Ministers Begging Me to Ascend the Throne

Chapter 584: Three hundred Chapters on some issues in Lingnan

In He Lianfang’s residence.

Zhao Yao sat under the veranda, eating a sweet melon while chatting with He Lianfang about Lingnan matters.

A few years ago, He Lianfang and Zhao Yao sent people to Lingnan and discreetly carried out many tasks. Not to mention other things, the doctors sent there have been studying the miasma and have even found some solutions.

In Lingnan, miasma lingers all year round, causing the people to suffer from various strange diseases. According to investigations, a significant number of people in Lingnan fall ill and die annually due to the miasma.

Although there is no miasma in the towns, whenever a strong wind blows, the miasma from the mountains and forests drifts into the towns, causing harm to the townspeople. As for those living near the mountains and forests, their suffering is even worse.

The doctors sent to Lingnan were fairly experienced before they went, but upon arriving in Lingnan, they discovered numerous mysterious diseases they hadn’t encountered before, which brought them both distress and joy.

Zhao Yao sent the doctors to Lingnan in advance firstly to research the miasma and mysterious diseases, and secondly to teach the local people medical skills.

Lingnan is extremely backward in every aspect. Leaving aside schooling, even the medical skills are significantly lagging. According to reports from those who went to Lingnan, most towns do not have proper medical clinics, and the doctors there are mostly barefoot doctors from various villages. To be precise, they’re not real doctors but rather have some home remedies for treating illnesses.

Upon learning that there weren’t even good doctors in Lingnan, Zhao Yao couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, so he instructed the doctors going there to teach the locals medical skills.

Of course, before the doctors went to Lingnan, Zhao Yao told them a lot about disease prevention and hygiene. He learned these things from the dream world of Zhao Yao, such as not drinking raw water. In fact, many illnesses come from drinking raw water.

Besides the miasma, Lingnan also has various peculiar insects and wild animals. Some insects live in the water, and drinking water with these insects could cause illness at best or lead to death at worst.

Zhao Yao repeatedly instructed the doctors going to Lingnan to teach the locals to drink boiled water and absolutely not to drink raw water. Moreover, they must clean the local rivers. Not all river water is drinkable, as many are unclean.

For dirty rivers, they must be cleaned as necessary. Naturally, there are also the toilets.

According to reports from Lingnan, the locals are quite casual about using toilets. After hearing this, Zhao Yao suspected that the frequent illnesses among the Lingnan people might be partly due to this issue. So he drew the dry toilets used in rural areas in the dream world of Zhao Yao and instructed the people in Lingnan to implement them.

Building dry toilets not only improves toilet habits among the people but is also clean and hygienic. Most importantly, the excrement in the toilets can also be used as fertilizer.

With regard to building dry toilets, Zhao Yao also spoke to Prince Chu.

Prince Chu, after hearing about it, thought dry toilets were a great idea and immediately implemented them in Liangzhou. When he learned that Zhao Yao hadn’t informed the Emperor about the dry toilets, he personally wrote a memorial to the Emperor, detailing how to construct dry toilets and their various benefits.

After reading Prince Chu’s memorial, the Emperor also thought dry toilets were a great idea and immediately issued a decree to promote dry toilets throughout Great Zhou.

The local government helped the people build dry toilets for free, and naturally, the people were happy, as it didn’t cost them money or effort.

Initially, the people thought it was unnecessary for the government to build toilets since they already had their own and there was no need to build new ones. They felt the government was wasting money. However, once the dry toilets were completed, the people changed their minds, finding the dry toilets clean and practical.

Zhao Yao thought of working on biogas pits once he got to Lingnan.

Speaking of which, those sent to Lingnan followed Zhao Yao’s instructions. Although they couldn’t significantly change the situation in Lingnan, they could make changes in small matters. These small changes greatly improved the lives of the people in Lingnan.

However, a major event also occurred in Lingnan: the rice imported from Annan Country being successfully cultivated in Lingnan with great harvests. Although it hasn’t reached the three annual harvests possible in Annan Country, two annual harvests are not an issue.

In the past two years, the rice harvests in Lingnan have been very impressive, which greatly pleased the Emperor. Consequently, the Emperor decreed that the Lingnan region should plant rice from Annan Country everywhere.