It was early winter, and the troops besieging the city had already put on winter clothes. After eight months of siege, they still could not enter the city. Commander Liu was eagerly waiting for the heavy snow to stop, but unexpectedly, fifty soldiers from the National Revolutionary Army's Feng section were killed from the side.
Thousands of troops fought, and the white-legged crows fled in all directions. When Commander Liu escaped from the general headquarters of Han's Tomb in the eastern suburbs, the dark night sky was sprinkled with snow particles like crushed grains. The snow particles were on the roof of the car.
There was a dense swish-swish sound, and Commander Liu suddenly remembered the prophecy predicted by Mr. Zhu for him, "See the snow and make love as soon as you see it." It seemed like the bowl of tofu that was stewed to a crisp and bitter, and the meat that was not rotten.
It is also a metaphor for today's ending. He sighed with emotion: "This old goblin." Mr. Zhu later wrote down a line in the "Chronicles of the Republic of China", the last section of the "Historical Evolution" volume of the county annals: The remnants of the Suppressing Song Army escaped to the east and burned down private houses for five years in Bailuyuan.
In seventeen rooms, three people were shot to death, thirteen were raped, and property was stolen without any plan.
Platoon Leader Yang and his soldiers did not say hello to Tian Fuxian when they evacuated from Bailu Town Junior Primary School. When Tian Fuxian opened his eyes, he immediately felt a strange silence. He put on his cotton-padded jacket and cotton trousers and jumped out of bed. A group of people fell in the yard.
There was a thin layer of snowflakes. He tied his trousers with both hands and pushed the door panel of the next classroom with his shoulder. He said "oh" involuntarily and stopped on the threshold. The soldiers were gone. There were only a few left on the rows of desks close to the wall
It was covered with straw curtains. Those curtains were collected by him not long ago from the rice-producing area of Zishuichuan Road and hauled up by ox carts. Bailu's original bedding was uncovered. Under the table were thrown shabby shoes with holes and a torn leg wrap.
He turned around and ran to the single-room house where Yang Pai Chang lived. There was only a straw curtain left on the bed. Lists and receipts for collecting food and fodder were scattered on the table and floor.
He concluded that this was a permanent escape rather than a temporary retreat. He kicked over the charcoal basket, and a few red charcoal pieces the size of date stones rolled out from the ash. He rushed to Lu Zilin's house
"Zilin, come to your safehouse at noon to discuss matters." Tian Fuxian said, "Our days of being dogs end today."
"Our days of being dogs are over." Tian Fuxian repeated this sentence at the noon meeting. "This crow soldier has tortured people enough." The nine villagers could no longer suppress it and opened their voices to laugh.
He scolded those Henan eggs as blind bears and cursed them to a bad death.
The metaphor of a dog is harsh but accurate. During the eight months since Platoon Leader Yang and his white-legged crow flew to Bailuyuan, Mr. Tian and the nine subordinates under his command had actually become platoon leader Yang’s driving force.
He led them to lead the way through the village and went to each farmer's gatehouse to collect food and fodder. In front of Platoon Leader Yang, Mr. Tian often showed the grievance and flattery of dogs in front of their cruel and violent masters.
Tian Fuxian understood the mood of his subordinates very well and asked them to vent their grievances and resentment as dogs. The entire Bailuyuan was venting its anger at this moment. The news of the escape of the white-legged crow soldiers
Like the wind, it quickly blew through villages large and small, and the anger surged. The burned houses, the mutilated dead, and the raped women naturally became the topics of discussion. Tian Fuxian solemnly said: "There are two
There are urgent things to do: first, to take care of the families who were burned, killed, raped, and plundered by the deserters, and second, the burned-down house in Bailucang should be rebuilt." Then he explained the specific ideas for these two things, and the Crow Soldiers fled.
There is no time to take away the food stored in the school classroom, which can be used for the expenses of these two major events. "Every villager will go back and issue a notice, telling the villagers to go to the mountains to carry wood, and pay two feet of rafter for one liter of wheat.
Each of the five rafters has one liter, each purlin has three liters, and the single purlin has five liters. The rest of the beams and pillars are divided into wheat according to the material, bulldozing and mud, moving adobe, pulling bricks and throwing tiles should be laid down to do small jobs daily.
One liter is enough to provide three meals. This is not a loss to the poor people." After hearing this, the nine villagers all marveled. Such a generous salary is tantamount to charity. They are afraid that they will only go to the mountains to collect wood and come to do the work.
The small-time workers were in trouble; some people complained that the village chief was too kind-hearted and might even do bad things. They all came to eat and eat, but who could control it? Tian Fuxian waved his hand gracefully and said: "As long as everyone feels that they are not being treated badly."
Just become a villager and don’t worry about other things.”
Regarding the matter of taking care of disaster households, Tian Fuxian only came up with the idea after hearing people from various townships talking about what happened there. He slept in the elementary school last night and knew nothing about it, so he couldn't come up with a specific plan at the moment. Jiubit Township
After some discussions, it was decided to compensate the more than 30 families who were robbed by fire in amounts ranging from five to eight buckets depending on the size of their losses, and whether to take care of the families of the dozen or so women who were raped.
There were differences of opinion on the issue, and Tian Fuxian finally decided that it would be better not to take care of him, so as to prevent such a scandal from being publicized again because of care.
Bailuyuan suddenly set off a short-term trend of carrying timber into the mountains. Strong men rushed into the Qinling Mountains in groups with bare hands, carrying pine rafters or purlins tied with kudzu and walking out of the mountains.
They unloaded the wood from the ruins of Bailu Granary, received the receipt drawn by the inspector with a brush, and then rushed to Bailu Town Junior Primary School to collect the wheat. People could not restrain the joy on their faces when they walked out of the school gate carrying grain bags.
Although Mr. Tian has a pair of fierce round eyes, he has the kind heart of a Bodhisattva. All nine townships are involved in this huge project, each performing a duty or inspecting and accepting wood or
Whether they were delivering wheat or leading people to do construction work, they were all loyal to their duties, proactive, and kind and courteous to the villagers.
The new county magistrate has taken office, and his surname is Liang. The sign of the county party headquarters is also hanging at the door of the county government. The county party secretary’s surname is Yue. Tian Fuxian often goes to the county for meetings, so he handed over the entire project to Lu Zilin.
Lu Zilin said to Tian Fuxian who was going to the county government for a meeting again: "You go, you go. You can go with peace of mind. If you miss the project, you will take my head." Tian Fuxian then left with peace of mind. Lu Zilin's eyes were filled with deep emotions.
With a smile, he walked up to the villagers who were laying the foundation for the ground trough and said: "After working for a while, I will take a break and smoke a cigarette. If anyone is hungry, go to the kitchen and touch two steamed buns." As a result, the villagers burst into laughter. Everyone laughed.
The work became even more enjoyable, and no one was too embarrassed to ask for steamed buns during the meal. Lu Zilin walked into the classroom where the school grain was stored with his hands behind his back, stood in front of the grain pile and watched the villagers who were carrying the wood pay.
Wheat. After the grain is filled into the wooden bucket, the person who distributes the grain scrapes it along the edge of the bucket with a wooden board. The wheat that is higher than the edge of the bucket is scraped to the ground. This is the most fair "even fight" in the grain trade. Lu Zilin
He said: "Put down the scraper. Fill up the bucket. Fill it up." People felt much more relaxed, and Lu Zilin turned around and walked away.
The eight-month-long atmosphere of terror that had permeated Bailuyuan since the chicken shooting performance quickly dissipated, and the generous and benevolent image of Mr. Tian and his nine subordinates became clear. On the 9th,
Before the ground froze, a row of new houses on the abandoned site of Bailucang were all completed, and the gaps in the collapsed earthen walls were repaired. The dilapidated and low gatehouses were replaced with brick square gateposts, creating a completely new scene.
On the fifth day after the crow soldiers escaped, Bai Jiaxuan got up and went out to visit his precious daughter Lingling who was studying in the city.
On the evening of the first day of Xi'an's siege, a man from Bailu Village who was working as a cook in the city returned to the village. As soon as he entered Bailu Town, he was surrounded by people, who all asked him about the situation in the city during the siege.
; He responded with a few miserable words and left, and encountered the same blockage and the same inquiries in the alleys of Bailu Village; he hurriedly walked into the house, bumped into his mother in the yard, and crawled to his knees.
He cried so much that he couldn't stand up, and the villagers rushed to the courtyard to inquire about the visit. Shaosiao Ke cried and said, "Oh my God, I just said I can't see you again in this life." Bai Jiaxuan and his mother Bai Zhao and his wife Bai Wu successively
I went to the house of Shaosao Ke three times to inquire about Lingling. The answer from Mr. Shaosao was always one sentence: "I haven't seen Lingling."
In the next two days, people from Bailu Village who worked as cooks, apprentices, odd jobs, people who wiped coats, pulled rickshaws, and a few people who were doing business and opened shops all returned to the village.
They came to visit their parents, wives and children, and brought back and spread a lot of horrifying news during the siege: countless citizens and soldiers died of illness, disease and starvation in battle, and the corpses could not be transported out of the city gate, and they were piled up in rows and rows under the base of the city wall.
Stacked up. At first, they used quicklime to cover the piles of corpses. Later, there were more and more piles of corpses. When the lime was exhausted, they were covered with loess. The city was filled with an increasingly strong stench. All public or private toilets were overflowing with excrement and urine.
Farmers who collect dung and grow vegetables in the suburbs cannot enter the city. The excrement collected by the city people cannot be sent out, so it is piled in the streets and alleys. Maggots reared on dung piles and maggots crawling out of piles of corpses roam freely in the streets and alleys.
They joined together and then divided into small groups and moved towards all the open doors and windows. There were maggots the size of little fingers squirming in the bed, pots, tables, tables, chairs and in drawers. Maggots often get into the nostrils, ear holes and open mouths when people are sleeping to death.
He opened his snoring mouth and accidentally bit into a mouthful of maggot pus, which filled his mouth with a foul stench.
Bai Jiaxuan asked all the people who had returned to the village from the city, and they all said that they had never seen Lingling. Those rumors that made people feel goosebumps and nauseating completely suffocated the life in the courtyard. First, his wife Bai Wu
, followed by my mother Bai Zhao, and then Bai Jiaxuan himself, all stopped eating in two days, Lingling's appetite for Gan Dalu San was also reduced by half, Xiaowen and his wife were too embarrassed to eat even though they still had some appetite.
On the fourth day of the rescue, Xiaowen's daughter-in-law asked her mother-in-law, Mrs. Zhao, for instructions on what to cook for breakfast. The answer was "Whoever cooks it will eat it." She did not enter the kitchen again.
"Four" is an unlucky number, implying "things". The grass jelly has not eaten for three days, but its energy is still undiminished. Now it is spinning, but the cotton thread always breaks.
The cotton net was torn. Mrs. Bai Zhao simply stood on the roadside at the west end of the town and waited hopelessly. The terrible expectation continued until it was dark again, and the fairy grass suddenly called out "Lingling baby" and planted it from the edge of the kang.
When Bai Jiaxuan fell, Xiaowen and his wife heard the sound and ran over to help. Bai Zhao was still standing at the intersection on the west side of the town waiting. When Bai Jiaxuan walked into the side room from the upper room, Xiaowen hugged his mother and shouted loudly, while Xiaowen's daughter-in-law was rushing in from behind.
Pulling out the needle and pricking the person, Xiancao cried out, broke away from Xiaowen's arms and rushed towards Bai Jiaxuan. Then he was comforted by his son and daughter-in-law and lay down. Bai Jiaxuan said: "Take good care of your mother. I'm going to the city."
When the city people were having breakfast, Bai Jiaxuan stepped into the shop door of the second brother-in-law, a cobbler. The second sister thought that a customer was coming, and when she came to the counter, she found that it was her brother from the country. She screamed and cheered. Bai Jiaxuan suddenly dropped a stone. If
Lingling'er entered the pile of corpses. The second sister's family would definitely not have breakfast so peacefully, nor would they open the shop door to sell goods. After he sat on the chair, he couldn't help but ask: "Where is Lingling?"
"Carry the dead man," the second sister said, as if she saw her brother's surprise, but said in a light tone, "Everyone is carrying it. Some people dig pits, and some carry the dead people. The pit is under the northeast wall of the city.
, so big that it can hold more than 10,000 dead people." Bai Jiaxuan groaned, confirming that the words of those who returned to Bailu Village were not fabricated. "I dug a hole in the dark room all night last night, and today the dark room is still empty.
We have to dig." The second brother-in-law said, "Ling Ling'er also dug holes two days ago, and yesterday afternoon she changed to carrying the corpses. She was digging and burying them. Many corpses only had skeletons left, and it was hard to tell whose arms were whose.
His legs were loaded onto a truck and buried." Bai Jiaxuan was numb to these things and only complained: "Second sister and second brother-in-law, you two are really cool-tempered. Why didn't you think of asking Lingling to go back to the countryside to go to her?
"My mother has been going crazy for three or four days without food or water." "Brother, you are not stupid and can think of things. Think about what can happen to Lingling here. If something happens, can I help you?"
You said the baby is safe because he hasn't returned to his original position?" said the cobbler's brother-in-law, "How come you can't even open up this little clue?" The second sister said, "I urged Lingling to go back on the first day of the siege, and the baby said that in school
Without a holiday, we must act according to General Tiger's emergency orders, dig mass graves, carry and bury the dead, and clean up the filth in the streets and alleys." Bai Jiaxuan said sadly: "The family can't even burn the fire."
While she was talking, Bai Ling walked in and called "Dad" and stopped. She saw her father's red, swollen and scary bulging eyes. Bai Jiaxuan raised his hand and slapped her face: "I'm so dangerous for you."
It cost three people their lives." Bai Ling covered his face and argued, "Dad, I'm not upset if you hit me. But I asked Grandpa Zhaohai to send you a message." Only then did Bai Jiaxuan know that Lu Taiheng had already been to the city.
He was visiting his grandson Zhaohai who was in school. Only then did he recognize that the young man standing next to Lingling was Lu Zilin’s second son Zhaohai. Lu Zhaohai smiled shyly and confirmed: “I sent the words back.
"
Lu Zhaohai wore a navy blue uniform and a round hat on his head. The hard visor was covered with a shiny black surface. His deep-set eyes and long eyelashes showed the genetic characteristics of the Lu family.
"How come Lingling and the second son of the Lu family are together?" Bai Jiaxuan was confused, and then he smelled the strange smell emanating from Lingling and Lu Zhaohai. It was the smell of rotting corpses, which made people sick.
, and it immediately confirmed what the second brother-in-law said about "carrying the dead." He said: "Change your clothes, wash off the smell of the dead on your hands, and follow me back to where you came from." Bai Ling said: "We haven't finished carrying the body yet."
It's rotting under the wall. How can I leave?" Bai Jiaxuan said, "When you finish carrying the dead people in the city, you can go home just in time to carry up the bodies of your mother-in-law and your mother." Bai Ling said, "Go back and follow your mother-in-law."
Mom said I was fine and not injured or sick, so they were relieved and relieved." Lu Zhaohai interrupted and said, "Uncle Bai Ling is the leader of the corpse transport team, and things went haywire when she left. Take it easy.
After transporting the body in a week, let her go home. I have long wanted to go back to our place, and the two of us will go back together." Bai Jiaxuan ignored Zhaohai and said stiffly to Lingling: "Okay, Lingling, don't you dare listen?
"My words," Bai Ling said, "Dad, it's not that I don't listen to you. Look at how many people died in the war, died of starvation, and are still rotting under the city walls. We survived under their protection and don't care about their consciences."
I'm uneasy. Let me tell you the truth. I can't go back for a week. After the bodies have been carried and buried, a city-wide memorial ceremony will be held. The mass grave being dug will be named 'Revolutionary Park' so that future generations can enjoy it.
Always remember these heroes who sacrificed their lives for the national revolution..." Bai Jiaxuan's head went numb after listening to these confusing new terms. Bai Ling said: "Second aunt, get me two buns, I have to go. Dad, you
Let's rest for a day and go back tomorrow." Bai Jiaxuan wanted to block it but didn't block it anymore. He watched the second sister bring steamed buns to Lingling and the idiot from the Lu family, and they went out. The second sister said: "Baby said
Who could have endured it if the body had not been lifted and buried earlier? It’s almost winter vacation. Lingling and your two nieces and nephews and I will go back together. I miss our mother too." Bai Jiaxuan said straight.
Eyeballs asked: "Why is that idiot from the Lu family running back and forth after Lingling?" The second sister guessed what he meant and said: "I am a classmate and a revolutionary comrade. You old-minded people don't like anything."
Bai Jiaxuan said: "Second sister, please don't keep talking nonsense. I made it clear that if you tell her to study, just study wholeheartedly, and don't go back and forth with the second-rate Lu family."
Bai Jiaxuan had a hasty breakfast and said goodbye to his second sister and cobbler brother-in-law. He stepped into the gatehouse of his house at dusk. The courtyard had returned to life. Not long after he left last night with his robe on his back, Lu Taiheng conveyed the news that Lingling was fine.
When they arrived, Xiancao and her mother were relieved of their heavy burden but missed their daughter and granddaughter even more. They even proposed that they go to the city together to see if Lingling had lost weight or gained weight. Bai Jiaxuan said: "No one needs to go. It's all in vain if you go."
. We were so worried about her that our hearts were exhausted, but she didn’t think about anyone, she was just busy carrying the dead and burying them. I ran away far away, and the thief woman didn’t even have time to sit with me for a while. Then—