Traveler Major League

Chapter 244
  As Huating's city defense fell, the city gates were opened wide, and after the main force of the first battalion entered the city, the resistance of the Ming army in the city was also declared over. A small group of die-hard elements, centered on the backbone of the soldiers of the general who defended the city, were bombed one after another at their heads. After death, most of them no longer persisted and ran away.

Those defeated soldiers and local ruffians who wanted to fish in troubled waters seemed to have completely lost their minds. They wanted to make a fortune before leaving, burning, killing and looting everywhere.

There was great chaos in the city, but fortunately the chaos did not last long. After the main force led by battalion commander Lu Linlong entered the city, they first occupied the city gate entrance and exit, and then swept all the way. At the same time, all the surrendered Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers were disarmed and driven to the city. In Wengcheng, every household in the city is not allowed to close its doors and is not allowed to go out. After guarding important intersections, teams are formed into teams to search for remnants of the army in the city, and the people are organized to put out the fires in the city. The Ming Dynasty is divided into areas according to the intervals of the streets to eliminate the wandering Ming Dynasty. The army rebelled.

Everything went on in an orderly manner. By four o'clock in the afternoon, Huating had been brought under control. A small number of fires had been extinguished, without causing much damage. Countless supplies of food and supplies that originally belonged to the Ming army were seized.

The people of Huating, whether rich or poor, are facing the next fate of this city in fear and trepidation.

It's just that some people will not live to see the sun tomorrow. The problem caused by the lack of troops is that the bodies of those killed in the chaos are still lying on the street without enough time to clean up, creating a messy scene.

When Lu Linlong entered the city and arrived at the county government office, the squires in the city were already waiting here. The corpse of the county magistrate who had hanged himself was still placed at the door. The locals who were familiar with him had already begun to welcome the new controller.

"Now that the city is under military control, don't stand here stupidly. I am busy with military affairs. You are all waiting for news in the office. Please cooperate with me in various tasks."

"You dare to disobey the general's orders." A group of squires handed over their hands and patted their chests to ensure their cooperation, no matter whether they wanted money, food or women.

"Well, the other civil affairs departments will take over the follow-up, go ahead." Lu Linlong waved his hand, not bothering to pay attention to these local snakes, looking at them as if they were dead, and then issued a series of orders.

"All the white servants of the three shifts and six rooms of the county government will gather at the county government before sunset today to wait for the reception of the people together with the squire and the big family. Those who dare not come will be punished as traitors. The county treasury and granary are sealed, and no idlers are allowed to wait for chaos. We will move, and those who disobey the order will be subject to military law. All the captured prisoners of war will be taken to Wengcheng to wait for the follow-up reception of personnel. The third company will go to Beishan to defend, and the other companies will shrink to Huating City."

As a series of orders were issued, the situation finally stabilized. The original probing attack turned into a war of annihilation, which made the problem of insufficient troops more serious. The temporary military control policy could only be implemented for a while, and the reception work was the most complicated. Fortunately, the People's Alliance He already has considerable experience in reception work, and the backbone of civil affairs trained in the second world is just for this day. There is no need for frontline officers to worry about these things. As long as they defeat the Ming army, enter the city and occupy important departments, collect weapons, and capture deserters, Just wait for follow-up support and everything will be in order.

In the evening, the sound of artillery fire finally subsided. The streets and alleys near the south of Huating City were covered with rubble. Ming soldiers near the city wall suffered serious casualties. After the first battalion took control of the entire battlefield, the medical team entered the city and began treatment. At first, the people in the city were still a little afraid of the work. After half a day of publicizing the announcement of peace and security, and seeing that the people's army had good military discipline, the people slowly restored order. Some were crying and shouting in the wreckage of collapsed buildings, trying to find their families.

There were cries and screams one after another. Zhao Asan was lined up by several of his brothers and walked through the city cautiously to Wengcheng, the temporary settlement point for the prisoners. They ran relatively early among the Ming army. Unfortunately, for the people It was too late for the army, and they were intercepted by the People's Army cavalry on the official road to Xiaoguan.

A shot grazed Zhao Asan's right arm, causing a burst of blood. Seeing that it was impossible to do anything, he did not resist, and with a little luck, he decisively surrendered. Now he came back and looked at the magistrate who was still smoking on the road, and With all the broken limbs and craters on the street, he couldn't help but sigh at his own wisdom.

This life was saved.

He had never experienced such horrific scenes as mortar shelling when he was in the Ming army. Nowadays, mainstream artillery shells are solid bullets and cannot be compared with this. He was secretly glad that he was only slightly injured. Compared with these unlucky guys, Still better.

A small cast-iron projectile fell from the sky and hit the ground, forming a ball of flame. The violent air wave blew away the surrounding buildings and pedestrians. The scene of broken limbs and colorful internal organs was like him. Facing the Xilu, what they saw were not even equipped with armor, and only long-range weapons such as bows, a few fire guns and small cannons were completely different.

At this time, there was still a disgusting smell floating in the air, which was the smell of burnt meat. He wanted to leave here as soon as possible. He felt that his injured right arm was getting more and more painful, and his legs seemed to be pressed. A piece of stone, a long line of troops surrendering with no end at a glance. He didn't know that this was a manifestation of battlefield phobia, a condition that could occur even among veterans.

Torches were lit in Wengcheng, and Ban Qingtao led the medical team to Huating only in the evening. The first task was to provide basic medical treatment to the soldiers and civilians injured in the battle, and then they would start more important epidemic prevention work. In the late Ming Dynasty, epidemics were rampant in various places. He had to be on guard, so for this reason Liu Ze recruited a huge medical team of thousands of people from the third world. In particular, experts in infectious diseases also abducted more than a dozen people in the name of being invited to attend meetings abroad.

With the severe domestic situation in the third world, Liu Zeyi himself has also gone abroad, and it will become much more difficult to replenish personnel in the future. However, these are things that Liu Zeyi should worry about. These experts who were deceived came here and did their duty. , Doctors have the heart of a parent, and Ban Qingtao is a typical example.

In his opinion, the public health level in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty is very low. In such a bad environment, it is not surprising that various major epidemics have been recorded, especially among the poor, with poor sanitary conditions and frequent plagues in villages and towns. However, We have become accustomed to it, and few people will care.

Especially after the mid-Ming Dynasty, China entered an era of unprecedented rainlessness, and a nationwide severe drought occurred.

During the Wanli and Chongzhen years, droughts became more and more frequent, and the rate of severe drought years also increased. The plague that affected several provinces in North China first broke out in Shanxi. The plague that swept North China was actually the plague.

The drought is raging, and it is not just the refugees who are fleeing to save their lives. Rats also need to look for food everywhere. It is natural for a large number of rats to enter human settlements. Yersinia pestis spreads the virus to refugees through the fleas that live on them, and the migration of refugees spreads the virus to a larger area.

North China was the main battlefield in the late Ming Dynasty during the Peasants' War. Natural and man-made disasters occurred simultaneously. It was against this background that the Great Plague began to brew in the late Ming Dynasty.

Ban Qingtao wanted to know more details, and then began to search historical records. The more he read, the more frightened he became, and he imagined such a tragic situation:
  From the 10th to the 14th year of Chongzhen, there was a drought in North China for four consecutive years. In the 4th year of Chongzhen, in a spring drought wasteland in northern Shanxi, a flea was found because of the growth of rat plague bacteria in the body, which blocked the digestive tract and was unable to suck blood. , jumped on a squirrel and bit it hard. As a result, the bitten squirrel had a plague bacteria on its body.

Plague bacteria multiplied faster in this place, which was many times larger than fleas. After more than ten hours, the rat began to have a fever and its internal organs began to ulcerate. When a chinchilla dies, its plague germs are passed on to nearby mice, and then from one household to another.

Years of drought and lack of food made the mice weaker and their immune systems became worse and worse. Soon, the entire area was covered by the plague. Drought and lack of water also made the plague bacteria multiply faster.

It didn't take long for a large group of bacteria-carrying mice to become hot due to the high temperature. They looked for water sources everywhere. In the process, more and more mice were infected and joined the migrating team.

In the summer of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, a large group of rats suddenly appeared in the inland areas of China. They bit each other's tails, crossed the river, and entered Anhui, Henan, Hebei and other provinces.

During the Chongzhen period, [-]% of the time was a year of severe drought. The drought led to a sharp decline in grain production, a serious decline in national physical fitness, and extremely poor health conditions.

In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, China's inland areas were still in drought. There was almost no rain in the spring in Hebei. The rats had no water to drink and had to continue walking south. At the same time, the people in the famine panicked and began to eat the food hidden in the holes of the rats and the rats on the roadside. A plague that swept the country finally broke out.

So it was left in the history books of China that beginning in the 14th year of Chongzhen, a plague spread in Daming Prefecture. Fifty-six out of ten people died, and the year was very bad.

There was a severe famine in Guangping Prefecture, and people were eating each other.

There was a great epidemic in the capital and a great epidemic in Tianjin.

There was a major epidemic in Henan Province. Nineteen people died in Yangwu County, Kaifeng Prefecture, and countless others were exterminated.

In Rongyang, people live in close proximity to each other, and no one walks on the road in March.

Major epidemics occurred in Qingzhou, Jinan, Dezhou, and Tai'an in Shandong.

Anhui was plagued by blue flies as big as jujubes. Fengyang Prefecture, Anqing Prefecture, and Luzhou Prefecture were successively attacked by the plague. The death rate in the place with the largest number of deaths reached 90%. As a result, Luzhou Prefecture, which is now Hefei, was a prosperous and prosperous city. The street is like a quiet night, no one is walking.

The more he read, the more frightened Ban Qingtao found the record in Volume [-] "Zhiyi" of "The Northern Strategy of the Ming Dynasty":

A Ming Dynasty survivor who went by the pseudonym "Huacun Kanxingshi" was an eyewitness to the great plague in the capital in 1643. In his memoir "Huacun Talks", he cited several sensational cases of sudden death. .

An official was drinking tea and paying respects to his colleagues one moment, but he "died" the next moment; two people were chatting on horseback, and the person behind just said a few words to ask the person in front, only to find that this People have "died in the saddle, but they still raised their whips"; the most shocking thing is probably the strange death of two thieves: a rich family died in the plague, so the two thieves planned to make a fortune. The two agreed that one would answer the questions on the eaves, and the other would go down to the room and hand over the stolen items. As a result, the person below suddenly died suddenly while handing the bag, and the person above also contracted the plague and died while picking it up. At that time, the two thieves were still holding the stolen baggage in their hands.

In some wedding homes, the newlyweds died together at the wedding. Someone was riding a horse and talking, and the person behind them was already dead.

There was an official named Wu Yansheng who was about to go to Wenzhou to take up his post. One of his servants died. He ordered another servant to go to the coffin shop to buy a coffin, but when he came back after a long absence, it turned out that he died in the coffin shop.

There was a newlywed couple. After the wedding, the couple sat in the tent and did not come out for a long time. When they opened the tent, they found that they were dead on both sides of the bed.

Fifty-six out of ten small households along the street were closed, with or without coffins, and the total number of nine gates was more than [-].

Every guest who travels with an official has to write a letter home in advance, fearing that he will not be able to give instructions, and the same is true for Da Nei.

Zhang Tianshi entered the capital from Rui, not far from Chunming. He hurriedly pursued him and ordered him to write talismans, spray incantations, recite the Sutra and explain it, and he was imprisoned for a month. And death continues unabated.

As an expert in infectious diseases, Ban Qingtao understood that plague is divided into two types: "bubonic plague" and "pneumonic plague". The former has a mortality rate of 50%-90%, while the latter has a mortality rate of almost 100%. At this point, he judged that the plague The plague was probably the result of the two plagues raging at the same time, which is why the mortality rate was so high.

His speculation was also similar to that of historians. Compared with the rebellion inside the pass and the Manchu and Qing Dynasties marching south outside the pass, this plague outbreak was the real culprit that destroyed the empire from within. Thinking of this, Ban Qingtao felt more and more You have a great responsibility.

"Captain, there are too many wounded soldiers in the Ming army here, and we don't have enough manpower."

Ban Qingtao said: "Ask the local medical officer to help us."

The so-called medical officers are government-run medical institutions in prefectures and counties in the Ming Dynasty, which are equivalent to modern hospitals. Because they are government-run institutions, the people call them medical officers, and Ban Qingtao also calls them so.

In fact, China has a history of government-run medicine since ancient times. It began in the Tang and Song dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, each county had a medical institution. On the one hand, it handled the management of medicines, treated diseases for officials and the common people, and even provided door-to-door consultations. However, except for leaders, ordinary doctors are not paid and need to be responsible for their own profits and losses. And because ordinary people think that it is government-run and better than ordinary traveling doctors, the income is naturally high, so this profession is also very popular.

When Ban Qingtao waited until these Ming doctors arrived, he didn't waste any time and directly assigned them to handle various chores for the sick and wounded. In this era, medical skills were primitive even in the East, let alone the murderous quack doctors in the West. In Ban Qingtao's eyes, they will all be eliminated in the future. These old doctors can still shine now. If they fail to pass the review after training in the future, they will just be dismissed. It is far worse than training new people from scratch on a piece of white paper. Painting comes easy.

Modern medical theory is king.

However, as local people, these doctors who practice medicine as a profession, in addition to helping out, also have an important role, that is, to help Ban Qingtao understand the local epidemic situation. While asking the three people with the most experience and authority, Ban Qingtao wrote in his notebook It records their descriptions of common local diseases, symptoms of infectious diseases and outbreak areas.

These are first-hand reference materials for future response. Sample cases of various infectious diseases such as smallpox, cholera, and plague can almost be found here. In addition to small-scale infections, major outbreaks often occur every two years.

After basically understanding the local situation, Ban Qingtao began to fill in the application for the required medicines on his portable tablet computer. The current inventory is not much. After coming to the Ming Dynasty, experts carefully checked and found that the required quantity of medicines was too high. It is huge, and the medical needs of hundreds of millions of people across the country in the future are far from what Liu Zeyi can simply obtain from the third world. It must be prevention first and combined with prevention and treatment.

A long way to go.

(End of this chapter)