Chapter 43 Taiwan

There is a field in Dapangchong called Taiwan Hill, which I didn't pay much attention to before.During the drought-fighting season, Fucha and I joined the team, walked into the depths of the moonlight, climbed onto the keel waterwheel with a yawn, creaked and stepped on it.The slowly rotating wooden hammer had already been stepped on by countless bare feet, making it shiny and extremely smooth. If I didn't pay attention, I stepped on it, clasped the handrail with both hands urgently, screamed, and was hung up like a dog.At this time, the complicated turning of the waterwheel under the feet is frightening, and the road hammers are spinning up one by one, which is hard to guard against, and the legs are either green or bloody.Fucha asked me not to look at my feet, saying that it would be easy to miss my feet, but I didn't believe his words, and I couldn't do what he said.He lured me to talk time and time again, gossiping, trying to make me relax.

He would especially like to hear me tell a little about the city, a little about science like Mars or Uranus.He is a junior high school graduate and has a scientific mind. For example, he explained the principle of a white magnet (magnet) and said that if there are enemy planes dropping bombs in the future, we may make a big magnet to knock down the enemy's plane. Isn't it more effective than anti-aircraft guns and missiles? He always thinks calmly about my objections, and seldom expresses surprise at the various scientific knowledge I boast about, just like he is usually sad or happy, with a baby face that is always mature and prudent.His various emotions filtered into a single gentleness on this face, a single shyness, and always clear eyes, which sneaked out from a corner that people didn't pay much attention to.As soon as you meet this kind of gaze, you feel that it is everywhere, and every action you take is absorbed and infiltrated by it.There are eyes behind his time limit, eyes behind his gaze, and you can't hide anything from him.

He disappeared, but reappeared at some time, holding a melon in his hand, asking me to eat it, probably stolen from a nearby garden.After we finished eating, he dug a pit with his hands and carefully buried the melon skin and seeds, "It's midnight, let's get some sleep." There were so many mosquitoes, I slapped my feet. He found some leaves from nowhere and rubbed them on my legs, hands, and forehead, and it worked, the buzzing of the mosquitoes was visibly reduced. I looked at the moon that had just emerged from the mountains, and listened to the crowing of frogs, I was a little worried, "Are we going to sleep like this?"

"If you do what you have to do, you have to rest." "Ben Yigong said that the car will be full of water tonight." "Never mind him." "Will he come to see?" "He won't come." "How do you know?" "You don't need to know, he will definitely not come!" I am a little strange. He knew I was going to ask why next. "Superstition, the superstition of the country people, don't listen to it." Then he collapsed beside me, with his back to me, his legs clamped and ready to sleep. I can't be like him, sleep when I want to sleep, and sleep when I don't want to sleep, everything is arranged in an orderly manner.If I really wanted to sleep, but my eyes brightened, I asked him to talk more in vernacular, superstition as well.He couldn't convince me, so he had to say that he heard it too—every time he talked about important things, he would first explain the source of the statement and excuse himself.He said that he heard from someone that the owner of this mound was Maogong, who had made enemies with Benyi.It was the year when the junior cooperative was established, Mao Gong refused to join the cooperative, and all the surrounding fields were joined, only this hilly field was still a solo farm.Benyi is the president of the company, and Maogong is not allowed to cross the water from the few mounds above.Maogong was still stubborn, he would rather go to the river to fetch water by himself than bite the bullet and not come to ask for water.In the end, Benyi led a group of people, taking advantage of Maogong's asthma, carrying buckets and yelling to the field to harvest crops, saying "liberate Taiwan".

Maogong used to be the maintenance chairman, and he had a lot of land. He was a landlord and traitor.Of course his field is "Taiwan".Speaking of which, his traitor hat was a bit unfair.In the past, this was the 14th district under the Japanese and puppet regime. There was a maintenance committee, which governed Maqiao and the surrounding 18 districts. The wealthy or respectable people from each district took turns to be the president. Every three months, whose turn was it? Yes, it will be sent to someone's house with one gong.There is no salary for this kind of chairman, but with a gong and a little business, no matter where you go, you can collect "straw sandal money", which is to use the opportunity of tolerance to scrape some oil.Maogong was at the end of the eighteen bows. When it was his turn, the Japanese and puppet troops had already surrendered. He could have been relieved of his post, but the people here didn't know the situation outside, and the gongs were still turning.

Maogong is a showy person, as soon as he gets the gong, he immediately puts on a white silk gown, swings a civilized stick, and coughs very loudly no matter who he walks into.He charged too much money for straw sandals, at least twice as much as the previous ones, so he took advantage of everything.There is nothing strange about his methods.Once when I went to eat at Wanyu's house, I secretly picked up a bag of chicken food that Wanyu's father had left under the stove, hid it in the cuff, and put it in the chicken bowl when the owner didn't notice when it was served.He raised his chopsticks and "discovered" the chicken food bag, and insisted that the owner was teasing him, and he would be fined five Guangyang.The trouble caused the master to beg him hard, and he borrowed two Guangyang dollars to finish the job.Another time, when he was sitting in a family in Zhangjiafang, he went outside and poured shit on his bamboo hat to make the dogs come.He sat down, probably the dog had already gnawed the bamboo hat, and then went out to make a fuss, insisting that the master deliberately opposed him, the president and the imperial army, even his bamboo hat, and let the dog bite behind his back.It was useless for the master to say all the good things, so he had to swallow his anger and pay him an iron pot.

In fact, everyone knew that his bamboo hat had been torn long ago.He planted so many bitter melon seeds. It is not difficult to imagine that when Benyi shouted "Liberate Taiwan", the villagers responded one after another, especially Wanyu's father, who not only ran to Maogong's field to harvest crops, but also Tore up a few melon vines planted by Mao Gong's family on the edge of the field.Some young people purposely yelled "Ho Ho Ho—" in unison, making the village restless, for fear that Mao Gong would not hear them. Sure enough, Lord Mao heard it, and rushed over panting.Stamping a stick and cursing on the slope: "Obviously, you bastard, if you rob Lao Tzu's crops in broad daylight, you will die!"

Benyi raised his arms and shouted: "Taiwan must be liberated!" The activists who joined the society shouted: "Taiwan must be liberated!" Benyi asked loudly: "Someone is against the cooperative, what should I do?" The answer was equally deafening: "Hit his grain, eat his grain! Whoever hits it will want it! Throw his grain, eat his grain, whoever hits it will want it!" Mao Gong was so angry that his eyes were bleeding, "Okay, okay, you fight, you fight vigorously, I am starved to death, and I will strangle you if I become a starving ghost!"

He turned around and called his sons Yanzao and Yanwu, telling them to go back and bring the knife.The two brothers were still just cubs, they were stunned by this scene, they stood on the slope and dared not move.Maogong spittle flew all over the place and scolded the boy, he went back with his walking stick, after a while, he brought a bunch of firewood and set fire to the edge of the field.His fields had long been without water, and the crops were very withered. When a gust of wind blew past, the fire blazed into a general momentum.He looked at the people and laughed, stomped his feet and cursed: "Bastard, I can't eat it, you go eat it, you go eat it, hahaha...

Seeing the food in hand turn into soot in an instant. A few days later, Maogong died without catching his breath. People say that Maogong's ghost lingers on.One day in the twelfth lunar month, Benyi's family beat a pair of millstones, and when they were carrying them home from the quarry, they passed by the door of Mao Gong's house.Benyi put down his burden and went to look for a pheasant nest on the mountain. He had just walked a few steps when he heard a loud bang behind him, and he was startled.Almost all the people in the lower village heard this strange sound, first some babies, then some men, also came to see what happened.When they arrived at the scene, they were all stunned and couldn't believe their eyes; Benyi's two new mills were fighting in a stone mortar in front of Tong Maogong's house——

Having said that, Fucha asked me if I knew about stone mortars.I said I had seen it, it was a kind of utensil for pounding rice or rice cakes, it looked a bit like a basin.I also know that there are two types of pounding: hand pounding and foot pounding.Hand pounding is a person holding a pounding forest and pounding up and down.The foot pound is a little less labor-intensive, a bit like a seesaw. When a person stands on one end of the seesaw, the pound on the other end remains high. Once the foot is loosened, the head of the pound hits the stone mortar heavily. Fucha said that he didn't believe how a stone mortar could fight, but the old team insisted that they saw it with their own eyes, and they spoke clearly and clearly.A stone mortar against two mills, jumping up and down, rushing left and right, colliding so that the gold stars burst out like thunder, and quickly smashed out deep pits in the ground, densely packed like ramming the ground.At that moment, it seemed that all the crows, near and far, had also flown here.The trees were covered with blackness, and they screamed. Two or three stronger men stepped forward to stop them, and they found bars to separate the fiercely fighting sides. They were sweating profusely from exhaustion, but they still couldn't separate them.With a click, a bar holding down the stone mortar snapped, and the stone mortar jumped up angrily again, and rolled towards the stone mill like crazy, causing the idlers to dodge to both sides.They retreated and advanced, and I rushed to block you. They fought in a ball, and finally left the ground, hit the edge of the ditch, crossed the bridge, and twisted to the ridge, making a lot of noise.People were even more surprised that a yellow blood flowed out from these stones, leaving on the ground and grass blades.When they were all dead in pieces on the mountain, only one or two broken stones were weak and occasionally struggled vigorously. The cross-sections of all the stones gushed out like a spring, converging into a stream, gurgling down from the mountain and stretching for half a mile. In the end, the whole lotus pond turned yellow. People picked up the broken corpses of stone mortars and stone mills, separated them far away, and used them to fill the holes in the paddy fields.The stone mill filled the Sandou Hill of Benyi's family, and the stone mortar filled the Maogong Hill. The old team later said that this was the host family's enmity, and their stone grievances will be carried out, and they will also be enmity.In the future, friends, you'd better be careful, and don't leave your things everywhere when you have nothing to do. After that time, although Benyi still scolded Maogong harshly from time to time, he never went past Maogong's house, nor came to Maogong Qiu.Maogong's mother-in-law and two sons finally joined the commune, but Benyi didn't want a cow that entered the commune, so he took it to the street and sold it.There was also a plow and a harrow, but Benyi didn't dare to keep them, so he sent someone to pick them up and put them back in the iron shop. I laughed out loud and couldn't believe it was happening. "I don't believe it either. They speak in godliness. They are uneducated." Fucha smiled and turned over, "However, don't worry about falling asleep." He gave me a back, and there was no movement. I don’t know if he was asleep or not asleep—or he was asleep but still listening secretly.I also opened my ears to listen to my own breathing, and to the sound of mud coming out of small bubbles in Maogong Hill.