Chapter 95: The Puji Hall

Liu San was startled. From the symptoms, this was a typical case of schistosomiasis. He had originally thought this disease was mainly prevalent in places like Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi, but he hadn’t expected to find it in Guangzhou!

Since schistosomiasis is caused by a parasitic infection, immunization is ineffective, and control relies entirely on manual prevention and treatment, which is very difficult.

The burden on our Health Department is not light, Liu San thought. In the old time and space, there were specific drugs for almost all of these infectious diseases, but in this time and space, they had almost nothing. The antibiotics they produced themselves were few in variety and low in purity, and various epidemic prevention and disinfection drugs were also insufficient.

However, he dared not show his anxiety and just continued to chat with the medical officials. His conversation with them lasted late into the night before they dispersed. Liu San instructed the General Affairs Section to let them stay in the yamen for the night and leave the next day.

After seeing off the medical officials, Liu San looked at his notebook, which was already filled with words that would be shocking to any health and epidemic prevention personnel.

He couldn’t help but feel worried. How should this public health work be carried out? He was empty-handed now, lacking both personnel and resources. Before setting out, he had received a manual with rows of numbers, corresponding to the packing boxes of special materials for the Health Department planned to be shipped to Guangzhou. By checking this manual against the daily arrival reports issued by the Great World Port Authority, he could know how many materials had arrived and how many were still on the way. This was a great help for his specific work, but he knew without checking that what he had was far from enough to deal with the situation he was facing. And the other doctor who was supposed to be sent had not even left yet, reportedly busy with the preparations for the “Provincial-Hong Kong General Hospital.”

After much thought, the only thing he could and must do now was to launch a city-wide sanitation campaign to minimize the breeding grounds and sources of infection and to eliminate intermediate hosts in large numbers. The spread of infectious diseases is closely related to environmental sanitation. Since they were powerless to “treat,” they could only start with the most basic “prevention.”

The next morning, after breakfast, he wanted to talk to Lin Baiguang, but he found that Lin Baiguung was not there. He asked his secretary and learned that Senate Member Lin had already gone to discuss the issuance of new currency and taxation with the people from the Finance and Economics Department. As soon as the government opened its doors, it needed money. Especially for Liu Xiang’s package of municipal renewal and construction projects, nothing could be done without money.

Although Liu San was anxious, he didn’t want to disturb him. He asked a retained county yamen clerk to lead the way to the Puji Hall.

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, prefectures and counties generally had government-run charitable institutions, which were responsible for “birth, old age, sickness, and death”: the Ciyou Bureau was for “birth,” specializing in raising abandoned children; the Yangji Yuan was for “old age,” specializing in caring for the lonely elderly; the Anji Fang was for “sickness,” specializing in caring for the sick and disabled; and the Louze Yuan was for “death,” specializing in burying abandoned corpses. Guangzhou’s one prefecture and two counties were no exception.

Liu San had read the materials on the takeover of institutions given to him by the Comprehensive Management Office. The government-run charitable institution in Guangzhou was called the “Puji Hall.” This Puji Hall was very large and had several sub-institutions under it: a home for the elderly who had no means of support; a Qingjie Yuan for chaste widows and their minor children who had no source of income; and a Gusimu Yuan for the blind.

Normally, charitable institutions had little to do with Liu San’s work—that was a matter for the civil affairs system. But since the people from the civil affairs department had not yet arrived, Lin Baiguang temporarily entrusted Liu San to go to the Puji Hall and the Louze Yuan to check on the situation and, by the way, inspect the sanitary conditions there.

“To be honest, I don’t trust the integrity of the people in charge of these government-run charitable institutions,” Lin Baiguang said when he handed him the materials. “The heads of these institutions are usually either private individuals brought in by the local officials or controlled by the local gentry, and they are rife with corruption. You go and take a look at the situation first, and I’ll deal with it slowly later.”

The heads of these institutions were also managed by miscellaneous officials. But compared to the medical officials who were “appointed without salary,” they were of an even lower rank, being “neither appointed nor salaried.” However, there were still considerable benefits to be had, and both local officials and the local gentry coveted these positions. Whenever a vacancy occurred, there would inevitably be a struggle.

The Puji Hall was not in the city, but outside the Great North Gate of Guangzhou, in a temple called Huanghua Temple at the northern foot of Yuexiu Mountain. This area was mostly filled with graves, public burial grounds, and mass graves. The tombs were piled up, and the area was sparsely populated. Until the Republic of China, it was a place where bandits roamed freely. Since Liu San was going, Wang Sangou sent a squad of soldiers to escort him and also dispatched five or six yamen runners familiar with the situation from the detective squad to accompany him.

After leaving the Great North Gate district, Liu San walked along the official road for a short while and felt a sense of gloom. As far as the eye could see, there were mountain tombs, cemeteries, and mass graves. There were very few houses or fields along the road, and the few that existed were dilapidated and belonged to extremely poor families. Near the Liuhua Bridge, there were quite a few houses on both sides of the road, but a closer look revealed that they were either coffin shops or so-called “temporary residences” with signs reading “So-and-so’s Temporary Residence.” Liu San knew that these were the coffins of people from other places who had died in Guangzhou. These coffins would be stored here for at least half a year, and sometimes for more than ten or even dozens of years.

Liu San knew that such temporarily stored coffins were not only here but also in the city. Many temples and guild halls had special courtyards in their backyards for storing coffins. Besides those who died far from home and were waiting for their filial sons to “bring the coffin home for burial,” it was also common for local wealthy families to temporarily store coffins in temples because they were waiting for an auspicious day or a good feng shui location for burial.

As he walked, Liu San felt a faint, intermittent stench in the air. He opened the curtain of his sedan chair and saw that the escorting yamen runners and soldiers were all covering their noses and frowning. He knew it wasn’t his imagination.

“The cremation ground of the Louze Yuan is just ahead at the Liuhua Bridge…” a yamen runner whispered. “The wind is blowing in the wrong direction right now.”

Liu San nodded, took out his personal plague-averting powder, and applied some to his nostrils, which made him feel a little more comfortable. He then distributed the powder to the others.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of dogs fighting and barking not far away. Startled, he looked in the direction of the sound and saw a pack of dogs fighting in front of an abandoned tomb just a hundred meters from the main road. A yamen runner next to the sedan chair frowned and said, “What a sin!”

Liu San immediately realized what the wild dogs were fighting over and felt a wave of nausea. He ordered, “Hurry up!”

The sedan chair bearers quickened their pace, and the group soon arrived at Huanghua Temple.

This Huanghua Temple was originally a magnificent and grand temple, but it had been abandoned for a long time. The place where Liu San got out of his sedan chair was the collapsed main gate. The gate had turned into a pile of rubble, and the broken limbs of the clay statues of the guardian deities were still clearly visible on the rubble. Although the colors had peeled off, the exquisite craftsmanship of the original decorations could still be seen.

Liu San couldn’t help but sigh silently. He bypassed the collapsed gate and entered the temple. He saw that most of the temple halls had collapsed, and the remaining ones were also dilapidated, with crooked walls and leaking roofs. The Buddha statues in the various halls had all been destroyed, and less than one-tenth of the murals and decorations on the walls remained. In the remaining halls and corridors, a few elderly people and women in rags were living in twos and threes. They were all disheveled and filthy, no different from beggars. They were neither concerned nor afraid of their arrival.

One of the halls was slightly neater; it was originally the place where the person in charge lived and worked. The accompanying yamen runners said that the person in charge here was a relative brought by Prefect Dong.

“Bring him here.”

The yamen runners brought the man. He was a short, fat man in his forties, with a sallow complexion, but he was still neatly dressed.

“This humble one, Mao Xiuyu, kowtows to the Chief.” The man immediately knelt and kowtowed.

“You may rise,” Liu San said. “Are you the manager here?”

“The manager is Master Dong. He ran away after the Heavenly Army entered the city,” Mao Xiuyu said, rising and bowing. “This humble one used to work under him. Chief, please come inside and sit.” With that, he led Liu San and his party into the building.

This building was originally a temple hall, so the ceiling was very high, and the interior was also very large. In the central room, there was a public desk and seat, and on both sides were water and fire sticks, cangues, iron chains… all the trappings of a yamen.

Mao Xiuyu led Liu San into a side room. This was probably where the person in charge lived and worked. Although the furnishings were not magnificent, they were no worse than those of a middle-class family.

“Chief, please sit,” Mao Xiuyu respectfully offered a seat and brought a bowl of tea. “Chief, you must be tired from your journey. There’s not much to offer in this desolate place…”

“I’m just here to take a look; you don’t have to be so polite.” Liu San looked around. The contrast with the dilapidated state outside was stark. He couldn’t help but say, “The manager certainly knows how to find pleasure in hardship.”

“Master Dong used to work here. He fled the day after the Heavenly Army entered the city,” Mao Xiuyu said. “Actually, he doesn’t usually live here. He only comes on the days when money and rice are distributed. He usually lives in the city.”

“So you’re the manager here, then?”

Mao Xiuyu quickly bowed and said with a fawning smile, “I don’t deserve the title of manager! This humble one is just working here. I dare not make any decisions on my own; I just follow the manager’s instructions.”

“Since you are the one in charge here, tell me about the situation here first.” Liu San picked up the teacup and then put it down again—who knew what kind of water they used here! This area was full of mass graves; both the surface water and groundwater were probably not very clean.

“Yes, yes,” Mao Xiuyu nodded repeatedly and reported, “There are a total of 2,165 lonely, poor, old, and sick people, blind people, and poor, chaste women registered in this Puji Hall. According to the regulations, each person is given three dou of rice and forty-five wen of cash per month. Every three years, they are given one bolt of government-produced cloth.”

Liu San opened his notebook and jotted down the numbers. He then asked, “Where does the money and rice come from?”

“Part of it is allocated from the public treasuries of the prefecture and county, and part of it is donated by charitable people in the city.”

“Three dou of rice?” Liu San found it a bit hard to believe. In the Ming system, one dou of unpolished rice was about twelve jin, so three dou would be thirty-six jin. In the old time and space, when food was rationed with coupons, the ration for most people was only twenty-eight jin. Only those engaged in heavy physical labor received more than thirty jin.

“Yes, three dou of rice.” Seeing his disbelief, Mao Xiuyu said with a fawning smile, “The registered amount for each person is three dou—of course, they can’t eat it all. The rest is for the expenses of the institution. Take this position of manager of the Puji Hall, for example. Whoever comes in rags leaves in brocade robes and on a fine horse…”