Chapter 9 What I saw in Qingxiang

According to legend, the village is about to be cleared, and everyone is very happy. When I started my business, each person was given a foreign currency, and I exchanged the money for copper coins. I bought three pairs of straw sandals, a face towel, and a small sharp knife called the eel tail. There is also a piece of silk tied to the handle of the knife, and the scabbard is made of vermilion lacquer. The happiest thing I have is to have such a knife. It seems that once I have a knife, I don’t have to worry about anything. So I imitated the method of the Miao company commander and put the Putting the knife into the leg wraps, he proudly went to the city gate, ate a bowl of glutinous rice balls, chatted for a while, and left Chenzhou in two days.

There are about two groups in our team. First, we went up by small boat and walked for about seven days to the place where I couldn’t get on the boat when I went out for the first time. Then I walked on dry road for another three days and arrived at Yushuwan, Dongxiang, which belongs to Yuanzhou. This time, since we were ordered to come here to clear the countryside, every time we arrived at a fort along the road, we enjoyed the hospitality of the rich gentry in that fort steaming goose fat and bacon. The attack of cold guns. Once when we passed through two narrow valleys full of small bamboos, a gunshot sounded, and one of us fell down. When we heard the gunshots and saw the dead, we went to search those bamboo forests , but to no avail. So they unloaded the firearms from the dead body, cut two big bamboos and tied them up, carried him up, and the group set out on the road again. During the two-day journey, two more of our troops died, but when we arrived Afterwards, we killed nearly 2,000 people in that area. We also killed nearly 700 people in the small town of Huaihua.

When we arrived, we were stationed on the Tianhou Palace with the Qingxiang Command. On the second day, when the regiment chiefs came to see the commander to provide supplies, they tied up forty-three honest countrymen with ropes at the same time. That night, the military judge went through the hall once, and each of them asked a few questions according to the crimes submitted. According to the severity of the crimes, each of them was given a board and a stick first. We painted it on the palm of our hand and took a hand model. The next day, we surrounded these twenty-seven countrymen and went to the fields outside the city to have their heads beheaded.

Killed nearly 30 people at one time, and five more at the second time. Since then, he has been arresting people all day long. , or some kind of big gun, and then released on bail. Those who are unable to pay donations, or those who hate the gentry have already spent some money to campaign must be beheaded, just list a crime casually, and when the time comes Cut them off outside the city. Those who pleaded guilty are called handing over their guns and ammunition, but in fact they have no guns and ammunition. As usual, the price is discounted. Each gun is equivalent to 180 yuan, and each row of bullets is 1.5 cents. Most of them are handed out in cash. When the money is delivered, the quartermaster and the adjutant check that the amount is good, and the person can be released on bail at that time. This is done according to custom, and it seems very reasonable.

The records of murders are increasing day by day, but we don't have to go out to arrest people. As usual, most of the criminals are sent by the landlords of the regiment chiefs in the villages. Sometimes we also send people to arrest the chiefs of the regiments, fine them a sum of money and release them again. He went home. The local people were very brutal. Around Minsan, a Chenyuan Daoyin surnamed Huang killed about 2,000 people there; When it's our army's turn to do this kind of thing, we can only kill 2,000 people! From that place, it goes up to Yuanzhou County for about 90 miles, and down to Qianyang County for about 60 miles. A river can go up to Yuping in Qian Province, and down through the Hongjiang River, an important commercial port in western Hunan, to Chenzhou. Medium water pier.

There is an episode every five days as usual in that place, and on this day there will be pork, beef and other things to buy. In addition to taking advantage of the contradictions of the squires, we use the local detectives hired by the money to make money, and often go to the market to make people lively He went to the jungle and designated who was the spy sent by the bandits, so he was taken back to the camp and searched, and found some codes. When he was determined to be a spy sent by the bandits, he was immediately led out of the camp Go to the bridge where the country people come and go most often, cut off the spy's head, and bleed a pool of blood on the ground. After the murder, everyone admires it for a while, or kicks the dead body twice, and kicks his stomach, as if After finishing a serious job, if you have other things, you will spread out and go to work.

I lived in this place for a total of four months, and there are two things that I will never forget in my memory. One is that in the live set, I can often see two countrymen duel due to hatred, using knives of the same weight and color to fight each other. Cut until one person lies down. I have seen this kind of duel twice, and their method seems to be fairer than all the duels in my place. The other one is a very young daughter of the head of the Chamber of Commerce. I was dug out of the grave by a young man who sells tofu in this street, and carried him to the cave to sleep for three days before being sent back to the grave. Later, when this matter was discovered, the man who sold tofu escorted us The yamen came, and the Fa-rectification took place immediately. A little while before the execution, he was still clear-headed, not confused, and he didn't yell, eat, drink, or curse. He only noticed his injured ankle silently. Ask him: Who hurt her foot? He shook his head, as if remembering something ridiculous, smiled for a while, and said softly: It rained that day, and I sent her back, and I almost rolled into the coffin I asked him again: Why did you do this? He still smiled and gave me a look, as if when I was a child, he would not understand what an air of love is, and ignored me, but after a while , and said softly to himself: It’s so beautiful, it’s so beautiful. Another soldier said: Madman, I’m going to kill you, are you afraid? He said: There’s nothing scary about this. Are you afraid of death? ?The soldier was a little shy after being questioned, so he threatened him loudly: "Fuck you crazy dog, aren't you afraid of death? I'll kill you crazy head in a while!" Then the man smiled softly and remained silent Yes. That smile seems to say: I don't know who is crazy. I remember this smile, and it is still very clear in my memory for more than ten years.