In the fourth year of Shaosheng in the Northern Song Dynasty (1097), Su Dongpo was exiled to Changhua Army in Hainan (today's Danzhou in Hainan) with the false title of Qiongzhou Biejia. At that time, Su Dongpo was 62 years old. He left in June of the third year of Yuanfu (1100) and lived in Hainan Island for nearly three years.
Danzhou is located in the northwest of Hainan Island, in the tropics, with scorching hot weather and venomous snakes and beasts all over the territory. The most terrifying ones are miasma and malaria. The diseases are endemic and threaten people's lives from time to time. According to "Danzhou Chronicles": "The land is extremely hot, but the sea wind is very cold, and the mountains are rainy and foggy." "The cold wind invades the muscle orifices; the turbid air is breathed into the mouth and nose; the poisonous water is poured into the mouth and nose." In the chest, abdomen, lungs and heart, there are very few immortals there.” No wonder this place has been used by the imperial court as a place of exile for death row prisoners throughout the ages. Su Dongpo was determined to die when he came to Hainan. However, what made him feel most unable to adapt was the eating habits here.
Su Dongpo described his hard life in Danzhou in the poem "Wenzi grew thin and became so thin that he could hardly eat meat". He wrote: "On the fifth day, I saw pork, and on the tenth I saw pork." When it comes to yellow chicken porridge, the locals eat taro and smoked rats and roasted bats. I heard that it tastes vomiting, which is slightly closer to the custom of shrimps and toads." Ziyou is Su Dongpo's younger brother Su Che. Su Dongpo heard that Su Che was becoming increasingly thin due to the harsh environment, so he wrote this poem to comfort him, telling him that his life in Hainan was also extremely difficult.
Not only are pork and chicken porridge rare to eat, but local people still have the habit of eating potato yam every meal. When you are a guest at their home, the best treats for you are smoked rats and roasted bats. "Miji" refers to a newly born baby mouse. The locals eat it with honey and regard it as a delicacy. Regarding this food, Su Dongpo felt his scalp numb and almost vomited on the spot. But there was no other way. After all, he had to do as the Romans did. He still had to endure his disgust and taste food such as bat soup and shrimp meat.
In ancient times, materials were scarce, and the ancients could only adapt to local conditions and hunt the nutrients necessary for their own survival from these wild animals. This is completely different from today's wrong practice of people greedily eating wild animals out of taste and curiosity, without any taboos, thus triggering the new coronavirus epidemic and causing catastrophic consequences.
However, it can also be seen that the Chinese people in some places have a long-standing eating habit of eating bats. It’s just that modern Chinese people no longer have this eating habit. Most of the video scenes of bat-eating circulating on the Internet are horrifying scenes recorded by tourists traveling abroad.
Currently, the whole country is engaged in a people's war against the new coronavirus, and bats have been identified by scientists as the culprit in the outbreak of new coronavirus pneumonia. Looking back at the history of bat-eating in China, Su Dongpo, a scholar and scholar, was unfortunately included in the list. However, if we consider the history of mankind's fight against plague, we will be pleasantly surprised to find that Su Dongpo was also a great anti-epidemic hero.
When Su Dongpo was demoted to Huangzhou, he encountered a plague epidemic in Huangzhou and neighboring counties, resulting in countless deaths. Huangzhou is today's Huanggang City, Hubei Province, and its neighboring prefectures and counties are Wuchang, Jingzhou and other places, which is today's Wuhan area. Seeing the epidemic and the devastation of life, Su Dongpo was worried and anxious, but he had no good plan.
At this moment, he learned that his fellow villager Chaogu’s family had a secret recipe to cure the plague. Su Dongpo then begged Chaogu to come up with the secret recipe to save the people of Li. Su Dongpo took the medicine according to the prescription, distributed it widely, provided medicine to patients free of charge, and saved many patients, who "lived countless lives." (See Su Shi's "Sheng San Zi Xu").
Chaogu was working as a tutor at Su Dongpo's house at the time, and the secret recipe he presented was called "Shengsanzi". Where did he get his secret recipe for treating the plague? Su Dongpo did not explain it in "Sheng San Zi Xu". As for its efficacy? How many patients on the verge of life and death have been cured? Su Dongpo was also vague.
According to the "Biography of Chaogu" written by Su Che, Chaogu was a scholar in Meishan who made a living by teaching. The Dongpo brothers had known him since they were children, and they were friends in adversity. Later, Chaogu committed a crime in the army with a man named Han Cunbao, so he concealed his name and escaped between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River. He did not dare to show up until the imperial court granted amnesty to the world.
When Su Dongpo encountered the turmoil of the "Wutai Poetry Case", he traveled thousands of miles from Chaogu and came to Huangzhou to keep him company and served as the tutor of the Su family.
Later, the Dongpo brothers were demoted to Lingnan, and Chaogu, regardless of his seventy-three-year-old age, walked thousands of miles from his hometown of Meishan to Lingnan to visit the Dongpo brothers. After meeting Su Che, he also said that he would rush to Hainan Island to visit Su Dongpo. Su Che was deeply touched by his true feelings and urged him not to go. However, Chaogu insisted on going and unfortunately fell ill and died on the road.
"Holy Sanzi" is a secret recipe of traditional Chinese medicine that Chaogu collected in the past, and even his own son was reluctant to pass it on to him. When Chaogu passed the secret recipe to Su Dongpo, he asked him to swear to the river not to tell anyone else. Su Dongpo did not abide by his oath. In order to save people, he passed the prescription of Shengsan to Pang Junan, a famous doctor in Hubei at that time, hoping that he could use this prescription to save more patients.
In the fifth year of Yuanyou (1090), when Su Dongpo served as the magistrate of Hangzhou, "Shengsanzi" played a magical role again. In the spring of that year, there was an epidemic of plague in Suzhou and Hangzhou. Su Dongpo took out the prescription of Shengsanzi and ordered his subordinates to prepare the medicine according to the prescription and distribute it to the people of Hangzhou for free. "There are countless people who can survive with this medicine." (See Su Shi's " "Postscript of Shengsanzi").
In order to prevent the plague, Su Dongpo also mobilized private donations to support disaster relief. He set an example himself, donated fifty taels of gold, and raised funds from the masses to build a hospital called "Anlefang", which was specially used to treat poor patients. According to research, this is the first public infectious disease hospital in the history of our country. Su Dongpo sent monks from the monastery to manage the ward and hired professional doctors to conduct consultations every day. Su Dongpo also formulated rules to treat patients separately according to their severity to prevent cross-infection. These practices were quickly followed across the country, effectively preventing the spread of the epidemic.
Su Dongpo was not a professional doctor, but he served as an official, cared about the sufferings of the people, and valued the lives of the people more than Mount Tai. His spirit of responsibility is always worth learning and respecting by our descendants. It can be said that Su Dongpo was a pioneer in ancient Chinese medicine and a well-deserved hero of the times in fighting the plague.