Chapter 811: Great Masterpiece
Chapter 811: A Great Work
The epidemic peaked in the first month of the seventh year of the Shengui reign (323).
In the newly built Pure Land Temple in the east of Pingyang City, Fotucheng was presiding over a ceremony.
Wen Qiao sat aside sighing, feeling depressed.
Having followed Liu Kun in Jinyang for many years, he was already accustomed to separation and death, but seeing people being taken away by disease still made him feel heavy-hearted.
The coffin closest to him contained Wang Pei.
The former Liang State Censor Zuo Cheng retired a year ago due to old age and stayed in Pingyang to open a school to recruit disciples and educate the Hu and Han students. He suddenly contracted the plague a few years ago. Before his death, he asked to keep his coffin in the underground palace of the Pure Land Temple and be buried in Qingzhou after the plague was over the next year.
King Liang agreed to his request, gave him some funeral objects and some expenses, and ordered the government offices along the way to provide convenience for his burial.
Sikong Liu Han was also there.
He and Wang Pei had only known each other for a short time, but they shared similar interests and developed a deep friendship within just a few years, so he came to see his old friend off for the last time.
"Mr. Liu, the king said that there are many types of plague, not just one disease. What disease is this plague?" Wen Qiao felt anxious listening to the monks chanting, so he asked.
"People at the time all said it was an epidemic, but no one really knew what the disease was. I don't know either." Liu Han shook his head and said, "In the winter of the first year of Xianning (275), there was a great epidemic, and people died in Luoyang. It was a horrible sight. It was so severe, I'm afraid it wasn't an epidemic."
Wen Qiao was stunned.
"Epidemic means forced labor, and there are ghosts doing forced labor. People are taken away by ghosts to do forced labor, this is one theory." Liu Han spoke of the horrifying things in a calm tone: "So when epidemics occur, witches become valuable. Now in Pingyang City, the talismans of 'corpse beacon' and 'ghost beacon' are worth thousands of gold."
Wen Qiao couldn't help but frown and said, "Most witches are deceiving the world and stealing their reputation. Some people give up medicine and turn to gods, devoting themselves to studying, but still cannot avoid death. However, when they are dying, they don't regret giving up medicine, but regret that they turned to witches too late. Isn't it ridiculous?"
Liu Han sighed lightly and said no more.
When he was young, he was like Wen Qiao, and was familiar with medical books such as "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases", but after experiencing several major epidemics, he was at a loss.
In the first year of Xianning, the imperial court also summoned doctors to discuss countermeasures, and then sent officials to inspect the epidemic, distribute medicine, and bury the dead, but 100,000 people still died in Luoyang alone...
The medicines distributed are useless. For some of those who survived the infection, it is not so much that they were cured by medicine, but rather that they were strong and managed to get through it.
Going back further, several wars during the Three Kingdoms period ended in disaster due to epidemics in the army, which resulted in large-scale deaths of soldiers.
Do you really think that everyone is stupid? Don't know how to cure the disease? In fact, we have tried all kinds of methods.
The prescriptions recorded in medical books were the first to be used. When the epidemic was still out of control and people died on a large scale, people became desperate and began to seek help from witchcraft and astrology.
In addition, the monarch began to accept advice, correct his mistakes, and offer sacrifices to the gods. Regardless of whether it was useful or not, he had to do it.
The most effective way is actually isolation.
Years ago, King Liang issued an order: "Officials whose families have an epidemic, if three or more people are infected, are not allowed to go to the government office; those whose families have an epidemic, if more than one person is infected, are not allowed to enter the palace; if there is an epidemic in the homes of ordinary people, they will be sent to another place, given medicine and treated, and family members are not allowed to visit."
He also ordered: "Clean up your bedding, wash and bathe frequently, sweep the courtyard, and kill rats, ticks and fleas as soon as you see them."
Liu Han naturally knew these orders, he just mechanically asked his family to follow them, but he really had no idea whether it would work or not.
The older he got, the more he saw, and the more he believed in metaphysics.
People are so fragile. A person who was alive and well before can become so sick that he can't get up in the blink of an eye.
As a devout believer in Confucianism, he used to look down on scholars who lived a bohemian life, but now he has some understanding of it: the world is like this, so it is better to enjoy life while you can.
"Yu Yuangui once mentioned to me the great epidemic in Xianning." Wen Qiao suddenly said, "The Yu family was infected with the epidemic, and Yu Gun's two brothers died. The second brother was bedridden. His parents and brothers were all away from home. Only Gun couldn't bear to see his two brothers left without anyone to take care of them. He said, 'Gun is not afraid of illness.' So he personally supported them, stayed up day and night, and cried over the coffins, keeping vigil for the other two brothers who died of the epidemic. After the epidemic stopped, the family returned, the second brother recovered, and Gun was also fine. In this way, perhaps as long as you are filial and do good deeds, you can avoid being infected with the disease?"
Liu Han was confused when he heard this.
Are filial piety and brotherly love really useful in the face of epidemics?
Medicine is useless, filial piety and brotherly love are probably useless, nothing is useful, perhaps only praying to gods and Buddhas is useful - praying to gods and Buddhas was the thing that Liu Han sneered at the most when he was young, but after you have experienced countless despairs, you will be shaken and will doubt everything.
"Ding..." A bell rang outside the underground palace.
Wen Qiao and Liu Han suddenly woke up.
Before we knew it, the ceremony had ended and the great monk Fotucheng from Yecheng had already left.
In the dim underground palace, only coffins were left.
Among them were officials, military generals, and local wealthy families who donated money to build this temple, and their bodies were all placed here.
The huge underground palace is already full, so what difference would there be outside?
This is a disaster that does not discriminate between the rich and the poor.
Among the literary talents, five of them were killed in the 217nd year of Jian'an ( AD) and were scattered across the country.
Wen Qiao and Liu Han sighed together, left the underground palace, and went home. At this time, they should reunite with their families, because perhaps one of them will leave in the next moment without any signs.
******
In the Zhuze Bai Hall, Shao Xun was writing and drawing on a piece of paper.
He always felt that the term plague was too general. From a medical point of view, epidemics must have specific names, right?
He didn't know much about medicine, and after racking his brains, he could only write down on paper the names of epidemic diseases such as smallpox, cholera, plague, malaria, typhoid, schistosomiasis, tuberculosis, etc. He did not write influenza because it was not clear when it appeared, but the pandemic came really late, and World War I was the "highlight period" of influenza.
After writing down the diseases, he crossed out smallpox because the symptoms did not fit.
Schistosomiasis was crossed out, the region is wrong and the symptoms don’t match.
Malaria was crossed out because there was no tremor.
Neither does TB.
Finally, cholera was crossed out because there was no widespread diarrhea.
That left plague and typhoid, and maybe others, but he couldn't remember them.
As for typhoid fever, it seemed to have diarrhea symptoms as well, so he was not sure. He also asked people to drink hot water as much as possible - this was actually not easy at this time, because firewood cost money, and boiling water was time-consuming and laborious. Giving orders was one thing, but actually executing them was another, and a time traveler could not do anything alone.
Shao Xun finally circled the word plague with a serious expression.
Fuck him, this can’t be true? But he didn’t know the specific symptoms of the plague. This disease was prevalent in the late Ming Dynasty and was also called “plague” at the time. However, by then, medical development had improved and the plague was subdivided. The plague was called “plague” because the patient’s skin would bulge and “vomit blood and die”.
Shao Xun studied for a long time but had no clue. In the end, he could only grasp the most fundamental things, the three elements of infectious disease prevention and control: controlling the source of infection, cutting off the transmission route, and protecting susceptible populations.
In fact, the series of orders he issued before were all based on these three elements.
But we really don’t know what the specific disease is, so we can only bury the body (cremation is not possible) and eliminate rats, ticks and fleas.
As for isolating infected people and reducing contact, it is all for the purpose of preventing and controlling the epidemic.
In addition, the government also purchased a lot of medicines for distribution, but it is not known whether they are useful or not, and the quantity is seriously insufficient, because the majority of people these days have illnesses that go untreated, and the "production capacity" of herbal medicines is only enough for consumption by wealthy people.
All that can be done has been done, and the rest can only be left to fate.
At least, the bureaucratic machine under his rule is still vibrant, and he is confident that fewer people will die than in the original history.
Well, controlling the source of infection, cutting off the route of transmission, and protecting susceptible people are what Shao Xun believes are the most important. However, for the vast majority of elites in society at this time, the most important thing is——
"Please Implement Benevolent Politics", written by Yu Chen, the content is: "...Floods and droughts have harmed people, and diseases have followed one after another. It is because education has not yet touched the lives of the people, and sincerity has not yet reached the heaven and earth... We should stop fighting and exempt food and silk..."
In addition to Yu Chen, Taibao Pan Tao requested to redress the unjust imprisonment.
Wang Yan, commander of the Left Army, believed that the country had "inappropriate personnel" and that the government should "examine its mistakes" and "accept advice with an open mind."
Shangshu Ling Pei Miao quoted the "Zuo Zhuan" that "the gods of mountains and rivers, floods, droughts, pestilence and disasters, should be worshipped here", and believed that one should "offer sacrifices to the gods" and hold large-scale Nuo rituals to drive away evil spirits.
The last one almost made Shao Xun swear, and he rejected it directly.
Then, he suddenly thought, could he refute Pei Miao and everyone in the world?
Why did Pei Miao say this? Because many people in the world think so, and they think it is right.
This is the trend of the times, the social background, and the three views of all the people. Do you want to change these by yourself?
Human power is limited sometimes. Perhaps within our ability, we can make some correct decisions, save as many people as possible, and make small changes, which would be good enough.
"Someone come here." Shao Xun shouted.
The palace clerk Wu Li and the palace attendant Yang Man came in from the compartment and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, please give me your orders."
"Send an order to the Prime Minister to separate the doctors from the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Finance and set up the Imperial Medical Bureau." Shao Xun said, "The first task of the Imperial Medical Bureau is to compile a book called 'Fengtu Diseases'."
"What is 'Endemic Disease'?" Yang Man asked.
"List the states under the heaven, and the diseases that are prevalent in each state are called local endemic diseases (local epidemics)." Shao Xun said, "After the epidemic subsides, order the Imperial Medical Bureau to visit various places and record in detail the peak seasons, symptoms, and prevention and treatment methods of endemic diseases. Each disease must be named. I don't want to see vague general terms such as 'malaria' and 'plague'. Give me more details. If you list more and confirm that they are correct, I will not hesitate to reward you with gold, silk, official titles, etc."
When Yang Man heard this, she was stunned.
This kind of book requires the joint efforts of the whole country to compile, and only the king has the ability to promote it.
But once it is compiled, it will be an incredible masterpiece, with a far-reaching impact on the world.
After the compilation was completed, each county was issued a copy. From then on, local officials could refer to this book to determine what kind of disease the epidemic was and take appropriate prevention and treatment measures - even if they could not cure it, they could prevent it to a certain extent - instead of acting like headless flies.
I don’t know how many lives this move can save.
Yang Man bowed deeply and said, "I obey your command."
(Three updates today, the first one is here, the second one will be at noon tomorrow. Please vote quickly.)
(End of this chapter)