afterglow

Chapter 682: New Category of Dominator; A Big Case Caused by a Small Bottle

Zhou Changfeng was very reluctant to hold a promotion banquet when the outcome was uncertain, not to mention that such joy should be shared with those generals who were also fighting overseas.

So he sent out a rare and strange invitation, at the end of which it was written "Date to be determined, to be discussed after the war."

"Do we have to wait until all the other generals are present? Wouldn't that seem deliberate and exclude the others?" Xia Xiaoshi was a little worried.

"In the final analysis, they are not the same kind of people." Zhou Changfeng carried his daughter on his shoulders and spun around, then said to his wife beside him: "They are the rich and powerful who have benefited from their ancestors. They fought for four years but still enjoyed themselves. They can still eat French foie gras and Iranian caviar. What about us? We all started as ordinary people and worked hard to get to where we are today. We traveled through mountains and rivers, and slept in the open air."

"Yes, they are not the same." Xia Xiaoshi said softly: "Three hundred and sixty days a year, most of the time I am on horseback with my sword in hand."

Zhou Changfeng lifted his daughter high up, looked up at her and said seriously: "Jian Jian, you should also remember that you must always figure out who is our friend and who is our enemy... Uh, forget it, it should be 'who is a true friend and who is a false friend'."

"How can a little girl understand such truth?" Xia Xiaoshi couldn't help laughing.

"Jianjian, your mother looks down on you, quickly refute her." After saying that, Zhou Changfeng looked at his wife and said with a smile: "Once this battle is over, there will be many new faces in the upper echelons, and the stagnant water will become lively again."

The upper class, or the ruling class, refers to the dignitaries who have a transcendent status and position and can influence the government.

They have few sources. Before constitutionalism, they basically fell into two categories: either they were noblemen inherited from their ancestors, and were born noble; or they were civil servants who climbed up through competition in the officialdom and might have ordinary backgrounds.

After constitutionalism, new categories of dominant classes emerged: entrepreneurs, bankers, and politicians.

In fact, there were roughly similar counterparts to this type of people in the classical era, but they were not recognized until the revolution and the constitution.

Due to the national conditions of the Ming Dynasty, which has its own bureaucratic capitalist system, this new ruling class is rather special - relatively speaking, it is weaker, and often has inextricable ties with the two traditional ruling classes, and rarely exists independently.

Long-term peace has seriously solidified this model. Although there are many officials from ordinary backgrounds who climb up the officialdom step by step every year and there is a certain class mobility, it is still too small and can be easily diluted without a trace.

Now, the war changed all that.

Although the Ministry of War began to gradually reduce the recruitment of soldiers at the end of last year, due to certain lags in the inspection and training processes, the total size of the army, navy and air force only reached its peak in February this year.

Among them, the army has about 340 million people, the navy has about 356 million people, and the air force has about 121 million people, totaling 817 million people.

Generally speaking, the total size of the Ming army did not expand much during the war, less than three times, but the expansion of the troops and countless large and small battles brought about a large number of new generals. Before the war, the Ming army had only more than 300 generals, but today, more than 500 generals have emerged in just four years, like mushrooms after rain.

They were generally young and in their prime, and before the war, most of them were brigade-level officers such as colonels and lieutenant colonels. Zhou was also like this, but he was a little more special.

In theory, this type of people can be roughly classified as nobles, or military aristocrats, but a closer look shows that they are completely different things.

On one side are the nobles who have inherited the throne from generation to generation and enjoy the blessings of their ancestors, and on the other side are the new generals who have traveled across mountains and rivers and fought in all corners of the world. In terms of the difficulty and the amount of contribution, they are simply incomparable.

After the war, rewards were given according to merit. Such a large number of fresh blood who had made great achievements were enough to make the originally old-fashioned upper class of the Ming Dynasty much more active.

Of course, these new generals are not all good people. Among them are some who are immoral in various senses, or even lack great virtue. In Zhou Changfeng's eyes, these people should be excluded.

When he was chatting with Zhu Lingjing a few days ago, he learned that she had already considered the basic universal standards for rewarding people based on merit and was preparing to distribute titles wholesale in large quantities.

The long period of peace has led to a lack of reference experience in all aspects. Even how to reward people according to their merits in the most appropriate way is still a blank for the Ming Dynasty today. It can be said that it was a great pity that Europe was not involved back then.

In short, after careful consideration, Zhu Lingjing believed that there was no need to treat the title of nobility as a precious treasure that should be hidden away and not given up. It could be more widespread. The standards for conferring titles of nobility on men, viscounts, and earls were lowered a lot. Officers would mainly be viscounts and earls, and soldiers with outstanding merits could also be considered for conferring titles of baron.

In addition to using this to bind identities and strengthen loyalty, she also hoped to use it to quickly reconcile the new and old nobles and encourage them to intermarry.

It can be said that Zhu Lingjing worked hard to consolidate his rule and tried hard to bridge the unstable dual monarchy system of the Ming Dynasty.

After chatting for a while, the two decided to coax their daughter to sleep, and then it would be time for some wonderful time as a couple.

At this time, Xia Xiaoshi noticed that her daughter seemed a little abnormal.

"Hey, Zhou Kexing, why does Jian Jian look so listless?"

Is it too late? It is now past eight in the evening. Usually at this time, the children are still making a lot of noise.

Zhou Changfeng noticed that his daughter was indeed very sleepy and her face was red. He reached out and touched her forehead and immediately felt an obvious high fever.

"Oh no, he has a fever. Bring me some paracetamol and a thermometer."

"Ah?" Xia Xiaoshi suddenly became anxious, walked over quickly and stretched out her hand to test the body temperature.

Soon a maid brought a medicine bottle and a thermometer. She first fed Jian Jian a pill of paracetamol, and then asked her to hold the thermometer in her mouth to measure her temperature.

It is common for children to get sick, and since this was not the first time they had encountered this, everyone handled it smoothly.

After a while, Xia Xiaoshi picked up the thermometer and looked at the scale under the light. She couldn't help but exclaimed, "It's so high! It's almost 40. Should we go to the clinic now?"

"Children are prone to high fever. Paracetamol can only be used for emergency treatment. Let's go to the hospital quickly." Zhou Changfeng was already opening the cabinet drawer to get the car keys.

In the past few years, his children have fallen ill at least six or seven times in total, but Zhou Changfeng, who is overseas, has never been there. The letters he sent home generally only report good news and not bad news.

He was also present this time, and Xia Xiaoshi felt reassured.

Under the moonlight, the sedan quickly drove out of the small mansion, followed by a second sedan carrying maids and personal soldiers.

The big hospital was far away, and the small clinic nearby was not trustworthy, so Zhou Changfeng chose the Jiangning County Second Hospital as a compromise.

The nighttime emergency room is filled with all kinds of strange patients, including those with sudden gallstones, strokes, and those who fell and had bloody heads due to being drunk.

The nurse thought Zhou Changfeng and Xia Xiaoshi were just an ordinary couple in their home pajamas, so after placing a thermometer on them, she called in the visiting doctor for a preliminary examination.

"Laryngitis is a common disease among children," the doctor said slowly.

"I gave her paracetamol before she came here. It was 8:15 at the time. I took her oral temperature and it came out to be 39.9 degrees," Zhou Changfeng added.

"Oh, very good." The doctor praised. He felt that the couple must be cultured people who were rigorous and meticulous in their work.

He said nonchalantly, "It's okay. Just prescribe some medicine to clear away heat and detoxify. Then continue taking paracetamol, once in the morning, noon and evening, half a pill each time, to stop the fever."

Zhou Changfeng recalled that when he was a child, he would usually get an injection when he had a fever at the health center, and sometimes he would also have to do an extremely painful skin test, but the effect was obvious, so he asked the doctor if he could prescribe a dose of penicillin.

The doctor on duty was about to leave when he heard this and said in surprise, "That's not cheap. You can't buy it at the market price. You have to think carefully, sir. One shot costs nine yuan." "Okay, give it to me."

"Okay, wait a moment, I'll give you the bill."

As the doctor wrote the prescription, he sighed, "There aren't many people who love their children as much as you do."

The Ming government implemented a special maximum price for penicillin, 10 yuan for a dose of 1 units and 20 yuan for a dose of 2 units. However, supply was in short supply and it was almost impossible to buy it at this price, which was basically several times more.

In states with medium economic levels, the average monthly salary for workers is about 34 yuan and the average monthly salary for employees is about 38 yuan. A dose of penicillin will cost one-third of the monthly salary.

Since the technological breakthrough last year and the start of large-scale mass production, the production of penicillin has rapidly increased dozens of times from less than 10 million units a year to more than 1 billion units per month, but it still cannot meet the astronomical demand. First, the population is too large. Second, the Ming army's combat areas are extremely bad, various diseases are rampant, and the demand for penicillin is huge.

The nurse disinfected Jian Jian's arm, then carefully took the medicine, opened the syringe bottle and injected normal saline solution, mixed it with the penicillin powder in the bottle, and then drew out the liquid medicine for subcutaneous injection.

Xia Xiaoshi was comforting her daughter who was about to get an injection. Zhou Changfeng also smiled and coaxed her for a few words, then turned his eyes to the empty syringe bottle on the tray.

He found that the empty saline bottle next to it had a complete label indicating the manufacturer and production batch, but the label and printed text on the empty penicillin bottle had been erased.

"Wait." Zhou Changfeng stopped the injection and said, "No more. I want to take this empty bottle away."

"Hey! You can't take this!"

Zhou Changfeng called the entourage waiting outside to come in and stopped the nurse.

"You take my wife to the Army General Hospital. Xiao Li, come with me."

"Yes!"

If the supply of goods on the market is insufficient to meet the demand, the black market will inevitably be rampant. This is a basic rule.

After the rationing systems were implemented in various warring countries, the black markets became extremely active without exception. This was also true in the Ming Dynasty, and the imperial court repeatedly stressed the need to crack down on it severely.

As far as Zhou Changfeng knows, whether it is common supplies such as silk, gasoline, sugar, and meat, or luxury goods such as stockings, leather shoes, and high-end wine, they can all be found on the black market, and cases of reselling military supplies also occur from time to time.

So, in the context of insufficient penicillin supply, the source of this dose of penicillin with a nine-fold price increase is very questionable.

Zhou Changfeng broke into the pharmacy warehouse and scolded the pharmacist inside to find the refrigerator where penicillin was stored.

After opening it, he picked up several syringe bottles one by one and found that the labels and texts had been erased without exception.

"Let's go and call someone." As he said that, he grabbed a dozen bottles.

As soon as they left the pharmacy, they were met with security guards who came to stop them.

"Stop! Catch this thief who stole the things!"

However, after introducing himself, several security guards stood still in doubt.

The two went to the telephone room next door to make a call, during which time more people gathered around.

Suddenly, a voice came from the back of the crowd, "If he says yes, then yes? Are you scared already? What do you usually keep you for? Quickly take back the 'Quji An' that these two people stole!"

There were a few people in the crowd ready to make a move, but no one dared to act rashly because they were being pointed at with guns.

Xiao Li glared at everyone and shouted, "Who dares to come over here?"

The two men slowly moved to the side of the car they came in. Zhou Changfeng opened the trunk and took out the Type 34 submachine gun that he always had on hand. With a "click", he pulled the bolt to load the gun.

At this time, a security guard also went to the gun room and got two pistols, but they were obviously not intimidating when facing the submachine gun with a blue sheen in Zhou's hand.

He leaned against the car body, and the first person to arrive was a nearby foot patrolman.

The two patrolmen, a man and a woman, were obviously a combination of the old and the new. The young female patrolman felt like she was facing a formidable enemy and quickly put down her baton and took out her pistol.

But the middle-aged male patrolman was much calmer. When he saw the license plate number "京甲-1106" in white letters on a red background, he was sure that the person in front of him was Zhou himself, and he quickly told his companions to put down their guns.

Zhou Changfeng saw a figure quietly retreating from the crowd, walking quickly away with his head down. He immediately ordered the two patrolmen, "Go, catch the one who ran away."

Not long after, a team of Yingtian Prefecture police arrived, followed closely by several agents from the Foreign Investigation Bureau. The gate of Jiangning County Second Hospital was filled with cars.

Soon, a car also drove over, but had to park outside because it had nowhere else to go.

Shen Yu, who was also wearing pajamas, looked around and walked into the gate. What caught his eye was a group of hospital staff who were detained and not allowed to move, as well as a familiar figure.

Two patrolmen caught the man who was trying to escape. As soon as Zhou Changfeng heard the voice, he was sure that this was the guy who had spoken before.

"Brother Zhou! What trouble have you caused again?" Shen Yu looked helpless.

Zhou Changfeng handed him a few vials of Xilin, "I asked, this is 250,000 units."

"Oh." Shen Yu knew what was going on as soon as he heard it. He pointed at the man and said coldly: "Interrogate him on the spot and track him down as soon as possible."

Usually, the specifications of civilian penicillin are either 10 units or 20 units. The higher specification of 25 units of penicillin is basically specially supplied to the military.

In the past two years, the foreign factory has uncovered no less than ten similar smuggling and reselling cases, and Shen Yu is no longer surprised.

When handling such cases, timeliness is very important, otherwise the other party may destroy the evidence and run away after getting wind of the matter.

Several agents took the man directly to the car, and after three fruitless interrogations, they used water torture, covering his face with a towel and pouring water on him, without wasting even a minute, and were extremely skilled.

Although the court has made every effort to ensure the supply, there is still occasional shortage of penicillin on the front lines. What a coincidence that we uncovered a reselling case today?
Zhou Changfeng was very angry, and the pursuit operation was launched immediately. All the agents on duty and on standby at the Foreign Investigation Factory "came out in full force" tonight, and some agents who were resting at home were also ordered to return to work.

It was almost midnight when the tasks were arranged, and the gibbous moon was hanging high in the starry sky.

The two busy people, both wearing home pajamas, smiled at each other and decided to go to a nearby restaurant for a midnight snack.

"It's better this year. We're not as busy as last year, but there are more major and important cases this year. The Germans' infiltration is pervasive and they are more difficult to deal with than the British spies." Shen Yu complained.

(End of this chapter)