Munitions Empire

Chapter 362 358 bark

As Tang Mo's super battleship was being built, piece by piece, within the far reaches of the Empire of Nanla, a malaria outbreak was raging.

In the past, such events would occur every summer, and people were helpless against this deadly disease.

The assembly of any military force could potentially lead to an epidemic, and malaria was one such disease.

Once the size of a city expanded, various diseases would sometimes become prevalent, which was a significant hindrance to urban development.

The advent of Brunas led to a shift in perspective regarding cities for many countries; modern medicine made the existence of megacities possible.

Due to advancements in medical science, Great Tang Group started promoting the cultivation of cowpox, allowing vaccinators to be immune to smallpox for life.

Therefore, anyone working within the controlled regions of the Great Tang Group had to be vaccinated with cowpox, thereby ensuring the safety of the city residents.

Soon, this method was proven to be very effective; Dorne, Suthers, and the Leite region all began adopting this method.

As a result, in these countries, densely populated cities gradually broke their shackles and started to approach the terrifying size of Brunas.

Cities with a population of a hundred thousand were evolving into cities of two hundred thousand; capitals that had several hundred thousand inhabitants were now approaching a million.

All of this went hand in hand; the epidemic prevention methods promoted by Great Tang Group played a key role, as did the obstetric techniques also promoted by the same group.

Population increase began with raising the birth rate—it was still a very dangerous affair for women of this era to give birth.

Thus, Great Tang Group began to establish obstetric hospitals to focus on pregnant women, scale up and spread experience, allowing more doctors to master critical techniques.

The old Prime Minister of the Leite Kingdom was one such beneficiary of these advancements — his grandson was born and survived thanks to the obstetric technology of Great Tang Group.

Many of Great Tang Group's pharmaceuticals became popular in these benefited regions, and hospitals established there were willing to use these drugs.

Because these drugs were proven to be truly effective, they could bring about rapid recovery. Despite being costly, they ensured that those who could afford them would survive.

The world was never all that fair to begin with; the rich getting better healthcare was a harsh reality.

Although Great Tang Group was still trying to keep prices down as much as possible, after several hand changes, the prices still soared.

Not many could get their hands on affordable medicines, and even then, it was only possible in Great Tang Group-controlled areas like Brunas and Jade City.

However, the progress in medicine, at the very least, provided people with hope, a faint hope to conquer diseases and continue living.

This time, the reason why the outbreak of malaria in the Empire of Nanla was so concerning was that the Emperor of Nanla had also fallen ill.

At the beginning, because he had better sanitation and the care of court physicians, the Emperor did not take his illness seriously.

Now that the Emperor was seriously ill and could die at any time, taking control of the Emperor was not necessarily a good thing. This was also why he didn't actually deploy heavy troops to guard the sleeping chamber—he hadn't decided whether or not he wanted the Emperor to die by his hand.

"If I hadn't come... you would probably have killed His Majesty! Joyce! Take your men and scram!" Mo Kangsen scratched his fleshy head and suddenly raised his voice, taking on a righteous appearance.

"You! Don't be smug! Mo Kangsen! His Majesty is fine with me. If anything happens to him in your hands, I would like to see, see how you explain it to everyone in the Empire of Nanla!" Joyce knew about the Emperor's illness, so he started to backpedal.

Just now, the doctor who had bled the Emperor had secretly told him that the Emperor might breathe his last tonight.

Joyce, almost certain that the Emperor was beyond help, eventually decided to let the Emperor die in Mo Kangsen's hands.

"You just wait!" With a snort, not daring to recklessly wield weapons outside the Emperor's sleeping chamber, Joyce left with the other ministers following him.

Turning around, he pushed open the door and then instructed someone to quickly close it. As soon as Mo Kangsen entered the room, he spoke to a male doctor who was fiddling with a medicine box, "I have put my life in your hands, you'd better be telling the truth."

"Of course, His Majesty's physical condition is very poor, but these problems are all caused by the bloodletting from Joyce's people." The doctor smiled with a reassuring and convincing demeanor.

As he took out the medication, he continued, "His Majesty merely has malaria, this disease is not fatal."

Mo Kangsen felt the need to remind the other, "Before you came to me, malaria was basically an incurable disease in the Empire of Nanla! Some people recovered from this disease, but they were the minority, most people would die..."

In the Empire of Nanla, malaria was truly a deadly infectious disease, claiming the lives of many people each year.

"With the medication from Great Tang Group, it is no longer fatal... Mr. Mo Kangsen, you will soon witness a miracle." Holding the medicine and water, the doctor approached the Emperor's bedside and signaled the first Imperial Concubine—Mo Kangsen's daughter—to help the Emperor sit up.

"I must be crazy, to watch someone give the Emperor some unclear substance to ingest... Could you tell me what this really is? So I can relax a bit..." Mo Kangsen murmured timidly, suspecting he must be insane to undertake such a wild endeavor.

Logically, an Emperor on his deathbed was definitely a hot potato, especially when the Crown Prince was already firmly established in his position.

A subsequent investigation would cause him immense pain, and if the Crown Prince truly wanted a scapegoat, Mo Kangsen felt he would certainly be the unlucky one.

"Hmm, it's nothing, just a substance extracted from the bark of a tree, you can think of it as a kind of herbal medicine." After administering the medicine to the Emperor, the doctor replied.

"You actually gave a tree bark to an Emperor to eat?" Mo Kangsen felt as if his whole world had just turned upside down in an instant.

"Ha... ignorant fellow, you haven't seen things extracted from moldy substances yet..." The doctor disdainfully mocked Mo Kangsen, this top noble of the Empire of Nanla.

In his eyes, nobility were just rich fools. Only the great Mr. Tang and those prophetic medical school professors deserved his respect.

Undeterred, Mo Kangsen scratched his head and continued to ask, "I hope you succeed... What is this medicine called?"

In his opinion, such a doctor brimming with confidence, who maybe could indeed perform miraculous healings, was not to be offended... who knows when he himself would need such a service...

"Quinine," the doctor answered laconically.