The biting cold wind swept through the endless desert and the Gobi Desert, and a railway embankment stretched at the junction of the desert and the Gobi Desert. On the simple road on the side of the roadbed, a long convoy appeared from time to time, loaded with cyan roadstones. This is the dividing line between the desert and the next door, and the railway embankment is built on the hard Gobi Desert. Because the Gobi Desert is very hard, rainfall here is scarce all year round, and there is almost no subsidence and uplift of the ground, so it is relatively easy to build roads on the Gobi Desert.

In the cold wind of hunting, a group of Japanese soldiers was laying the roadbed. First of all, they collected the gravel on the Gobi Desert and piled it up half a meter high, then tamped it, and then paved the gravel with bluestone, which was about 200 centimeters high, so that the roadbed was completed. At present, the construction of the road from Lanzhou to Urumqi has started on all fronts, and the Japanese prisoners of war detained from Korea are marching to the west one after another. In the past few days, there has been a noticeable increase in carriages, and some of them simply have a team of carriages pulling people.

The Japanese prisoners of war who built the road in this section numbered about 500 people and were tasked with building the road for 20 kilometers. At this time, Kameda Dairo, Sukegawa, and Yokoji were holding wooden hammers and ramming the roadbed. In the distance came another wagon, loaded with captured Japanese soldiers. "Kameda-kun, so many soldiers have been detained, is it that Japan has been defeated?" Jiechuan said with a gloomy face. "Impossible, the Chinese do not have the right to control the sea, and it is impossible to land on the Japanese archipelago!" Yokoji denied. Kameda said: "I judge that the Korean Peninsula was defeated, and it is possible that they came from Korea. ”

A few people stopped squeaking, and deep down they began to worry about the future of Japan. The convoy approached, flanked by a convoy of horses detained by the Chinese army. The carriage was loaded with Japanese prisoners of war, all of whom were gray and expressionless. The two sides met and tacitly understood each other. The oppressive feeling was almost suffocating. The convoy passed, and the whistle of a break came. Everyone sat on the ground in groups, and two Japanese soldiers brought hot wolfberry tea.

Kameda Dairo, Sukegawa, and Yokoji drank a bowl of hot tea in a lunch box. The rank of Kameda Dairo was squad leader, so he was not eligible for officer treatment and could only mix with ordinary soldiers. However, Jiechuan and Yokoji respect him very much, so the relationship between the three of them is very close. "Kameda-kun. I did a rough calculation in the past few days, and about 10,000 people have passed through here, and it seems that we have suffered a lot of losses on the Korean Peninsula! "Henglu is discouraged." Kameda-kun. If the Korean Peninsula is lost, can the Japanese archipelago still hold on?" Kameda Dairo's eyes are blank, and he doesn't know if it's okay. It's just a hard drink of water to warm up your body.

Finish work in the evening. Kameda dragged his tired body back to the tent. Dinner was sorghum rice. Bone broth stewed potatoes. The headquarters ordered to speed up the construction of the Western Railway, as a result of which the food for the Japanese prisoners of war was improved. Since the Japanese are not used to eating pasta, sorghum rice becomes their staple food. In order to ensure that the Japanese prisoners of war had sufficient physical strength, there was bone broth stew at every dinner. Kameda was depressed and lost his appetite after a few bites.

Kameda returned to the tent, lay on the bunk, and took out a wedding photo of himself and his wife Momoe to look at it. Seeing Momoe's innocent and bright smile and seeing Momoe's beautiful face, Kameda Dairo's heart seemed to be dripping blood. The pain is hard to control. Suddenly, a bold idea came to my mind, run away! Ichijo wants to flee back to Japan. Even if you die nine times for the rest of your life, you have to flee back to Japan. Kameda Dairo kissed the photo and said, "Momoe, wait for me, we will definitely meet." ”

The next day, Kameda Dairo told Sukegawa and Yokoji his idea, and they hit it off. "Kameda-kun, we listen to you! Escape back to Japan! "Kameda-kun, you just give the order!" Jiechuan and Yokoji seem to be in a hurry than him. The three of them prepared for 10 days, saving sorghum rice for each meal, kneading it into a ball and hiding it. In the middle of the night, the three of them got up and wrapped the skin bag filled with water, the lunch box and the rice balls on their backs. Before the operation, Kameda Dairo whispered: "I have carefully observed, the sentry is very lax, and after a change of guard, we will use this opportunity to escape." Their changing of the guard is to enter the tent and wake up the next sentry, understand? ”

After a while, there was a sound of footsteps, and Kameda Dairo silently counted and continued: "Action!" The three men got out of their tents, crossed the roadbed, and quickly disappeared into the desert. When it was dawn, the three of them ate a few bites of rice balls and drank a few sips of water to continue on the road. "Kameda-kun, why did we go into the desert?" Crossroads are confused. "Bastard, if we run along the roadbed, their horse team will quickly capture us back, and we will be able to escape by entering the desert all the way east." Kameda is full of confidence

"But when we enter the Central Plains, we don't know Chinese, and we will still be discovered?" Jiechuan asked worriedly. "My Jihua is like this, after passing the Jiayu Pass, we headed north into the grassland. At that time, when I was stationed in Baoding, I went to the grassland once. The grasslands are sparsely populated, so let's get a few horses to cross the grasslands into the Northeast, as long as we enter the Korean Peninsula, we can dress up as Koreans! Jiechuan and Henglu were full of confidence when they heard this.

In the afternoon, a strong wind blew and the sand and dust obscured the sky. In the evening they took a nap for a few hours and continued on their way. Three days later, there was still a vast sea of sand around, and the temperature rose at noon, so everyone sat down to rest. Suddenly, Yokoji seemed to have discovered a new continent and hurried over. "Kameda-kun, isn't this the lunch box I discarded the day before yesterday?" Yokoji shouted in surprise. Kameda took the lunch box and checked it carefully, and sure enough, it was discarded by Yokoji, and he couldn't help but close his eyes in pain and said, "We got lost and turned back again." ”

Jiechuan and Yokoji were lying on the sand in a deflated manner. "Bastard, you two get me up. We must be able to escape, the sun rises in the east, we follow the place where the sun rises all the way east, I decided to rest at night and hurry during the day. That night, Yokoji suddenly had a high fever and began to talk nonsense after midnight. Kameda and Sukegawa were by their side, and there was nothing they could do. When it was almost dawn, Yokoji suddenly opened his eyes and said, "I saw the island of Japan, and the shore was full of people, all of whom came to greet us, look!" They are holding cherry blossoms, and the cherry blossoms are so beautiful! Yokoji smiled, his expression frozen.

The two simply covered the body of Henglu with sand and continued on the road.

At dawn on the 8th day, Jiechuan climbed up and checked the food and water. He was just about to wake up Kameda. Suddenly, the outstretched hand stopped. Seeing the pitiful amount of food and water, Sukegawa gritted his teeth and bowed to Kameda, and then set out on his own road. Kameda woke up. The sky is already bright, and there is no shadow of Jiechuan left and right. Kameda immediately understood what was going on. He did not curse Jiechuan, but silently prayed for Jiechuan, hoping that he would escape and ascend to heaven.

Around noon, Jiechuan saw the mountains in the distance and couldn't help but get excited. At this moment, wolves appeared around, and Jiechuan was extremely sad. Plop on his knees. When the wolves gathered around and smelled his body and sweets his face, Jiechuan's consciousness was numb.

Kameda struggles to climb a sand dune. Then lie on the ground. At this time, his lips were chapped, there was no food in his belly, and he had no strength in his body. Kameda looked at the clear blue sky and said silently, "Momoe." I can't go back to reunite with you. Farewell, the god of the original day will bless you safely. Just as he was in a trance, he remembered the sound of horses' hooves.

The next day, Kameda woke up, and a military doctor in a white coat in front of him said, "He woke up, and his life is not in danger." Feed him some porridge in a while and rest for a while. A Chinese officer said with a tiger face to the Japanese army: "Carry him out, I will give a lecture.!" Kameda was carried out on a stretcher. The prisoners of war lined up in a line. The Chinese officer walked to the front of the team and said majestically: "Bring up the remains of Jiechuan and Yokoji!" ”

I saw 4 soldiers, carrying the remains of Yokoji and Jiechuan up. At the same time, put aside the tattered clothes as a way to prove their identity. What appeared in front of everyone was completely two skeletons, which were very eerie and terrifying. "Do you see, this is what it ends like to escape. I can tell you that this radius of hundreds of kilometers is desert and the Gobi Desert, there is no water, no food, and the only people who survive are wolves. You may be able to escape, but you will never escape the clutches of the wolves. ”

"I can tell you that our vigilance is so lax with this in mind. If you don't care about your life, you can continue to escape, and I will collect your body. "Now listen to my command, and all of them go to work. Since you ran away with 3 people, all of you were punished, and the road mileage was increased by 3 kilometers on the original basis, and so on, you remember. The officer walked away.

That night, Kameda recovered and buried the remains of Yokoji and Sukegawa with his own hands. He blamed himself for harming them both. "China is unimaginably big, everyone wants to escape, but the price of escape is not punishment but destruction, you should understand this truth." "Report to Captain Watanabe, the stupid behavior of my subordinates has affected everyone, and I am guilty of this." "I admire your bravery, but I want to tell you, there is hope in life, let's face reality!"

The group of prisoners of war to which Kameda belonged was frightened by the horrific scene and did not escape again. However, it does not mean that other teams do not have escape time, this winter, there were about 500 escapes, and no one escaped. It was only after the beginning of spring that the escape of Japanese soldiers was prevented, because no one could afford the living reality in front of them.

Since then, Kameda has worked honestly and began to devote his energy to road construction. Comparatively speaking, the professionalism of the Japanese prisoners of war is not to be said. Kameda has a lot of tenacity, and in order to reduce the heavy manual labor, he has carried out many innovations. It not only improves labor efficiency, but also reduces labor intensity. Soon, Kameda became a well-known earth engineer and attracted the attention of the Chinese side. Two years later, when the Urumqi railway opened, Kameda's fate changed and he became an engineer.

Although he was not allowed to return to China, he was free. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war laid railways on the land of China, which is unique and unprecedented in Chinese history. It can be said that China quickly entered the industrially developed countries, and then jumped to the top. These cheap laborers play a vital role. There is a well-known saying that is incisive: the victor will not be blamed, the merits are right and wrong, and the merits should naturally be written about.

With the thick fire of the war, the land of China unbelievably began an unprecedented process of industrialization, which is also unique in the history of Shijie's development, because he created a miracle in the development of human history. Later, China's hegemony was not to plunder local wealth, but to plunder talent and human resources, and this clever way of development was definitely an outlier in the late 19th century. (To be continued......)

PS: It is natural to pay the price and get a reward, but the result is even more miserable after paying the price, which is the greatest sorrow in life!