stubborn thief

Chapter 420: Bad News from the East

August 28, the sixth year of Chongzhen, the autumnal equinox.

It was cloudy and rainy in Hehuang. Liu Chengzong hugged his eyebrows and sat on the porch wearing a half-sleeve wool short hoodie, lying on his feet in the wind, watching the rainwater gather in the courtyard and flow out of the mansion along the stone canal.

Today was the day of the joint camp exercise, and he was going to review the exercise outside the city, but because of the rain, the camp exercise was canceled and the military law test was changed. Now the outside of the city is very quiet, only the faint sound of guns from the direction of the arsenal from time to time .

Rain is an experimental time for the arsenal. That was when Shi Cheng and He Xin were trying to use the rain cover for heavy guns.

The sound of horseshoes hitting the ground came from the street, and several fast horses were galloping in the rain.

Liu Chengzong listened attentively, he came from the east.

Not long after, the sound of horseshoes stopped abruptly outside the government office, and Tianbao reported outside the Chuihua Gate: "Marshal, it is Dongguan General Wu Panlong, who has brought a letter from Dongguan General Li and asked to enter the mansion."

Liu Chengzong nodded, looked up at the heavy rain, and walked towards the front hall.

Not long after, Wu Panlong, who had changed into a raincoat and his cloth armor was still stained with rain, entered the front hall to salute: "Wu Panlong, a low-ranking officer, see the commander-in-chief."

"Sit down and have a bowl of hot tea."

Liu Chengzong, who was sitting on the main seat, motioned to be excused, and invited him to sit aside: "It's raining and the road is difficult to walk. Why did Li Wanqing ask you to come here?"

Wu Panlong was born as a boy in Zhenyuan County. He was the first to take care of Ma Ke in Xining. Liu Chengzong always admired the educated people in the army. , was assigned to Dongguan as the general manager.

After the appointment of official positions, the Marshal's Mansion has several military systems in design.

According to the ranks, from low to high are Hehuang Five Towns, Caiguan Camp, Field Camp, Huben Camp and Tunmu Camp.

The five towns are the township soldiers, the caiguan are the regular army, the field battle is the elite, and the huben is the officer. The grazing camp is independent of this system, similar to the chieftain.

The general manager of the five towns is the sixth grade in terms of grade, and there are also the general manager of the official camp and the regular management team of the field camp at the same grade.

The establishment of this rank system is for the selection of generals and the cultivation of the recruitment system. Although it objectively prolongs the promotion process from soldiers to officers, it also gives soldiers the opportunity to be promoted without meritorious service.

Their soldiers become officers, and they need to serve in Wuzhen, Caiguan, and Huben in turn, and then return to Wuzhen to become team officers.

The same is true for officers under normal circumstances. They need to rotate through the three systems to gradually master all the basic knowledge of an officer.

Wu Panlong took a sip of hot tea, warmed his hands with the tea bowl, and said with a smile: "Thanks to the rain, the commander is in the yamen, otherwise the humble officer would have to go to the barracks to find the commander... This is General Li letter."

The letter sent by Li Wanqing from Hehuang was mainly to inform the situation of the confrontation between the two armies.

At present, the autumn harvest on both sides of the Yellow River is over, and as the grains return to the warehouse, they are no longer so nervous with the court officials and soldiers.

However, Li Wanqing said that the Lanzhou general, Shi Xiang, seemed disappointed that there was no fight.

Liu Chengzong smiled, next year this Shixiang will not be disappointed, but as he continued to look down, the smile on his face suddenly froze, and he frowned and looked at Wu Panlong: "Is there a disaster in the east?"

This interrogative sentence is actually a bit redundant in this day and age.

It's as if there was no disaster in the east earlier.

But Wu Panlong didn't dare to be negligent, and nodded very cautiously: "Well, the drought in Shaanxi this year is not so severe, but our messengers caught up with the locust plague as soon as they arrived in Pingliang. More than half."

Wu Panlong sighed, he is from Pingliangfu Township, and he is very clear about the ability of his hometown to resist the drought and locust plague.

He continued: "I invite you to come back to Lanzhou to find Shixiang, and ask him to ask about the situation in the east, but I didn't expect that it would be better not to ask."

"what happened?"

"This year, the grain supply in the east of Longdong is considered complete. Only Gongchang in Lintao has no drought, no locusts, and no waterlogging. Fengxiang in Pingliang is plagued by drought and locusts. Hanzhong Prefecture in the south is plagued by floods. Northern Weibei is also over, just like Fengxiang in Pingliang."

This made Liu Chengzong's eyes widen. When he started the incident, Yaozhou, Tongzhou, and Qianzhou in Weibei were like gods. He thought that there would be a drought there, but he didn't expect it to be so early.

But thinking about it, even though there are many rivers over there, the impact of the drought is not great, but it can't hold up a plague of locusts that can block the sky.

He asked: "Then Yan'an Mansion?"

Wu Panlong shook his head and said: "I don't know about this lowly position. I don't think it will be any better. There is news about Yan'an Mansion, but it has nothing to do with the locust plague and drought."

"what news?"

"In the official document, in July this year, Yan'an Mansion fought a big battle. It seems that Gao Yingxiang, the Chuang Wang who caused troubles in the early years, has been dormant in Yan'an. Fight."

Gao Yingxiang came out.

Liu Chengzong raised his heart and immediately asked: "How is the battle going?"

He was eager to hear the heroic appearance of Yang Yanchang, the unparalleled hero of Yan'an Prefecture, but he didn't.

Wu Panlong said: "Each has its own outcome. The officers and soldiers killed a thousand households surnamed Lu, but unfortunately King Chuang didn't take advantage of it. A man named Zhong Douxing died in the battle. Does the commander know... "

As soon as he finished speaking, Liu Chengzong's complexion was ashen, and he exhaled from his nose in a gloomy manner.

Wu Panlong asked cautiously: "The commander-in-chief recognizes this middle star?"

"More than acquaintance!"

Liu Chengzong lost the desire to talk, got up and walked out of the hall, looking up at the sky through the heavy rain.

He wanted to set up a cannon and blast the sky into a hole.

Zhong Dou Xing is Gao Yingxiang's younger brother Gao Yingen. When they met, they commanded the most elite deserter unit under Gao Yingxiang's command.

Qianhu with the surname of Lu is Lu Bin from Laomiaozhuang, who was sent to Yan'an Guard by Chengyun himself. Along with him were many wounded soldiers under Liu Chengzong's command in the early years, and even many descendants of the old Liu family in Heilongshan.

This battle is different from the previous battles in Yan'an Mansion. They fought with real swords and guns.

Wu Panlong didn't know what happened at all, he thought that Liu Chengzong was just Gao Yingxiang's friend, but in reality, Yan'an Guard and Yan'an Camp were closer to the Marshal's Mansion.

The so-called incompatibility between soldiers and thieves does not exist in Yan'an Mansion.

They lived in harmony for several years, but Liu Chengzong believed that Quan'er and Gao Yingxiang would try to avoid fighting if they could avoid it, but they fought instead.

There is no doubt that living in harmony is no longer enough for all to survive.

Liu Chengzong felt that God was really ruthless. First, there was a severe drought, which made people unable to survive. People who barely escaped lived by the water, reclaimed the river flats that they had despised in the past, worked hard to build water conservancy, and barely survived.

A big locust plague, all right, all for nothing.

When Liu Chengzong went outside the hall, Wu Panlong didn't dare to sit in the hall by himself, so he had to go outside with him, and Liu Chengzong asked: "Our messenger is still in Pingliang?"

"It should still be there, locust plagues are everywhere, and they can't move."

"Pingliang is the best place. I want to write a letter and send it to Yan'an Mansion."

Liu Chengzong wanted to write a letter to Ren Quan'er, asking what was going on in the battle in Yan'an Mansion, but Wu Panlong shook his head and said, "Commander, I'm afraid we can't send it, Kelan Prefecture in Shanxi is plagued by plague. "

Hearing this news, Liu Chengzong was not very surprised.

In other words, it was hard to surprise him with any news now, except that there was so much bad news.

"What plague?"

"I don't know about the lowly position." Wu Panlong shook his head and said, "I only know that the severe drought in Shanxi this year has surpassed previous years, and it has caught up with the military disaster. The official documents say that the people of Kelan Prefecture crossed the Yellow River into northern Shaanxi, and let the officers and soldiers block the people along the way. I just mentioned the epidemic in Shanxi."

Wu Panlong wasn't too vigilant about a plague that happened in the distance, but Liu Chengzong's expression was extremely serious, and he didn't know whether it was worry in his heart or the coldness of autumn, which made the hairs on his cheeks stand on end.

But he knew very well that the last time he felt this way was in Yuhebao, when his elder brother told him about the mutiny of the frontier army in Guyuan and the civil uprisings in northern Shaanxi.

At that time, he knew that the great uprising in the late Ming Dynasty was coming.

And at this moment, he knew that the plague of the late Ming Dynasty that swept the world was coming.

The word "epidemic" in "Shuowen Jiezi" means that all people are sick; but in "Zi Lin" written in the Jin Dynasty, the meaning is clearer, and it means that the disease is epidemic.

Because of the characteristics of this kind of severe infection, there are not many diseases that can be called plague...only plague, smallpox, cholera, malaria, measles, typhoid, chickenpox, dysentery, rotten throat, diphtheria and so on.

Among them, plague, smallpox, and cholera are the most serious diseases.

The danger of smallpox is relatively the lowest among the three diseases. Although smallpox is also very serious, its dominant symptoms and transmission principles have been well known to physicians in the Ming Dynasty, and a vaccine was even created for this symptom.

Cholera comes next because of its high risk and high fatality rate, and because it is a newly introduced disease, people still cannot know the source of the disease. Various treatment methods have been tried, but they are completely ineffective. Only pain relief.

There was cholera in ancient times, at least in the Han Dynasty, the word cholera appeared, but cholera at that time was not the same disease as cholera today. Cholera at that time often occurred in the army, vomiting and diarrhea, and losing combat effectiveness.

But now the more severe cholera can make a large number of people suffer from diarrhea and die.

There is nothing that can be done for this kind of patients. The so-called relief of pain means that when you get this disease, you will have diarrhea for five days before dying. If you take some medicine, you will die within two days.

But the characteristics of cholera are also obvious. It is usually not a big river, and it is a very strong regional disease. As long as people leave a dangerous area, the problem will not be serious.

The worst of all was the plague.

It's not that this disease has never happened before. Long before Liu Chengzong joined the army, there was a plague in Yuhebao in the last year of Wanli.

But the plague came and went. People didn't know why it came, why it spread, and why it left. They didn't know anything.

In this world, only Liu Chengzong knew that it was called the plague, and it would spread through the mouth spittle of rats, fleas, and virus carriers.

A person harbors a secret that only he knows in the whole world, which in itself means a huge responsibility.

"Don't leave these two days, just stay in the yamen, I want to write a few letters, and wait for you to return to Dongguan." Liu Chengzong paced in the hall, turned around and said: "Send someone to Yan'an, these letters must be sent to Yan'an." hand it over to the recipient."

Wu Panlong has already said that it is not easy to travel to the east. There is a plague in Shanxi. I don't know what the plague is. It is very likely that it will spread to northern Shaanxi. That is to say, northern Shaanxi will become an epidemic area.

He realized that the letter Liu Chengzong was going to send must be very important, requiring their own soldiers to enter the epidemic area.

"I'll pick a few cronies. I wonder how many letters the commander-in-chief will send?"

Wu Panlong thought in his heart that he had to use the Zhenyuan Township Party to deliver the letter this time, so as to ensure safe passage through Pingliang Mansion, and he could enter Yan'an as long as he passed through Qingyang Mansion.

But considering that when the messenger arrived in Yan'an, he was afraid that the plague there would have already spread, so two people must travel together on each road.

One fell down, and the other was able to deliver the letter.

"Two letters." Liu Chengzong paused after speaking, then shook his head and said, "Send two books, a book on relief from famine and epidemic prevention."

Wu Panlong blurted out: "This is our book!"

He has read the book on relief of famine and epidemic prevention compiled by Liu Chengzong. Although this book is only distributed to local doctors and academies after it is published, it is as basic as senior military officers. Pass.

In addition to the military laws and regulations, their generals have compiled such a serious book. The so-called effective from top to bottom, let alone a medical book on infection prevention, even if it is a book on singing, the Marshal's Mansion can make everyone feel good about it.

And in all fairness, Wu Panlong has always believed that this book on famine relief and epidemic prevention is the greatest weapon for the Marshal's Mansion's Eastern Expedition, because plague and famine are more terrifying opponents than the imperial army.

This book does not have much to say about the treatment of the plague, but it generally introduces the types of crops that are resistant to drought and locusts in the north, explains the site selection and construction of small water conservancy facilities, and the preliminary understanding, isolation and prevention of the plague.

Especially the most important point is that Liu Chengzong described the thing that caused the plague in the book as a virus, which is a living poisonous insect that is smaller than mayfly and invisible to the naked eye.

The popularization of these in the army means that they are stationed in an epidemic area. No matter what kind of epidemic is breaking out in the area, they can greatly reduce the impact of the plague on the army, and at the same time stabilize the panic of the people as quickly as possible.

Wu Panlong used to think that the dead were the biggest source of the plague, but he personally experienced Hehuang's battle against smallpox with Yang Yao, which made him realize that the dead were not the biggest source of the plague.

The living are.

In other words, the panic survivors who are difficult to control are the biggest source of the spread of the plague.

But the dead are very obedient, they lie there, motionless, no one should mess with them, waiting for the body to die together with the poisonous insects.

"This is our book. We and the imperial court are one mountain and two tigers." Liu Chengzong did not refute Wu Panlong's words, he just said: "But even if the two tigers are fighting, the mountain is here. The mountain collapses and the battle is won." so what?"

"Whether there is plague or not, we can run rampant all over the world!"

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)