Chapter 1885 - Plague War (Part 4)
Liu Deshan was so frightened he jumped. He had never seen an Elder so furious. He fell to his knees with a thud, his voice trembling: "This humble one deserves death! It was all because I was greedy for a few coins..."
Lin Motian thought of how Guangzhou's plague might well have been imported through this merchant's smuggled furs, and his anger flared: "You fool! Your death wouldn't be enough to pay for it! You're about to drag down the entire population of Guangzhou to die with you!"
Liu Deshan's whole body shook like chaff. Though he didn't quite understand what was happening, it was clear that privately trading furs had violated a major taboo of the Elders' Council.
Lin Motian had no patience for continued haggling. He instructed a health police officer to interrogate him: Which merchants and individuals had he sold imported furs to? Who had he been in contact with recently...
"Get every last detail out of him," Lin Motian said viciously. "If he's uncooperative, bring veterans from the Interrogation Section for thorough torture! Don't miss a single word!"
With that, he left the kneeling, begging Liu Deshan behind and strode out of the interrogation room, ordering the Epidemic Prevention Battalion to immediately dispatch people to the harbor to impound the Dongshan Ju vessel.
"Tow the ship to the quarantine anchorage at Changzhou Island. Personnel aboard go to the isolation camp on the island. Don't touch anything on the ship."
"Yes!"
"Catch a few rats from the ship—dead or alive, both fine. Ensure proper isolation and disinfection protocols!"
Since private fur buyers were mainly European merchants, and by regulation foreign merchants couldn't trade in Guangzhou but only in Hong Kong, they couldn't possibly have purchased uninspected furs. The leak primarily came from Macau. The Portuguese in Macau maintained long-standing, intricate relationships with Guangdong merchants, making them the most likely smuggling conduit.
At Lin Motian's request, Liu Xiang ordered closure of the border gate, suspending all trade with the Portuguese. He also ordered a blockade of the Pearl River estuary, strictly forbidding Portuguese ships from entering or leaving Macau.
"Effective immediately, personnel movement between both sides is prohibited. Only Portuguese purchasing food and daily necessities at the border gate will be allowed. All Macau vessels are forbidden to leave port. Any newly arriving Portuguese ships must divert to Hong Kong."
After Liu Xiang signed the order, he sighed: "Now we'll be famous. Within a few months, everyone from Hirado to Batavia will know Guangzhou is experiencing a plague outbreak. Skyler is going to throw a fit..."
"At a time like this, who's discussing economic issues," Lin Motian said. He was quite displeased with Skyler—if not for his "Wealth of Nations" attitude, they wouldn't have been importing furs from Liaodong in the first place. Now they'd made plenty of silver, but plague had arrived along with it.
"So be it then," Liu Xiang said, suddenly feeling the strange displacement of being superseded. Guangzhou city now seemed to operate on Lin Motian's word as law. Everything revolved around epidemic prevention; all other matters had been set aside. Elders and naturalized cadres seeking consultation went directly to Lin Motian.
Lin Motian had no time to understand how Mayor Liu felt. He simply kept issuing orders, with commands and documents flowing continuously from the Municipal Government's Epidemic Prevention Office, rapidly transmitted throughout the entire city.
Neighbors initially assumed the proprietor and staff of Xingfu and Liu Deshan had been caught up in some "rebellion" case and arrested by the Australians. But then personnel wearing long white isolation suits and thick masks appeared to post seals and spray medicine in the shops and homes, immediately arousing public panic. As regulations and announcements poured out one after another, news that an epidemic was spreading in Guangzhou raced through the city.
Though the streets weren't under martial law, the nighttime curfew had been restored. Significantly more police and National Army soldiers patrolled the streets, all wearing thick white face masks without exception. Regulations had been established for reporting illness and death, sanitation measures were being enforced more strictly, a "Rat Extermination Campaign" had been launched urging every household to submit one dead rat per day...
Once the word "epidemic" spread, wealthy households began relocating to their country estates. Lin Motian had originally ordered police to closely monitor population flow changes in and out of the city, prepared to immediately activate the martial law order if large-scale exodus appeared. However, since no explosive outbreak of infection and death had occurred, no immediate signs of mass flight emerged. Within the city, households were all boiling vinegar, burning charcoal, and smoking mugwort, filling Guangzhou with a haze of smoke.
Quarantine Inspector Huo Junming donned his red armband and large mask, then began the day's patrol with Zhao Gui.
He was of local military household origin, with even a minor "minor banner commander" title attached to his name. At seventeen, he had already been serving as a soldier in the camp forces. When the Australians arrived, he had muddled along with the commanders in "surrendering to the Song."
After surrendering, back pay for many years was immediately distributed, not a single coin short. The brothers in the camp were overjoyed, all declaring the Elders' Council truly generous. But the good times barely lasted a few days before orders came down that everyone was to pack up and board ships—no exceptions allowed. Several hundred Fubo Army soldiers with bayoneted rifles stood watching menacingly.
Everyone assumed they were being loaded onto ships for combat. They all wept miserably. Unexpectedly, shortly after setting out to sea, they docked and disembarked. The place—somewhere in the Lingding Ocean, apparently—was called "Hong Kong" according to the sailors.
As a Guangzhou native, "Hong Kong" had been a household name these past few years. Supposedly foreign ships from both East and West all went there to trade, and the Australians had built a fortress there, filled with mountains of gold and seas of silver...
But that was just talk, because no one around him had ever been to Hong Kong. Despite being lifelong Guangzhou residents, most of them had never even been to Humen.
Hong Kong had no mountains of gold or seas of silver. Before the massive Hong Kong fortress stood only enormous cargo yards and towering cranes belching black smoke and white steam. Ships filled the harbor like clouds, giving the soldiers their first glimpse of modern port operations—truly an eye-opening experience.
Upon reaching Hong Kong, Huo Junming naturally received the "purification" treatment, followed by "training." First, officers and soldiers were separated: officers in one group, soldiers in another, personal guards and household retainers in yet another. Then came the culling of the old and weak—the elderly, sick, and disabled were all separately housed in an "accommodation unit." Those willing to return home to make their own way received severance pay and could take transport ships between the province and Hong Kong back to Guangzhou at their leisure. Those with nowhere to go were taken in and settled by the Hong Kong Agricultural Reclamation Battalion.
After culling the old and weak came the "root digging" phase, which mainly involved "settling accounts" for the "historical issues" of officers and veteran ruffians. Though considering future defector recruitment needs, aside from a handful of egregious criminals hanged at the soldiers' strong demand, most managed to keep their lives. But they had been terrified senseless by the violent mass movement and firmly insisted on "laying down arms and returning to the fields." They were subsequently dispersed and resettled in Hainan Island, Taiwan, and Jeju Island.
As reward for the Elders' Council's magnanimity and their abandoning darkness for light, they were allowed to retain their property. Immovable property and shares that couldn't be transported were purchased by the Enterprise Planning Bureau.
Lower and middle-ranking officers and soldiers who hadn't aroused popular anger were given a choice: those willing to continue military service stayed at the Hong Kong Training Detachment for continued training; those unwilling either received severance or were resettled as immigrants.
Huo Junming originally didn't want to remain a soldier. His family was in Guangzhou, and he wanted to take his severance and go home. But then he thought that going home meant no prospects. He had been a soldier since seventeen—seven or eight years as a common grunt—and knew nothing else. Going home, he couldn't even get hired as a shop assistant; shops all wanted people apprenticed from childhood. Unless he went to the docks to carry loads and work as a coolie. Better to stay with the Australians. Fighting was dangerous, but the Australians were famously formidable in battle—perhaps one fight would earn him a future.
But fighting didn't come his way. Instead, he was loaded back onto ships and returned to Guangzhou. Off the ships, they didn't enter the city but first trained at the old Drill Camp of the Guerrilla Commander. Only then did he learn he had joined something called the "National Army Epidemic Prevention Battalion."
He originally didn't know characters, but a few months of training and literacy classes meant he could more or less read newspapers and such. He knew those three characters for "National Army"—the instructors had covered it in the lesson on "The Armed Forces of the Elders' Council," explaining that the National Army was a force under the Elders' Council's command, with functions similar to the old "militia squad" in the yamen. But what "Epidemic Prevention Battalion" meant, he completely didn't understand.
Not until "Dr. Lin" taught them lessons did Huo Junming learn what "epidemic prevention" meant. That night, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He thought about how this corpse-carrying work used to be done by beggars, so why were they suddenly doing it? Several thousand vagrants waited at the ready in Guandi Temple—why not use them instead of "respectable people" like themselves? These Australians were truly muddleheaded!
Some training together were crying; some lay in bed staring wordlessly at the ceiling; some wiped tears and entrusted their comrades with their "orphans"...
Huo Junming tossed and turned all night without sleep. The next morning his eyelids were swollen. During roll call, three had reportedly run away. He was calculating whether to run himself when these three were brought back at lunchtime. Trussed up with their arms behind their backs, they were dumped in a corner.
Now things became serious. During training, people had run away before, but back then they were still personnel awaiting assignment, and getting caught just meant crouching in a dark room eating leftovers for a few days. Now that they were in the Epidemic Prevention Battalion, they had formally enlisted in the Song military. Running now meant becoming a "deserter."
The three unlucky souls were first dragged to the parade ground by the "guards" and beaten savagely in front of everyone. Then they were declared "expelled from military service," sentenced to "three years of hard labor in the mines," and suffered "forfeiture of military pay." The final item made everyone's calves tremble: "Entire family exiled to the miasmatic lands of Taiwan"—the Epidemic Prevention Battalion's soldiers were all of Guangzhou local military household origin.
Now Huo Junming didn't dare think about "escape" ever again. He could only obediently attend classes. Since it concerned his own life, no one dared slack off—and besides, the Australians had a renowned reputation for "miraculous effectiveness" in medicine, which also increased their confidence in learning.
Because Lin Motian's training class lasted only one week, and Epidemic Prevention Battalion members had extremely low education levels, teaching focused on basic identification of plague and other epidemic symptoms and cases, along with corresponding protective measures and prevention methods. The principle was: simple, easy to remember, executable.
Author's Note: Tomorrow's update will be Section 4 of "Volume 7: Liangguang Campaign." Please pay attention to volume divisions.
(End of Chapter)