Chapter 356: Wrong Look, the Creator of Typhoid Fever
Cao Shuang thought for a while and said with emotion: "Speaking of which, since the end of the Han Dynasty, the population of the people in the Central Plains has been greatly reduced. It was a married eunuch in the Han Dynasty. The emperor of the Han Dynasty at that time must have never imagined that a small eunuch could do this.
You must have such knowledge and talent."
Bai Lingjun said with a smile: "I have also seen this person in ancient books, named Zhongxing Shuo. The Han Emperor at that time must have made a mistake, but even so, no one could have imagined that his homeland would be so vicious.
People will help the enemy poison the people of the motherland."
Jian Jia also spoke out: "In my opinion, this person is a great traitor to the country. There must be few people in ancient and modern times who can compare with him. Now I, the Wei Dynasty, must also guard against the appearance of such a person."
Bai Lingjun continued: "Sister, don't worry. My husband has told me that he will never get married in the future in Wei State. Naturally, there will be no one to marry."
During the Western Han Dynasty, the Huns tied the front legs of their war horses and sent them to the foot of the Great Wall. They said to the Han army: "Don't you want horses? We have sent war horses."
These war horses were actually poisoned by the Huns, and this poison was a disease unique to the grasslands. The Han army "introduced these disease-contaminated horses into the pass and caused people to get sick."
The Huns came up with this vicious plan because it was at the late stage of the Han-Hungarian War. The Han army attacked fiercely and the Huns were forced to continue to move north.
In order to prevent the Han army from continuing to advance northward, the Huns used virus-contaminated cattle and sheep carcasses to contaminate the roads and the upper reaches of the rivers that the Han army passed through, causing the Han army to contract diseases and lose their combat effectiveness.
Of course, the Huns could not have come up with such a vicious strategy. It was Zhong Xing, a Han slave who went to the Huns as a bride, who came up with it. Since arriving on the grassland, he has been loyal to the Huns wholeheartedly and sold off all his Han ancestors.
Maodun died, and his son Jizhu became the king and was called Laoshang Shanyu.
Laoshang Jizhou Shanyu had just succeeded to the throne, and Emperor Xiaowen sent a royal princess to be Shanyu's Yan family, and asked the eunuch Yan Guoren Zhongxing to be the princess's assistant.
Zhongxing said that he did not want to go, but the Han Dynasty forced him. He said: "I must go, I will become a disaster to the Han Dynasty." Zhongxing said that after arriving, he surrendered to Shanyu, who especially favored him. Later, the old man
When the Chanyu died, his son, the military minister Chanyu, succeeded to the throne. Then, Zhongxing said that he served the military minister Chanyu again.
At first, the Xiongnu liked the silk fabrics and food of the Han Dynasty. The Bank of China said: "The total population of the Xiongnu is not equal to a county of the Han Dynasty. However, the reason why the Xiongnu is strong is that the food and clothing are different from those of the Han people, and they do not need to rely on the Han Dynasty.
Now if the Chanyu changes his original customs and likes the clothes and food of the Han Dynasty, and the Han Dynasty gives him no more than two-tenths of the total, then the Xiongnu will completely belong to the Han Dynasty.
He hoped to make clothes and trousers from the silk fabrics obtained from the Han Dynasty, and wear them while riding horses and galloping in the weeds and thorns, causing the clothes and pants to be torn and damaged, in order to show that the silk fabrics of the Han Dynasty were not as strong as the Xiongnu's leather jackets.
Throw away all the food obtained from the Han Dynasty to show that they are not as convenient and delicious as the Xiongnu's milk and dairy products." So the Bank of China taught the people around Shan Yu how to record things in separate items in order to record their population and livestock numbers.
, because he knew that if the Xiongnu were Chineseized, their combat effectiveness against the Central Plains would be greatly reduced.
The letter from the Han Dynasty to the Chanyu was written on a piece of wood measuring one foot per inch. It began with the words "The Emperor respectfully greets the Great Chanyu of the Xiongnu for his safety", and also wrote down what he was sending and what he wanted to say.
The Bank of China asked Shan Yu to write a letter to the emperor of the Han Dynasty with a one-foot-two-inch piece of wood, and lengthened, widened, and enlarged the size of the seal and sealing mud, and said the opening line very arrogantly: "Born from heaven and earth, sun
The Xiongnu Chanyu placed in the moon respectfully greets the Emperor of the Han Dynasty for his safety." Then write down what you are sending and what you want to say. This is to show that the Xiongnu Chanyu is more noble than the Han emperor.
The Bank of China said that it observed the details. Some of the envoys from the Han Dynasty said: "The custom of the Huns is to look down on the elderly." The Bank of China said that when the envoys of the Han Dynasty were questioned, they said: "It is the custom of the Han Dynasty that when soldiers are sent to guard the territory and are about to set off, their elderly parents
Don't you save warm clothes and rich food and give them to travelers for food and clothing?"
The envoy from the Han Dynasty said: "That's right."
The Bank of China added: "The Huns all know that war is an important matter. Those who are old and weak cannot fight, so they give rich food to the strong to eat and drink. This is to protect themselves, so that fathers and sons can live longer."
How can it be said that the Huns despise the elderly when the earth and the earth protect each other?"
The envoy of the Han Dynasty said: "The Huns father and son actually slept in the same yurt. After the father died, the son actually became his stepmother's wife. After the brother died, the living brother took all the deceased's wives as his own wives. There were no hats or belts.
The clothes and clothes lack court etiquette."
The Bank of China said: "The customs of the Xiongnu were that everyone ate the meat of livestock, drank their milk, and used their skins to make clothes; livestock ate grass and drank water, and changed places as time went by.
Therefore, when they are in urgent need, everyone practices horseback riding and archery. When times are relaxed, people are happy and have nothing to do. They are subject to few restrictions and can easily do it.
The relationship between king and minister is simple. The political affairs of a country are like a person's body. Father, son and brother are dead, and the living ones take their wives as their own wives. This is the fear of the disappearance of the race.
The Bank of China said that it observed the details. Some of the envoys from the Han Dynasty said: "The custom of the Huns is to look down on the elderly." The Bank of China said that when the envoys of the Han Dynasty were questioned, they said: "It is the custom of the Han Dynasty that when soldiers are sent to guard the territory and are about to set off, their elderly parents
Don't you save warm clothes and rich food and give them to travelers for food and clothing?"
The envoy of the Han Dynasty said: "That's it." The Bank of China said: "The Huns all know that war is an important matter. Those who are old and weak cannot fight, so they give those rich foods to the strong people to eat and drink. This is for
Defend yourself, so that father and son can protect each other for a long time. How can you say that the Huns despise the elderly?"
The envoy of the Han Dynasty also said: "The Huns father and son actually slept in the same yurt.
After his father died, the son actually took his stepmother as his wife.
After a brother died, the surviving brother took all the deceased's wives as his own wives. There were no hats, belts and other clothing, and there was a lack of court etiquette."
The Bank of China said: "The customs of the Xiongnu were that everyone ate the meat of livestock, drank their milk, and used their skins to make clothes; livestock ate grass and drank water, and changed places as time went by.
Therefore, when they are in urgent need, everyone practices horseback riding and archery. When times are relaxed, people are happy and have nothing to do. They are subject to few restrictions and can easily do it.
The relationship between king and minister is simple. The political affairs of a country are like a person's body. Father, son and brother are dead, and the living ones take their wives as their own wives. This is the fear of the disappearance of the race.
The poisoning strategy was proposed by Bank of China before his death. The Shanyu at that time also readily accepted his strategy and began to implement the poisoning strategy, and the results were immediately apparent.
Immediately afterwards, this biological weapon, the earliest recorded in human history, quickly exerted a huge power that even the Huns had not imagined, and the Central Plains region was repeatedly ravaged by it for three hundred years.
War and epidemics led to an astonishing drop in population. Before the Yellow Turban Uprising, the population of the Eastern Han Dynasty was 56.5 million, but by the end of the Three Kingdoms, the total population of Wei, Shu and Wu was only 5.6 million. This is a shocking number.
The plague unleashed by the Xiongnu through infected horses and infected animals was called "typhoid fever" by people at that time. This "typhoid fever" had two symptoms: first, the patient had spots and bruising on the body (so it was called "injury");
High fever and bitter cold (so called "cold"), the mortality rate is very high.
Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, said sadly in the preface to "Treatise on Febrile Diseases": "My family has more than 200 people, but in less than ten years since the first year of Jian'an, two-thirds have died, ten of them.
Seven out of ten died of typhoid fever."
So what exactly is the typhoid fever that people in the Han Dynasty called typhoid fever? Let’s take a look at these details:
One is the "poison" poisoned by the Huns' witch doctors. This "poison" can contaminate cattle, sheep and horses but will not make them sick;
Another is that the disease has basically not crossed the Yangtze River;
In addition, for hundreds of years from the 1st century to the 4th century AD, the "typhoid fever" plague broke out repeatedly in the Central Plains.
Based on these details, we can infer that this typhoid fever is what modern medicine calls epidemic hemorrhagic fever, an infectious disease caused by viruses transmitted by animals (especially rats).
Because it is mainly spread by rats, the Yangtze River blocks rats from going south, so the disease basically never crosses the Yangtze River. Since rats are constantly hunted and killed, the virus that continues to be latently infected in their bodies causes recurring plagues; and the "gu" poisoned by the Huns' witch doctors
It's probably rat droppings.
The "Hongnu Poisoning Case" can be regarded as the largest poisoning case in ancient times. In the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Han army, led by two famous generals, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, began to penetrate deeply into the grassland and desert to launch a counterattack against the Xiongnu.
Facing the deteriorating war situation, the Xiongnu Chanyu was unable to stop the Han army's offensive militarily.
At this time, Bank of China, who had followed the princess to the Huns and became a traitor, actually proposed a poisonous plan to Shan Yu before his death, which was to "poison" his own water source.
Chanyu listened to the advice of Zhongxing Shuo and sent wizards to bury sheep and cattle in the passages where the Han army walked and in the wells that needed to be used, in order to curse the Han army.
Although this is called "cursing", it is actually the earliest "germ warfare" recorded in human history.
Because these cattle and sheep that were cursed by the wizard and then buried were all diseased animals.
After being buried in a water source for a period of time, the viruses and bacteria in the carcasses of cattle and sheep spread to nearby soil, water sources, and even the air.
Once Han soldiers drank this contaminated water, they would easily contract cholera, malaria and other diseases.
In fact, the poisoning by the Huns was like opening Pandora's box, causing a large number of Han soldiers to become sick and die.
Among them, the famous general Huo Qubing died young, and it is very likely that he drank the contaminated water during the battle. In the following decades, it also caused many Han and Huns common people to get sick and die. After that, the Huns also followed