“Can strategists really not ascend to the throne?”
Chapter 190 – Emergency Remedies…
What medical miracle?
That’s clearly just the system’s point-adding feature!
Qiao Yan’s impressive physique is undoubtedly due to her diligent training, but as Hua Tuo said, her previous condition should be called a deficiency syndrome—it’s more like a flaw in her current body.
To develop to her current state in just seven years, it’s not something she could achieve merely by exercising and supplementing her diet.
Calling it a miracle of medicine wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Of course, Qiao Yan couldn’t attribute it to some divine favor.
Tying herself to the heavens’ will in this era isn’t the smartest move.
Just like how Emperor Ling of Han would allow her to debate the theory of celestial responses with Zhang Jiao back in the day.
If she were to claim that her recovery was due to the fact that Bingzhou was stabilizing and the people’s livelihoods were secure, and that the heavens couldn’t bear to see her suffer from illness, what would she do when a drought and locust plague hit in two years? Not to mention the massive epidemic during the Jian’an era that left nine out of ten households empty?
The best strategy was to use something else to distract Hua Tuo.
“Maybe it’s just that local soil nurtures local people,” Qiao Yan casually replied, clearly not helping with Hua Tuo’s confusion.
But he soon found he didn’t have the luxury of time.
He had come to Bingzhou because of the valuable pepper, rare in these times.
However, Qiao Yan also stated seriously that she had another important matter that needed Hua Tuo’s support.
For someone like Hua Tuo, who wanted to apply his medical skills across the Central Plains, staying in one place wasn’t his first choice.
But Qiao Yan said, “Mr. Wu’s years of practice in Bingzhou have cataloged thousands of ailments. During our summary last year, we found some issues. Take typhoid fever as an example; the existing remedies are very complicated. While they may suit large states and districts, in remote rural areas, it’s doubtful they’d even know what remedy to use and gather the necessary ingredients.”
Hua Tuo responded, “That’s because nowadays, the medical classics require effective remedies, which must have adequate dosages.”
Qiao Yan pointed to herself: “But in reality, the human body has its self-healing abilities. My situation can be considered an exception, but there are cases where ailments lessened to a point can recover, or they could use dietary supplements to aid treatment.”
In his contemplation, Hua Tuo heard Qiao Yan add, “In fact, it’s not just remote areas that can’t gather remedies; medicines in this world, like northern wheat and southern rice, each have their growing environments. And in these chaotic times, coordinating between north and south is challenging. Finding doctors to consult is not easy either; by the time you find someone, people would’ve already died three times over.”
This statement of Qiao Yan’s was somewhat exaggerated, but Hua Tuo had no counter for it.
He may be a divine physician, but he’s not a miracle worker; he can’t just turn grass into medicine. Earlier, when he treated people in various locales, all he could do was try to adjust prescriptions to make things easier to prepare.
But from the tone of Qiao Yan, it seemed she had some ideas, so he asked, “What does your lordship mean?”
“I want to create a book and have Mr. Yuanhua edit it, titled ‘Emergency Remedies.’”
“One part will be a record of existing diseases, aiming to document various symptoms for quick identification in emergencies.”
“The second part will involve simplifying complex prescriptions into more easily accessible ones suitable for rural areas. This cannot be done by just any practitioner; only Mr. Yuanhua’s involvement reassures me.”
In fact, in a hundred years, a medical book just like this would emerge, authored by the renowned physician Ge Hong, called the “Emergency Remedies from the Elbow.”
It means one can conveniently retrieve it from the elbow’s reach.
The rampant epidemics during the Three Kingdoms era advanced medical practices and the war-time demand for physicians would, by Ge Hong’s time, encourage the creation of such a practical medical text.
However, from another perspective, such a medical book didn’t appear until the Western Jin period because medical practitioners faced immense restraints amid the chaos.
Before the medical path temples resembling hospitals emerged, there were medical halls, yet practitioners still focused more on individual treatments.
But Qiao Yan had the conditions and foresight to support Hua Tuo and Wu Pu in this endeavor.
The medical tips published in the Leping Monthly Report were a preliminary attempt at promotion; now it was time to execute it systematically.
Hua Tuo wasn’t blind to the potential benefits of forming such an emergency medical practice.
The relatively stable situation in Liangzhou and Bingzhou made it indeed a suitable time for him to focus on writing.
After all, Hua Tuo’s hometown, Pei State Qiao County, was currently embroiled in conflict due to Liu Bei’s campaign against Yuan Shu.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have shown up now.
He asked, “So may I inquire, if this book comes to fruition, how should it be promoted and utilized?”
While Qiao Yan didn’t use the name “Emergency Remedies from the Elbow,” which sounds more like a readily available medical book, the essence of emergency in “Emergency Remedies” was clear enough for Hua Tuo to catch her underlying ambition to promote it.
Just placing the book in Leping Academy or the state archives wouldn’t achieve her goal.
Of course, his question indicated that he agreed with her suggestion.
Hearing this, Qiao Yan felt relieved.
Depending solely on pepper—a novel item—can’t ensure Hua Tuo would stay here for long, but publishing a book surely could.
During the writing phase, he’d still be engaged in consultations and mentoring disciples, thereby safeguarding Bingzhou’s core medical capabilities.
With Hua Tuo on her side, she could also shift Wu Pu’s focus towards military emergencies without feeling too guilty about overloading him with tasks.
Moreover, while Hua Tuo pioneered surgical techniques, his internal medicine was no slouch either, particularly his expertise in obstetrics and pediatrics. Once he confirmed a long-term stay, Qiao Yan would have more to explore.
As for how to promote, Qiao Yan responded, “With the quality of Leping Marquis paper, recording and transcribing won’t be difficult. Each village, pavilion, and neighborhood chief will hold a copy, making it easy for reference when necessary. I will ensure it’s added to Bingzhou’s administrative evaluation, supervised by assistant officers.”
This method was straightforward to delegate given her position as the governor of Bingzhou and provided reassurance for Hua Tuo.
As she sent Hua Tuo to meet with his disciple Wu Pu, Qiao Yan pondered and said, “Oh, there’s one more thing I want to discuss with Mr. Yuanhua.”
Hua Tuo chuckled, “I finally see why my disciple wanted me here for emergencies.”
Qiao Yan truly was maximizing her labor force exploitation.
“Now that’s extreme!”
Completing this emergency medical text is no small feat, yet she somehow thinks about other things at this moment.
But when she mentioned what Qiao Yan said, Hua Tuo, who is usually very cautious about medicine, couldn’t help but straighten his expression.
Qiao Yan asked, “Mr. Yuanhua must have heard of ‘luo-chuang’?”
Hua Tuo nodded, “This disease starts with pustules on the head and face, then spreads all over the body, changing from red to white, and if touched, they burst. Even if one doesn’t die, they’ll be left with dark purple sores that take a year to heal. I’ve seen it when practicing medicine in the Central Plains. May I ask if anyone under your command has contracted this disease; we should isolate them quickly.”
“Not exactly,” Qiao Yan replied.
Luo-chuang is actually smallpox.
This illness emerged during Emperor Guangwu’s time because of battles in Nanyang, coming from the Hu soldiers, hence it was named “luo-chuang.”
She continued, “I sent someone on the Silk Road to bring back hemp seeds, but I also heard a special case in Guishuang. There was a family whose cattle caught this ‘luo-chuang,’ which infected the cattle raiser, but the symptoms were much milder than usual. After recovering, just when this disease started spreading here, this person wasn’t infected. I hope, Mr. Yuanhua, you could study this matter if you have the time.”
Medical symptoms and names today often lack clear definitions, as a wide range of infectious diseases fall under the general term ‘major plague.’
But ‘major plague’ comes in many forms, including pestilence, dysentery, leprosy, and so forth. So during that major plague in the Zhongping years, Qiao Yan could only approach prevention in a vague manner.
This situation changed only with Ge Hong’s emergency medical book, which started mentioning smallpox, leptospirosis, and jaundice hepatitis, all of which could very well appear in a major plague.
Other issues were beyond Qiao Yan’s grasp, but at least she remembered the idea of cowpox regarding smallpox.
However, there are specialists for every field, so best leave it to Hua Tuo to tinker with.
What she could do was rely on her connections along the Silk Road, as her channels for information weren’t limited to just the Central Plains; in certain situations, she could concoct something on the fly.
After all, who could challenge her “hearsay”?
Even if she got caught, the benefits for the people had already materialized, and who would dare say that wasn’t a benevolent lie?
Hua Tuo immediately agreed, stating he would look into it.
After settling that, Qiao Yan made her way to the mountain fortress to see the homing pigeons kept there.
The pigeons in the cage were not doves, but rather small silver-gray pigeons, their feet white.
Having been domesticated in Bingzhou for over half a year, these pigeons knew their home well; even when a stranger like Qiao Yan suddenly appeared to feed them, they showed no signs of fear.
Qiao Yan withdrew her hand from scattering feed and looked around the pigeon loft, speaking to Xi Zhicai and Lu Yuan, “The news we safely brought back from Yang Province and Yanzhou has proven the superiority of using homing pigeons for messages. It’s high time we scale up our efforts.”
“However, with this expansion, the pigeons need proper identification, and the code for the pigeon messages must be kept in trusted hands.”
“I want to entrust this task to Mr. Zhicai.”
Hua Tuo had arrived, and with the recent limitations on drinking with Xi Zhicai, plus some extra food supplementation, this additional workload would pose no problem for him.
Moreover, it was just about him figuring out the code’s optimization and choosing who would control the code; he wouldn’t have to raise the pigeons personally. What could possibly go wrong?
Qiao Yan continued, “Also, there’s a flaw in the scale of using homing pigeons for messages.”
As she said this, she looked at Lu Yuan, signaling that this was a task assigned to her.
She pondered for a moment and figured she understood what Qiao Yan was about to say.
In today’s transportation routes spanning across the south and north seas, if someone discovered that pigeons could carry messages, the pigeons would easily expose the identity of the messenger.
Their features were too obvious, especially since they carried living things.
So, they had to delay the chances of discovery.
That meant they needed to find a suitable method to transport the pigeons while expanding their breeding.
She replied, “I suggest you use merchant caravans as covers to transport the pigeons, but this caravan shouldn’t rely entirely on the Donghai Mi Clan.”
Previously, when sending Zheng Xuan and others to Bingzhou, they had borrowed their strength, but they couldn’t keep doing that.
In Donghai County, not being under Qiao Yan’s control means no one could guarantee they wouldn’t turn against her at any moment.
So, it was best to prepare another more reliable subordinate to expand the intelligence network.
“This person needs to be articulate, possess some cunning, and most importantly, be loyal enough to you, or at least completely controllable by you.”
This would also be a long-term operation, so this person must endure being without an official position for a long time, merely as a merchant.
These conditions conveniently excluded Mi Zhu.
He could be a trading partner for Qiao Yan in exchanging goods, but he couldn’t be someone she would trust to handle this matter.
Qiao Yan turned to Lu Yuan and said, “That’s right, as for this candidate, I hope you can give me an answer within three months.”
She could be sure that there wasn’t anyone under her command who fully met these criteria at the moment.
Comparatively speaking, Xu Shu was somewhat qualified but was practically tied to her already; suddenly asking him to switch to business might raise suspicions.
She would have to test the waters among the existing subordinates, relatives, and new joiners to find a suitable candidate.
Not an easy task…
Even though Qiao Yan assigned this task to Lu Yuan, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander back to it as she reviewed other matters in Bingzhou.
Until Cai Zhaoji, who came to report the progress of Leping Monthly Report, broke her thoughts.
Now taller, Zhaoji brought more presence while reporting affairs, making Qiao Yan’s focus return with joy, akin to nurturing a seedling successfully.
She said, “In the May issue of Leping Monthly Report, we’ve temporarily changed the agricultural section to economics, publishing the matter of recovering the missing copper coins in the market and re-minting the standard five-zhus. I applied for this with you and visited the Minting Officials.”
This was something Cai Zhaoji had previously discussed with Qiao Yan.
The standardization of currency was crucial as trade between Liangzhou and Bingzhou intensified, strengthening the public’s confidence.
Compared to Dong Zhuo’s small coins, it further showcased Qiao Yan’s protection of economic order.
But now that she mentioned it in June again, it clearly had another purpose.
She continued, “The Minting Officials in Bingzhou have been transferred from the Shanglin Officials and are highly skilled at crafting money patterns, with the five-zhu markings also very clear.”
“I’m pondering a question. If we can mint coins with character patterns, why can’t we mass-produce books with literary patterns…”
Before Cai Zhaoji could finish her thought, she noticed Qiao Yan’s expression turn serious.
She raised a finger, signaling for silence.
