Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 69 Offering Medicine
In this battle, 54 soldiers of the Yingtian Ming army were killed and more than 170 were injured.

Compared with the total strength of both sides, this number of casualties is really nothing, but if we only count the number of defenders who participated in the battle that night, the casualty rate is close to half.

Wei Liaozi said: If you can kill half of them, your power will be spread throughout the country; if you kill thirteen, your power will be spread among the princes; if you kill eleven, you can command the soldiers.

It can be imagined that after the baptism of this battle, although the Ming army stationed near Yaofangmen could not be considered truly elite due to their skills and coordination, they already had the shadow of a powerful army of the time in terms of fighting will.

This is naturally good news for Zhu Cilang, but
"How brave!"

As soon as he entered the camp, Zhu Cilang heard bursts of wailing.

This was within his expectations and he did not take it too seriously. But when he saw a wounded soldier with a large gash on his abdomen being held by several people and shaken, he could not help himself.

He knew that soldiers were not valued in those days, and he also knew that among the more than 170 wounded soldiers, perhaps only 30% or 20% would survive.

But he really didn't expect that someone would dare to bully them so soon after the battle.

"Someone, come here! Take down these filthy bastards!"

"Sir, calm down! Sir. Ouch!"

Zhu Cilang turned his head and saw a white-bearded old man in a long green cloth gown sitting on the ground. Judging from his movement, he must have slipped on the blood and mud on the ground.

"Are you the medical officer in charge of this place?"

Normally, when an old man like this fell to the ground, Zhu Cilang should wait until he stood up before attacking him. However, seeing the situation in the wounded camp, Zhu Cilang wanted to stab him with his bare hands, so how could he have a good expression?

"Your Excellency, I am not a medical officer. I just heard that the Tartars were attacking the city, so I brought my apprentice here."

The old man seemed to have fallen quite hard, and even with someone supporting him it took him several tries before he could successfully get up.

However, his pitiful appearance did not gain any sympathy, and the words that came out of the mouth of that "adult" became even more harsh.

"Come here? Come here to kill people?"

"Why do you say this, sir?"

Seeing that he was still trying to argue, Zhu Cilang raised his finger and pointed at the wounded soldier with a ruptured stomach.

He had already made up his mind. Even if those men had put the wounded soldier down, as long as the old man dared to argue, he would let him know what "the prince's anger" meant.

"His intestines are sticking out. If we don't use this method to put them back in place, he won't survive even if the wound heals."

seem
like
probably
Makes sense.

If the intestines are knotted, it means that one cannot eat or defecate. Even a good person would not be able to survive for long, let alone someone who is seriously injured.

When he turned his head again, he saw that the wounded soldier's face was full of pain, but he did not show any resentment at all.

"I don't know much about medicine, so I hope you can forgive me."

Zhu Cilang bowed and saluted the old man as he spoke. The old man was somewhat indignant at first, but when he heard the word "this palace", he immediately knelt down.

God have mercy on me. The old man has been practicing medicine in Yingtian City for many years and has seen many nobles. But he never thought that the thin young man who was apologizing to him was the one who led them to repel the Tartar Prince.

"I, Zheng Shanqing, didn't know that Your Highness had come. I will die! I will die!"

After some tugging, the old man finally stood up, and Zhu Cilang finally had the opportunity to ask about the condition of the wounded.

At this time, there were more than 150 wounded soldiers in the camp. Except for the twenty or so who returned to the camp after simple bandages, the rest were all seriously injured.

People like Li Chaodong are just hanging on to their last breath, waiting to be coffined and buried as soon as they die.

"Is there no other way?" Zhu Cilang asked weakly.

As an eyewitness of this battle, he knew very well how vicious those Tartars were.

Most of those injured by them did not die on the spot, but the wounds on their bodies were unexpectedly large.

In this way, if the wounded are treated a little later, they will die from excessive blood loss. However, if more manpower is allocated to treat them, not only will the pressure on the Tartars be much less, but the wounded may also die from the subsequent infection.

As a latecomer, he also knows how terrible infection is in this era.

It is no exaggeration to say that the only reason why the golden juice can become a very powerful weapon for defending the city is that it can turn every wound on the soldier's body into a deadly weapon. "Your Highness, their injuries are too severe. Even if they survive this test, I am afraid they will not be able to survive the evil spirit entering their bodies."

Zheng Shanqing's answer confirmed his guess.

Zhu Cilang also knew that he could do nothing about the current situation, so he nodded.

"Sir, just do your best. Just use whatever you need. Don't be stingy with money. The lives of the soldiers are what I value most."

To those who don't know the depth of the situation, this sentence may seem like just a courtesy from a superior, but if you think about it carefully, you can see that Zhu Cilang is expressing his determination.

Do not underestimate such determination. The attention of the superiors will probably attract the attention of the implementers, and perhaps a wounded soldier will be saved because of the attention.

Having said this, Zhu Cilang was about to end the conversation and go check on the wounded soldiers whose lives were hanging by a thread, but when he was about to turn around, he saw Doctor Zheng kneeling down again.

"Your Highness, I have..."

"Master!"

What? Any grievances?
Looking at Zheng Shanqing kneeling on the ground and his apprentice who tried to stop them, Zhu Cilang's first reaction was that they might have been treated unfairly.

He just happened to need some.
"Tell me in detail what grievance you have, and I will definitely make the decision for you."

"Your Highness, I have no grievances," Zheng Shanqing opened his mouth and his disciple seemed to want to stop him. After he tried a few times and found that he could not break free from his disciple's hand, he fortunately stopped trying and said directly to Zhu Cilang, "I have a medicine in my hand, which may help you resist the evil entering your body!"

Hearing this, Zhu Cilang couldn't help but feel puzzled.

If this medicine is effective, it would be a great achievement. Why would his disciple try to stop him?

But if it is ineffective, why would Zheng Shanqing insist on donating the medicine?
"Tell me in detail."

"Yes."

In his early years, Zheng Shanqing learned the method of making a medicine from a monk in Changzhou. The medicine was called "aged mustard greens marinade" and was said to be able to resist evil spirits from entering the body.

After that, he spent several years producing a large amount of this medicine. However, during use, this medicine not only sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, but also caused several patients to die.

If there were no patients who were saved by this medicine, Zheng Shanqing might have been convicted of being a quack doctor causing death.

Therefore, the old mustard greens marinade was sealed by him, and his apprentice tried his best to stop the master from using this medicine again.

"What symptoms do people who died from this drug have?"

When Zheng Shanqing heard Zhu Cilang's question, he was stunned for a moment, as if he was extremely surprised.

But on second thought, since His Highness asked, there was nothing to hide, so I told him all the symptoms without hiding anything: "cold sweats, difficulty breathing, convulsions."

Zhu Cilang was stunned.

Several book friends have raised questions about the aged mustard greens marinade, so I’ll talk about it here as an additional explanation.

1. This medicine comes from "Compendium of Materia Medica" and was once circulated in Changzhou. Its efficacy has been described in the text, so I will not repeat it.

Taking into account the distance between Changzhou and Nanjing and the difficulty of making aged mustard greens marinade, the author believes that this is not considered a golden finger.

2. This medicine is for drinking, not for injection.

3. The allergic reaction to penicillin is mainly because its chemical bonds are easily broken and has nothing to do with whether it is purified.

4. Aged mustard greens marinade cannot be regarded as penicillin in the modern sense, but I agree with the encyclopedia's definition of it as a penicillin drug discovered in ancient China, because judging from its production process and efficacy, it undoubtedly contains a certain concentration of penicillin.

5. It is natural that Fleming discovered the compound penicillin, but this does not mean that ancient China did not use drugs containing penicillin.

This point needs to be distinguished.

In addition, I don’t have too many requirements for my books, just one thing: the people, objects, and events that appear must stand up to scrutiny and must be reasonable.

I will never use the inexplicable golden finger.

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(End of this chapter)