Chapter 59 Cremation(13)

Wencheng became a dead city.The county middle school was converted into the office and dormitory of the Japanese Gendarmerie.The smiling faces of the young people of the past are no longer there, and now the people who come out and go in are either steel-faced military policemen or prisoners with tear-stained faces.The laughter and singing of the young people in the past have become whips and cries.The big business in the cross streets are all replaced with Japanese characters on the plaque, displaying Japanese goods. The Japanese do not bring a single capital to "cooperate", which is actually tantamount to occupying.The cotton mill outside Xiguan was burnt down by Company Commander Tang, leaving only a few high walls standing there lonely and bored.

Blood is the savage's favorite color, and bloodshed is the savage's work and pastime.However, savages still have their prohibitions and restraints. They kill people, perhaps not daring to kill chickens or other sacred animals.Our enemies, ahem, enjoy nothing but bloodshed.Ever since the enemy entered Wencheng, the crowing of cocks has not been heard at night in Wencheng.Chickens, pigs, cattle, ducks and geese were all killed by the enemy.Like cunning foxes, they searched everywhere; seeing a feather duster, they imagined a fat chicken.After killing all the chickens and ducks, they stabbed the wild dogs on the street with guns, not to devour them, but just to see the pain of the wild dogs and give themselves a little pleasure.

However, compared with wild dogs and people, I am afraid that killing people is more interesting.If killing a dog is more interesting than killing a chicken, it must be because the chicken must be killed before it can be eaten. Its fun is more practical and honest, far less than purely for games, with artistic appreciation To kill a dog in a nature-slow bleeding, twitching all over, the pain and sorrow in the eyes are more than enough to satisfy the cruel and violent mood. People have more expressions than dogs, and the methods of killing are not limited to beheading or passing bullets through the chest.So killing is more fun.Skinning, lingering, slapping the back with cold water, pouring kerosene into the nose, sitting in the electric chair, fingernails and fingernails... Each type of execution has its own special skills and special taste.The tortured person, depending on age, gender, and personality, has different expressions, shouts, pleads or endures... Such expressions and sorrows are not provided by any other animal.Therefore, when savages kill, they not only show their intelligence, but also get the highest pleasure and glory in bloodshed.The same is true of our enemies, but they have more tricks than the barbarians, because they have borrowed a little "civilization" from China, Europe and the United States.

Until now, human culture has not been able to exclude weapons, nor has it eliminated war.However, killing people in war is far more mechanical and monotonous than killing unarmed and innocent civilians.Therefore, our enemies like to kill civilians to prove that they are braver, smarter, and more honorable outside the battlefield than inside. The enemy's first massacre in Wencheng targeted chickens, ducks, cattle and sheep.People in Wencheng know what is meant by "Dogs and Chickens Are Not Left Behind".However, tremblingly, they still hope that the enemy will only kill chickens and dogs, and leave behind their precious life, which can only be born once and die once.

After the slaughter of poultry and livestock, the second step is to rob.They have systematic, most elaborate, house-to-house searches for spies—and what they receive are time watches, gold and silver jewelry, leather clothes, and other small things.They searched from the suitcase on the kang to the broken basin and chamber pot in the toilet, from the papered ceiling to the garbage dump in the courtyard.They tore off the young women's little coats, untied the old women's foot bindings, and touched the pockets of the children.As long as they can take away, even if it is a penny or a copper button, they will take it.Those that cannot be taken, they will smash them with their hands, feet, and gun handles.

After this is done, the people of Wencheng, except for a few traitors, will become beggars who have nowhere to go to beg for food.But they still endured, as those who have been robbed by the Ming gang, and prepared to slowly recover their losses with labor and work. Poor people live with tigers and wolves, and they still want to keep their own flesh and blood!After the enemy had finished looting, they began to issue many orders: Do not defecate on the street.At night, Taiping lanterns must be lit outside the door.Do not stay on the street after nine o'clock in the evening.and many other little things like this.The people in Wencheng didn't take these things to heart, because they thought it was just a trick of the enemy, and it didn't matter whether they obeyed or not. Even if they violated these rules, there would be no serious crime anyway.

They don't know the enemy!More than a dozen children, from two to three years old to twelve or thirteen years old, were stabbed through the chest by the enemy with bayonets because they defecated or urinated outside the door, and then taught their parents to pay the fine.The fines are not much, but they must be paid by those who are obedient, smiling, and have no tears in their eyes before their children have shed all their blood. Similarly, because they forgot to light the peace lantern, or went to call a doctor or midwife after nine o'clock at night, the bayonets were pierced into their chests.The enemy's order is an order, and behind the order is a bayonet.The taste of the bayonet is in their imagination all the time, and the whole Wencheng has no laughter.Seeing or thinking that they saw the enemy, their backs immediately felt cold and their lips trembled.It is more accurate for them to light Taiping lanterns than to burn incense to gods and Buddhas.After nine o'clock, they would never go out, and even if someone died at home, they would suppress their crying until dawn, so as not to teach the neighbors to care and want to come and have a look.If someone got an emergency in the middle of the night, they could only comfort in a low voice from above the courtyard wall, but they dared not go out to ask for a doctor.In this way, they hoped to save their lives and wait for the counterattack of the Chinese army.

They don't know the enemy!They want to take their lives from the tiger's mouth. The enemy issued another order: the street gates are not allowed to be closed at night.From Liu Ergou's mouth, the people in Wencheng got an explanation: Wencheng will become a paradise where you never pick up things on the road and never close your doors at night.However, people in Wencheng, especially women, felt extremely uneasy.They hoped to survive with patience; however, unbearable humiliation was about to come to them.Even so, they did not dare to disobey, so they had to open the street gate at night and wait for the beasts to come in.At the same time, they can only hide women, in toilets, under beds.At night, they listened to their drunken enemies laughing and singing, their teeth biting their lips.With a sharp scream, they knew that the beast had seized the neighbor's young woman or girl of seventeen or eighteen.

Anything can be tolerated, but this insult cannot be swallowed.Men began to lie in ambush behind doors or in corners, meeting and destroying insults with sticks and knives.Women, you can't escape, you can't hide well, and you hate yourself for being a woman.A woman can neither protect herself, but also implicate her father, brother and husband!Weeping and drying their tears, they waited to die, or ended their lives with belts or scissors.Their deaths aroused the man's anger even more; wooden sticks and short knives were put on the beasts, and then killed themselves. However, the lives of wild animals seem to be much more expensive than human lives.The death of a wild animal will be paid for by the lives of ten or eight human beings.Families, even their young children who were still breastfeeding, were buried for a wild beast.Before being buried, men and women, regardless of gender, were subjected to the greatest humiliation and the most complicated torture.The sweat, blood, moaning, shouting, cursing, and babbling between life and death of men and women give the beasts a little bit of satisfaction and joy.Wencheng has become the darkest prison.

Death, however, has its value after all.Soon after a dozen beasts disappeared, the enemy revoked the order to keep the house closed at night. In the midst of misery, the people of Wencheng got a little comfort.They often stare at the sticks and kitchen knives, thinking in their hearts that as long as they are willing to grab them and beat and chop off the beasts, they and their women can still breathe for a few more days. They were wrong again.A caged bird has no wings, a dog chained to a stake has no claws, and a conquered people lives to die. The enemy gave them counterfeit coins.Outside the city, the enemy has not yet been able to stab the bayonet in people's hearts, and people still use legal currency with emotion.At that time, the tax and rent will be sent to the county magistrate who no longer lives in the county.Counterfeit coins were not used outside the city, but the enemy took the goods in the city and threw the counterfeit coins on the faces of the people in Wencheng.What is taken out is the genuine thing, what is brought in is waste paper, and the people of Wencheng have encountered a "fair trade"!

Many people in Wencheng own land outside the city.Counterfeit money is useless, they want to harvest the crops and not sell them, but keep them for themselves.As long as they don't starve to death, they secretly pray, there will always be a day when they will see the Chinese army come and kill all the beasts.They thought of Company Commander Tang and his brothers who risked their lives to kill the enemy; one day, a second Company Commander Tang would come to avenge them.They offered a small wooden tablet next to the incense burner, and they didn't dare to write anything on it, but they knew it was Company Commander Tang's spiritual tablet. However, the enemy wanted their food, the enemy had to eat rice, and the enemy's horses had to eat wheat; only corn and sorghum were the food of Wencheng people, and the corn and sorghum had to be handed over to the enemy first, and then bought from the enemy.Moreover, each person is only allowed to buy a little bit, which is not enough to eat, and will not starve to death immediately.People in Wencheng, amidst the humiliation, poverty, and hunger, began to see clearly: their future is death!Only then did they know "hate".Hate, at the right place and time, is sublime, because it will turn people from despair to find another way of life, turn death with eyes closed into fighting out, turn fear into anger, and turn ice into fire!Because of hatred, some of them escaped from the city and joined the army regardless of the outcome: Some cut off the enemy's head without warning, no matter whether it was beheading or Ling Chi; trains; some poisoned wells.Unfortunately, they could not get explosives. If they had enough explosives, they would be able to blow up the iron bridges on the railway and blow up the barracks of the enemy soldiers. In this way, their livelihood is becoming more and more difficult day by day, but they seem to feel a little bit more comfortable in their hearts, because they already know how to hate, and show their hatred through actions.They know that the enemy will punish them very severely, but even their children know that only by sacrifice can they gain hope.Sacrifice, since it is a sacrifice, cannot be counted on gain or loss; sacrifice is not something on the abacus beads.The enemy sensed that the apparent silence of Wencheng was not healthy.In the silence, there are burning eyes and a vengeful heart.They knew that silence was the effect they wanted, but now they realized that silence was also dangerous. Silence once grabbed their throats silently, causing them to die as if they were buried in an ice cellar. They began to want to teach Wencheng to be lively, and to teach the people who had not been massacred to become their friends.They started to set up "clubs", where prostitutes, opium cigarettes and treasure boxes were put together, and people in Jiaowen City came to enjoy them.Here, one can laugh loudly, one can hum Bangziqiang and Erhuang, one can entertain until twelve o'clock at night, and smokers can laugh happily, because they are already half ghosts. The enemy also held a plea meeting, teaching the people who were dying of starvation to listen to lectures and gramophones.Whenever there are enemy officials coming and going, people in Wencheng must take up paper flags and go to the station to welcome or see them off.They repaired the Guandi Temple, and the flagpoles and temple gates were painted red with blood.They said: They were introduced to Wencheng by Master Guan. Master Guan blesses the people of Wencheng and protects them.In this way, the enemy thought that the people in Wencheng would be grateful to them, and would be their obedient citizens, talking and laughing willingly. However, people in Wencheng seem to be unable to smile anymore.They come to meetings, to welcome or send off, to worship God; no matter what they do, their eyes will always be covered with a layer of light that looks like tears but not tears, oil but not oil.They didn't seem to notice anything, but just looked down at their own hearts - resentment in their hearts!They hated the enemy, and they hated Wang Juren, Liu Ergou, and other lackeys even more. Their gold and silver, chickens, ducks, women, goods, food, and even their lives were taken away by the enemy, but nothing of Liu Ergou suffered any loss.On the contrary, the Liu Ergous are well-informed. Whenever the enemy wants to do something that has not been done, they first find advantages for themselves, and then help the enemy to force it.For the people in Wencheng, they may be more powerful than the enemy, because they always offer advice to the enemy for their own advantage; their ideas are more ruthless than the enemy's.However, it is not easy for the people in Wencheng to stab the knives into the chests of the Liu Ergous, although they have long wanted to do so.Liu Ergou always follow behind the enemy, like the most humble dogs.Therefore, they hope day and night that our army will suddenly descend from the sky and avenge them.If they can't do this, even if a hero comes and assassinates Liu Ergou first, they will burn incense and thank God!