Traveling back to the Northern Song Dynasty: Picking up a princess as my wife

The next day, Li Zhen led his troops back to Tangyin City. Zhang Cheng, the prefect of Anyang, also made a special trip to see Li Zhen and told him directly what he knew. In addition, Zhang Cheng sent his family to Li Zhen, because he had witnessed Li Zhen's strength and was afraid that he would not be able to protect his family.

Li Zhen was somewhat displeased with this: "My lord, you have 20,000 troops under your command. Even if you can't fight outside the city, defending Anyang should be no problem. Why do you lack confidence in yourself?"

Zhang Cheng shamelessly said, "Do you think I'm like you? My 20,000 soldiers are mostly old, weak, sick, and disabled. At most, there are 6,000 with any fighting ability. And among those 6,000, there are quite a few unruly soldiers who can't be commanded. How can you expect me to have confidence?"

Then Zhang Cheng said with a smile, "Actually, my idea is to let your sister-in-law and child go to your village to take shelter first. After all, Li Family Village is in the mountains, and neither the Jin nor the Song people will pay much attention to it. I'm begging you, brother."

Li Zhen: "Alright, since you've brought it up, I can't refuse you. It just so happens that Manager Sun's family also needs to go up the mountain. I'll arrange for someone to take them up in a bit."

Just then, Wang Changdao rushed in, looking anxious.

"Big Head... Your Excellency, I just went out of the city on patrol and found that the refugees at the mountain temple outside the city seem to have contracted the plague."

"plague?"

Zhang Cheng and Li Zhen were slightly taken aback.

Li Zhen asked with a serious expression, "How do you know they have the plague?"

Wang Changdao hesitated for a moment before saying, "Didn't you serve as a local soldier before? You saw it when you were fighting against the Jurchens. At that time, the villagers in that village were all infected with the plague, and their symptoms were the same as those of the refugees outside the city."

These refugees were fleeing north to escape the war. For safety reasons, Li Zhen did not allow them to enter the city. At this time, no one could enter or leave Tangyin City without his order.

Li Zhen was starting to have a headache. The war wasn't over yet, and now there was a plague. It seemed the problem was getting serious.

Zhang Cheng said to Li Zhen, "Brother Li, I have to hurry back to Anyang. There's an epidemic here, and I don't know what the situation is like over there. I have to go back and check on things."

After seeing Zhang Cheng off from the county government office, Li Zhen hurriedly followed Wang Changdao out of the city.

In those days, plagues were deadly. Once a plague broke out in a region, it would cause a sharp decline in the population of the entire area. It was not that ten out of ten houses would be empty, but nine out of ten would be empty.

"Old Wang, are you sure it's the plague?"

“Chief, it looks like it to me. That’s why I’m reporting to you, I’m not sure.”

"Let's go, we'll see."

Li Zhen took out a stack of medical masks and instructed everyone to wear them. He had stored a large number of medical supplies in his jade pendant space for emergencies.

He stocked up on a lot of things like masks, disinfectant, protective suits, and various common medicines, and even bought all kinds of test strips used in hospitals. This was all to prevent various diseases in ancient times, since Li Zhen only had basic medical knowledge, and this was just to be on the safe side.

Upon arriving outside the city, Li Zhen saw groups of refugees huddled together in shacks to keep warm. The yamen runners responsible for distributing porridge near the city gate immediately came over.

"Your Excellency, what brings you here?"

Li Zhen took out some masks and handed them to the constable: "Go and distribute these to the brothers. Everyone needs to wear one."

After saying that, he walked towards the refugee shack, but Wang Changdao immediately blocked Li Zhen's way.

"Chief, we can't get too close. It would be troublesome if we got infected."

Li Zhen said somewhat angrily, "How can I be sure they haven't contracted the plague if I don't go over there?"

No matter how angry Li Zhen was, Wang Changdao blocked him from going over. In the end, Li Zhen had no choice but to take out a protective suit and put it on. In order to ensure Li Zhen's safety, Wang Changdao also put on a protective suit and accompanied him throughout the process.

Looking at the pristine white protective suit he was wearing, Wang Changdao asked doubtfully, "Chief, can wearing this really protect against the plague?"

Li Zhen gave him a disgruntled look: "Believe in Brother Li, and you'll gain eternal life."

When the refugees in the shack saw two people dressed in white approaching, they were so frightened that they knelt down and begged for mercy.

"Lord of Impermanence, please don't take me away! I have a seventy-year-old mother and a crying baby. Please spare me."

Wearing protective clothing, Wang Changdao was so angry that he kicked the man to the ground: "Open your dog eyes and see clearly, this is our county magistrate."

Li Zhen helped the man up with his gloved hands: "Don't be afraid, fellow villager. I heard there's a disease here, so I came to check on you."

Li Zhen walked around the area, taking turns using a thermometer and a temperature gun to test people. He then used virus test strips to test several people who were coughing. The final conclusion was that they were likely infected with a viral flu.

After leaving the shacks where the refugees lived, Li Zhen asked Wang Changdao to lead a team to do another round of counting. They found that nearly half of the more than 3,000 refugees were infected with the flu.

Looking at the snowflakes falling from the sky, Li Zhen said to Wang Changdao with a heavy heart, "Let's find a sheltered place and dig some temporary shacks. Each shack should be equipped with a stove and cotton-padded clothes. Although they are refugees, we can't let them freeze to death here."

Li Zhen's voice wasn't loud, but some of the refugees still heard it. They were immediately moved to tears and rushed out to kneel and kowtow to Li Zhen.

After returning to the county government office, Li Zhen began searching for flu medication within his spatial storage. After much deliberation, he decided to try a combination of cephalosporin and Gan Kang (a traditional Chinese medicine for treating influenza) to see if it would be effective. The refugees outside the city were suffering from both lack of food and clothing and the cold, and also because people in this era did not have many antibiotics in their bodies, so even a slightly virulent virus could knock them out.

In order to better treat these refugees and prevent the spread of the plague, he even went up the mountain to bring down Doctor Guo.

When Doctor Guo heard about the plague, his eyes lit up. In this era, being able to cure the plague was incredibly impressive, something worthy of being recorded in history.

Li Zhen took out a large quantity of cephalosporin tablets and cold medicine, handed them to Doctor Guo, and explained to him how to administer the dosage according to the patient's condition. He also gave Doctor Guo a large amount of protective clothing and medical masks, and provided him with on-the-spot education on virus prevention.

In fact, through this period of study, Dr. Guo had already gained a basic understanding of modern medicine, and had learned some basic knowledge about viruses and cells, albeit through guesswork. Now that Li Zhen had provided him with such a good opportunity to learn and practice, how could he not be happy?

In fact, Li Zhen knew that penicillin was the best drug to deal with this kind of widespread flu virus, but he did not dare to use it lightly, in case it killed someone.

In less than half a day, Wang Changdao led a thousand soldiers to dig a large area of ​​earthen huts on the west side of the city gate. These were the same types of huts used to house refugees from the mountain strongholds, so Wang Changdao had experience with them.

That night, all the refugees moved into the newly dug shacks, each with a glowing red honeycomb briquette stove. They wore brand-new cotton-padded clothes, a warmth that many of them had never experienced before.

It was from this moment that these three thousand-plus people decided to follow Li Zhen to the death.