Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

China's future lies in the hands of young people like Tao Jingzhi.

Tao Jingzhi's cheeks flushed when Wei Hongjun praised her like this, and she quickly waved her hands and said, "I was just guessing."

"Hahaha."

Seeing Tao Jingzhi's bewilderment, everyone couldn't help but laugh. "We're all waiting for you to continue your wild guesses and cultivate more antibiotic strains." Wei Hongjun turned to the Minister of Light Industry, Jia Tuofu, and said, "Comrade Jia Tuofu, North China Pharmaceutical's achievements should be commended throughout the industry. The localization of penicillin is a historic moment for the development of my country's pharmaceutical industry."

"Yes."

Wei Hongjun took a look around and became more and more satisfied.

But this was just the beginning of China's antibiotics development. So Wei Hongjun told Jia Tuofu, "The Ministry of Light Industry needs to deploy this as quickly as possible. Let North China Pharmaceutical's technology spread to other pharmaceutical factories, increasing both the volume and quality of antibiotic production in my country."

There are currently four major pharmaceutical factories in the country.

Northeast Pharmaceutical Factory, North China Pharmaceutical Factory, Shanghai Pharmaceutical Factory, Xinhua Pharmaceutical Factory, and some smaller pharmaceutical factories besides them. Only by leveraging my country's previous advantage of concentrating large quantities of resources on major projects and rapidly promoting North China Pharmaceutical's antibiotic technology can we quickly increase China's antibiotic production and bring down antibiotic prices.

Unless we lower the price of antibiotics, the Chinese people will never be able to use them. While future generations will claim that China is flooded with antibiotics, right now, there is absolutely no medicine more effective than antibiotics. Many everyday illnesses, once severe, are now instantly cured with antibiotics. Therefore, rapidly increasing antibiotic production and lowering prices are the most important priorities.

Therefore, it is imperative to leverage the advantages of the socialist system. This is why the Soviet Union and China were able to rapidly become industrial powers.

In fact, it's because of this system of concentrating resources on major projects. Under this system, state-controlled enterprises don't prioritize patents. This is because emphasizing patents in the early stages of development prevents the coordination of resources. Therefore, in socialist countries, patents are not valued, or even criticized.

Just like the North China Pharmaceutical Factory currently cultivates its own antibiotic strains.

Strictly enforcing patents would severely impact the development of China's antibiotics industry. After all, if patents were a priority, how could North China Pharmaceutical be willing to assist other pharmaceutical manufacturers in production? Fortunately, these companies are now state-owned and operated by the state. Therefore, ownership issues present no real challenges. At the government's command, these state-controlled enterprises must comply.

Historically, the central government began delegating some factories to the provinces, hoping to unleash local initiative. However, this immediately led to two major problems. First, local governments, now in control of so much industry for the first time, engaged in frantic investment, eager to quickly achieve political success. As a result, local industrial investment was nearly three times the central government's investment in these industries the previous year. This was truly blind investment.

The result is a lot of unfinished projects.

Another problem is ceding land to become king.

Many industries were originally regulated by the state, with overall control and coordinated development. Since they were all state-owned enterprises, everyone was willing to cooperate with national policies. However, after decentralization to local governments, the ownership of these enterprises changed, becoming locally controlled. As a result, local governments focused solely on their own interests, with little regard for cooperation with other industries.

The original cooperation was artificially severed.

As a result, the original cooperative system was destroyed, and these factories were operating independently.

As a result, problems arose frequently.

The central government ultimately had no choice but to take over these factories. "We will make arrangements as soon as possible."

Jatofu nodded.

As the two men were preparing to eat in the cafeteria of the North China Pharmaceutical Factory, a call came in from the General Office of the Central Committee. The Chairman wanted to speak with Wei Hongjun that afternoon. Wei Hongjun had no choice but to interrupt his trip, leaving Jia Tuoguan behind and fly back to Beijing alone.

After returning to Beijing, I learned that the Chairman wanted to talk to the cadres of the Rural Work Department. The Chairman had already sent the content of the meeting to Wei Hongjun and others, so that Wei Hongjun could prepare for the upcoming meeting.

Wei Hongjun took it and looked at it. It was a report from Sui Xiaochao, Vice Minister of Health, to the Central Committee. After receiving approval from the Secretariat, it was sent to the Chairman. After reading it, the Chairman summoned officials from the Ministry of Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Health to discuss the matter. Sui Xiaochao's report addressed how to carry out health campaigns in rural areas and improve rural healthcare.

Sui Xiaochao was the twelfth eldest daughter of Sui, one of the leaders of the Jidong Uprising.

Sui Shier is 1952 years old this year. He retired due to age after the Eighth National Congress and the First National People's Congress in . However, after his retirement, he was hired by North China University of Technology to teach students there.

Because he has rich theoretical knowledge and extensive practical experience in industrial construction, his courses are very popular in North China University of Technology.

Sui Xiaochao also retreated to the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei base area during the Great Jidong Uprising. She first served as director of the 1953th Column's General Hospital, later as director of the Hebei-Rehe-Chahar Military Region Hospital, and later as Minister of Health of the Hebei-Rehe-Chahar Military Region. After the establishment of the North China Bureau, she served as director of the North China Military Region General Hospital, Deputy Minister of Health of the North China Military Region, and Deputy Minister of Health of the North China People's Government. After liberation, she served as Minister of Health of the North China Military Region, and after the State Council established the Ministry of Health in , she became the fourth-ranking Deputy Minister.

Therefore, her report on the development of rural health care was related to her experience during the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Revolution. Many of the reports were implemented in the Hebei-Rehe-Chahar Military Region and the North China Military Region.

Sui Xiaochao pointed out that the demand for rural health care differs from that for urban health care, and therefore the demand for medical personnel is also different. In particular, the current lack of formal medical care in rural areas has led to the prevalence of various witch doctors, and superstitious practices such as praying to gods and jumping rope are rampant, seriously hindering the development of rural health care.

The central government is required to formulate a rural health care development plan.

After reading the report, the Chairman asked Wei Hongjun to return. Because this involved rural work, the Rural Work Department needed to be involved. After reading the report, Wei Hongjun carefully considered it.

In the afternoon, Wei Hongjun and cadres from the Rural Work Department came to the Chairman's side.

Officials from the Ministry of Health were also there. Minister of Health He Cheng, Vice Minister of Health Su Jingguan, Fu Lianzhang, Xu Yunbei, and Sui Xiaochao. The officials from the Ministry of Health were generally military veterans, having served as military doctors in their early years.

But it's understandable. When the central government established the Ministry of Health, it naturally selected officials it trusted. And the officials it trusted were necessarily from the military. Otherwise, no matter how famous or skilled you were, you wouldn't be able to manage the Ministry of Health.

"What do you think of this report?"

The Chairman attaches great importance to this report.

After all, the CCP was founded in the countryside, surrounding the cities from the countryside. Therefore, the Chairman has deep feelings for the countryside.

Wei Hongjun said, "Chairman, Comrade Lai Ruoyu has considerable experience in this area in Shanxi." "Really? Comrade Lai Ruoyu, please tell us about it."

Lai Ruoyu said, "I'm actually learning from what Jin-Cha-Ji did back then. When the North China Bureau was first established, I went to Zhangjiakou to attend its founding ceremony and discovered that Pu-Cai-Ji was training medical personnel very quickly. So I took a closer look and discovered that they were all using a short-term training program. They teach them the most basic knowledge, the simplest hygiene knowledge, and then the most common disease treatment methods. After mastering these, they can graduate and start working. After these medical personnel have worked for a few years, they will receive short-term training to learn more about medicine. Medical personnel trained in this way either serve as medical workers in grassroots companies of the army or travel around the countryside as guards. I believe that this training model, although it is impossible to train doctors, is very useful for training doctors needed in daily life. Comrade Sui Xiaochao was in charge of this work at the time."

"So after I returned to the Jinnan Office, I began studying this model. We took young people aged 1,800 to 2,500 who had emerged from literacy campaigns and escaped illiteracy, and had them learn the most basic hygiene knowledge. Then, we had them go to the countryside to participate in literacy campaigns, while also teaching them basic hygiene knowledge and carrying out health campaigns in the countryside. This allowed rural residents to understand even the simplest hygiene knowledge. Lack of hygiene knowledge is the root cause of the current epidemics of various diseases in rural areas.

"We'll select a group of motivated and diligent learners from this group for short-term training. They can't grasp advanced medical knowledge, so we'll primarily write down common illnesses. We'll explain what symptoms indicate illnesses and how to use them. We'll have a set procedure for them to learn. They don't need to understand why certain treatments are used, just how to proceed. This way, we'll have a group of rural doctors. They won't have much theoretical knowledge, but they'll understand how to treat certain illnesses."

"What rural areas need most nowadays are not highly skilled doctors, but doctors who can impart health and hygiene knowledge to them and treat common daily illnesses."

The Chairman listened quietly to Lai Ruoyu's report.

The content of Sui Xiaochao's report was similar. The Chairman asked: "Then how do we get the medicines needed to treat the disease?"

"They are all collected medicinal herbs. Different diseases require different Chinese medicinal herbs.

"Just prescribe the medicine according to what you've learned. And every once in a while, we'll provide these rural doctors with new training so they can understand more diseases and use more Chinese medicinal herbs."

A few years ago, they were all illiterate.

What else can you expect them to cure?

Knowing the general diagnosis and the herbs for simple treatments is all that's needed. Although this was a crude and simplistic approach, the Chairman nodded repeatedly, saying, "Yes. It takes too long to train great doctors. Medical school alone takes four years. After graduation, one has to continue their training in a major hospital. Training a doctor for a major hospital takes nearly twenty years, starting with enrollment. But the rural people of our Wufangfang area can't afford to wait that long. If we wait until we have enough professional doctors, it will take forever for the countryside to have doctors."

The chairman sighed helplessly.

When the Chairman was still in school, rural China lacked doctors. The truly great doctors were all in the cities. Four thousand years later, China's medical situation has remained largely unchanged.

The only change is that there are more hospitals and more skilled doctors in cities. But what about rural areas?

Nothing has changed. It is exactly the same as it was forty years ago.

"Chairman, Comrade Lai Ruoyu just made a very good point. He pointed out that health and hygiene knowledge is currently the most lacking in rural areas. The spread of various diseases in many areas is due to unhealthy hygiene habits. Drinking unclean water leads to the spread of epidemics in rural areas. Furthermore, when rural women give birth, many midwives lack the knowledge of disinfection, which can easily lead to infections and deaths for both mother and child. We need to help them correct these problems. There are also many common illnesses for which the lack of doctors in rural areas means that local residents can only seek out witch doctors or even resort to feudal superstitions like skipping rope. Therefore, at this stage, rural areas are in even greater need of primary care doctors to promote health and hygiene knowledge and help villagers solve common ailments."

Wei Hongjun added something. The Chairman nodded.

After a while, the Chairman said, "Comrade Lai Ruoyu, are you saying that you have compiled textbooks on health and hygiene knowledge and treatment methods for common diseases?"

"It wasn't written by us. It was written by the Health Department of the North China Military Region at the time. We added some content to it during our practice."

Lai Ruoyu shook his head.

Wei Hongjun said, "Chairman, Comrade Sui Xiaochao organized a group of doctors to write this textbook. During the Anti-Japanese War, the base areas were short of doctors and medicines, so I hoped that Comrade Sui Xiaochao would organize a group of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners to compile a simple textbook. For some common diseases, can some herbal medicines be used instead of relying on Western medicine for everything? Later, after the Anti-Japanese War ended, Comrade Sui Xiaochao organized another group of doctors to add some content based on the original textbook. The textbook used by Comrade Lai Ruoyu in Punan and Shanxi for the short-term training of rural doctors is the book compiled by Comrade Sui Xiaochao."

"This is a good idea."

The chairman said: "Our medical industry is underdeveloped, and we don't have enough doctors. But we can't just emphasize the objective difficulties, we must also find ways to solve the problems in rural areas."

"Chairman, I just returned from the North China Pharmaceutical Factory. They stated that my country's penicillin production could reach 100 tons this year. This will also play a very important role in the future development of rural healthcare in my country. Many common rural diseases are actually caused by the lack of antibiotics. As long as we can strengthen rural health care, solve common rural diseases, and ensure that antibiotics can be introduced into rural areas in the future, then most rural diseases can be solved. This will greatly improve rural medical conditions and increase the life expectancy of rural residents."

“That’s a good idea.”

The Chairman was delighted with the mass production of penicillin.

So he said: "Comrade Hongjun, Comrade Zhihui, you should work together with the Ministry of Health to develop a plan for the development of rural health care. The textbooks previously compiled by the North China authorities are very good and can train a group of basic doctors to treat common diseases in a short period of time. The rural areas of Guangtian in our country are currently in need of such basic doctors.

"Yes."

Wei Hongjun and Deng Zhihui nodded.

The Chairman turned his attention back to several officials from the Ministry of Health and said, "I know you all studied Western medicine and have many negative opinions about Chinese medicine. During the New Culture Movement, many people said that Chinese medicine was witchcraft and asked the then Nationalist government to ban it. After the founding of New China, some of you also expressed this view. The most typical example is Comrade Wang Bin. Wang Bin made great contributions to my country's medical cause. When he was in the Northeast, he presided over the eradication of the plague and established a powerful field hospital during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. He was a very capable comrade. But his criticism and rejection of Chinese medicine was wrong. By the way, where is Comrade Zhu Bin now?"

Wang Bin is a heavyweight cadre in my country's health sector.

Several of China's renowned medical universities were developed under Wang Bin's leadership. He also enjoyed close ties with central government leaders, having served as their personal physician. He even performed surgery on Wang Jiaxiang and others during the Long March. During the Liberation War, he served as Minister of Health for the Northeast Military Region, establishing a comprehensive medical system in the region.

The performance was even better during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea.

The field hospital he established achieved remarkable success. Wei Hongjun and Wang Bin had never met before. However, during the Korean War, Wang Bin performed exceptionally well. Not only was his medical knowledge exceptional, but his management skills were also top-notch.

However, in 1953, Chairman Mao criticized Wang Bin specifically for resisting the development of traditional Chinese medicine.

Wang Bin proposed that the central government ban Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and publicly criticized it on numerous occasions. Of course, Wang Bin wasn't the only one proposing this proposal; however, Wang Bin was a prominent figure in the health field. This stance deeply displeased the Chairman, who specifically criticized Wang Bin for his Western medical sectarianism, defending Western medicine while rejecting TCM. He argued that, given the current backwardness of Chinese medical care, if TCM were completely banned, how would the people get the medicine they need?

At present, the main medicines in the country are still traditional Chinese medicines.

Because of the Chairman's criticism, Wang Bin was initially slated to become Vice Minister of the newly established Ministry of Health, but was not elected. Some in the health system even wanted to demote him to the position of Vice President of Inner Mongolia Medical College.

Even the Prime Minister didn't say a word.

The Premier and Wang Bin had a long history. During the Long March, the Premier was seriously ill, and it was Wang Bin who stayed by his side, providing him with meticulous care and support. But with the Chairman's harsh criticism, the Premier found it difficult to speak up for him.

Gao Gang, who is still in charge of the Secretariat, said that Wang Bin had eradicated plague in both the Northwest and Northeast China.

There has been extensive research on the plague.

He was put in charge of eradicating the plague that was rampant in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia. This was why Wang Bin was not allowed to go to Bing Mongolian Medical College.

The Chairman was critical of Wang Bin's work, but he had confidence in his abilities. As for Wang Bin's current whereabouts, the Chairman was truly unclear. It was only when discussing health work that the Chairman remembered Wang Bin.

Minister of Health He Chengdao: "Comrade Wang Bin is currently in charge of plague eradication work in Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, and Suiyuan."

"He has experience in this area." The chairman nodded.

He said: "Since Western medicine was introduced to China, a large number of people have ignored Chinese medicine. This is wrong, and we must attach importance to Chinese medicine. Of course, it is also incorrect to put Chinese medicine on too high a level, and it is not in line with dialectics. The purpose of uniting Chinese medicine is to develop Chinese medical science. To master Chinese medicine and Chinese herbal medicine, Western medicine must be involved, and hospitals must absorb experienced Chinese medicine practitioners. In our current situation, we cannot have Western medicine without Chinese medicine, but we cannot have Chinese medicine without Western medicine either. Our Chinese medicine has a long history and rich content, but of course it also has dregs."

"Therefore, Western medicine must not embrace sectarianism and must prioritize the role of traditional Chinese medicine. Western medicine must abandon sectarian practices and scientifically document the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in treating illnesses. We cannot rely solely on chemical research for traditional Chinese medicine formulas; we must integrate it with clinical research. Only in this way can we improve traditional Chinese medicine. Ancient Chinese texts say: 'The best doctor heals the state, the Chinese doctor heals the individual, and the lowest doctor heals the illness.' This emphasizes the holistic nature of the human being, which is consistent with the teachings of Ba Pu Luo Tian."

"Traditional Chinese medicine has some idealistic elements, but we can extract the good things from it. Traditional Chinese medicine must be introduced into major hospitals, medical universities, and even abroad. Traditional Chinese medicine must develop, establish research institutions, and publish books on traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbal medicine. Western medicine must learn from traditional Chinese medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine must also learn from Western medicine, so as to acquire both sets of skills and integrate them."

"Especially now, my country's pharmaceutical industry is still underdeveloped and in its early stages of development. Therefore, medicines are in dire shortage. Shouldn't our medical science develop at this stage, and should our doctors stop treating patients? This is, of course, not an option. So, what should we do? Of course, we must seek answers from the rich heritage of Traditional Chinese Medicine. my country is rich in medicinal herbs, and using them can make up for the uncertainty of the pharmaceutical industry and address the shortage of medicines."

"Yes." He Cheng nodded.

It is impossible to judge which one is better, Chinese medicine or Western medicine.

But one thing is clear: China's pharmaceutical industry is still in its infancy, and there's a severe shortage of medicines nationwide. Medical devices are also in their infancy, and are in dire need nationwide.

This is the objective situation. What should we do at this time?

If everything is imported, where would the country get so much foreign exchange?

We must change our thinking. If medicines are scarce, we should choose from traditional Chinese medicine. If medical equipment is lacking, we should develop Traditional Chinese Medicine. We cannot rely solely on medical equipment. Therefore, the reality is clear: Traditional Chinese Medicine cannot be abandoned at this stage.

"Comrade Hongjun, the same is true for the development of rural medical care. Rural doctors should have basic knowledge of Western medicine, as well as knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Only in this way can they handle daily rural medical problems. In rural areas, we should not artificially divide Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine, but should study them in a coordinated manner."

"Yes."

Wei Hongjun said: "Currently, much of the knowledge about health and hygiene comes from Western medicine. However, due to the lack of medicines, some basic diseases in rural areas are treated with traditional Chinese medicine. This is because Chinese medicinal materials are easier to obtain and cheaper than Western medicines."