The three doctors accompanying us are the most important part of this trip. They are also the alchemy monks in the Qianhu Institute in Fengri City. They can not only heal people but also make alchemy. They belong to the kind of Xuanqing Guards who have special skills. The position is not high but the title is high.
The monks have been studying the plague, a disaster that can harm the foundation of a country, but they have achieved very little. It is very difficult to explain the microscopic biological system with the misty cultivation system, and Shen Hao cannot help with this. He can't tell these monks what viruses and bacteria are, right? He couldn't even tell himself.
However, it is possible to determine the plague.
From outside Shipan Town to the blockade, the three teams explored in three directions. Shen Hao led a team to the north along the official road, Wang Yiming led a team to leave the official road to the east, and Qianhu The man who was the personal soldier asked Baihu to lead a team to the west. Each team is assigned a healer.
Just two or three miles after leaving the checkpoint, I smelled the stench of corpses. After walking a few steps, I saw the pits on both sides of the official road. Some were large and some were small, but they were all very simple. Some of the corpses were even covered with a thin layer of soil. It can't cover up the rotten smell.
There will be no shortage of scavengers in a place like this. The huge rats are not afraid of people. They lie on the corpses with wide eyes and look fiercely at Shen Hao and his party who are passing by. They seem to want to pounce on them and bite them, but they are kicked by a sergeant. Got to be pulpy.
"Be careful. The things here are probably not clean. Don't get it on anything you can. Clean your shoes and don't get it on your hands."
These people were horrified by the plague but had almost no idea how to prevent it.
The doctor stopped when he saw the hiding place. He found a wooden stick and dug through the thin layer of soil to pull out a rotten corpse. He could vaguely see the appearance. It was a woman. The whole corpse had some emphysema. , the skin is gray and obvious black spots can be seen on it.
"These black spots are not normal manifestations of corpses..." The doctor took out a magic plate. After a series of seals, the magic plate began to buzz, and then a golden light shot into the body for a moment and then returned to the magic plate. among. After that, a long list of symbols that Shen Hao couldn't understand appeared on the Dharma plate.
"How is it?" Shen Hao couldn't help but ask when he saw the doctor frowning and saying nothing.
"It's a plague, but...not any previously discovered."
"What's the explanation?"
"This is a plague inventory. You can directly tell whether it is a general disease or a plague. It also records the characteristics of all plagues so far, so that it can be determined immediately. However, the plague here is not included in the records."
New plague?
Shen Hao also frowned. However, he did not hesitate. He turned around and gave an order to a subordinate behind him: "Immediately send a message back to Qianhu Office to inform Mr. Wu that the plague has been confirmed here. At the same time, go out and arrest all the chief officials of Wanhekou and Pingshun City local government offices." All of them will be imprisoned, and the hundred families of Xuanqing Guards in Pingshun City will be responsible for the torture." Shen Hao had the order given by Wu Changhe, and had arbitrary power under special circumstances. But now is a special situation.
"Master Shen, I want to continue to take a closer look. Plagues generally have their origins. More details should be found there. Perhaps we can figure out what kind of plague this black spot plague is similar to that has appeared before and draw some conclusions. Methods of treatment.”
The doctor in front of him put forward his idea. Shen Hao nodded in agreement and repeatedly warned his soldiers not to touch the corpse and to proceed with caution.
Continuing forward, there are more and more corpses, some of which are highly decomposed, and there is a disgusting smell surrounding them.
After walking about twenty miles along the official road, they saw the first village. Shen Hao sent five spies to investigate first, and then allowed the large troops to enter. There were still some manpower left outside to provide support.
The village is empty, but there are not many corpses. I think many of them escaped, or were they cleared out and thrown into the pits on the official road for two days?
I simply walked around the village and didn't see anything suspicious.
Continue further? Shen Hao felt it was not appropriate. Because the current situation is unclear, entering hastily will not be very effective. So I suggested that the doctor simply come here today and wait until the officials back at Wanhekou come out with their confessions before conducting further investigations.
Ask someone to give a gathering signal, and the three teams will gather at the entrance to the previous level.
The people from the Wanhekou Yamen here have been brought back to Xuanqing Guards in Pingshun City for interrogation. After leaving some personnel here, Shen Hao returned directly to Pingshun City. At the same time, he received an urgent order from Wu Changhe in Fengri City.
"Order Shen Hao, a householder in the Black Flag Camp, to take full responsibility for directing matters related to the concealment of plague cases on the front lines of Pingshun City."
This order was within Shen Hao's mind. Wu Changhe did get a piece of the cake.
It seems that Wu Changhe gave Shen Hao the front-line command of handling the plague case to promote Shen Hao, but in fact he only gave Shen Hao a small benefit, and at the same time, he could firmly hold Shen Hao in Pingshun. The city cannot leave, so the external affairs regarding this plague are his Wu Changhe's show. For example, issuing martial law to all towns in Jingxi where refugees are pouring in, and starting to individually monitor refugees who may be carrying the plague, and report the situation to the superiors, etc., these are much more glorious than directing and investigating plague cases on the front line.
There is another point that both Wu Changhe and Shen Hao deliberately ignored, and that is authority.
It stands to reason that the handling of the plague is handled by the local government and is a local matter. Xuanqingwei has no reason to directly intervene and usually plays a coordinating role.
But this time it was different. From Pingshun City to Wanhekou, there were major omissions and problems in the local government offices. The local government offices immediately lost the initiative in the incident. By the time the yamen in Fengri City realized that it was too late to take over, Xuanqingwei could simply ignore the local yamen's transfer request on the grounds of "investigating malfeasance in duty." As long as it is delayed for a month or two, the plague issue will be suppressed and the scenery will be harvested. At that time, the disposal power will be returned to the local government.
Shen Hao and Wu Changhe reached a consensus on this account without any discussion at all but with a tacit understanding.
So Shen Hao will be temporarily stationed in Pingshun City.
The territory of the Black Flag Camp of Xuanqing Guard in Pingshun City was requisitioned, and Shen Hao listened to the progress of the case in the meeting hall.
The local Baihu official named Fang Yangqin now knows that he has committed a "neglect of oversight" and can only try his best to cooperate with Shen Hao so that his punishment can be lighter in the future.
"According to the information from the interrogation, the first place where a large number of deaths were reported was in a small village called Xiushan, 110 miles north of Shipan Town. A family of five died suddenly at home overnight. They had black spots on their bodies. The villagers thought he was poisoned, so they reported it to the authorities. But nothing happened later, and they concluded that the family had eaten some kind of poison from the mountains that caused the family to die suddenly.
This incident did not attract any attention, and the villagers did not think much about it after burying the family. But a month later, similar deaths began to appear one after another in the village..."
