Chapter 167 Black Spot
The three doctors who accompanied him were the most important part of this trip. They were also alchemy cultivators in the Thousand Households of Fengri City. They could not only heal people but also concoct alchemy. They belonged to the Xuanqing guards with 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 the country, but with little success. It is very reluctant to explain the microcosmic biological system with the ethereal practice system, and Shen Hao can't help it. He can't tell these monks what is a virus and what is a bacterium? He couldn't even explain it himself.
But how to determine the plague is doable.
From the one outside Shipan Town to the blockade checkpoint, the three teams explored in three directions. Shen Hao led a team to go north along the official road, Wang Yiming led a team to leave the official road to the east, and Qianhu The soldier who tried Baihu led a team to the west. Each team has a healer.
Just two or three miles away from the checkpoint, you can smell the stench of corpses. After walking a few steps, you will see hiding pits on both sides of the official road. There are large and small but they are all very simple. Some corpses are even just sprinkled with a thin layer of soil. Can't hide the rotten smell.
There will be no shortage of scavenging things in this kind of place. Huge rats are not afraid of people. They squatted on the corpse with their eyes wide open and showed a fierce look at Shen Hao and his party passing by. They seemed to want to jump up and bite, but were kicked by a sergeant. It was pulpy.
"Be careful, the things here are probably not clean, don't get on anything you can get rid of, you, clean your shoes, don't get on your hands."
These people are horrified about the plague but have almost no idea how to prevent it.
The doctor stopped when he saw the hidden pit, and found a wooden stick to dig through the thin layer of soil and pulled out a rotten corpse. It was a woman, and the whole corpse was a little swollen. , the skin is grayish, with distinct black spots visible on it.
"These dark spots are not a normal manifestation of a corpse." The doctor took out a magic disk, and after a series of seal formulas, the magic disk began to hum, and then a golden glow shot into the corpse for a while and then returned to the magic disk. Afterwards, a long list of symbols that Shen Hao could not understand appeared on the Dharma plate.
"How?" Seeing that the doctor frowned and said nothing, Shen Hao couldn't help asking.
"It's a plague, but not any of the previously discovered ones."
"Why?"
"This is a plague check. You can directly tell whether it is a common disease or a plague. It also records the characteristics of all the plagues so far, which is convenient for the first time to determine. But the plague here is not in the record."
New plague?
Shen Hao also frowned. But he didn't get entangled, and turned his head to give an order to a subordinate behind him: "Immediately send a letter back to the 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 the local yamen in Wanhekou and Pingshun City. All will be imprisoned, and the hundred households of the Xuanqing Guard in Pingshun City will be in charge of the torture." Shen Hao has the order given by Wu Changhe, and he has the power to be arbitrary under special circumstances. And now is a special case.
"Master Shen, I want to continue to take a closer look. Plagues generally have their origins, and more details should be found there. Maybe we can figure out this black spot plague is similar to which plagues that have appeared before and draw some conclusions. method of treatment."
The doctor in front of him put forward his own idea, Shen Hao nodded in agreement, and repeatedly warned his soldiers not to touch the corpse and proceed carefully.
Going forward, there are more and more corpses, some of which are highly decomposed, and there is a disgusting smell around them.
After walking for about twenty miles along the official road, Shen Hao saw the first village. Shen Hao sent five spies to investigate first, and then let the large army enter, and still left some people outside to support.
The village is already empty, but there are not many dead bodies. Many of them escaped, or were cleared out and thrown into the two-day hiding pit on the official road?
I simply walked around the village and saw nothing suspicious.
Go deeper? Shen Hao felt that it was not appropriate. Because the current situation is unclear, entering rashly will definitely not be very effective. Therefore, it is suggested that the doctors should come here first today, and it would be better to wait for the official confession at Wanhekou when they go back, and then conduct investigations.
Let people play the assembly signal, and the three teams will gather at the entrance of the previous checkpoint.
The people from Wanhekou Yamen here have been brought back to Xuanqing Guard in Pingshun City for interrogation. After staying here with some people, Shen Hao returned directly to Pingshun City, and at the same time received an urgent order from Wu Changhe in Fengri City.
"Let Shen Hao, a hundred households of the Black Flag Camp, take full charge of commanding the frontline plague in Pingshun City to cover up the relevant matters."
This order is within Shen Hao's reason. Wu Changhe got a good cake.
It seems that Wu Changhe gave Shen Hao the first-line command of handling the plague case to praise Shen Hao, but in fact he only shared a small benefit with Shen Hao, and at the same time he could firmly hold Shen Hao in Pingshun. City can not leave, so, the external affairs of this plague is Wu Changhe's show. For example, issuing a martial law order to all the towns in Jingxi where refugees have flooded, and starting to detain refugees who may have plague in isolation, reporting the situation to the higher authorities, etc., these are much more beautiful than directing the investigation of 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 yamen, which is a local matter. Xuan Qingwei has no reason to intervene directly, and generally plays a coordinating role.
But this time is different. There are major omissions and problems in the two levels of local governments from Pingshun City to Wanhekou. The local government offices lost the initiative in the incident immediately. When the yamen in Fengri City realized that it was too late to take over, Xuan Qingwei could directly ignore the handover request of the local yamen on the grounds of "investigating dereliction of duty". As long as it drags on for a month or two, the plague will be suppressed, and the scenery will be reaped. At that time, the right to dispose of it will be returned to the local government.
This account Shen Hao and Wu Changhe did not discuss at all but reached a consensus tacitly.
So Shen Hao will be temporarily stationed in Pingshun City.
The territory of Xuanqingwei Black Flag Camp in Pingshun City was requisitioned, and Shen Hao listened to the progress of the case in the meeting hall.
Fang Yangqin, the local hundred-household official, now knows that he has committed the crime of "overseeing", so he can only cooperate with Shen Hao as much as possible so that his punishment will be lighter in the future.
"According to the interrogation, the place where a large number of deaths were received for the first time was in a small village called Xiushan, 110 miles north of Shipan Town. A family of five died suddenly at home overnight. There were black spots on their bodies. People in the village thought it was poisoned, so they reported it to the officials. But there was no follow-up, and it was concluded that the family died suddenly because they had eaten some kind of poison from the mountains.
This matter did not attract attention, and the villagers did not think much about it after they buried the family. But after a month, similar deaths began to appear one after another in the village."