The Golden Family, rising from the Western Regions

Chapter 43 Allicin

With Lin Dazhuang taking the lead, more and more people came out.

He took a knife and slashed at the Hou family.

There was no need for Li Xiao to force them. After they plucked up their courage, they started to do it on their own initiative.

Those who have been wronged should seek justice, and those who have been vengeful should seek revenge.

The Hou family ruled Houzhai for more than fifty years, and almost completely treated people with other surnames as slaves.

The hatred has been accumulating for a long time.

Before, because they were afraid of the power of the Hou family, other people in the village did not dare to resist.

Now, there is finally someone who can make the decision for them.

Then these people began to become excited.

More and more people began to open their hearts and criticize the Hou family, listing the evil things they had done.

Listening to the screams of the Hou family and looking at the surging public sentiment below, Li Xiao suddenly had an illusion in his heart.

I wanted to force these people to take sides, but how did it turn into a grievance meeting?
Li Xiao felt like he had become Justice Bao, here to uphold justice for the people who were oppressed by the Hou family.

"Don't kill the Hou Wen family yet."

"Let's cut them all tonight."

Li Xiao said to Lin Dazhuang.

Old Man Hou's family did all kinds of bad things. They were the masterminds who surrendered to the Karluks and harmed Uncle Li Xiao.

Of course we can't let them die so easily.

Too cheap.

It would take an entire night to cut him into pieces.

If they are not dead yet, drag them back to Hexi Fort with horses.

When they die, they are thrown on the road to feed the vultures.

After arranging these things, Li Xiao came to a room.

"Da Hu, how is Second Uncle?"

As he spoke, his eyes turned to the man lying on the kang.

He looked to be in his thirties, quite tall, with strong bones, and should have been a very strong man.

It's just that due to malnutrition caused by long-term hunger and the torture of injuries, he has shrunk a lot.

This is Li Xiao’s second uncle, Li Erjiang.

After breaking through Hou's camp, Da Hu found him in a damp dungeon.

There were more than 20 people with him, most of whom were young and strong people from Hexi Fort who followed Li Erjiang, and a few were from other places such as Hedong Fort and Tazhai.

Most of these people are in good condition, but they are a little weak.

But people like Li Erjiang, who were already injured, were locked up in such a dark and damp environment, and were also malnourished.

The injury worsened immediately.

He is already unconscious.

"My dad's head is so hot it's scary."

"I called him for a long time before he woke up, and then he passed out again."

Da Hu said this, his voice filled with tears, his eyes already red.

"Don't cry!"

Li Xiao held Da Hu's head with his hand and rubbed his face randomly.

Man, why are you crying?

"Since Second Uncle has woken up, it means the situation is not the worst yet. This is a good thing."

"There is still hope."

Li Xiao said in a deep voice.

Da Hu's eyes lit up instantly: "Really?"

If someone else said this, Dahu would definitely be suspicious. After all, Li Erjiang's injuries were so serious that he was almost dead.

But the person who said this was Li Xiao.

He is the elder brother he respects the most.

From childhood to adulthood, Dahu has always grown up following Li Xiao.

Moreover, in recent times, everything Li Xiao said would eventually come true, and Li Xiao's actions made people extremely convinced.

Therefore, Dahu couldn't help but feel a little more confident.

"It works, let's try it first!"

After Li Xiao finished speaking, he asked Dahu to bring a basin of warm water.

He squatted beside Li Erjiang and checked his injuries.

The culprit was the three arrow wounds on his body.

One on the chest, one on the left arm, and one on the abdomen.

The arrows had been pulled out, but they were not treated effectively later, causing the wounds to become inflamed and infected by bacteria.

It caused symptoms of persistent high fever and led to coma.

In this case, you must cool him down first to avoid damaging his brain.

Li Xiao asked Dahu and Erhu to wipe his body with warm water to cool him down.

He took Tietou and others and went from house to house looking for what he wanted.

It’s actually very easy to find, just wine and garlic.

Houzhai has no shortage of these two things.

"Brother Dalong? Are we going to use garlic to treat Uncle Li's injuries?"

In a kitchen, Tietou and Shouhou, each holding a bundle of garlic, looked at Li Xiao with suspicion.

Li Xiao came over with a jar of wine, placed it on the stove, and said with certainty: "Garlic can definitely heal injuries."

"But Second Uncle's injuries are too severe. Whether he can be cured depends on God's mood."

Li Erjiang's injuries were very serious, even more serious than those of the young man in Sanhe Fort.

The wound has shown signs of decay. If it were any other part of the body, amputation would definitely be necessary, but it is on the chest.

"We can only try our best to save the situation!" Li Xiao said helplessly in his heart.

In fact, I can't guarantee that I can really rescue my second uncle.

Although his injuries looked scary, fortunately his internal organs and aortas were not damaged, and the bleeding had stopped long ago.

The key issue is that it is already infected.

In later times, a few injections of penicillin would have quickly healed the wound. But unfortunately, this was during the Song and Jin dynasties, more than 700 years before penicillin was invented!

Faced with this kind of infection, the injured have no choice but to wait for death.

Seeing his second uncle's face pale and in a coma due to a high fever, Li Xiao was sure that if he did not receive effective treatment, his second uncle would not survive for more than a few days.

Although Li Xiao understood the principles and production methods of penicillin, he did not meet the conditions.

Because it is difficult to cultivate the bacterial flora, if you are not careful, the bacterial flora will mutate, which will aggravate the wound infection.

Moreover, it would take at least ten days to cultivate the penicillin bacteria, which was simply too late.

Although it is unrealistic to produce penicillin, Li Xiao thought of another substitute.

Allicin!
This is also an antibiotic, and it is the simplest antibiotic to make.

As we all know, garlic has certain antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects, and the main effect is the allicin in garlic.

It can kill some bacteria and fungi and reduce the degree of wound infection.

However, compared with the bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects of penicillin, the function of allicin is far inferior.

In the face of severe wound infection, allicin is powerless.

But the advantage is that allicin is easy to extract, the production time is very short, and it can be produced in large quantities.

The only raw materials are garlic and high-purity alcohol.

Both of these things are easy to obtain.

However, a very important tool is still needed, the distiller.

This thing has existed since the Han Dynasty and is basically made of copper.

However, there is definitely no place like Houzhai, and it is too late to forge it now.

Li Xiao had no choice but to make a simple distiller by himself.

"Skinny monkey, peel all the garlic and wash it with clean water. Don't leave any dirt behind."

“And then mash it all up.”

"Iron Head, go look around the yards to see if there's a hollow horn. Also, find a clean sheepskin and a clean cloth."

"it is good!"

Hearing Li Xiao's words, the two nodded slightly. Although they didn't understand what Li Xiao was going to do, they obeyed subconsciously.

"Garlic, distilled liquor, distiller~" Li Xiao thought to himself.

“I hope it can be done!”

This was also the first time for Li Xiao to use this traditional method to make allicin, and he didn't have much confidence, so he could only give it a try.

After all, my second uncle’s injuries were very serious, and he would really die if he didn’t try.

Soon, Tietou found the cow horns, sheepskin and cloth that Li Xiao mentioned.

Then he squatted down and peeled garlic with Skinny Monkey.

Li Xiao's purpose for wanting this kind of horn is very simple.
The horns are very large and hollow inside.

It is just right to be used as a distillation tube.

Just place the thick end of the hollow ox horn at the mouth of the wine jar, then wrap it tightly with sheepskin, and a simple distiller is ready.

Then Li Xiao placed the entire jar of wine on the stove, lit it and started distilling.

The alcoholic beverages of this era contained too many impurities and had too low an alcohol content.

Purifying allicin requires highly concentrated liquor; ordinary liquor is simply not enough.

Nearly half an hour passed, and Li Xiao distilled three large jars of wine, and finally got half a jar of liquor.

This shows that the alcohol content of drinks in this era was pitifully low.

It is not difficult to drink a thousand cups without getting drunk.

During this process, Shouhou and Tietou were burning a fire nearby, watching drops of water dripping from the cow's horns.

The two asked in astonishment, "Is this water?"

Li Xiao shook his head and said, "Strong liquor."

"This is the strongest liquor in the world."

"Strong liquor?" Tietou and Shouhou opened their eyes wide.

After getting closer and smelling it, he exclaimed, "It's really wine!"

“It smells so strong.”

They had all secretly drunk their father's wine before, but it was never as strong as the wine in front of them.

Li Xiao did not explain too much, but looked at the wooden basin next to him.

At this time, it was full of mashed garlic by the two of them, filling the entire room with a strong smell of garlic.

"What should we do next?" asked the skinny monkey.

"Soak for an hour first." Li Xiao said.

Soak the garlic paste in a jar of alcohol.

Stir well and cover with lid.

Wait for about an hour, and the allicin in the garlic will be absorbed into the alcohol.

Then filter out the remaining garlic and impurities, leaving only the alcohol containing allicin, which is then distilled away.

All that's left is the simplest allicin.

The allicin produced by this method has very low purity and is accompanied by the spicy taste of garlic and residual taste of alcohol.

Its bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects are average, far inferior to penicillin in later generations.

But no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat. In the absence of penicillin, allicin is the best antibiotic.

Even if allicin can reduce the risk of amputation and death from infection for soldiers, it will be of great help.

At worst, the effect is not enough to make up for the quantity.

After all, allicin is cheap to produce and can be easily produced in large quantities.

The only drawback is that the allicin produced must be used as soon as possible.

Because at room temperature, it is only active for three hours.

The longer the time, the worse the sterilization effect.

"Let it soak for now."

"Just wait and see for an hour, and I'll come back."

Li Xiao said to Shouhou and the other man, then left the room. Luo Meng had just come to report on the Hou family's affairs.

The hands of those people in Houzhai were stained with the blood of the Hou family.

The Hou family was basically wiped out, leaving only Huang Xiuer and other women without sons, and Hou Tiancai and other masterminds waiting to be cut into pieces.

(End of this chapter)