To meet all-round monitoring of urban areas and adjacent customs, at least five to six hundred quarantine personnel are required. For the army, the burden is too heavy.
Originally, the garrison in Guangzhou was very limited. If it weren't for the Navy's Pearl River Detachment stationed just outside the city, with a large number of rotating sailors stationed there, Guangzhou would really be a bit of an "empty city strategy."
The army can be used to undertake security work such as martial law and control, but it is beyond the power to continuously allocate a large number of manpower to epidemic prevention.
As for recruiting through the civil service examination - although the Cadre Office has given Guangzhou the power to recruit local civil servants on its own, it is ridiculous to recruit four to five hundred cadres for health clinics at once.
It was Lin Baiguang who had an idea. He proposed to use the former Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers currently training on Hong Kong Island.
After the liberation of Guangzhou, all the Ming troops in the original Guangzhou Prefecture, whether they were "caojun" from local military households or recruited battalions, were all sent to Hong Kong Island for training. Not only them, but also the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers who surrendered and were captured during the entire battle to liberate Guangdong were also sent to Hong Kong for screening and training.
"These ruffians are not necessarily good at what they do, but they are top notch at causing harm to the people..." Lin Motian's head was already shaking.
"No, my suggestion is to use soldiers from local military households." Lin Baiguang said.
Because these military soldiers were all from the local area and their families were also local, they were different from the foreign "guest army" soldiers who had no worries. They did not dare to be too unscrupulous and did less evil.
"...Most of them are locals, familiar with local conditions, can speak Cantonese, and can communicate much more easily than us. Most of their family members live outside Guangzhou, so they have to do whatever they want. They can't help but disobey the rules!" Lin Baiguang road.
Lin Motian felt that this was also a solution, and since these people had been in Hong Kong since the beginning of the year, it was impossible for them to be infected with the plague. It is more secure to use.
In order to facilitate command and expenditure, with Liu Xiang's consent, an epidemic prevention brigade directly under the Guangdong Corps of the National Army was established based on these soldiers after reporting to Lingao. In order to "strengthen leadership", another fifty sergeants and soldiers were transferred from the National Army and appointed as captains of various squadrons and squads.
It only took three days to form the epidemic prevention brigade. Early on the third day, the newly formed epidemic prevention brigade went to the Wanshou Palace Training Center to be taught by Lin Motian himself.
The use of quarantine officers without any medical knowledge background will inevitably affect the misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis rates during the investigation of plague cases. Therefore, in order to ensure the quality of quarantine, he personally hosted relevant training courses. In addition to teaching the epidemic prevention brigade, he was also prepared to take the trouble to Stress the need for quarantine and isolation to frontline administrators and police officers. As for their isolation measures, he is currently unable to come up with a very effective method. All he can ensure is that every front-line worker wears a mask - which is better than nothing at all.
Normally, protective measures against plague require a full-body isolation gown and goggles. They have some of these, but they can only be allocated to front-line workers who need to have direct contact with patients, disease corpses, and objects.
A shipping isolation and quarantine area has been set up on Cheung Chau Island. All sea-going ships coming from the north must undergo 10 days of mandatory quarantine at the quarantine berth on Cheung Chau Island. After the quarantine is over, they can sail to Guangzhou to unload and disembark. All fur goods are not allowed to be unloaded in Guangzhou and must be unloaded at the quarantine warehouse on Cheung Chau Island. Those who unloaded goods privately in Guangzhou will be treated as epidemic ships once they are seized, and the goods will be burned on the spot.
Lin Motian hesitated again and again, but still did not propose comprehensive martial law. Since pneumonic plague has not yet appeared, the spread of plague is still at a relatively slow stage. These policies that have been issued will inevitably affect the circulation of goods to a certain extent, and comprehensive martial law requires more quarantine personnel and troops. When there is a shortage of people everywhere in the department, even if he is a health department, he cannot block the flow of people.
Rumors against him have already appeared among the elders. It is said that one elder once said in private that he was "making a fuss out of a molehill! There weren't many infectious diseases in Guangzhou back then, so why did he come here like this? I think he just deliberately took a few." The patient makes a big fuss and uses it as a stepping stone for his promotion!"
Lin Motian put his martial law application back on his desk:
"I hope this thing will be used later - no, I hope it will never be used." He looked out the window at the quarantine officer wearing a hoop and sighed silently in his heart.
Lai Xiao stood beside the boat, riding on the increasingly gloomy sky and the rolling river water. Thinking about it in my mind.
He has been thinking about the idea of escape for a long time, but now, the idea of "escape" is becoming more and more determined.
At the beginning of being taken into custody, Lai Xiao still had the idea of taking things easy. Although it is not a good thing to work as a coolie for the Australians, at least you have a bowl of food to eat, which is a way to survive. It's not too late to hang around for a while and see what happens before making any calculations. However, since the old man suddenly fainted on the dock and later heard that he "died of a sudden illness", the situation suddenly changed.
Their group did not make it, but stayed on the dock all day. The ships that had been berthed hurriedly pulled anchor and left. Then, another group of "National Army" came and surrounded the pier three floors inside and three floors outside. No one was allowed to enter or leave.
The originally noisy and busy dock suddenly became extremely deserted. Apart from them, the beggars waiting to board the boat, there were a few maskers who were responsible for guarding and escorting them. Although they tried their best to stay calm, they hurriedly put on that thing called a mask. With anxious and uneasy eyes, Lai Xiao knew something big was going on here!
Based on Lai's experience of begging in the past few years, it is not difficult to guess that the old man who died suddenly must have suffered from a "temporal disease", which is not uncommon among beggars. From the time he returned to Nantian and throughout the summer and autumn, he was infected with various " It is common for beggars who are old, weak, sick or disabled to die suddenly and violently.
However, Kun Thief took this "current disease" so seriously that he closed the dock and put a mask on the fake Kun - he knew about this. All the doctors in Kun Thief wore this, and it was said that it could " epidemic prevention".
This is going to spread the epidemic! Lai Xiao's scalp suddenly exploded.
He knows a thing or two about the horrors of epidemics. Lingao also suffered from smallpox. When begging in Guangzhou, beggars "blow water" to each other. Beggars who have experienced it have said that the horror of the epidemic is "nine rooms are empty" and "there is no human habitation for thousands of miles." In the past few years in Guangzhou, we have seen epidemics every year, killing hundreds or even thousands at a time. Beggars are often called to work as widowers to carry corpses - this job can strip the dead of their belongings and clothes. Many beggars are willing to do it. Every year, many people die of diseases caused by carrying corpses.
Could it be that he was also infected? Lai Xiao was in panic all day long. When they were finally caught on the boat, a rumor spread among the crowd that all the people on the dock that day, whether they were beggars or pretenders, would be sent to a small island to "wait to die". To prevent them from spreading the disease to others. The reason is that the fake man who was supervising them on the dock also got on the boat.
"Thief Kun really deserves to die!" Lai Xiao secretly cursed, "Everyone must die of the plague before they can be clean!"
Thinking about how I was working as a servant for the second young master in Goujiazhuang, I had no worries about food and clothing, and I was very impressive when I went out. No matter whether I was teasing the maids or the wives and daughters of the tenant farmers, no one dared to say no, even in the county town. , is also a domineering master, who won’t bring any money even if he eats a watermelon.
Who could have imagined that he would end up like this! Not only can't he become a beggar, but he has to be sent to a desert island to "wait for death."
Don't wait to die, you must run!
Although the river here is wide, Lai Xiao prides himself on excellent water quality. You can come and go freely in the bay, not to mention the Pearl River, which is much quieter than the sea!
As long as he could climb out of the cargo hold and jump into the river, Fake Kun would never be able to catch him.
Thief Lai looked around secretly. The ship that transported them was a so-called "Australian barge". The ship was not too big, and there were more than a hundred beggars crowded in the open cargo hold. The bulkhead of the cargo hold is as high as one person, and there are fake kuns on the bow and stern decks on guard. They are condescending, and they can clearly see every move in the cabin. It's impossible to sneak up and jump into the river - the fake Kun raises his hand and shoots, and there will be a transparent hole in his body.
The sky was gloomy, and there were waves of dull thunder in the distance. The beggars on the boat couldn't help but shrink their necks. In the dark clouds in the distance, there was a faint flash of lightning, and the wind on the river began to get stronger and it was chilly.
A heavy rain is coming. The people on the barge began to stir. As the wind picked up, the ship began to bump.
The pretenders who were on guard on the front and rear decks tightened their rifles and kept yelling: "Don't move, don't move, everyone squat down!"
A gust of wind passed, and suddenly a drop of water fell on Lai's head. Then he heard a rapid crackling sound, and as lightning passed over his head, thunder seemed to explode in his ears. Almost at the same time, the straight rain channels fell, and it was impossible to see the individual lines. They just fell one piece at a time to the river surface. Countless ripples were shot out on the river surface in an instant, and then they were swallowed up by the waves in an instant.
Within a moment, thousands of waterfalls fell from the bulkhead of the cargo hold, and the rain curtain drenched everyone in the hold in an instant. Lai Xiao squatted next to the bulkhead and looked at the sky nervously. At this time, the sky and the earth were inseparable. The river in the sky was falling, and the river on the ground was flowing across it. It was gray and yellow, but sometimes it was white and bright. It was a world full of water. .
The pretenders on the boat were also overwhelmed by the heavy rain. Some people rushed to get their raincoats, while others hurriedly arranged their raincoats that were messed up by the wind and tied ropes to their bamboo hats. In this brief moment of chaos, when he was flawlessly caring about the cargo hold, Lai Xiao had already used his hands and feet to climb up the side of the ship, stepping on the body of a beggar slumped in the bottom of the ship. A burst of thunder rolled past, and he jumped into the turbid water of the Pearl River.
