Chapter 9

Waking up in the early morning, Li Ang boiled water, washed up, and after finishing a simple breakfast, he asked Chai Cuiqiao to watch the house while he took 500 coins and headed to the eastern part of the city.

A shortfall of 109 guan was no small amount; running a medical clinic normally wouldn't allow him to save that much in twenty days. He had to use other methods.

For example, taking on a bounty.

Li Ang walked through the bustling crowd, arrived on the other side of Yizhou Bridge, and stood in front of a wooden notice board that was as tall as a person and a丈 wide.

On the notice board, neatly arranged yellow papers were posted. Most of them had similar formats: the top part stated the bounty, the middle part provided detailed descriptions, and the bottom part included the bounty issuer, the expiration date, the reward, and contact information.

This notice board was set up by the Yizhou government and was usually guarded by constables. Only government departments or individuals with status, such as scholars, wealthy merchants, and guilds, could post bounties here.

Personal bounties were posted on a smaller wooden notice board nearby, with content ranging from hiring experienced boatmen, selling tiger skins, to promoting fruits, candies, and stationery.

Li Ang had already surveyed the area yesterday. He stood in front of the wooden notice board, took a step forward without hesitation, reached up, and tore off the highest yellow paper.

The diners at the food stalls near the bridge looked at him curiously and whispered to each other.

"Is that the bounty posted by the Yizhou Prefectural Supervisor?"

"Yes, it says that a hundred warhorses are sick with eye disease, and they are offering a reward of 100 guan for a cure. It's been hanging there for over half a month, and this is only the second time someone has dared to take it. And it's just a young man."

"Second time? Did someone take it before?"

"The last person who took it was a traveling doctor from another place. He boiled over ten pots of medicine but couldn't cure a single warhorse. Instead, he killed two of them, which made the supervisor so angry that he almost broke the doctor's legs..."

As the diners chatted, two constables eating breakfast nearby also heard the commotion and turned to look at the wooden notice board across the street.

Li Ang stood under the notice board, holding the bounty paper with a calm expression.

The two constables exchanged glances, threw a few copper coins on the table, and walked over to Li Ang.

The older constable bowed and said, "May I ask who the young sir is..."

Li Ang bowed in return and said, "I am Li Ang, a physician from the Anbao Hall pharmacy on the other side of the river."

"Anbao Hall?"

The younger constable looked puzzled, while the older one seemed slightly surprised, as if he had heard of Anbao Hall before. "Is Li Hanquan your father?"

Li Ang nodded. "Yes, he is my father."

The younger constable asked, "Do you know him, Brother Wang?"

"No, but my elder brother has bought medicine there before."

Constable Wang waved his hand, frowned, and carefully examined Li Ang. "Young sir, taking on a bounty is no joke. If you fail to complete the task, it's one thing, but if you mess it up, you might end up in legal trouble."

"Thank you for your concern, Constable Wang, but I am confident. Eye diseases in living beings, if severe, are often due to real conditions; if mild, they are often due to deficiency conditions.

If the eyes are painful and intolerable, accompanied by redness, bitter mouth, irritability, and anger, it is due to liver fire rising.

If the eyes are red, swollen, and painful, and sensitive to light with excessive discharge, it is a sign of wind-heat rising, often seen in acute red eye or epidemic red eye.

If the eyes are slightly red and painful, with intermittent pain and a feeling of dryness, it is often due to yin deficiency and hyperactivity of fire."

Li Ang said calmly, "This applies to humans and horses alike. As long as I can examine the symptoms, I can prescribe the right medicine. Please lead the way, gentlemen."

"This..."

The younger constable looked hesitant, while the older one pondered for a moment, glanced at Li Ang's determined expression, and said no more. He turned and led the way, under the curious gazes of the onlookers.

The Yizhou Prefectural Supervisory Office was located in the southern part of the city, not far away. They arrived quickly.

Li Ang and the younger constable waited outside the office while the older constable went in to report. They heard a surprised voice from inside the courtyard, "Someone has come? Where are they?"

Thud, thud, thud.

Footsteps approached, and a man in dark blue official robes, with red eyes, disheveled hair, and red sores on his lips, hurried out of the door.

"Supervisor Xun."

The older constable, who had run up from behind, bowed to the Yizhou Prefectural Supervisory Officer and introduced Li Ang, "This is Li Ang, the physician from Anbao Hall who took the bounty."

"You? A physician?"

Supervisor Xun was still looking around the door when he heard the constable's words. He turned to look at Li Ang, who was holding the yellow bounty paper, and his eyes first showed surprise, which quickly turned to anger. "Why did you bring a child here?

It's over, it's really over..."

He sighed and leaned against the door frame, lacking the dignity of an eighth-rank official.

Warhorses were a crucial strategic resource for the Yu Kingdom. To obtain a sufficient number of warhorses, the Yu Kingdom established the Prefectural Supervisory System. In some prefectures, based on local conditions, three levels of supervisory offices—upper, middle, and lower—were set up to raise warhorses, draft horses, and other livestock such as cattle, sheep, mules, and donkeys.

The level of each supervisory office depended on factors such as the local grassland conditions and climate, not the administrative level of the prefecture.

After the Imperial Academy improved the breeding of warhorses and optimized horse-raising strategies, the scale of livestock in each supervisory office increased. For example, the Yizhou Prefectural Supervisory Office raised nearly 1,300 warhorses suitable for war, as well as a larger number of mares and stallions.

Most of these horses were raised on the grasslands six miles south of Yizhou City. A month ago, the supervisor in charge of the area reported that an eye disease had spread among the horses. Over a hundred warhorses had red, teary eyes, leading to reduced appetite, irritability, and injuries to the horsekeepers and herd leaders.

If only a hundred warhorses were affected, it would be manageable. With the help of the Imperial Academy, the supervisory offices had developed sufficient strategies to deal with various diseases in horses. They could isolate the affected horses to prevent the spread.

With a total of 1,300 warhorses, losing a hundred would be within the acceptable range—perhaps just a "lower middle" rating in the annual evaluation.

What truly threatened Supervisor Xun's life were the fifteen valuable stallions among the hundred affected horses.

These were purchased by several noble families in Chang'an from the Zhou Kingdom to the south of the Yu Kingdom and temporarily housed in the Yizhou Prefectural Supervisory Office.

Each of these valuable horses was worth hundreds or even thousands of guan!

If these valuable horses died due to the eye disease in the Yizhou Prefectural Supervisory Office, Supervisor Xun's fate would be dire.

Thinking about his potential demotion and transfer, he leaned against the door frame, shaking his head and sighing.

Li Ang, growing impatient, bowed and said, "Supervisor Xun, may I ask where the sick horses are? I need to examine them to determine if I can treat them."

"They are inside. Constable Wang, take him to see them."

Supervisor Xun still looked dejected, waved his hand, and let Li Ang go in to see the horses.