There is a saying that if people have no long-term concerns, they must have near-term worries.

While providing relief to the victims, Liu He did not forget to prevent the occurrence of the plague. He ordered the construction of a separation zone to the north of Bingzhou and Youzhou, and strictly forbade Han merchants in the south of the barrier to cross the border into the north to buy Hu people's production, and also forbade the Hu people in the north to secretly enter the south of the isolation zone. Anyone caught entering or leaving without permission by the cavalry patrolling the border was punished with capital punishment, i.e. cutting off the skull.

For Liu He's impersonal and even excessively harsh orders, there are people who understand and support them, and there are also people who secretly hate and curse. It's just that when the meticulous workers lurking in Mobei risked their lives to cross the Hanhai Sea and send a confirmed piece of news to the quarantine zone on the border, no one in the entire north dared to doubt and accuse Liu He.

Because, the plague is really coming!

There are more than a dozen beacon towers in the north of Jining Duweifu City, which stand in the north of Jining City from east to west, like vigilant guards, always guarding against jackals on the northern grassland to patronize this new city.

On this morning, Zheng Deyu, a soldier stationed at the beacon tower numbered Wuwei, saw a man dressed in a Hu costume galloping towards the beacon tower on horseback, and he hurriedly rang the bronze bell beside him and called out several other comrades-in-arms in the beacon tower. That's right, it is called "comrade-in-arms", a title that has become increasingly popular among various armies, and it is said that it comes from the mouth of the general, and is used to replace the titles of companion, colleague, subordinate, and superior, and is welcomed by the officers and men in the army.

Twenty soldiers were stationed in one beacon tower, and their main duty was to keep watch and light wolf smoke when a serious enemy was detected, and to provide early warning and time for the cities in the south to prepare for battle.

"Shoot arrows and warn coming!" He Qing, the leader of Wuweitai, gave an order to Zheng Deyu, a high-ranking soldier.

Arrows, also known as chirps, can be used to attack because they make a sound when fired. It can also be used as an alarm.

"Drip ——!" The shrill whistle of arrows pierced the sky, heading for an unidentified visitor in the distance.

When the people outside the beacon heard the chirping, they hurriedly flipped off their horses, then took out a white cloth from their bosoms and waved it at the beacon.

"Don't shoot arrows, let him come closer!" He Qing calmly ordered.

After the person arrived at the beacon tower, he shouted at the soldiers on the platform: "I am an agent of the Northern Region under the Military Intelligence Department, and I have a very urgent information transmission, so let your head of the stage answer me!" ”

"He Qing, the head of Wuweitai, how to prove your identity? And how can you prove that the information you say is correct? ”

"You put a hanging basket down with a rope. I have a letter here, and after you receive it, immediately send a fast horse back to Jining City!" ”

He Qing saw that the visitor was more cautious than himself, and did not make excessive requests, so he immediately did as requested by the visitor, first took the letter with a hanging basket, and then sent two soldiers with good riding skills to go together, riding the fast horse attached to the beacon tower like a gust of wind towards the direction of Jining City.

That night, Du Ji, the governor of Jining, received a letter from Wuweitai. He checked the fire paint first. There was no trace of someone opening it privately, and then he opened the envelope with a knife and pulled out a letter that outsiders could not understand at all.

Du Ji took out a decoded book from the secret cabinet and carefully translated the tadpole-like handwriting on the letter.

"There is a big epidemic in Mobei. Kobi can force the infected tribes to come south, and their headquarters to flee to the north. ”

After understanding the content of the secret letter, Du Ji's brows furrowed, and after a little thought. Immediately shouted: "Come on, immediately light the red and blue beacon fire in the city, and ring the alarm bell!" ”

Early the next morning. Macheng received a warning signal from Jining, and Zhang He, the commander of the cavalry guard, sent a fast horse to Jicheng to send a message, and issued an order to dispatch urgently, and tens of thousands of cavalry rushed to the aid of Jining City at noon on the same day.

At noon on the third day, Xu Huang, who was stationed in Gaoliu, received a warning that his actions were almost the same as Zhang He's, sending people to the south to deliver the news of the epidemic on the one hand, and mobilizing troops to move closer to Jining City, without considering avoiding it at all.

Seven days later, Liu He, who was far away in Yecheng, received an urgent report from the north.

"It's really expected by Mr. Wenhe, the plague broke out in Mobei, and Kebi was able to escape to Beihai with his own people, but let the infected tribe come to the south, obviously wanting to pass on the plague to us!" Liu He said with emotion.

"Shiren don't worry, the two armies of Xiaocai and Youyan were ready to deal with the situation as early as January, at this time they should have arrived at the north of Jining and Baishan, and in a few days, they can build a separation zone there, even if the Xianbei people want to lead the water south, they can't do it." Tian Chou comforted Liu He and said.

"The shape is getting more and more severe, and I must go back to Jicheng to stabilize people's hearts." Liu He immediately made a decision.

After learning that the great plague had occurred in Mobei, Liu He did not have half of the schadenfreude in his heart. Although it is the Xianbei people who are dying now, the plague does not recognize race, as long as there are conditions suitable for its rampant spread, it will soon spread from the north to the south, and it is not known how many Han compatriots will die by then.

Liu He is most worried about whether his advance deployment in the north can block the infiltration and breakthrough of the Xianbei people to the south, if the Xianbei people still want to pull some backing people before they die, there is no doubt that he, the "devil" in their mouths, is the most willing to pull them before they die.

Long before the Eastern Han Dynasty, plagues occurred in all dynasties. Because China is a monsoon country, located at the junction of the Pacific Ocean and Eurasia, the temperature in winter and summer is uneven, and the climate changes greatly, and this special natural environment is also prone to disease disasters. According to the records left by the ancients over thousands of years, many types of plagues, such as smallpox, plague, diphtheria, scarlet fever, cholera, typhus, typhoid, lung disease, leprosy, malaria, and schistoriasis, have hit the continent.

On the other hand, because the ancients had a limited understanding of diseases, they often did not know the specific types of plagues. According to the interpretation of the ancients, the so-called epidemic refers to "all the people are sick", which means that all diseases that can be transmitted are commonly called "epidemics". As for "plague", it refers to a virulent infectious disease, which can infect livestock and humans. Based on this, infectious diseases and epidemics were commonly referred to as "plagues" in ancient China.

According to later documents, from the 7th century B.C. to the 20th century A.D., there were more than 700 large-scale plagues in China. History developed to the Han Dynasty, due to long-term wars and various natural disasters, it finally led to a large-scale epidemic of epidemics. Even during the "reign of Wenjing" of the Western Han Dynasty. There was also a tragic scene of "the people died in the army, and the coffin was expensive". During the Eastern Han Dynasty in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, the plague was even more ferocious. Especially at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in the Central Plains, the ruling center of the dynasty, a terrible epidemic swept through every corner at an unprecedented speed, bringing great disasters to people.

At that time, magistrates at all levels of the Eastern Han Dynasty continued to receive a large number of reports of cases, and some villages even almost all died. The magistrate did not dare to slack off, and hurriedly reported these situations to the imperial court. But to their disappointment, the court was in the midst of corruption and chaos. There is no time to care about the life and death of ordinary people. As a result, the scope of the plague was further expanded due to the lack of effective control.

The great plague at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was commonly known as "typhoid fever" at that time. According to relevant historical records, the main symptoms of this disease are: it is transmitted by animals as the host of the virus, which is highly contagious; The onset is acute and the mortality rate is high; Patients often have high fever and wheezing, and die of exhaustion; Some patients also have blood spots and bruises. In the early days of the plague, people were almost helpless in the face of the terrible plague. One can only wait for death in despair.

According to later historians, there were dozens of great plagues in the 100 years from 119 to 217 AD. In the decades at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Great Plague was even more continuous. The number of deaths is too great to count. In just 30 years at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were 12 national plagues that were clearly recorded. During the plague epidemic, families were ruined and people died. The consequences were tragic.

In the once prosperous Central Plains region, there was once such a tragic situation: "There is the pain of a corpse in every family, and there is a cry of mourning in the room." or die with the door closed, or lose the family. Zhang Zhongjing, a famous medical scientist at that time, also sadly recalled that his family had a large population, reaching more than 200 people, but during the plague epidemic in less than ten years, two-thirds of the population died, and seventy percent of them died of typhoid fever. In the Luoyang area, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the plague claimed more than half of the people's lives. In addition, there were constant wars here at that time, and the Central Plains region fell into an extremely terrifying state.

According to the characteristics of hemorrhagic fever, some later researchers put forward a novel view: the plague in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was likely to be a major outbreak of the biological sequelae of the Xiongnu people. Later generations of medicine believed that the host animals and sources of infection of hemorrhagic fever were mainly small rodents, including house mice, voles and hamsters, and some domestic animals could also carry the virus, such as horses, domestic cats, rabbits, dogs, pigs, etc. Once the host animals themselves are infected with the virus, they can transmit the plague to humans by simply touching it.

Also in the Western Han Dynasty, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty launched a military attack on the Huns, "the Huns heard that the Han army was coming, so that the witch buried sheep and cattle, and cursed the Han army on the roads and water sources that the Han army came from." As a result, after the Han army touched, eaten, or drank the water where the carcasses of cattle and sheep were kept, a plague broke out, rendering the army incapacitated. Some people even analyzed that Huo Quai, the famous military commander at that time, died of illness at the age of 24 after the victory of the expedition against the Huns, and the reason was probably because his army had eaten the cattle and sheep left by the Huns. This method of the Huns can be called the earliest "biological and chemical weapons" recorded in human history.

Later, some nomadic tribes imitated the methods of the Xiongnu to confront the Han Dynasty. According to the record of "Zizhi Tongjian", in the spring and March of the fifth year of Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the emperor Fu Gui crusaded against the Qiang people, there was a phenomenon of "a great epidemic in the army, three or four out of ten dead".

According to the epidemic prevention law that has just been issued, agents who risk death to return to the south to deliver letters are not allowed to cross the quarantine zone and enter their homes, and after they pass back the information, they can only follow the guidance of their colleagues on the quarantine zone to live in an observation area north of Baishan City for a period of time, and only after making sure that they are not infected with the epidemic can they enter Baishan City.

Before the drought had passed, a terrible plague broke out in the north, and Liu He only felt extremely depressed and irritable in his heart, but he didn't know who to talk to. (To be continued......)