The city of Qingyuan was not big, and had been ravaged by the Jin cavalry. However, because it was an important trade route, and because the north had been peaceful for many years and had recovered, it was bustling with people coming and going.
Of course, this kind of bustle cannot be compared with the south. The people passing by are much poorer in clothing, and there are many homeless beggars on the streets.
But at this time, the beggars and refugees who should have been lying weakly on the roadside or asking people coming in and out for money and food, all rushed to the city gate.
Because of the successive incidents in Zhending and Hejian Prefectures, the security in Qingyuan Prefecture was much stricter than before, even though it was located in the central part of Hebei West Road.
There were even more soldiers and horses at the city gates, and the inspections were strict.
But at this time, these soldiers were not checking people, but surrounded the left side of the city gate, cordoning off an open space there to prevent the crowd from getting close.
There was a big red notice posted in the area they had cordoned off, with the words written in huge letters, as if everyone could see and recognize it.
But for most of the people gathered in front of the city gate, the size of the characters really had nothing to do with whether they could recognize them or not.
The government also knew this and assigned clerks to read it out.
"Announce that Miss Jiulingtangjun of the capital will come to Qingyuan Prefecture to vaccinate smallpox. All families with children aged 16 and above and under 13 years old..."
When Miss Jiulingtangjun uttered a few words, the onlookers suddenly roared, and the remaining voice of the clerk was covered up.
In the capital, there was a Miss Jun from Jiulingtang who could vaccinate children to avoid smallpox. The news had spread to the western part of Hebei Province along with the military and business contacts.
The harm of smallpox is a major concern for everyone, and vaccination is a major event that benefits future generations.
Naturally, people in western Hebei were also very excited, because there were few doctors in the capital who could vaccinate, and it took a long time for them to get their turn. They waited for more than half a year before Xiangzhou finally invited one, and that was because the prefect of Xiangzhou was a relative of the Hanlin Academy in the capital.
Xiangzhou was still some distance away from Qingyuan Prefecture, but at least there was hope. But soon news came that the doctor had already been booked in advance in Hebei East Road, and Qingyuan Prefecture immediately burst into scolding.
Many people have already started planning to take their children to follow the smallpox doctor. This is of course very expensive, and only a few can do this. For most people, a few hundred dollars for smallpox vaccines can be scraped together by selling iron, but traveling to a different place is harder than climbing to the sky.
"Where are we? It's the North, a place once occupied by gold thieves." Someone said sadly.
"We have never been occupied. The thieves just passed by." Someone whispered back.
"What's the big deal? If it weren't for Duke Cheng who led people to recapture the area, we wouldn't even be considered citizens of the Great Zhou." Someone shouted loudly.
"Yes, I heard that people in the south call us northern dogs, which means we are the dogs of the Jin people."
“They won’t remember us.”
This sentiment has been spreading along with the news of vaccination. For many older people, this sentiment is similar to the feeling when the gold thieves invaded, the soldiers were defeated, the emperor fled, and they became abandoned people.
Sad, aggrieved, yet hopeless.
I didn't expect to hear Miss Jun from Jiulingtang coming at this time.
In other places, only doctors arranged by the Hanlin Smallpox Department came to vaccinate, but here it was Miss Jun.
Who is Miss Jun? Miss Jun is the one who invented the smallpox vaccine!
"Miss Jun has never vaccinated herself, not even her own children."
"That's right. The emperor invited Miss Jun, but she refused to go."
Such a person, a god-like person, actually came to Qingyuan Prefecture to vaccinate their descendants against smallpox.
Compared with Miss Jun, those doctors hired from other places are nothing.
The whole Qingyuan Prefecture was in an uproar, with people running around telling each other the news as if it were New Year's Day.
Crowds of people continued to come to the city gate to see the notice, and even those who had seen it before came back to look at it again.
Before meeting Miss Jun, this notice seemed to be a magic weapon. Just looking at it more could ward off disasters and avoid misfortunes. If it weren't for the soldiers holding it, many people would have wanted to touch the notice to get some good luck.
"Let me, let me."
There was a sudden shoving and shoving behind the people surrounding the notice, accompanied by harsh shouting.
As a commoner in the north, the sound of this scolding and the force of this shoving are very familiar to us; they are characteristics only possessed by officers and soldiers.
In other places, government officials are feared, but in the north, it is the soldiers who are feared. After all, more than half of the peace here is due to them.
The people subconsciously made way and then looked over, only to see that there were no soldiers at all, only two middle-aged men in tattered clothes carrying baskets on their backs.
The baskets were filled with chickens and rabbits, and in one basket there was even a pig on its back. As they walked over, the chickens, rabbits and pigs squealed and a foul smell spread.
These are not soldiers, they are clearly villagers.
The people suddenly became anxious.
"What are you crowding for? What are you crowding for?" Angry shouts were heard, and people gathered together again.
However, the two villagers had already walked in. Due to their large bodies and the swaying baskets on their backs, they were not squeezed out. Instead, they bumped into the people who squeezed in, and some of them were covered in chicken shit.
There was a commotion and shouting in front of the city gate. The officers and soldiers guarding the gate looked over with a warning look, and the commotion subsided.
The two villagers also stood at the front. If the soldiers had not stopped them with swords and guns, they would have been stuck to the wall.
The two people looked at the notice seriously with focused expressions and seemed to be thinking about something, which surprised the people around them.
This mountain dweller can actually read?
A thought flashed through his mind, and one of the villagers turned his eyes away from the notice.
"What's written on it?" he asked the person next to him.
The person next to me almost choked.
Damn it, why are you reading this so seriously if you can’t read!
Although they were very unhappy, the people were simple-minded after all, and they did not want to miss out on such a great merit as vaccination which would benefit their descendants.
The people told him the content of the notice in a loud voice. The reason they told him the content was because he could not read. But when the scribe read it a few days ago, he memorized it carefully and recited it every day, even more pious than his own mother reciting the scriptures.
After he finished speaking, he waited to see the two villagers' excitement and joy, but he saw that the two villagers just stood there in a daze, and only said "oh" after a while.
"Vaccination," one of them said, "That's great. All the children in the family can be vaccinated."
Great? But you don't want your reaction to be too great? At least a little exciting.
Perhaps the villagers are closed-minded and don't understand what vaccination is all about.
"If you want to get vaccinated, you can go to the county government office and queue up now," someone else reminded.
The two villagers uttered "oh" again and turned around abruptly. The baskets collided again and the two men were squeezed out in a mess with the sound of cursing, crowing of chickens and squealing of pigs.
"These two earth turtles." Many people cursed angrily, "If they have the guts, go squeeze in the queue and see if they can be given a fire stick to eat."
But to everyone's surprise, the two villagers did not enter the city, but went straight out of the city.
"Maybe he went back to discuss raising money." Everyone guessed.
Bodhisattva Miss Jun usually reduces the price of smallpox vaccination to a hundred coins, but for many people, this hundred coins is not a small amount.
This little episode was soon forgotten by everyone because something big happened the next day.
The notice posted at the city gate was stolen.
Who the hell stole the sign?
The people surrounding the city gate were very excited.
Early in the morning, many people, as they did in the past, strolled to the city gate to read the notices. Some people who heard the news rushed over from far away to confirm its truth.
Unexpectedly, martial law was imposed inside and outside the city gates. There were more officers and soldiers than in the previous few days. Each of them looked serious as if facing a powerful enemy, and the generals' scolding was so loud that the city gate tower was about to collapse.
"Has this place been invaded by gold thieves again?" People who didn't know the situation asked nervously.
"No, the notice was stolen." said the well-informed people.
The news spread quickly.
It's really strange. It's the first time I heard of stealing government notices. What's even stranger is that no one thinks this is funny.
Almost everyone who heard the news was angry.
They were angry after reading the notice, because they just wanted to touch it, but they didn't expect that someone would be so greedy and steal it away.
Doesn't this mean you can touch however you want?
What was even more infuriating were those who had not seen the notice. Without the notice, was the news that Miss Jun had come for vaccination true? Could it be that Miss Jun had also disappeared like the notice?
What they didn't know was that Miss Jun didn't fly away, but was already sitting in the government office of Qingyuan Prefecture.