Chapter 253

"Survival rate of babies?"

Zhang Zhongjing was completely confused. He had never thought about this at all. Who had thought about the high or low survival of babies? They did not even care about the life and death of adults, let alone these.

"Zhongjing Gong, under my rule, at least hundreds of thousands, no, millions of babies are born every year, and this number is still increasing year by year. One million babies, the mortality rate reaches 30% every year, that is, 300,000 babies die because of various reasons and accidents."

"If Zhongjing Gong can improve their survival rate, then how many babies can be saved every year?"

Saving one life is better than building a seven-story pagoda—this is the saying of the Buddhist Gate, but for the Medical School, there is a similar saying.

Su Fan brought this point out, and Zhang Zhongjing was also moved.

But he soon reacted and asked with some doubt: "If the survival rate is really improved, then there will be many more people under your rule every year. Can they be supported?"

This was the reason for Zhang Zhongjing's hesitation. The Medical School had not discovered such a problem, and even someone had raised it before, but in the end, it was left unsettled.

Why?

Bottom-level commoners, they are not wealthy merchants and powerful clans. The number of people they can support in a family is limited. Adding one more baby means one more mouth. The annual grain production is only so much. If there is really one more mouth, it is very likely that it will not be enough.

If they encounter any natural disasters, then it is very likely that the whole family will be finished.

Bottom-level commoners have very poor resistance, so really improving the survival rate of their babies might not be a good thing for them.

"Haha! If Zhongjing Gong is only worried about this point, then there is no problem. Under my rule, nothing else, as long as you have hands and feet, you will absolutely not be starved to death, even if you encounter natural disasters, you will absolutely not be starved to death."

Su Fan said with a calm face.

"Zhongjing Gong seems to not believe it."

Zhang Zhongjing, after listening to Su Fan's words, had an unhappy face. Obviously, he thought Su Fan was bragging. Not starved to death—how is that possible? Even in the prosperous era, there were still commoners starved to death.

Let alone in this chaotic era.

Su Fan also knew the other party's suspicion.

"Zhongjing Gong, the lord did not exaggerate. Under the lord's rule, as long as you are not a lazy person, you will not be starved to death."

"How is that possible?"

Zhang Zhongjing was still a bit incredulous about Xun You's words, but Xun You's identity made him feel that he would not lie.

It was precisely because of this that he was even more surprised.

"Because, the lord opened up millions of acres of wasteland in Donghai Commandery, and with the help of the Agricultural School and the Mohist School, constantly improved the yield per mu in the fields. Now the Donghai Territory under the lord's rule has an average yield per mu of about five shi."

"The annual grain production in the fields reaches hundreds of millions of shi."

"This..."

Hundreds of millions of shi of grain is a massive number, enough to support a population of tens of millions.

This number also made Zhang Zhongjing dazed. This was just a commandery.

Even some provinces having hundreds of millions of shi of grain every year was a problem, such as Liangzhou and Bingzhou.

This world is indeed very large, which can be said to be vast and sparsely populated, but it is precisely because it is vast and sparsely populated that besides the area within a hundred li around the city, there are people, and the rest are wild lands.

In the wild, it is full of various crises.

In this world, most of the fertile land is around the city.

The villages in the countryside are also built around the city. The further away from the city, the more dangerous it is.

Wild beasts in the wild are like Africa in later generations; the wild is the world of wild beasts. When the Donghai Territory was built, the villages were built around Su Fan's military camp.

It was also later that Su Fan's army, during military reclamation, constantly swept across the wild beasts in the wilderness, killing all that could be killed and turning them into meat for the army, while the rest ran into the mountains, forests, and swamps.

So the construction of the Donghai Territory could not be separated from the army.

But other places did not have the army to help. Wanting to reclaim wasteland, that was something only major families could do, because they could build fortified castles in the wild, and coupled with the private soldiers in their hands, they could develop fertile land.

Bottom-level commoners could not do it at all.

And the literati would not go to reclaim wasteland endlessly. Manpower was insufficient, and secondly, it was not cost-effective to be too far from the fortified castles and cities.

So the fertile land in places like Liangzhou might not be as much as in Donghai Commandery, and naturally, the output was also limited.

The Donghai Territory had already been developed to the limit. However, Donghai Commandery was very large. If it continued to be developed like the Donghai Territory, it was estimated that it could still develop fifty million acres of land.

After all, the land area of the Donghai Territory, compared to Donghai Commandery, was only one-tenth the size of the latter.

Of course, wanting to develop fifty million acres of land was not so easy. Population was insufficient, and even if so much land was opened up, there would be no one to cultivate it.

This era, after all, was not the technological era of later generations, where machines replaced plowing. In this era, manpower was still the main force.

Even though animal husbandry in the Donghai Territory was developed, plowing was still manpower. Cattle and horses were still a minority. Fortunately, Su Fan had already ordered the Ministry of Industry to continue researching to see if they could research machines with rune power.

To talk about those Mohist disciples, they were naturally awesome. As long as they were given some pointers, they would inevitably research things that made people's eyes shine.

It was a pity that Su Fan did not know much about machines, and the two ancient times he traveled through in his previous lives could not provide much guidance.

This was also the reason why the machines in the Donghai Territory could not be researched quickly.

So the development of Donghai Commandery was still relatively difficult, not only because of manpower but also because most of the land in Donghai Commandery had almost fallen into the hands of those literati.

The remaining wilderness was more of a place that was difficult to develop. Even if it was developed, the harvest was not very large. The lack of profit was also the reason why the literati gave up.

Of course, in the future, once the population increased, Su Fan would not mind developing it. After all, even if a mosquito was small, it was still meat.

Therefore, he now urgently needed population. It was a pity that Guan Hai in Qingzhou had no way either. You must know that of the ten million population in the Donghai Territory, Guan Hai transported more than half of them for him.

Most of the refugees in Qingzhou were taken away by Guan Hai and then transported to him here.

Next, either transport population from other places, or grow naturally locally.

Natural growth—the base of the Donghai Territory was not small. Including Donghai Commandery, the number of babies born every year absolutely exceeded one million, or even more.

But because of the survival rate problem, in the process of growth, not only in the baby period but also in the childhood period, there were many accidents, especially illness, which was their biggest threat.

So, Su Fan needed to build hospitals and needed a large number of physicians. But in the Donghai Territory itself, there were no physicians. Su Fan's medical skills were not bad, but he could not personally go to be a doctor in the hospital.

Zhang Zhongjing was the Minister of Health of his Donghai Territory and concurrently the Dean of the First Hospital.