Established a thousand-year family from the end of Qin Dynasty

Chapter 491 The Plague (V)

The winter of the eighth year of Yangong 240 (458 years)
The black plague in Yan State has reached its worst moment, and the number of people killed by the black plague that has been raging for more than 20 years has reached as many as 300 million.

After many years of observation in the Yan State [Miraculous Doctor], it was discovered that the outbreak of the black plague had a great relationship with urban sanitation. Those places with good urban sanitation had a small scale of black plague, while places with poor urban sanitation had rampant black plague.

In the autumn of this year, the government of Yan State began to carry out sanitation cleaning in various places, and began to establish an urban sanitation management system.

When the Yan State was establishing an urban health management system, Tuoba Jun, the emperor of the Northern Wei State, made Tuoba Hong the prince and Feng Guiren the queen, lifted the ban on Buddhism and allowed Buddhism to develop legally, but during the Northern Expedition to Rouran, Liu Song Taking the opportunity of the Northern Expedition, they occupied the Qingzhou area of ​​Wei State.

In the southern Liu Song Dynasty, the emperor Liu Jun worked hard to govern, but at the same time he was licentious. He reformed internally, restricted the power of generals through the system of pledging, increased the proportion of officials in examinations, promoted the children of poor families, cracked down on the acquisition of land by gentry tyrants, and seized the power of Wei State externally. Qingzhou area.

However, Liu Jun was very suspicious, always worried that the clan would follow suit and rebel and ascend the throne like him, so he massacred the emperor's relatives and relatives, and even accepted his cousin as a favorite concubine, so that she gave birth to many children.

Especially doting on the prince Liu Ziluan born to his cousin, and gradually alienating the crown prince Liu Ziye.

However, the most important thing is that Liu Song's pharmacists finally cracked the secret recipe of fine wine and developed their own "Five Stone Powder", which broke the monopoly of fine wine in Yan State. Yan Guo got stuck with fine wine, which is an extremely critical technological breakthrough.

However, since Liu Song has already developed the secret recipe of Wushi Powder, it is meaningless to continue to keep the secret recipe of Wushi Powder. The secret recipe of Wushi San was sold to Wei Guo.

After utilizing the last bit of value of the fine wine, the government of the State of Yan immediately declared Wushi Powder to be a contraband, prohibiting the circulation and trade of Wushi Powder/Qingjiang Wine.

The main reason is that they are worried that the five stone powder from the Central Plains will be sold to Yan Guo in turn, so they have to take precautions in advance.

Yandu
The imperial guards were mobilized to check the sanitation from house to house. Thousands of township braves cleaned the streets. Craftsmen posted the latest "Health Law" promulgated by the State of Yan on the walls of each street, requiring residents not to Garbage dumped on the street must be dumped in special trash cans, and the government has a special [Ministry of Health] to regularly clean up the trash.

At the same time, the government of the State of Yan carried out the "rat extermination campaign", first in Yandu. The township sanitation soldiers went door-to-door to exterminate rats, and every household was sprinkled with "rat extermination" potions.

For the Yan State, the "rat eradication campaign" is more meaningful than winning a battle in the Central Plains.

Another year later, in the spring of the 250th year of Duke Yan (460), the government of the State of Yan called on all the people to raise cats and implemented the policy of "raising cats to prevent rats".

In the past, cats were only used as pets of nobles and wealthy businessmen, but now they are implemented by Yan State in the form of policies to every household in Yandu.

Due to the insufficient number of cats, special cat farms have been established on overseas desert islands. Among the goods imported from the Central Plains, cats have also become an important option.

another year later
In the summer of the year 250 of Duke Yan (461), there was a new development in the [Miraculous Medical Institute], that is, it was discovered that fleas, mosquitoes, flies and other insects can also spread the black plague, so not only the mice, but also the fleas and other insects should be eliminated .

Three months later, the Jiuqing of Yan State added an article to the "Health Law": the people of Yan State should take a bath at least once every ten days.

This law is only implemented in Yandu for the time being, and it is supervised by the Ministry of Health. Once a smelly person is found on the street, he will be arrested and imprisoned immediately.

A few months later, the miraculous doctors discovered that there were a large number of mosquitoes in the water source, and these mosquitoes would spread the black plague. After boiling clean water, most of the mosquitoes could be killed, thereby reducing the spread of the black plague.

Therefore, the health soldiers of the township brave began to supervise the drinking water of the people in Yandu and prohibited the consumption of unboiled water.

This order first started from the army and the palace. The soldiers of the army must drink boiled hot water, and the same is true for the maids of the palace.

In order to meet the bathing needs of the people, Yandu expanded hundreds of bathhouses. With the promotion of hot baths and drinking hot water, the consumption of coal and firewood increased sharply, and commercial activities specializing in the sale of firewood, charcoal and coal began to appear in the market. .

A few months later, the latest order from the government of Yan State was issued again, and this time the order encountered greater resistance.

That is... shaving hair!
Long hair can well hide a large number of fleas and other mosquitoes, and is a powerful helper in spreading the black plague. In order to eliminate the black plague, the government of Yan State required the people of Yandu to shave their hair short and wash their hair frequently.

However, because this new order violates the customs of thousands of years, there is a lot of resistance. Therefore, the Yan State only enforces it in Yandu, and the rest of the places are only advocacy, not mandatory.

The army and the court are also setting an example. Soldiers and court ladies all cut their hair short. In daily life, washing hair has become a very important thing.

In the army, the hygiene of soldiers has become a new indicator. In the court, Yan Gongche will also ask Da Changqiu to regularly check the hygiene of the maids to prevent them from infecting the nobles with the black plague.

However, it was not too smooth. In the process of enforcing the "hair shaving order" in Yandu, some people who had a strong concept of their parents' body, hair and skin, refused to shave their hair.

For this kind of person, the government is not polite, directly arrests and puts him in prison, and sends him to the extremely hot and humid Spice Islands to open up wasteland. Facing the hot and humid environment, he can't stand it without shaving his hair.

In order to implement the hair-shaving order without affecting the customs, reduce the resistance of the implementation, and minimize public grievances, the government of Yan State soon launched "wigs". Wigs, wearing a crown on the wig, continue to follow the traditional Chinese New Year holidays.

In this way, not only can hair cutting improve hygiene conditions, but also try not to affect the customs of the people, so that they can continue to carry out formal etiquette activities with long hair.

Also because of this reason, a new profession appeared in Yan State - hair cutter, and at the same time a new business activity - hair buyer.

They collect the long cut hair, make it into wigs, and then sell them to those who shave their hair.

At this time, the time has come to the spring of the third year of Yangong 250 (463), and the number of deaths due to the black plague has reached 400 million, and there are still millions of unnatural deaths during the black plague.

In just a few years, the State of Yan promulgated thousands of health-related laws, orders, and policies, and new health actions were introduced almost every day, and the implementation was too fast, and the people were not given enough time to adapt, causing many There are countless tragedies in the world, and there are countless people who took the opportunity to launch rebellions.

If the sanitation conditions are not improved, the country of Yan may become the first country in the world to be wiped out by the plague.

The bad news is that the resentment of the people is great, and there are more and more rebels. The good news is that the spread of the black plague has been effectively contained. Yandu has now completely eliminated the black plague. Although there are still black plague infections in other cities , but the speed of transmission is extremely slow, and it is already within the controllable range of the government.

(End of this chapter)