Gawain arrived in Tarsus, as the intelligence had said. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 He took only Goliath, Muzafiadin and Grand Earl Merlot, and all the forbidden soldiers, and left the Red Hand Brigade under Bramsson's supervision, leaving Sebastian on the plateau, while the other Guardian Brigade was ready to return south to Vanka.

Braving the scorching sun and wind, the patron crossed the wilderness of Elbistan (the area between Caesarea and Meritene), then south past the snow-capped mountains of Algeus, and then along the Sidenus River through the steep Cilician Gate, and finally entered the palace directly at the bridge of the water gate of Tarsus.

In the meantime, Anna stood in the center of the study with a solemn expression, and the female officials around her were busy.

"You just threw the sleeping officer on the plateau?"

"I didn't have time to take her and the slow ox cart, I came on horseback." Gao Wen's face darkened a lot, and then he sat down to rest, seeing that the atmosphere around him was not right, he took a few sips of water after taking the water brought by the imperial ink official Hertomia, "What's wrong?" ”

Anna sighed, her tone heavy, "His Excellency Zhao Zhao, a merchant of the royal family, has gone to the outskirts of the city of Ramas, and since you are also here, the great barbarian, we will go there at once - there, because of the low-lying land and the scorching heat, a serious epidemic has broken out in the rice fields and farms experimented by the Germanish villages. ”

"What......" The cup in Gawain's hand trembled slightly.

Curicus walked between the "rice farms" in front and the high slopes of woods and stones in the back, with Gawain riding his horse and Anna sitting on his small shoulders, and all the forbidden soldiers on the grass with their halberds and swords in their hands. Gawain's eyes were marked with a raging flame, which was emitted by the burning of rice farms, which had been a small coastal plain clustered among tidal flats, hills, and reed fields, and which was the most suitable for experimenting with rice seeds, so that at the behest of Anna, the Superintendent of Agriculture and Caesar, two holy farms were built here, in which a total of 800 German immigrants lived.

As a sign of her appreciation for rice seeds, Anna also set aside a new keel waterwheel along the river, equipped with oxen and farm implements for irrigation and reclamation of the rice fields, with both farms centered on a core warehouse and a new superintendent's farm, surrounded by houses and sheds.

And now, in the sky-high firelight, the keel waterwheel slowly left a miserable scorched black shelf, and continued to collapse.

Gawain's ears were heard by the terrible cries outside the farmstead—those who had not been infected by the epidemic were driven and evacuated, the militia and postmen of Tarsus formed a procession and stopped the wailing men outside the cordon in the reeds with spears and whips, and two large farmsteads had been set on fire, and the infected people were locked in barns and reduced to living crematories.

This is also the cruel but only effective way to isolate the plague in this era, otherwise the epidemic will spread violently to the whole of Cilicia under the hot weather and mosquitoes flowing everywhere in the rice fields, and the disaster will be uncontrollable.

Seeing such a scene, Anna, who was behind the curtain on her shoulders, saw the always hard-hearted barbarian from afar, and at this moment he pulled the reins, raised his head on Quicksilver's back, and looked at the flowing clouds red by the firelight, as if trying not to let tears flow.

Not long after, in a stone monastery on a hill by the side of the road facing Fort Calleadio, Gawain sat sullenly and silently, and the gray-faced Zhao Zhao also stood on one side in distress. When Anna entered, several handmaidens were about to follow in to serve, but Anna raised her hand and told them to go out.

Then Caesar shook his skirt and walked to the hearth room of the monastery, where several of the retreating Orthodox priests prostrate forward, bringing out a plate of bread, salt, seasonings, and some fruits and vegetables, which Anna took and placed on the long table, and then tied her apron like an ordinary village woman, and brought a thin triangular plank, cut the bread, smeared it with condiments, and laid it out on the plate, and brought it to Gawain and Zhao Zhao.

Gawain pinched the bread cube, then frowned again, and put it back uneasily, "Two hundred, all ages, incinerated because of the disease......"

"This is a common thing, and in this world there is the power of God and the evil of the devil, and there are wars and pestilences." Anna closed her eyes and said softly, "The farm is on low-lying land, and the rivers are mostly congested, and the whole Tarsus plain is mostly like this, and the Zephilim, Sidnus and various tributaries are eventually silted, so that there are large areas of reeds, and there is no good port, and this crop called rice is planted in water and mud, and it is naturally easy to breed diseases—maybe it is really not suitable for our country?" ”

"No, it can't be Anna! It shouldn't be like this! Before Zhao Zhao next to him could express his opinion, Gao Wen's expression was a little excited, and his thoughts were not as depressed as Anna.

For Anna, her self-assertion was not false, for the plains of this era were not at all a sign of abundance as later generations usually imagined, and were often disease-ridden lands, densely covered with swamps and silt, compared to the abundant and ecologically healthy hills and mountains, and in fact the large-scale exploitation of them did not achieve significant results until the sixteenth century.

But Gawain didn't think much of it, blaming himself for his own negligence, and failing to take into account the limitations of Anna's time: since the plains of Cilicia and Lydia in later generations were rich in rice, cotton, and tobacco, it meant that it was by no means a region suitable for this crop.

At this moment, Zhao Zhao slowly walked over and arched his sleeves and said, "In fact, the way to deal with the epidemic is not difficult. ”

"Please speak your mind." Anna asked eagerly.

"Xianggong, Holy Queen. It's nothing more than medicine, drainage, and adequate food. ”

Hearing this, Gawain also nodded, what is the oil for refining Artemisia annua is difficult to popularize, for the hundreds of thousands of people living in the entire country in Cilicia. For the inhabitants of the Seleucian plains and river valleys, what Zhao Zhao said was indeed the only feasible way.

It was to dig a large number of rivers to lead to the Sea of Cyprus, to turn the stagnant waters of the swamps into living water, and then to set up herbaries, so that everyone could "have enough to eat" so that they would be physically strong, as the medieval proverb said, "The cure for the plague is to fill the pot with food." In that way, the golden rice fields can be spread all over the country.

"It's going to be a long and difficult project!" Gao Wen sighed for a long time, he had enjoyed the benefits of industry and information technology in the previous era, and always felt at ease, but now he slowly admired the hardships and efforts of his ancestors in the face of nature for thousands of years. (To be continued~^~)