Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 507 - 458

Due to the low administrative level of Shuo Province, Li Ang traveled overnight by train to Yunzhou.

In Yunzhou, he presented his Jade Pendant to prove his identity and obtained the Nearby Worm. Using the Nearby Worm, he contacted Sacrificial Officer Chen Danqiu and Emperor Yu, Li Shun, who were far away in Chang’an.

Li Ang explained the severity of the plague, describing it as more serious than both the Han Dynasty’s great plague and the plagues of the two Jin Dynasties.

This was no exaggeration; fundamentally, the plague is a virulent infectious disease spread by the Plague Bacteria via rat fleas.

A flea carrying the disease might have only a few hundred Plague Bacteria in its body. But once it bites a human, the bacteria travel through the lymphatic vessels to reach the local lymph nodes. There, they multiply rapidly, releasing large amounts of toxins and causing acute lymph node inflammation, resulting in dense, egg-sized swellings.

This causes patients to experience chills, high fever, a sudden increase in body temperature, severe headaches, and rapid breathing.

Given the current average physical condition of Yu Country’s citizens, even with an optimistic estimate, the fatality rate would be at least fifty percent.

Subsequently, the Plague Bacteria and their endotoxins would enter the bloodstream through the lymphatic system, causing septicemia and leading to widespread bleeding under the skin.

If it invades the lungs, it causes secondary pneumonic plague.

This results in severe chest pain, coughing, coughing up bloody foam and sputum, and death from toxic shock, respiratory failure, and cardiac failure within two to three days of illness. The fatality rate approaches one hundred percent.

More fatally, patients with pneumonic plague also exhaled air carrying the Plague Bacteria, allowing the disease to spread without needing the bite of rat fleas.

Furthermore, the Plague Bacteria are quite resistant to environmental factors. They can survive in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius, live for four hours under direct sunlight, and last four to five months inside frozen corpses. In dry sputum, they might even last for several weeks to a year.

Every wild mammal parasitized by rat fleas, every animal carcass, every person infected with the plague—including their clothes, used items, coughed-up phlegm, and even the air they exhale—are sources of disease transmission.

With Li Ang’s strenuous persuasion, late that night, a train loaded with thousands of soldiers, a hundred Doctors, and various supplies arrived in Shuo Province. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Li Ang, along with Qiu Feng and Ouyang Shi, dissected many mice corpses in Shuo Province overnight, confirming the presence of Plague Bacteria in the bodies of the mice.

The results were dire. If the mice in Shuo Province carried no Plague Bacteria, it would mean the current epidemic was primarily pneumonic plague, and controlling the infected human patients would suffice to cut off the transmission route.

However, finding Plague Bacteria in the mice meant that, apart from pneumonic plague patients exhaling bacteria and infecting others, there was also a more direct transmission route: bubonic plague, caused by rat flea bites on humans.

Rat fleas do not only parasitize rats; marmots, wild rabbits, wild cats, foxes, wolves, and others all fall within their range of hosts.

Shuo Province had dense forests and vast wilderness, populated by countless wild animals, along with numerous farms and villages nestled among the woodlands...

The earliest human patients were likely exposed to animals infected with the plague in the wilderness.

After the support train from Chang’an arrived, Li Ang first deployed soldiers to block the main streets of Shuo State City and regulate traffic. Large amounts of sulfur and lime were scattered across residential areas.

He divided Shuo State City into twenty zones. Residents of each zone, when leaving their homes, had to wear a color-coded badge on their shoulders. This limited them to their respective zones and prohibited cross-zone movement.

This included soldiers and Doctors as well.

Afterward, he arranged for the printing of paper leaflets, which were delivered from house to house, informing the common people of the modes of plague transmission.

He instructed every household to eradicate the rats in their homes and to report immediately if any family member started coughing or feeling unwell.

Soldiers would then come to take away the sick and disinfect and seal off the houses.

(If no one in the household could read, a soldier would read the pamphlet’s contents aloud outside the house.)

Additionally, every few days, soldiers would come to the door to deliver essential living supplies such as meat, rice, oil, firewood, and water, as well as clean cloth and masks.

The common people should avoid going out unless absolutely necessary.

Subsequently, Li Ang had Cultivators sent from Chang’an build isolation sick houses outside Shuo State City using wooden boards.

Common people showing different symptoms would be allocated to different areas of the sick houses, where Doctors in full protective gear would patrol and observe them.

Contacts of plague patients, suspected cases, and family members of the infected could end their quarantine and return home if they maintained a normal temperature for seven consecutive days.

There were also the bodies of the deceased patients.

Since the Plague Bacteria were highly adaptable to cold environments, burial was not reliable, so Li Ang had no choice but to incinerate all the bodies of the deceased patients.

Like many areas in Yu Country that value burial for the peace of the dead, Shuo Province traditionally practiced burial.

But the appalling appearance of the deceased and the rapid, aggressive spread of the disease filled even the most traditional-minded with such fear, upon seeing the piles of purple-black bodies, that they were unable to object.

"Teacher? Teacher?"

The call rang in his ears. Li Ang, who had been leaning against the wall, woke up groggily to see a worried-looking Ouyang Shi beside him.

"Did I fall asleep again?"

Li Ang yawned and accepted the hot tea from Ouyang Shi. He hadn’t had a good sleep in a long time. He had just wanted to lean against the wall to meditate for a while but had unwittingly fallen asleep standing up.

"Yes."

Ouyang Shi nodded. "Teacher, why don’t you go to bed and sleep for a while? It’s really not sustainable to keep going day and night like this."

"I’m fine."

Li Ang sipped his hot tea and shook his head to clear it. "How is the epidemic situation today?" he asked.

"Suspected cases, three hundred seventy. Confirmed cases, two hundred eighty. And the death toll... one hundred ninety-six."

Li Ang was silent for a long moment, then asked, "...And the bodies of the deceased?"

Ouyang Shi carefully gauged his expression and replied softly, "They have been incinerated."

Li Ang silently watched the tea leaves floating in his cup.

Ever since he arrived in Shuo Province and issued strategies to prevent the epidemic, the death toll had initially risen to four hundred per day. This was mostly due to latent cases accumulated during the period without preventive strategies. Then, it dropped to three hundred per day, and now, two hundred people died daily.

There was no specific cure, which meant that the only way to combat the plague at this stage was through isolation and control.

For those common people who had not yet been infected and managed to maintain good personal hygiene, they lived each day in constant, overwhelming anxiety.

And for those who were already infected, the confirmed cases... the despair they felt was beyond anyone’s comprehension.