Chapter 3: Heaven and Earth (Part 6I)

Most of the horse-drawn carriages were loaded with low-priced groceries such as soap, glue paint, and felt, and the products in the base area had already made a certain name, so as long as the traders could transport them out of the grassland safely, they would not have to worry about sales, and a very important factor was that at present, the major Japanese firms in China were focusing their attention on the high-profit industries of mines and railways, and they did not look down on the thin profits of daily groceries, and they would not secretly collude with devils and traitors to make a bad deal for everyone, so the traders could still earn a little bit of subsistence in the grocery trade

A small number of light wagons with rubber tires were firmly covered with tarpaulins or boxes These carriages were usually affiliated with "big merchants" and had a wide network of connections to take the risk of being robbed by bandits to the grasslands of course not content with dumping tons of soap like ordinary small traders and peddlers They were eyeing bath salts, Mongolian medicines, and leather products that had just been developed The former has always been the fist of the guerrillas to attract traders to come and trade, although the recipe has long been shared with the little prince Baiyin However, the cumbersome production process and the backward production level in the grassland areas have seriously limited the production capacity of the goods, so the supply has always exceeded the demand, and the latter two kinds of goods are new things that began to be born after Fang Guoqiang arrived, and it is said that in Changchun in the puppet Manchukuo and the Beiping and Tianjin areas in the mouth, sales channels have been opened, and the volume of goods is rising steadily

Whether it is a wooden wagon, or a rubber wagon, or even the bitter hardship of carrying a burden to earn a lot of money, as long as you enter and exit the base area, you must be carefully inspected by the sentry, and there is more than one similar sentry starting from the shore of the Crescent Lake, the closer you get to the base of Lamagou, the stricter it becomes, so that many people waiting to be inspected in front of the checkpoint have to discharge a long queue, so that the vendors scold their mothers, but in these years, the various checkpoints of the Japanese and the puppet Manchukuo are more troublesome to pass, so these traders are not intimidated by the complicated customs clearance procedures After venting his frustration, he got up the cart and continued to line up to pass the checkpoint, and the guerrilla fighters who were in charge of checkpoints had long been accustomed to the way of the vendors, no matter how ugly the other party said, they would always accompany the smiling face, and would never deliberately give the other party small shoes because of a few outrageous complaints

Of course, Zhang Songling and the others were not among the people to be inspected, and the fighters of the guerrillas had already been informed that their own brigade commander would be back in the next two days, and they were very excited, and when they saw their own troops from a distance, they immediately let go of the special passage next to the checkpoint, and then led the militiamen who came to help to stand with guns on both sides of the passage, and greeted the return of the brigade commander with a military salute

This hand made Zhang Songling feel both cordial and a little strange The intimate thing is that he finally returned to the guerrillas after more than a year of absence, and saw these faces who had lived and died together What is strange is that these brothers in front of him have improved their elders in terms of spirit, energy, and spirit compared to the time when they were separated, especially their posture when they saluted with guns is absolutely the standard of the regular army, and it is not at all as casual as it used to be

As for whether this change is good or not, Zhang Songling himself is also a little confused Intellectually, he knows that the more disciplined the army is, the stronger the combat effectiveness of the army that is ordered and forbidden, and this point He has already deeply realized this when he was a trainee company deputy in the 24th Regiment of Jinchaji The 24th Regiment is the trump card of the Jizhong Military Region, and it can also be regarded as an elite in the entire Eighth Route Army There, except for a few people who often go in and out of the company headquarters, most of the cadres and soldiers are not familiar with him, but when he and the company commander make a decision, they can always be implemented to the letter Even if there are some accidents encountered in the course of execution, the soldiers will do their best to overcome them, without complaining, and as a grassroots commander, leading such troops to fight is of course extremely easy, so easy that as long as the battle plan is conceived in advance, they can almost let it go, and naturally there are cadres and combat units at all levels who go through the entire battle process step by step like cogs on a machine

However, emotionally, he prefers the way the guerrillas fought in the past, and he doesn't have such a strong concept of hierarchy, everyone around him is a brother, and when you raise the steel knife in your hand, they will charge with you, even if the enemy forces in front of him are several times or even dozens of times that of him, even if there is no possibility of victory

They just urge the mount Life and death go hand in hand As long as you don't turn the horse's head They'll never leave first They all give their lives to you They are you and you are them The moment you raise the steel knife It's completely one In this steel jungle of hundreds of hot-blooded men, there is no fear, no betrayal, no hesitation and hesitation, even life and death are completely lost, you just fight together, fight, shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, slash the opponents in front of you one by one Treading the enemy into meat sauce with the horse's hooves Turning fear and humiliation into the hearts of the enemy forever The enemy cowers and trembles and drags his weapon and holds his head while you catch up with them from behind Like a tiger chasing a lamb Wild, proud, hearty Every time it's like drinking elixir

Drunk and lying on the battlefield, Jun Mo smiled Cavalry was born to be a passionate soldier To a certain extent, discipline had to take a back seat A group of cavalrymen who mounted and dismounted according to the procedure, raised their swords and put their guns could not play a hearty momentum And a strict and rigid general could not lead the team to launch an invincible charge

"Maybe I'm just not used to not seeing the process of change with my own eyes" When the last hurdle was left behind, Zhang Songling thought in his heart, Competitiveness and jealousy are the nature of every young man carved in his bones, and he himself is not exempt from vulgarity, not to mention that all the achievements that Fang Guoqiang has made so far are based on the foundation laid by him and Redbeard, Expanding the Lamagou Cottage into a Blackstone Guerrilla Zone, and then turning it into a Blackstone base when the conditions are ripe It is Redbeard's lifelong dream, and it is also his goal after Zhang Songling accepted the guerrillas It's a pity that Redbeard didn't wait to see his dream come true, and he led the team to the Xilin Gol prairie only two or three months after taking over the guerrillas, and fought thousands of miles from north to south

There are regrets, and there is also a little bit of jealousy Fang Guoqiang's luck is too good It came at the right time Not only has the Blackstone guerrillas themselves accumulated enough knowledge and experience in the previous battles, but the little devils in the city have also been in the weakest period in the past year

But at this moment, in addition to jealousy, Zhang Songling's heart was more happy and proud, he was very happy to see such a carriage full of goods and a satisfied smile, slowly coming out of the position close to Qilin Ridge, he was very happy to see one after another adobe chimneys that were not too thick, but could not be seen in any area along the way, spewing black smoke into the blue sky, all of which meant wealth, popularity, and the guerrillas had gotten rid of their dependence on others and began to be self-sufficient, and at the same time, they also meant the way of life of the people in the base area It has begun to gradually break away from the tradition of thousands of years of watching God's face and eat, although it is faltering, but after all, it is already on the road

Many, many years later, when Zhang Songling recalled the first time he saw the group of adobe chimneys in the Lama Ditch that was spewing smoke, he still felt a little excited in his heart, although at this time, he had already understood what environmental protection was, what was a high-energy industry, and what predatory development was, and understood that the soil workshop that he and Fang Guoqiang and others had worked so hard to build would definitely belong to the five small industries in the future generations, and belonged to the objects that the government ordered to shut down, but no one could think so far ahead until the problem of survival was solved Moreover, in his youth, and in the eyes of most readers in the mid-twentieth century, there were big chimneys everywhere, and it was the symbol of a modern country, more magnificent than anything else in nature (Note 1).

After hearing the "accusations" of Li Laojiu and Qinglian in succession, in their hearts, the blackstone base of the transit point of this trip had no hope in their hearts, and the image of political commissar Fang Guoqiang in their hearts became a rigid, mean, and impersonal abstract symbol, and even added negative adjectives such as power struggle, insidious and cunning, However, the territory under the control of the guerrillas far exceeded the prosperity of other steppe areas along the way But they were deeply suspicious of their previous thoughts, especially when they saw the primitive but large-scale clay workshops near Qilin Ridge, and this suspicion had slowly turned into shame

It is very likely that everyone is preconceived and blames the political commissar of the wrong side A rigid, mean, and power-grabbing guy It is absolutely impossible for him to govern the base area so prosperously As for the accusations of Li Laojiu and the Mongolian girl Qinglian, it is very easy to explain Li Laojiu is a battalion deputy of the Kuomintang, and of course he will not spit out any ivory from his mouth, while the Mongolian girl Qinglian is a minor child, and the words are mixed with too many personal feelings, which are not enough to be believed

So when Qinglian decided to stay in the Mongolian herdsman's house at the foot of the Qilin Mountains, and not continue to follow the group, almost everyone felt that she was a little too willful, and the words of persuasion of course blurted out from the mouths of several female students: "Let's go up together, we are all at the door of the guerrillas, and it is not good for you to stay at the bottom of the mountain."

"Yes, you don't have to be afraid, with us, no one dares to do anything to you."

"That's right, if the political commissar Fang did something wrong, you just brought it up to your face, since he is the political commissar of the guerrillas, his mind should not be too bad......

"If you don't go, if you don't go, if you don't go, you will die, and I won't die on the mountain" Qinglian's mind was very sensitive, and she immediately noticed that everyone was treating her as a child, her eyes were red, and she stomped her feet hard: "Brother Zhang, I'll wait for you at Haas's house for a day, and at this time tomorrow, whether you go down the mountain or not, I'll ride away on horseback Don't say good things for the surnamed Fang, the people of our palace don't want to have anything to do with him."

Note 1: On this point, you can refer to the children's song "Little Swallow" in the 50s: "We built a big factory and installed new machines, and the spring here is more beautiful ......" In China, when Zhang Songling was young, many industrial products had foreign characters in front of them: foreign iron, foreign wax, foreign nails...... So the rapid entry into industrialization was almost the highest dream in the minds of most intellectuals at that time