necessities.
They who live near Zhangzhou are extremely sensitive to events happening so close. Folk rumors flew all over the sky overnight, and their fermentation speed and spread far exceeded expectations. So much so that when the ruler of Minamata attacked these civilians during the day, In the frenzy of buying, he shook his head and sighed and fell asleep peacefully. But in the middle of the night, when he was woken up by his family, he thought he was being attacked by pirates.
Most of the Minamata men who make a living by fishing offshore have dark skin and healthy bodies. Because the port is also harassed by pirates and needs to defend themselves, they have a far more forthright and aggressive personality than other people in other areas—— And this personality becomes added fuel in times of panic.
The people's thinking is very direct and simple - Taizhou is a grain-producing area. If something happens in the grain-producing area, the food will be gone. Go and buy it now.
Although Taizhou's main product is rice, rice is mostly consumed by the Chinese and nobles. Common people eat more grains produced in Zhangzhou and local rural farmlands. But the civilians who were deceived by the rumors would not listen. People who said such things would only be suspected of deceiving others so that they could buy more food.
In addition, some businessmen indeed took advantage of this craze and used slogans such as "food is about to be out of stock" to exaggerate panic. Crazy buying of food became the right choice within a day, and those who did not do so were considered There is no sense of crisis.
The shopping frenzy caused by panic made all the food sellers smile at first, but they soon discovered that the situation was beyond imagination - after a whole day of crazy buying, at night, even if the door closed and posted a notice that it was already Even though it was sold out, there were still people knocking on the door asking for the sale - and it quickly turned from knocking to smashing.
Immediately afterwards, some fishermen who went out to sea during the day and returned at night therefore missed the purchasing period. Under the pressure of knocking on doors and being unable to buy anything and being urged and complained by their families, they took out the axes used to decompose big fish and broke them open. I think there is a food store door inside.
A precedent is opened, like some kind of restriction has been lifted.
The situation quickly deteriorated, and groups of people who wanted to hoard supplies turned from spending money to buy to directly smashing and looting. The minamata residents who had formed a group used their relatives, friends and acquaintances in small groups to scour places where they thought they had supplies. After the shop owners who couldn't bear it, they finally fought back, and bloodshed occurred.
Because it took place at night, the lanterns carried during the fight fell to the ground and ignited the wooden and paper structures. The blood and the ignited flames further stimulated the nerves of both parties. When they came to their senses, many people died inexplicably at the hands of neighbors or shop owners they were familiar with in the past.
When the vicious incident finally alarmed the Chinese people, and the ruler of Minamata hurriedly brought the ashigaru and samurai who were not even wearing armor to dissuade them, the two sides who had already become jealous stopped temporarily when they saw the nobles. , but all of them were furious.
The fishermen accused shop owners of taking advantage of the situation by raising prices and hoarding supplies to take advantage of the situation to drive up prices. The shop owners denounced them as robbers, thieves and murderers.
The ruler of Minamata, who was woken up in the middle of the night, was so angry that he had nowhere to express his anger, but he still suppressed it and tried to dissuade these people from being swayed by the rumors and calm down as much as possible.
But the moment he opened his mouth, a heavy arrow accurately penetrated the forehead of the ruler who was among the samurai and ashigaru guards in the dark night.
In full view of everyone, the ruler of Minamata was killed with a single blow.
Everyone present was stunned, and even the quarrels stopped for a moment.
"The enemy is under attack! The enemy is under attack! The common people have murdered the noble lord!" But it was at this moment that a voice that could be clearly heard by everyone shouted out these words, laying the foundation for this mysterious murder. Made a qualitative decision.
"How could a commoner be so good at archery-" There were many capable people among the warriors, and they subconsciously felt that something was wrong with all this.
But not everyone realizes this.
The fishermen, whose blood was surging, were all cold at the moment. There was no room for turning around in the harsh Japanese society. They just felt that they were going to die, and everyone present instantly became suspects involved in the murder of the Chinese - their family members, relatives and friends would also be arrested or even executed.
According to the law, they will be interrogated to investigate whether they were actually involved in the murder. Innocent people who are not involved in any way will not be questioned.
But as much as the civilians revere the nobles of the Moon Country, they have no confidence in the fairness of the law.
Thousands of years of stable social class system has placed the nobility on top, and samurai can even kill civilians who are disrespectful to them in the name of "rudeness" without committing a crime.
So "being present" when a dignified Chinese was murdered, wouldn't that also be a reason for being executed?
The blood of Minamata Castle's lord, who was still in silence, gradually filled the air in the firelight, and those among the samurai who had not completely lost their martial arts sensed that the atmosphere was becoming more and more anomalous.
Fishermen and shopkeepers were armed.
They were stained with blood, and many of them were injured. Their blood was rising and their thoughts were confused due to exhaustion and fear.
"I can't let you go." The fishermen, muttering like zombies, gradually surrounded the warrior.
"Calm down! We have no intention of asking for guilt. There is someone else who committed the murder!" The capable sergeant who judged what happened shouted loudly, but how could his voice alone stand up to the opposition formed over thousands of years? A deep-seated fear of aristocratic authority.
"No, I still have a little daughter at home, my lovely daughter." Thinking that he would be imprisoned for murdering a nobleman, and his family would suffer, the fisherman screamed and rushed forward, swinging his axe.
"Calm down!"
"Line up the guns! Line up the guns! Stab these untouchables to death for me."
"You dare to rebel!" The chaos spread further, and a genuine attack launched by civilians against nobles that was rare in Crescent Continent's thousands of years of history was staged in the middle of the night on August 15th.
Flames, blood, and shouts of death quickly spread from the commercial street where the conflict occurred. People in the residential areas woke up sleepily and only saw half of the night sky illuminated by firelight - but what was even more terrifying was the spread that followed. information.
——The residents of Minamata rebelled.
The moment they heard this statement, all the civilians thought, "It's over, the samurai will question everyone."
A big shot with the power of life and death cannot possibly care whether everyone is truly innocent.
They won't bother to investigate the lives of civilians to learn about past deeds. They will just label all the participants and those who were sleeping at the time as "Minamata Rebels", and then any civilian who knows you are Minamata will label you "Minamata Rebel". Those found guilty of treason will be killed without mercy.
Just like a sudden cold wave, all the civilians in Minamata felt as if they had fallen into an ice cave after hearing the news.
Many young and strong fishermen decided to rise up to protect their families and join the resistance, while more businessmen hurriedly packed up their belongings and planned to flee - the panic spread from the local area to the entire fishing port - yes, maybe wait until the news spreads. The Chinese who handles the case will be a fair person, but how to ensure that all the samurai under him who perform the interrogation are also fair?
There are so many people in the whole city, and it would take a lot of manpower, material, and time to seriously investigate whether they were involved in the incident. Since killing civilians is not a sin, why bother?
the most important is.
The chips used to bet on the impartiality of an unknown aristocratic gentleman in enforcing the law are their own lives and the lives of their entire family.
A person who has a gap between the upper class and the common class; a person who looks down on the common class and doesn't even regard them as human beings; a stranger.
Will he choose the more just but more difficult course, or the easier and more common course?
The civilians gave their answers with their own departed feet. Almost no one believed that they could survive this incident unharmed. Thousands of years of social class barriers created complete distrust. And this distrust can easily turn into hostility and opposition by fanning the flames.
Overnight, Minamata Port, which was clearly separated from Taizhou by a whole Zhangzhou, was in chaos.
Naturally, our sage and his team, who were still stationed and training, could not stay away from the incident.
