Chapter One Hundred and One Return to Camp and Settle In

  After leaving Li Mu's camp, Gao Yuan and Li Yinghong returned to their own camp. As the two were now husband and wife, they could share a large tent, with the front half for handling official business and the back half for living quarters.

  As soon as the two returned, Gao Yuan immediately summoned Shen Chen and asked him about the arrangements for the soldiers.

  Gao Yuan retreated to Quyang with Li Mu and settled there. The several guests he had received in Handan, such as Zhong Sun Qi, Wu Zhanpeng, and others, including Shen Shen, also followed Gao Yuan to Quyang. This time, everyone went out to battle together with Gao Yuan and arrived at Jingxing.

  Zhong Sun Qi, Wu Zhan Peng and others followed Gao Yuan to Jing Xing. There was no unexpected event because they were originally warriors who had enlisted in the army to fight, and had joined Gao Yuan's camp for this purpose. What Gao Yuan did not expect was that Shen Shen also firmly requested to follow him on this expedition, saying he hoped to gain experience in the military camp.

  However, the scholars of this era were not like those bookworms with no strength to tie a chicken during the Song and Ming dynasties. At that time, various countries were constantly at war, so martial arts were prevalent, and everyone had some knowledge of martial skills and swordsmanship. On the one hand, it was for physical fitness, and on the other hand, it was also for self-defense in times of war. Even Confucian disciples had to learn about charioteering and archery as part of the Six Arts. Moreover, the boundaries between civil and military officials were not clear-cut, and most officials were both literary and martially capable. For example, Shang Yang, who led the reform of Qin, and Zhang Yi, who was famous for his eloquence, had both led armies in battle and established military achievements. Therefore, it was not strange that Shen Zhi asked to follow the army on a campaign. Gao Yuan saw him persisting and did not refuse, letting him follow himself to the Jixing camp, and even entrusted him with handling internal affairs of his own military camp.

  The plateau has now taken command of a camp, with nearly 10,000 soldiers under its control, as well as 7-8,000 war horses. Even if some are left in the Fanwu camp as a reserve team, there are still 6-7,000 soldiers and over 5,000 war horses gathered at the Jingxing camp. Every day, there are many tasks to attend to, and Shen Chen's work is very diligent and responsible, handling all military affairs in an orderly manner without any chaos. Therefore, after handing these matters over to Shen Chen, Gao Yuan has also saved a lot of effort.

  After seeing Shen Chen, Gao Yuan asked: "Have all the soldiers been settled?"

  "Report to the general, everything has been taken care of. This time, a total of 144 soldiers were killed in action, and 213 were injured. The bodies of the fallen soldiers have all been collected, and they will be cremated and buried tomorrow. The wounded soldiers are all being treated at the medical camp. Additionally, we lost 275 war horses. There were 672 damaged or destroyed weapons."

  Gao Yuan nodded in satisfaction with Shen Shen's work and thought for a moment before saying, "Let's go, we'll head to the wounded soldiers' camp to take a look."

  Shen Cen nodded after a moment of hesitation and followed Gao Yuan to the wounded soldiers' camp.

  In this era, all famous generals attach great importance to comforting and caring for their soldiers. No matter how brilliant the tactics are, they need soldiers to complete them. If the soldiers are not brave in battle, then the general's abilities will be useless. Wu Qi wrote a special chapter called "Encouraging Soldiers" in his military book, requiring generals to love their soldiers like their own children, share joys and hardships with them, and not forget to comfort and ask about their families. Only by doing so can they achieve the goal of "issuing orders and people being happy to hear them, mobilizing troops and people being happy to fight, engaging in battle and people being happy to die". Moreover, Wu Qi also practiced what he preached, every time there was a war, he would eat, sleep, march, and share burdens with his soldiers, even sucking out pus from their wounds. Therefore, whenever there was a battle, the soldiers trained by Wu Qi were exceptionally brave and fought hard to kill the enemy in order to repay their general. Similarly, Gao Yuan's visit to the wounded soldiers' camp to show concern for the injured soldiers is also consistent with the behavior of famous generals.

  Because the medical level of this era was very backward, ordinary troops did not pay much attention to the medical treatment of soldiers. The mortality rate and disability rate of wounded soldiers were quite high, and the cure rate generally did not exceed 50%. Sometimes it was only 20-30%. Even for famous generals like Wu Qi, they just bandaged the wounds of their soldiers. Strictly speaking, the symbolic meaning was greater than the actual significance, but no improvement was made to the medical conditions of the troops.

  In fact, the vast majority of wounded soldiers' injuries were not serious, but due to untimely or improper treatment and dressing, infections occurred, turning minor wounds into irreparable ones. Therefore, most commanders believed that instead of putting most of their energy into treating wounded soldiers, it was better to recruit and train new soldiers to fill the gaps left by the wounded. There were times when the army simply abandoned wounded soldiers. This resulted in a vicious cycle.

  But the plateau attaches great importance to the treatment of wounded soldiers, because although they are new recruits who have just been injured on the battlefield, their combat experience is far superior to that of new recruits. Therefore, curing a wounded soldier is equivalent to having two or three, or even more, new recruits. Like the soldiers in the Plateau Camp, each one has undergone four or five months of rigorous training and cannot be replaced by simply recruiting a few new soldiers.

  Moreover, this era is a conscription system, and every time there is a war, a large number of laborers will be mobilized, which will have a significant impact on social production. Therefore, curing one wounded soldier can also reduce the recruitment of new soldiers and minimize the impact on social production. In addition, paying attention to the medical treatment of wounded soldiers also has an impact on the psychology of other soldiers that should not be underestimated. With the guarantee of a medical system, soldiers will have fewer worries when fighting.

  There are currently eight tents in the wounded camp of the plateau, with two treatment tents, one large and one small. The large treatment tent is responsible for general wounded soldiers, while the small tent treats seriously injured personnel. However, regardless of whether it's a large or small tent, the plateau requires that the wound be washed clean with salt water or wine before bandaging. And the bandages used to dress the wounds are absolutely clean white gauze.

  Moreover, before sending troops, Gao Yuan also purchased a large amount of medicine and recruited twelve doctors. He also selected thirty clever and capable people from his own family to learn some simple treatment and bandaging techniques, which could be useful in battle.

  In addition to the six tents for wounded soldiers, four of them are fully open inside and can accommodate sixty wounded soldiers. Each tent has a doctor and three assistants who are responsible for dressing wounds and checking the recovery of the wounded. The other two tents are used to place seriously injured soldiers, divided into thirty-six small single rooms, each with a doctor and five assistants.

  To establish such a wounded soldier camp, Gao Yuan indeed spent a lot of effort, first of all, the cost, not to mention the cost of herbs and recruiting doctors, just the salt water or wine used to clean the wounds of the wounded soldiers, in this era are valuable items. However, Gao Yuan's establishment of the wounded soldier camp also received strong support from Li Mu, and all expenses were not refused. Moreover, Gao Yuan had contributed more than 3,000 taels of gold to the entire army, so even if he spent some money, no one would say anything.

  Although such conditions are still not satisfactory in the eyes of the highlands, they are already the best in this era. After this war, it was immediately put to use.

  Gao Yuan, Li Yinghong and Shen Shen arrived at the wounded soldiers' camp. This time, all the soldiers who were injured and returned to the camp had received relatively good treatment and were transferred to the wounded soldiers' tent for settlement. Among them, 13 soldiers were settled in the seriously wounded camp, but so far, not a single soldier has died from injury, which is also extremely rare in this era.

  After walking around the wounded soldiers' camp, Gao Yuan also walked into each tent to comfort the wounded and understand the situation of the wounded soldiers' camp. He took a look at what else needed to be improved in the wounded soldiers' camp. If it worked well, Gao Yuan also planned to promote it throughout the whole army, not just serving his own camp.

  The wounded soldiers were very grateful for this, and many of them were old soldiers who had been injured several times and had seen many comrades die due to poor medical conditions. However, the treatment conditions this time were the best, and Shen Cen also took the opportunity to tell the wounded soldiers that these facilities were set up by Gao Yuan specifically for the wounded soldiers, sparing no expense. He even prepared saline solution and wine for the soldiers to clean their wounds, which moved many soldiers to tears. Some of them wanted to kneel down to thank Gao Yuan on the spot, while others vowed to work hard to kill the enemy and repay Gao Yuan's kindness after they recovered.

  And the plateau only comforted the wounded soldiers with good words, and let them listen to Langzhong's arrangements now, take care of their wounds at ease, and talk about other things after they recover. Of course, he also instructed Langzhong on the spot that he must take good care of these wounded soldiers, or else none of them would be left behind until they were all treated.

  After comforting the wounded soldiers, Gao Yuan came to the treatment tent and inquired about the twelve langzhong who had been recruited, looking for areas that needed improvement.

  In the eyes of these officers, the conditions in the wounded soldiers' camp were already good enough. Moreover, most of the soldiers' injuries were not severe, and within three to four days, nearly half of the wounded soldiers could recover and return to their units. The preparations for the highlands had also been done very thoroughly, with sufficient supplies of medicine, bandages, salt, wine, and other necessities. As a result, there was basically nothing that needed improvement.

  Of course, there is still room for improvement. The biggest problem with the current wounded camp is that it lacks both manpower and space. Currently, there are only twelve physicians and thirty assistants. This time, there are more than 200 wounded soldiers, which they can barely cope with. However, if a large-scale battle with the Qin army were to take place, even the high plains would not be able to accommodate all the wounded soldiers. At that time, both manpower and space for treating the wounded would definitely be insufficient. Therefore, it is still necessary to make arrangements in advance.

  Insufficient manpower and space, the highlands are of course aware of it. However, the lack of space is easy to solve, and the scale of the wounded camp can be slowly expanded. But the shortage of medical personnel in Langzhong is not enough, and the highlands have no good solution for the time being. Because in this era, people who engage in the profession of Langzhong are originally very few, and many Langzhongs are actually quacks, mainly relying on witchcraft to treat illnesses. Only a small number of people rely on medical skills to cure diseases. At present, there are less than 30 Langzhongs in the entire Zhao army camp. It is difficult to have a significant increase in a short period of time, so we can only let the current Langzhong work harder and train more assistants.