Chapter 632: Give Him Two Punches

Ten li east of Xi'an Prefecture's eastern gate, on the eastern bank of the Ba River, lay the Grand Marshal's army encampment.

"That wretched bastard!"

Liu Chengzong's cursing roar burst from the central army tent. Wang Wenxiu, Zhang Xianzhong, Shi Xiang, Zhang Tianlin, and the others stood outside the tent, shamefaced and downcast.

Two days earlier, Wei Qian'er's plea for plague relief had reached Xianyang.

Liu Chengzong immediately set aside all other business. He had the gentry wait in Xianyang, kept the army encircling the outskirts of Xi'an, and threw every remaining ounce of strength into gathering supplies to combat the plague.

Even the colonels dispatched to the various counties to survey and measure farmland dropped their land work and busied themselves collecting supplies in each county — requisitioning what could be requisitioned, soliciting what could be donated, buying what could be bought. To get their hands on goods, they stopped at nothing.

Because silver was in short supply, he even had proclamations posted across the six subprefectures and thirteen counties, declaring that the plague had already swept through Shanxi and Henan and reached Tong Pass. In every subprefecture and county, any who could provide aid in material supply and demonstrate ability — commoners, tenant farmers, bondservants — would be granted land; artisans and petty clerks would be registered and entered into official service.

Those of outstanding merit, if commoners, would be granted official cap and sash; civil and military officers would be promoted and given substantive appointments.

Even the degree-holders who had earlier organized local militia to resist the Heavenly Troops, if they could make a contribution, would all be absolved of the crime of rebellion.

Of course, if those people made no contribution, their crime would be increased by one degree.

Liu Chengzong believed that with the plague bearing down, epidemic-prevention supplies could play a decisive role — on a small scale for the five thousand troops in Wei Qian'er's main camp, and on a large scale for the Grand Marshal's headquarters' hundred thousand soldiers.

It was not merely vast quantities of every kind of medicinal herb, but also gunpowder, sulfur, realgar, strong liquor, face masks, protective gowns, fumigation chests, bedding, ropes, and more — the list went on and on.

These supplies were specifically selected by Liu the Lion to guard against this plague.

Based on the urgent reports from Yang Qi and Wei Qian'er, combined with his own conjecture, Liu Chengzong estimated that the plague currently ravaging Shanxi and Henan was the great rat plague that had raged for over a decade in the late Ming.

Because the major plagues of this era numbered only a few — it was not hard to guess.

The most common seasonal epidemics were influenza and typhoid fever; consumption, that is, tuberculosis, was very widespread; malaria and cholera were extremely contagious and agonizing to suffer, but their fatality rate was not so high as to frighten an army into collapse.

In fact, because these two diseases brought such agony and ran such long courses, afflicted soldiers needed the collective strength of the army even more.

The only two plagues that could make an army collapse were, first, smallpox, and second, the rat plague.

The Grand Marshal's army did not fear smallpox. For a disease to frighten the troops to the verge of mutiny, it could be nothing other than the rat plague.

And as for the rat plague, it is actually rather difficult for rats to transmit the disease to humans.

First, during a famine, very few people catch and eat rats — just as during a famine, very few people fish or hunt.

Both are physically demanding labor of considerable difficulty. The energy expended to obtain that paltry bit of food far exceeds the energy gained from it, so one is better off sitting against a wall, which consumes less.

Second, people generally do not have the habit of eating raw meat, especially raw rat meat.

The main vector for this disease to pass from rats to humans is the flea.

Therefore, guarding against rats alone cannot eliminate the calamity. Guarding against fleas while guarding against rats is the key.

This is also why the rat plague spreads so easily in this era. When people see the strange phenomenon of rats moving en masse and dying in droves, they generally take precautions against the rat carcasses.

But fleas are too small, penetrating everywhere, and are easily overlooked.

After a person is infected, the sores rupture and the disease invades the lungs, turning the person into a new source of contagion.

So once it is detected, it becomes very difficult to suppress.

The focus of Liu Chengzong's supply collection was precisely on guarding against fleas.

For instance, sulfur powder, realgar, and strong liquor.

The Grand Marshal's army was currently casting cannons in places like Yao Subprefecture north of Xi'an Prefecture. Sulfur, a byproduct of iron smelting, was produced in enormous quantities and was highly effective at repelling insects.

Bathing with sulfur powder could make the body briefly emit an odor that fleas detest.

The output of realgar was not large; it was mainly used in trace amounts mixed into strong liquor, which could make a person emit the scent from the inside out in a shorter time and also serve to kill pathogens within the body.

However, its consumption in actual use was not great either — after all, it is toxic. A trace amount added can kill internal pathogens; a large amount added serves an entirely different purpose.

Killing the drinker.

Of course, apart from this, the emphasis was still on wearing face masks, using cords to tightly seal cuffs and trouser legs to prevent fleas from crawling into clothing, and simultaneously fumigating clothes and bedding with sulfur in fumigation chests, then airing them in the sun.

Fumigation chests were easy to collect. In the Grand Marshal's headquarters, this item served multiple purposes. The fumigation chests used for smoking and drying bows and arrows had earlier been taken by Mi Layin to smoke horse meat.

Now that the horse meat was smoked, they could be sent directly to Huayin for fumigating clothes.

Having made such extensive preparations, Liu Chengzong ordered the Feathered Forest Guards to ride day and night at full speed to Wei Qian'er's camp and deliver his command: Supplies will arrive shortly. Your unit is ordered to swiftly isolate the infected soldiers, remain in place and await orders for three days, and do not engage the Tong Pass garrison.

According to his thinking, the number of soldiers who had fallen ill earlier would not be too large. Once these supplies arrived, he estimated he could reduce the death toll to three hundred.

Then his soldiers would bathe in sulfur baths, smear on sulfur powder, drink realgar wine, bind their trouser legs and cuffs with cords, don face masks and cloths, drape protective gowns over themselves, and charge into the plague zone reeking of hellish odors.

Those sickly wretches of the Tong Pass garrison could not possibly be their match. Whoever came would die!

In this process, no matter how thorough the preparations, it would be impossible to avoid infection one hundred percent. He padded that number by another two hundred.

The treatment process for the infected soldiers would also give the Grand Marshal's headquarters an opportunity to observe the rat plague, understand its course and symptoms, prescribe remedies suited to the illness, test formulas, and at the same time confirm its transmission routes, making preparations for the future.

After all, this rat plague would continue to ravage the Central Plains for several years, even over a decade. This was merely Liu Chengzong's first clash with it.

In other words, the loss Liu Chengzong could psychologically accept was five hundred.

In his eyes, this figure was already outrageous. For the elite of the Grand Marshal's headquarters' three great camps, a single camp suffering five hundred dead — this was an enormous loss without precedent.

Just thinking about it was enough to make his heart ache to the point of tears.

But then, just half a shichen ago, the travel-worn Feathered Forest Guard returned from the foot of Mount Hua and entered the central army tent, shamefaced and downcast.

Wei Qian'er had never even seen the letter. Before the missive had been delivered, he had already led an entire main camp in a charge toward Tong Pass.

Liu the Lion was nearly driven mad!

Where the hell is my whole damn camp?

From the assistant regional commander down to the squad leaders, over seven hundred officers, more than four thousand soldiers — just thrown away like that?

Liu the Lion vented all his fury on the commander's table and the folding chair inside the tent, smashing them to splinters, and rampaged through the tent, roaring every foul curse that defiled all refinement.

The several senior generals outside the tent all wanted to enter and remonstrate, but Wang Wenxiu held every one of them back.

Wang Wenxiu had been with Liu Chengzong for a very long time. Ever since he and Yang Yao had led the Guyuan troops to submit under Liu Chengzong's command, he had served as a trusted subordinate general, and he knew best what Liu Chengzong looked like when he was enraged.

As long as no one tried to soothe him, the destructive power was, one could say, very limited.

But if they went in to remonstrate at a moment like this, it would be like adding water to a pot of boiling oil — the situation would spiral out of control.

What was more, as Wang Wenxiu listened to the furious curses inside the tent, he had not the slightest doubt in his heart: if Wei Qian'er appeared in the command tent at this moment, his head would most certainly be twisted off by the Grand Marshal.

But a handful of men just standing around outside like this wasn't going to solve anything either.

After all, not everyone was like Liu Chengzong, who thought Wei Qian'er's move was impulsive and foolish.

In fact, every man outside the command tent felt Wei Qian'er had done exactly the right thing.

Take Zhang Xianzhong — his face made no effort to hide it, brimming with admiration for Wei Qian'er's march on Tong Pass.

Outside the tent, he muttered quietly to Wang Wenxiu and Shi Xiang: "General Wei did a damn fine job. They were already infected anyway — better to strike while they can still fight and take the bastards down. The Grand Marshal's being way too harsh. With a feat like that, if he survives, shouldn't he at least be made a count?"

"You'd best not bring that up with the Grand Marshal."

Wang Wenxiu, deep down, understood why Liu Chengzong was angry. After all, they had made so many preparations, and Wei Qian'er's charge into Tong Pass had basically wasted all of it.

Big Beard Wang asked himself — if their positions were swapped, he probably could have waited for Liu Chengzong's order.

But that wasn't because he was stronger than Wei Qian'er; it was purely because he couldn't come up with any ideas of his own.

He was a prudent man, a keeper of what was already built. When Liu Chengzong had a plan and an order, he could receive it and carry it out.

But if Liu Chengzong had no better plan either, he would miss the opportunity a hundred times out of a hundred. And if the Tong Pass garrison had sallied forth, it might well have led to the disaster of the plague spreading into Huayin County.

He couldn't be as decisive as Wei Qian'er.

So in his eyes, Wei Qian'er's actions were not wrong — he couldn't quite say he agreed with them; it was pure admiration.

In the end, Wang Wenxiu could understand why Liu Chengzong was angry, but he believed even more that Liu Chengzong's anger was not Wei Qian'er's fault — it was Liu Chengzong's own fault.

Because in his eyes, Liu Chengzong was an absurdly extraordinary man. Others couldn't treat him as an ordinary mortal, and he shouldn't treat ordinary mortals like them as extraordinary men.

What ordinary mortal, upon hearing of an unheard-of plague in the distance, could produce a complete set of preventive measures in a mere half-day and then stubbornly push forward with gathering supplies?

In truth, if not for Liu Chengzong, the whole matter would have stalled at the supply-gathering stage.

Mobilizing the entire Xi'an Prefecture to requisition massive amounts of supplies based on nothing more than groundless speculation — what if it turned out to be useless?

No one objected, purely because this kind of near-supernatural decisiveness had been proven right time and again in the Marshal's headquarters.

It was so common — so common that the moment Liu Chengzong spoke, people simply set their brains aside and went to carry it out, never finding it strange or absurd.

So on one hand, Wang Wenxiu tacitly accepted Zhang Xianzhong's assessment, acknowledging Wei Qian'er's merit.

On the other hand, he tilted his eyes up toward the sky, his lips twitching slightly, and needled Zhang Xianzhong: "The Grand Marshal will definitely tell you that your own head has problems, so of course you'd appreciate another guy with a problematic head."

"Tch, my head has problems? At least I'm talking to people. Look at that one over there."

Zhang Xianzhong said in a low voice, jutting his chin toward where Zhang Tianlin was.

Wang Wenxiu's gaze followed.

The restless Zhang Tianlin was grinning, arm slung over the shoulder of Liu Chengzong's warhorse, making faces and gesturing animatedly, muttering something under his breath, and every so often letting out a couple of twitchy, unhinged laughs.

Zhang Xianzhong looked utterly matter-of-fact: "We're all madmen here, so no one gets to look down on anyone else. That said, appointing a bunch of madmen as generals — old Zhang here really doesn't know whose responsibility that is, in the bigger picture."

As he spoke, he raised his eyebrows toward the command tent.

Wang Wenxiu and Shi Xiang both laughed.

After a long while, the inside of the command tent finally fell quiet.

Liu Chengzong emerged from the tent and beckoned for the Feathered Forest Cavalry. He instructed them: "Replace the table and chairs inside, and tidy things up."

"Elder brothers..." Lion Liu greeted everyone with his usual composure, then glanced sideways and spotted Zhang Tianlin. He said, "Stop messing with Green Lion over there. Don't you have your own horse?"

Liu Chengzong now had three treasures: Green Lion, White Elephant, and the Roc.

Green Lion and White Elephant were his two mounts. The former was a young stallion, a cross between a Hequ horse and a Mongolian horse — large-framed and powerful, with excellent strength and endurance, a coat of solid greenish-gray, though with a white star on its forehead and white socks on all four hooves.

White Elephant was a tribute horse sent by Chökür Ubaši, the younger brother of Baatur Khong Tayiji. Eight horses had been led over at the time, and this was one of them.

Though a mare, she was even sturdier than Green Lion. Even carrying Liu Chengzong in full armor at a gallop, she showed no strain.

Most importantly, for a third of the year she was in milk. Not counting the nighttime nursing of her foal, she produced over four jin of milk a day — extremely welcome for replenishing energy out in the field.

As for the Roc, that was the flock of vultures that followed the army on its migrations.

Zhang Tianlin, who had been telling stories to Green Lion, heard this and hurriedly smoothed down Green Lion's tousled mane before stepping forward.

He saw Liu Chengzong holding out a letter. "Read it on the way. Wei Qian'er was too impulsive. You need to go support him. Do your best to bring that battalion back alive."

Zhang Tianlin instinctively took the letter and accepted the order, then it hit him: "Grand Marshal, bring that battalion back alive?"

He thought to himself: whether he himself could even make it back alive was a question — and now he was supposed to bring Wei Qian'er's entire battalion back? That was asking a bit much.

Lion Liu said irritably, "Do your best. You're going there with three tasks to handle..."

Liu Chengzong raised one finger as he spoke. "First, protect yourself well. Send a batch of supplies ahead and set up camp at Huayin. The rest is being rushed into production and will be sent over to Huayin in a few days. Leave all supplies there — draw from them as needed. Don't bring everything into Tong Pass."

"I figure he won't have much trouble taking Tong Pass. But the plague that follows will be the death of that battalion. So your second task is to have Wei Qian'er lead his troops out of Tong Pass, find a place east of the pass to camp, then clear out Tong Pass — and blast it once."

Blast it once?

Zhang Tianlin wondered if he'd misheard. "Grand Marshal, if the pass is blasted to rubble, won't it be useless?"

"I don't mean blast the walls down. Yaozhou is rushing to produce rockets for you — no iron shot, just paper packets of sulfur powder. Before you enter Tong Pass, fire a round into the pass first. Pest control."

"Once inside Tong Pass, use pumps to spray the medicinal solution. The corpses, clothes, bedding, and the like of the Tong Pass banner troops — anything they came into contact with, burn it if you can. If you can't burn it, spray it with the solution. If the spray can't clean it thoroughly, haul it outside to dry in the sun."

"On Wei Qian'er's side, split into two battalions. If two aren't enough, split into four. Once Tong Pass is secured and clean, pull the uninfected soldiers from his battalion into the pass. Treat the infected ones east of the pass. All medicinal supplies and materials — haul them into the barbican."

"Both gates are not to be opened at the same time. Keep the outer gate shut. Your troops place the supplies inside the barbican, then withdraw, and shut the gate. Open the outer gate. His troops enter the barbican to retrieve the medicinal supplies and materials, then shut the gate again. The troops in the pass then scatter sulfur powder throughout the barbican. Understood?"

Zhang Tianlin nodded in a daze. He had never seen Liu Chengzong guard against a plague in this manner.

But Lion Liu didn't need him to understand — he only needed him to remember and execute. He continued, "The third task: figure out what this plague is. How it's contracted. How many days after infection before combat ability is lost. And how to treat it — test remedies, test medicines."

"The method." Liu Chengzong raised a finger, pointing at the letter in Zhang Tianlin's hand. "It's all written in the letter. Just go and follow it. Observe the infected soldiers in batches. Get to the bottom of this disease... elder brother."

After giving all these instructions, Lion Liu drew a deep breath. His eyes were slightly reddened. He clasped his fists toward Zhang Tianlin. "I'm counting on you. Bring my brothers back. Bring Wei Qian'er back too. Alive."

"I'm going to give him two solid punches!"