After the parade, I didn't continue to accompany Wu Sangui and them. The comrades of the diplomatic hall will take them on a systematic tour of our barracks, and perhaps even visit the Arthur War Memorial. If Wu Sangui studied carefully, they could probably feel the distance of several Pacific Oceans between the Guanning Army and the Australian Song Army. This may or may not be helpful in dealing with Liaozhen in the future. Who knows? We don't get something out of everything we do, and we don't think we can get something out of everything before we do it.

In fact, most of what we do, military, politically, and economically, has not yielded the gains we wanted. Some are lucky and get a little bit in return. Some of them are normal, basically nothing, and all the investment is wasted.

The reason why I said this in bits and pieces is because I remembered my memories in the Lushun Martyrs Cemetery one day after the parade.

It was a very sunny morning, and I went to the martyrs' cemetery with Fang Hai during my post-war vacation. I didn't have anything I wanted to do, and I didn't have anyone I wanted to meet, but I suddenly realized that after I returned to the Chinese Governor's District, I had never gone to the Lushun Cemetery to pay respects. So I went.

Coming out of the barracks, Lushun has basically returned to calm. The militia, which had been urgently trained at the height of the fighting, had been disbanded, and the citizens, who were ready to fight to the death against Jiannu, had returned to their daily lives. Once again, the streets are full of life, and the bustling crowd shows the vitality of this hard-fought city under the rule of the Australian Song Dynasty.

The public carriage drove along the tracks on the concrete road. I sat against the window, letting the sun that was no longer hot in the July fire shine on my face. There was a middle-aged man dressed as a scholar reading the newspaper aloud in the carriage, and seven or eight passengers were watching him. After the big parade, the news in the newspapers was naturally associated with news of the victory. I didn't pay attention at first, but the name "Lu Daopei" caught my attention. Hey, it's a story he wrote.

This report is about the official start of construction of the Golden State-Xinjin Railway. The tens of thousands of Jiannu captives captured in the encirclement of southern Liaoning provided sufficient labor for this project, and the completely subdued Later Jin regime would no longer have the courage to invade south, and capital would no longer worry about whether this investment would be wiped out in the war. Therefore, the Jinzhou-Xinjin railway, which has long been designed and planned by the Taiwan Railway Company, was quickly put on the agenda. The foundation repair work has begun, the infrastructure stocks of the Taipei Stock Exchange have been in the red for many days, and Taiwanese and Jiangnan businessmen who have made a lot of war money are eager to put money into the railway.

After the scholar finished reading this report, the passengers on the side hurriedly fanned him diligently. After he sat down, he couldn't help but talk about his wise decision to invest heavily in railroads, saying that he had invested all his savings in the stock market last week, and now he has made more than 30% of the gains. At this point, the scholar incidentally criticized his wife for being too conservative and not pledging her jewelry to a pawnshop and investing it in the stock market, otherwise she would have made a lot of money now.

Under the spitting speeches of the scholars, the passengers in the same car were a little enthusiastic. Fang Hai sat quietly beside me and didn't move. He was also able to receive a prize after the war, at least 300 taels. Coupled with the red envelopes received as an adjutant and the gray income in the open and in the dark, 600 taels can be earned in a battle. I told him not to be busy investing in the stock market to make money, and to keep the money and follow me to the next place of employment, when the time comes, there will naturally be a way to earn more than now-Fang Hai naturally understands this. There are countless opportunities to follow the rulers in power, so why bother to compete with civilians in the stock market.

After 2 consecutive transfers, we got off at the East Cockscomb Mountain Station. Since the war was never far away from Lushun, this cemetery has always been the spiritual sustenance of the people of Liaodong, and has been an important base for patriotic education since its completion. On that occasion, many citizens were strolling on the steps leading to the cemetery.

Following the crowd, Fang Hai and I quietly climbed the stairs. On both sides of the stairs are green pines, which resemble the pines of my hometown.

I came to the cemetery many times when it was first built, but I haven't been there since I returned home. When I entered the cemetery this time, I realized that the originally vacant cemetery was suddenly filled with a lot.

Fang Hai was only transferred from the security department to the Chinese Governor's District this year, and this is the first time he has come to the cemetery, and he does not feel the same feelings in my heart. However, when he saw me standing motionless at the entrance of the cemetery, he could guess the waves in my heart. So he stood quietly beside him, took off his hat and saluted the martyrs who were lying silently in the cemetery.

I am a person who does not have strong emotions, and it has always been difficult to feel intuitive emotional fluctuations. But I vividly remember that in the few minutes I stood in the cemetery, I shed more tears than in the past few years. Fang Hai should have been surprised, his chief would cry silently when he looked at the white monument. This feeling is only for me, and only people who have been here when the cemetery was first built. I still remember that it was in September last year, when the Marines, who had just taken control of Lushun, transported the bones that had been collected in Lushun City here, cremated them and buried them in the victims' cemetery in the back mountain. That's what I led my men to accomplish. At that time, the cemetery was just a little idea on paper. In the designer's arrangement, the area near the entrance to the cemetery was reserved for soldiers who died in the war.

Now these areas are in use.

Each row is 20 steles, and each column is 20 steles. In a cemetery full of monuments, 400 heroes who died in battle lay down. In the one year since I returned to China, the cruel living environment and war have not stopped taking the lives of the Han family children stationed in southern Liaoning. Only a small number of them were dead Australian and Song warriors, and most of the deceased were soldiers of the Dongjiang Army. It can be expected that after the end of the Southern Liaoning Campaign, the remains of the heroes who arrived at the East Jiguan Mountain Martyrs Cemetery would fill another 5 or 6 cemeteries.

They were lucky after all, at least they died on the journey to recover their homeland and fight for it. Their sacrifice is glorious, valuable, and will be remembered by us and countless future generations. Compared with those Ming troops who died tragically in the defeat after defeat in the Jiannu Rebellion that began from Wanli, those white pole soldiers and Zhejiang soldiers who died in the Hunhe River, and those Liaoxi soldiers who were slaughtered because of Wang Huazhen's incompetence and cowardice, they are indeed lucky. When they close their eyes, they know that they will win and that they will have their comrades to avenge them.

"Let's go." I said to Fang Hai. Walking along the stone path sandwiched by green pines, one by one the tombstones were cleaned up, and the inscriptions on them recorded the lives of their masters, their glory, and their military ranks. Many of the citizens who came to sweep the tomb did not have a specific goal, and when they saw a tombstone with no one to hang on, they would sit down there, wipe the dust for the monument, put down the flowers and paper money in their hands, and sit quietly for a while. In the huge cemetery, there was only the rustle of shoes rubbing against the stone pavement and the chirping of birds.

Passing through the continuous tombstones, the number of citizens who came to sweep the graves gradually decreased. As we approached the mountainside, the number of citizens increased. Located in the depths of the cemetery is the Memorial Hall of General Zhang Pan, which is the end point of many citizens' grave sweeping journeys. It is still hundreds of meters away, and we can't directly see the entrance of the memorial hall, and the smoke of burning incense and paper money marks the location of the memorial hall for us. For General Zhang Pan, who was stationed in Lushun, had won a great victory in Lushun, and died in Lushun, the Liao people in Lushun were extremely respectful. The incense here is constantly burning day and night.

The soldiers of the Dongjiang Army standing guard in front of the memorial hall did not know us, and I did not identify myself, so I followed the citizens in. This memorial, which I came for the first time, was built in my absence. After entering the museum, on the right is the data room of the Lushun Defense, on the left is the exhibition hall of General Zhangpan's life deeds, and in front of it is the temple dedicated to the statue of General Zhangpan. This is also the highest reverence for heroes in Chinese culture, and the heroes who sacrificed their lives for the people will be worshiped as gods and enjoy incense forever.

Inserting a stick of incense in front of the statue, Fang Hai and I saluted Zhang Pan. As we walked to the back of the temple, we were unexpectedly stopped by a soldier from the Dongjiang Army. Looking at his military uniform, it turned out to be a soldier from the fire battalion on Immortal Island.

The fire battalion fighter was a little surprised that I called out his troops. He gently asked me to wait, implying that there was a senior official who was alone at the back of the hall, and asked me to wait for a while. As I was talking, a young man passing by saw me and hurriedly came up and invited me in. He is Zhang Zaidi, the adjutant of Lieutenant Colonel Huangshi of the Changsheng Island Regiment, I have had several encounters with him, but I didn't expect him to remember me.

"The lieutenant colonel is inside." Zhang Zaidi said softly. Under his leadership, I saw Huangshi sitting alone in front of General Zhang Pan's crested mound. At this time, the famous general, dressed in civilian clothes, sat on a low chair, facing the tombstone of General Zhang Pan, and in front of him several bottles of wine.

He noticed me approaching and looked up at me in some surprise, but then became calm again and did not speak. Zhang Zaidi quickly found a similar chair and came over. Yellowstone motioned for me to sit down, and I sat in my chair with Yellowstone and Zhangpan's tombstone on the side.

Two bottles of wine were opened in front of the tombstone. Huangshi sat for a while, picked up one bottle and took a sip, then picked up another bottle and poured some wine on the ground in front of the tombstone.

"Do you drink?" He finally spoke, then laughed again, "I forgot, you don't drink. ”

"It's good to drink... If you drink too much, you can forget your worries and forget the things of the past. While speaking, Huang Shi took another big sip, "How to solve your worries, only Du Kang, only Du Kang!" Haha, Cao Cao Cheng didn't deceive me, the ancients didn't deceive me! ”

"You're a few years late!"

Huang Shi suddenly put down the wine bottle, looked at me fixedly, and grinned: "That's good." What's so bad about spending twenty years in Australia? I want to too, who wants to come to Liaodong? Liaodong is a hell! ”

I looked at Fang Hai with my peripheral vision, and he and Zhang Zaidi were both standing under the eaves more than ten meters away, very cleverly avoiding our conversation. "Lieutenant Colonel Huang..."

"Nothing, I'm not drunk." Yellowstone interrupted me. He shook the bottle to his mouth, but no wine came out. "Hehe, I'm done with a bottle. Let me see... 300 ml, it's only 6 taels, not much, I'm really not drunk. ”

He threw the bottle away, grabbed another bottle and poured it clean on the ground: "You drink it too, don't play tricks." ”

Throwing away the two empty wine bottles, Huang Shi fell silent and sat with his head hanging for a while before raising his head. He didn't look at me, looking up at the clear blue sky where the eaves parted. "It's a good thing that you didn't spend the seven years of the Apocalypse in Liaodong. I wouldn't want to go through this period if I had a choice. ”

"I started as a military household in Wanli, and when I was defeated in Guangning in the early years of the Apocalypse, I spent a handful of peaceful times. In the next few years, it was to flee, fight, flee, and fight, until I came to Dongjiang Town, was taken in by the marshal, and was sent to Changsheng Island, that I got rid of the fate of the lost dog. ”

He paused, and then moved on to another topic: "Zhang Pan is a very good general. During his lifetime, I had the honor to be called the Shuanglong of Liaonan with him. ”

Huang Shi stared into my eyes and said slowly: "Mao Dashuai is not young, and he has been in the war for a long time, so he must find a good heir." At that time, Zhang Pan had a great victory in Lushun, and I had a great victory in Jinzhou, and it was difficult for the commander to make a decision for a while. But I don't want to, he is choosing us, why don't we wait for his choice. In such a wait, Zhang Pan and I couldn't help but feel estranged, and we no longer fully trusted each other. ”

"Five years of the Apocalypse... It's 1625. Zhang Pan died. ”

"Huang Taiji personally led the troops, hey, 70 Niu Lu, he is really willing and courageous. Zhang Pan was betrayed by traitors and died tragically in the army, the Lushun army was annihilated, and thousands of civilians were slaughtered. Because of our estrangement, I did not report the military situation on Changsheng Island as soon as possible. Zhang Pan's death, I have an unshirkable responsibility. ”

At this point, he lowered his head again. After a long time, he said slowly, "I've been thinking about it for the past few years, if I tell Zhang Pan the relevant information in time, will Lushun not fall, and Zhang Pan will not die." ”

He didn't continue to speak, and I didn't speak. Time passes slowly in tranquility.