Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Awakening from the Dream

The beautiful and rich Hengyang is not a place to be a battlefield by nature.Therefore, to get Hengyang into a state of war, compared with Changsha, it has experienced many twists and turns and confusion.Since the Anti-Japanese War, the fighting has been going on north of Changsha.Hengyang, which is located in the main traffic route in southern Hunan, is relatively stable, which makes many people who fled from the Yangtze River Basin or Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Guangdong and Fujian settle here to make a living; many military and political logistics agencies also work here.Due to the convenient transportation and the gathering of merchants, the Xiangjiang River is like a flowing chain, which makes Hengyang alternate and continuous.Steamed water and Leishui flow around both sides of the Xiangjiang River, and they are also the water transport distribution and transfer terminals in nearby prefectures and counties.

Hengyang is known as the water, drought and air terminal in the whole of Hunan. For the Kuomintang-controlled area, it connects the three theaters of Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi, and is directly connected to the seventh theater of Fujian and Guangdong; It serves as a connection and barrier between the theater and the Southwest rear area; Hengyang Airport is also the transit contact point between Ganzhou, Jianou, and South Zhejiang airports in the southeast and the Southwest Air Force Base.Such an important strategic geographical location has greatly increased its security in people's minds.Due to the rapid concentration of resources, Hengyang developed abnormally during the war.Batches of foreign-style houses in the suburbs have been built, high-rise buildings in the urban area have been built one after another, and factories and shopping malls have been opened one after another.Especially after the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1942, most powerful or rich people thought they could settle down. The shadow of war in Hengyang seemed to be only the screams of bombers taking off and landing at the airport.The victories of the three battles in Changsha also weighed heavily on the hearts of the people in Hengyang. The Japanese army could not cross Changsha before 1942, let alone the decline of the army today?

Victory is sometimes a heavy burden, and victory is sometimes a frivolous bubble.The victories in the European battlefield and the Pacific battlefield have become reasons for people to be optimistic.The 10th Army has actually built fortifications in the suburbs, but people still regard the Normandy landing and Wallace's upcoming visit to China as bargaining chips that the war will not come to Hengyang. Optimistic news spreads everywhere in dance halls, businesses, restaurants, and theaters: The Soviet-Japanese War is about to break out, and the Soviet army will attack the Japanese army from northeast China.Zhao Junmai, the mayor of Hengyang at that time, was a student studying in the United States.He said at a public banquet that the Japanese army was repelled dozens of miles by the Miluo River.He said that he was in daily contact with the commander of the US Air Force and had a phone call with Commander Xue Yue, Commander of the Ninth Theater.The citizens have no reason not to believe his words and live in Hengyang quietly without panicking over the war.

Mayor Zhao Junmai is stabilizing people's hearts. He does not want to waste his painstaking efforts to build a new Hengyang project.He must seize the time to do more things so that the prosperity of Hengyang can be quickly woven during the period before the end of the war. The new city party building of the Kuomintang just completed the ribbon-cutting ceremony in April, and the Xiangjiang Railway and Highway Bridge was inaugurated; The asphalt road is being extended at an accelerated rate; the high-end ballroom built for the U.S. military has been completed in the fierce war ahead; the mayor is still urging the waiters to learn American-style service and hospitality... This kind of mechanism that underestimates the enemy and is not good at wartime social management , making the disaster itself doubled.

At that time, the Japanese army bypassed Changsha, took Zhuzhou, swept Xiangtan, and threatened Hengyang.The horrifying news gave people an avalanche of shock, and their optimism was wiped out.Pessimistic rumors arose.It's like a swarm of flies flying around suddenly.But the news and broadcasts of the Central News Agency are still clear.The citizens of Hengyang who had no escape experience were not forced to escape at the last moment, and some faint news still entangled the people who were obsessed with their homeland.It is said that Mr. Jiang went to Moscow with Wallace, and discussed with Stalin that China, the United States and the Soviet Union should take joint action to restore the situation in the Hunan War; the Eighth Route Army launched a large-scale offensive behind enemy lines to attack and contain the Japanese army; Front line; 50,000 American planes are on their way to China... What the officials wished in their hearts has been realized in the form of rumors in the mouths of the common people, but the officials themselves have already transported away their wealth in wagons.

A newspaper in the United States published a message to satirize the rumormongers who lack basic knowledge of modern warfare.Because China doesn't even have an airport with 5,000 planes at the moment, so where do those 50,000 planes fall?Such rumors that are not controlled by the authorities are actually a dissolving agent for the spirit and psychology, because once the real news arrives, people's psychological defenses will collapse at a touch. The escape begins.The railway authorities immediately increased the fares from Hengyang to Shaoguan, and from Hengyang to Guilin by four times, making it hard to find a ticket in Hengyang.The black market for train tickets immediately flooded, and the manipulators were railway officials. A large number of refugees who could not escape gathered at the East Railway Station on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River and the West Railway Station on the west bank of the Xiangjiang River. All kinds of terrible news spread among the crowd.

Whenever the train departs, the refugees have to make their own choices, and those who arrive first climb onto the roof, and the arched roof is crowded with people who are afraid of slipping.Latecomers had no choice but to use their hands and feet to tightly grasp all the grooves and grab bars of the train, and climbed all over the sides of the train as if hanging for their lives. In this way, the train slowly drove out like a huge mechanical caterpillar.Along the way, people kept slipping from the roof or falling from the sides, and there were endless screams of panic and distressed calls for help.The fleeing from the war has only just begun, and the nightmare has just begun for the more than 200,000 residents of Hengyang. No one expected them or the refugees who came from nearby states and counties that this fleeing period lasted half a year. It took a long time; this escape actually had to flee thousands of miles away.For many later fugitives, this kind of suffering originated from Hengyang.

On the long escape road, in the long escape team, there was a 12-year-old girl walking and walking with difficulty, holding the hem of her parents' clothes.She later went to Taiwan, and she is the charming, talented, romantic novel master who swept the mainland and influenced a generation of young people, our fellow Hengyang---Auntie Qiongyao.That kind of food and drink, sleeping in the open, in the foreseeable future, the extremely thrilling escape experience is unforgettable, and it is deeply branded in her heart.Said that it was hurt to his young heart when he went to Japan, and decades later, he still vividly remembers it, the memory is especially fresh and indelible.