Chapter 48 Section VII

The sky in the liberated area is a clear sky, and the people in the liberated area like it very much... In the autumn of 1948, the Red Army returned to Ping'an County.But at this time they are not called the Red Army, but the People's Liberation Army.To be more precise, only a few detachments of the Northwest Field Army returned to Ping'an County. Together with the newly established new county government, they started a huge project to change the social order.County residents generally refer to them as working groups or working groups.The large units of the Northwest Field Army continued to march westward in accordance with the instructions of their superiors and entered the Xinjiang theater.

At this time, the remnants of the Ma family army and bandits who had retreated to the Huangcheng area became active again, harassing the surrounding people more frequently, and some opponents of the new regime took the opportunity to move. Ping'an County was facing a chaotic and complicated situation.During this period, the working group first made a thorough registration of the resident status, personal property, employment status, public facilities, etc. in the county, which indicated that the new regime would reposition every resident.This positioning is like a label, and its influence on them is unfathomable.They were ups and downs in the monstrous waves of changing times, some were swallowed up, and some got on another boat.

The first one to register with the county government was the wife of Mr. Mai who owned a porcelain shop.As the former chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Ping'an County, Mr. Mai suddenly disappeared a few days before the PLA entered the city, and Mrs. Mai did many things for him.Mrs. Mai filled out her family status in detail in the registration book. When it came to the column of hometown, she hesitated for a long time before writing down the word "Daqin". The staff in charge of registration asked suspiciously: "Where is Daqin? We have never heard of it." Mrs. Mai said, "Daqin is an ancient place name, and I don't know exactly where it is."

The staff looked at the back of Mrs. Mai walking away, put a big question mark behind her registration column, and wrote two words: investigation. In Ping'an County, the origin of Mr. Mai has always been a mystery.Some people say that the ancestors of the Mai family have been in business for generations. Several generations have walked on the ancient roads of the Western Regions walked by the eminent monk Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty, and also set foot in Europe. Due to the continuous wars in the past hundred years, Mr. Mai’s father chose the remote Ping An under the Qilian Mountains. Settled in the county seat.It is also said that Mr. Mai's father was a figure in the underworld. After making a fortune, he washed his hands and moved to Ping'an County to live a secluded life.Others say that Mr. Mai's ancestors were originally European businessmen who fell in love with the oriental way of life and married an oriental woman. Their descendants came to Ping'an County to find their roots and settle down.The latter statement has some basis.According to people who have met Mr. Mai's father, Mr. Mai's father is obviously different from the local residents in appearance, and has vaguely European characteristics.Moreover, it is common for former European merchants to settle in towns or villages along the Silk Road.But the above remarks are all speculations and have never been confirmed.

In people's impression, Mr. Mai is a cautious person. After he took over the business from his father, he moved the porcelain shop from the downtown area to the east of the city. Not eye-catching, a black plaque is inscribed with the words "Mai Kee Porcelain".However, as long as customers walk into the store, all kinds of high-quality porcelain placed on the shelves are beautiful and dazzling.For most ordinary residents, this kind of porcelain is a fancy thing, a luxury, and it is located in a remote place. It is rare for Mak Kee Porcelain Store to make a few deals a year.On the contrary, merchants from south to north came to visit specially.The neighbors wondered, there are many porcelain shops in the provincial capital, why do merchants come to this remote place?If Mr. Mai is not doing good business, why did he move the shop to the back of the street?There must always be ghosts in my heart... Doubts are doubts, the more secretive the business is, the less the residents dare to delve into it. The Maiji Porcelain Store stands mysteriously in a corner of the county.

One year, the Bell and Drum Towers in the county town needed to be repaired. According to the previous rules, the cost was shared among the residents of the city.However, Mr. Mai provided all the cost of repairing the Bell and Drum Tower, and spent additional money to cast a copper bell and eight carved and gold-plated copper wind chimes to replace the original defective iron bell.When the new copper bell and the copper wind chimes on the octagonal building were rang by the strong wind from the west, the melodious and long tinkling sound spread to every corner of the county, and the residents felt a little peace from the dusty barrenness. Mr. Mai's various benefits to everyone.As a result, Mr. Mai has won the respect of the neighbors, and his remote shop is becoming more and more popular. Although some people who come to the shop have no business relationship with him, Mr. Mai treats them equally and asks the boy to give them a hand. When I make a bowl of tea, he comes over to have a few words with him before going about his business.The popularity brought a good reputation to Maiji Porcelain Store, and Mr. Mai was also elected as the chairman of the county's chamber of commerce.When the work team came to investigate, because of the evaluation of Mr. Mai by the residents, and because the county government did not notice anything wrong with the Maiji Porcelain Store, Mrs. Mai, who was in charge of the family business at that time, was still doing her porcelain business peacefully.It's just that the shop run by Mrs. Mai has changed from the previous style. She put away all the high-quality porcelain and started selling rough porcelain bowls for ordinary people's households. The business is justified.

It is also because of helplessness that a woman like Mrs. Mai can show her face and do business.Because Mr. Mai left home suddenly, and finally disappeared.Mrs. Mai fired the shop assistants, took over the shop herself, and raised her three sons.A few more years passed peacefully. In the fall of a certain year, the eldest and second sons of Mrs. Mai, who had grown into half-grown men, went out of the city with shotguns, saying they were shooting yellow sheep, but they didn't come back for several days.Mrs. Mai was in a hurry, so kind neighbors helped her find her. She only found a few pieces of rags and a few bones under the hump of a camel more than ten miles away from the county seat.Mrs. Mai recognized the rags, and it was the same color and texture as her son's clothes. No one could tell whether those few bones were human bones or young animal bones.But everyone believes that the two young people encountered wolves.All in all, Mrs. Mai's eldest son and second son have never been heard from, and she only has her youngest son, Mai San.

What happened to the two sons of the Mai family has been discussed by county residents for a long time.Based on this, the neighbors privately rumored that the Mai family's business must be a cover. They did a shady business and damaged their virtues before they could harm future generations.Otherwise, why did Mr. Mai run away on the eve of liberation?Maybe he fled to Taiwan!When the word "Taiwan" was mentioned, both the speaker and the listener rolled their eyes nervously.At that time, the international and domestic situation was still extremely unstable, and the loudspeaker of the county radio station shouted every day, saying that it was necessary to recover Treasure Island and prevent the remaining bandit troops from counterattacking the mainland.War seemed imminent.Needless to say, that treasure island is Taiwan.However, many people in Ping'an County do not know where Taiwan is or how far it is from the small tuyuan where they live.However, at that time, the Taiwan issue was a sensitive matter and a major national event. A certain degree of ignorance made the county residents feel extremely inferior and unwilling, so someone went to ask the geography teacher of the newly established county middle school.The geography teacher was very enthusiastic. He took out a brand new map of China that had just been published, and tapped a little on the belly of the "big rooster" with his index finger that was covered with chalk dust: Well, this egg is Taiwan.Some people can't figure it out, what is Mr. Mai doing in a small place the size of an egg if he doesn't have a good business in the county?He must be a spy, he wants to go to Taiwan to claim credit, and he wants to cooperate with Mrs. Mai to instigate rebellion!In the end, it was the geography teacher who stopped such absurd remarks. He said, how could a little Mr. Mai have the guts to drive a horse-drawn cart or an ox cart to Taiwan?Even if the bandit needs a hidden spy, it's still not his turn!According to the geography teacher's guess, Mr. Mai either owed money to others and went out to hide the debt, or had a family conflict with Mrs. Mai.In short, he ran away from home because he couldn't get along in the county.Everyone felt that the geography teacher's wording was quite cultured and insightful, so they acquiesced to the matter half-believingly.

Although the people who had consulted the geography teacher said nothing, the good deeds accumulated by Mr. Mai at the beginning were basically interpreted by the strange guesses of the residents, which made Mrs. Mai's later encounters a bit like the story of Mrs. Xianglin.However, the government at this time does not advocate feudal superstition. Although those people are worried about Mrs. Mai's family and their family's bad luck, they are inconvenient to do anything out of the ordinary. Interact with Mrs. Mai to express vigilance and contempt for the Mai family.Later, the old Zhangtou, who was married to the Mai family and worked in the flour mill, wiped his face in his pocket, repented of the marriage contract between his own daughter and Mai San, who had made a baby-marriage, and married his daughter to another county.Under such circumstances, Mrs. Mai's porcelain shop was destined to be unable to survive. She closed the shop and set up a small jelly stall on the street to make ends meet.

Soon, a cultural center was established in Ping'an County, and when it was expanded, it took up more than half of the yard of Mrs. Mai's house.Mrs. Mai felt that some things could not be kept, so she donated several pieces of precious porcelain to the cultural center. Mai San also took this opportunity to be hired as an administrator of the cultural center.Since then, Mrs. Mai's life has been carefree and joyless. Her only hope is that Mai San can successfully marry a wife and have children, and live a human life.Of course, since the founding of the Daxian Cultural Center, which occupied the yard of Mai’s house, or even earlier, since the day Mrs. Mai closed the porcelain shop, it has marked the complete decline of Maiji porcelain.

Many years later, a young man named Luo Yang learned from Mrs. Mai's granddaughter that the missing Mr. Mai never left the county.Mr. Mai has made many business friends from south to north, and he is well-informed. He has a relatively accurate grasp of the current revolutionary situation in China.What worries Mr. Mai is that revolutions have also taken place in Russia as far away as Europe, and the newly born Russian regime has mercilessly implemented extraordinary policies against old-fashioned landlords and businessmen.With the new Chinese regime about to be born as the political alliance of Soviet Russia, Mr. Mai was not sure how businessmen like him would be treated.After careful consideration, he and his precious porcelain hid in a wall of the side room in the backyard, and Mrs. Mai brought him water and food.Later, Mrs. Mai told Mr. Mai that there was no need for him to go into hiding. The new government was cooperating with influential people in the industrial and commercial circles. Shops and enterprises had to be public-private partnerships. As the chairman of the chamber of commerce, he might still be able to make a difference.But Mr. Mai refused to come out, until he died of illness in the middle of the night on a certain day of a certain year.