The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

In early July of the 23rd year of the reign of Qin Wangzheng, two major events occurred in Anlu.

The first was that more than a thousand conscripted soldiers gathered in the suburbs of the city, and the second was that at the initiative of the county lieutenant Heifu, a booming "public toilet movement" was launched in the county town!

"My Lord, when I was in Jiangling, I heard the county governor say that agriculture is the basic occupation of the people. The reason why the sage king guides his people is to focus on agriculture first. Therefore, although covering the surface of the land, planting grass and growing grains, and fertilizing the fields are the work of farmers, the government cannot ignore it. Therefore, in the "Law of Land" and "Law of Warehouse", there are even regulations on how much millet and wheat seeds should be sown on one acre of land."

To Anlu County Magistrate Yong He, Hei Fu told him some words said by County Governor Ye in a tone that revealed the inside story. The meaning was very clear:

"The county governor attaches great importance to agriculture and attaches great importance to the method of composting. He ordered the 18 counties of Nanjun to promote it. Whichever county can achieve the greatest results will win the first place in this year's plan!"

Yong He was a wise man. This method was originally proposed by Zhong, the assistant official of the county. Of course, he would attach great importance to the suggestions of Zhong and Heifu, and soon agreed to Heifu's request. In addition to the barracks outside the city, some "public toilets" of different sizes were also built in the streets and lanes of the county.

Public toilets were not actually created by Heifu. In Li Xin's war against Chu, the Qin Mo who followed the army, in addition to assisting in the construction of offensive and defensive equipment, would arrange for craftsmen and soldiers to dig public toilets in every new camp...

Heifu once asked Qin Mo Cheng Shang, and he said that this was invented by Mozi in many battles to defend the city.

"The attack and defense of a city lasts for a year or so. If the soldiers are allowed to do whatever they want, there will be filth everywhere, and soon there will be epidemics, and the city will fall without attack. So Mozi set up toilets in the city, one every fifty steps, with a well-like bottom and a wall around it, eight feet high..."

Mozi invented the public toilet for sanitation during the attack and defense of the city, but it was just a single squat toilet, while Heifu directly copied the large public toilets that can be seen everywhere in later generations.

So, under the order of the county magistrate, the county Sikong, who was in charge of civil engineering, urged a group of craftsmen and prisoners to dig a manure pit at a designated location, build a pit, and surround it with adobe, and a simple public toilet was built. The public toilets near the official temple and the county market were covered with tiles, while the public toilets in the village were thatched to save costs.

In order to show their importance to this matter, the three chief officials of the county wrote inscriptions for public toilets in various places: the county lieutenant Heifu wrote the one next to the barracks, the county magistrate wrote the one next to the market, and the county magistrate wrote the one next to the official temple. In front of countless curious eyes, the three of them entered the large brick public toilet next to the official temple together to set an example...

Government officials, county soldiers in the barracks, and garrison soldiers were required to relieve themselves in public toilets in the future!

And the vast majority of people in the county town were also told door to door that from now on, those who urinated and defecated anywhere in the county town would be regarded as throwing ashes on the street. Although they would not be chopped off, they would be fined heavily!

Under Heifu's order, the night watchmen and village gatekeepers under the jurisdiction of the lieutenant system even wore red sleeves to strictly crack down on urinating and defecating anywhere in the streets and villages!

The strict laws of Qin were no joke. It is said that at the beginning of Shang Yang's reform, in order to make the new capital Xianyang clean, he issued a "those who throw ashes on the street will be punished", and the most serious punishment was to chop off their hands. For a time, no one in Xianyang dared to throw any garbage on the street.

Just like that time, the people of Anlu County had been influenced by the Qin laws for many years and knew that the government's words were not farts. So from the day when the public toilets were built and the ban was issued, the people ran to the public toilets with toilet chips when they encountered the three urgent needs.

At first, these poor people who were used to the wild were not used to it, but then they found that the public toilets not only had walls to block the view and cover people's shame, but also would not be disturbed by rabbits, dogs, pigs, and bees that suddenly jumped out of the wild. Since it was free, why not?

The reason why the government did this was naturally to facilitate the collection of manure.

In fact, this was a matter of time. By the Song Dynasty, many private toilets would appear in Chinese cities like mushrooms after rain, open and free. Of course, it was not for public welfare, but for the precious fertilizer of manure. People who opened toilets would find special people to collect manure, and then sell it to farmers in the countryside to make money.

This way of special management, collecting manure by special people, and dumping it in a special place appeared in Anlu County a thousand years in advance. For this purpose, the county magistrate also set up a small official in Tiancao, with some guilty prisoners, who were responsible for removing manure from public toilets, and used bells as a signal to encourage merchants and craftsmen on the street to take out their toilets and dump them...

The manure that bothered Zhong was immediately available.

This "public toilet movement" advocated by Heifu, in addition to allowing manure to flow from densely populated cities to farmland, has another benefit, which is to greatly improve the sanitary conditions in Anlu.

Heifu knew that one of the characteristics of modern civilization is the construction of urban underground pipelines and the establishment of public health that followed. It was on this basis that the West finally defeated infectious diseases such as plague.

However, China has had a larger population than Western Europe for thousands of years. Why are there fewer problems caused by the rampant spread of large-scale infectious diseases, except for some special wars and famines? Some foreign scholars believe that the Chinese tea culture and feces treatment have played a great role.

The former has always used boiling water, making drinking water hygienic and harmless. The latter allows urban feces to enter the land circulation system.

When the streets of medieval cities in London and Paris in Western Europe were full of filth and diseases were rampant, the city sanitation and cleanliness in the Song Dynasty was famous for the good construction and management of public toilets, and there was a reputation of "flowers all over the road".

However, perhaps because the population grew too fast, this good habit regressed greatly in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Especially in the Qing Dynasty, Hei Fu remembered seeing an interesting anecdote that said: people had to pay for public toilets in Beijing. People used to urinate and defecate on the road, and women also emptied the toilet on the street. In addition, cow and horse urine continued to increase, and the filth was piled up and could be smelled everywhere... Pedestrians often urinated and defecate on the road. Although there were powerful officials to punish them, the decadent trend could not be reversed, and some officials also urinated and defecate on the road...

When the British envoys came to China for the first time, they saw this scene in cities big and small. They used to be filthy in the city, but now they boasted of being civilized and despised China.

However, those things that happened in later generations may have been changed as Heifu set up the first public toilet in Anlu.

For a time, the filth that once spread all over the edge of the city and the neighborhood disappeared. Every morning at dawn, the merchants and craftsmen in Anlu, and the poor people in the left neighborhood, did not go directly behind the wall, around the corner, or in the fields to relieve themselves, but went to the public toilet.

The diligent excrement collectors walking the streets, under the supervision of the petty officials, wore linen masks and pushed excrement carts to collect the waste from public toilets and households, transported it to the composting site on the outskirts of the city, and then put the excrement into the public fields and crops in the suburbs.

Hei Fu looked at this scene with deep emotion.

"If it weren't for the strong execution of the Qin government and the people's 100% awe and obedience to the government, these things would have been impossible to do within ten days in any other dynasty."

He turned around and said to his brother in surprise: "I now understand how great it was for Shang Jun to move the wood to establish trust! With fifty taels of gold, he bought the reputation of the government and a century of hegemony!"

After being nurtured by the war dividend for a hundred years, the government credibility of Qin has reached its peak!

So Hei Fu also began to be confused. Why did this dynasty collapse so rapidly more than ten years later?

"Perhaps, only when we get to Xianyang can we solve this doubt."

That's a matter for the future. Now, seeing the changes that Anlu County has undergone because of him, and the changes are in a good direction, Hei Fu feels very accomplished.

What he wants is certainly not something worth mentioning, such as "two thousand years ahead of India", but to make something that has positive value to this country and nation appear earlier and continue to exist.

The cornerstone of civilization is built bit by bit.

In mid-July, in the hall of the Anlu official temple, the county magistrate, the county magistrate and the county lieutenant Hei Fu gathered here to discuss together, and the county magistrate with the best handwriting wrote a letter in his own handwriting.

This is a letter to inform Ye Teng, the governor of Nanjun, about Anlu County, and proposed to promote it in Nanjun to solve the problem of insufficient manure and change the bad habit of urinating and defecating anywhere.

County magistrate Yong He is very much looking forward to his achievements being known to the governor, and at the same time he began to feel fortunate that Hei Fu returned to Anlu to take office. In just half a month, he led them to create a political achievement!

Yong He was sure that this memorial would be taken seriously by the county governor when it arrived at the county!

He didn't know what Hei Fu, who was seriously examining the words on the bamboo slips, was thinking.

"It's a pity that there is no loud slogan."

Looking at this formal document, Hei Fu smiled mischievously.

He had already thought of the slogan.

"Be civilized and set a new trend! Work hard to create the first national-level health county in Qin!"

"County lieutenant, is there anything wrong?" Yong He asked.

"No, no." Hei Fu quickly stopped imagining and signed his name on the bamboo slips...

...

At the end of July, County Governor Ye also received a memorial written by the Anlu County Magistrate, the Secretary, and the Lieutenant.

After reading it, his expression changed from weird to admiring, and then from admiring back to laughing.

"Why does father look different?"

In the study, Zijin, who brought porridge to Ye Teng, asked curiously.

Ye Teng was actually blaming the strange title, praising the content, and laughing at Heifu's unique imagination, actually coming up with ideas about toilets that upper-class people avoid talking about.

Ye Teng looked at the porridge and suddenly felt hungry, and pushed the bamboo slips to his daughter: "Look for yourself... Look at Heifu, he just returned to Anlu County and did a great thing."

Zijin was also curious, and took a look, but saw a few big words on the bamboo slips.

"Book on the establishment of public toilets in Nanjun"?