At the end of March, Chen Zilong, who had been stationed in Queshan County for more than ten days, finally embarked on the journey to Dengzhou.

The stretch of the road from Runing to Nanyang was littered with the bodies of people exposed to death, villages burned down, and towns destroyed.

Not far from Queshan County, Chen Zilong and others found a group of people with empty eyes and unclothed people struggling to move westward.

Seeing Chen Zilong and others coming in fresh clothes and angry horses, the team composed of nearly 100 poor people couldn't help but dodge straight to both sides of the road.

Chen Zilong frowned when he saw the situation in front of him, and found that there was a middle-aged man in the ranks of the people with a straight waist and simple but neat clothes, he hurriedly stopped and asked him:

"In Xia Chenjie, among the people who are in the table, this brother has a high surname, you can't wait to live at home, but go west, what is the matter? Could it be that the rogue is calling again? ”

The middle-aged man had a long face and thick eyebrows, probably because of hunger, and his face was well-defined.

Seeing Chen Zilong's question and answer, the middle-aged man also hurriedly took hands to return the salute.

"This son, I don't dare to call him Gao, in Xia Marwen, I haven't heard of any thieves crossing the border recently, and we are all going to Dengzhou to seek refuge with relatives and friends."

"Dengzhou is hundreds of miles away from here, you are willing to take the risk to go, I'm afraid it's not as simple as taking refuge with relatives and friends, right?"

Marven smiled on his thin face, "Don't hide it from the nobles, I heard that Dengzhou is now prosperous and peaceful, and the villagers who went to Dengzhou in the early years all asked people to bring back the words, saying that Dou Zhizhou, the Qingtian lord of Dengzhou, is sympathetic to the people, as long as there are displaced people, they can basically be resettled, and now the village really can't survive, so we want to find a way to live." ”

Chen Zilong suddenly felt in his heart, it seems that Huang Zongxi's various rumors about Dengzhou are not groundless.

Seeing that they were all going to the same place, Chen Zilong simply escorted Marven and his party all the way west.

Along the way, the originally renovated official road has become overgrown with weeds, and rotting bones appear on the side of the road from time to time, causing Chen Zilong and others to cover their noses.

Although with the sale of the Central Plains Newspaper, the government in Henan began to realize that corpses could also lead to the spread of epidemics, so they began to send people to collect corpses, but this action was only a drop in the bucket compared to the killings caused by the rogues and the official army.

However, this scene changed greatly when entering the territory of Dengzhou, not only the bones on both sides of the road were all buried, but even the business brigade gradually increased, showing a prosperous scene.

Jitan Town, east of Dengzhou, controls the eastern passage in and out of Dengzhou, Chen Zilong took a dozen family members to follow the migrated people all the way here, and found that there were already many men in blue-black robes on the east bank of Nirvana to maintain order here, and there were almost seven or eight hundred people near the entire wharf plus the displaced people.

The gang covered their faces with white cotton cloths, many of them had shotguns on their shoulders, and behind them were several boats of three or four hundred stones, and from time to time people sailed to the market town on the other side.

Chen Zilong and his entourage were brightly dressed, obviously different from these homeless people, before they walked to the shore, and immediately a sturdy man who was also wearing a mask came over for interrogation.

"This son, I don't know where you plan to go, but do you have a guide to verify it?"

This sturdy man is strong and strong, and the exposed parts of his face are not as vegetable-looking as ordinary people, and his speech and demeanor are quite polite, Chen Zilong looked at his family and motioned him to take out the documents of his Jinshi identity.

"Who are you, but the official of Dengzhou? Is it necessary to set up a card here to collect taxes? ”

"Yo, it turned out to be Master Jinshi, a small faux pas."

As soon as he saw the paperwork that Chen Zilong's family took out, this sturdy man hurriedly handed it over.

Hearing Chen Zilong's question, he bowed down slightly and said with a smile: "Master Qiqi, we are from the Dengzhou militia group, and we are ordered by my family's Dou Thorn History to collect the displaced people here and ban adultery. ”

"Pass on the order of my family's assassination history, the military and civilians will no longer levy miscellaneous taxes and card fees when they enter and leave Dengzhou, if there are soldiers who dare to ask for it privately, please also ask the master to report it to the Zhizhou Yamen, and there will be a heavy reward at that time. The lord is a nobleman, so he only needs to go through the epidemic prevention inspection here and pay for the boat to cross the river. ”

There is no checkpoint tax, and Chen Zilong must be fine

"I heard that the Dengzhou militia is quite powerful, shouldn't these be the work of the Inspection Department, why do you have to do it?" , Chen Zilong frowned and asked.

The sturdy man said with a smile: "They are all people from the state, where are they still divided into each other, my family knows that the state is benevolent and loves the people, so the people of the whole state listen to him, and we should wait for the militia to do these things." ”

"This lord, please go with my companion to check for the disease."

Without waiting for Chen Zilong to ask again, the sturdy man arched his hand towards him, turned around and walked towards the next wave of people dressed as merchants.

More than a dozen tables and chairs have been placed on the wharf east of Nirvana, and more than a dozen scribe-like people are filling in some things for the passing people.

Behind the scribes, a group of men in white straight-necked robes with golden gourds painted on their chests were checking on the passing crowd.

Chen Zilong and the others received special treatment again, and the person in charge of guiding him did not lead him into the crowd of ordinary people, but walked towards the small team on the side.

After checking the clerk again, a man in a white robe and a mask walked up to Chen Zilong and handed him a small tube made of transparent glass.

"In Xia Xiangbin, it is the doctor of the Dengzhou Mansion, this nobleman, please put this thermometer under your armpit to measure your temperature, if you have no fever and other symptoms, you can cross the river by boat later."

Chen Zilong took the small glass tube with a surprised expression, only to see that the lower end of the small tube contained a red thing, and there were small black lines on it that covered the whole body.

This thing is naturally a thermometer made by the Liu family, and the earliest thermometer was invented by Galileo in 1593.

In order to prevent the epidemic and facilitate industrial production, Liu Ximing instructed the workshop to produce a more modern thermometer.

Under the guidance of this doctor who claimed to be Xiang Bin, Chen Zilong and his entourage did so.

After a while, Xiang Bin took a closer look at the thermometers of several people, turned his head and nodded to the people of the Dengzhou militia group, and then looked at Chen Zilong and the others with a smile:

"This nobleman, your body temperature is normal, you should not be infected with the plague, welcome to Dengzhou, pay the boat money, you can cross the river."

Chen Zilong had long felt quite fresh about everything beside Nirvana, and when he saw this, he hurriedly said:

"Doctor Xiang, to be honest, this official is a friend of your family Zhizhou in the same year, and this time I made a special trip to visit him, I don't know what this thermometer you are talking about? How can it be used to identify diseases? ”

"It turned out to be a friend of my family's assassin history, disrespectful and disrespectful", as soon as he heard that he knew Dou Yuquan, Xiang Bin's attitude suddenly changed from polite to kind, and even the people in the Dengzhou militia who were in charge of order around him followed Chen Zilong and smiled.

This made Chen Zilong can't help but sigh in his heart, Dou Yuquan is an official, and he can make the people respect him so much, and he is really the best among my generation.

Chen Zilong has Jinshi paperwork with him, and Xiang Bin does not doubt him, for Dou Yuquan's sake, he patiently explained to Chen Zilong:

"Don't you hear what Liu Zhongcheng said in the Central Plains News that the epidemic is caused by plague bacteria, and anyone who gets sick will inevitably be accompanied by symptoms such as high fever, chills, headache, vomiting, etc., and this thermometer is used to measure the temperature of the human body."

Chen Zilong was a little confused when he heard it, "This, what is the temperature?" ”

Xiang Bin said proudly: "This is also what Liu Zhongcheng said, the Book of Changes has clouds, and the gentleman uses the system to count degrees, and discusses virtue." Therefore, the measure of the degree of cold and heat of all things is called temperature, the value of water freezing is 0 degrees, and the body temperature of people fluctuates around 37 degrees, if it exceeds 38 degrees, it is a fever. ”

At the end, he also added, "This is what I said in the book Gewu that everyone in Dengzhou has learned, if you stay in Dengzhou, you will naturally understand." ”

It's just that what Xiang Bin didn't explain to Chen Zilong is that the things he learned were all learned in the medical school run by the Liu family, and outsiders couldn't touch them.

As the Liu family's power spreads outward, in order to reduce risks, the management of the Liu family has repeatedly asked the personnel outside to speak in a unified voice, and they must be called the Liu family.

Putting aside the chaotic thoughts in his mind, Chen Zilong and his entourage paid the boat fare of 15 cents per person and stepped on the boat bound for Jitan Town on the other side.

The management of the wharf is obviously in place, fully considering the needs of epidemic prevention, and at the same time, the crowd is divided according to 369 and so on.

Chen Zilong glanced at it and found that Marven and the others who were traveling along the way seemed to get on the boat without paying any money, but his boat was obviously crowded, far less spacious and comfortable than the boat he and the others were on.