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Harrett Aban pointed to the bare hillside around him, raised his eyes, and said, "Zhou, when I arrived in Shandong, I finally knew what famine was. Famine is when people eat everything they can eat and stuff what they can't eat into their mouths. I once saw with my own eyes that a victim of the Shandong disaster ate mud cakes and finally died of bloating. ”

Zhou Hexuan couldn't help but smile bitterly, now is May, when the plants are lush and lush. But the hillside in front of me was not very green, not to mention the grass and leaves, and even a lot of bark was eaten by the hungry.

Compared with the situation at this moment, the famine scenes in those film and television dramas in later generations are like a joke - but I haven't seen any director pull out the grass and strip the bark of the trees when filming.

Zhou Hexuan didn't want to talk about the topic of famine, it was too heavy, so he asked instead: "Why did you come to China?" ”

"I'm fed up with sitting in an office in the United States, reporting the same news every day and repeating boring articles, of course," Harrett Aban said with a laugh. China is different, there are magical things happening every day, and it is a paradise for adventurers. ”

Zhou Hexuan said unceremoniously: "I don't agree with your report on the 'Jinan tragedy', it is too biased, and the Chinese will be very angry when they see it." ”

Harrett Aban was the first in the world to report on the Jinan massacre, faster than any Chinese journalist ever did.

As an American journalist, he first went to Qingdao to interview the spokesmen of the Japanese Consulate General, the Army Headquarters, and the Navy Headquarters. They told him that there had been fighting on May 3, that the telegraph line had been cut off by the fighting, that the train from Qingdao to Jinan had been suspended, and that they did not know what was going on.

Harrett Aban thought that the Japanese were lying and insisted on going to Jinan, so the Japanese had to agree to take him by troop carrier.

After arriving in Jinan, Aban interviewed the commander of the Sixth Division of the Japanese Army and his assistants, as well as the Japanese consul in Jinan, consuls and missionaries from Britain, the United States and Germany. Only the citizens of Jinan and the soldiers of the Northern Expedition were not interviewed, because there were no Chinese in the city of Jinan, and those who did not die either fled or had already gone into hiding.

On the whole, Harrett Aban's report was objective and impartial, without taking sides, and detailed the aftermath of the massacre.

However, due to the one-sided nature of the interviewee, he was greatly misled by the Japanese, and finally came to the following conclusion: "Judging from the detailed evidence, the cause of the conflict should be blamed on the Chinese side." ”

In the face of Zhou Hexuan's accusation, Aban felt that he was right, he said: "Zhou, I admit that the Japanese are very cruel, but the conflict was really caused by the Chinese side. When I was traveling from Qingdao to Jinan, I saw the Chinese ambushing Japanese personnel carriers, and because they were attacked again and again, the Japanese had to stop repeatedly. Passing through five walled towns on the way, there were burning explosions everywhere, either destroyed by the defeated Beiyang soldiers or shelled by the southern army, and corpses were everywhere inside and outside the city. And according to the information gathered in my interview, on May 3, the Chinese army was the first to shoot at the Japanese. Coupled with the subsequent ambushes along the way, the massacre on May 11 was actually an act of revenge after the Japanese army was provoked by the Chinese. ”

Zhou Hexuan asked funny: "When did you take a troop carrier from Qingdao to Jinan?" ”

"On the afternoon of May 9, when I set off from Qingdao and arrived in Jinan, the tragedy had just ended." Aban said.

"If my guess is correct, you have been deceived by the Japanese," Mr. Zhou said, "and the troops who ambushed the troop carriers you were in were disguised by the Japanese themselves to play the victim in front of American journalists." They had been stationed along the railway line in April, and they were well equipped to do so. ”

Aban still refused to believe it, saying: "Impossible, the two sides are exchanging fire with real guns and artillery." And I'm just a journalist, and they're wasting the speed of the march and the bullets just to act in front of me? ”

"This kind of thing, the Japanese have done it," Zhou Hexuan asked with a smile, "Have you seen the Chinese army with your own eyes?" ”

Aban thought for a moment and said, "Because it's night, I can't see clearly." ”

"Let's take 10,000 steps back," Zhou said, "even if the Chinese army attacks the Japanese army, it is normal behavior." Because the two sides were exchanging fire in Jinan, it was natural to send troops to intercept the opposing side's support forces. You say yes, right? ”

Aban nodded, "That's right." In my news reports, I also pointed out the barbaric behavior of the Japanese army, and they really should not have harmed civilians. Suffice it to say that the cause of the conflict was caused by the Chinese. The Northern Expeditionary Army was the first to open fire on the Japanese expatriate, and the Japanese were forced to return fire, and the battle broke out. There was a precedent for this situation in Nanjing, where the soldiers of the Northern Expedition were revolutionaries, and they were very easily excited, and they robbed and killed foreigners when they saw them. ”

"Mr. Aban, I also run a newspaper. According to the information I have received, the Japanese killed the soldiers of the Northern Expeditionary Army as early as May 1 for no reason, and they were deliberately provoking trouble," Zhou Hexuan said sarcastically, "and the leader of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Mr. Chang Kaishen, ordered his subordinates to bear the burden of humiliation and not to fight back, which is just the opposite of what you said." ”

Harrett Aban frowned and thought about it, assuming that what he saw was a false image deliberately created by the Japanese army, and what he heard was a lie made up by the Japanese side, then the joke would be bigger. As a journalist, being fooled into reporting fake news made Aban extremely angry.

Zhou Hexuan pointed to the victims who were hurrying in the distance and said, "Perhaps, you can interview the refugees who escaped from the city of Jinan." Or maybe you should interview the soldiers of the Northern Expedition who lived through that incident firsthand and see what they had to say. ”

"I will." Harrett Aban said solemnly.

The axle of the car in front of him had been repaired, Zhou Hexuan got up and patted the dust on his buttocks, went back to the carriage to get the manuscript of "The Chrysanthemum and the Knife", handed it to Aban, and said: "This is the book I am writing, you can take a look at it, so that you can interview the Japanese in the future." ”

"Thank you," Harrett Aban said with a smile as he took the manuscript, "but my Chinese is not very good, and it may be a bit difficult to read." ”

"It's a very rough book, and you'll be able to understand it." Zhou Hexuan said.

The two of them returned to the car and continued to move towards Shanghe County.

Harrett Aban opened the manuscript and read it carefully, and he was a little surprised that it was actually a work that analyzed and expounded the Japanese national character. However, the analysis in it makes sense, and it solves many of his doubts about the Japanese, such as why the Japanese who are polite in daily communication can commit such atrocities as the massacre.

"This book of "Chrysanthemum and the Knife" should be shown to those guys in the White House." Harrett Aban thought to himself that he knew that the United States had been competing with Japan in East Asia.