General Qin

"I've been drinking the general's potion for several days, and I felt very itchy in my buttocks last night."

"I couldn't help but reach back and touch, hey, guess what I touched?"

In the Qin camp, a Qin soldier with acne on his face was gesticulating animatedly at the surrounding robes.

I saw everyone looking over with curiosity on their faces.

The Qin soldiers winked and said proudly: "Hahaha, you don't know. I actually touched a big insect on my buttocks, and it was moving around on my buttocks. I grabbed it with one hand, and it was really soft and slippery. "

"hiss……"

When everyone heard this, they looked at each other and took a deep breath. Some even had goosebumps on their bodies.

The pimple-stricken Qin soldiers became more and more excited, winking and saying, "Do you want to see, do I still have that big insect? It's thin and long, like an earthworm."

He said without waiting for anyone to answer.

After groping for a while, he took out a limp insect in front of everyone, and shook it triumphantly, causing everyone to exclaim.

Scenes like this are not uncommon in Qin army camps with tens of thousands of people.

…

"The general's mugwort water and mugwort fruit are really effective. After drinking the potion, a total of sixty-five soldiers in the army gave birth to worms in their stomachs. Even a few soldiers who were suffering from water poison felt a lot relieved. , this medicine is really miraculous!"

In the Qin army commander's tent, Meng Tian looked excited and reported today's statistics.

After hearing this, Zhao Tuo nodded, with a slightly calm look in his eyes.

Sure enough, these earthly methods known in previous lives are effective.

Wormwood.

In the pre-Qin Dynasty, this substance was not only used to repel mosquitoes, but also was used as a medicinal material.

Mencius said, "If you are sick for seven years, seek moxa for three years."

Some doctors even use moxibustion to treat illnesses.

It’s just that medicine in the pre-Qin era was still in its enlightenment stage. People didn’t know much about parasites in the body, and they didn’t know that mugwort water could eliminate parasites in the body.

In his previous life, Zhao Tuo had suffered from roundworms as a child and was fed mugwort water by the elderly at home before he had any impression of it.

Of course, the effectiveness of mugwort water in killing internal parasites is definitely not as good as later generations of special medicines, and can only serve as an auxiliary treatment.

But in this era, Zhao Tuo could only find and use these, so he could only make do.

As for the other mugwort.

The reason why Zhao Tuo used this thing was because he had heard the name of artemisinin developed by Tu Youyou in his previous life.

At that time, the Nobel Prize was heavily publicized, so Zhao Tuo was deeply impressed.

He knew that artemisinin could treat malaria and was also effective against parasitic diseases such as schistosomiasis and Toxoplasma gondii.

To deal with parasites, besides mugwort, the first thing Zhao Tuo thought of was artemisinin.

According to his knowledge from relevant reports in his previous life, artemisinin is extracted from a type of mugwort called Artemisia annua. But he couldn't tell what the Artemisia annua looked like specifically.

Zhao Tuo asked many people, but no one had heard of this plant.

"It seems that this name was given by later dynasties. It may have been called something else by the pre-Qin Dynasty."

Zhao Tuo had no choice but to send people to collect all kinds of wormwood plants and test them one by one.

He is now the general in charge of all conquests. More than ten counties in the Central Plains and Chu region can be mobilized. It is not a difficult task for each county to collect mugwort and wormwood and send them to them.

He plans to rely on the huge number of people in the military camp to conduct group experiments to screen out the wormwood that is effective against parasites.

Anyway, he has quite a lot of time now.

After Meng Tian arrived, Yin Tong had already led 10,000 people to Dongou to help resist the invasion of Fujian and South Vietnam.

It is said that the Fujian-Vietnam and South-Vietnam coalition forces had already made plans to withdraw after learning about the Qin army's arrival, and the situation in Dongou was not urgent.

He only needs to slowly test the medicine in Panyi and wait for the new recruits to arrive, so there is no need to be too anxious.

"Continue to boil the mugwort water in the big pot and let the soldiers drink it for a while."

"As for those types of wormwood, we need to experiment more and select the most effective ones."

Zhao Tuo told Meng Tian the matter again, and then talked about another matter.

"After water poison is excreted from the human body, it still remains in the feces. If people are infected, it is very easy to be poisoned by water poison again. Therefore, starting from today, the army has ordered dedicated personnel to set up public toilets for people to excrete. All soldiers are not allowed to defecate anywhere and violate the order. The offenders will be severely punished without mercy."

Meng Tian was startled, but he still accepted the order.

After talking about the prevention and control of parasites and diseases, Zhao Tuo discussed the current situation in Vietnam with the generals.

Not very good.

After Feng Wuze's death, Nanyue and Minyue took advantage of the situation to counterattack. Seeing that the situation was not good, Lieutenant General Yin Tong immediately decided to lead his troops to withdraw from Minyue.

This decision is very correct.

At that time, the general was ill, the friendly forces were defeated, and the Yue people counterattacked. If the Qin army did not retreat from Fujian and Yue, it would easily be trapped alive by the Yue people after they cut off their supply routes.

Moreover, it had entered the rainy season in Yue at that time, and diseases were common. It was very disadvantageous for the Qin army to stay in Yue for a long time.

Yin Tong's decisive withdrawal avoided the worst outcome.

However, the Minyue Royal City is thousands of miles away from Fan County, Lujiang County. Not only is the distance long and the road condition is not very good, but also there are Yue attacks from time to time along the way, causing the Qin army to suffer considerable losses.

If we add in the casualties during the previous attack on Fujian and Yue, the Qin army's casualties in the entire battle reached 12,000!

Even if half of them were auxiliary soldiers responsible for transportation, the casualties would not be small. Including the 70,000 people who died in the battle at Tu Sui, the Qin army's first expedition would have resulted in more than 80,000 casualties!

"Vietnam is really difficult to fight. Feng Wuze did not suffer a big defeat like Tu Sui. But the battle damage plus the non-combat attrition along the way is quite scary. No wonder 500,000 Qin troops were defeated by Yue in history. Killed until rivers of blood flowed."

Zhao Tuo shook his head, feeling that if he wanted to conquer Baiyue, he really couldn't do it recklessly, he had to do it step by step and steadily.

"More than 10,000 people were lost in the battle, and I only have around 85,000 available troops."

"This time there are 100,000 troops recruited from the rear. Thirty thousand of them will be assigned to Changsha County to help Ren Xiao suppress the rebellion and contain Xiou. Therefore, the reinforcements I can receive here are 70,000. The total is 155,000. people, and then Dongou should be able to recruit two to three thousand Yue people to help, plus the Louchuan division from Jiangdong, the available troops in my hand are about 160,000."

A strength of 160,000 was enough for Zhao Tuo.

He had already thought of a strategy on the way here.

When Tu Sui and Feng Wuze attacked Baiyue before, they adopted a strategy of attacking from both sides and outflanking the east and west. Trying to defeat Baiyue in the shortest possible time.

As a result, one road failed, the other road was also implicated, and they retreated in defeat.

Zhao Tuo learned from experience and decided to attack and defend.

As for the Western Route Army, of Tu Sui's original 100,000 Qin troops, only about 30,000 were able to retreat to Changsha County.

Even with the follow-up support of 30,000 new troops, in the face of the invasion of Xiou and the rebellion of the Yangyue tribe in Changsha, Ren Xiao was already very capable if he could recover all of Changsha County.

If he can contain the strength of the Yue people in Xiou and prevent Xiou from supporting the eastern battlefield, it will be a great achievement.

Therefore, for the entire Qinyue battlefield, the West Route Army was on the defensive.

Zhao Tuo's side is the real main direction of attack.

"First find useful mugwort that can cure diseases. This can reduce the soldiers' fear of water bugs and diseases during the southern expedition, which can boost morale."

"After the new recruits arrive, conduct corresponding training to allow them to adapt to the local climate."

"At the same time, let people explore the intelligence of the territory, so as to know ourselves and our enemies."

"After everything is done, it will almost be winter, and then we can carry out tentative attacks."

Zhao Tuo made corresponding strategies.

Because of his arrival, the tens of thousands of Qin troops who were originally panicked due to the defeat of the friendly forces and the death of their leader suddenly found a backbone.

In particular, the mugwort water and wormwood water continuously boiled in the Qin army's camp, the medicinal fragrance floating in the camp, and the long worms that someone pulled out of the body from time to time, made all the soldiers feel at ease.

"When the martial arts lord arrives, the water bugs retreat and the disease is silenced."

"General, your medical skills are unparalleled!"

"With such a commander in chief, what should we fear?"

The ordinary soldiers were all from Guizhou and had little education or knowledge. They only knew that with the arrival of the general, everything had changed for the better, and they were secretly grateful and inspired.

And all of this was actually guided secretly by the general, Shi Lishiqi.

"Hey, people's words of merit can be worth tens of thousands of troops. I will let people secretly praise the general's medical skills and potions, so that the morale of the troops can be boosted and their morale can be used!"

Zhao Tuo was a little speechless about this. These political strategists really mastered the power of words very skillfully.

However, Li Shiqi's trick was effective and improved his morale a lot, so he just let it go.

As the weather gradually became cooler, the new soldiers recruited from various counties and counties crossed the river one after another in the corresponding order and arrived outside the military camp in Fan County, Lujiang County.

The first to arrive were the new soldiers from Jiujiang, across the river from Lujiang County.

When Liu Bang with a mustache jumped off a carriage, what caught his eyes were piles of burning open-air stoves in the military camp in the distance.

What was placed on the stove was a huge cooking utensil called an "iron pot". Smoke was rising at the moment, and a strange smell filled the air.

"What is this doing?"

Liu Bang was a little confused. He had never seen such a posture before.

Soon, Qin generals at all levels conveyed military orders to their soldiers.

"Line up!"

"All soldiers, stand in order!"

"Liu Bang, get in line for me and get ready to drink the medicine!"

It's a bit late, the third update will be postponed to noon tomorrow.