Chapter 8 3. The Sigh of the Camel

The sound of artillery in the distance did not stop. My mother, who was in confinement, handed me over to my wife who worked as an old man in the guest room. I called her Zhou Nai. The management of the guest room is a young uncle.He turned out to be a water conservancy engineer. After Chiang Kai-shek blew up the Huayuankou, the Yellow River washed away his hydrological station.The third grandpa——his father asked him to return to Fuji and become the temporary manager of the guest house.It was my childhood luck that I could live in the guest room of my grandfather's house.This made it possible for me to search for the forgotten history in the guest room with my childhood curiosity when my temples were frosty.The guest room courtyard is a place where history is created and legends are born.

It is said that when the grandfather built this guest room yard in the early years of the Republic of China, it was just to provide a place for many visiting students, relatives and friends to live and study knowledge. In the future, a kitchen yard matching the guest room yard was gradually built. The firewood yard and the mill yard are collectively referred to as the guest room yard.In addition to the five "main kitchens" in the kitchen yard, there are four kitchens with only roofs and no front walls, with exposed pots and stoves.Some people say that this is a "summer kitchen" and that the lack of a front wall is for ventilation and coolness in summer.But the fellow villagers in Qidi said, no, when the kitchen was being built, Mr. Meng also asked the housekeeper to buy back four big pots for killing pigs and shedding their hair.No one can figure out what the old man's intention is.As soon as the kitchen was built, Mr. Meng passed away before leaving a message.Then came the famine year. Mr. Meng's third son was originally a member of the Provincial Council, known as the third teacher, and returned to his hometown to be the head of the family.He stood in front of the "Summer Kitchen" and took a closer look, and said, I know what my father is thinking. This kitchen does not need a front wall for disaster relief. There is no front wall to block it, so it is convenient for the victims to eat "shelter meals". , How could I buy such a big pot, and it is four.From that year onwards, whenever there was a famine, the third teacher ordered the four big pots to be set up to distribute a month's "sacrificing food".It is a thick paste made of sorghum noodles, corn grits and sweet potato cubes.What kind of thick?The third teacher said that he had to use chopsticks to pick it up, and he was hungry after eating.Four long queues lined up in front of the unshielded cauldron, and they had to "give up" more than a dozen shi of grain a day, and more than 400 shi a month.The third teacher didn't even bat an eyelid.

This third teacher is my third grandfather.One spring, Liu Zhenhua, a good friend of the third grandfather’s classmate in the School of Law and Politics, was appointed as the chairman of the Anhui Provincial Government. He came to Fuji to invite him to be the Secretary-General of the Anhui Provincial Government, and he lived in this guest room.The third grandpa was busy distributing "shelf rice", so he pointed to the victims in front of the "shelf rice" pot and said, "Look, once I leave, no one will take care of this big stall." Don't you feel that you have wronged yourself by taking care of small things in the village as a talented student?"

The third grandpa said: "Food is the most important thing for the people, this is a big thing!" At this time, Mr. Housekeeper came to ask for help: "The storage is almost exhausted!" The third grandpa said: "Don't worry, the grain workshop is full of hoards. I'll sell a hectare of land to exchange for his rice." Liu Zhenhua said: "Which family's family strategy is this?" "It belongs to our old Sun's family and the old Ma's family." "Why haven't I heard of these two?" "Lao Sun is Sun Yat-sen, and I use his people's livelihood principle."

"Which one is the old horse?" "German, bearded, I'm reading his Communist Manifesto." "You mean Max?" "Yes, take out a few hundred shi of grain a year and try to engage in a 'small communism'." "Wouldn't it be better to 'communize' all your Meng family property?" "Don't worry, wait until the warlords are overthrown and the land rights are equalized first." Liu Zhenhua left with a wry smile. It is a popular "big pot rice" of the Meng family.But there are also some idle countrymen who came to line up with their bedding on their backs. After eating "shefan", they carried a large bowl under their armpits and went under the big eaves of the guest room yard or into the sorghum stacks of the firewood yard to catch them. After getting rid of the lice on the cotton-padded jacket, he bit them one by one with his teeth, then poked a sorghum stalk, poked the back of his spine and scratched it, and then fell asleep.One of the leaders who competed for the "big pot of rice" laughed in his dream and said, "Haha, communism!" When he woke up, he ran to the "sacrificing rice" pot early to lead the battle.There are also some village ruffians who squeeze into the team at any time to "clip them in". No one dares to stop them. They squeeze in front of this pot and eat a portion, and then squeeze in front of that pot to take a portion away, and then get into the earth temple. The craps went.

The supporters of these two kinds of "small communism" have greatly discounted the moral nobility of "giving up the rice pot".The third grandfather felt very angry, so he went to the city to discuss countermeasures with my grandfather and the second grandfather who were running a "new private school".The three older brothers reviewed the sages’ teachings of “the warehouse is real, and the etiquette is known”, and they said in unison, don’t worry, how can the working people learn from the saints when they are hungry?When the third grandpa returned to Fuji, he boiled the teachings of the sages and modernism into the pot of "sacrificing rice".

In 1926, Qi Chu, the leader of the "Red Bandit" in Qidi, returned to Qidi from the Guangzhou Peasant Movement Institute with the teachings of Mr. Mao Runzhi. He and Zhang Cuizhong, another leader of the "Red Bandit", lived in this guest house Li conspired with the leader of the "Red Gun Society" to form an alliance with blood, and launched a peasant uprising.Both Qi Chu and Zhang Cuizhong were proud pupils of my grandfather and second grandfather's "New Private School", and they were also frequent visitors to the guest house to discuss knowledge.After they left the private school and went to study in the provincial capital, they would often go back to the guest house for gatherings during the holidays. While flipping through the English-Chinese dictionary, they finished reading the two volumes of "Das Kapital" in English.Some people said that the two of them often talked in "bird language" that others could not understand.When the uprising was planned, my third grandpa understood it, so I gave them five Taiping carts—a cart with four wooden wheels unique to the Eastern Henan Plain, and five earthen cannons. Put on a fat and strong big green mule.Qi Chu jumped on the horse from the guest room courtyard, but the horse gave a sharp jerk and knocked him off the horse.The third grandpa patted the horse's head and said, "Be honest, the rebellious scholar hasn't learned how to ride you, so please be careful." Qi Chu got on the horse again. He went to the Hezhai ancestral hall where the incident happened secretly, and led the peasant uprising army to attack the county seat.

It is said that the third grandpa used the "bird language" to speak to the ominous bird whose local name is the old raven and the scientific name is the crow, saying that the teacher of benevolence and righteousness must help.About one division of veterans provided air support to the peasant uprising army, flying to the county seat at night, and Wu Yaya circled the county government office, screaming "croaking".The old raven's wings whipped up black winds and smashed the Fengjun military flag.Afterwards, foul-smelling sticky dung from old ravens rained down from the sky like bullets, and Feng's army was in a state of confusion.The county magistrate of the Feng family and the three evil gentry fled with their families and abandoned the city.In the early morning, the peasant uprising army blasted open the east gate with earth cannons, and the defenders of the city surrendered without a fight.At the age of 21, Qi Chu became the county magistrate of Qidi appointed by the Communist Party.

But he only worked for more than a month. General Feng Yuxiang, who was in Henan, sent a telegram to support Jiang against the Communist Party, and sent troops to suppress the peasant uprising army. Qi Chu was wanted and sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia.He hid in the guest room courtyard for several days, and the old man flew to deliver a message saying: "Ah, ah, run!" At that time, my grandfather had already gone to the provincial capital to become a lawyer.Qi Chu went to my grandfather's house to hide again, studied Japanese with my uncle, and finished reading the "Outline of Economics" written by Hajime Kawakami, and then disguised as a teacher and escaped from the provincial capital at night.This Qi Chu, after the founding of new China, successively served as the governor of H province and the first secretary of the H provincial committee of the Communist Party of China.

In 1930, Jiang Feng turned his face and competed in the Central Plains.Feng Yuxiang set up his former enemy headquarters in the guest room courtyard.Folk writers say that Chiang Kai-shek set up a telescope in Shangqiu and looked west. He saw a large brick house hundreds of miles away covered by clouds and mist. A sika deer jumped and jumped in the clouds and a big reed cock stood Crow to the sky in the shape of "golden rooster independence" on the roof ridge.Lao Jiang thought to himself, isn't this the deer of Feng Yuxiang's former enemy commander-in-chief Lu Zhonglin, and the chicken of deputy commander-in-chief Ji Hongchang, also called Ji Bold?Urgently order the plane to bomb.Unexpectedly, that piece of green brick and tile house was covered with a cloud that was as hard as an iron plate, and when the plane's wings rubbed against the cloud, a series of sparks came out in a "chi la".The plane flew up in a hurry, and dropped a pointed bomb, which drilled a hole in the cloud, and it was about to land on the head of the big reed rooster. The third teacher saw it while sitting in the house, and told the bomb that it was a good chicken. , don't hurt him, you come to my house as a guest.The bomb tilted its head and landed on the slope of the upper house of the house. There was a "boom", but it didn't explode, and it fell down again, like a big radish sticking obliquely in the yard.When Ji Hongchang evacuated, he came to the house to say goodbye. The third teacher shut the door. Ji Hongchang was anxious, so he stood outside the window and shouted: "Mr. San, give me back the bomb! The bomb was obviously given to me by Lao Jiang, Ji Bold. Why did you pull it out like a carrot?" The third teacher said in the room: "I used it to give you a big knife and handed it over to your quartermaster. You have this big knife, and you will be able to use it later. Don’t be used by others.” Later, Ji Hongchang secretly joined the Communist Party, organized the Chasui Anti-Japanese Allied Army in Zhangjiakou, and led the soldiers to charge into the battle with his shirtless. Is the sword he wielded was the one given to him by his third grandfather?wait for verification.

When Ji Hongchang left, he also said to my third grandfather through the window: "I also give you something, tie it to the animal trough in the guest room yard, go and take it away, you and it deserve We've changed places." The third grandpa went to the guest room to see that there was a mighty and tall camel tied to the trough.Seeing that camels are tall and healthy, hardworking and hardworking, the third grandfather came up with the idea of ​​using camels instead of oxen to plow the land.As soon as the ox put the bridle on the hump, the camel shook its head, snorted, and sighed.The third grandfather bowed his hands to the camel and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I blame you for losing your materials." He sent the camel to the livestock yard to support it with a few retired old bullocks.Da Lao Jian had never seen such a colossal monster before, and retreated into the corner of the wall one after another.The camel looked around, but there was no one of its kind. It was all alone, and it hung with each other. In the middle of the night, it roared to the sky.The third grandpa was heartbroken and said, "What a brave man, you compare me to a camel on a trough!" The third grandpa tried his best to arrange a suitable place for the camel so that it could be useful, but there was no work for the camel on the great plain in eastern Henan.The camel was so idle that it broke free one night and ran away, leaving a long neigh on the eastern Henan plain, like a sigh drifting towards the sky.Some say it was later seen in a circus, old, and a majestic monkey riding on a hump as a driver.The monkey raised the flower whip, and the camel hurriedly paced around the circle in a daze.It seems that it has no intention of being appreciated by the audience, so its performance is not good. It is not as good as the arrogant monkey, and it is not as good as the puppy who can only drill hoops and pull carts for the monkey.