For thousands of years, human beings on the earth have been fighting against those invisible diseases all the time, and human beings finally relied on the tragic price of countless deaths and injuries in exchange for the right to survive on this planet. Sometimes it is nature that releases these diseases, and sometimes it is human beings themselves.

In the days when ancient medicine was not yet known, floods, droughts, and wars were often accompanied by very severe plagues. From a historical point of view, China's epidemics are frequent, and there are endless books on history! The earliest records of the epidemic began with the Yin Shang dynasty, and the oracle bone inscription reads: "Zhen: 疒不." This means that at that time, the epidemic was prevalent, and people went to divination in the hope that the epidemic would not be prevalent again. During the 2,632 years from 674 to 1949 B.C., 772 plagues of varying severity were recorded, with an average of less than one in less than four years. In less than 500 years, from 1500 to 1911, there were 238 major epidemics, an average of less than one every two years. When the epidemic is epidemic, it is often "the dead are incalculable", "every household is wiped out", and "every household is wiped out", which is a real tragedy in the world!

Period from the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, from 204 to 219 AD, the plague in the Central Plains was fierce. Zhang Zhongjing: "The Yu clan has many names, more than 200, since Jian'an, it has not been ten years, two-thirds of its dead, and seven of the ten typhoid fevers." In particular, in the twenty-second year of Jian'an (217), there were many deaths. Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi: "Every family has the pain of a corpse, and there is a cry in the room, or the door is closed and the person dies, or the family is mourned." Although there were no accurate statistics at the time, it is not difficult to imagine how rampant the epidemic was!

From the end of the Ming Dynasty to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (16th-17th centuries AD). From 1109 to 1234, "half of the people died from the epidemic", "Kaifeng epidemic, more than 900,000 people went out of the gates. "During the period from Wanli and Chongzhen to Kangxi of the Ming Dynasty, that is, from 1580 to 1663, there was an epidemic of plague and death. The most serious was in 1641, with two direct subordinates in the north and south. Shandong, Anhui, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Hunan and other places have a great epidemic, and Dongming County, Shandong Province has a great plague in spring and February, and there are several deaths

There is a family of people who are all killed, and the bones are piled up, and the remains are all over the field." The plague of 1643, "with pimple plague, woolly plague, etc., died when the disease was called, and did not leave a moment." In August and September, millions of people died... Until the frost and snow are getting more and more numerous. The momentum is gradually killing. In the spring and summer of "Shandong", the plague was prevalent, and even the villages were wiped out. ”

The sudden flooding brought not only the difficulty of the conquest to the Taiping army, but also the threat of death to the Taiping army, which even exceeded the threat of casualties on the battlefield. Although the Taiping army outside the city took quite active precautions, the Qing army inside Suzhou was not necessarily the same. The Qing army has never paid much attention to public health. Every time they occupied a city, Xiao Yungui and Hong Yun'er had seen dirty and messy scenes in the city. Livestock manure everywhere. People dumped feces and garbage in the rivers at will, mosquitoes, flies, rats and ants were rampant in the city, and the Taiping army even organized the old, weak, sick and disabled women and children in the city to clean up the garbage in the city.

Xiao Yungui once ordered the women's hall to carry out an operation to eliminate rats in Nanjing, and each female soldier must hand in five rats every day. Hong Yun'er has strongly protested against this, everyone knows that the woman seems to be born with a fear of this furry rodent, and Xiao Yungui's arrangement is quite perverted and inhumane. But Xiao Yungui resolutely pushed back. Male soldiers have to do heavy work, and they have to go out to fight, and of course the only way to do sanitation is to rely on the women's battalion. As a result, women can be heard screaming everywhere in Nanjing, and those big-footed barbarians in Guangxi are better. There are many snakes, insects, rats and ants in Guangxi, and they are used to seeing them, but they have suffered from elegant women such as Hong Yuner and Li Xuanji. However, the results were also very good, after the war, there was no major plague outbreak in the city of Nanjing, and at the same time, some timid female soldiers were trained, and someone was happy that he secretly rectified his opponent for the first time.

But the current commanders of the Qing army in Suzhou City, Xu Naizhao and Zhang Guoliang, did not have the time to clean up, in fact, as early as after several fierce battles, the hidden danger of the plague was buried. The corpses of the Qing soldiers who died in battle, the corpses of the Taiping soldiers who died in the city, and the corpses of the people who were killed against the Qing army, were discarded under the city at will, and the water of the moat was connected with many rivers and wells in the city.

The day after the water receded, the soldiers and civilians in the city began to have diarrhea people, these people drowned everywhere, which aggravated the infection of the plague, in just two days, the Qing army alone fell ill more than 1,000 people, and among the people was up to 10,000 people were infected, the infected people were vomiting, diarrhea did not stop, and they would be weak in a short time, and a fierce plague mercilessly drove to this besieged lonely city.

Everything is good and bad, although relying on a big flood temporarily delayed the offensive of the Taiping army, but Xu Naizhao and Zhang Guoliang did not expect that there would be a plague outbreak in the city, and there was a shortage of medicines, lime and other materials in the city, it was difficult to control the epidemic, and the doom of destruction seemed to have come. But Zhang Guoliang refused to sit still, he selected more than a dozen strong men, disguised as fleeing civilians to go out of the city after dark, planning to escape to Xiangshanghai, Hangzhou and even the Qing army in the Jiangbei camp for help.

It's a pity that the messengers sent by Zhang Guoliang were caught by Chen Yucheng on patrol and sent to Zuo Zongtang, and after spending a lot of effort to pry open the mouths of these messengers, Zuo Zongtang was very worried. He was not worried about the reinforcements of the Qing army, but about the plague. Zuo Zongtang is a famous man in the world, he knows the consequences of the plague very well, if there is no haode control method, it is not impossible that even the population of Suzhou City will die completely. At that time, even if the Taiping army captures Suzhou, it will not be worth the loss, and even set itself on fire, if the plague spreads among the army, I am afraid that the entire army will lose its combat effectiveness. After Zuo Zongtang received the confessions of several Qing army spies, he immediately reported to Xiao Yungui and Hong Yun'er.

After listening to Zuo Zongtang's words, Xiao Yungui was very happy at first, the Qing army was chaotic by the plague, so it would be very simple to capture Suzhou.

Seeing that King Xi didn't care, Zuo Zongtang said in surprise: "King Xi, under the rampant plague, people and animals will not be left, and even the city will be wiped out, and it will affect our army, if our side is infected with the plague, it will not be good." ”

Xiao Yungui sighed and said, "Is the plague of diarrhea difficult to treat?" In his concept, diarrhea does not seem to be an incurable disease.

Hong Yun'er frowned on the side and said in a low voice: "Judging from the description of this disease, cholera was epidemic at that time, and there have been 6 shijie epidemics since 1817, all of which affected our country. Even in later generations, cholera caused 5.5 million cases and 120,000 deaths every year. Cholera had a high case fatality rate in the past, reaching 50%~60%. In 1831, there was a cholera outbreak in Britain that would last for decades. At least 140,000 people died in Britain during the first wave of cholera germs, and some small villages were almost completely wiped out. If this epidemic spreads, it will indeed be difficult to control, do you think it is the future generations? It's the Qing Dynasty, and many drugs haven't been developed yet. ”

Xiao Yungui was stunned for a moment before he understood the seriousness of the problem, he glared and said, "Then what should we do?" ”

Zuo Zongtang didn't hear Hong Yun'er's words clearly, but he had already thought about it when he came, and immediately said: "Now that the epidemic is epidemic in the city, between the dilemma of advancing and retreating, if the king of the west wants to stabilize the way is to dig moats around Suzhou City and pile wormwood and lime to prevent the epidemic from spreading outside the city, and wait until the epidemic in the city is eliminated, and then enter the city." ”

Xiao Yungui hurriedly said: "This can't be done, if you suffer like this, it will only be the people in the city, absolutely not." ”

Zuo Zongtang sighed lightly and said: "Either our army will immediately withdraw from the siege, take Shanghai first, and let Suzhou City fend for itself." ”

Xiao Yungui frowned and shook his head: "No, just withdraw the siege like this, how can you be worthy of the dead brothers?" ”

Zuo Zongtang hurriedly said: "King Xi, if the plague is raging and affects our army, there may be more brothers in the army who die of illness." ”

After Xiao Yungui pondered for a moment, he slowly stood up and said, "Mr. Zuo, why can't we conquer Suzhou in the shortest possible time, and then treat the people in the city and control the epidemic?" ”

Zuo Zongtang was dumbfounded for a while before he said: "King Xi, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Suzhou City, how many medicinal materials do you have to prepare, how much manpower and material resources do you have to spend, at this time, entering the city will drag down our army, and if you are not careful, you will be infected with the plague, and the whole army will be in danger." ”

Xiao Yungui looked at Hong Yun'er, only to see that Hong Yun'er's beautiful eyes were looking forward to it, and gave himself an approving look, Xiao Yungui gritted his teeth and said: "There have been countless casualties in the war, this king doesn't want to harm the lives of the people, why do I wait for the army to rebel?" Isn't it just so that the people of the world can live a good life? This time is also a test given to us by God, even if we pour everything we have, we must save the people of Suzhou City! ”

Zuo Zongtang stared at Xiao Yungui for a while and said, "King Xi, when Allah has decided?" ”

Xiao Yungui nodded heavily and said, "Never regret it!" ”

Zuo Zongtang breathed a sigh of relief, smiled slightly and said: "It seems that Zuo's expectations are not bad, the king of the West will not abandon the people." In fact, Zuo has already thought about it, since the king of the west has made up his mind, let's take another risk. ”

At that moment, Zuo Zongtang said his plan, it turned out that he already had an arrangement in his heart, just try Xiao Yungui again, after listening to Zuo Zongtang's words, Xiao Yungui secretly scolded Zuo Zongtang for not being kind, and he had to test himself at this time, but fortunately he didn't retreat, otherwise maybe Zuo Zongtang would have walked away. Zuo Zongtang didn't know, in fact, the reason why this guy was willing to stay was because he really didn't think cholera was an incurable disease, but then the huge price that Xidian spent for the plague in Suzhou really made Xiao Yungui's heart ache.

Zuo Zongtang summoned all the generals and told him about his arrangement. In addition to taking precautions against the plague, the armies in the West Hall also had to collect medicinal materials, lime, wormwood and other materials from nearby villages, and sent messengers to Wuxi to urgently mobilize medicinal materials, lime and other materials from Wuxi, Jintan, Zhenjiang and other places, and dispatched doctors from Wuxi, Jintan and other places to Suzhou. Xiao Yungui added that he sent people back to Shanghai to collect Western medicines, and hired Western doctors to come to Suzhou to help treat the disease. At the same time, Xiao Yungui ordered people to compile the preventive measures into songs and sing them in the army, and sent a team of people to the nearby villages to publicize them to prevent the spread of cholera.

Zuihou is to arrange military affairs, Xiao Yungui sent people to Xu Naizhao and Zhang Guoliang in the city to persuade the surrender letter, asking the Qing army in the city to surrender early tomorrow morning, otherwise they will wave the army to attack the city! (To be continued......)