Chapter 12 Section 9 The Most Ordinary Year

Walking on the field ridge with Ying Yang, tender buds sprouted from the dead branches of a few peach trees, against the gray sky and the black hills behind, like a super-large beautiful canvas, with a foreground A buffalo sits in an open field, flicking its tail to drive away fruit flies, a peaceful and leisurely rural scene.Huaisheng, a child in rural China, very specifically, grew up on the land of the Longjiayuan where I was stepping on the ridge of the field. For a child born in Hunan in 1919, what kind of land is his land? I opened "Hengshan County Chronicles". The year before Huaisheng was born, in the seventh year of the Republic of China, the world waiting for his arrival was like this: "In April, the Beiyang warlord Wu Peifu's troops fought with the Southern Army along the Xiangjiang River and the water, raped and plundered. Young and strong men and women went to the mountains to hide soldiers In July, the rice fields were barren. In July, the bitter rains, military disasters, and floods combined, and the peasants were miserable.

When Huaisheng was two years old, Hengshan "had no rain for more than fifty days, and the fields were completely dry", and "hunger people went out in groups to beg for food, or satiate their hunger with weeds." When he was five years old, the flood came from the sky, "there were very few houses along the Xiangjiang River and the Minhe River that did not collapse, and the victims slept in the open for two or three months." When he was twelve years old, "heavy rains continued for ten days, and mountain torrents broke out suddenly". At the age of fifteen, "there was a long period of sunshine and no rain, and severe drought caused disasters... The hungry people gathered weeds, peeled bark, and dug Guanyin soil to satisfy their hunger. In autumn, the drought was severe, and nearly a hundred primary schools were closed."

At the age of seventeen, mountain torrents broke out, and "farmers went out to beg in groups". At the age of eighteen, filariasis was prevalent, the Xiangjiang River and the Min River surged, and Hengshan was hit hard. In 1945, the year of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, there was a severe drought and the war, and most of the fields lost their harvest.In autumn, malaria was prevalent, and more than 2,000 people died in Hengshan.In 1946, when the Kuomintang-Communist War broke out and the flames of war were scorched, the county annals wrote: Severe famine occurred in Hengdong... Hungry people looked for grass roots, bark, and Guanyin soil. One hundred and eighty-nine people died of starvation in Xialiu Township, and tens of thousands of people along the Guangdong-Han Railway line went out to escape the famine.

In June, smallpox and cholera were prevalent.In autumn, the morbidity rate reaches 24%, and the death rate exceeds 5%. The lack of medical treatment and medical treatment in remote and remote mountainous areas makes the situation even more serious.Among the 8,355 people in Mojing Township, 4,211 suffered from malaria. Well, let me go back and look at how the children in Hunan who were born more than ten years earlier than Huaisheng grew up. The county annals said exactly the same: In the third year of the Republic of China, warlords fought, and the number of elementary schools in Hengshan was reduced from 160 to 18.

In the first year of Xuantong (1909), there were floods, droughts and pests. Farmers relied on bark and weeds to satisfy their hunger. They went out to beg in groups, sold their children and women, and died in ravines everywhere. In the 32nd year of Guangxu (1906), there were continuous torrential rains, and the Xiangjiang River and Minshui flowed crosswise, causing the "Guangxu Bingwu" flood. In the 21st year of Guangxu (1895), there was a severe drought.The disaster was severe. Shen Congwen, a child from Hunan, was seventeen years older than Huaisheng and was born in Fenghuang Town, western Hunan in 1902.

When he was nine years old, that is, during the 1911 Revolution, the wild child Shen Congwen saw "a lot of dirty and bloody human heads in his hometown, and there were human heads everywhere on the antlers at the gate of the yamen and on the gates." . The revolution failed, and the government killed rebels everywhere.The execution ground was chosen on the river beach where Shen Congwen often played truant from school.About one hundred people are killed every day, and there are about thirty people watching the excitement.Those who were arrested and beheaded were basically innocent farmers. Later, too many were killed, so the prisoners were driven to the main hall of Tianwang Temple and thrown away.Shun Yuan was released, and Yin Yuan beheaded.Damn farmers, automatically go to the left to line up, damn it, go to the right.No one complained.

The naughty children went to the river beach every day to watch the beheading, counting the corpses one, two, three, four, or happily followed the prisoner to the temple to watch the throwing.After the head was cut off, there was a pool of blood on the ground. The grown-ups, after admiring the beheading, commented on it, and went to kick the corpse, kicked his stomach, and finally felt that they had had enough fun and were bored. , then spread out. In 1918, sixteen-year-old Shen Congwen had already joined the army and went to "clear the countryside" with the local troops. "Cleaning the countryside" means going to the countryside to search for the so-called "bandits".As soon as they arrived, groups of peasants were tied up with ropes. They were beaten with battered boards and then moaning and screaming with sticks. Go out and behead.

In a little over a year, Shen Congwen saw 700 heads spurting blood to the ground.In the past two years, the local Dao Yin had killed more than 2,000 people, and the commander of the Qian Army in 1917 killed another 3,000 people.Now it was the turn of Shen Congwen's guards, "only killed a thousand people before and after"! Floods, droughts, famines, and years of military disasters caused people to flee in droves.On the vast land of China, the road turns between mountains and mountains. The road is full of moving refugees and corpses lying on the side of the road, stretching for several miles.

Before I came back to Hengshan, I thought that 1949 was such a tragic and special year. When I opened the county annals and read it at night under the lamp, every word was shouting, and I realized, ah, 1949, What an ordinary year!