Yangzhou went through the period of killing, burning, and looting and gradually stabilized. The quarantine zones, however, were overwheld with suffering due to the lack of doctors. Fengyu visited the quarantine zone once but was forcibly removed by Xie Xun.
"The disease is highly infectious, and the quarantine zones are extrely dangerous. If you want to do sothing, send soone else to do it. You are absolutely not allowed to go yourself."
"Zhixu, you enter and leave the quarantine zones several tis a day. I worry about you too, but I’ve never tried to stop you. Tens of thousands of people are gathered in one place. Everyone has grievances and fears; unrest could break out at any mont. I must appear here every day to reassure them. We are truly sharing in their hardships, not standing aloof and untouched. We are taking the risk of infection while trying to save them." Fengyu spoke softly, "Don’t worry, I will take care of myself and won’t enter without permission. I’ll stay outside the periter. If I only relay ssages between the State Mansion, mistakes could easily occur. All the food and dicine shipped here need to be coordinated. I don’t trust anyone else; I’m afraid they might act out of self-interest."
"But you..."
Fengyu embraced Xie Xun, her fingers gently tracing his brow and features. "I’ll be fine. You’re already so busy—don’t worry about ."
Xie Xun was the pillar of support for the entire population of Yangzhou City. He could not afford distractions, nor could he fall.
dicine in the quarantine zones wasn’t as scarce as food. After the disaster victims entered the city, their focus was on grain. Though dicine had been knocked over and damaged, most of it remained intact. Unified allocation prevented waste. So elderly people in the city were persuaded by Fengyu to voluntarily go to the quarantine zones to help.
Housekeeper Su had survived three epidemics. He contracted one as a child but lived through it by a stroke of luck. During the other two epidemics, he did not fall ill. One year, when Su Ming caught the disease, Housekeeper Su cared for him day and night without becoming infected. Fengyu wondered if catching the disease grants immunity.
She sought out many elderly people who had recovered from illness. Their accounts varied—so had been infected twice, others only once. Epidemics rarely struck Yangzhou on a large scale. Fengyu asked those experienced elders for their help. Yangzhou’s finances were already prosperous, so Silver Coin could be provided. Many of the elders who were willing to assist didn’t need Silver, only als for their families.
Fengyu considered providing three als a day too difficult and downgraded to offering one al. Even so, many elders volunteered to help. So elders with grain reserves at ho neither asked for a cent nor held back their expertise; they used their experience to aid Fengyu.
Once soone entered a quarantine zone, they couldn’t leave. Xie Xun only entrusted Fengyu with overseeing the food and dicine resources. Faced with many considerations, he compromised and no longer insisted that Fengyu stay exclusively within the State Mansion. However, Fengyu herself never stepped beyond the periter, relying instead on Housekeeper Su to gather statistics, inform her of specific needs, and manage coordination. She refrained from entering the quarantine zone.
The only one who entered and left the quarantine zone was Xie Xun.
Even Xie Xun had to change all his clothes each ti he left the quarantine zone. Singlehandedly, he stabilized Yangzhou City, ensuring compliance with his allocations. His invocation of solidarity—"share in the hardships"—deeply touched Yangzhou’s people. His words were eloquent, but his actions had to match his rhetoric; therefore, Xie Xun visited the quarantine zone daily.
The situation within Yangzhou City steadily improved. In the first three days of the quarantine zones, nearly five hundred people died each day. Corpses couldn’t be left inside the city; the soldiers hauled them all outside and burned them in one massive fire. The infected citizens were beset with panic, fearing their turn would co. The good news was that by the third day, many people began recovering, their fevers subsiding, with rashes and coughs gradually improving. This news greatly restored confidence among the disaster victims. Fengyu ordered Housekeeper Su to divide the quarantine zone’s recovered patients from the infected patients, ensuring they received separate treatnts, and those with milder symptoms no longer needed dicine.
Under unified control, food beca Yangzhou’s most pressing need.
Li Yong’s requests for aid from neighboring states and districts vanished without a trace, as those regions were also suffering from food shortages and epidemics, unable to lend a hand. Fengyu returned the batch of grain that had been shipped out from Yangzhou back to the city. This decision weighed heavily on Xie Xun. The Twelve States were also in dire need of grain, and the winter ahead would be difficult. Cities were sealed off due to heavy snow; this grain was life-saving for Jiaozhou. Jiaozhou also had epidemics, though they were under good control. Xue Yu wrote that Jiaozhou City had only about a hundred cases of the disease, all of which were successfully contained.
Xie Xun had learned of the epidemic relatively early on; Yangzhou was indeed the point of outbreak, and it would take ti for the disease to spread to other regions. The Ningzhou Iron Cavalry returned to Jiaozhou via the Bei River, bringing news of Yangzhou’s epidemic. Xue Yu had closed off the city gates but set up tents outside the city. Each tent was equipped with warm clothing, and disaster victims lived outside the city gates. Each tent housed a single family, and the tents were spaced ten ters apart.
The State Mansion had personnel registering the disaster victims. Only those who had lived in the tents without showing symptoms for three days were granted entry into Jiaozhou City, thus preventing the epidemic from infiltrating Jiaozhou.
Those infected with the disease were isolated as families. Jiaozhou, situated near the Bei River, had suffered from epidemics before. Many elders among the staff were highly experienced, and as a result, the epidemic did not spread across the Twelve States but remained contained within Jiaozhou.
Having received this batch of grain only to send it back again, Xue Yu felt very conflicted. Nonetheless, he added so grain and also arranged for Jinzhou to send additional grain to Yangzhou.
Zhongzhou and Jiaozhou adopted similar asures: sealing off their city gates while receiving refugees outside. Zhongzhou had tens of thousands of stationed troops, so General Chen Ming didn’t dare risk letting civilians into the city. Regardless of whether they were sick or healthy, all were housed outside the city; military resources were centrally managed for relief efforts.
An epidemic had spread in Zhongzhou City as well, but it remained relatively controlled, without a large-scale outbreak.
Reviews
All reviews (0)