Chapter 2225 - Critical Condition
The two men met at the county government gate. You Ciren had not drunk a drop of water since morning; after a day of fighting, the sight of Luo Yiming seemed to drain the last of his strength—he crumpled to the ground.
"Quick! Help Section Chief You inside," Luo Yiming said. "Tell the kitchen to prepare sugar water!"
In the meeting room—a converted flower hall—You Ciren drank the sugar water and recovered some energy before recounting the day's events.
"The County Magistrate planned for everything—except that Sun Dabiao would go for mutual annihilation!" You Ciren said bitterly.
Luo Yiming tried to calm him. "Easy now. Since Sun Dabiao wouldn't drink the toast to peace, he'll have to drink the forfeit. The way I see it, this is for the better: a menace like that—better a short pain than a long one. Wipe him out completely."
You Ciren nodded and was about to say more when a sharp pain shot through his back. He collapsed onto the reclining chair. Luo Yiming rushed over; there was a charred hole in his back. Ripping away the cloth, he saw an iron pellet embedded deep in the muscle, leaving only a bleeding wound that continued to ooze.
You Ciren had been so focused on fighting and fleeing that he had not even noticed when he was hit.
"You're wounded—go to the Medical Team first," Luo Yiming said. "I'll handle the rest."
"First thing: recall Zhen Huan's Mountain Company..."
"Right, I know." Luo Yiming dispatched a courier with an encoded message to find Zhen Huan and order him to bring the company to the county seat immediately.
"Close all city gates except the north gate—no one enters without my written order. Have the Second Platoon muster at the north gate. Stragglers from Dalang Market are to be disarmed and held in the burned-out area inside the north gate for screening. Wounded must be treated promptly. Have the kitchen make big pots of rice porridge; let it cool, then send it over!"
The Second Squadron and the Yao Provisional Squadron had been completely scattered; survivors were still straggling back. There was no telling whether enemy agents had slipped in among them.
"Sir! It's almost five o'clock. The squad leader asks whether to close the gates on schedule." A messenger from the gate-guard Second Platoon came to ask.
Luo Yiming checked his watch—four o'clock now. By regulation, the gates closed at five; the First Platoon sent to relieve the party would also have to be back inside before then. Yet fewer than a third of the Second Squadron and Yao squadron had returned. Many were still on the road or lost in the hills. Before dark, they would likely not all make it back.
After nightfall, men scattered in the wilderness would lose all sense of direction—even locals might not find their way, much less the Second Squadron troops who had been recruited from the Pearl River Delta.
"Don't close the north gate. Build a temporary barricade outside to protect the gate. Light bonfires outside the north gate to guide them in!"
"That will draw the enemy..."
"Isn't that why you're there—to hold off the enemy?" Luo Yiming snapped. "Our comrades are out there! They must all come back alive—not become wandering ghosts!"
The County Academy was in chaos. This was the "Temporary Medical Station."
Ordinarily, it was little more than a dressing station and rest stop. The entire county had only one "doctor" trained by the Council of Elders—really just a senior medic—with a "medical squad" under him, plus some herbal physicians requisitioned from the town. Such a ramshackle operation could not treat anything remotely complex.
But fate smiled on Wang Chuyi. The day before, a Mobile Medical Team from the Fengchuan Field Hospital had arrived by boat—dispatched by Lin Motian when he heard from Huang Chao that Yangshan was conducting anti-bandit operations. That saved Wang Chuyi's life.
Wang Chuyi was jolted awake on the road. Yangshan's streets were nothing like Lingao's paved highways; the stretcher bearers bounced him along.
"Ugh..." Wang Chuyi groaned; the pain seemed to be getting worse, and he felt strangely cold, a headache building.
"You're awake?" asked the stretcher bearer behind him.
"Where... is this..." Wang Chuyi murmured.
"Hang on—we're almost at the Medical Station. You're lucky; a Mobile Field Hospital just arrived in the county." The stretcher bearer tried to reassure him. "No need for a boat transfer!"
Wang Chuyi felt he ought to say something like "Serve the Council of Elders and the people; a minor wound won't take me off the line"—but he had no strength. The headache grew worse; he did not want to utter a single word. He closed his eyes and soon lapsed back into unconsciousness.
The county Medical Station was overwhelmed—pure chaos.
Chen Ruihe was on the verge of losing his mind. A few months ago, he had been just an intern assisting surgeries in the bright, spacious Lingao General Hospital. Now, though still technically an intern at the Mobile Field Hospital, he was doing front-line emergency work. Only now did he understand the saying: "Practice medicine three years, and you'll know there's no remedy under heaven."
Three years? Three days had been enough to teach him how little he knew.
True, they had come to Yangshan to support the coming anti-bandit campaign—but no one had expected the battle to erupt the very day after they settled in. Instantly, the field hospital in the County Academy was swamped.
Since noon—since Zhang Tianbo's uprising—wave after wave of wounded had been brought in. Before one batch could be treated, another arrived. From the panting, filthy casualties, he learned that a major disaster had struck: bandits in revolt, the county squadron routed, even the County Magistrate caught in the trap...
But there was no time to absorb or discuss it. The wounded flooded in until every inch of the station was full. Under the Academy's eaves, in the courtyard—stretchers lay everywhere; the wounded sat or lay on them. Stretcher bearers jostled one another to give them water, while a medic, drenched in sweat, kept shouting: "Abdominal wounds—no water!"
Chen Ruihe was now at the triage table, brow furrowed, straining to hear the patient's history—the ER was deafening; if you did not listen carefully, you could not make out a word.
"You lot—wait your turn! I don't care what rank you are—save your lieutenant and captain business for the barracks! This is a Medical Station—who do you think you're pushing around? You there—help the wounded onto that bed, head to the left!" Chen Ruihe bellowed, driving back an officer who was trying to cut in line, and directing soldiers to move a casualty onto the examination bed.
Wang Chuyi was brought in at the height of the chaos.
"Water..." When Chen Ruihe began examining him, Wang Chuyi managed to groan that one word.
"What happened to this patient?"
The accompanying medic briefly described Wang Chuyi's injuries and added: "This is the County Magistrate—a senior naturalized cadre!"
The word "County Magistrate" made Chen Ruihe's heart sink. He nodded and began his examination.
"Comrade Wang Chuyi! Wang Chuyi!" Chen Ruihe called the name several times. Wang Chuyi answered faintly, eyes half-closed, listless—then asked for water again. Chen Ruihe gave him a few sips of saline.
"Something's wrong here..." Looking at Wang Chuyi's torpid state, Chen Ruihe had an ominous feeling. He glanced at the triangular bandage on his chest—already soaked red—and the stretcher dripping blood. He reached for the pulse.
"Blank expression, pale lips, cold and clammy hands, rapid thready pulse, thirst..." Chen Ruihe's tension mounted. He shouted to the nurse: "Hypovolemic shock! Prepare for transfusion!"
The medic saw something was wrong and asked: "Doctor, the leg..."
"Never mind the leg—save his life first!" Chen Ruihe cut him off.
"Possibly a femoral artery injury."
"That bad?" Chen Ruihe pulled back the cloth covering Wang Chuyi and drew a sharp breath. "So much blood!"
Blood had soaked nearly all of Wang Chuyi's lower garments; even the jackets lashed to the stretcher were stained black.
"This is bad—massive blood loss!" Chen Ruihe knew the prognosis was grim.
Still, as County Magistrate, Wang Chuyi was a high-ranking naturalized cadre. "Spare no effort" to save him.
Too much blood had been lost to immediately tell whether the femoral artery was injured. Chen Ruihe picked up scissors and cut away the trouser leg to expose the wound.
He turned to the two stretcher bearers. "This man has lost too much blood. If we don't transfuse immediately, he'll die. Do either of you know your blood type?"
"Blood type...?" The two bearers looked at each other blankly and shook their heads.
Chen Ruihe felt a flash of frustration. "Have you heard of blood transfusion? We're short-handed—we may need you two to donate blood!"
Before deployment, the Fubo Army and the National Army recruits from Hainan had all been blood-typed; their types were sewn onto cloth tags on their uniforms for rapid matching if wounded. But the National Army units raised in Guangdong were a mixed bag—not everyone had a blood-type tag; only a portion did.
ABO cross-matching required only simple materials—Type A and Type B standard sera and glass slides. Though the Council of Elders' biotech was limited, the standard sera for cross-matching were harvested from specific donors. Such sera—used only for in-vitro tests, not injection—were easy enough to produce: let the blood clot, refrigerate, and draw off the serum.
Refrigeration was no longer a problem. Previously, only Lingao and Hong Kong had gas-powered cold storage; after Guangzhou was liberated, the technology had gradually spread. Thus the Council of Elders' blood-supply system was essentially in place. There were now two true blood-supply units: the Bairen Blood Center and the Guangdong Regional Central Blood Station.
(End of Chapter)