Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 667: Talisman Water Cures All Diseases

There are many different ideas on how to fight the plague in the Mediterranean world, but there are only two main ways.

One is the Western European style, which is to just ignore it. Because no matter how severe the Black Death is, it is impossible to kill everyone; even if everyone really died, the people would continue to grow like grass.

Although the death rate was even higher, in Western Europe, no country or even any great lord had ever perished because of the plague, unless he was unlucky and died without an heir. During the more than 100 years when the Black Death was rampant, other plagues and famines also emerged one after another, but no one had ever heard of anyone rebelling because of this. Therefore, as long as the rulers protected themselves and found the right time to take refuge in less crowded places, there would be no problem. There was nothing else to do.

Another more positive approach is the Eastern European approach, where the Black Death was relatively less severe, partly because of the vast land and sparse population, and partly because of timely treatment.

Poland in particular was also affected by the Black Death, but the duration of the impact and the losses caused were much smaller in comparison. It is said that the local lords were very proactive and burned down any village where the plague occurred. As long as the speed of burning the village was faster than the speed of transmission, the plague would not spread. Therefore, the goal of curbing the spread of the plague was indeed achieved.

However, both of these methods are definitely unrealistic.

This is not a moral issue. During the Black Death, no European country was hit as hard by the plague as the Eastern Roman Empire or the Mamluk Empire. It was never recovered. I don't know how they were able to maintain a stable rule, restore the economy, and even restore the population despite the Black Death. It can only be said that Europeans are too resilient. Guo Kang doubts that even the Egyptians may not be able to withstand such a situation.

Moreover, when he came here, he found that the simple and rough way of the Mamluks' rule was also compared with the traditional civil government - there was no bureaucracy or civil government in Europe. Therefore, the experience over there was probably no comparison.

Therefore, Guo Kang decided to ignore these messy "European advanced experiences". After all, these things are more like theology than history.

Just because the barbarians didn't deal with it properly didn't mean he had to follow suit - Brother Tian himself didn't say that the barbarians' divinity was higher than that of others and that everyone had to worship them like idols. Of course, he didn't need to care about what these believers were saying.

At present, he still follows the known knowledge and thinks that this is the most reliable way to deal with the plague. He will do whatever he can.

According to his understanding, dealing with plague, like controlling floods and even waging war, is essentially an organizational problem. Because even in his past, the most important way to fight the plague was to quickly cut off the channels through organization and mobilization. The role of medicine is mainly to let people know where the transmission channel is as soon as possible, so as to design a safer and more efficient way to cut it off.

As for directly treating patients, this is already a step of "reducing losses". If this can be done, it would be better, of course, it can stabilize people's hearts and reduce losses on the front line. But if there is really no such condition, it is not impossible - anyway, in the Mediterranean world now, everyone is used to death, as long as it can be contained, everyone can accept it...

When he and Tuohuan discussed before, they thought that in order to establish an organization, they must first establish credibility. But later they found that they could do this in Qin, but not in Daqin. To do things well here, they must not only establish credibility, but also establish prestige.

So, what is the fastest way to establish authority and intimidate the people to make them obey? The answer is religion.

As for how to do it specifically, the Roman Catholic Church had accumulated a lot of experience since it started from scratch decades ago. Guo Kang had played there since he was a child and had a lot of knowledge about it. After making up his mind, Guo Kang started to act that night and borrowed all the projection equipment from the great lama Wang. Then he made some new slides, found an open space next to the Venice Trade House, and started playing various audio and video. Those images were projected directly onto the wall of the Trade House.

The first step in missionary work is to tell everyone that the plague is coming.

Using disaster predictions to scare people is a very common tactic in this era. His master, Wang Da Lama, used this several times when he was preaching. Moreover, this kind of prediction is a one-shot deal - these days, especially in remote areas with poor natural conditions and no one to manage them, people's resistance to disasters is very weak, and they will indeed suffer from disasters every now and then, so the accuracy rate is very high. Experienced missionaries can also infer the probability of disasters based on the local climate, population and various facilities to make the predictions more accurate.

Of course, even if I didn't guess it right, it didn't matter. Most of the barbarian settlements were very isolated. Unlike the Romans, where all adults had to go out to serve in the army or even participate in expeditions, the residents there rarely traveled far, and their social circle was often limited to a town. If the prediction failed, I would go to another place. Anyway, if I came a few more times, I would always get it right...

Moreover, unlike his colleagues who only gambled on the probability, Guo Kang really knew that the plague was going to happen - he didn't even need future knowledge. Looking at the miserable state of Egypt now, any scholar with a little knowledge could infer it himself.

People of this era have discovered that plague, famine and war are often closely related. This year, Egypt's grain harvest was poor, and the Mamluk regime had fought several wars. Plague was probably inevitable, it was just a matter of time and intensity. Therefore, he did not feel any psychological pressure to make such a prediction. Instead, he was afraid that too few people knew about it and the propaganda effect was not good.

However, the images he put out still attracted a lot of people.

Guo Kang always thought that the principle of this prop should be easy to understand, but the Egyptian civilians seemed to be too ignorant and really didn't understand what it was. After two days of publicity, the place was crowded with people. Some of the onlookers were captured by the Mamluks and participated in the previous battle in Alexandria. They had seen the scene when Guo Kang and his men were praying. Under the publicity of these people, everyone was even more horrified. The news spread by Guo Kang spread quickly.

At the same time, Guo Kang also used another common method - treating people.

In fact, in this era, most people's "diseases" are, to put it bluntly, a series of problems caused by malnutrition. When investigating the situation of the Russians, Guo Kang had some understanding of this. And the situation in Egypt is similar.

Due to the skyrocketing grain prices, civilians could only barely make ends meet. After sealing off a number of grain merchants, Guo Kang also had enough grain reserves to deal with the problem.

Moreover, surprisingly, the price of meat in Egypt is not expensive. The locals told him that this was also the impact of the plague. During the epidemic, not only humans, but also animals in Egypt died in large numbers. There were rumors that even birds in the sky and crocodiles in the river died of the disease. It is not known whether it is true or not. But the livestock raised by humans did suffer serious losses. The survivors were afraid of eating these dead animals and were so scared that they dared not eat meat at all. At the worst time, a cow was sold for one dinar, and no one wanted it.

On the contrary, there were all kinds of strange rumors at the time, which caused some food prices to skyrocket. For example, there was a rumor that eating watermelon could cure the plague. As a result, the price of half a watermelon in Egypt rose to 500 dirhams, which was as expensive as gold. I don't know who made this up...

Although the plague has passed, the locals are still afraid, and even the rich dare not buy meat. Guo Kang took the opportunity to buy a batch of cattle and sheep, and used the meat and flour as raw materials to make some sausages as a treatment.

Despite his thorough preparations, no one dared to seek his help at first. Guo Kang simply took his men out to walk around the streets, and when he saw someone who was sick from hunger, he would forcibly take him back.

He wrote down the items that needed to be followed for epidemic prevention, forced them to recite them every day, and then gradually increased their food according to the diet. He also wrote down these items in cursive Arabic in front of everyone according to the experience left by the church's fathers, burned the paper, and asked them to eat it with the sausages using the magic water.

After a few days, some people who were in good health were discharged from the hospital and thrown back on the street. When they found that they were no longer sick, everyone was surprised. Although they didn't understand what was going on, they were still impressed by this strange ritual. Some people with good memory could even memorize a few articles. These practices quickly spread.

As a result, some people who were suffering from illness and had nowhere else to turn to began to come to him for help. Guo Kang also organized people to register them and then personally observed them. Most of them actually had minor illnesses, and with Guo Kang's limited knowledge of hygiene, he knew how to deal with them, and then just waited for them to heal on their own. Those who really couldn't be dealt with could only leave it to fate, hire someone to take care of them, give them some respect, and wait for Hu Da to decide their fate.

However, even these measures were enough to allow most people to recover. As more and more people were discharged from the hospital, the locals' attitude towards him changed from instinctive resistance to respect.

When Wang Da Lama was trying to persuade his followers, he used a lot of magic tricks. When he learned that Guo Kang was also going to promote it, he came over and asked Guo Kang if he wanted to learn a few tricks. However, Guo Kang's method no longer required these skills, so in the end, they were not used.

Under normal circumstances, even for local people, this kind of propaganda is too simple and easy to be seen as a trick. However, previous plagues have caused heavy losses to Egypt's ulama, or the clergy.

Since the first Black Death, priests have been one of the groups with the highest mortality rate. Battuta said in his records that when he passed through Gaza, he found that only a quarter of the city's eighty judges survived; and in Cairo, all the elders he knew before had died. In subsequent plagues, priests were always the first to be affected because they had to lead the people in prayer and bury the dead.

In Egyptian society, priests are the main component of intellectuals, especially at the grassroots level. The loss of a large number of priests has affected the education level and cultural atmosphere of the entire society. The people lack basic education, and a lot of knowledge cannot be popularized. The beliefs in society began to lean towards mysticism.

Originally, successive regimes insisted on appointing scholars of various schools of law at the same time. However, the plague killed a large number of educated priests, destroying the school training system and the custom of appointing and dismissing religious judges. Those who succeeded were generally not as accomplished in theology and philosophy as their predecessors in the heyday. Due to the decline in cultural level, many studies were difficult to continue, and more simple and easy-to-understand fundamentalist ideas began to emerge.

Because of the plague a few years ago and the wars in the past two years, many scholars have died or fled. Now in Cairo, only the university still has some teachers who insist on teaching. However, it is already difficult for them to keep the school running, and they can't take care of what is happening outside.

In addition, there are several elders with great prestige in the south of the city. However, during this period, they were carrying out archaeological excavations with their apprentices on both sides of the city wall, concentrating on searching for various relics left by the Shiites, and it seemed that they had no time to pay attention to this side.

As for the others, their knowledge and influence were not enough. Two religious judges came to the place where Guo Kang displayed the projection and set up the hospital, accusing him of distributing talismans and teaching people to recite formulas every day, which was obviously witchcraft and superstition, and was not what a person with scriptures should do.

But Guo Kang pointed out that this was a normal ritual. Those talismans were not spells used in witchcraft, but official documents. They were to be sent to heaven for the angels to review. Letting the patient drink it was to mark the person who needed help.

In fact, as long as they have a legal priest status and have been registered for their duties, anyone can write this kind of official document - just like the clerks who passed the examination in the Roman government. Therefore, this is not a superstitious activity, and there is not even any mystical element. It is quite easy to understand.

As for whether this was a good idea or not, his own opinion did not count, and everyone could only see the results. In the end, the local priest did not say anything to him, so he could only give up in dismay.

Guo Kang estimated that there should still be many people who were unwilling to accept the situation, but they were afraid of the Mamluks who patrolled with sticks every day, so they did not dare to do anything. The other priests and even the people receiving treatment might not be completely ignorant. After all, even the people in the city were just uneducated, not stupid. After a long time, someone would definitely be able to see the logic behind this.

But everyone ate his food and was cured by him, so they wouldn't say anything. Even if they understood the principle, they would still say that the talisman water and the formula were very effective.

At present, the only trouble is that the Venetian Merchant next door, after discovering the situation here, broke through the courtyard wall and installed steps and VIP seats that people can stand on, so that people can see the projection displayed by Guo Kang from their merchant yard. In addition, they set up a gate to charge visitors and sell tickets to these locations.

After it became famous, more and more people came here. Many people couldn't squeeze in, so they paid to buy tickets from the Venetian merchants, hoping to get an extra chance. In order to make money, the merchants sold far more tickets than the courtyard could accommodate, and even paid for people to advertise everywhere in the city to attract tourists to see the "miracle". As a result, from morning to night every day, the place was packed with people.

Although these measures did help him promote his hospital, the numerous tourists who were making noise all day long prevented the patient from getting a good rest. Guo Kang's negotiation with the Venice Chamber of Commerce was useless. In desperation, he could only consider whether to move to a bigger place...

(End of this chapter)