Chapter Seventy: Before the War (Part 2)

But then came a string of bad news. First, the Gaoguang Shipping Company under the Qiwei Escort Agency was seized, and all of its more than twenty two-masted ships were commandeered by the government. This was not just a matter of losing ships. The Gaoguang Shipping Company operated a regular route between Lingao and Guangzhou, which was the preferred mode of transportation for many small merchants who came to Lingao to purchase goods, and it was also the main transport route between Lingao and Qiongshan and the Pearl River Delta.

Then came the news that Tang Yunwen was intercepting civilian ships near the Haikou Thousand-Household Post and not allowing them to enter the Qiongzhou Strait. Subsequently, a ban was issued prohibiting all ships from sailing to Lingao. Not only was the channel for importing materials from the Pearl River Delta cut off, but even the outward shipment of coking coal from the Jiazi Coal Mine was completely interrupted.

“Fortunately, it’s only the source of coking coal that’s gone,” Wu De knew that coking coal was not an urgent material—there was still no sign of iron ore—but rather, coal for chemical and power use was the main priority. The latter was transported from Vietnam and Leizhou. Tang Yunwen’s order to blockade the Qiongzhou Strait was only half-hearted—his ships and men were only enough to blockade the eastern entrance of the strait. He couldn’t control the western entrance, and he was even more unwilling to manage the affairs inside the strait.

The navy said that it would be a piece of cake to break Tang Yunwen’s maritime blockade—it would be a simple matter to immediately destroy the old nest of the Baisha naval base. As long as He Ming gave the order, the fleet would set off immediately. After careful consideration, He Ming felt that it would be inappropriate to display the Transmigration Group’s great power at sea at this time. If the Ming army was scared out of its wits and simply didn’t come, wouldn’t it be a waste of effort? In the end, he decided not to break Tang Yunwen’s maritime blockade for the time being—after the Guangzhou station and the Gaoguang Shipping Company were seized one after another, trade with the Pearl River Delta became stagnant. Many merchants temporarily stopped their plans to buy and sell goods in Lingao and were in a wait-and-see mode. The trade volume also dropped sharply, and this transportation line became temporarily less important.

Shi Niaoren was exhausted when he returned to his office—this full-scale military training was simply killing him. Shi Niaoren’s physical strength was actually very good, but the health department had been too busy recently, and he hadn’t slept for a full six hours for several days.

The health department was short of staff, and even the native nurses were not enough. Some had gone to Sanya, and the rest not only had to be responsible for basic health care, but also had to step up the training of native medical personnel. Shi Niaoren was so busy that his feet barely touched the ground, and yesterday Ma Qianzhu had called him again, asking him to come up with an implementation plan for medical support for the anti-encirclement campaign.

He had already formulated this plan long ago, and had constantly revised it according to the changes in his own conditions. He then talked about the specific implementation measures, including the organization of military health care, the establishment of a battlefield dressing and evacuation system, and the opening of a field hospital.

He planned to provide medical support in two stages. The first stage would be handled by the military medics, who were now initially guaranteed to have one per company. The conscripted militia and accompanying laborers did not yet have medics.

“The medic crash course is still ongoing. It will take another month to fully equip them.”

The medics were responsible for the basic health and hygiene of the army on a daily basis. During combat, they would command the militia stretcher bearers to collect the wounded. The wounded would first be debrided and bandaged at the front-line dressing station, and at the same time, they would be classified according to the severity of their injuries. Treatment and evacuation would be carried out according to different conditions.

Because the overall personnel of the health department was limited and the transportation capacity was weak, a three-level evacuation system was not adopted. The field hospital was directly established at the location of the field army headquarters. The wounded who had been treated at the dressing station would be carried on stretchers or walk to the field hospital to receive further treatment.

“Of course, in the end, they still have to be sent back to Lingao—after all, Lingao has complete facilities, and it’s easy to mobilize medicines. Our Ministry of Health plans to open a hospital in Maniao as a military hospital,” Shi Niaoren said. “The scale is three hundred beds. In addition to treatment, it will also be used for rehabilitation.” He added, “It’s just that there aren’t enough medical staff.”

“The number of beds is too small,” Ma Qianzhu commented.

Three hundred beds is not enough? Shi Niaoren was a little surprised. According to his estimation, the army’s casualties would be at most one or two hundred. Three hundred beds were already prepared considering the future expansion of the army.

“Let’s put it this way, the focus of the health work in this operation is how to treat the Ming prisoners of war,” Ma Qianzhu said. “Save as many people as possible. Understand? They came all the way to Hainan Island by boat and were wounded by us. As long as they are not hopeless, we should try our best to save them. It doesn’t matter if they are disabled. They can still work even if they are missing an arm or a leg—we are short of people!”

Shi Niaoren suddenly realized that this was what he meant by not enough beds. However, he had indeed not thought about the treatment of prisoners. He thought for a moment and asked:

“I really can’t estimate this. How is the combat effectiveness of the Ming army? Will they collapse at the first touch or will they fight us to the death? The difference here is very big, and it’s difficult to estimate how many wounded we need to treat.”

“According to He Ming’s estimate, we will probably be able to capture more than 12,000 prisoners in the end. There shouldn’t be too many wounded, but there will always be more than a thousand lightly and seriously wounded. We mainly use firearms, so it is estimated that the seriously wounded will not survive. You should mainly consider the lightly wounded.”

“Okay, then I’ll go back and specifically work out a treatment plan for the wounded prisoners.”

“You have to discuss this with Yang He. He is preparing to set up a prisoner of war camp to accommodate the prisoners. Even if there are not many wounded, the purification and health care of so many prisoners is a big task. Everything has to be prepared in advance.”

“Okay.” Shi Niaoren just nodded. Of course, he didn’t have time to talk to Yang He. This matter could be handed over to He Ping, the office director of the Ministry of Health. “Where is the prisoner of war camp?”

“It’s also in Maniao,” Ma Qianzhu said. “The Maniao Peninsula is now our forward base. He Ming has moved his headquarters there.”

It seems we need to send people to Maniao quickly, Shi Niaoren thought. Not only to handle the prisoner of war camp and the field hospital, but also because thousands of troops have already gathered there, and the laborers and militia conscripted from the county are still pouring in. With tens of thousands of people eating, drinking, and defecating in such a place, and the weather being hot, it was a critical moment for epidemic prevention.

A few sets of water purification equipment must be installed, otherwise with tens of thousands of troops gathered in Maniao without clean drinking water, an epidemic of enteritis or even cholera would soon break out. Since Director-General Ma said that Maniao would be a base, Shi Niaoren thought, it would be better to directly install a large-scale fixed water purification system.

He also thought that the medical student training class would not graduate for another two months. He wondered if they could catch up with this campaign. Regardless of whether they could or not, Shi Niaoren decided to pull all the intern medical students and nursing students to Maniao at that time and adopt a policy of replacing study with actual combat.

All the traditional Chinese medicine doctors in Lingao have now been gathered. A few can be selected to serve in Maniao.

…

Shi Niaoren was originally a little sleepy, but after thinking about things, his spirits revived. He considered it again and again and felt that it was better to let He Ping not come back and hand over all the affairs in Maniao to him. He Ping would be responsible for all the health coordination work for this operation. Although he did not know medicine, he was familiar with the situation and work flow of the Ministry of Health, which would make coordination more convenient.

While he was thinking about this, Zhao Yanmei came to him to discuss the production expansion plan of the pharmaceutical factory.

In terms of medicine, the Ministry of Health had a fairly sufficient inventory. Since the coal chemical plant went into production, the supply of crude sulfa drugs had gradually become stable. The pharmaceutical factory used crude sulfa drugs as raw materials to further purify and process them into oral preparations and external anti-inflammatory powder. The local production of kasugamycin and oxytetracycline had also taken initial shape, which provided a preliminary guarantee for the supply of the most important antibiotics.

Because of the war, Zhao Yanmei’s intention was to shift a considerable part of the factory’s production capacity to the manufacture of medical equipment and first-aid medicines. The demand for surgical first-aid supplies such as absorbent cotton, gauze, tourniquets, bandages, and splints would be very large. The reserves of alcohol, disinfectants, and saline must also be increased.

“Although these things are easy to make, they are consumed in large quantities. Without a certain reserve, there will be a shortage when the time comes,” Zhao Yanmei said. “We must prepare at least according to the standard of treating three thousand enemy and friendly casualties, and there are also the first-aid kits for the expanded troops—which is also a very large number.”

“What is the current holdings of the troops? How much is in stock?”

“The army’s holdings of first-aid kits are about ten thousand. We ourselves have less than a thousand in stock,” Zhao Yanmei said. “In fact, some of the first-aid kits were made in the early days and are not up to standard. They have been around for a long time, so it’s best to recycle and dispose of them.”

This was really too little. Shi Niaoren had not been a soldier, but he still knew math: this meant that each soldier in the army could only have two.

“He Ming told me that first-aid kits are used up very quickly. The matter of scrapping and recycling has to be postponed until after the war. I will notify the army to give priority to using new products. The old ones can be kept for emergencies.”

“Alright,” Zhao Yanmei nodded. “My documents for adjusting production capacity and applying for raw materials—”

“You can decide how to arrange production. You don’t need to go through me for everything anymore,” he said, signing the documents Zhao Yanmei had sent over—she had also applied for many materials and raw materials controlled by the Planning Institute.

Zhao Yanmei was very happy to receive the full authorization of the minister. She originally had many ideas about the production of the pharmaceutical factory, and with his support, she felt much more motivated.

“There is one more thing. This is the latest version of the medic’s medicine box,” she placed the medicine box she had brought with her on the table. “Do you see anything else that needs to be added? If there are no problems, I will instruct them to mass-produce the finished product.”

Shi Niaoren opened this medicine box with reinforced corners—this was the box used by medics, which emphasized portability, so it was no longer made of wood, but of multiple layers of old cowhide or horse and donkey hide. The inside was scientifically divided, and various items were sorted into categories: a wooden stethoscope, simple surgical instruments, disinfectants, first-aid medicines, antibiotics, and dressings. All of them were manufactured by the Ministry of Health’s pharmaceutical factory. No wonder Zhao Yanmei had a proud look on her face when she showed it to him.

Compared to the first batch of medicine boxes for nurses two years ago, which had almost no medicine except for alcohol, a stethoscope, dressings, and a few locally made traditional Chinese medicines, this one now even had painkillers and antibiotics.

“With this, a medic is a divine doctor in this era,” Shi Niaoren said, half-joking and half-lamenting.

“It’s just that there are no syringes—if there were syringes, it would be complete.”

“Soon. Although rolling needles is a technical job, it’s not high-tech after all. It will definitely be mass-produced after the war,” Shi Niaoren checked the medicines inside one by one and thought that some medicines for common diseases should be added.

“We should prepare more effective traditional Chinese medicines like Zhuge’s marching powder. Medics can’t just think about wartime. Soldiers also have headaches and fevers in their daily lives.”

After finishing their discussion, just as Zhao Yanmei was about to leave, Shi Niaoren stopped her: “I need to borrow your husband for a few days for a business trip.”

Zhao Yanmei became nervous: “Is he going to the mainland?”

“Of course not. I want him to be the representative of the Ministry of Health to inspect the base in Maniao.”

“Then you can just send him. We are not a newlywed couple. We don’t have to be together every day,” Zhao Yanmei said with a smile. After she left, she immediately rode her electric scooter back to the pharmaceutical factory—there was a pile of things waiting for her at the factory.

The pharmaceutical factory had trial-produced a batch of new drugs for the war, and she had used up all the opium purchased from Macau. In the past, she had used this batch of opium to make cough syrup, painkillers, and astringents for diarrhea, which were very popular with all parties. This time, for the sake of the war, she had refined most of the remaining opium into morphine hydrochloride and made it into injections. In order to make it easier for medics without syringes to use, she also made oral painkillers with opium.

But she was very worried about making morphine. Its addictive properties were much stronger than the coca leaves and opium preparations currently used by the Ministry of Health, and this drug would be distributed in the medics’ medicine boxes—she was very doubtful whether these hastily trained medics could recognize the terribleness of this drug.

She had been in this time and space for a long time and understood that the lack of doctors and medicine in this time and space was astonishing. Although there was a Runshitang pharmacy in the county town, and there were a few herbalists in the whole county, the vast majority of people had no doctor or medicine when they were sick, which formed a situation of believing in witch doctors. All kinds of witch doctors used a single panacea to treat all kinds of diseases. Therefore, drugs like opium and morphine, which had a quick effect, were easily abused as a panacea.

Zhao Yanmei was really not sure whether the medics could realize the potential harm of the drugs in their hands.

The factory was very lively. In order to expand production, not only were formal workers added, but also many women were transferred from various villages and communes as temporary labor. Under the newly built mat sheds, pots of cotton were being degreased with caustic soda. The smell was very strong. The female workers wore masks and constantly scooped out the cooked cotton, rinsed it in clean water, and then dried it.

The degreased and dried cotton and rolls of gauze from the textile factory were then taken to the disinfection workshop for disinfection and packaging. Some dressing materials did not need to be disinfected. They were washed and rinsed with soapy water in the mat shed and then directly dried in the courtyard. The racks were full of bandages and triangular bandages, fluttering in the sun.

When the female workers saw her coming in, they all stood up respectfully. They had not been in the factory for long and were amazed that a young wife like Zhao Yanmei was in charge of such a large pharmacy that could produce so many “divine medicines.” Seeing her riding a machine mule and rushing over, the female workers stretched their necks as if they were watching a peep show.

Zhao Yanmei was already accustomed to such onlookers. She smelled the pungent smell in the courtyard and frowned slightly. This dressing workshop had to be expanded. Open-air production was both unhygienic and highly polluting.

She asked a technician in charge of production on the spot. The technician said that there were no technical problems in production, but the raw materials were intermittent, especially the supply of cotton was tight. If production continued at this rate, the production of absorbent cotton would have to be stopped.

“Didn’t the Planning Institute approve the cotton quota?” Zhao Yanmei was puzzled.

The technician shook his head. Zhao Yanmei thought that the technician was only in charge of production and knew nothing about material allocation. She quickly returned to her office.

On her desk were several new medicines that had been recently trial-produced, including atropine injection for first aid, and a new ginseng injection—it was said to have an excellent effect on the recovery and regeneration of the wounded, but unfortunately, the pharmaceutical factory did not have much reserve of ginseng. The ginseng was borrowed from Runshitang. Liu San’s traditional Chinese medicine factory also provided several new traditional Chinese medicines, all of which were drugs for stopping bleeding and removing blood stasis. In particular, there was a kind of golden sore medicine, which was said to be a formula copied from an ancient book. Liu San himself did not know if it was really that magical, but he still produced a batch to be tested on the battlefield.

Zhao Yanmei didn’t have time to look closely. She instructed her secretary to be called and asked about the material allocation situation. Only then did she find out that the cotton quota allocated by the Planning Institute was not only for making absorbent cotton, but also for making gauze. Gauze, triangular bandages, and bandages were all commissioned to the textile factory for production.

“Minister Mo said that the textile factory needs a cotton quota to produce these orders, otherwise they won’t have any cotton either.”

“Is the cotton supply that tight?” Zhao Yanmei was a little surprised. Although the Transmigrationists did not grow cotton themselves, the scattered cotton planting on the island was not too little. One of the main products exported from the Li area was cotton, and most of the Transmigration Group’s cotton cloth was imported, so they did not need much cotton. The textile factory used cotton to spin yarn mainly to produce various knitted cotton products, and the demand for cotton itself was not very large.

“There is also not enough chemical disinfectant,” the secretary reported.

“Okay, you first make a list of the scarce materials that are affecting production, and I will solve them one by one,” Zhao Yanmei thought that she had not yet checked the new terramycin fermentation tank in the workshop, so she quickly went to the workshop to check the development of the terramycin mycelium.

While Zhao Yanmei was busy, He Ping received the task of inspecting Maniao. In addition to checking hygiene, he was also responsible for opening a hospital in Maniao.

Shi Niaoren gave him the title of “Plenipotentiary Representative of the Ministry of Health.” He Ping spread his hands: “It’s good to let me be in charge of this matter, but what about the doctors? I don’t know medicine, let alone be a doctor.”