the world is at stake

I don't know whether this sudden plague will hit Daming or the 'Holy Light'.Given the current situation, instead, the imperial court is in chaos, and local officials are afraid of the plague, and some even abandon their officials and flee.

The military pressure on the 'Holy Light' team has been reduced instead.

Zhou Qingfeng pondered... "I don't know what the idiots from the 'Federation' are doing? They shouldn't be stupid enough to stay in the epidemic area, they should go northeast.

But in this winter, what can we do if we go to the Northeast?Is it okay to give Nurhachi eggs? 'Boarskin' can look at them, even if I lose. "

Similar to Zhou Qingfeng's estimate, Guo Hai and others are indeed living a miserable life at the moment.They set off in April and arrived in Shenyang in May. They then bought real estate and farmhouses in Shenyang as businessmen and started border trade activities.

The artisan slaves hired and purchased from the imperial capital became the capital of Guo Hai's fortune.Because of the lack of ironware in Liaodong, especially Jiannu, who were extremely eager because of their lack of technology.

In order to use metal weapons, Nurhachi took all the iron pots obtained from Fushun Mutual Market and reforged them into swords, guns and armor.At this time, whoever can give him ironware must be a guest of honor.

According to Ming's standards, people like the 'Federation' have developed quite well.But when the time came to October, it was too cold to do anything, and the long winter came again.

When they were in the imperial capital, Guo Hai and others stayed in the post station for three months.It is colder in the Northeast, and they have to nest for half a year.To make matters worse, one of the eleven members suddenly became seriously ill and died of abdominal pain a few days later.

The doctors in the team couldn't even judge what disease the companion had, let alone treat him, and could only watch him die in agony.

The only good news is that a Jurchen businessman named 'Ma Chengta' got in touch with Guo Hai because he sold a lot of ironware to the Jianzhou Jurchen in Fushun Pass.

According to the old records in Manchu, this person is regarded as Nurhachi's confidant.

As the end of the year approaches, Guo Hai has to boost his own morale, "Don't be afraid, we still have two years to find a way to sell more iron and firearms to Nurhachi, and we will definitely win."

Chapter 28 Sending the God of Plague

Also in October, outbreaks broke out in several counties in Songjiang Prefecture.

Since the officials and gentry in the prefecture city have ignored their affairs, the only way is for 'Holy Light' to come forward and send troops to block the roads in several counties, cut off the flow of people, and allow people to enter but not to leave.

Zhou Qingfeng personally came forward, relying on his personal prestige to force the residents who tried to escape to stay in their homes, and gave relief to the poor who lacked clothing and food.

Outside Zhujing Town in Huating County, Xinhua soldiers armed with spears and wearing two-layer cotton masks stood guard at the intersection.Zhou Qingfeng accompanied members of the medical team including Academician Li to go in.

Because of the bustling market and the high turnover of people, Zhujing Town has become a hard-hit area for infections.There are more than 1000 households in the town, more than half of them are sick, and most of them are the elderly and children.

The town closed its doors and closed its doors, and it was silent in broad daylight.A team of soldiers took a trailer and knocked on doors from door to door, counted the population, and prepared to distribute relief food.

Seeing Zhou Qingfeng appear, the squad leader immediately stood at attention and raised his hands in salute.

After Zhou Qingfeng returned the gift, he asked in a low voice: "Is there anyone else who wants to run outside?"

"Report to the chief, yes." The squad leader who led the team held his head high and held his chest high. "Two families were caught last night, and one more this morning. They all wanted to escape to the countryside. We want them to stay at home, or they will be shot. "

Academician Li was beside him, sighing softly.The army is like this, it doesn't make sense, and it has to be done when it is ordered.She stepped forward and asked, "How is the town's population counted?"

The squad leader was a young man in his early twenties, smiling a little embarrassedly, and handed over a roster he had compiled himself.

The paper used for the booklet is very poor, the worst mulberry paper.There are some crooked handwriting on it, probably East [-]th Street, West [-]th Street and so on.

Below each street name is the house number, followed by symbols.Triangles and circles represent men and women, and shapes and sizes represent ages, such as toddler, teenager, youth, old age.

Zhou Qingfeng raised his head and asked, "How many months have you been in the military?"

"Five months." The squad leader replied.

"Take your free time to study, and try to master [-] commonly used characters by this time next year." Zhou Qingfeng nodded, and returned the roster, "Work hard, and strive to be promoted next year."

The squad leader first smiled honestly, then sullenly, and shouted 'yes'.

Academician Li went door-to-door to check the patient's body, onset time and excrement.Zhou Qingfeng followed in, paying special attention to families who were seriously ill and the whole family fell ill.

The poorer the people, the poorer the sanitation conditions, the more difficult it is to resist the outbreak.In some families, children died of illness, and adults were dying of illness.

But after investigating the symptoms of hundreds of patients, the medical team breathed a sigh of relief.

"Fever, fatigue, abdominal pain, diarrhea... combined with all the symptoms, it is likely to be typhoid or dysentery. The possibility of plague and cholera is relatively low.

From the point of view of the mode of transmission, it should be drinking unclean drinking water, resulting in oral and feces transmission.We don't have specific medicines, but we can manage all patients together and provide high-calorie cooked food.With good care, most people can heal on their own. "

In the words of Academician Li, the key is the four words "extensive care", behind which is the cost of money.

Zhou Qingfeng frowned, and summoned the town's chief and the chief of staff to discuss how to accommodate the patients. The first problem was the lack of enough rooms in the town to form an isolation area.

"Whoever is the richest in the town will vacate the houses of a few big families. There are always hundreds of houses. In addition, the family members of the patients are recruited to act as volunteers, given a certain salary, and take care of the patients after receiving short training.

In the future, the whole town must remember to eat hot water, hot meals and hot dishes, and develop good hygiene habits.To eliminate rats, mosquitoes, cockroaches and bedbugs, the town has to spend money to repair public toilets and dig sewage ditches. "

Zhou Qingfeng's words were ordinary, but his tone was harsh.

Li Zheng and Bao Zhang timidly reported the names of several 'big households'.Zhou Tianwang was dissatisfied, and he added the residences of Lizheng and Baochang, and demanded to vacate the room immediately to accommodate patients.

In front of swords and guns like wolves and tigers, if you don't agree, you have to agree.

The whole town was mobilized within half a day, with soldiers overseeing the transfer of the sick and the burning of the dead.On weekdays, storytellers, opera singers, and even professors in private schools were pulled out and shouted along the street to publicize epidemic prevention matters.

Manpower is easy to talk about, isolated shelter is easy to talk about, even food, meat and vegetables can be solved, the only trouble is fuel - the entire Songjiang is built on the impact plain of the Yangtze River, and it has no coal.

Xinhua's blast furnaces and steam engines have been burning charcoal.

"Spend money, pay high prices, and mobilize manpower to collect. In addition, I remember that there is coal in the direction of Nanjing. Even if there is no high-quality coal, lignite and peat, as long as it can be burned."

To prepare for the crossing, the team investigated the coal and iron resources near Shanghai.

Forget about Shanghai locals.

However, there are several small coal mines around Qinglong Mountain in Nanjing, and it is said that Lu Xun once worked there as a "coal sunspot".In addition, there are iron mines in Yeshan area.

Throughout October, Zhou Qingfeng led a team to run back and forth between villages and towns in various counties of Songjiang Prefecture, exhausting two mules and three horses to death.Under the background that the entire six southern mansions were hit by the plague, Songjiang Mansion was in the best condition.

The feelings of the common people are the most direct. The king of Zhou Tian, ​​​​the Xinhua rebel, is the murderer, but he is really in charge.

Centrally placed patients prevented the further spread of infectious diseases, and more professional care allowed most patients with mild symptoms to recover on their own.Is it serious... Let's die early and reincarnate early, and it will be less painful.

A hospital with hundreds of beds was built in Qinglong Town, and two to three hundred unemployed women were hired as nurses.The medical team can occasionally perform a few minor operations that traditional medicine cannot handle, in exchange for praise from the people.

As for other places, 'Holy Light' simply trained a group of hygienists who could only shout slogans - wash your hands before and after meals; eat hot food instead of drinking unboiled water; centralize the treatment of feces, and don't throw them randomly...

Anyway, it's publicity, and it can play a role.At least make Xinhua famous.

But in the city of Songjiang Prefecture, it was another scene.

The sudden outbreak frightened all the officials and gentry in the city like a frightened bird. Those who could escape quickly fled, and those who could not escape sealed the gates of the city to prevent the movement of people as much as possible.

Master Wan did not dare to go out, and stayed in his bedroom all day long. He only let a few special servants bring his food, drink, and food, and no outsiders were seen.

The housekeeper could only report from outside through the door and window, "Master, the news came just now, and the emperor passed away in the capital today. The new emperor is about to ascend the throne."

what……? !

After hearing this in the house, Master Wan felt a splitting headache.

Last month, after several rounds of negotiations, the Xinhua rebels still refused to pay the promised taxes.The magistrate couldn't bear it anymore, and angrily ordered the government soldiers, guards, inspection department, and taxation bureau to jointly enforce the law and go out of the city to collect taxes.

More than 1000 troops went to the countryside, but a grain of rice was confiscated.

The commander-in-chief who led the team went out and wandered around. He planned to find a few small villages to surround and kill a group of people to stand up.But when he really led the troops down, he found that the collective farms had already received news and made preparations.

Each village can gather [-] or [-] strong men and women, holding spears and desperately resisting.Ten villages can gather two to three hundred militiamen who will defend their homes to the death, and they will help and protect each other.

The commander-in-chief led more than 1000 people, but he didn't dare to fight with two or three hundred militiamen, so he could only send someone to scold the other party for being lawless, and dared to fight against the imperial order.This is the crime of decapitation, and if you don't hurry up and beg for mercy, you may be exempt from punishment.

The militiamen who gathered a crowd to rebel only act like bullshit chanting scriptures, even if the enemy is outnumbered, they will die to the end.When other collective farms gained trust and came to support them, more than 1000 people from the commander-in-chief fled away, running faster than rabbits.

The bizarre development of this matter was not only beyond the expectations of the officials of the Songjiang Mansion, but even Zhou Qingfeng did not expect it.

The low-level peasants who were ready to fight desperately did not expect that they would finally have enough to eat for a few months, regain some dignity, and simply do not want to go back to the old days.

The several collective farms that resisted made calculations, and even the compensation payment was negotiated.They felt that they could last at least two days, and Zhou Tianwang would definitely bring troops to rescue them.As long as the officers and soldiers can be killed and retreated, even half of the casualties are worth it.

It didn't seem like a big deal, and the only casualty was probably that many fleeing officers and soldiers twisted their feet.But the government's paper tiger image collapsed in an instant, and the people of Songjiang Mansion saw through its weakness.

So the imperial court is so weak?

The prefect of Songjiang learned that there were "thieves everywhere" under his rule, and he could only look up to the sky and sigh, deeply feeling that he had failed the king's kindness, and almost hanged himself.Fortunately, Master Qin was rescued, so he still chose to ask the court for help.

However, the rescuers did not come, the plague came first, and then the emperor died again.

When Master Wan heard about this, he plopped down on the ground and was dazed for a long time.He was even more pessimistic than Fang Shoufu in the imperial capital.

Every time the old and new powers are handed over, the court will be in chaos for a while.Not to mention half a year, if the imperial court can straighten out the relationship within a year and issue a decree to dispatch soldiers to rescue, this is God's eye opening and everything is going well.

If it doesn't go well, I don't know when it will be delayed.

"Master, master..." The housekeeper yelled a few words after hearing the silence in the room.

Master Wan hummed dejectedly, but he didn't want to speak.

Only then did the housekeeper report the second news, "Master, don't be discouraged. Several other big families in Fucheng also got the news, such as the Xu family, the Dong family, the Qian family and so on.

Several masters also felt that relying on the government was unreliable, and they still had to rely on themselves.

Now that the weather is getting cooler, the plague will definitely subside.Each family thought that they could spend enough money this winter, feed the family members of the family, and gather five to six thousand people to fight to the death with the Xinhua rebels. "

Master Wan was shocked when he heard it, and asked anxiously: "Have the masters made a decision?"

"Not yet." The housekeeper said, "But you can't sit still."

"That's true." Master Wan slapped his thigh fiercely, his emotions fluctuating, "Heroes in the world are born in my generation, and this world is an opportunity for Wan to show his skills.

Hurry... Hurry up and let those craftsmen who make firearms work, my lord, I want to build a firearms battalion, and make an indelible contribution.When I become a marquis on the battlefield, I will promote you, the housekeeper, to be a general. "

The butler was also taken aback outside the house, and after a while, he said quietly: "Master, have you forgotten? You are afraid that there will be a plague caused by the large population in the house, so you have resigned more than 20 craftsmen who made firecrackers."

Ah...Master Wan's train of thought was immediately stuck, and he sighed after a while: "Good things take a long time!"

With the cold weather, the epidemic has indeed gradually subsided.

For the 'Sacred Light' team, there was another piece of good news in October—after the prototype training, the [-]-horsepower steam engine of the mechanical group officially rolled off the production line.

There were many problems with the prototype machine before, the most serious one was that the boiler exploded - the apprentice on duty in the middle of the night dozed off and didn't notice the failure of the centrifugal governor, which caused the steam of nearly 250 degrees to burst out.

The apprentice who caused trouble was sprayed with high-temperature steam, and 50.00% of his skin was severely burned.If he can't be rescued, he can only be given some opium extract to reduce the pain before death.

By the way, the opium poppies planted by the pharmaceutical group have been harvested and used as strictly controlled materials.Everyone is not too happy, but there is no way.This is one of the few effective herbal medicines currently available.

After careful consideration, the mechanical group decided not to waste energy on developing a steam engine with greater horsepower, but to go all the way to the black on the "[-] horsepower", reduce the size, improve work efficiency, reduce coal consumption, and enhance reliability.

Eighty horsepower is actually not small.

The next step was to produce as many copies of the same steam engine as possible and use it in factories or ships.

The 'Holy Light' team also accepted the reality - don't keep thinking about thousand-ton sailing battleships, in fact, small boats of fifty to one hundred tons are also quite good, and government-owned and private shipyards in the south of the Yangtze River can build them.

The cost of a hundred-ton flat-bottomed Fuchuan is only three to four hundred taels, which is very cheap, if ordinary wood is not pursued for long-term use.

The construction of this kind of lucky boat is far simpler than later generations imagined. It does not need a dock at all, and it only needs to build a shelf on the beach by the sea to start construction.

The difficulty is that shipbuilding requires a ship to have a 'ship', that is, a design drawing.

This thing has been improved for hundreds of years, and it has been handed down by generations of boatmen in the form of family, that is, the set of "passing on from male to female".Only a handful of people have mastered it.

But 'Shengguang' purchased a large amount of Huzhou rice paper, and copied and circulated various technologies without money.What was leaked was not only the structural and manufacturing drawings of hydraulic machinery and textile machinery, but also the construction drawings of various types of river and sea vessels.

The mechanical team has seen all kinds of ancient design drawings preserved in history. They can combine the cognition and level of current craftsmen to teach how to understand the equipment manufacturing and assembly drawings of later generations.

This great dissemination of knowledge started after the beginning of spring, and basically the craftsmen employed by 'Xinhua' could master one or even several secret techniques handed down from family.In order to master more knowledge, its learning initiative is very high.

The 'Holy Light' team thought about building their own boats, but the success of the textile machinery made the machinery team see a new way - to organize a group of experienced and thoughtful craftsmen, provide technology and start-up funds, and let them do it themselves.

The timber processing factory of 'Xinhua' can provide cheap materials, and can also provide a large number of orders to ensure that the shipbuilding team attached to 'Shengguang' can be profitable and make money.

This method greatly stimulated the entrepreneurial passion of the craftsmen.From July, they began to run in internally, and there were many conflicts and disputes, but by October, a total of six to seven hundred craftsmen had left 'Xinhua' and established four or five workshops.

One of them was placed in the new town of Wusongkou, named 'Jiangnan Shipyard'.Their primary goal is to build a [-]-ton sharp-bottomed ship for Xinhua's gentlemen as soon as possible, and reserve space for steam engine installation.

Chapter 29

In November, the cold wave hits from the north, and the river wind at Wusongkou becomes particularly cold.

Jinyi Ma Baihu from Nanjing dressed like a local rich man, stood on the bow of the boat with a hand warmer in his arms, and muttered: "This plague-stricken weather, it's not yet the time of the Chinese New Year, why is it so cold?" Rigid?"

Under the bow of the ship, a dozen workers were struggling to pull the pulley crane. A fir log with a length of more than [-] meters was hoisted from the ship by two cranes and transferred from the cabin to the dock.

It was cold, and the adults of Baihu were wearing cotton-padded clothes, shoulders hunched, wishing they could curl up into a ball.But the workers on the docks took off their coats.Many people were sweating profusely, and their upper body was bare, revealing their tendons.

Judging from this physique, he eats and drinks well, and he is by no means impoverished.

"The fate of the poor in Songjiang is good, and it is only in this land that the coolies can be so strong."

Ma Baihu reckoned that any worker on the wharf would be sold as a slave and sold for more than a dozen taels of silver.If they go to the generals of the Nine Sides, they can be servants in armor.

"Right now, there are disasters all over Beizhili, and a ten-year-old Huanghua girl only needs two taels of silver. How many fleeing refugees want to come to Songjiang, but it's a pity that they can't get across the Yangtze River."

The Shandong area was hit by a disaster at the beginning of the year, and refugees flooded into the Jianghuai River.Now there is another plague in the north, and more people are fleeing.Yangzhou is the hub of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, and refugees gather together.

When Ma Baihu came from Nanjing, corpses floated across the river from time to time.Just because many fleeing refugees tried to cross the river holding a few gourds, most of them drowned.