Chapter 12 first quarter

Zhao Dalun felt that violence was approaching. Spring mist hangs over the square.The humid and depressing air caused beads of sweat to emerge from his forehead, and then rolled down his cheeks and collar, blurring the words written on his clothes. This morning, as usual on the first and fifteenth day of every month, he put on the white paper garment covered in big ink characters, wrapped a white cloth belt around his forehead, and walked to the city in Dongdufu. In this small square in front of the yamen, I stood silently with other farmers all day long. Guikushen injustice Heaven's Way Manifested

Zhao's Village Seventy-three lives and fortunes There are words like this written on the chest of the white paper garment—written by Zhao Dalun himself.This is already the third.The first was damaged by the rain, and the other was torn by the guards.If this one is broken, he will still make a fourth one. ——From the day he entered the capital, he had no intention of returning home safely. Some other farmers also began to make paper clothes by themselves, and then asked Zhao Dalun to write for them-among them, he was the only one who could read. Zhao Dalun has been in Beijing for almost a year.He didn't know how long he would stay here.He didn't know whether he died first on the streets of the capital or in prison, or whether the people in Zhao's Village, Songlin Township starved to death first.

During this year, he saw that the number of peasants who joined him in redressing his grievances in the square increased day by day, and many of them came from villages farther and poorer than him. He never thought that his life would become like this, but he had no choice. They can endure heavy taxes; they can also endure all kinds of exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes from the state, county, and township; They also endured it; digging a well, slaughtering an old cow, giving birth to a child, and burying a relative are all "conscriptions" under various names, and they never made a sound; The four forced conscripts did not come back, and the survivors did not even receive half a penny of the military pay, but the county asked for the tax of the military pay first—they also did not resist...

They know that they are born farmers, and they are destined to be bullied by others.Even if they don't have to eat the last bite of food, they can bear it. Last year, due to the serious shortage of harvest, the four villagers went to the county yamen with the approval of the village chief to ask for tax deferment. The four spent five days in the county jail before returning.One was never able to walk; another's right hand was a limp lump of flesh; the other two were bedridden for three months. The people in Zhao's Village gritted their teeth and endured it, thinking that the matter would end there.

Two days later, ten people came from the county, claiming that the village chief had incited the villagers to resist the tax and wanted to "seriously investigate".They stayed all night in the mayor's house.The door is locked. No one knew what happened in the house that night. They only saw the body of the village head's thirteen-year-old daughter Yahua.Every bruise was exposed - as the clothes were torn, the bloody scabs on the genitals where the sparse pubic hair . . . It was already a year ago.Every time Zhao Dalun thought of that corpse, what he felt in his heart was not the anger like fire, but the cold like ice.

——However, when he arrived in the capital and got acquainted with these people from other villages, he suddenly discovered that among the many stories that happened in these people's hometowns, Zhao's Village was not the most tragic one. His heart was even colder.The hope I had had when I left for Beijing was dead.He had read a little at last, and he knew better than anyone here that there was no hope at all.We're just taking revenge against a wall of iron and steel. It's just that he can't give up.It wasn't because Zhao Yahua's corpse often appeared in front of his eyes; it wasn't because of these sympathetic fellow sufferers; and it wasn't because he knew that people in the county might have heard about his going to Beijing and were waiting for him in his hometown with a torture stick.

He doesn't give up because he has given up the rest of his life.He didn't even care if anyone saw the writing on the paper clothes anymore.His head went numb.He stood blankly in the middle of the square without thinking about anything. — until this moment. He suddenly had a premonition of the approaching violence, a part of his brain suddenly came alive, and fear and imagination ignited at the same time. What disturbed Zhao Dalun was that the square was a little different from usual.The guards and imperial guards who had been watching the outside every time in the past were gone, and even the yamen guarding the gate did not know where to go.

Zhao Dalun couldn't see those terrifying people with his eyes, so he felt the invisible oppressive power more clearly. ——Power... He suddenly imagined: If he did not go to Beijing alone, but all the 73 people from Zhao's Village came, what would it be like? ... ——No, not only that.There are two or three hundred people from different villages in the square... There are still many who have not been able to go to Beijing.Got caught halfway.Those who have gone back in despair, died of illness or starvation...these people who have been wronged, the peasants from their hometowns are all heading for the capital here...what will it be like?

——Heavy black heads; tired and hungry faces; pairs of rough palms... Thousands and tens of thousands... Zhao Dalun imagined walking in the square.He suddenly found a person.People who don't belong to them. The man was squatting among the crowd, his whole body covered from head to toe in a dirty coarse cloth cloak, as motionless as a stone.He has the tallest sitting posture that Zhao Dalun has ever seen in his life - even with his knees curled up, the top of his head still reaches Zhao Dalun's chest. The man raised his head slightly and seemed to have caught Zhao Dalun's gaze.He glanced at Zhao Dalun, and immediately hid his face in the cloak.

In that short glance, Zhao Dalun saw: This man seems to have three eyes - one more on the top of his forehead... ——He didn't know: many years later, this huge man would realize his imagination just now in a way that shocked the world. Zhao Dalun trembled with fear.He suddenly longed to go back to his hometown when he could still breathe and walk.He wanted to take another look at the tall pine trees in the village and the beautiful fields in Zhao's village.under the sunset... Then he heard the desolate cry and saw the spray of blood.he wept.