Chapter 266: An Untimely Plague

"What? A large number of cholera patients in the southern rainforests? ”

"Yes, Your Excellency Governor, there are more than thirty seriously ill patients in the four coastal tribes in the south, the medical staff of the trade fleet have set up temporary field hospitals in the local area, and the medicinal materials hoarded on Butterfly Island (Jamaica Island), which belongs to the third-level territory, have been transferred to the epidemic area, hoping that this epidemic can be successfully passed." The nephew of Wan Jia, the governor of the New Island Islands (West Indies), reported the incident to his uncle. Like Spain, the Empire's plan for Chizhou was to have four large satrapies, but due to their size and focus, only one of the New Island Islands now became a third-tier territory of the Empire, with governors and government officials appointed under direct control. The other three governorates (the three governorates, such as South Chizhou, North Chizhou, and Rainforest, are sparsely populated and inconvenient, and the ratio of immigrants and aborigines is too low to meet the standards for formal government construction) is still in progress. Because of its ease of navigation, attractiveness, and direct trade with the allies of the Maya, New World became the first Viceroyalty to govern the coffee port (Kingston, the seventh deepest water port in the world, and the highest-level political, economic, and cultural center of the empire that traverses the entire Central Continent region) on the island of Jamaica (Xaymaca in Arawac, meaning "land of water and trees").

"Has the outbreak of smallpox, which broke out some time ago in the southern Maya region, subsided? Are there still some Mayans who didn't accept cowpox? ”

"Some conservative and stubborn tribes still refuse to accept our assistance, clinging to superstition and primitive witch doctors. It's almost there. ”

"What do you mean by almost, is the person almost dead, or is the negotiation progressing to the point where it is almost successful?"

"It's the cowpox-inoculated tribes that are almost about to conquer the tribes that won't join the Mayan kingdom, now look at it. With an abundance of food and medicine, the Mayan kingdom had no problem unifying the entire isthmus and central Chizhou. ”

"How much resistance did the primitive tribes that were not Mayans have to smallpox and other virulent infectious diseases, and are the statistics out?"

"In the case of smallpox, the mortality rate of the unvaccinated primitive tribe is about 70%, the plague is about 50%, and the cholera is about 40%. Selling and administering medicines and vaccines cheaply, it is easy to control these independent tribes. ”

"But as soon as these virulent contagions spread to the inland areas that we haven't reached yet, those tribes will die. I don't want to think that in a few years, all we see in the middlemen who trade in the outback will be abandoned tribal remnants and piles of dry bones. It's simply an unforgivable crime, and for every aboriginal who is lost, our market is reduced by one point. Labor will be scarce. The rate at which we make money will slow down by a point, and if too many people die, we will be in crisis. ”

"Where are these poor and white aborigines a market and labor? I don't have a penny of savings, and I can't operate even the most basic farm tools, let alone those advanced tools that require years of experience. We can think of them as slaves and traders, where is the exaggeration of what adults say! ”

"If you don't study, it's rare for you to come out without going to junior high school, and don't be stupid if you don't know economics and human capital investment. Don't be embarrassed here, let you organize people to go deep into the interior to patrol and deliver medicine, not only for the lives of these people, but also for the purpose of drawing maps, finding out the distribution of forces, and exploring minerals are all important tasks. If you do a good job, it's no problem to win a wife, although you are my distant relative, I can't promote you without saying the credit of the past, why don't you go and stare at it? ”

"Yes, my lord."

All the islands in the Middle Red Sea (Caribbean Sea) and Maya Bay (Gulf of Mexico) that belonged to the New State Islands (West Indies) were the focus of the empire's operations in Chizhou, and these islands were fertile ground for the Arawak tribes to flourish and flourish. Unlike the Maya, who had already been feudalized under the support of the empire, the Arawak people were more peaceful and friendly, more skilled and enthusiastic about agriculture and handicrafts, and soon established modern port towns and plantations under the construction and development of a large number of black and Chinese immigrants from Xuanzhou and distant locals. The Arawak tribes of the islands soon became plantations and villages attached to the newly built towns, supplying the Chizhou trade network with indigo, tobacco, sugar, cocoa, coffee, sugar cane liqueur, timber and spices, and the excellent local agricultural conditions required less than 7% of the land to produce food to feed the population, and the yield of corn and potatoes was high with the support of chemical fertilizers and improved seeds. The abundant resources of the archipelago quickly attracted the attention of the Empire's colonists and plantation owners, as did the Spice Islands, and a large amount of investment and manpower poured into the relatively labor-rich archipelago at a rate far greater than that on the Pacific side.

Although the Governor of the New Island Islands, who is the representative of farmers and traders, manages 240,000 square kilometers of land composed of more than 1,200 islands, reefs and atolls, and the emperor is far away, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is not an exaggeration, but no one will have a hard time with his own money bag, if the infectious disease carried by the new immigrants accidentally kills too many aborigines, not only his own estates and tribute plantations will suffer heavy losses due to the death and injury of too many laborers, The laws of the empire will not spare themselves for dereliction of duty.

The plague was no longer a big problem for the citizens of the Empire, who had already received a variety of vaccines and drugs to strengthen their immune systems, but it was a fatal danger for the Arawaks who had simply moved from a dirty pigsty-like tribal shack into a normal brick or wooden house. Hundreds of thousands of vaccines and antibiotics are a drop in the bucket for millions of Arawaks, but fortunately the islands do not communicate too often, and the plague does not spread quickly. After cursing the pail-like customs inspection and quarantine officers, the Governor had to routinely write a report and turn to his colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

For the plague to be completely controlled, the medical system and public resources invested must be increased by at least 100 times. I didn't feel anything before I took over this hot potato, I only knew that being the governor of the newly opened third-level land could make me promoted and make a fortune, but I didn't expect to receive much filial piety. There was a lot of trouble. Although it is not said that the poor and the white are starving and the wilderness, but it is not rich and abundant, and it will take a lot of investment and a long time to build this fertile soil to see the rich prospects, taking coffee and other cash crops as an example, it takes years to carefully cultivate the saplings to the mature trees that produce valuable coffee beans. Many of the new plantations, which had only expenditure and no revenue, relied on a one-year deficit in tobacco fields, sugar cane fields, and subsidies for the cultivation of coarse grains, and this initial deficit made the Governor not so well-off.

If the supply of cheap labor fails, the vast majority of local plantations will fall into depression and bankruptcy. This kind of situation in which the lives and interests of the indigenous people are closely linked to their own interests is almost diametrically opposed to the massacre of looting and colonization through the old time and space. It was only after Spain in the old time and space wiped out a large number of indigenous people with plagues and massacres such as smallpox that it was discovered that the wealth of the New World was on labor-intensive plantations such as sugar. It was too late for them to open up the market for the import of labor, and to sell black slaves from Africa to develop the new continent that had been emptied. In the middle of this, the loss of wealth in the four viceroyalties of Spain was extremely staggering, and the anti-human and anti-civilization black cauldron of murderous notoriety and plague-spreading plague was all carried by the executioner Spain. The profits from the plantations and the gold and silver mines were all paid by the profligate large landowners, large haciendas, large feudal lords, great nobles, and the royal family to provide consumer goods and luxury goods, and the additional import fees for the purchase of the means of production (black slave labor, various machinery and industrial goods), Spain almost lost money in hundreds of years of painstaking management in the New World, and all of them were made for other countries.

There is such a precedent. How could the traversal make the same mistake? The plague was definitely not actively spread to the natives by the immigrants and colonists of the empire. On the contrary, it is necessary to strictly defend against the resistance that the aborigines have. Not only should the aborigines not be slaughtered, but a large number of peace-loving or large tribes should be taught to quickly obtain plantations and recruit workers. All the people who come to the New World are merchants, and they want to make the most lasting profits at the least cost, and they don't run around with the mentality of a colonizer and missionary like a stupid Spanish donkey. Every aboriginal person, old and young was seen as a human gold coin by immigrants and plantation owners, young men could provide labor for their industries, women and children could also provide a large number of business opportunities and markets, and the backward slash-and-burn production model of the indigenous tribes was quickly wiped out by the advanced equipment of imperial immigrants, and an imperial fisherman with forty aboriginal fishermen drove an off-net fishing boat at sea. One month's harvest is enough to top the output value of the aboriginal canoe for a hundred years. A cocoa plantation carved out on a fertile volcanic coastal plain produces hundreds of tons of dried cocoa each year, and the coarse grains such as corn and sweet potatoes are enough to feed the owners of the original Aboriginal villages that occupy the plantation land for decades.

No matter how good the land. No matter how expensive the property is, it is impossible to turn it into money without hired workers to develop and process it, and it has become an unwritten unspoken rule to treat the aborigines well for the sake of their own money bags, which is common in all colonies and third-class lands. The lethality of the plague to the aborigines and other people due to lack of antibodies and long-term malnutrition caused by low immunity and weak old and weak women and children is extremely amazing, a small flu can kill more than half of the population of a tribe, this astonishing loss is simply a nightmare for the owners who have built the plantation with great difficulty, the original profitable plantation suddenly became an unmanaged abandoned manor, and the various reclamation groups facing the risk of losing their capital heard about the lethality of the plague and jumped to their feet. The partners who stocked up on the herbs and had the foresight to follow in the footsteps of the people and the government were all glad about their foresight, while the plantation owners who neglected hygiene and vaccinations in order to save a small amount of money were embarrassed by the plague and the flight of their workers.

The Governor, who was beset by the letters of the plantation owners who were anxious to jump to their feet and the harassment of the messengers day and night, had no choice but to organize the limited government forces to do a good job of disaster prevention and mitigation within the scope of their capabilities, and those plantation owners who were in trouble by the plague could only do their best to actively save themselves. For a time, the prices of vaccines and medicinal materials soared, and the supply and demand of various over-the-counter drugs fell into a state of out-of-stock with no price.

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Half a month later "bastard." How could the plague spread from the small tribes along the coast to the archipelago? Are the rice buckets at the customs all furnishings? The plague on the mainland has finally been eliminated, and it has spread to the archipelago, and I must make those rice buckets look good. "Your Excellency the Governor is furious.

"It is not in the interests of the empire for the natives who have died too much. The damage caused by this plague was not large, because the outbreak was in the eastern part of the archipelago region and did not spread to all of the archipelago, so it was lucky, but if it spread to the northern Mayan region, it would be really a heavy loss. Look at how miserable these tribes are that have lost almost half of their population! Dead people are nothing, but the horror caused by such a painful and miserable death can have a very serious impact on the indigenous people. I watched my relatives and friends bleeding all over my body. Or it is mainly severe symptoms of blood poisoning (chills, high fever, fatigue, headache, aches in the limbs and lower back, convulsions and coma may occur when the body temperature rises sharply), and the skin appears in batches of macules, papules, herpes, pustules, and finally scabs and scabs. What a horror thing it is to be disfigured by acne scars. Smallpox is ferocious and develops rapidly, with a fatality rate of up to 30% within 15~20 days after infection in unimmunized people.

(3~5 days after the onset of smallpox infection, the rash appeared on the forehead, cheeks, wrists, arms, trunk and lower limbs of the patient.) Begins as a red macule. It later becomes a papule. After 2~3 days, the papules turn into herpes, and then the herpes turns into pustular rashes. 2~3 days after the formation of the pustular rash, it gradually dries and shrinks into a thick scab, and the scab begins to fall off after about 1 month, leaving a scar, commonly known as "numbness". Patients with severe smallpox are often accompanied by complications, such as sepsis, osteomyelitis, encephalitis, meningitis, pneumonia, bronchitis, otitis media, laryngitis, blindness, miscarriage, etc., which are the main causes of death from smallpox. Thirty percent of people in one tribe died from smallpox hemorrhage and high fever. There are a lot of deaths from complications, which means that the tribe is directly removed from the map. Unsustainable tribes are quickly disbanded and integrated into other tribes. This doesn't have a big impact on areas where we don't have an outreach, but it's a crisis for areas where there is investment and plantations, and panic is a small thing, and if it leads to riots and ethnic antagonism, it's over.

Idiots can also analyze that the plague is brought by us outsiders, and the natives must not only rely on us to improve their living standards and gain more wealth, but also gain trust and security from us, otherwise the Empire's century-old plan will be in vain, and we are all sinners of the Empire. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, who learned of the epidemic, glanced at the governor who was in a hurry.

"As the saying goes, you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry, if it weren't for the fact that we saw the pleasant water and soil here, and we could make a fortune by planting cash crops, where would we be in a hurry to immigrate and expand? The people at the customs are also responsible, and inspection and quarantine cannot eliminate these viruses, but can only block and repatriate, and there will always be a time when they are negligent. Some items carrying the virus will not be registered as infected and in contact with patients, we are not the time to talk about this nonsense, the shortage of medicines and medical personnel cannot save the people in the epidemic area, so we must pay more attention to isolation and environmental hygiene. If the area that is not infected is also infected, we are finished. Now every point of expansion of the epidemic area, our crime will be one point bigger, stop complaining, you hurry up and send a telegram to your brother-in-law, so that the next wave of his fleet will not transport those unimportant consumer goods and salt, and all the medical consumables and medicines will be transported, this crisis will be a huge profit, these rescued tribes will become loyal subjects of the empire, and there will definitely be no more double-mindedness, plus the power of our school and mobilization system is enough to attract them to become naturalized people. "The attorney general of the judicial system, as the third-in-command of the governor of New Island after the military and civilians, can only defend the customs subordinates, who are also law enforcement agencies.

"I don't think this crisis can be passed so easily, these survivors will be hostile to us even if they have antibodies and immunity, and it is too idealistic to understand that people will always have them, and it is too idealistic to buy people's hearts by stabbing them and then giving them a good wound. This is not a royal means of grace and power, and we will be stinky for 10,000 years if we don't die under the law of the country. Don't think about turning this crisis into a turning point for promotion and wealth, it's better to honestly do your own work and mix up a medium evaluation and return to China to report on your work, and if you handle this crisis well, you won't be able to accomplish a great success, and the organizational department of the empire is not a dry meal, how can you arrange for your children to take over if you don't kick us down? If you accidentally mess it up, you will be a sinner who will be stinking for 10,000 years. "The growth of economic giants naturally sees that the outcome of the crisis is not optimistic.

"The plague is not our merit and opportunity, but an examination to test the mobilization power of the empire, obviously our lack of preparation and negligence are the direct cause of the outbreak of the plague, the assessment at the end of the year must not be a bad review, even if the ancestors bless, where dare to hope that the upper hand will be relieved? Starting tomorrow, we will personally go to the front line to direct the work in the epidemic area, and if we don't ask for forgiveness from the people and the aborigines, will it be possible to wait until the plague subsides and they will come to the office to protest the government's incompetence and say that we are in the dead place? Then just go home and pick up the baby! Still a ball officer? "The Governor has made up his mind to make this post-outbreak mobilization a template for future crisis management.

“…… (To be continued......)