Chapter 973: Establishing the Framework

While Yu Qian and Chen Xun were busy boosting the imperial treasury, Pan Yun was immersed in a sea of data and texts.

The time had come; she was pulling up blueprints of machines and methods of material smelting from the Spirit Realm, copying them down one by one with a brush.

For instance, if railways were built, trains would be needed—should they use the most basic steam system, or advance further to internal combustion engines?

Electricity…

Pan Yun set that aside for now.

Her hand paused mid-writing on the plan sheet; she fell into thought. Actually, using electricity directly wasn’t impossible—through arrays and talismans, she could replace certain necessary technologies and materials, converting petroleum into electrical power.

The gray cast iron used for internal combustion engine cylinders could be smelted with current technology; crankshafts and connecting rods posed no problem—but pistons required forged aluminum alloy, and piston rings needed special alloy cast iron, which current technology could not yet produce.

If the distilled diesel could be converted into power by another method…

Pan Yun dropped the half-written plan, pulled out a blank sheet of paper, and began sketching array diagrams.

She drew until midnight, gaining only a faint insight—linking arrays to replace internal combustion engines was still impossible.

Miao Zhen entered with a bowl of noodles, picked up the discarded array diagram beside her, and asked, “Little Master, even if you can draw an energy-conversion array, how many talismanists in this world could actually engrave it?”

Pan Yun snapped back to awareness: “You’re right. We can’t abandon the other set of technologies.”

She silently pulled out the plan sheet hidden beneath the blueprints and resumed writing.

Miao Zhen placed the noodle bowl on the other side: “Little Master, you should eat something first—you haven’t eaten all day.”

Though Pan Yun’s cultivation level meant she could go days without food, she was still in her growth phase.

Pan Yun put down her brush, sat over, and took the chopsticks: “Where are Miao He and Yan Bai?”

Miao Zhen: “Minister Hu Yuanjie came seeking Little Master, just as Prince Zhou arrived with his heir to bid farewell. Third Master and Little Sister were there too. The five of them unexpectedly clicked, and they’ve been talking outside for three hours—they’re already on their second meal.”

Pan Yun tilted her head, thinking: What could these five possibly be discussing?

Pan Yun raised an eyebrow: “Medicine?”

“Yes. When I went to the kitchen to make your noodles, they were already discussing co-authoring a medical compendium, ideally modeled after the ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants.’”

Pan Yun immediately ate faster. Modeling it after the ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants’ wasn’t enough.

If they were going to do it, it had to be better than the ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants’—ideally, every village should have a copy, just like the ‘Great Proclamation.’

If possible, she wanted to create a book like the ‘Barefoot Doctor’s Manual,’ ensuring every bao had one—this would raise both literacy and medical awareness.

This was a public health matter; besides the Ministry of Rites, the Taiyi Academy should also be involved.

Mentioning the Taiyi Academy, Pan Yun frowned.

In the early Ming, the Taiyi Academy oversaw the People’s Benefit Pharmacies and the Herbal Storage, and controlled medical education and examinations.

But in recent years, medical academies opened across the provinces have gradually closed or shrunk, and even the People’s Benefit Pharmacies are retreating.

The People’s Benefit Pharmacies provided free medicine to the poor, managed by medical officials dispatched by the Taiyi Academy—but now… Pan Yun rubbed her forehead, then smiled faintly: “At least Emperor Taizu set a good precedent—the rules already exist; we just need to revise them.”

“Huh?”

Pan Yun waved her hand, sweeping all items on the desk into the Spirit Realm, then rose: “Let’s go see.”

By the time the two arrived, the five had already laid out their materials, gathered around a table, drafting the book’s table of contents to determine what to include.

After the Emperor’s birthday, Pan Yun had met Prince Zhou and his son with the Emperor in the Imperial Study, strongly encouraging him to continue his ancestor’s legacy.

After the former Prince Zhou wrote the ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants,’ Zhu Yuanzhang had ordered its printing—but later, two successive Prince Zhou rulers became embroiled in imperial power struggles, and though the book still circulated among the people, the court ceased reprinting it.

Pan Yun not only wished to continue reprinting the ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants,’ but also hoped Prince Zhou’s household would compile a separate collection of simple, practical remedies for common folk, while reissuing the former Prince Zhou’s ‘Universal Relief Formulae,’ distributing them to medical academies and People’s Benefit Pharmacies in every prefecture, department, and county, and selling them at low prices in bookstores.

Seeing the Emperor’s approval, Prince Zhou felt no hesitation about associating with the State Tutor, shed his psychological burden, and grew genuinely close to Pan Yun.

Today he came because the feudal princes were gradually departing the capital—he too would return to Kaifeng with his heir.

Pan Yun glanced at their list and shook her head: “Insufficient.”

Hu Yuanjie tugged his beard: “How is it insufficient? It covers internal diseases, external injuries, even toxicology. A book meant to educate common folk—how much more could they possibly absorb?”

“Precisely because it’s for common folk, your list is inappropriate,” Pan Yun said. “Teach them how to handle minor illnesses and emergencies—don’t burden them with complex pathology and pharmacology. For example: what to do if someone chokes, how to relieve hiccups, how to revive someone pulled from water, how to stop bleeding from a knife wound when no physician is available—none of this is in your list, yet you include toxicology and heart pulse theory? That’s for physicians, not ordinary people.”

Hu Yuanjie stopped tugging his beard, lost in thought.

Prince Zhou was indecisive, but he agreed with Pan Yun—he had lived among the common folk, and during his hardship, his circumstances were far worse than Hu Yuanjie’s.

He whispered: “Following the State Tutor’s logic, we could also include fever reduction, heatstroke, safe drinking water, disease prevention—especially plague and chickenpox.”

“Excellent,” Pan Yun encouraged him with a glance. “When discussing medicine, use illustrations from the ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants’ to teach people to gather, process, and consume herbs locally.”

The ‘Book of Wild Edible Plants’ recorded 414 usable plants, many of which were both medicinal and edible.

These plants grew all around them, yet the people didn’t recognize them; some knew a few through ancestral oral tradition, but their knowledge was extremely limited.

The former Prince Zhou had lived through war and famine; after the founding of the Great Ming, natural disasters persisted. He wrote this book to teach the people to recognize these plants and survive famine.

This book predates the ‘Compendium of Materia Medica’ by two centuries; of its entries, only 138 were recorded in earlier herbals—the 276 new ones were personally identified, tasted, and added by Zhu Di.

In later generations, the West called it the “Eastern Classic of Botany.”

Most importantly, Zhu Di was already a prince—he had money, so he specifically hired artists to draw the plants. To ensure accuracy, he cultivated a medicinal garden in his own palace, planting rare herbs, observing their growth, then having the artists draw them—so lifelike they were nearly perfect.

With the illustrations as a guide, one could always find them.