Chapter 28 Section 4 General Li Mi's War Horse

In the first and second years of junior high school, my body was still thin and weak, and I occasionally fainted during the lengthy morning flag-raising lectures, and became the laughing stock of my classmates.When the weather is too hot or too cold, someone will say after standing for a long time, "Look! Qi Bangyuan is about to collapse." I often do not live up to expectations and really collapse. At the end of the first semester of the second year of junior high school, the weather was suddenly extremely cold, and most of us had chilblains on our heels and fingers.Zhouhui stood in the fog on the playground for a long time that day, and I was on the verge of falling again, Li Xin'e, a classmate standing on my left, whispered. "Extend your hand here, I'll give you a pinch." She pinched my wrist a few times, and then pinched my left forehead a few times, it was very painful.But I was able to stand still and breathe easily.Back to the classroom.She took out a small bottle from the desk and poured some small particles for me to eat.I actually violated my father's warning not to take medicine casually, took her medicine, and felt good all day long.

Li Xin'e joined the class two months after the first semester of the second year of junior high school.At that time, fleeing people from all provinces across the country flocked to Chongqing. Nankai Middle School accepted qualified students into classes at any time in response to the needs of the war. I also accepted the quiz in November in my first year of junior high school. However, in order to maintain the teaching level, the school stipulates that at the end of the semester, if one-third of the subjects fail, the grade will be repeated, and one-half of the subjects will be dropped out, regardless of who the parents are.After the summer vacation, the grades of the whole school are publicly posted on the administrative center "Fan Sunlou", and those with more red pens are repeating grades. This is the famous and frightening "red list".I still remember one year when I was watching the list, they were so crowded that the floor collapsed.

The day Li Xin'e joined the class.The tutor leads her to the door.He said loudly, "This is Li Xin'e, a freshman." She was really short, and she sat on the seat to my left, and I was also short and thin back then.Sit in the first row.She stood at the door of the classroom with a shy and fearful expression. Isn’t that the expression I had as a transfer student for six times before I came to Nankai, and every time I entered a strange classroom? I took her to get acquainted with the new environment in everything, especially the progress of the course, what homework to pay tomorrow...etc.She said almost nothing, just smiled gratefully and listened.Until the new year, on a Saturday afternoon, in the almost empty dormitory, I saw her sitting by the bed alone and crying.

After class was over that day, it was my turn to be a student on duty. After sweeping the classroom, I went back to the dormitory to get the home bag. When I passed by the next room, I saw her lonely figure, and I earnestly pulled her to go home with me. From the time when my parents entertained Huangpu students in Northeast China on Ninghai Road in Nanjing until their death, they entertained guests with simple and rich northern food for nearly half a century.After settling down in Shapingba, my elder brother was admitted to the School of Medicine of CUHK, but he wanted to be a diplomat, so he re-entered the Department of Foreign Affairs of National Chengchi University.His mother encouraged him to bring his homeless classmates home for dinner on weekends. She couldn't bear the fact that other children had no homes and couldn't get enough to eat.

Li Xin'e was the first guest I brought home. She was as thin as me, and she aroused my mother's concern.We only know that she is from Yunnan, and her father is a soldier who was transferred to Chongqing and brought her to Nankai, but her mother did not come.Since then, I have invited her home almost every weekend.Mother knew that she was afflicted by malaria so she could not grow taller, so she cared more for her, provided her with nutrition, and treated her the same as me. After the spring of 1939, Japanese planes intensified their bombing of Chongqing. Except for the heavy rain, it came every day, even at night when there was a moon.The air-raid shelters repaired by the people can only block the explosion fragments, and if they are directly hit, they will only be destroyed.Many air defense surveillance posts were set up on the high mountains around Chongqing. During an air raid, a red lantern was hung on a long pole in front of the post, and air raid sirens sounded one long and one short.When the enemy plane invaded within a certain range, another red lantern was hung, and then an emergency alarm sounded, and the rapid one long and one short alarm rang inside and outside the mountain city.That kind of sharp and mournful sound, thrilling, and the sound of death, especially when Yue Ye woke up from sleep and immediately got out of bed, put on his belt and shoes to escape, such confusion and anger, the sound of sirens that lasted for several years, in my heart There was a deep wound on my heart that never healed in my life.Nankai had no way to build air-raid shelters on flat ground, so they could only evacuate immediately when the air-raid alarm was issued. Every weekly meeting, students were asked to recite the mantra: "An alarm, two clothes, three people walking together, looking around...".

Behind our girls' high school classroom are some small sand dunes.Like thousands of fox dens, when they ran out, the three of them found a hill to lean on.When the sky is clear, you can see a Japanese bomber with red suns painted on its wings. When its wings tilt, a string of silver pointed bombs will drop from its belly.Sometimes we saw our pursuers approaching from the opposite direction, with the sound of machine guns in the air; other times we saw smoking planes, falling like fireballs to the ground.The hatred for Japan burns in our hearts. This kind of feeling is a tangible experience in my growing years, and it is difficult to erase from my heart.For eight long years, wandering in my own country, feeling insecure, and violent even in the blue sky, how can I forget?

June of this year.The government ordered all school students, the elderly, women and children to evacuate to the suburbs with many trees after July to reduce casualties.One day, Li Xin'e told my parents that her father invited us to take refuge in a place called Huangweibiao in his garrison, and come back after the summer vacation.My father asked her father's name and the military region, and found out that it was a division commander of the Yunnan Army, General Li Mi. At the beginning of the summer vacation, my mother, my two younger sisters and I crossed the Yangtze River. When crossing the river, the boatman yelled, "The ball is hanging, hurry up and get to the shore!" A temporary military camp outside a small town surrounded by mountains.Li Xin'e's father came out to greet us in military uniform. I really didn't expect such a beautiful and mighty father for her thin and thin girl.He went to another defense area on the third day and did not return until we returned to Shapingba at the end of August.

In the Huangmaihua Military Region, I had another experience that I could be quite proud of.The third morning after staying.Li Xin'e took me to ride a horse.When I was young in my home in Northeast China, my grandfather had a horse, and most men in villages and towns also rode horses, but that was an unattainable dream for me... Early this morning, the orderly brought two big horses, both of us were shorter than the back of the horse.The horse soldiers said that the horses had to be picked up every morning, and the horses "didn't know" when we put our small "girl" on the horses!

Li Xin'e obviously knew how to ride, she jumped up.And I, standing next to the horse--it's the master's horse, they treated me well, I was at a loss and wanted to run away.But seeing the horse soldier smiled slightly, he put my left foot into the saddle with one hand, helped me lift up to the horse's back, then stepped over with my right foot to find the other side of the saddle, sat firmly on the huge saddle, and grasped the reins tightly.From trot (trot) to trot, the horse soldiers kept holding the rope with their hands. After a few days, I dared to gallop (gallop).Thirty miles away, Chongqing was still under the vicious "fatigue bombing" of Japanese planes, and the alarm could not be lifted day and night.but me.Living in the barracks has a short-term security.Running horses on the dirt road in the bushes every morning, the cool wind blows through my short hair as a teenager.

That kind of feeling is unimaginable even in dreams. Li Xin'e on horseback is confident and stable, and she is a different person from school.She said that in her hometown in Yunnan, she moved with her father and must be able to ride a horse.And I, under such a fate, even rode the horse of General Li Mi... The high mountains, torrents and narrow walls on the Yunnan-Myanmar border she mentioned aroused my infinite imagination.In those years, I always wished that I was a boy, that I would join the army when I grew up, and join the cavalry, like the broadsword troop of the 29th Army, from Xifengkou on the Great Wall to Nantianmen, like my grandmother’s Mongolian ancestors, jumping Ma Qianli, never squat by the sand dunes and let such a small Japanese pirate come over my head and bomb me.We, two girls from the extreme north and southwest of China, became friends under the bombing of the enemy. The feeling of sharing weal and woe is something that people who grew up in the peaceful years could not imagine.Especially during air raids at night, halfway through the run, in the midst of the emergency sirens, I looked for a small sand dune by the moonlight, held hands, called each other's names, sat down and listened to the bombs near and far, and watched for thirty miles. In the flames of the outer city, two fifteen-year-old girls share an inexplicable fear.It was probably two or three o'clock in the morning when the alarm was lifted.It is a long and slow beep to clear the alarm, as if we are exhaling for a long time, thankful that we are still alive.Hundreds of people stumbled towards the dormitory because they hadn't slept all night, and few people were interested in looking up at the sky that had just brought death threats.The moon had set and the stars were shining, and I didn't think the stars were beautiful then.

After graduating from junior high school, Li Xin'e went back to Yunnan with her father.War was approaching the southwestern provinces, and the newly built Burma Road along the Yunnan border required massive defense forces.The last time she came to my house, she brought a brocade-wrapped jade bracelet to my mother and asked her to keep it for her.Said it was a memory of her mother.She is "absent".I am still not sure what kind of "absence" it is. She rarely mentioned family life in Yunnan on weekdays.The Anti-Japanese War ended, except that she wrote a letter when she returned to Yunnan for the first time.When my family left Chongqing, the news was cut off.Ten years later, my family "fleeed" to Taiwan for several years. Amidst the counterattack against the mainland, newspapers widely reported that General Li Mi, the last guard of the national army left on the Yunnan-Vietnam border, was ordered to retreat to Taiwan. He fought thousands of miles and finally returned. He received a hero's welcome.When he reported to the Legislative Yuan, his father asked him to meet him and asked him to return the jade bracelet to Li Xin'e. Only then did he know that Xin'e was married and living abroad.General Li was very surprised when he saw the jade bracelet. The two talked about how strong their confidence and fighting spirit were when they were in Chongqing, the center of the Anti-Japanese War.