Don't look at it as a docile little rabbit, maybe bite off your finger if you're in a hurry.

- Oroqen proverb

In the cheerful, agitated, and high-pitched song "Our Good Place in Xinjiang", the train taken by Niu Wanshan and Ma Yumin slowly drove into the temporary small station and the terminal station of the train, Salt Lake Station.

Salt Lake Station is as small as a farmhouse compound. However, everywhere there was a sea of people, red flags fluttering, and a steaming and inspiring revolutionary scene.

Ma Yumin and Niu Wanshan followed Mr. Yu off the train, walked to the bus ticket office together, and bought tickets to Beitun and Urumqi.

They said goodbye to Teacher Yu warmly and boarded the long-distance bus to Beitun. The so-called coach is an army-green Jiefang truck, and the roof of the compartment is covered with a huge army-green canvas. Passengers sit on the wooden floor of the carriage and lean against their luggage.

The cars raced across the endless wilderness, kicking up clouds of dust behind them, obscuring the roads they had just walked and the villages they had just passed.

They traveled all the way west, first reaching the capital city of Urumqi. The weather here is noticeably colder. Everywhere there is snow and smooth ice.

They passed through Shihezi, the headquarters of the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture and the Eighth Agricultural Division of the Corps, passed through Shawan County, which stretched out from the Tacheng area, and arrived at Kuitun, which is known as the Golden Triangle, which also belongs to the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture and the headquarters of the 7th Agricultural Division. On the evening of the fifth day, they finally arrived at Beitun, the division headquarters of the 10th Agricultural Division.

Since there was no passenger bus in Beitun to the Harao Suken area, they had to live in Beitun temporarily, asking everywhere if there were any trucks along the way.

They walked on the cold Beitun stone streets, but their hearts were full of enthusiasm and longing. They are also curious about the new world they are about to face. They find it very strange that the roofs of houses in Beitun and even in Xinjiang are not covered with layers of tiles to protect them from the rain and stream, like the houses in the mainland, but only a piece of smooth mud and thick snow, like a yak that has been stripped of its fur hat. There are no walls around the house, forming courtyards, only neat and lonely houses one after another.

They stopped in front of what looked like the grandest of bungalows.

The walls of this house are whitewashed with lime, and it looks clean and glaring. The whole house is at least 50 meters long, with only one gate in the middle. On the top of the gate is inlaid with a red five-pointed star, and the bottom is written in red paint:

The headquarters of the 10th Agricultural Division

—1959—

In front of the division headquarters was erected a row of brand-new propaganda boards. There are many black-and-white photos and red, green, and green drawings pasted on the billboards, as well as some articles copied with a brush.

Niu Wanshan studied in a literacy class for a period of time and could basically read newspaper articles. He pulled Ma Yumin to the front of the propaganda board, carefully looked at the photos and drawings on it that reflected the soldiers of the Corps cultivating wasteland, and then stumbled to read the above article to Ma Yumin:

"[Overview] The 10th Agricultural Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps is located in the northernmost part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, at the southwest foot of the middle section of the Altai Mountains and in the north of the Junggar Basin, distributed in the six counties of Altay, Habahe, Jimunai, Fuhai, Fuyun and Qinghe in the Altay region and the Buxel Mongolian Autonomous County in the Tacheng region, of which the west is adjacent to the Soviet Union, and the east and north are bordered by Mongolia, with 250

More than kilometers of border line.

【Geomorphological features】It can be divided into two types: mountains and plains. From north to south, there are the Altai Mountains, the alluvial plain in front of the mountains, the plains of the Irtysh River and the Ulungu River. The topography of the reclamation area is high in the southeast and low in the northwest, with an altitude of 420-700 meters.

【Climate】The reclamation area is a typical temperate continental climate. The spring is dry and windy, the summer is short, and the winter is up to 6 months, and the climate varies greatly.

【Natural Resources】It is one of the regions with abundant water resources in Xinjiang. There are 7 major diversion rivers, including the Irtysh River, the Krona River, the Kemuqi River, the Berezk River, the Arakbek River, the Ulungu River, and the Ulekun Ulastu River.

The wild vegetation includes Rhizome, licorice, reed, Saxony saxonica, Populus euphratica, Birch, S. canopus and so on. Wild animals include foxes, wolves, bears, beavers, otters, snowcocks, antelopes, deer, etc.

The reserves of three minerals, including beryllium, muscovite and potassium feldspar, rank first in the country.

The reserves of nine kinds of minerals, including gold, copper and nickel, rank first in Xinjiang.

In early February 1950, the Chinese People's Liberation Army was ordered to go to Ashan, first, to prevent the Usman bandits from returning to the Altay region and to protect the safety of people's lives and property. The second is to enter the Altai Mountains to mine gold and support the construction of the troops.

In August 1951, the vanguard of the 7th Cavalry Division was stationed in Balibagai (28th Regiment) and began preparations for large-scale production.

On April 11, 1952, the battle for the development and construction of the Ahsan reclamation area officially began.

On October 7, 1954, the Production and Construction Corps of Xinjiang Military Region was established. The 10th Agricultural Division is subordinate to the Corps.

In January 1955, the XPCC abolished the establishment of the 10th Agricultural Division, and the 28th Regiment was placed under the direct leadership of the Corps, with 5 battalion-level units under its jurisdiction: the 1st Battalion, the 2nd Battalion, the 3rd Battalion, the Ranch and the Infrastructure Brigade.

In January 1959, the XPCC restored the number, structure and leadership of the 10th Agricultural Division, with a total of 9 units under its jurisdiction: the 28th Regiment, the 29th Regiment, the 31st Regiment, the 32nd Regiment, the 33rd Regiment, the 34th Regiment, the 35th Regiment, the Heshtologai Coal Mine and the Fuhai Fishery of the 10th Agricultural Division.

On November 1 of the same year, the organs of the 10th Agricultural Division were relocated from Bali Bagai to Beitun.

In April 1960 and September 1961, the 10th Agricultural Division successively established an agricultural machinery school and a political cadre school to recruit young intellectuals in Shanghai, Zhejiang and other places, train grassroots financial and accounting cadres and agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry technicians, and provide talent support for the development of the 10th Agricultural Division.

The 10th Agricultural Division is a pearl on the Gobi Desert and an iron wall for guarding and building the frontier. ”

On the third day, they finally found a car that was going to pull goods from the Harsh Suken area. The kind driver saw that they were thinly dressed and let them sit in the middle of the cargo.

After a bumpy day, in the afternoon, they passed through the Bari Bagai reclamation area, where the regimental headquarters of the 181st Regiment was located, and a large area of saline land called the pasture, and arrived at the harsh Su reclamation area, where the 3rd Battalion Battalion Headquarters was located, and the 14th Company.

The 14th Company is located at the intersection of the pasture desert and the harsh Su wetland. To the east is a dry beach with no grass, more than 10 kilometers long and 3 kilometers wide, covered with pebbles. To the west are rows of towering poplar trees and neat patches of fields, as well as company dormitories that are as orderly as military camps.

Vitality and decay, life and death, hope and disappointment form a strong contrast here, forming a violent collision of one and the other.

One of the soldiers of the regiment who received them told them that Ma Yumin's uncle, Ma Hairen, was out and asked them to come to a dormitory and wait patiently.

Niu Wanshan and Ma Yumin sat nervously. They waited until it was dark, and then they waited for Ma Hairen, who was dressed tightly.

Ma Hairen is not tall, wears a sheepskin coat, and wears a furry fur hat on his head. His hat, eyebrows, and beard were covered with a white frost sparkle.

In fact, he was not a regimental commander at all, but an ordinary shepherd of the company. It turned out that when he asked someone to write a letter to his family, the person who wrote the letter mistakenly wrote me as the head of the regiment in the regiment! This caused a misunderstanding.

Ma Hairen took Ma Yumin and Niu Wanshan to the company headquarters and found the company commander Lu Changgui, who was reading the newspaper.

Lu Changgui was originally from Yimeng Mountain, Shandong, and transferred from the army to the corps. Because of his straightforward speech and cheerful personality, he was affectionately called Lu Cannon by the employees of the company.

Ma Hairen said to Lu Cannon: "Company commander, these two dolls came to me from their hometown in Gansu. This is my brother's son, my nephew. That's my sister's son and my nephew. Do you think it is possible to arrange for them to participate in revolutionary work? ”

Lu Dacang replied briskly: "Of course." Come, come, tell us about yourselves. Teacher Liwen, you are responsible for instructing them to fill out the worksheet. ”

Teacher Li Wen, who was wearing myopic glasses, came over in response, spread out the form on the table, unscrewed the cap of the fountain pen, and asked after talking, "What's your name?" ”

"Me? Niu Wanshan. ”

"Gender? Oh, man. What about the nation? ”

"Dongxiang clan."

"Dongxiang clan? What ethnic group are the Dongxiang people? How come I've never heard of it? ”

Lu Dacang and Li Wen used to live in the Han nationality area in the east, and they didn't know much about ethnic minorities.

Lu Dacang turned his head and asked Ma Hairen, "Aren't you a Hui?" Why is the nephew a Dongxiang clan? ”

Ma Hairen hurriedly explained: "The Hui and Dongxiang are almost the same. Almost. At the beginning, the instructor didn't know what the Dongxiang clan was, so he filled in a Hui component for me. ”

Lu Dacang waved his hand and said categorically: "All of them are written as Hui." ”

Since then, Niu Wanshan and Ma Yumin's ethnic group has changed from Dongxiang to Hui.

Because Niu Wanshan joined the Corps as Ma Hairen's nephew, other Hui and Dongxiang villagers in the company called him Uncle Niu.

Lu Dacang looked at Niu Wanshan's tall figure, and asked: "Open the chain rail tractor or be a cook, which job do you want to do?" ”

Niu Wanshan saw the majestic chain rail tractor for the first time during the day, and he was only in awe of it, and he didn't know anything about it, let alone drive it? So, he timidly replied, "Be a cook." ”

Lu Cannon said: "Okay, from today onwards, the two of you will be the new fighters of our corps with revolutionary historical traditions. First of all, on behalf of the revolutionary fighters of the whole company, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you. Next, I would like to give you a good account of the current situation.

The Xinjiang Construction Corps is composed mainly of demobilized soldiers, supplemented by young intellectuals from the border areas, and has a semi-militarized nature. Therefore, entering the Corps is equivalent to joining the Chinese People's Liberation Army and being a glorious soldier.

In the spring and summer of this year, relations between the Soviet Union and our country continued to be tense. In the Ili and Tacheng areas under the jurisdiction of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, more than 67,000 Chinese border residents fled to the Soviet Union on a large scale, also known as the May 29 counter-revolutionary riots.

Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture is a multi-ethnic area, including Ili, Tacheng, Altay 3 prefectures and Kuitun City, a total of 24 counties and cities, and administers Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, covering an area of 350,000 square kilometers, with the Soviet Union and Mongolia in the northwest and northeast respectively.

There are many reasons for the flight of border people, mainly due to the following reasons:

First, the political influence of the Soviet Union.

The political influence of the Soviet Union on Xinjiang, especially in the Ili region, can be traced back to the time of Tsarist Russia. The tsar forced the Qing Dynasty to sign treaties, obtained privileges in Ili and Tacheng, and rapidly expanded its economic power to the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.

From the 20s of the 20th century, the Soviet Union continued to strengthen its penetration into Xinjiang. In the mid-30s, through comprehensive assistance and support for the Sheng Shicai regime in Xinjiang, Xinjiang was brought into its sphere of influence. In 1941, after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, Sheng Shicai turned to Chiang Kai-shek and took various measures to force all Soviet political forces to withdraw from Xinjiang. In the summer of 1944, when Su Xiu was negotiating the establishment of a friendly alliance with China, on the one hand, he made some friendly gestures to Chiang Kai-shek, and on the other hand, in order to achieve the expected gains at the negotiating table, he instigated and supported an armed uprising against Sheng Shicai in the three districts of Ili, Tacheng, and Ahsan, which is now Altay.

The Soviet Union sent people to serve as important leaders or advisers to the three district regimes, and also recruited intelligence agents among the ethnic and religious elites to secretly collect all kinds of intelligence. From 1944 to 1946, the officers above the platoon level in the National Army of the Third District were all equipped by the Soviet Union.

In August 1945, after the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Su Xiu gave up his policy of supporting Xinjiang to establish an independent state, and directed the peace negotiations between the three regional regimes and the Kuomintang Xinjiang regime behind the scenes, and facilitated the signing of the peace clause. Although Su Xiu ostensibly withdrew all the officials, advisers, and military officers of the three districts, he sent a large number of intelligence officers and secret police into various departments and established a military intelligence organization. Make Ili look like a place for Su Xiu. The Su Xiu consulate decides everything there.

Second, the economic penetration of the Soviet Union.

Through the development of trade with Xinjiang and the development of overseas Chinese enterprises, the Soviet Union has continuously strengthened its economic penetration and economic influence in Xinjiang. In 1941, the total volume of trade between Xinjiang and the Soviet Union increased by nearly eight times compared to 1934.

After the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, the Soviet Consulate in Dihua repeatedly suggested that the provincial capital of Xinjiang should be designated as Yining, one of the reasons being that the improvement of Xinjiang's economy mainly depended on the development of trade between the Soviet Union and Xinjiang, and Yining was an important channel for trade between the Soviet Union and Xinjiang. At that time, almost all industrial supplies in Xinjiang were imported from the Soviet Union.

The Association of Overseas Chinese in the Soviet Union continued to set up industrial and commercial enterprises in Yili, and took advantage of the convenience of direct orders and trade with the foreign trade institutions of the Soviet Union, and almost monopolized the market in Yining. This powerful economic force has had an important impact on the economic life of the local people.

Third, the influence of Soviet culture.

Su Xiu had a profound ideological and cultural influence on Xinjiang, especially Yili. The textbooks used by ethnic minority students in primary and secondary schools in the Ili region from the revolutionary period in the three districts were the textbooks of the Soviet Union. After the liberation, due to the great shortage of language translators and the full trust in the Soviet Union, some ethnic schools in Xinjiang even directly adopted the corresponding language textbooks of the Soviet Union for teaching. Textbooks say that "the motherland is the Soviet Union", "the capital is Moscow", and even refer to Xinjiang as "East Turkestan".

In fact, what they went to school was the national education of the Soviet Union, which to a certain extent led to the confusion or lack of national identity among young people. It was not until 1958 that all of these textbooks were replaced.

The ethnic minorities in Ili and other areas could neither understand the Chinese language nor see the books and newspapers in their own language, so they had to read a large number of newspapers and magazines in Slavic provided by the Soviet Union. By 1959, there were still 68 kinds of books, newspapers and magazines in the Tacheng area.

Through the associations of overseas Chinese in Xinjiang, the Soviet Union vigorously publicized the superiority of the Soviet Union and the Chinese border people, and strengthened the inculcation of the idea of the superiority of the Soviet Union and the Chinese border people. The Association of Overseas Chinese in the Soviet Union opened schools for overseas Chinese in the Soviet Union, established schools for Chinese New Year's Eve, organized cadres of Soviet origin to study the newspapers and periodicals of the Soviet Union and the principles and policies of national construction, and strengthened the ideological control of young people and cadres of the Soviet Union.

As a result of more than 10 years of Soviet education and ideological and cultural propaganda, until the early 60s, the children of ethnic minorities in the Ili region still only knew the Soviet Union and Moscow, and did not know what country China was or which country Beijing was the capital. Among intellectuals over the age of 25, many believe that the Soviet Union is their motherland and China is their second motherland. What else did someone say: "I'm Soviet." My party is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. My homeland is the USSR. I'm going back to the Soviet Union. ”

Fourth, cross-border ethnic issues.

By signing a series of unequal treaties and boundary treaties with the Qing Dynasty, the Tsar annexed large swathes of China's frontier territory, causing the historical migration and separation of ethnic groups in the Ili and Tacheng regions. In 1881, 70,000 inhabitants of the Ili region, with a population of only 130,000, were moved into Russia. Therefore, the various ethnic groups in Ili, especially the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uygur and other ethnic groups, have formed inextricable tribal and blood ties with some ethnic groups in Tsarist Russia. They share a common language, religion and customs, and maintain long-standing and extremely close economic, intellectual and cultural ties.

An important means of exerting influence on Xinjiang, especially in Ili, was to restore the nationality of the former Suxiu residents who had emigrated to Xinjiang in the 1920s and 1930s, and at the same time to develop a large number of Soviet-Xiu diasporas among the ethnic minorities in Xinjiang......"

Teacher Li Wen, who went out to turn on the water, returned. He interrupted Lu Artillery's eloquent conversation: "Company commander, Khrushchev was going to call the USSR before he came to power. After he came to power, he became a revisionist, and he was the Soviet revisionist. ”

Lu Dacang said impatiently: "You intellectuals like to chew words!" Who doesn't know that Su Xiu was changed from the Soviet Union? ”