Wanli 1592

Chapter 1316 The Plague of Schistosoma

When Xu Guangqi said this, Han Xuan nodded.

"No wonder the land reform has to be carried out in Guanzhong first."

"Try to keep Guanzhong intact and lay the foundation for the Northern Expedition. The experience in Guanzhong can also be widely spread to other places. I heard that His Majesty has already set up locust control agencies in Tianjin and many places in the south of the Yangtze River. He plans to wait for us to come out here." As a result, the strategy of raising ducks to control locusts will be promoted nationwide."

Xu Guangqi said slowly: "But your majesty also said that raising ducks to control locusts is a remedy for a dead sheep. If you want to eradicate the locust plague, you must build water conservancy. If you don't build water conservancy, the locust plague will come again and again." And three, it is the common people who suffer.”

"Your Majesty is really kind and caring for the people..."

Han Xuan sighed.

The policy of raising ducks and controlling locusts in the Guanzhong area has been strongly supported by the government from top to bottom. Starting from Han Xuan, the next level of accountability will be directly held accountable. Whenever something goes wrong, the chief executive will be blamed, and no one else will be questioned. Efforts have been made to implement the policy of controlling locusts with ducks.

This accountability mechanism has been well established. From the level of the governor to the level of the president of the peasant association, and the level of management, just like this, no one can escape if something happens. Everyone is jointly and severally responsible. Don't try to shirk, only doing things with your head down is the only way.

Since Sanyuan County, the method of raising ducks to control locusts has gradually been implemented in many places. Xiao Ruxun tried his best to send enough ducks for the local government to use to ensure that Guanzhong is not lost, and to make the newly stabilized Guanzhong area more stable.

In other places, it is not that there is no locust warning. The tidal flats in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River are high-incidence areas of locusts. Xu Guangqi followed this route all the way to Xi'an and gave Xiao Ruxun a complete report.

Since the beginning of spring this year, there has not been much rain, at least not as much as last year, so last year the locust plague only occurred in a small number of areas, and the intensity was very small. crisis.

This year, there is not much precipitation in the north, and there is not as much precipitation in the south as last year. Therefore, the officials Xiao Ruxun sent out to inspect various places came back and said that this year there may be a certain scale of locust disasters in the south of the Yangtze River and the north of the Yangtze River. The government needs to be prepared to deal with the locust disaster.

Xiao Ruxun started to prepare. Even during the period of publicizing the country's prestige, he did not let go of the work of transporting materials to various places, but the time was too tight and the preparations were not sufficient.

After careful consideration, Xiao Ruxun decided to try to keep Guanzhong intact, and then he could only use a certain scale of control measures in other places, and could not fully mobilize like Guanzhong. Fortunately, there was no severe drought last year and this year, even if the locusts were raised, they would not be able to get up. big.

There are not enough people. No matter how many central government officials expand the scale of the government, it is of no use. I always feel that there are not enough people. The new batch here is just transferred to the other side. Controlling locusts is still a nationwide problem. Years and two years can't see any results at all.

Xiao Ruxun could only choose to do his best to protect important areas in Xu Tuzhi, and the reason for the shortage of manpower was not only to deal with locusts, the schistosomiasis in the south of the Yangtze River had also become a serious problem for Xiao Ruxun.

In April of the second year of Longwu, when Xiao Ruxun was planning to divide Southern Zhili into three parts, Anhui, Jiangsu, and directly-administered Shanghai, a report from the Taiping Mansion made him frown.

This is the work report submitted by the newly appointed county magistrate after the former county magistrate of Dangtu County, Taiping Prefecture suddenly fell ill with abdominal distension and blood in the stool and had to take leave to go home for recuperation.

He said that after he took office, he investigated the medical records of the former county magistrate. According to the testimony of the entourage and the doctor, he found that the former county magistrate fell ill after going to a small village in the lower township for investigation. Three of the entourage also fell ill. Yes, one of them is dead.

The new county magistrate felt that something was wrong and decided to go for an inspection. When he arrived at the small village, he found that the funeral was being held in the village, and it was still cremation. big.

He found it strange, so he inspected the whole village, and found that there were seven or eight families in the village. The four or five members of the family had very big stomachs, but the rest of the body was as thin as a firewood stick. He remembered what the doctor said about the former county magistrate. The attendant also had a swollen abdomen before his death, so he asked the villagers about such doubts.

The local people explained that this is a disease called pot belly disease. They said that this disease has been around since as long as they can remember. The doctors came wave after wave, but some people can be cured, while others cannot. Well, some of those who couldn't be cured died within a month, and some took many years to die.

The county magistrate found it very strange, and asked the old people in the village, and found that the old people in the village also said that in their childhood, the disease of big belly was always with them.

And one of the old people recalled that when he was young, his grandfather said the same thing. Anyway, it has been passed down from generation to generation, and the big belly disease has never been far away from this small mountain village like a curse.

People with big belly disease will cough up blood and have blood in stool, their body will be very thin, and their death will be very bleak. Some people are different. Some people can get better after coughing and fever, just like people who have nothing to do. Some people have a big belly soon. Get up and die.

And those who got better later, although they had seizures occasionally in the future, they still lived to be in their 50s before dying.

He inspected the village and asked the villagers, and found that more than half of the people in the village had fever and coughed up blood. Some of them gradually recovered after drinking the medicine prescribed by the doctor to reduce swelling and exorcise evil spirits, and some died. Only a few people said I have never had such a situation.

The ancestors in this village also passed down a rule that people who died of a disease with a big belly should be cremated and not buried directly in the ground.

The county magistrate was even more surprised, so he asked the local doctor. The local doctor also said that he knew about the disease, but it was difficult to cure. According to the local chronicles, it was found that there was a record of this kind of big belly disease in the previous dynasty.

More than a month after that, an official who followed the county magistrate to that village to investigate suddenly had a high fever, chest tightness and headache, and had to ask for leave. The county magistrate immediately realized that something was wrong, and immediately called a doctor to give the official After a consultation, the doctor judged at a glance that it was a big stomach disease, and gave me medicine as soon as possible.

The doctor gave the official a ferulic pill. After taking it, the high fever and abdominal swelling gradually subsided. The doctor found some long strips of worms in his feces, and explained that it was an insect disease.

Then the doctor said that such people are not uncommon, and that this official was lucky to be cured. Many people either could not find a reliable doctor to treat them, or had no money to treat their illnesses, and could only wait to die.

There are also several doctors who said that they have seen such patients in several neighboring states and counties, and there are quite a few of them, but they feel that this disease has not been rampant over the years. Not many, it is much less than starving to death, so no one cares.

However, the county magistrate felt that the matter was over-thought, so he took a pen and wrote a work report, sent it to Taiping Mansion, and then sent it to the capital together with Taiping Mansion.

Later, this matter was noticed by Ye Xianggao. Ye Xianggao felt that the inexplicable death of an official was not a trivial matter, and worried that it was the early stage of some kind of plague outbreak, so he focused on sending this report to Xiao Ruxun.

In the era when Xiao Ruxun lived, schistosomiasis had been eradicated, and he learned about this terrible parasitic disease that had ravaged the land of China for more than 2000 years through reading historical books.

(End of this chapter)