Zhao Hanzhang didn’t know how to treat schistosomiasis. Books she’d read in the library glossed over this aspect, but there were extensive prevention measures.
She told the prevention methods she and Fu Tinghan remembered to Imperial Physician Ding, who was willing to go to Guangzhou, having him research while implementing prevention.
For schistosomiasis, with proper prevention, prevention alone could reduce cases by eighty percent.
The most critical issue was how to make Guangzhou’s people trust them and follow their prevention measures one by one.
Never mind Guangzhou, this uncivilized barbarous land—even in the Central Plains, this land of rites and etiquette, getting people to complete one thing according to court regulations was impossible without severe punishment.
And severe punishment…
She couldn’t severely punish an entire family because one person drank raw water. That wouldn’t be preventing disease—it would be forcing people to rebel.
So she chose Zhao Shen.
Indeed, Zhao Shen lived up to being Zhao Shen. After replacing Dai Yuan, he quickly took over Guangzhou’s army. While training Guangzhou troops, he had Imperial Physician Ding recruit some apprentices locally and cooperate with local native doctors to research schistosomiasis treatment.
Chinese scholars always believed that all things in nature tended toward harmony. This was not only the will of all things but also the will of heaven and earth.
Therefore, near poisonous things, antidotes would certainly appear. Schistosomes also had natural enemies existing in nature nearby—they just hadn’t discovered them yet.
But no matter. Imperial Physician Ding stated he could implement prevention measures while searching. He believed that one day he would find a treatment method for schistosomiasis.
By then, not only Guangzhou but also Jingchu and Jiangnan areas would no longer suffer from schistosomiasis.
Imperial Physician Ding was full of confidence. But before he could begin, he was struck devastatingly. He worked hard with his apprentices to promote everywhere: don’t drink raw water, don’t bathe in rivers or streams, pay attention to family members’ feces to discover schistosomes as quickly as possible for prevention and treatment, etc…
After a year of effort, very few were willing to listen. They did provide soldiers with considerable medicine for preventing miasma. But the local market hadn’t opened at all.
Then the governor went wandering around, running wildly throughout Guangzhou. He’d stay two days in one city, one night in one stronghold. After he left, they’d fall into fervor. No need for painstaking persuasion—they’d actively boil water, even bringing bamboo tubes filled with boiled and cooled water when going out, rather than casually finding a river or stream to squat and scoop water to drink.
They’d even actively come asking for herbal prevention formulas.
Imperial Physician Ding had been there a year—he hadn’t made zero progress. Though he couldn’t completely cure schistosomiasis, if in the early stages, just contracted, he had several insect-killing formulas.
Coincidentally, the needed herbs could all be found in Guangzhou’s mountains.
However, medicine use required caution. Dosage had to be controlled. Otherwise, killing worms while killing yourself wouldn’t be good.
Besides this, they’d bring feces for Imperial Physician Ding to examine. Once eggs were confirmed, they’d immediately light fires by their water sources, make prayers, and perform rituals to counter-curse the demon god.
Imperial Physician Ding was completely numb, watching their governor lead the way wearing brightly colored official robes, dancing with a sword and stepping in eight trigrams patterns to perform rituals.
General, does His Majesty know you’re using official robes as ritual vestments?
Imperial Physician Ding cried out in his heart: Your Majesty—this subject wants to return to the capital!
Unlike Dai Yuan who went everywhere establishing authority and pacifying natives, Zhao Shen relied on his years of pursuing immortals to win them over.
Without expending a single soldier.
Schistosomiasis prevention hadn’t shown results yet, but Zhao Shen already had prestige among Guangzhou natives. Zhao Hanzhang, whom he used to deceive people, was also elevated to a height capable of confronting demon gods.
Zhao Shen took the opportunity to request a batch of superior seeds from the Bureau of Agriculture—not some Luoyang South No. 2. That rice seed hadn’t begun promotion yet.
What he wanted was rice seed cultivated for several years with successful planting in rainy regions like Jingchu.
Zhao Hanzhang waved her hand and agreed on behalf of the Bureau of Agriculture.
Zhao Hanzhang favored Guangzhou. She didn’t extract their taxes—meaning Guangzhou’s local taxes would all be used for Guangzhou’s local fiscal expenditures.
Zhao Shen wasn’t an ordinary aristocratic family son. Born in chaotic times, he’d traveled outside since fourteen and had seen people’s suffering.
He himself had been a Daoist priest, vigilante, even bandit and beggar.
Zhao Hanzhang gave substantial stipends. With family backing and being alone without dependents, he wouldn’t embezzle provincial taxes.
When superiors didn’t take bribes, governance was clean. Provincial surplus increased, and what was returned to the people also increased.
In late summer of Zhao Shen’s third year in office, his governance began yielding returns. Guangzhou natives planted the best rice seed in mountain wilds—Lingnan No. 1.
This No. 1 rice seed came from Jingchu No. 1. But after planting in Lingnan, its growth state was even better than in Jingchu. Perhaps because locals also mixed in self-saved rice seeds, it ultimately achieved a qualitative leap.
Not only were rice ears longer with more grains, fuller and more flood-resistant.
Zhao Cheng also reduced corvée and lightened taxes. The taxes he demanded from each tribe weren’t high.
He knew that in vast Guangzhou, dispatching officials to govern place by place was impossible. He still had to rely on locals.
Zhao Hanzhang also repeatedly instructed him to respect local customs and chieftains, communicating more with them when governing.
Because she’d repeated it so many times, when writing to his father, Zhao Shen couldn’t help but complain, “His Majesty shows less of her former dominance toward border people and more tenderness. Those unaware might think she and southern barbarians are family, not Central Plains people.”
Zhao Ming scolded him: “Calling the people you govern southern barbarians shows you still haven’t awakened. His Majesty treats everyone equally—regardless of ethnicity, she views all as family. She shows less dominance and more tenderness toward border people because natural conditions for border people are worse than the Central Plains, yet they shoulder responsibility for protecting home and country.”
Zhao Ming turned around and requested that Zhao Hanzhang let Zhao Cheng stay in Guangzhou longer, not transferring him back just because his three-year term ended.
In his view, for an official governing a place, minimum five years were needed to see initial results. Three years barely allowed understanding a place.
After learning of this, Zhao Shen was both angry and aggrieved. He wrote directly to argue with his father: “This is all your prejudice against me. Am I not upright? Are my governing abilities not high? Do I not love the people?”
Zhao Ming replied: “You’ve never viewed the people you govern as equals. As a parent official, you stand high above, looking down on them with pity. Did your grandfather teach me this way? Did I teach you this way?”
“Your seventh grand-uncle also loved your teacher, generous and magnanimous toward him. But you’ve always been cold toward him. Why?” Zhao Ming said, “His love for your teacher was from a superior position. When walking the right path, his love was correct. But what if he walked a crooked path?”
“Zhao Shen, don’t follow your seventh grand-uncle’s path. Whether as an official or as a person, learn from the best, compare upward, not downward.”
Upon receiving the letter, Zhao Shen sat in a daze.
His Chief Clerk didn’t know he was distracted and was reporting, “General, Jiaozhi sent an envoy. Should we refuse? Those rebellious traitors—they have the nerve to come asking us for superior seeds?”