Seeing the field of crops in the distance, Lu Qi jumped off his sweaty horse and walked on the frozen ground. The harvested corn leaves have a dagger-like pointed end, standing in rows on the ridges. If a horse stumbles and falls in, it can make holes all over.
Because the land was located slightly higher, there was no snow, and the yellow-brown land was exposed, revealing cracks cracked by the frost.
These big holes were everywhere, in the roads, in the fields, and in the frozen-to-the-bottom river ice.
Lu Qi felt weird every time he saw these big holes. The gaps that could easily be filled with a little soil or snow remained open until spring came. He had never seen any gaps that were missing in winter. They are like the mouth of the earth. Their noses are stuffy in cold weather, and they open their mouths everywhere to breathe.
When Lu Qi passed by, he could still see the lake in the distance. There were a few black spots moving behind the dry reeds. It must be that someone was shaving ice fishing there.
In the fields by the roadside, there are large black dung piles every few dozen feet. They are compost that the villagers pulled into the field with oxcarts before it was frozen.
After the land thaws next spring, the fertilizer mixed with plant ash, human and animal manure, food waste and loess will be evenly sprinkled on the fields. As the plowshare cuts, the thawed black soil rolls and rolls, mixing these precious fertilizers into the fertile land, giving unimaginable rewards to those who work hard to collect dung.
Lu Qi likes the composting season very much. At that time, the whole earth is filled with a fragrance: the unique smell of completely fermented fertilizer. This smell is much better than the smell in Beijing in my memory. The smell in the capital is really eye-catching.
Although the howling wind felt like a knife cutting his face, Lu Qi, who was wearing a wolf-skin coat and a fox hat, still broke out in sweat. He panted heavily and tugged on the horse's reins, asking the horse behind him to keep up with him.
After turning around a row of pitch pine trees, he met two half-year-old children. These two boys were also wearing bulging clothes. One was holding a dung basket in his hand, and the other was holding a wooden fork. The main body of the wicker dung basket is shaped like a dustpan, but the handles mounted on it are made of rattan. When Lu Qi looked at it, he didn't find much inside.
When the two and a half young men saw the horse in his hand, their eyes lit up and they looked around. Lu Qi smiled and said, "What? Are you going to be bandits?"
The younger child had a long line of snot under his nose, wiped it with his sleeve and said with a grin, "Do you want to poop?"
Lu Qi smiled and said, "How do I know? Are you from Huojiacun or Lijiacun?"
One of the two children is from the Huo family and the other is from the Li family. The two are somewhat related. The younger child's sister is married to the older child's older brother, and the two are heterosexual brothers. When Lu Qi asked, who were they looking for?
Lu Qi said: "I am a doctor. I heard that there is a patient in the Huo family? Let me come and take a look."
The eldest child said in surprise: "That's my father Huo Laoshuan, are you Dr. Lu? My eldest brother came back yesterday and said that if my father is not healed today, he will be taken to town to look for you."
"Is your dad feeling better?"
"Still like that, huffing and puffing."
"Oh, then you can take me to your house."
...
Lu Qi's arrival caused a sensation in the two villages. Men and women suffering from bruises, headaches, brain fever, diarrhea, irregular menstruation and other symptoms formed a small queue in the Huo family ancestral hall. There were more people watching the excitement, and the ancestral hall was full. The people who were so idle in the winter were finally able to see someone from outside the village and hear the news from outside.
Two men came out of the Huo family, and two women maintained order and helped pack the medical fees into bags. Most of the medical fees are copper coins, and there are also broken pieces of silver, but most of them are local products-hazel mushrooms, pine nuts, roe deer legs and the like.
There is also a small amount of mink skin, deer antler and wild ginseng in the medical fee. It's not that the villagers don't know how valuable these things are, but they are out of gratitude and respect for the doctor's life-saving grace.
Lu Qi didn't know what kind of disease Huo Laoshuan had, so he decided to write a letter to Daning's teacher and ask. This teacher was several years younger than Lu Qi, and was a graduate of the Capital Medical College. Lu Qi was one of the barefoot doctors found in every town in Daning, and was the next disciple of this medical student.
Lu Qi could neither take a pulse nor perform surgery. He was a complete dilettante. But he can use a stethoscope to diagnose pneumonia, understands basic hygiene and disinfection knowledge, and can reset arms after dislocation, set bones and bandage fractures of the radius, ulna, and tibia and fibula. In addition, he also memorized about a hundred prescriptions and was able to prescribe these prescriptions based on the villagers' descriptions of their illnesses - but he never killed anyone.
In this way, he became the most respected person within a hundred miles. Not only is he married to the daughter of a big landowner, but he also lives in the most luxurious house in Sanshilipu Town. No one here knows that he was once a gangster in the capital, who was severely punished in the first year of Wanli. At that time, he was sent to Liaodong.
Lu Qi is always grateful to his father, who used a big stick to force him to read and read. Otherwise, he, nicknamed "Er Biantou," would have died on this land, let alone being selected by the government to become a Barefoot Doctor.
This "barefoot doctor" was the emperor's policy. Medical school graduates were trained in various places using unified textbooks and taught in the field, with a total of one year of study and internship. All training fees are paid from the emperor's internal funds. Of course, except for a few places in Daning, Guangxi and other provinces, no local official seemed to have asked the emperor to reimburse the money. Those who had some methods were to call on the local gentry to show filial piety in the name of the emperor.
The money was not provided by the emperor, but the good reputation was borne by the emperor, and the person receiving the money did not feel uncomfortable - this is definitely the most virtuous act of kindness. Moreover, in daily life, you have to curry favor with the prefect and county magistrate, and you also need to be favored by the gentlemen. If there is no outstanding scholar in the family, even if you have money, no magistrate will be willing to pay attention to you.
Because Erbiantou Lu Qi was illiterate, he neither worked as a slave nor went to the battlefield. He served as a soldier in the army under the jurisdiction of the Liaodong General Army for several years. He originally thought he could wait for the amnesty, but he didn't expect that the emperor would act unreasonably and take root in Liaodong.
He later thought that he could always be a soldier in the army for the rest of his life. Unexpectedly, after the reform of the Liaodong Army, his status as a military officer cost him his job. Fortunately, when he was a Ku soldier, he was diligent and sweet-mouthed. Wang Yan, the Ku ambassador, liked him very much and arranged for him to do some private things.
When he was laid off, Wang Yan helped find connections to make money, and put him on the list of barefoot doctor training, which was considered a proper placement for him. Er Bian Tou was a gangster when he was a boy, but the wind and frost in the Northeast taught him how to be a mature person - he studied very hard, and successfully obtained the certificate and badge of "Junior Medical Doctor" when he graduated, becoming a capable doctor. A barefoot doctor practicing medicine in rural Daning.
Knowledge changes destiny, and so does half-baked knowledge. Lu Qi, who put on a white coat, used a stethoscope under the adoring eyes of the crowd, tapped the patient's knees with a small hammer, and looked at the throat with a tongue depressor. Basically, he could diagnose common diseases in detail.
After writing the prescription, he asked someone to take down two large sacks from his horse, and took out a lot of herbal medicine: they were all prepared according to the prescription he had just written. No matter what kind of medicine is used here, ginger slices are used as the medicine introduction, and there is not much emphasis on the monarch, ministers and assistants in pharmacy. Basically, there is one package of medicine for each disease, and Lu Qi even brings more medicine packages for common diseases.
Seeing the villagers happily taking the medicine home to cook, Huo Laoshuan's eldest son had a sad look on his face, and he no longer had much hope for his father, who even Dr. Lu could not treat. His father had been snoring on the kang for several days, and he only had a little water and rice. The elders in the village said that he would not be alive for a few days.
After the doctor had almost left, Huo Laoshuan's eldest son once again begged Doctor Lu to prescribe some medicine for his father. Lu Qi waved his hand and said, "This won't work! The teacher said that if you cannot prescribe medicine for a disease that cannot be cured, relying on your body is better than taking medicine blindly."
Huo Laoshuan's son cried and begged, and finally knelt on the ground and hugged Lu Qi's thigh to let him break his principle. The new patriarch of the Huo family, Huo Da, also beat the drum and said, "It's okay! Doctor Lu can just prescribe the prescription. If he eats it to death, he deserves to die. It has nothing to do with your medicine."
The patriarch of this big clan is always a spittle and a nail, and it's not easy to lose face. Lu Qi scratched his head and had no choice but to take out a packet of Xuanfei Decoction from the sack and handed it to Huo Laoshuan's eldest son: "This is for treating fever and cough. Although your father doesn't have fever and cough, he has severe wheezing. Try this." .”
After saying that, he packed the remaining medicine back into the sack, put all kinds of strange medical bills in it, and looked around at the people in the ancestral hall - whose animal has something wrong? Take me to see it!
Dr. Lu, a part-time veterinarian, did not arouse any surprise from the villagers, and he was quickly taken out of the ancestral hall. Huo Laoshuan's son also took the medicine home and cooked it for his father to drink. Soon, the scent of medicine wafted everywhere in the two villages.
It was getting late after watching the animals, so Lu Qi had no choice but to follow Huo Da's arrangement and stay overnight in the wing of the Huo clan leader's house. He got up early the next day, preparing to return to town as soon as the sun came up. After breakfast, while he was loading the saddle and tying the girdle in the yard, someone came and banged on the door. Huo Da's son opened the door and saw Huo Laoshuan's seven sons standing in a row outside in the snow. He was shocked.
The seven of them walked up to Lu Qi with majestic steps and knelt down with a plop: Thank you, Doctor Lu, my dad is back alive and he ate a big bowl of rice this morning! ——Do you still have the medicine?
