Inside the Han Chang'an prefectural hall, it was so quiet that a pin dropping could be heard.
"That so-called solid waste isn't just dung…"
Ma Chao's loud and careless words had not even finished before Zhang Fei clamped a hand firmly over his mouth.
At the same time, Ma Chao found himself facing a hall full of gazes that looked ready to kill.
After all, even someone as mild-tempered as Divine Physician Zhang now wore an expression of clear displeasure.
Ma Chao wisely fell silent. But Zhang Fei still found it hard to let the matter go and muttered casually,
"No wonder Old Zhang always felt the well water in Chang'an isn't as sweet as in Hanzhong or Chengdu."
Watching Ma Chao nod furiously beside Zhang Fei, Liu Bei suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion.
Among everyone present, Kongming was the least affected. His expression remained unchanged as he neatly copied down the later generations' description of Chang'an's soil composition. Only then did he let out a light sigh.
"In later ages, everything is knowledge. Everywhere is science."
It was unclear which dynasty in later times had summarized the changes in Chang'an's water quality, but the conclusion was concise and precise, while still leaving three parts of dignity for the ancients, sparing them from utter embarrassment.
Yet this information instead put Liu Bei, seated at the head, into a dilemma.
If Chang'an were not relocated, the well water truly did have an unpleasant taste, and the thought stuck in his mind like a thorn.
If it were relocated, then under what identity would a new Chang'an be planned? The legitimacy was lacking, the name not righteous.
Zhang Zhongjing, however, had none of these worries.
The old physician calmly recorded his thoughts while watching the light screen, and at this moment gained a new understanding of the casual phrase from later generations, "illness enters through the mouth."
If even daily drinking water was polluted by filth and waste accumulating beneath, then it was no wonder that since the Zhongping years of Emperor Ling, despite no great wars, minor epidemics never ceased.
Moreover, according to later generations, what was broadly summarized at the time as "cold damage" was not truly cold damage at all. It likely contained a mixture of many epidemic diseases, all of which required careful study.
Zhang Zhongjing truly felt that he had gained immense benefit.
Many of the later generations' offhand remarks instead made his research direction in medicine increasingly clear, and correspondingly pushed the completion of his nearly finished Treatise on Cold Damage even farther into the distance.
…
In the Ganlu Hall, Li Shimin pondered in silence.
Why the old Han Chang'an site had been abandoned was not new knowledge to him. Precisely because of the lesson of the Former Han, the Former Sui, when building the new Chang'an on Longshou Plateau, paid far greater attention to the handling of filth and waste.
The Tang followed the Sui system and, on that basis, formulated even stricter laws. Throwing garbage outside the walls was punished with sixty strokes of the rod. If wastewater from residential wards flowed into the streets, the supervising officials would be charged with dereliction of duty.
On top of the Sui foundations, open drainage channels were added to discharge daily wastewater, all to avoid repeating the disasters of the Former Han.
On this point, Li Shimin believed that Great Tang had not done poorly.
However, on one hand, he marveled that later generations, separated by more than a thousand years, could still investigate such matters so deeply and understand the accumulation of filth so thoroughly.
On the other hand, he began to worry about the future.
When Great Tang gradually grew strong, and merchants from the Western Regions, Central Asia, and the eastern seas flocked to Chang'an, would the current Chang'an be able to bear such a population?
After all, the memorials submitted by Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui described the explosive growth of population in times of great peace. Li Shimin was not entirely confident in Chang'an's capacity.
But as for this matter…
Li Shimin glanced at Yan Lide working diligently nearby.
Presumably, the Directorate of Imperial Manufactories would be able to produce a solution.
[Light Screen]
["Of course, what we discussed above is only one hypothesis for why epidemics were frequent in the early late Han.
After the Yellow Turban Uprising, things became what we are more familiar with. Disasters and epidemics went hand in hand.
Floods, droughts, storms, locusts, war, and food shortages destroyed social operations and production order. The lives of the common people became extremely difficult.
The bodies of those who died from natural disasters and human calamities bred massive amounts of pathogens, becoming the best breeding ground for disease. In the end, all that was needed was a single trigger to ignite a large-scale epidemic, ultimately resulting in the tragedy of ten households with nine empty in the late Han.
It is precisely because these disasters were so terrifying that those who walked against them appear all the more precious.
Zhang Ji, courtesy name Zhongjing, was born in Nanyang. His clan originally numbered over two hundred people, but after several great epidemics, more than one hundred and forty died, over a hundred of them from cold damage.
Watching his close kin die under the torment of disease had an enormous impact on Zhang Zhongjing. From that point on, this young man who had disliked officialdom since childhood and looked lightly upon an official career established his life's great aspiration.
He would relieve the people of the pain of cold damage.
From then on, Zhang Zhongjing of the Zhang clan scattered his family wealth and traveled everywhere practicing medicine.
In the turbulent chaos of the late Han, epidemics often followed natural and military disasters like shadows, and behind the epidemics, there was often Zhang Zhongjing closely following.
After ten years of travel and broadly gathering the strengths of many medical schools, the elderly Zhang Zhongjing resided in Lingnan in his later years, avoiding the chaos and focusing on writing medical works.
The epoch-making clinical masterpiece Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases was thus born.
As mentioned before, the original version of this great work was regrettably lost, but later generations re-collected, collated, and edited it into the Treatise on Cold Damage and the Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Coffer, allowing most of Zhang Zhongjing's achievements to be passed down to this day.
Zhang Zhongjing passed away in Lingnan. After the world was unified under Jin following the Three Kingdoms, this old physician's tomb was relocated back to his hometown of Nanyang.
Moved by his medical skill and virtue, the people built a Medical Sage Shrine for him, offering incense and sacrifices in remembrance. This tradition has been passed down to this day, and later generations mostly honor him as the Medical Sage.
So did Zhang Zhongjing succeed in fighting epidemics?
In the short term, without a doubt, the answer is no. Because even after the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases was completed, epidemics still did not cease.
In the year 223, a great epidemic struck Wancheng and Xuchang, killing tens of thousands.
In the year 253, a great epidemic struck Xincheng, killing more than half the population.
In the year 273, a great epidemic struck Jianye, killing one hundred thousand.
Just like the late Han, behind these large-scale outbreaks must have been countless small-scale epidemics.
But from the perspective of the entire river of history, this creator believes that Zhang Zhongjing undoubtedly won.
The Medical Sage was a pioneer. When nearly everyone else faced epidemics helplessly and turned away to flee, he chose to walk against the tide and declare war on them.
For thousands of years, several classic prescriptions from the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases spread across the land of China, saving countless lives, allowing Chinese civilization to endure a thousand illnesses without falling, to face ten thousand epidemics and grow ever stronger.
The title of Medical Sage inspired countless later generations, so that when facing the suffering of the people, they no longer turned a blind eye, but instead chose to carry the nation in their hearts and shoulder the fate of China.
Because of this, our entire civilization was able to move forward with its head held high.
And thirteen hundred years after Zhang Zhongjing's death, the Black Death caused by plague swept across Europe. Over one hundred and fifty years, it caused more than seventy-five million deaths.
A vast Europe was helpless against it, able only to lie flat and wait for the disease to disappear naturally after its hosts died.
This disease also spread to the Ming dynasty. At that time, Chinese physicians again took Zhang Zhongjing as their example and chose to rise up against it.
Wu Youxing of Jiangsu risked his life to investigate epidemics and wrote Treatise on Pestilence, summarizing transmission routes and exploring methods of treatment, opening the precursor to modern epidemiology and curbing the ravages of plague in the Ming dynasty.
One more thing worth mentioning.
The Black Death held a pivotal position in European history, because massive population loss shook the rule of the Catholic Church and caused people living under constant threat of death to adopt a philosophy of living for the moment and indulging in pleasure.
In this regard, it bears an interesting resemblance in mentality to the indulgent pleasure-seeking faction represented by Cao Pi in the late Han."]
Kongming turned his head and saw that Divine Physician Zhang was watching the light screen with an unprecedented level of focus.
He remained silent, yet the gradual reddening of his eyes revealed the turbulence within his heart.
"To practice medicine for one age, to write a book to heal ten thousand ages."
"The title of Medical Sage is truly deserved."
Kongming's praise was sincere.
Zhang Zhongjing, eyes reddened and chest surging, could only let out a long sigh and clasp his hands toward Kongming.
After all, the later generations had made it clear. In the short term after him, great epidemics would still arise one after another. To him, this was still a kind of regret.
His original intention had been to cure cold damage, to prevent the people from suffering the same fate as his Nanyang clan, where most perished to epidemic disease.
And that Jianye epidemic killing one hundred thousand people, merely reading the number was enough to send chills down one's spine.
Kongming, keenly perceptive, changed his angle to console him.
"I wonder when Liang might be able to read the physician's book that heals the age?"
Thus Zhang Zhongjing could only wave his hands somewhat awkwardly and say,
"Soon. Soon."
The complex emotions from earlier instantly settled.