Chapter 120: The System of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Yukee Electrical Appliances gradually got onto the right track, and Xie Han finally felt a weight lifted off his shoulders. Managing affairs across two worlds while being hands-on was truly not a task for a mere mortal. Given Meng Nan's capabilities and the momentum of the current Yukee development, the path ahead should be as smooth as water flowing into a pre-cut channel.

Having spent time in government departments, Xie Han naturally understood the importance of maintaining good relations with local authorities. Many things inevitably passed through their hands; without offering a little incentive, they could easily make things difficult for your factory, which would be enough to cause you serious trouble. Understanding this, Xie Han ultimately spent a hefty ten million on such public relations expenses. As many business owners say, this money cannot be saved.

It could be said that with such groundwork, the development of Yukee Electrical Appliances, provided no massive accidents occurred, was destined for a bright future.

With the Yukee matter set aside, Xie Han turned his attention back to New City. He had come to realize that the post-apocalyptic world was the fundamental foundation of his survival. Regardless of the success achieved in the modern world, everything was provided by the apocalypse. Moreover, the time he would spend living in the post-apocalyptic world would far exceed that of his modern life. It is no exaggeration to say that even if the zombies were eliminated, the subsequent struggles between humans would be even more brutal. He had to prepare for settling down and ensuring his survival before this era of chaos arrived.

The simple housing in New City, after this period of construction, was halfway complete. It wasn't that the construction speed was too slow, but that the brick kilns had a low output, and the time required to produce bricks was quite long—it took at least a week to open a kiln and retrieve them. This pace gave Xie Han a headache, even leading him to consider raiding some thickening agents from Wangtian City.

The rural strategy was highly successful. Countless metal products and electronic devices were moved back to the base, and various cars and agricultural machinery were lined up in the spacious square of the experimental base. Chemical raw materials were also classified and concentrated in a relatively secure warehouse. Naturally, like in every rural household, there was always some supply of thickening agents; once collected, the quantity was quite considerable.

With the addition of this batch of thickening agents, Xie Han did not use them for construction, but instead used them to manufacture hollow cement bricks to accelerate the construction speed of the simple housing.

The environmental hygiene caused by nearly ten thousand people eating, drinking, and living together had never caught the attention of the New City management. All their efforts were poured into infrastructure. It wasn't until A-Mu jokingly gave Xie Han a box of condoms that he was reminded of the importance of hygiene.

The apocalypse was not like the time before it, where any minor ailment could be resolved quickly by taking some medicine or seeing a doctor at a clinic. However, the number of doctors who could survive in the apocalypse was extremely small, especially after three and a half years. The medicine in pharmacies, pharmaceutical factories, and hospitals had long since passed its expiration date. Like food, once medicine passes its expiration date, no one knows what kind of side effects it might have or whether it would do more harm than good.

The scarcity of medicine meant that once someone fell ill in the apocalypse, they faced the prospect of having no medicine to take and no doctor to see. If the XR virus was the primary threat, then health issues like illness became the second greatest threat to post-apocalyptic humanity. Minor ailments might be overcome with a strong physique, but what about serious illnesses? One could almost say they were just silently waiting for death. There were no doctors to treat you and no medicine to take.

In Xie Han’s view, non-contagious diseases were not terrifying; what was terrifying were diseases that could spread rapidly. Once such a disease appeared, if not controlled properly, it could easily cause an outbreak. For a group of people living together in such close quarters as in New City, in just a few days, the fate of the base’s inhabitants could effectively be sealed.

Due to the lack of attention, the environment in New City was dire. Trash was scattered everywhere along the roads between tents and the few simple rooms. With no one to clean it up, the garbage had piled up for over a month. Under the scorching sun, it emitted a nauseating stench. The entire hygiene situation in New City had reached an extremely wretched state.

"We must establish our own medical system and sanitary cleaning system for New City." Realizing the severity of the problem, Xie Han raised this issue at the core meeting without hesitation. One must eat a meal one bite at a time, but some things required immediate resolution.

Chen Liu and the others looked at Xie Han with astonishment, wondering why he had suddenly brought up such a problem. Everyone knew the importance of a medical system, but how could it be established? How could they find doctors? How could they find enough medicine? In the apocalypse, many common and simple illnesses of the past were often fatal.

Xie Han had long considered the problems that worried Chen Liu and the others. If he didn't have a thorough plan, he wouldn't have brought it up on his own.

For a long time, the debate between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western medicine had been a hot topic before 2009. With the advancement of technology, the decline of TCM, and the convenience and simplicity of Western medicine, the latter became the mainstream leading up to the apocalypse. It is no exaggeration to say that TCM in China was gradually fading among the new generation, its influence weakening. If not for the arrival of the apocalypse, Xie Han suspected that in a few more decades, the profound medical art of TCM might have vanished into the river of history.

Is TCM really inferior to Western medicine? In Xie Han’s view, it wasn't a question of better or worse, but rather that each had its own advantages. What hindered the development of TCM was likely its complexity. TCM emphasizes "observation, listening, questioning, and pulse-taking." It requires deep experience to judge what disease a patient has. That is only the beginning. After the diagnosis, one must combine Chinese medicinal herbs, utilizing their properties to create a concoction capable of treating the disease. This might involve over a dozen different herbs. Without expertise in medicinal herbs, it would be impossible to prepare the medicine.

Western medicine, on the other hand, is much simpler; it is already highly developed. Learners often only need to follow what is written in textbooks to learn how to diagnose various ailments. Furthermore, Western medicine has long since mass-produced various pills and agents specifically for conditions; after diagnosis, one simply administers the medicine according to the learned dosage, and if there are no complications, it is quite easy to cure the patient.

It is no exaggeration to say that many doctors in hospitals would be completely lost without Western pills and agents and would be utterly incapable of dealing with a condition. Conversely, practitioners of TCM, in the absence of pills and agents, could search for medicinal herbs in the wild. Moreover, TCM possesses many miraculous effects and therapies, such as acupuncture, which is renowned both at home and abroad.

It was precisely this herbal characteristic of TCM that gave Xie Han endless inspiration. In the apocalypse, Western medicine could be said to have fallen into decline. The time required to get it back on its feet was certainly not something that could be achieved in the short term. TCM, however, was different. Perhaps, in Xie Han’s eyes, it would return to the world stage, no longer a withered existence, and might even potentially surpass Western medicine.

Based on this, Xie Han boldly stated: "Your thinking has been influenced by the dominance of Western medicine over the last few decades. Therefore, you have formed the idea that a medical system can only be supported by Western medicine. Actually, I want to ask, have you considered TCM? Could we use TCM to form the medical system of our New City?" In the modern world of 2009, TCM still held a place. Any modern person would know that if Western medicine couldn't treat a condition, they could turn to TCM, which might yield good results. However, for Chen Liu, Xu Qiang, Qi Feiwu, and Chu Tianhe, this was unimaginable, as the environment they lived in had shaped their thinking. When Xie Han proposed TCM, their expressions could only be described as once again astonished.

They really didn't understand TCM. In the advanced medical world before the apocalypse, TCM had long been squeezed out of the hospital system; it was only occasionally seen in small clinics. Under such circumstances, it was difficult for them to have any understanding of TCM.

"Boss, I’ve heard of the TCM you mentioned, but is it really useful?" Chu Tianhe’s words represented the inner thoughts of Chen Liu and the others. Living in the apocalypse, they rarely saw any sign of TCM in the medical systems they encountered, so it was no wonder they were skeptical.

Xie Han laughed with a touch of sadness, not knowing whether to feel sorry for them or for TCM. After a sigh, he said, "Of course it is useful. You haven't truly realized the depth and profoundness of TCM, nor its miraculous effects. Let’s take the most basic example: a cold. Western medicine might use a few pills to fix it, but TCM can achieve the same effect by just drinking water infused with honeysuckle." "If we go deeper, take fractures, cracks, or shattered bones for example. How do you think they should be handled?" Xie Han did not explain directly but threw the question back to them; only in this way would they truly take the existence of TCM seriously.

As a former special forces soldier, Xu Qiang remained silent, carrying only a faint smile. Chen Liu, having served in the armed police, began to ponder, and Chu Tianhe, as a teacher who had read widely, naturally knew a thing or two about TCM. Only Qi Feiwu, an office worker, looked blankly and said, "Fractures? Cracks? Shattered bones? Of course, you go to the hospital for surgery. How else could it be treated?"

Xie Han laughed and said, "That is the method of Western medicine. In hospitals, when encountering such things, even if surgery isn't required, unscrupulous doctors will blow your problem out of proportion, making it seem like you’ll be permanently disabled if you don't have surgery. Because of this long-term conditioning, your thinking has developed the concept that everything requires surgery. That, in a way, is a subconscious bias."

He looked at Xu Qiang and said, "Qiangzi, with your special forces background, should have the most experience with this. Perhaps it would be most convincing if you spoke about it."

Xu Qiang was not modest: "As special forces soldiers, the time we spent executing missions accounted for two-thirds of our service. Especially in the wild, sometimes when we were traveling light, we naturally couldn't carry a first-aid kit. So, after being injured, we would rely on the herbal knowledge we had learned to find herbs in the wild that could treat wounds."

"What Qiangzi mentioned were just minor injuries," Xie Han said. "For fractures and cracks, the concept of surgery does not exist in TCM. Some herbs that promote rapid bone growth can be applied to the fracture site after being prepared with secret methods, then fixed with wooden splints. With some miraculous herbal formulas, one can even return to normal mobility in just a month and a half. I’ve seen a case where an entire kneecap was shattered into a dozen pieces, yet herbs were used to force the bones to heal."

Qi Feiwu opened her eyes in disbelief, blinking like a curious child. "Is it really that magical?"

Chen Liu chimed in: "Yes, when I was at the Armed Police Academy, during an anti-terrorism drill, a classmate fell from the second floor while climbing an old building, shattering his kneecap into seven pieces. At the time, he should have been sent to the hospital immediately, but this classmate’s family background was in TCM. So, at his insistence, he went home for TCM treatment, using herbal poultices. If he had gone to the hospital, even if he were cured, he might never have been able to return to the front lines. But to everyone's surprise, three months later, he appeared full of vigor. No matter what kind of movement he made, there was not the slightest issue. He was exactly the same as before he was injured."

Chen Liu's story essentially solidified the decision to make TCM the backbone of New City’s medical system under these special circumstances. Faced with such an urgent problem, everyone brainstormed with full effort. In just one day, a preliminary TCM medical system was established.

The entire New City could be described as "blindly crossing the river by feeling the stones." Even with TCM established as the medical system, the missing conditions were no fewer than those for Western medicine. The difference was that TCM had a lower starting point; its medicine did not require processing by pharmaceutical factories, which was exactly what the base valued most.

Xie Han knew that establishing a complete medical system was not an easy task. But one has to try everything to know the result, right? To this end, Xie Han searched for a large amount of TCM academic material in the modern world, stored it on hard drives, and brought it to the apocalypse. He then carefully selected fifty people from the nearly ten thousand residents who were sharp-witted and quick to learn, and began to have them study these materials independently.

Of course, having materials alone was not enough. Xie Han searched for a pile of TCM lecture videos in the modern world and even spent money to hire retired veteran TCM doctors to record their clinical experience and insights, using them as teaching materials to be promoted among these fifty medical students, allowing them to summarize the experiences of these veterans and apply them in practice.

Even this was far from enough. Xie Han built a three-story building in the center of the residential base, between the simple housing and the tents. Its purpose would be to house the first New City TCM Hospital. Currently, the scale of this TCM hospital was still very small, and it could hardly be called a facility with comprehensive supporting measures. In Xie Han's heart, as long as it could treat the majority of minor and moderate cases, it would have served its purpose.

For severe and emergency illnesses, Xie Han was powerless, unless he could move some modern medical equipment to the apocalypse. However, given the decades of technological disparity, Xie Han had no way to explain the origin of such equipment. Therefore, he could only instruct A-Mu, who was in charge of the hunting convoy, to raid more large villages. Even if they couldn't eliminate all the zombies, they at least had to snatch some medical instruments from these villages. This was the only way to improve the grade and capability of the New City TCM Hospital.

As the saying goes, even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice. The TCM hospital was still in preparation, but the medicinal herbs, which were the very foundation of the hospital, were nowhere to be found. This led many to view this TCM hospital as a joke.

How many varieties of Chinese medicine are there? Perhaps people in the apocalypse could not answer this question, but Xie Han could easily answer it. The "Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine" contains 5,767 varieties, including 4,773 plant-based, 740 animal-based, 82 mineral-based, and 172 others.

Among so many herbs, Xie Han had probably seen fewer than one hundred in person. Because of this, Xie Han could only use his time returning to the modern world to diligently search the internet for color photos of these herbs, one by one, according to the names in the "Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine," so that even laypeople in the apocalypse could use these pictures to collect herbs in the wild.

While establishing the New City TCM Hospital, the sanitation situation within the base was also addressed by Xie Han. He had some understanding of the mindset of his fellow countrymen; most of them found it difficult to proactively follow regulations. Therefore, there had to be an agency to professionally supervise them; only then would results be achieved.

In troubled times, use heavy codes. On one hand, Xie Han established a ten-person sanitation and cleaning department dedicated to the cleaning work of the entire residential base. On the other hand, he issued a strict New City Sanitation Law to the entire base and established a Discipline Inspection Department to monitor health violations. It is believed that even spitting a mouthful of phlegm could lead to being caught by supervisors and fined between one to ten catties of grain. For a world where grain is supreme, such a punishment could be described as extremely severe.

Xie Han was not worried about anyone stirring up trouble over this. The nearly nine hundred soldiers under his command were not to be trifled with; the guns in their hands could kill zombies without mercy, and they could just as easily execute troublemakers.

With the implementation of this series of measures, the sanitation situation in the entire New City improved immediately. Of course, the situations Xie Han had worried about did not occur. For everyone living here, a strong leadership often provided a sense of security in the apocalypse. And small changes could also make people trust a regime. If the residents had been living in constant fear all along, then the simple measure of improving sanitation made many see hope—a hope to continue living in the apocalypse. It was this kind of hope that suddenly ignited their enthusiasm and gave them a sense of home in New City.

(Everyone else is asking for monthly tickets, but I don't dare to expect that. So, why don't you all give me some recommendation tickets! The point-to-recommendation ratio outside is a bit embarrassing. Thank you all.)