Chapter 25 Messler

Thailand was on the northern border at that time, without any line of defense. The "three" and "five" lone armies that are not under the jurisdiction of each other are looking for shelters in the mountains.The two armies were originally not together, and after the second major retreat, they escaped separately, let alone not together.But the three armies are more fortunate, and it can be said that the commander of the three armies, General Li Wenhuan, is smarter. When they entered the territory of Thailand, the first village they encountered—Tangwo, regardless of whether it was suitable for camping or not, ordered it to be the location of the army headquarters. I personally went to Chiang Mai on horseback, because his family had already built a luxurious residence in Thailand's second metropolis.

The Fifth Army was relatively difficult, and General Duan Xiwen, the commander of the army, took the battalion as his home, just like Mr. Moses sent a few small teams to explore the land of Canaan.General Duan Xiwen also sent several small teams to explore northern Thailand to see where they could settle down.The preliminary conclusion was that Meng'an was the most suitable, so the advance troops settled down in Meng'an to build a camp, and sent people back to meet the army.But two weeks later, when the army arrived in Mesle, and it would arrive the next day, Meng'an had a problem. All the advance troops fell ill and were not acclimatized?malaria?cold?Bewitched?No one knew, and everyone thought it might be caused by miasma.This is not something that can be adapted in a short period of time, so General Duan Xiwen decided to set up the headquarters in Mesle.

Meisile, a village with the same poetic name as Manxingdie, has gradually become famous all over the world because of a literary work.Because of the Second Opium War launched by Thailand, Man Xing Die appeared in front of the world overnight, and some people who were very excited by the news thought that the streets and alleys of that village were full of opium.At least, you can buy what you need at any time from the grocery store or at home.This situation is the same as two hundred years ago, when people thought that gold was everywhere in California, the streets and alleys could be found everywhere.

Mesle and Man Xingdie had the same fate, and they were also unknown at first.It was not until last year (1981) that Taipei's "Happy Family Magazine" published a series of "Stories of Messler" that this deserted village, one of the loneliest settlements in the world, was known to the public.However, no one knows the location of Messler, so that this local name with Portuguese charm reminds people of the witch Salome in the Bible, and it also reminds people of a beautiful fairy island far away in the Atlantic Ocean. .However, with the eloquent writing of literary works and the large circulation of "Happy Family Magazine", people who love literature already have a good understanding of Messler.We didn't know the relationship between Messler and the Solitary Army, let alone the nerve center of the Solitary Army.What we know is only Methleh described in literary works - the border between Thailand and Myanmar, a deserted city in the mountains, full of exotic flavors that we don't understand.

It has been 20 years since the lonely army settled in Mesle.Twenty years is not a short period of time.When my old wife and I visited Maesle, the Chinese TV company was showing their film of Maesle and other refugee communities in Taipei.Friends who have watched those videos were all shocked by the poverty of Messler.A young colleague in my office said to everyone in a perceptive voice: "It won't be that hard, it's fake." Then he hoped for my support and begged me to say: "Tell everyone, you saw it with your own eyes. ,That's fake." I know his mentality, which is the mentality of every Chinese in Taiwan. We cannot accept that a lone army who has fought bloody battles in foreign lands for 30 years will end up like this in the end.They have conquered and glorified, but now they are abandoned in the wilderness, struggling on the line of life and death.The same Chinese, but because of the different geography, the experience is very different, it is filled with blood and tears.The old wife was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Taiwan. Her reaction to Messler was a long period of silence. The dilapidation and poverty there grabbed her like a giant claw in the dark.I have seen such villages, in the Taihang Mountains, in the Hexi Corridor, and even in my hometown in northern China. I have witnessed too many tragedies of Chinese poverty in my childhood and youth.In the Taihang Mountains, I have eaten bran—I believe that few Chinese compatriots in Taiwan have eaten bran.In the Hexi Corridor, I slept on an earthen kang with sand as a mattress, and few Chinese compatriots in Taiwan knew what a kang was.However, these have passed away, and now they suddenly reappear, which also surprises me.A few days later, the old wife's shock subsided slightly, and she sighed long:

"I've never seen people so poor!" ——She soon felt ashamed of her superficiality and ignorance. Later, when she learned that Maesle was actually the richest village among all the refugee settlements in northern Thailand, tears welled up in her eyes. We can't describe Masler. Although I haven't seen the video of China TV Company, based on the principle that the picture is always more beautiful than the reality, I'm afraid I won't be able to leave a correct impression. Only a three-dimensional model can illustrate its landscape.Its busiest street has no name, they call it "Main Street".The whole of Messler is built on a hillside. The busiest street is like a slide in a children's entertainment park, with a steep slope of about 30 degrees. The street—if it can be called a street, the street is full of gutters , and large and small stones that can trip people and horses to the ground at any time, on both sides are houses made of bamboo mud and iron tiles.The "mule and horse market" on the main street is the market. There is a burst of excitement around ten o'clock in the morning. Mules and horses of various ethnic minorities come to the market with some of their only products.At this time, some poor and lonely Miao descendants also carried the firewood cut up the mountain to sell.After midday, Messler became quiet, including the busiest street, almost deserted, and became a typical deserted city in the border area.