Transmigrated into a female county magistrate during a famine, leading her country to prosperity

Chapter 394 Shen Zheng Lecture: The Function of Lime

Shen Zheng returned to the county school panting with great pride.

As soon as Yu Shizhang saw her, his eyes lit up and he waved for her to come over.

"Where have you been? Yo—are you...going to work?"

Shen Zheng raised her sleeve to wipe the sweat off her face and smiled, "I went for a walk with Lord Liang and Lord Shen and just came back."

Yu Shizhang looked suspicious: "Liang Fu is not watching the county government office or the cloth shop, but going for a walk with you? And Shen Xingjian, that idiot, how can he play with you?"

He stood up and asked in a pretentious manner: "Tell me! Where did you three go without telling Ben?"

Shen Zheng had just calmed down her breathing, sat down, poured herself a cup of tea, and drank it all in one gulp.

"I went with the two adults to the border of Tong'an County to look for something. I just came back and I want to borrow someone from you."

Yu Shizhang automatically ignored the second half of her sentence and asked her directly: "What were you looking for? The border of Tongan County, did you walk there?"

Shen Zheng filled herself another cup of tea and gulped it down in two gulps.

"Looking for dolomite. Fortunately, I found it. There is a mountain on the border, and there are a lot of dolomite at the foot of the mountain."

"dolomite?"

Yu Shizhang thought for a long time before he remembered what dolomite looked like. "Why are we looking for that thing? What's its use?"

"It's very useful!" Shen Zheng leaned forward, "After being calcined, dolomite becomes a rare good thing with many uses."

She counted on her fingers and told Yu Shizhang: "Let's not talk about uncalcined dolomite, let's talk about calcined dolomite. It can adjust the composition of the soil. For example, in some places, acid rain is very corrosive, making it impossible to grow crops in the soil. Whatever you plant will die, you can sprinkle calcined dolomite to improve the situation."

Yu Shizhang immediately perked up, sat down next to her, and poured her another cup of tea.

"Really? This is very useful in the east." Yu Shizhang named several areas at once. "There is red soil, red soil, and dry red soil. Although it is not so bad that everything planted will die, it is difficult to grow ordinary crops. If the dolomite is as magical as you said, it will solve the problem that has troubled us for thousands of years."

Yu Shizhang was half-believing and half-doubting, and Shen Zheng did not dare to say it too firmly: "I just said that it can be improved. This method is not a permanent solution. Although calcining dolomite is not difficult, it is still time-consuming and labor-intensive. If a large amount of investment is made in the east, the cost will be high."

"That's true."

People are like this. If someone suddenly tells you that there is a good thing that can be obtained without any effort, people will still question it.

But if you say that you still have to "go through tribulations" in order to obtain good things, then a strange sense of balance will arise in your heart.

Yu Shizhang smacked his lips twice. "It's actually useful, at least for the Ministry of Revenue. They've always wanted to find a way to grow common crops in those areas. If they knew this method, and gave them some time, they might be able to bring some different surprises."

Shen Zheng nodded in agreement, "That's right."

Yu Shizhang pondered for a moment, "Are there any other uses? Tell me about them as well."

"Yes." Shen Zheng listed them all. "It's not only useful for red soil. It's also useful for yellow soil."

"Is it the old sticky yellow soil?"

Yu Shizhang often saw loess, especially when it rained, the loess was simply their outdoor nightmare.

Not only does it get sticky every time you step on it, but it gets stickier and stickier. In the end it feels like you're walking on stilts and you're even slipping!

Shen Zheng nodded. "Mixing the calcined dolomite into loess or clay can also improve their viscosity, air permeability and drainage."

"Oh——"

Yu Shizhang was surprised, and at once thought of several uses. He praised, "Great treasure, what else?"

"Also, calcined limestone can..."

Shen Zheng's brain froze for a moment.

How should she describe the words "sterilization and disinfection"?

"It can prevent and treat epidemics." Shen Zheng said.

"Prevent and cure disease? Do you want to eat it?"

"No." Shen Zheng took a sip of tea. "It can't be said to be prevention and treatment, it's to suppress the spread. You see, the infectiousness of the disease is very strong. If it is not suppressed in time after the disaster, it will spread from one person to ten people, and from ten to a hundred people. Maybe a village or even a town will become a place for the spread of the disease, and it will be difficult to suppress it."

Yu Shizhang had seen that kind of scene before, with corpses everywhere, it was like hell on earth.

But he still found it hard to accept that just a piece of stone could suppress the spread of the disease?

What about those soldiers who sealed off the city and even... massacred the people?

Also, looking back through history, how many doctors have tried to find ways to suppress epidemics, but in the end they were unable to do so, weren't they?

Therefore, even in the current Great Zhou, if there was an epidemic somewhere, everyone would assume that a large number of people would die. If a serious epidemic occurred, not to mention the extinction of all living things, it was absolutely possible that a town would have a small number of casualties.

"Is it really possible?" It's not that he didn't believe Shen Zheng, but Shen Zheng threw out this big news so lightly that he really found it difficult to accept.

"It will work." Shen Zheng nodded confidently, "At least most of the epidemics can be suppressed if they are well controlled after they occur, and if forged dolomite is sprinkled around the epidemic area, it can be suppressed."

She pondered for a moment and added: "Of course, it is not a panacea. The most important thing is the cooperation of the people."

Yu Shizhang certainly understood this principle, but he wanted to hear how Shen Zheng would deal with it if she encountered an epidemic.

He said, "Go on."

Shen Zheng thought for a moment and explained the methods she knew one by one: "The most important one is isolation. People are divided into three categories: those who are sick, those who have been in contact, and those who have no contact and are asymptomatic."

"These three types of people must be housed separately and cannot have any contact with each other. If anyone among the contacts or non-contact people shows any signs of illness, they must be isolated immediately."

As soon as Yu Shizhang heard it, he knew that this method was really practical.

But its implementation requires extreme precision.

Both law enforcement officers and the public need to cooperate highly, but this can also reflect the capabilities of a great power from another perspective.

He motioned for Shen Zheng to continue.

"Also, if someone dies from a serious illness, the body must not be thrown away casually or buried."

Shen Zheng looked at Yu Shizhang seriously: "We must dig a pit for cremation and sprinkle it with forged dolomite."

Too bad.

Yu Shizhang’s eyebrows twitched.

This is even more difficult to implement than the "isolation" just mentioned.

In the current Zhou Dynasty, or in previous dynasties, cremation represents "burning the unknown" and is only carried out on "evil people" and extremely evil people.

If ordinary people were cremated, wouldn’t they end up with no remains left?

This is something no one can accept!