Sophia was writing a list to gather supplies for General Yves when suddenly, a letter appeared in the pig trough that had been quiet for several days.
General Yves explained everything to her.
He needed the wealthy officials and merchants to donate money, and not just a little. To make them more willing to give, he had to make them feel calm and reassured. The best way to do this was to exchange the donations for useful supplies from Sophia.
Along with the letter, the donations also arrived. The money hadn't even warmed up yet before it was sent straight to Sophia.
Right now, the national treasury was empty. General Yves was very tempted to put the money into it, but he knew giving it to Sophia would create more value.
After reading General Yves's request, Sophia didn't know what to send right away.
She said, "Forget it. I'll start by sorting out all these jewelry pieces first."
Before, Sophia had said that silver wasn't worth much in the modern world, so the three thousand taels of silver had not been sent.
Rich people in the past didn't lack good food, so sending modern food might just be a novelty for them. Still, Sophia added food to the list for now.
As for clothes, they didn't need them either. If people in the past wore modern clothes, they would look strange.
That left housing and transportation.
Winter was coming, and the area where General Yves was staying was in the north and very cold. Sophia thought about sending a heater. But that meant she also had to send a power source.
While placing items from the boxes into an empty display cabinet, she kept thinking.
She was always trying to solve food problems for such a big country like Zhao, which was not easy.
Luckily, Ling was now helping her.
Ling could now handle the food part all on her own. Ronin had been busy leveling the land next to the warehouse, and it had been noisy for several days.
Sophia ordered ten upright heaters online. They also came with power sources and solar panels.
The whole setup cost just over ten thousand yuan.
She then added a few fans, which were affordable. They wouldn't be useful right now, but they could be saved for summer. By then, using the fan with the air conditioner while sleeping with a quilt would feel very comfortable.
Thinking of more items, Sophia added electric blankets and warm packs to the list.
She also included some medicine. Simple modern medicine could save lives in ancient times. For example, amoxicillin, a type of penicillin antibiotic, could be a miracle drug in the past.
She bought twenty boxes.
She also got some Yunnan Baiyao and emergency heart pills.
While working, Sophia updated General Yves on what she was doing.
The regular medicines she had ordered earlier had already arrived.
So she sent them over right away.
When the medicines were sent, Official Yong and the others were still there.
"These are medicines from the heavenly one. They can help prevent sickness. Official Yong, please distribute them," she said.
After disasters like floods or droughts, diseases usually followed. Official Yong had mostly given good reports to General Yves, but outside the cities, there were still many hungry and sick people. They hadn't recovered just by drinking porridge.
The whole Fu region had very few herbs because of the drought.
Even though Official Yong had called many doctors, they couldn't help much without herbs. Even the best doctor couldn't treat patients without medicine.
At that moment, when Official Yong heard the good news, he immediately knelt down and knocked his head to the ground in front of General Yves. "Thank you, divine general, for your blessing. Thank you for protecting the people of Dazhao!"
Tears welled up in Official Yong's eyes.
General Yves urged, "Go quickly and take care of it!"
Over the past few days, General Yves had been patrolling the city and had noticed that things were getting better.
However, he also knew that some officials were secretly just placing sick people who couldn't even get up into shelters — something that was, unfortunately, quite common.
Official Yong quickly led his men to carry out boxes of medicine from the mansion.
He then called for doctors to come and help distribute the medicine.
Sophia had also sent over bags of lime.
General Yves ordered his guards, "Yinok, Eros, take your teams and spread this lime over the streets where people have died or where disease has broken out."
The whole city started to come alive again.
Strong and able-bodied people were taken to the fields to farm. General Yves had people teaching them how to plant sweet potatoes and potatoes.
The city, once lifeless and silent, began to show signs of activity again.
General Yves was already thinking it was almost time to head to the next location, especially now that the plowing machines, harvesters, and other farming equipment were on their way.
Just as he was thinking that, Sophia's delivery arrived.
She had ordered one million jin of potatoes, which were transported from the north.
Most of the distance was covered by train, and from the station, large trucks carried the goods the rest of the way.
A dozen or more trucks entered the village just as the sun was setting. Many villagers were standing at their doorways with bowls of food in their hands, watching the scene.
They chatted among themselves, "What kind of big business is Sophia running? This is quite a huge operation!"
Because the shipment was so large, Sophia, Ronin, and Ling all dropped what they were doing and rushed to help receive the goods.
Ronin and Ling quickly ran off to guide the trucks to the two delivery platforms.
Sophia lagged behind. Curious villagers on bicycles came over and asked her, "Sophia, your business seems pretty big. What exactly are you doing?"
Someone else nearby called out, "Sophia, I heard from Ershun that you're going to fix our village road. When is that happening? You see all this dust kicked up by these big trucks?"
Sophia replied, "Things are really busy right now. There are still a lot of trucks going in and out. Once this period is over, I'll start the road work!"
She had originally planned to pave an asphalt road, but now with the villagers pressing her for it, she was considering just going with concrete.
It took until nine or ten at night to finish unloading the goods from all those trucks.
By the end, Sophia, Ronin, and Ling were all covered in dust.
"Come in a bit later tomorrow. There shouldn't be much to do in the morning. Let's start after lunch," Sophia said.
Thankfully, around seven or eight in the evening, Ronin's mother had brought them dinner, so they had already eaten.
Sophia had been eating at Ronin's house lately, and she was starting to think she should pay something for the meals.
Ronin and Ling didn't refuse and just agreed before quickly heading home.
Each type of machine had sixty units, and so far, half of them had arrived.
After the others left, Sophia pulled out the feeding trough and sent over ten of each type of machine to General Yves.
General Yves was woken up in the middle of the night — something he had gotten used to by now.
Most of the disaster relief work in Fuzhou that needed his involvement was almost complete. He could leave the rest to Official Yong.
Official Yong and Local Official Cai were woken by their servants. They didn't even have time to put on their shoes properly before rushing over.
When they saw the machines lined up at the entrance of General Yves' residence, Local Official Cai was completely stunned.