[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-817":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1206106,1561,"Chapter 817: The Plague","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-817",817,"\u003Cp>In the late Ming, epidemics struck one after another. In the fourteenth year of the Chongzhen reign, plague raged through Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Zhejiang, and other regions, infecting a vast number of people. In the sixteenth year, a great plague erupted from Shanxi all the way to the capital; outside the nine gates, ten thousand coffins were carried out each day, and countless households were wiped out entirely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The plagues of this period were terrifyingly lethal, often killing tens of thousands at a time. The more severe outbreaks occurred in the eighth year of the Wanli reign, the fourteenth year of the Wanli reign, and the final years of the Ming, leaving nine out of ten houses empty — a sight too wretched to bear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, the plague was an acute, virulent infectious disease — a Class-A acute infectious disease with an extremely high fatality rate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just how terrifying is a Class-A infectious disease? The diseases people in later ages know and speak of with dread — anthrax, AIDS, SARS, avian influenza, and so on — all belong to Class B. With a Class-A disease, there is virtually no incubation period to speak of. As the saying goes, one person infected, the whole family stricken; high and low, young and old, they cry out in sickness and die. And with the movement of people, it spreads rapidly in all directions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Upon receiving the epidemic report, how could Wang Dou dare delay? He immediately returned to Guihua City, summoned all officers and officials for a council, and at once activated the contingency plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He also dispatched flying couriers with urgent proclamations to the Xuan-Da Viceroy Ji Shiwei, the Xuanfu Provincial Governor Zhu Zhifeng, the Datong Provincial Governor Wei Jingyuan, the Shanxi Provincial Governor Cai Maode, as well as the various Regional Commanders Wang Pu, Zhou Yuji, and others, to discuss epidemic prevention matters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the end, an Epidemic Prevention Bureau was established to oversee all epidemic prevention affairs in Anbei, Xuanfu, Shanxi, and other areas. Wang Dou personally assumed the post of Director-General, with Wu Youxing as Deputy Director, and Ji Shiwei, Wei Jingyuan, Zhu Zhifeng, Cai Maode, Wang Pu, and others as Bureau Officers. Later, Sun Chuanting also joined as one of the Bureau Officers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To ensure the smooth execution of epidemic prevention and plague control, Wang Dou specially detached two thousand troops to serve as epidemic prevention soldiers. All officials, generals, soldiers, and civilians in the affected areas were to follow the arrangements of the bureau staff and physicians; any who dared disobey would be executed without mercy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the same time, the Xuanfu Times went into full swing, publicizing epidemic prevention and plague control matters and all key prevention points. Wu Youxing's \"Treatise on Warm Epidemics,\" which had been published once before, was now reprinted, printed intensively, and widely promoted in the newspapers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was not just propaganda; more importantly, it was about taking action. Besides large numbers of physicians immediately stationing themselves in Yingzhou, the Epidemic Prevention Bureau also mobilized the populace everywhere to launch large-scale rat and flea extermination campaigns, with house rats in particular being a target that had to be eliminated. At the same time, streets and lanes were cleaned, garbage was hauled away, and a vigorous, sweeping cleanup was carried out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the late Ming, the collapse of public finances left many cities filthy and squalid, breeding flies and gnats, with sewage flowing freely — this was one of the reasons great epidemics broke out repeatedly across the land.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The territories under Wang Dou's governance were relatively fine, but in the nearby cities of Shanxi and Shaanxi, garbage piled up in mounds and the stench rose to the sky. However, because the Epidemic Prevention Bureau was well-organized and allocated large sums of funds to mobilize the people — with money to be earned and their very lives at stake — the populace was actually quite enthusiastic about the cleanup.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet the epidemic still surged ferociously. After the outbreak was discovered in Yingzhou, the daily death toll reached over three hundred, and it spread with extreme speed, the main difficulty being isolation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this time, the prevailing principles were \"benevolence,\" \"ritual propriety,\" and \"filial piety.\" If an elder in the family fell ill, the younger generation was naturally expected to attend at their bedside, serving decoctions morning and night, and constantly inquiring after their health and caring for them — and thus they became infected. If a younger family member fell ill, the elders, needless to say, stayed constantly by their side, and thus they too became infected.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The virulence of the plague was so dreadful that even those who helped with funeral arrangements, and ultimately those who went to see off the deceased, would contract the disease and breathe their last. For this reason, it was a common sight for one person's infection to wipe out an entire family, or even for an entire clan of several hundred to die off completely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Epidemic Prevention Bureau required that anyone found infected be isolated immediately, but those who could not bear to part from their own flesh and blood, and who concealed the illness without reporting it, were everywhere.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under Wang Dou's governance, the layered baojia system made it easy to discover the sick and then take compulsory measures, and enforcement was effective. But elsewhere, the grassroots organizations had long been paralyzed; the lijia system no longer existed, and most places were under the self-governance of the local gentry, making concealment all too easy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The best way to handle infected corpses was cremation and deep burial, but according to the concepts of the time, cremation was linked to another phrase: \"grinding bones and scattering ashes,\" something done only out of the deepest enmity. If you dared burn your own kin to ashes, it wouldn't be just one or two people who would fight you to the death.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The dead are paramount, and burial brings peace\" was the most fundamental moral principle of the time. No matter how hostile two sides were, if after a battle they could send back each other's fallen, it was praised by all as benevolence and righteousness. But destroying, desecrating, or mutilating corpses was a grave crime of cruelty and inhumanity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even isolating the sick and taking away the infected would provoke criticism, seen as an obstruction of the path of benevolence and filial piety.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In mid-August, the plague spread to Taiyuan Prefecture, Pingyang Prefecture, Datong Prefecture, and other areas; even in Xuanfu and Anbei, cases were discovered. In view of this, Wang Dou specially published a signed article in the newspapers, calling on the people to face this issue squarely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He quoted Mencius: \"When a sister-in-law is drowning, one extends a hand to rescue her. When the world is drowning, one rescues it with the Way.\" He argued that the rampancy of the plague now concerned the very survival of the race, transcending the principles of benevolence, ritual, and filial piety, and had risen to the level of humanity itself, requiring expedient measures.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Isolation and cremation were all such expedient measures. He called on the people to extend their hands to rescue the world and together pursue the great Way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Datong Regional Commander, Count of Dingxing Wang Pu, was the first to respond to Wang Dou's call. In late August, he persuaded the Datong Provincial Governor Wei Jingyuan to collect over a thousand plague corpses from Datong City. Outside the city, he had the corpses piled into over a hundred heaps, a hundred corpses per heap, then piled firewood on them and set them ablaze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A vast crowd gathered to watch, and every civil and military official of Datong City was present. Amid the overwhelming wails of the deceased's families, all those plague corpses were reduced to ashes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Strangely enough, after the plague corpses were burned, the citywide death toll plummeted, and the number of infections dwindled. Five days later, Datong City had not a single new death, not a single new infection.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This news shook the whole of Shanxi. By now, because of the large-scale sanitation efforts everywhere and the distribution of masks, the problem of transmission routes had been largely resolved; the greatest threat was those corpses. With a successful precedent before them, cities everywhere emulated Wang Pu's approach and began burning diseased corpses, and even the furniture and belongings the patients had touched were burned as well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Epidemic Prevention Bureau also adopted the method of \"cutting off transportation and conducting strict inspections,\" organizing layer upon layer of defense lines around the prefectures, counties, and fortresses where the epidemic was most severe, thus preventing the epidemic from spreading excessively in Shanxi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, the epidemic remained severe, because variants kept emerging.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In late August, the Epidemic Prevention Bureau discovered that not only rats and fleas were sources of infection, but cats and wild dogs had also become new sources, serving as hosts in the epidemic foci. Wang Dou ordered all cats and dogs in the epidemic foci to be killed, then cremated and deeply buried.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In late August, settlers in the Monan Eastern Garrison were infected while skinning a dead fox. Wang Dou ordered that entire garrison fort to be isolated, all foxes there to be killed, and then cremated and deeply buried.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Also in late August, herders in the Monan Central Garrison were infected after skinning and eating the pelt and meat of dead wild rabbits. Wang Dou ordered all wild rabbits within the garrison to be exterminated; every one found was to be cremated and deeply buried.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In early September, the Epidemic Prevention Bureau discovered that a pasture in the Monan Central Garrison seemed to be trending toward becoming a new epidemic focus. Wang Dou ordered all cattle, sheep, and camels in that entire pasture to be killed, then cremated and deeply buried.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Again in September, the Epidemic Prevention Bureau discovered that some wolves in the Monan Western Garrison had become new hosts. Wang Dou ordered all wolves on the steppe to be killed...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>While the plague erupted in Shanxi, epidemics were likewise discovered in Shandong, Beizhili, the capital region, and other places, eventually breaking out one after another. Their financial capacity and organizational execution ability could not compare to Anbei's, and even fell short of Shanxi's. After the plague erupted, the scenes were too wretched to bear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Epidemics broke out repeatedly across the Great Ming. Although the Epidemic Prevention Bureau lacked the capacity to penetrate deep into every part of the Ming, by this time the Xuanfu Times was widely circulated, and the epidemic prevention key points published in it drew the attention of countless people. In particular, it also published the prescriptions for medical decoctions such as Dayuan Decoction and Sanxiao Decoction, along with various methods of epidemic prevention and plague control.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As one newspaper after another spread, countless people with the will and the means followed the instructions within, and in the end, by sheer luck, survived. The various measures Anbei undertook saved countless lives — a truly boundless merit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the ninth month of the sixteenth year of the Chongzhen reign, at Shengjing, in the Chongzheng Hall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Xuantong Emperor Dorgon was intently leafing through the newspapers in his hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"...Bubonic plague, also known as rat plague, is caused by a pestilential qi infecting people. It is not wind, not cold, not summer heat, not dampness, nor an invasion of the six external pathogenic evils; it cannot be discussed in terms of cold-damage or external contraction disorders. Rat plague often arises from filth. Streets, houses, ditches, and rivers must be cleaned, supplemented with white lime, so that rats, mosquitoes, flies, and fleas cannot spread it. The way of epidemic prevention lies in tracing the routes of transmission, strengthening road quarantine, controlling key transportation arteries, isolating epidemic areas, cremating the corpses of plague victims, establishing medical shelters to admit patients, using masks when going out, and drinking medical decoctions such as Dayuan Decoction and Sanxiao Decoction...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The prescriptions for Dayuan Decoction and Sanxiao Decoction are as follows...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"...The Count of Dingxing, Wang Pu, responded to the call of the Marquis of Yongning. On the twenty-first day of the eighth month, Datong City burned one thousand one hundred and fifty-five diseased corpses, and the epidemic in Datong ceased.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"On the twenty-third day of the eighth month, Taiyuan City burned two thousand three hundred and sixty diseased corpses, and the epidemic in Taiyuan eased.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"On the twenty-fourth day of the eighth month, in Pingyang Prefecture...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"On the twenty-fifth day of the eighth month, the Trilateral Viceroy of Shaanxi, Sun Chuanting, and the Shaanxi Provincial Governor, Feng Shikong, assembled all civil and military officials outside the south gate and burned thirteen thousand diseased corpses...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Urgent report, urgent report! Besides house rats and wild rats, wild cats and wild dogs have become new sources of the rat plague!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Urgent report, urgent report! Foxes and wild rabbits have become newly established sources of infection!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Under no circumstances eat the pelts, meat, or internal organs of diseased animals; under no circumstances come into contact with or be contaminated by their blood, sputum...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The Marquis of Yongning orders the extermination of all wolf packs within the borders, and the eradication of all wild rabbits and foxes within the borders!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Shocking! The capital has become a hell; outside the nine gates, ten thousand coffins are carried out each day. At the request of the Capital Epidemic Prevention Director-General Zhou Yanru and Deputy Director Chen Xinjia, large numbers of Epidemic Prevention Bureau physicians are rushing to the capital to aid!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Reading the reportage in the newspapers, Dorgon felt a sense of shock and horror. After a long while, he set the newspapers down and looked at the Grand Secretary of the Hongwen Academy, Ning Wanwo, and the others before him. \"Has the rat plague appeared in Shengjing as well? Where did it come from?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Wanwo kowtowed and said, \"Your humble servant traced the route of transmission and has determined the source to be a jiala estate outside the city, caused by a bondservant eating an otter. Now, many households within the city are exhibiting symptoms of chills and high fever, with blood and froth in the sputum. According to the Ming newspapers, it is indeed the rat plague!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dorgon slowly closed his eyes. A long while later, he opened them and said with authority, \"Immediately establish an Epidemic Prevention Bureau. We shall personally serve as Director-General, and you shall be Deputy Director. Detach five thousand armored soldiers as epidemic prevention troops. All epidemic prevention matters shall follow what the newspapers say. Any who dare disobey shall be executed without mercy!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Wanwo departed in haste. Dorgon watched his retreating figure. In government and state affairs, he still could not do without the Han people. After ascending the throne, Dorgon found that, just like Huang Taiji, he needed the assistance of Han civil officials at every turn.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In military campaigns and raids, however, he still needed the various Manchu and Mongol banner lords of the Eight Banners.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Reflecting on the income the Great Qing had reaped from its raids on Japan during this period, a satisfied smile involuntarily spread across Dorgon's face.\u003C\u002Fp>",2533,"2026-06-03T14:06:27.906Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","b0091aaf756be9e7d9cac6d5dcee481665e3c58cf0782bfe4e270de6f5e103ef","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-818","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-816",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]