People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 2 You call this magic?

After hearing Zhang Ji's words, Wang Dang was immediately disappointed. He thought that this Han official had finally given in and was willing to work for the Yellow Turbans. He didn't expect that the other party just wanted to save people.

Due to their status as rebels, the Yellow Turbans have always been short of talent.

Often when the Yellow Turbans occupied counties and prefectures, they could not find enough officials to govern them. No matter where the scholars were from, they were unwilling to serve the bandits, and many of them would rather die than surrender.

This is not only not allowed by the Confucian spirit of loyalty to the emperor, but also because once the scholars and the rebels get together, the members of the aristocratic families behind them will easily be implicated.

Therefore, no matter how the Yellow Turbans used threats and inducements, it was difficult to find talented people willing to work for them.

This is also the reason why Wang Dang looks up to Xu Chen. It is quite difficult to find someone who is literate and knowledgeable these days.

"Do you know medical skills?"

Although Wang Dang was disappointed, it was at least a good thing that the other party was willing to save people, so he looked at Zhang Ji again.

Wang Dang always felt that the young boy Xu Chen was unreliable. If Zhang Ji could solve the urgent problem of the plague, he still felt that Zhang Ji was more trustworthy. At least he had a few tufts of beard on his chin, didn't he?

"I know a little bit." Zhang Ji spoke modestly, but his expression was neither humble nor arrogant.

Wang Dang hummed, then said: "Can your medical skills cure the plague in the army and keep most of our troops safe?"

Zhang Ji's face suddenly became awkward when he heard this, then he shook his head and sighed, "General, you are joking. No one in the world can solve the plague. I can only use medicine to treat those who have been infected. As for how many people I can save, I can't guarantee it."

Upon hearing this, Wang Dang became disappointed again. It turned out that the other party's methods were not very good and could not solve the plague. Even if they could save a hundred or so people in the end, what would that matter?

What he lacks are those hundred or so people. What he wants is to protect most of the Yellow Turbans in his hands, and this can only be done by eliminating the plague.

If it were in the past, Wang Dang would definitely not expect anyone to solve the plague, but didn’t Xu Chen swear that he was the descendant of the Heavenly Master and had magic that could eliminate disasters?

This kid has even issued a military order, so I have to believe it.

"Save as many as you can. When our army is stable tomorrow, the sick soldiers will be handed over to you for treatment." Wang Dang nodded at Zhang Ji.

Then he turned to look at Xu Chen beside him, frowned, and snorted: "You said you can eliminate the plague, I'll let you try, if you can't do it, I'll make you pay!"

When Wang Dang finished speaking, before Xu Chen said anything, Zhang Ji was shocked first.

Who is so arrogant as to say that the plague has been eliminated?
Only then did he seriously look at Xu Chen standing beside him. Seeing that Xu Chen was just a young boy wearing a Taoist robe, his face suddenly darkened.
"General, curing diseases and saving lives requires pathological medicine. It is not something that can be done by playing tricks. I have devoted myself to studying medicine for more than ten years, and I have never heard of anyone being able to eliminate the plague. This guy must be deceiving you!"

Zhang Ji spoke frankly. Although he was an official, he valued his identity as a doctor more. If he did not have a kind heart as a doctor and could not bear to see so many lives suffer, he would not have taken the initiative to step forward to treat the Yellow Turbans.

As a doctor, he despised Zhang Jue's behavior of using medical skills to play tricks.

Now when he saw Xu Chen wearing a Taoist robe, he subconsciously felt that Xu Chen was also a person like Zhang Jiao, and he couldn't help but stand up and rebuke him.

But after he said that, Xu Chen was not happy.

"Your own medical skills are not good, so you say that others are not good enough. Don't you know that there are always people better than you? People should be humble and not be jealous of others' talents!"

"What a joke! You are just a Taoist priest pretending to be a ghost. How can I, Zhang Ji, be jealous of you?"

Zhang Ji was furious. He didn't expect this kid to be so arrogant and even shamelessly say that he could eliminate the plague.

I have devoted myself to medicine for more than ten years and have also done in-depth research on the treatment of plague. However, until now, I can only say that I will try my best to keep the infected people alive, but I cannot eliminate the spread of the plague.

After all, one person can only save a few lives, so every time a major epidemic breaks out, he can only watch more people die in pain.

As a doctor, seeing this kind of scene, I feel helpless, but more than that, I feel sad and heartbroken.

It was because he knew how terrible the plague was that he could not tolerate Xu Chen's shameless tone.

A charlatan who is a fraud has no respect for life at all!

"It's easy to brag now, but I want to see what magic you can use to get rid of the plague!" Zhang Ji snorted coldly and walked away, too lazy to say anything more to a charlatan like Xu Chen.

Xu Chen felt confused, but at this time he didn't have the heart to care about Zhang Ji.

Instead of getting angry with others, the right thing to do is to seriously consider the current predicament. At least the other party is right about one thing: the plague is really deadly.

He could only take advantage of the early stages of the epidemic to prevent and control it, so as to have a chance of helping the Yellow Turbans successfully overcome the crisis.

It was early winter at this time. Jizhou was located in the north and the nights were extremely cold. The Yellow Turbans could only snuggle together and light a bonfire to barely get through the night.

Without even waiting for dawn, Wang Dang immediately prepared his entire army and headed towards the forest with a clear goal.

Just as Xu Chen said yesterday, after they escaped into the forest, the Han army that had been following them closely hesitated outside the forest and dared not pursue them any further.

It is a classic military saying that one should not enter a forest, and the Han army was unwilling to take the risk of pursuing the enemy deep into the forest. Firstly, the cavalry of the army could not be fully utilized in the forest, and secondly, the forest environment was complex and it was easy to be ambushed, so usually no general would choose to pursue the enemy in the forest.

Seeing that they had temporarily escaped from the Han army, Wang Dang left two small teams of Yellow Turbans to monitor the movements of the Han army, and the majority of the group immediately went deep into a valley in the forest. After a simple clearing, they began to order the Yellow Turbans to start cutting down trees to make a temporary camp.

Then he turned his attention to another more terrifying enemy, the plague!

Zhang Ji selected a group of people to go with him to the depths of the forest to pick medicinal herbs. While they were setting out, he noticed that the little Taoist boy had already started to move.

Some people in the army who had symptoms of plague were picked out by the little Taoist boys and then gathered in a separate area.

More than 5,000 people were crowded here, and it seemed very chaotic even if there was someone giving orders. However, Zhang Ji still understood Xu Chen's approach.

It seems that this little charlatan knows something about epidemics and knows how to distinguish between sick people.

If you think that everything will be fine just by doing this, then you are underestimating the plague. If the plague could be dealt with so easily, people would not be so frightened of it.

Zhang Ji knew very well that this method could not stop the spread of the plague. Even if the infected people were identified, other people would be infected in large numbers over time, and no one knew how this spread would occur.

He sighed. Based on his previous experience with plagues, he thought it would be good if only 10% of the more than 5,000 people could survive.

Not in the mood to pay attention to these useless things, he took a team of people into the mountains to collect herbs.

On the other side, when it took most of the day to almost pacify the Yellow Turbans, when Wang Dang heard Xu Chen's requests one by one, his expression suddenly became strange and stunned, and the look in his eyes when he looked at Xu Chen was full of suspicion.

"This general asked you to cast a spell to save people, but you asked all the soldiers to shave their hair and beards. What kind of magic is this?" Wang Dang's eyes widened.

Xu Chen cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly, but then he spoke with confidence.

"That's right, you have to shave your hair and beard cleanly. Not only the hair and beard should be shaved, but also the hair under the armpits, chest and even crotch should be shaved cleanly. Except for the eyebrows, it is best if there is no hair on the body!"

Wang Dang looked at him for a long while. If Xu Chen's expression had not been too confident, he would really have doubted whether this boy was lying to him.

"What kind of weird magic is this? Shouldn't it be talisman paper turning into water?"

"No no no!"

Xu Chen shook his head and said with disapproval.

"The art of talismans is too low-level. I communicated with heaven and earth last night and got this new method. I asked the followers to sacrifice their body hair to show their piety, and then they can get the luck of heaven and earth and resist disasters and diseases."

Wang Dang frowned: "Really?"

Xu Chen nodded: "It is absolutely true, General, believe me."

Wang Dang's expression was very conflicted, as if he was in a state of mixed belief and disbelief. This kind of magic was really unheard of and too strange.

But after thinking for a long time, considering that he had no other choice, he decided to give it a try. This is better than sitting and waiting for death. What if it works?
Then he nodded silently: "Is it enough to just shave my head?"

Xu Chen smiled and said, "After shaving all the hair, the believers need to boil water to wash the body, and the clothes must be steamed and dried before they can be worn again. In short, the body must be kept clean to receive the luck of heaven and earth."

Wang Dang frowned even deeper. This was too much trouble. The conditions were already simple, and he still had to prepare all these things. "Is it finally over now?"

Xu Chen finally said: "The last thing is to strictly forbid the disciples to drink raw water and eat raw food. Fire is a pure yang thing, and only things tempered by fierce fire can disinfect the plague poison!"

Wang Dang almost wanted to curse. It was so difficult to drink a sip of water. Isn't this just looking for trouble?
If Xu Chen could not always find some reasonable explanations for these requests, he really didn't want to do it.

It is really troublesome to do all these things under the current conditions.

"We only have enough food to last for half a month at most. If you can really do it, then try to be as fast as possible!"

Wang Dang said this depressedly, then turned around to make arrangements.

Xu Chen breathed a sigh of relief.

He also knew that these things were troublesome to do, but they had to be done if he wanted to control the spread of the plague.

The only thing that makes Xu Chen feel a little relieved is that we are still in the earliest stage of the plague. As long as the main transmission routes can be effectively blocked, at least the spread of the plague can be controlled.

He never expected to actually eliminate the plague, he just wanted to minimize the casualties caused by the plague.

Since there is no way to create more hygienic conditions, we can only make some efforts through simple methods such as shaving hair and prohibiting raw water and food. At least we don't have to see these dirtier people with lice crawling all over their heads anymore.

What worries Xu Chen is that even such a simple job is not easy to do.

Most of the Yellow Turban followers found it difficult to accept these troublesome things, especially shaving their hair and beards, which was a shameful act. How could they face people without any hair and beard?

(End of this chapter)