Inside the makeshift government headquarters of Han Chang'an, an eerie stillness settled over the room.
For the generals and strategists gathered around the wooden tables, the light screen had just delivered a bizarre piece of historical trivia. It claimed that Cao Pi had stood at a funeral and brayed like a donkey to honor a dead friend. Under normal circumstances, this would be premium gossip. Someone might have cracked a joke. Someone might have laughed at the sheer absurdity of the future Emperor of Wei acting like a farm animal.
But right now, nobody cared about the Seven Scholars of Jian'an. Nobody had the energy to mock Cao Pi and his donkey noises.
A single line of text on the glowing screen had drained the blood from their faces.
The 22nd year of Jian'an. A Great Plague.
The light screen did not just call it a plague. The host from the future described it as a disaster of unprecedented scale. The king of plagues.
Among all the men staring at the magical projection, Liu Bei wore the most severe expression. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened into canyons. As the oldest man in the room, he carried memories that the younger generation lacked. The light screen casually listed a series of dates marking previous disease outbreaks. To a modern audience, those were just numbers in a history book. To Liu Bei, they were vivid nightmares. He had lived through them. He had seen the horrors with his own two eyes.
The string of dates flashed on the light screen, and Liu Bei's mind effortlessly matched them to his traumatic past.
The 4th year of Jianning. The earth tore open in the Hedong region. Hail and rain battered the land simultaneously. Violent floods washed away entire villages. Right after the waters receded, a pestilence swept through the survivors.
The 1st month of the 2nd year of Xiping. Another plague.
The spring of the 2nd year of Guanghe. Yet another wave of death.
The spring of the 5th year of Guanghe. The cycle repeated.
For Liu Bei, those years were a blur of rotting corpses and weeping orphans. He had spent his youth watching the world burn and sicken. Those were memories he actively tried to suppress. But now, the light screen was telling him that the 22nd year of Jian'an would bring a disaster that dwarfed all the others.
An involuntary shudder ran down his spine. Liu Bei turned his stiff neck, the joints popping slightly as he shifted his gaze toward the legendary physician, Zhang Zhongjing.
The current year was the 18th year of Jian'an. If the historical records from the future were accurate, this apocalyptic plague was exactly 4 years away.
Zhang Zhongjing sat with his eyebrows locked in a tight knot. His face was a mask of solemnity. He slowly lifted his head and met Liu Bei's desperate, expectant gaze. He also felt the heavy stares of Jian Yong, Fa Zheng, and Pang Tong pressing down on his shoulders.
The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a sword. Even the notoriously loud Zhang Fei managed to control his booming voice. The giant warrior leaned forward and mumbled with uncharacteristic caution.
"Doctor Zhang," Zhang Fei said, his voice reduced to a low rumble. "Is there truly a plague coming in 4 years?"
Faced with this terrifying question, Zhang Zhongjing had no answer.
I am a gifted doctor, sure, you can say that. But a sage? No. A wizard who can see through time? Definitely not. I am just a man who watched too many family members die from plague and decided to spend the rest of my life fighting back. But knowing the future? Do I look like some kind of immortal to you, Yide?
Just as the pause stretched to the point of breaking, Zhuge Liang stepped in to rescue the old doctor.
The young strategist waved his feather fan slowly and shook his head.
"Given everything we have accomplished recently," Kongming said with a calm voice, "the reality of our current world has already diverged from the history known to our descendants. How could Master Zhongjing possibly predict an event that might no longer happen?"
"Kongming, your reasoning makes sense," Liu Bei said. "According to the original timeline presented by the light screen, we should still be bogged down in a bitter war inside Yizhou right now. Nobody in the future could have predicted that we would be sitting comfortably in Chang'an, managing a grand battle against the combined forces of Sun Quan and Cao Cao."
Jian Yong added, "Yes, that is right. We have borrowed the knowledge from future generations. We have combined and used all the strength of sharp minds. We are actively propping up the collapsing Han Dynasty. Right now, our forces are battling the Sun and Cao alliance in Jingzhou."
"Under these heavily altered circumstances, the enemy forces would likely avoid a prolonged standoff at the mouth of the Ruxu River. If that specific battle changed, then perhaps the plague would not materialize, right?"
"But the hidden danger of this plague erupting still exists," Zhang Zhongjing stated with caution. His words ruthlessly crushed the small sliver of hope blooming in Liu Bei's heart.
Before the physician could elaborate on his grim diagnosis, Kongming let out a soft sigh and took over the explanation.
"The history books of the future only record the Great Plagues," Kongming said. "But let us be honest with ourselves. From the Jianning era up to this very day, has there ever been a single year where disease vanished from the land? No. Sickness is a constant companion. The history books only mention the outbreaks that cause a catastrophic loss of life."
The men around the table nodded grimly. Living in an era of endless chaos gave them a very realistic perspective on death.
When a plague hit a major city or a wealthy county, the local officials would panic and send urgent reports up the chain of command. The disaster would be documented. But out in the remote countryside, the reality was far more brutal. A disease could sweep through an isolated village and kill every single resident before the local magistrate even knew there was a problem. Years later, a wandering merchant might stumble upon the ruined huts and finally report the loss.
Countless villages had vanished from the map exactly like that.
Having touched upon this dark reality, Kongming continued with a heavy tone.
"Master Zhang and I have studied the patterns closely. Nearly every major plague of the past was directly preceded by a great natural disaster."
Zhuge Liang began counting on his fingers, laying out the brutal facts.
"In the year 171, the earth split open in 12 places across the Hedong region. The largest fissure was 10 miles long and 30 paces wide. It swallowed homes and destroyed endless acres of fertile farmland."
"In the year 173, an earthquake struck Beihai. The ocean surged inland. Wherever the saltwater reached, the fertile soil was ruined. The crops were destroyed."
"In the year 179, a plague struck in the spring. But look at the previous year. Earthquakes struck in the 2nd and 4th months of 178, followed by a devastating locust swarm in the winter. The plague arrived right on schedule."
Zhuge Liang stopped counting. He did not need to say anything more. Everyone in the room was a veteran of this chaotic world. They all understood the lethal equation.
Natural disasters destroy crops. Starving peasants abandon their homes and become wandering refugees. The clusters of dying people breed disease. The refugees then carry that disease across provincial borders, infecting new cities. Eventually, a localized sickness evolves into a Great Plague.
"So after all this talk," Zhang Fei suddenly blurted out, unable to hold back his realization, "those Seven Scholars of Jian'an basically died indirectly by the hands of Cao the Thief?"
The room went still for a moment.
Liu Bei turned to look at him, blinking. "Yide... that is actually a fair point."
Zhuge Liang nodded slowly. "Crude, but not wrong."
Zhang Fei puffed up his chest. "See? Even I can connect the dots sometimes!"
Pang Tong chuckled. "The day Yide connects the dots is the day Cao Cao surrenders."
"Hey!"
The tension in the room lightened just a little, and even Zhang Zhongjing allowed a faint smile.
Liu Bei looked at his chief strategist and nodded slowly. He understood the hidden warning in Kongming's words.
If they did not actively work to prevent outbreaks, they would not need to wait 4 years for a disaster. Every single major military campaign they launched from this point forward carried the risk of spawning a new plague.
It was time to elevate the status of military medicine. The selection and training of army doctors needed to be pushed to the very top of his agenda. Liu Bei locked that decision firmly into his mind.
Across the table, Pang Tong and Fa Zheng had also grasped the strategic implications.
However, a terrifying thought suddenly bloomed inside Fa Zheng's mind.
"Cao Cao recently executed a divine physician," Fa Zheng murmured, his eyes narrowing. "The warlord of the north clearly ignores the importance of epidemic prevention. Since the Cao camp is so vulnerable, perhaps we could exploit that weakness."
Pang Tong caught his meaning and shook his head. "Slow down, Xiaozhi. The common people living under Cao Cao's banner are still people of the Han. And let us be honest, the combined forces of Sun and Cao are already failing to push us back. Why resort to a sinister tactic that would kill 1,000 enemies while risking the lives of 800 common people?"
[Lightscreen]
[When people talk about the plagues of this specific historical period, the conversation always drifts toward a term called Shanghan, or Cold Damage.
Now, before we go any further, I need to draw a very clear line. The medical concept of Cold Damage during the Han Dynasty is different from what modern medicine classifies as typhoid fever.
Do not get me wrong. The physicians of antiquity were clever people. The ancient doctors were gifted, but their understanding was severely limited by the technology of their time. They frequently mistook the environmental trigger of a disease for the actual pathogen. The word Cold did not strictly mean freezing temperatures. It was a broad umbrella term used to describe any external evil force that invaded the human body and caused illness. Headache? Cold. Fever? Cold. Stomach issues? Also Cold. Everything was Cold.
From our comfortable vantage point in the modern era, separated by more than 1,000 years of lost history, we have no scientific way to identify the exact virus or bacteria behind the Han Dynasty plagues. The most reasonable guess is that we are looking at a chaotic biological cocktail. Multiple contagious diseases overlapping and partying together at the same time.
Open any respectable history textbook, however, and the real culprit stares you right in the face. The Eastern Han Dynasty experienced an explosive surge in population growth. That boom in human numbers, combined with a catastrophic lack of public sanitation, was the biggest trigger for these early epidemics.
The situation had been manageable during the Western Han era. Surviving documents tell us that the population of Chang'an peaked at nearly 500,000 people. The city never exceeded its natural carrying capacity for long. It was crowded, sure, but not quite everyone is breathing each other's air crowded.
Everything shifted during the Eastern Han. The new government inherited the solid foundations of its predecessor. It defeated external threats and turned its attention inward toward domestic prosperity. Predictably, the population exploded.
The Book of the Later Han records that in the 5th year of Yonghe, the year 140 by our modern reckoning, Luoyang contained 280,000 households. Do the arithmetic. That works out to roughly 1,000,000 people. Chang'an, by comparison, held 50,000 households and a population of 300,000.
When you cram that many human beings inside walled cities, the first crisis you encounter is not food. Not defense. Of course, it is garbage disposal.
Liquid waste presented a manageable challenge. Both Luoyang and Chang'an stood beside major rivers, and the surrounding regions boasted well-developed water networks. Dig enough drainage ditches, keep them clear, and the sewage washed away. Problem solved, or at least problem moved downstream to someone else's backyard.
Solid waste was the real nightmare. For the average ancient citizen, garbage removal followed a very simple 3-step process. Throw it. Bury it. Or pretend you did not see it and walk away.
Burying became the national pastime. To be fair, modern societies still operate landfills. The difference, of course, is that we have dedicated sanitation departments. We sort waste. We apply advanced chemical treatments tailored to specific types of refuse. We actually think about where the stuff goes.
To your average Han Dynasty resident, trash was simply trash. Dig a deep pit. You and your neighbors heave your daily garbage into the hole. When the rotting mound reaches ground level and the smell becomes unbearable, toss a layer of dirt over the top to seal it. Then walk a few paces away and start a brand new pit. Brilliant. What could possibly go wrong?
The horrific consequence of this casual approach was the slow destruction of the underground water table. Modern archaeological experts have determined that Han Chang'an sits on the primary terrace of the Wei River. The ground beneath consists of alluvial silt, clay, and thick layers of gravel. This particular geology holds moisture well, but it is also highly permeable. It is basically nature's own sponge.
Which means the decomposing fluids from thousands of garbage pits seeped deep into the earth without resistance. The foul waste mixed with the groundwater. Citizens then drew that poisoned water up from their wells. They drank it, excreted it, and buried it again. This vicious cycle degraded the quality of the underground water with terrifying speed. It was the world's most disgusting recycling program.
By the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, this method of waste disposal had turned the environment of Han Chang'an into something out of a nightmare. The official histories of that era do not mince words.
The historians wrote: The capital is vast and crowded. Over the long years, the underground earth has become clogged. The foul and evil waste gathers but cannot escape. Therefore, the water is mostly salty and bitter.
Translation: The city had spent centuries marinating in its own garbage juice, and now the water tasted like regret.
Confronted with land that had literally been soaked in hundreds of years of human refuse, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian, made a radical decision. He looked at the situation, took one sip of the well water, and said absolutely not. He abandoned the old site entirely. He moved southeast to the southern slope of the Longshou Plateau and constructed a brand new capital called Daxing City.
To guarantee his new city would not suffer the same fate, Yang Jian dug multiple fresh canals to bring clean water directly into the urban heart. He also enacted brutally strict laws against the random dumping of garbage. We are talking lose your hand levels of strict. Suddenly, everyone discovered they cared deeply about proper waste management.
That pristine new capital, of course, would eventually become the legendary Tang Chang'an. Proof that sometimes the best solution to a problem is to just pack up and move somewhere the ground has not been ruined by 200 years of buried garbage.]
The host finished his explanation with a cheerful tone.
Inside the general's mansion, the atmosphere took a sudden, bizarre turn. The fear of an impending plague vanished, replaced instantly by a wave of physical revulsion.
All the men in the room sat frozen. Their eyes slowly peeled away from the glowing light screen and drifted down to the wooden tables before them.
Specifically, they stared at their tea cups.
They were sitting in the exact city the light screen had just eviscerated. They had conquered Han Chang'an. They had moved into its buildings. They had been living here for weeks.
They had been drinking the local water.
Liu Bei stared at the warm cup of tea resting near his hand. Mere moments ago, it had looked like a comforting beverage. Now, armed with the knowledge of future archaeologists, he realized he was essentially staring at a cup of hot, filtered garbage juice.
He thought about the permeable gravel layers.
He thought about the thousands of buried pits of rotting waste slowly seeping into the wells over the last 200 years.
"Damn, 200 years," Liu Bei whispered, his voice trembling. "They have been burying their filth in this ground for 200 years."
Zhang Fei made a sound. Not a word. A sound. Like a man being strangled by his own throat.
"PUAH!"
He shoved his water bowl away so hard it slid across the table and nearly fell off the edge.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, then wiped it again, then wiped it a third time as if the contamination was visible.
"I have been drinking this for THREE DAMN WEEKS!" Zhang Fei bellowed. "Three weeks! Every morning! Sometimes twice a day! I thought it tasted a bit strange but I figured it was just the local flavor!"
"The local flavor, yes, you are correct, Yide. The local flavor," Fa Zheng repeated, his voice flat.
He gently placed his tea cup down. He moved his hand away slowly, ensuring his fingers did not touch the ceramic surface again.
"Dog-bitten, cuih, cuih!" Zhang Fei roared, wiping his mouth furiously with his sleeve. "I do not care if I am correct! I have been drinking DIRT WATER with local flavor? I, Zhang Yide, who have faced 10,000 enemies without flinching, have been drinking MARINATED GARBAGE?"
"200 years of accumulated refuse," Fa Zheng murmured, his voice thin. "Slowly seeping through the gravel. Mixing with the groundwater. We have been drinking the distilled essence of every person who ever lived in this city since the dynasty was founded."
He paused, looking faintly ill.
"Every chamber pot. Every scrap of spoiled food. Every dead dog tossed into a pit. It all went into the ground. And we pulled it back up in our wells."
"STOP TALKING ABOUT IT, XIAOZHI!" Zhang Fei howled, clamping both hands over his ears. "I can TASTE it! I can TASTE this local flavor in my mouth!"
Even Zhuge Liang had paused his elegant fan waving. He stared thoughtfully at the ceiling, his lips moving as if performing rapid calculations.
"Kongming," Liu Bei said weakly. "What are you doing?"
"Estimating," Zhuge Liang replied calmly, though his fan had not resumed its motion. "Roughly 7 cups of well water per day, multiplied by the days since our triumphant entry into Chang'an. I am attempting to determine how much of this city's accumulated filth now circulates within my own body."
"DO NOT CALCULATE SUCH THINGS, PLEASE, KONGMING!" Fa Zheng snapped, losing his composure for the first time as he lunged forward to cover Zhuge Liang's mouth with his hand. "Some knowledge is too terrible to possess! Now I am already very afraid!"
Jian Yong, who had been deathly pale since the light screen finished speaking, finally found his voice.
"Is it too late to move the capital?" he asked. "I hear the Longshou Plateau has lovely soil. Very clean. No garbage pits."
Zhang Fei slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes jump.
"I say we dig up every pit in this cursed city!" he declared. "Burn everything! Purify the ground with fire! And then we move. We move tonight! I will not spend another night sleeping above 200 years of rotting waste!"
"Yide, calm yourself," Liu Bei said, though his own hand trembled as he pushed his tea cup as far away as possible. "We cannot simply abandon Chang'an."
"Then boil the water!" Zhang Fei shouted. "Boil all of it! Boil it until there is nothing left but steam! And from this day forward, I drink only wine. Nothing but wine! If I must be poisoned, let it be by good wine and not by the accumulated excrement of 10 generations!"
Fa Zheng nodded slowly, his eyes distant.
"Yide speaks wisdom," he said. "For the first time in recorded history, excessive drinking may actually be the prudent course of action."
The light screen had intended to teach them a grand lesson about the invisible hand of climate and environment shaping human history. It wanted to highlight the horrors of ancient plagues and the necessity of urban sanitation.
Instead, it had successfully convinced the most powerful men of the Han Dynasty that they needed to boil their drinking water immediately, or perhaps just stick to wine for the rest of the campaign.