Chapter 630: This Ends Here

The plague struck like a ringing slap, leaving Wei Qian'er dizzy and reeling.

Within a few days, seizing the chance to pursue the routed enemy, Wei Qian'er fought his way east of Xi'an through Lintong, Weinan, Huazhou, Huayin, and other places, until he chased the fleeing troops into Phoenix Ridge and ran headlong into the banner troops of Tong Pass Garrison.

The battle itself was very simple — the Tong Pass Garrison's intercepting banner force numbered just over three hundred; well-trained as they were, they had seen little real combat, and they shattered on first contact with Wei Qian'er's camp soldiers.

It was only by fighting a delaying retreat through the complex terrain around Tong Pass that they avoided taking heavy casualties.

Wei Qian'er had never planned to take Tong Pass with just one camp, so after a few skirmishes in the meeting engagement, he slowly withdrew westward from the battlefield, found favorable ground in Huayin County, set up defenses and a stockade, and prepared to hold the eastern gate for the Marshal's army.

But while building the camp, sick soldiers began appearing in Wei Qian'er's camp.

When you march to war, soldiers catching some illness is perfectly normal — for the camp officers, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Across three chiliarch commands, a dozen or so soldiers had fallen ill; when Wei Qian'er looked in on the wounded, he merely asked one extra question.

His camp's military medical officer was named Zhang Jingxiao, a man of deep family learning and rich experience — seven generations of his ancestors had served as physicians in the Medical Office of the Prince of Han's estate.

Normally, a physician from a prince's medical office like him would be a treasure in the Marshal's headquarters, never assigned to a military camp at all — he should have been teaching at the new city.

But the Marshal's new city academy was a wondrous place, especially for surgery.

There were Mongol doctors expert in bone-setting and Tibetan doctors skilled in surgery, which opened the eyes of an internal medicine specialist like Zhang Jingxiao from a prince's estate.

Zhang Jingxiao had accompanied this campaign precisely to observe corpses on the battlefield, correct errors in ancient medical texts, clarify the sources and set the record straight, while also sharpening his own surgical skills.

As for the dozen or so sick soldiers in camp, to Zhang Jingxiao, with his mastery of pulse diagnosis and acupuncture, the situation was simplicity itself: "General, there is no need for concern. Perhaps the pursuit these past days was a bit too urgent — the men are hot and agitated. The symptoms are very clear: all show the pulse pattern of wind-heat vexing the lung."

After reporting to Wei Qian'er, Zhang Jingxiao set up a few tents outside the camp, settled the sick soldiers there, decocted herbal medicines, and saw to their proper care.

No one gave it a second thought.

By that very night, Zhang Jingxiao sensed something was wrong.

It was not that the soldiers' symptoms were off — the symptoms were high fever and chills, all signs of wind-heat vexing the lung.

But the number of soldiers falling ill surged. All night long, every half-hour, feverish soldiers came to the medical camp, keeping him so busy he could not sleep properly. When he did a headcount in the morning, the number of sick soldiers had actually doubled.

He hurried to find Wei Qian'er and report: "General, this illness is not right. The army cannot move — we must quarantine on the spot!"

Wei Qian'er asked suspiciously, "Is the physician certain?"

Zhang Jingxiao shook his head. "This subordinate only feels it is very similar."

This alertness did not come from Zhang Jingxiao's professional instinct; it came entirely from the fact that they had all undergone the Marshal's headquarters' epidemic prevention training for smallpox, and had even personally experienced the small-scale smallpox outbreak in Hehuang.

The situation unfolding now closely resembled that one, and no one could afford the consequences of a plague breaking out and spreading unchecked.

Zhang Jingxiao reacted swiftly, and Wei Qian'er followed sound advice without hesitation.

But it was no use.

They marked out a quarantine camp and moved tents there, but before the old sick soldiers could be transferred, new ones arrived.

Counting from the first dozen or so soldiers who developed fevers, in just three short days, a camp of five thousand men had over a hundred laid low by high fever — nearly every tent had soldiers burning up and sent to the quarantine camp.

By the third day, Zhang Jingxiao began to doubt his own medical skill. He re-examined the sick soldiers, and when some of them removed their clothing, he discovered large swollen lumps on their necks, armpits, and elsewhere. At last he was certain: this was no wind pathogen invading the lung — this was plague.

Bubo plague.

People's understanding of bubo plague could not be called total ignorance, but it was still very limited.

With matters having reached this point, Wei Qian'er racked his brains without finding an answer: How the hell did my soldiers catch this disease?

No one knew.

Wei Qian'er had originally wanted to requisition cotton and hemp in Huayin County — after all, when smallpox broke out in Qinghai earlier, Liu Chengzong had people make hemp clothing and masks, saying these things could reduce the chance of transmission.

But he did not dare. He feared both that his soldiers were not sick and the plague had come from Huayin County, and that Huayin County was not sick but his soldiers were.

In the end, with no other choice, he had to improvise from the army's standard equipment, rushing to make a batch of face coverings and cotton cloaks, having the soldiers wrap themselves up. At the same time, he ordered the troops to drill with firearms and cannon near the camp, filling the surrounding area with smoke and dust.

To find the source of the infection, Wei Qian'er sent his scout riders, wrapped in cotton cloaks and wearing face coverings, to dig up graves through the night, exhuming the enemy dead buried from the earlier engagements. At last, on the fallen Tong Pass banner troops, they discovered the same lumps that had appeared on his own soldiers.

Wei Qian'er and Zhang Jingxiao sat in the command tent, staring wordlessly at the scout who had returned with the report.

Zhang Jingxiao looked at the scout's unchanged face covering and cotton cloak, and his heart and liver trembled within his chest.

"G-General, if the source of the bubo plague is the Tong Pass garrison, then from the time of that engagement to our first soldier developing a fever was three days, and to fainting and swelling, five days."

"Not counting pursuit and skirmishing, the soldiers who fought hand-to-hand and made contact with the Tong Pass garrison total just over two hundred. Now over a hundred have fallen ill... This subordinate does not yet know how to deal with this bubo plague, but its virulence is extremely fierce, and the number of people in camp who have come into contact with the sick soldiers is several hundred more."

Zhang Jingxiao's voice trembled as he spoke, but his thinking was very clear: "For the present crisis, we must strictly forbid the soldiers from leaving camp or breaking ranks, isolate all sick soldiers and everyone who has had contact with them, and at the same time we need medicinal supplies, face coverings, cotton cloaks, and more army provisions. We must inform the Grand Marshal of the situation here without fail."

But Wei Qian'er did not respond. He only clenched his fist tightly on the armrest of his folding chair, staring blankly out beyond the tent.

It was not until Zhang Jingxiao spoke a second time to prompt him: "General?"

Wei Qian'er started as if waking from a dream. "Hm?"

When Zhang Jingxiao repeated what he had just said, Wei Qian'er lowered his head, muttered a quiet curse under his breath, then drew a deep breath and said, his expression back to normal, "I was distracted."

He had finally figured it out — why that Tong Pass banner force had dared to come out and fight, and why, though they appeared well-trained, they had shattered on contact again and again in battle.

They were sick.

Wei Qian'er's mind was in turmoil.

He felt both the guilt of having failed Liu Chengzong's trust in entrusting an elite corps to him, and the terror of soon contracting an unknown plague himself.

And more than anything, there was a pale, helpless, powerless, and futile rage.

Wei Qian'er turned his head and looked at Zhang Jingxiao, enunciating each word: "Physician, I'm afraid..."

He shook his head rapidly, and his speech quickened with it: "It will be very difficult for me to control the army now."

This kind of control was different from marching out to war — pen people up in camp, and morale would soon collapse.

Swiftly, Wei Qian'er sprang into action.

First was an urgent letter pleading for aid, sent via scout riders who had never made contact with the Tong Pass garrison to Liu Chengzong in Xianyang.

His wording in the letter was grave, informing Liu Chengzong of the extremely tense situation — after all, most of the outcomes were foreseeable; handled poorly, this plague could spread throughout Xi'an Prefecture or even the whole of Shaanxi.

Shaanxi was vast, but now Xi'an Prefecture, Yan'an Prefecture, and Yulin — these three places were effectively the whole of Shaanxi. The population elsewhere was negligible.

After that, Wei Qian'er summoned all officers of centurion rank and above out of camp, found an open space in the wilderness, and briefed them on the situation and predicament they faced, discussing methods to control the soldiers.

"As of this moment, our camp, including Du Bei, the Vanguard Left Division Commander, and under him Centurions Fang Qilang and Wei Cheng, Squad Leaders Wan Ling and Huo Ligun, has one hundred and sixty-six men wounded or sick. Among them, Third-Class Gallant Rider Little Denglong and Second-Class Tiger Guard Yang Bao have succumbed to their illness."

Wei Qian'er's face was grim. After laying out the situation, he swept his gaze over the officers and men under his command and said, "The sick soldiers' symptoms are fever and large lumps under the armpits and on the neck. I sent men to dig up graves, and they found the same lumps on the bodies of the banner troops who died at Tong Pass. So… we've contracted a military plague."

The moment these words fell, the officers erupted in an uproar.

No one could turn a blind eye to the soldiers in camp falling ill one after another these past few days.

But at first everyone thought it was just a wind-cold; no one's mind went to pestilence.

Only now, when Wei Qian'er opened his mouth and laid it bare, did everyone stare dumbfounded — because every man there knew exactly what those words meant.

They had barely over two hundred men who had fought the Tong Pass banner troops at close quarters, and now more than a hundred were sick. Just how virulent was this seasonal epidemic?

Someone said, "But General, Huoligun never fought the Tong Pass soldiers!"

"That is precisely what I mean to address." Wei Qian'er nodded. "Huoligun didn't make it in time to engage the enemy, but he visited the wounded after the battle — and caught the plague."

Huoligun, as a squad leader, was an officer.

As far back as the Lion Camp days, the rule they followed was: when a soldier was wounded, his direct officer applied the medicine; when a soldier fell ill, his direct officer likewise looked after him.

At that moment, a full third of the officers attending the council changed color.

For some, it was their duty; for others, it was the bond of fellow townsmen. In any case… all of them had been in contact with the sick soldiers.

"All you brothers know that I, Wei, come from a post-station runner's background. I followed the Grand Marshal in Yan'an, serving at his stirrup, and by the Grand Marshal's regard I was given sole command of a battalion. Most of the officers and men in this battalion also hail from post runners and relay-station soldiers."

"I, Wei, am the same as everyone seated here — all of us damn coarse men. But when it comes to plague, we know far more than those Ming troops over at Tong Pass."

As he spoke, Wei Qian'er let out a short laugh. "They think that if they infect us with plague, we're finished? No. The Ming army in the northwest all call our Grand Marshal the Plague Marshal. They've got it wrong, but we do indeed have ways to deal with plague."

Hearing Wei Qian'er say this, the assembled officers slowly let their tightly knotted brows relax.

It was true. They were the people under heaven who understood plague best, and the only people under heaven with the ability to fight plague — even a ferocious one like smallpox.

In this era, the categorization of pestilence was extremely broad.

Influenza was one kind of plague; more often, people called plague "military plague."

Because an army is a densely packed, constantly moving organization. War also weakens a region's ability to withstand drought and flood. Add to that tactics like water attacks and fire attacks that devastate the environment, leaving corpses strewn across the field and breeding disease — very often, the army itself was the source of the plague's transmission.

Hence the saying: after a great war comes a great pestilence.

And smallpox, with its high fatality rate and extreme contagiousness, was without doubt one of the most terrifying plagues of all.

Yet the Marshal's Headquarters, under Liu Chengzong's leadership, had defeated smallpox.

Relying on the medical knowledge of this age and leveraging the army's organizational and management capabilities, they had eradicated smallpox in the He-Huang region, home to nearly a million people.

So even though the officers of Wei Qian'er's battalion knew little about this big-head plague, and even though the army doctor's remedies like ginger-sugar draught and ephedra powder had shown scant effect, people were still willing to believe they had the ability to deal with this pestilence.

"This plague spreads with extreme speed. At the shortest, three days; at the longest, five days. Anyone who has contact with the sick will catch it. The onset is both sudden and fierce. The only useful method we have is isolation."

Wei Qian'er looked at the assembled officers and said, "Isolate all sick soldiers and everyone who has had contact with them here in the camp. First, the hundred-odd sick soldiers; then, those who have been in contact with them these past few days — roughly eight hundred men; and of course, the officers of every rank who have visited them. Then leave enough food and lock the camp gates tight."

"Build a smaller camp outside. If more soldiers in the army become infected, do it all over again."

"Repeat this three to five times, and I estimate we can wipe out this lump plague."

Wei Qian'er's words once again threw the officers into an uproar.

"General, repeat it three to five times, and our whole battalion will be empty!"

At this, Wei Qian'er remained perfectly composed. "Right now, west of Tong Pass, only we are infected. We will pay a heavy price — myself included, half the battalion, maybe more."

The unspoken meaning was: wiping out themselves was tantamount to wiping out the plague.

He watched in silence as the officers whispered among themselves, saying not a word, until the clamor gradually died down. Only then did he sigh, shake his head, and mutter to himself, "As I thought, it can't be done."

The agitation on their faces had already made their meaning abundantly clear. No one was willing to accept that their fate was to die senselessly of illness in the desolate wilderness.

Wei Qian'er himself could not accept it.

He slowly raised a hand, silencing the uproar, then raised his voice. "The reason I called you all here is precisely because I still have misgivings about this. First, I cannot guarantee that no one in the entire camp will flee. I know our soldiers are all stout-hearted men — they won't run from the enemy. But staying here… is no different from waiting to die."

"Second, even if no one deserts, it doesn't mean a damn thing. We can't control the Tong Pass banner troops. Those plague-ridden bastards will just come charging out of the pass again, and our fellow townsmen and comrades-in-arms will suffer all over again."

"So I think, since we can't escape catching this disease anyway, and it's nothing more than death in the end — leaving sick soldiers in camp to wait for death violates the oath of the Marshal's Headquarters, that in life or death we entrust ourselves to one another, in fortune or peril we come to each other's aid. Rather than wait to die, why not follow me in a desperate fight to the death? We march east. Whether we live or die, we leave it to Heaven's will."

Wei Qian'er raised his hands in a clasped fist. "Within five days, break through Tong Pass, and let the plague end here."

That afternoon, the main camp stationed at the foot of the hills in the eastern outskirts of Huayin County erupted as if in a camp riot.

Inside and outside the encampment, at times wailing broke out, at times furious shouts and clamor — the chaos lasted a full half-watch.

Until the sound of war drums rose within the camp, and the crimson battle flag unfurled at the camp gate.

Amid the rolling, overlapping drumbeats, the signal cannon boomed. Wei Qian'er, clad in a battle robe baring one shoulder, spurred his horse and raised his blade, pointing east.

"To Tong Pass — advance!"