Ji Xiulan lives in a community with me and is 75 years old this year.

Back then, the grandfather of the old Ji family picked up the picks and came to Changtu, Liaoning Province from Shandong to ask for food, and the place where he settled was the Niuzhuang Brigade of the Taiping Commune.

When he came, the grandfather took a son with him; After going to Liaoning to open up wasteland and farm, he gave birth to a son. There are four brothers in Grandpa's generation, and Xiulan's grandfather is the third. In my father's generation, there are eleven buddies, eleven concubines, old and young, seventy people.

There are two cooks at home, and eleven concubines take turns to stir-fry. When the greens come down, whoever is supposed to cook the vegetables will go to the vegetable garden to pick them.

The Ji family has a large courtyard, four turrets in the four corners, and eleven brothers take turns to play the shift.

In the past, there were many beards in the Northeast, and the Ji family did not dare to fight hard with the beard, and most of the time when they saw the beard coming, they ran to the mountains, leading cattle and horses, and driving pigs and sheep. The woman took the child and took her clothes and cloth and hid them in the poor house. Wherever the beard comes back, they all pick up this house.

Once, Xiulan's grandmother's house came to the beard, and dozens of members of the family were sleeping, and they were not prepared at all. The beard robbed all the cattle, horses, pigs, sheep and grain, good quilts, good clothes, and valuable things at home put on the carriage, and the adults and children were safe.

At that time, the poor were sad, they had no food, no clothes, no money. The rich are also sad, afraid that the beard will come and rob it. The child did not dare to go out, for fear of being kidnapped by the beard. If you kidnap the children of a rich family, the beard will ask for a lot of money, even if you sell the whole family, you won't be able to get that much money. If you don't send money, the beard will cut off one of the child's ears, wrap it in cloth, and put a letter telling you to give it a few more days, and if you don't send money, you will tear up the ticket.

This kind of thing, the Ji family has never been involved.

The Ji family has been busy since the fifteenth day of the lunar month, with those who wash rice, those who grind noodles, those who make noodles, and those who make bean paste. The eleven concubines wrapped bean buns together, froze while wrapping, and put them in the warehouse after freezing.

In addition to his own family of 70 people, the Ji family also has six long-term workers, two who herd pigs, two who herd sheep, and two who cook. Eighty-two people eat, and when it is hot to planing the grid, the steamed bean buns for the New Year are eaten.

In the past few months, I not only eat bean buns, but also cook bud rice, scoop small rice, eat bud rice flour cakes, and eat sorghum rice dry rice. At that time, there was little white flour in the Northeast, and you could only eat a white flour dumpling during the New Year's holiday.

The clothes worn by the men of the Ji family are the same, the same fabric in winter, and the same fabric in summer. What the daughter and daughter-in-law wear, the Ji family doesn't care. One of these eleven concubines is smaller than one foot, most of them are in the right household, and they rely on their mother's family to wear clothes, and some weave cloth and spin cotton to earn money to buy clothes for themselves and their daughters.

The family of 70 people lived in 15 thatched houses, five in the upper house, five in the east room, and five in the west room. In the middle of the five rooms are kitchens, pots, and four rooms at both ends. Each house is opposite the kang, and a long table and stool are placed in the middle of the kang to eat, and the brothers live in one room.

In 1945, Xiulan was five years old, and the Ji family separated. After the separation, the composition of each household of the Ji family was middle peasants.

When fighting Siping and Changchun, so many soldiers came from nowhere, passed by her door, and it took three days and three nights. After playing Siping for more than half a month, my grandfather went to Siping to carry the stretcher, and saw that the dead people were not counted, lying horizontally and vertically.

If you don't want to fight the war, if you want to resist US aggression and aid Korea, the two brothers have to go to one. Xiulan's second brother is medium-sized, handsome, and energetic. He was admitted to the army, and he was so happy, and the man who came to lead the army liked him very much.

Grandpa was reluctant to let his second brother become a soldier, so he was so worried that he always smoked. It's time to change into a military uniform, and grandpa burns the soldering iron red. The second brother was sleeping, and the grandfather lifted the quilt, and he burned the second brother's buttocks twice, and the second brother gritted his teeth and turned around on the ground, which hurt and angered.

The second brother was eighteen years old that year, and he failed to go to the battlefield as a soldier, and cried for several days.