Chapter 19 Memories of sinking mud and digging caves

When people mention the coal mines in Northeast China, they always talk about Fushun Coal Mine. Fushun is an open-pit coal mine. The whole world knows that there is a Fushun Coal Mine in Northeast China. Victory was demobilized, and the Resources Committee was able to clean up the remnants based on the situation in Northeast China at that time. Fuxin, Beipiao, Xi’an, and Benxihu mines started production in a short period of time. Therefore, a joint office of the four mines was established in Shenyang, and management and technical personnel were assigned to each mine. Go to receive, ready to resume production early.

Beipiao Coal Mine, located in Rehe Province, was first mined by the British before the Anti-Japanese War, so there are a set of methods in terms of mechanical equipment, mine management, and welfare measures.Although it was plundered and operated by Japan later, the Japanese also felt that the business management methods of the British were superior to theirs, and they generally remained the same without much change.The general office of the mining area is located in Guanshan, and there are two other branch mines.One of the branch mines is called Sanbao. According to the results of exploration by geological experts and mining and metallurgy experts, it is said that the coal veins are not very wide, and the economic value of the fault coal is relatively poor, so mining is temporarily suspended.However, compared with the coal mines in Ruifang, Taiwan, the width, length, and thickness of the coal seams in Sanbao are still out of proportion. Take the heat as an example, the difference in firepower is about one and a half times.

According to Yu Zailin, Director of the Works Department of Beipiao Coal Mine, the four mines in Northeast China are comparable: Fuxin Coal Mine is of average coal quality, like a young lady who is the head of a big family; Xi’an Coal Mine is like a concubine from Xiaojiabiyu; Hui maidservant; as for Beipiao Coal Mine, it is like a spoiled lady.According to the production and sales situation at that time, Yu Zailin's description was really vivid and just right.The coal in Beipiao has a high calorific value, which is rare in the world, as high as 18,900 degrees. You don't need to chop firewood to start a fire. You only need a match to burn the coal.The coal produced in Beipiao is exported from Huludao and transported southward, and nine out of ten it is supplied to major arsenals for steelmaking. It is true to say that it is Miss Qianjin.

When the British were in charge of the coal mine, the general office was on the south hillside, which could accommodate five or six hundred people. The floor was covered with high-grade parquet floors, and the metal furnace plates for heating were all chiseled with extremely fine patterns.It's a pity that after the victory, the Russians occupied Beipiao for a short period of time, and all valuables and property, even huge machines, were smashed back to the war spoils. The general hospital in the Beipiao mining area is extremely large. Although it has been changed beyond recognition, the old colleagues who served in Beipiao generally said that the hospital had more than a thousand beds before it was destroyed. In a mine fire, there were 700 to 800 injured and patients rescued afterwards, so the number of hospital beds was greatly expanded later.When we pay tribute to the broken walls and ruins, we think back to those days, what they said was indeed not exaggerated.

In the thirty-fourth year of the Republic of China, everyone was ordered to go to Beipiao to receive them. At that time, there were about 500 Japanese men and women workers in the mining area, as well as old and weak women and children.Japanese women are very submissive, and the employees assigned to serve in the various offices are even more tender and graceful towards the receiving staff, and they have a beautiful appearance, so some lingering and romantic news happened.Later, the Asset Management Committee ordered the miners to choose either work or Meiji.There was a vice-manager Liu who had been in love for six years, and if he was asked to cut off his clothes, he was not only ashamed to do it, but also had a bad conscience. He resolutely resigned without hesitation. The lake went.

Not long after the Beipiao Coal Mine was taken over, the Rehe war continued. It was said that the Li Yunchang Department of the Communist Party went straight to the northeast from all the entrances of the Great Wall, and the Rehe Corridor had been selected as a place to recuperate and refurbish equipment.Beipiao Coal Mine has its own factory that can repair light and heavy weapons. It has a large number of medical personnel and abundant physiotherapy medicines. In particular, the mountain of food supplies is the main target for them to seize.After a while, it was rumored that the Communist Party and the Imperial Association Army had made a compromise, and they might rush into Beipiao at some point.Colleagues at work are in panic, and the mine police brigade is even more paranoid.Under such circumstances, except for a very small number of colleagues who originally came to the mining area with their families, who would have the guts to join them.Everyone is single, and three meals a day can be a big problem.

When it comes to eating, although the General Affairs Office is duty-bound to organize a meal group.One egg per person for breakfast, boiled eggs, fruit laying, and frying are easy to listen to, and porridge is full; a table for four people at lunch and dinner, chicken, duck, fish, six dishes and one soup, the amount of dishes is plentiful; there are hot dishes in the evening Old rice wine is enough.But less than ten days after eating, the ingredients looked pretty good, and a bowl was brought up, the color was mixed with gray, it was like swill, no one dared to move their chopsticks, so everyone fried the camp (noisy) stand up).The author has always eaten a small amount of food, and it is not a problem to have an egg and porridge for breakfast. I have to deal with a steamed bun at noon. If I am not full, I can go back to the dormitory and eat an apple.When it’s dinner time, it’s only a little late. When I return to the dormitory, I ask the workers to buy a basket of eggs. Every morning, someone leaves the mining area and brings a few biscuits for storage. In the evening, they can eat scrambled eggs sandwiched with biscuits as a supper. There are six or seven people who follow suit. There are so many mouths.After much deliberation, everyone realized that going on like this for a long time was not an option, so everyone proposed to reorganize the food group.

As a result of the election, this guy's army fell on my head.Since it is everyone's business, everyone is for me, and I am for everyone, so I have to cheer up and do it.At that time, the author invited the director of the factory and the head of the vehicle dispatching section to be the general director.Food expenses are borne by the mine side, and the mine side provides a monthly allowance of 4,000 yuan in Northeast circulation coupons for all single colleagues, and one ton of first-grade lump coal per person per month.Taking this money for food was more than enough according to the prices in Northeast China at that time.As soon as the gang leader took office, the first thing he did was to ask the General Affairs Office to buy 40 catties of Kanto rock sugar alkali, 20 washbasins, 20 towels, and 10 feet of natural coarse cloth.First of all, the workers in the dining room are trained, and all workers must cut their fingernails every three days, remove the dirt from the nails every day, and check them before eating.The tables, chairs, and benches are all washed with alkaline water, and the unpainted logs and tables and chairs have white balls, and the dishes and dishes must be rinsed and wiped dry.The second thing is to ask the factory workers to install all the screen doors in the dining room, make a batch of large and small pot lids in the kitchen, aiming at one pot with one lid, and use the scrap copper from the factory to make a batch of copper first-grade pots.The food group has opened auspiciously, the kitchen and dining room are clean and dust-free everywhere, and the dishes made have pot covers, and the natural color is the color, and the taste is the taste.On Tuesdays and Fridays, each table is provided with a copper first-class pot, and the original soup is hot and fresh. Since then, everyone has changed the atmosphere of worrying when entering the dining room.Later, if someone invites a bachelor with his family to have a toothbrush, they try to avoid the two or five days, because no one in the meal group will give up the two or five days of rewards.Later, a few family members came to ask for a partner even without cooking. You can pay 4,000 yuan a month for the head share, so we have no choice but to do it on behalf of anyone who comes.Who told everyone to be colleagues who share weal and woe.

None of the colleagues who participated in the meal group had received the coal they should have received. At that time, the price of coal was 9,000 yuan per ton. Later, the price fluctuated, and the price of coal was adjusted to 10,000 yuan.At this time, we took all the unclaimed coal from the food group colleagues and shipped it to Jinzhou for sale. We divided the money from the coal sale into Qinhuangdao and Beiping to buy a large amount of dried seafood, and prepared to add food to everyone when there were festivals and celebrations. Not long after I arrived at the mine, I was ordered to go to Beiping on business, and it was limited to return to Beipiao on New Year's Eve.Fortunately, I arrived at the mining area when the lights were on on New Year's Eve. I saw the dining room was brightly lit, and the pots and spoons were making noise. There were about 30 or 40 cooks and servants in a hurry, making dumplings.Outside each window, there is a brand new reed mat. Wrap the dumplings and throw them on the window mat. How cold do you say, the dumplings have already been frozen into ice eggs, let alone the stuffing, the leather is full of silver dollars It's so thick, no matter how big your stomach is, I'm afraid it won't be able to eat ten.When we got up together the next morning, it was snowing heavily and the snow was white. I dared to fall in love all night. Thinking of the extra-large dumplings last night, I didn’t have any appetite. I simply skipped the Spring Festival reunion in the auditorium.Sleeping until noon, I was suddenly woken up by the sound of snow shoveling and pushing. The heavy snow has been turbulent and fluttering, and it is getting bigger and bigger. The doors and windows of the dormitory are all covered by heavy snow, frozen, and cannot be opened.More than a dozen workers are busy clearing snow and opening the door, and invited me to join the reunion spring wine!The auditorium in Beipiao was originally a lofty and towering building. Since it was looted by the Russians, all the "Bie Laqi" (Northeast people call the heating pipes) on the auditorium have all been removed.After the victory, due to limited financial resources, we can only choose minor repairs, so we can only use iron braziers to keep warm in the auditorium.Although thirty or forty large fire basins were placed in the auditorium, and two large fire pools were temporarily built, but no one dared to take off their hats and coats.When the dishes were brought out from the kitchen, the braised pork knuckles had turned into frozen hooves.I haven't tasted a dumpling yet. The dumplings boiled in a big pot are hot on the outside and cold on the inside. The meat stuffing is frozen into an ice egg and hasn't melted yet. How do you swallow it?

Speaking of clothing, some people say that there are three coldest places in the Northeast, one is Heilongjiang, the other is Qiqihar, and the other is Beipiao.Since it is said that Rehe should be warm, why is it so cold?You have to know that although the place is called Rehe, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty would go to Rehe to escape the summer heat in summer. It is very cool in summer, and it is naturally colder than other places in winter, not to mention that Beipiao is located in the mountainous area of ​​Jinling Temple. Woolen cloth. The old people in the Northeast said that in the really cold weather, no matter whether you wear woolen sweaters, silk padded jackets, or all kinds of long fur coats, you must have a padded vest next to your body. It is a small padded jacket to keep out the cold. .Once I had to go to the branch mine because of an emergency. The office didn't hear me clearly, so I just drove a locomotive. Because of the urgency, I jumped on the locomotive and let the car go.At that time, I was wearing woolen sweater and trousers, silk padded jacket and trousers, old sheepskin robe, plush coat, leather hat, leather boots and leather gloves, but standing in the front of the car, the car was less than 500 meters away, and a gust of wind blew, bitingly, and the whole body was so cold. The body seemed to be wearing nothing, as if it had fallen into an ice cellar.I had no choice but to quickly drive into the garage to add a car, otherwise I would have to freeze.

When the British operated the Beipiao coal mine, there were thick wool felt carpets in the office. When they were successfully taken over, they were robbed by the robbers, leaving only the bare concrete floor.In October, if I sit in the office for half an hour, my toes will become numb and unable to walk, as if it is not my own feet.So everyone had to buy some grass mats to use as floor mats. Although it was a little better, but after a long time, the legs and feet were still unbearably cold.Someone invented a kind of long thick felt boots, the soles of the boots are cushioned with thick ura grass, which are light and soft. The locals call them Tanggula.Everyone wears Tanggula to work, so that their feet are saved from suffering.There are many laborers in the Northeast with incomplete toes, and it is said that they all died from the cold. Fortunately, we all wore Tanggula, otherwise it would be difficult to keep all ten toes intact. There is a colleague named Zhang Shouquan, from Changsha, Hunan, who is full of vigor.He was told that he must wear a coat when going out from a heated room for three or nine days, but he didn't believe in evil.One day when he wanted to send a letter, he saw from his office that the mine's own train was about to start at the platform about a hundred yards away, so he ran towards the platform without a fur cap or overcoat.When he came back, his face was blue, and he sat down next to the steam pipe to keep warm. Within five minutes, his neck was slumped and he couldn't sit still.Seeing that the situation was not good, his colleagues hurriedly put him under the unheated glass corridor, unbuttoned his clothes, wiped his chest with alcohol, rubbed his limbs, and gave him two mouthfuls of burning knife, and finally saved his life. Come.At that time, if he took a step back and waited for the cold poison to attack his heart, he would open his mouth and laugh, and he would become Cao Fu of Nantianmen.This brother Zhang later came to Changchun for business, but he froze two of his toes before admitting defeat. Speaking of accommodation, the manager and deputy manager all lived in the so-called No. 1 and No. 2 hotels at that time. By the current living standards, they were certainly not luxurious enough. Everything that one expects to find can be regarded as high-level enjoyment.Directors live in Class A, section chiefs live in Class B, and general colleagues live in Class C.Some colleagues lived alone in a big house because they didn’t bring their family members. The martial law kicked off at nine o’clock in the evening, and they were not even allowed to visit nearby houses without a password. . The most wonderful thing in the dormitory is the bathroom. The bathroom in the Class A dormitory is about the size of eight stacks of tatami mats. The roof is pointed, which is said to prevent snow from accumulating.The form of the bath basin is very special. It is neither a basin nor a pool, but a barrel-shaped earthenware tank. There are three steps built on the ground, and the bathtub is built inside.However, there are hot and cold water pipes, and the hot water is boiled on the stove at the back.There is also a heavy wooden bench attached to the tank, presumably for people who are tired from washing, they can sit on the stool and sink to the bottom of the tank, exposing their necks to breathe and rest their legs.The author has also traveled to many places from east to west, from north to south, and it is the first time to solve the problem of the bathing method of climbing up the steps and entering the tank, boiling a living person.If you go on a business trip for three days or two days, and you want to take a shower and rest after returning to the dormitory, you must tell the workers on which day you will come back, and the workers will burn the stove for three or two hours on the first day to melt the snow on the roof After the water has been drained and dripped, you can take a comfortable bath by boiling the water the next day. Otherwise, the snow on the roof will be steamed by the hot air, and it will turn into sweat, which will leak from the ceiling to you bit by bit. It's okay to take a bath, but if you have to take a bath, you will catch a bad cold.Zhang Ledi, the chief of the dispatching department, is usually very humorous. He called the bathroom Shizipo. He said that the steamed buns filled with human meat sold by Sun Erniang's black shop in "Water Margin" must have gone through such a procedure of boiling a living person. When it comes to travel, there are energized barbed wire fences around the mining area. If idlers can't go beyond the barrier, they have to take the train in the mine from the main mine to the branch mine.Everyone walks from the dormitory to the office. Technical personnel naturally have to work in the pit, and nine out of ten managers are regarded as afraid of the road.In order to plan and calculate the cost, the author volunteered to go down to the pit to be measured (investigate and open a new hole, how much explosives will be used, etc.).Once at the mouth of the pit, first leave all flammable items such as matches and lighters outside the pit, put on water socks, wear a miner's lamp on your head, and then enter the elevator.The elevator in the mine is not like the elevator in a luxury building in Taiwan. It is like an iron cage. The speed of the elevator is divided by pressing the electric bell. The staff in charge of the elevator pressed nine times, which is the slowest speed. The thunderous rush down was several times faster than the elevator in Shanghai Huaan Building (famous for its speed) back then.There are pit trees everywhere in the pit, and because the air is thin, the miner's lamps above everyone's heads are shining like will-o'-the-wisps.Large tunnels can also pass large carts, mules and horses. In some places, tracks are laid, and ingot carts can also be used to transport coal. When encountering short and narrow tunnels, you have to walk and climb.Sometimes when a new coal channel is mined, the first thing to do is to drill a hole and fire a cannon. The air will swell, the gravel will fly, and the smoke will rush in, almost suffocating. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is an ape on earth.When you get out of the pit, you have to wash it from head to toe before you can change into your own clothes. When it comes to entertainment, at the beginning of the festival (the mining area has a day off every two weeks), I invited Tangshan Luozi and Bengbeng twice to entertain everyone.Hearing that, my buddies, all of them stared at each other like drunk.Every time I sing a play, there are always a few female characters with bright eyes, good looks, and beautiful bodies who disappear, and the female characters who disappeared within two days appear one after another. Fortunately, one is willing to fight and the other is willing to suffer. Why bother with this nosy business. The life in the mine is too boring. When the yang is flourishing and the yin is declining, the camels are all beauties with long faces. If you don’t try to improve and adjust your life, no one will be able to stay.Therefore, under the circumstances of everyone conspiring together, a Beijing opera organization was established, and it was easy to do things with money, and immediately sent people to Beiping to set up half of the children's play box with four pythons and four relying on it (the whole children's play box is eight pythons and eight relying on it). Back then, Huadan was changed to Xusheng. Before Wang Fengqing, Meng Xiaoru, who had passed by Mei Lanfang, invited her to the mine to say that Xusheng Huadan brought Tsing Yi with her.Hu Laosi, the father who sang Tsing Yi Hu Juqin, played the huqin and talked about Laodan clowns. The box office was full of noise. Just need to clean it.The box office is set up in the dormitory area, no matter whether you can sing or not, I have never heard anyone complain that you can't sleep because of the noise, and you say it's weird.In just two or three months, they were able to rehearse and appear on the stage. Quanben, "Noodle Vat", "Sipan Mountain", "Qionglin Banquet", and even several princes from the nearby Mongolian Banner rushed to the mine to listen to the play.In Rehe Province, such a Beijing opera is unprecedented. There are a few sports-loving people, and they organized a basketball team. The team is called Anvil Basketball Team, and the stones near the coal seam are called Anvil.Don't look down on this Gui team, some of them have been selected as provincial and municipal basketball players to attend the National Sports Conference.Athletes who have seen big scenes, like Xie Jiuhuang in the team, represented Jiangxi Province in the National Games.Although this team is lacking in strength, it has a large number of people, and each player plays for about ten minutes.Once, when I invited a provincial athlete to come to Rehe for a competition, I actually beat him up and left.The basketball team, of course, has uniforms.The coats of other teams are mostly double-material thick sweaters with large lapels; Yeba sprinkled shoes, this outfit is probably not much different from Fangshuo Ouyangde's virtues, but before this team uniform was ready to show, the Beipiao Coal Mine was occupied by the Communist Party. It is said that practicing martial arts can strengthen the body, and the mine also invited several martial arts teachers to teach Chinese soft and hard kung fu from various schools of internal and external schools.I don't know which dear friend invited a teacher who teaches qigong. The name of this man is very real, because it happened more than 30 years ago, and I can't remember it for a while.Anyone who is weak can practice qi to strengthen their body and turn weakness into strength. If you want to practice qi, you must first stroke the muscles and veins of your whole body, and only when you are sure that you are really weak can you teach them.The author was young and curious, and once asked him to massage and judge his body with two colleagues, Xu Yuanhao and Chen Shuqian, but it was a pity that there was no fate.The three of us are full of energy according to his research, and there is no need to teach.There was a Commissioner Yuan in the staff office. After his inspection, he thought that he was the most suitable person for Qi training, so he immediately closed the door and wall. From then on, he would go to the teacher to practice Kung Fu every morning. The master kneaded the two main tendons of his thigh Squeeze, it takes about half an hour to loosen the tendons and relax the collaterals. After ten days, start to use a net bag to put two sand bricks on the lower body. The pubic area breathes hard, slowly sucks the sand bricks, and gradually lifts off the ground , Yuan Jun has been practicing for half a year, and he can suck up sixteen green sand bricks with one breath.I heard that there are people practicing this kind of kung fu in Taiwan now, but I don't know if it is the same style as the master in Beipiao. Workers in Beipiao were originally paid once a month. From producing more than 100 tons of coal a day, through everyone's efforts to increase production, the highest output reached more than 3,000 tons a day. It can fall two-thirds, and then slowly recover bit by bit.It was only later that I learned that the problem with the workers was that if they had money, except for those with dependents, those who were alone would eat, drink, play, prostitute and gamble, and they would be empty-handed until their pockets were turned upside down.There is a small weathered area on the mine. There are a total of six or seven green-light households, and there are about twenty girls. It is said that whenever there are guests in the house, the red cloth window shutters are closed, but no matter when you pass by there , It is rare to see a room with the curtains drawn.Later, the financial department calculated the cost and analyzed the expenses and found that the medical expenses item, the consumption of the German Lion brand 606 in the medicine was simply amazing.Originally, in the situation where there were too many monks and too little porridge, there was no penicillin at that time, and of course medicinal materials such as 606 were selling well.Later, Lingyuan was in a tight spot. The mine heard that there were more than 200 prostitutes in Lingyuan. The welfare committee quickly sent a young man surnamed Yu to drive them all to Beipiao in a special car.Gai Xian, a miner, nicknamed Yu the "Living Buddha of Helping the World". Are you kidding me? In view of the fact that once the workers pay their salaries, the amount of coal output fluctuates like malaria, which affects the entire production plan, so they changed it to pay once every ten days, and the situation really gradually improved.However, the Northeast Circulation Notes are also becoming more and more expensive (meaning depreciation). The largest denomination is ten yuan, and there has never been a hundred-yuan bill.I remember that in the month when Beipiao fell, the author received a salary, but I couldn’t get it myself, so I had to ask my workers to carry it back to the dormitory.At that time, there was only one Huaxing Bank in Rehe, which was still in Chengde.It was far away from Beipiao, and it cost 100 to 200 million yuan to pay Beipiao once, and Huaxing Bank couldn't make it through.So I have to go to Jinzhou Central Bank three or four times a month to withdraw cash.According to the rules of the bank, banknotes have to be counted face to face, and they are not counted as a later account. Please think of 100 to 200 million ten-yuan bills and throw them outside the counter.It has to be a bundle of one million, just a few bundles.So when I got back to the mine, it was not uncommon for me to lose three to five million yuan. Later, I was troubled by a director of the cashier department, Bao Bao, who dared not go to Jinzhou to withdraw money.The author was forced to do nothing, so I had to personally go to Jinzhou to think of a remedy.Fortunately, the manager of Bank of Jinzhou is my classmate. After having a good time with wine, I invited someone from the bank to check on my behalf. Only then did I find that some merchants had problems with the amount of large sums of money paid to the bank.After the victory, as soon as the value of the Northeast circulation coupons depreciated, no one bothered to count a large amount of money, and there were many phenomena of using small amounts to charge more. Friends who stayed in the Northeast for a while at that time may still remember it. I also heard a vivid story in Beipiao. If you say it is false, who is willing to throw the rice cooker and spread rumors.It is said that there is a foreman named Guo Zhengbin, who is in charge of collecting coal bucket trucks at the pit mouth. He is the busiest every morning, and all the empty cars piled up at the pit mouth the previous day have to be pushed along the track to the storage yard one by one. .Suddenly, for several days in a row, I went to push the carts every morning, and the carts were neatly lined up in the parking lot one after the other.Although he was surprised, he didn't tell anyone.One day he suddenly dreamed of a strong man who seemed to have known him before, and he came to him and said, "My name is Guo Xian. I managed to get the cars at the entrance of the pit for you to the parking lot in the past two days. I dug in the sixth district last fall. Coal, the tunnel suddenly collapsed, and I was crushed under the pillars. Because the tunnel was too long, I tried many times, but my soul could not reach the mouth of the pit, so I still couldn’t get out. Your physical strength is strong, please go to the Second Industrial Village At my home, my mother wants a close-fitting short padded jacket that I wore when I was alive, and please bring the yellow paper of incense candles to the place where I was pressed, light candles, burn paper and burn incense, spread the padded jacket on the ground and call me by name Hold it like a cotton-padded jacket, light incense, don't look back, keep calling out the pit, and I will be reborn, and you will have accumulated great virtue." Guo Touer listened to Guo Xian's nose and eyes, and told him after waking up. After inquiring, it turned out that something happened two years ago, so I had to do it.Holding his cotton-padded jacket, he yelled as he walked in the gloomy tunnel. The more he walked, the more frustrated he felt. When he screamed out of the pit, Mr. Guo himself fainted from fright.I was terrified when I thought about it afterwards, so I resigned because of a big debt.What is going on with the prosperity of science in the 20th century is really inconceivable. If there are not so many things, who can quit their jobs and quit their jobs. Thirty years later, I dreamed back in the middle of the night. Although I had been digging in the mud for ten months, the bizarre and thrilling scenes of that year would occasionally play out in my mind.There may still be many old colleagues from Beipiao in Taiwan. Looking back on those years, we all feel a little bit low.