April 6, 1935, Dinghai County, Zhoushan Island, Zhejiang Province

With a bright morning glow quietly jumping out of the sky, the bright spring day rises again on the sea level.

Almost in an instant, the ancient vicissitudes of Dinghai County were shrouded in a gorgeous and brilliant red glow.

Then, in the refreshing sea breeze, the noise gradually broke the silence of the early morning - a new day was about to begin.

The faint mist with the salty smell of the sea water gradually dissipates in the sunlight, revealing a trestle pier and fishing boat sampans. Ragged shellfish pickers roamed the coast, throwing any shells and crabs they could find into rattan baskets on their backs. The fish market, which is in the early morning, gradually becomes more and more lively in the gradually brighter sunlight and the shouts of fishermen.

The poor men in the market, as well as the refugees who had escaped from the sea, had just walked out of the foul-smelling shacks with sleepy eyes, stretching their waists and sweating towels, and lined up next to the well to fetch water and wash, while exchanging heads and ears, greeting each other, and discussing where to find some work to do.

Colonel Whitney, who had just been withdrawn from the Beilun Port battlefield a few days ago and took his regiment to Zhoushan Island to rest and recuperate, also got up from the marching bed of a tent on the outskirts of the county, rubbed his still dizzy head, got up and put on a shirt, lifted the somewhat damp curtains, and let the fresh morning air blow into the tent with the wind, and then listened to the hustle and bustle faintly in the distance, looked at the rising red sun, and smiled softly and narrowed his eyes.

It's spring. The mountains and forests are verdant, and under the golden sunlight, there is an indescribable tenderness and charm: the sparkling stream. The blue sky is reflected, and the white clouds are floating in the wind. The lush jungle is full of pleasant bird chirping and insect chirping; In the distance, the vast beach that stretches to the sky, and the sound of huge waves crashing on the shore is constantly heard.

It is truly a supreme pleasure to be able to immerse yourself in such a comfortable and serene atmosphere, and to forget the brutal battlefield and gunsmoke for a while......

People who have never experienced war always have a romantic longing for it. Only after witnessing the flames of war can we understand the value of peace......

Very fortunate in the horrific fires of war, explosions, smoke and corpses. They are now far away from Colonel Whitney's side.

-- Although on the other side of the Chinese mainland, the flames of war are still raging, and tens of thousands of Chinese and Japanese troops are still fighting to the death in Jiangnan and the Central Plains, at least on this island on the edge of Chinese mainland. No annoying gunfire can be heard yet.

Therefore. These few days of peaceful life made the colonel feel that his whole person had recovered and he had become much more energetic.

At this time, it is already spring in April, and the warm spring breeze has already blown green the warm land south of the Yangtze River, and also blew green Zhoushan Island in the East China Sea. Everywhere there is a shijie of birds and flowers - the vegetation of the island is very dense, the plains are neatly cultivated with rice and vegetable fields, and the mountains are covered with lush pines, camellias, and various bushes...... If you look down from a height of thousands of meters, you will see the vast ocean around you. The island resembles a piece of green jade set in a sapphire, making it particularly beautiful.

Due to the interference of the countries in the fleet. All have been transferred to the Japanese ports of Sasebo and Nagasaki, where they can replenish fuel, supplies and repair the hull, and the US Marines stranded in Zhoushan have nothing to do for the time being. Colonel Whitney, who was bored for a while, took the opportunity to walk around Zhoushan Island, and even took a boat to visit Putuo Mountain, a religious resort not far away, and was greatly amazed by the scenery of this immortal mountain in the sea.

On that mountainous and densely forested island, almost everywhere is picturesque - hexagonal delicate pagodas, carved pavilions and pavilions, simple and vicissitudes of temple steles, and towering pines and cypresses and flowers surrounding all of them, all of which can give people infinite poetry. There are also strange peaks and rocks covered with moss and shrubs, and gurgling streams that are often shrouded in drizzle and mist, which make Putuo Mountain even more beautiful. It is not only like a magnified exquisite bonsai, but also like a fairyland that has descended into the mortal world...... It's really dizzying and unforgettable.

However, compared with the beauty of the Zhoushan Islands, the first impression of the people here on Colonel Whitney was that of extreme poverty, dilapidation and numbness—most of the villages and towns on the islands were built on gentle coastal slopes, surrounded by small valleys and terraces, which had been cultivated into rice paddies and vegetable fields according to their distance from streams and springs. And on the beach below, seaweed, kelp and dried fish are basking in it.

Although these fishermen worked so hard to develop a variety of industries, farming and fishing, and doing small handicrafts, they were generally so poor that they could not even afford to build wooden houses, and could only live in mud houses with mud walls and thatched roofs, which leaked both wind and rain. In order to prevent the roof from being blown away by the strong winds, many stones had to be pressed on the thatch. The house is also damp and muddy, and sleeping in such a place for a long time will be prone to skin moss and rheumatism.

What is even more frightening is that these towns and towns are almost overcrowded like concentration camps, only more unhygienic. The dirty roads are simply trodden on, filled with all kinds of garbage, and the stream that is a source of drinking water flows directly through the village, and adults and children often defecate in the water as if nothing happened. The villagers' houses were equally filthy, and families often had only two or three decent clothes, which only men who had come out to farm and fish, while women and children had to hide in their houses bare-bottomed, looking out in horror at the foreign blonde visitors through the cracks in the doors.

Even the sturdy young men who walked the ridges and the beach, busy planting rice and collecting fishing nets, looked sloppy—everyone's clothes were ragged and patched, like old rags covered with nets, and their hair was crawling with annoying lice and fleas.

The vast majority of the islanders that Colonel Whitney saw in Zhoushan, men, women, and children, were basically all thin, gray-complexed, and showing severe symptoms of malnutrition. There are also many pustules and scars all over the place. Although they have been engaged in manual work for many years, their hands and feet are very thick and their muscles are strong. But this kind of robustness is actually an illusion - the long years of hard work have indeed forced them to have a well-developed muscle. But in the case of insufficient nutrition and poor living environment, excessive physical extraction like this is actually overdrawing one's own life.

As a result, the muscles on their arms are bulging, and their skin is dull and lacks luster. It looks very dry. When you are young, you don't think so, but once you reach the age of thirty, you have to start "paying off the debt" of the past years - these people are often in their thirties and forties. They will begin to become hunched over, frail and sickly, plagued by chronic diseases such as rheumatism and arthritis. According to Colonel Whitney's conversations with several American missionaries on the island, the local fishermen were considered dead if they lived to die over fifty years old. to be over sixty years old. is already fully qualified to be called an old birthday star! Even those who claim to be "rich". In the Colonel's opinion, at best, he lived in a tiled house, his face was a little ruddy, and his clothes were also adorned with patches and holes, and he could not afford to eat even a decent good meal every week.

Therefore, every time Colonel Whitney went to the Allied Front Headquarters in Dinghai County, there would always be a large group of sloppy children with almost sloppy bodies crowded on the side of the road, with yellow faces and thin muscles. With a dish on his face, he carefully holds the broken bowl. begging him for this and that, pestering endlessly...... This is still haode. To make matters worse, there are countless pickpockets with quick hands and feet, ready to steal anything of value from him at any time!

After being tossed twice by the little beggars and pickpockets, Colonel Whitney grew to hate the filthy and dilapidated county town, preferring to stay in a barracks in the wilderness...... However, when he thought about it carefully, he also somewhat understood why the Chinese Bolsheviks rebelled -- beautiful scenery, ancient civilization, dilapidated villages and towns, and ruined people...... In such a declining and dark society, recalling the glorious history and facing the withered reality, if there is not a single spark of revolution, it would be a strange thing!

What he didn't like even more was the bad atmosphere in the Allied Front Command -- in one of the most luxurious mansions of a wealthy merchant on the entire Zhoushan Island, the liaison officers of the French, British, American, Japanese, and Kuomintang governments gathered together, and they were busy intriguing and scolding each other in various languages from morning to night: before, when the French fleet and the British fleet were shelling Wusongkou, and the American Marines were fighting fiercely and fighting to the death in eastern Zhejiang, the Japanese troops on the Nanjing side had been pretending to be deaf and dumb, refusal to cooperate tactically; Now, when the Japanese army launched an offensive and bloody battle in the Taihu Lake area in the north, it was the turn of the Westerners on Zhoushan Island to stand still and sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight......

In addition, the intrigue between the two Chinese governments on the mainland also obviously spread to Zhoushan Island, resulting in the Kuomintang troops retreating to Zhoushan Island in serious confusion, treating their own people like bandits, so that the coalition forces had to drive them to other islands to station and raise supplies for the sake of immediate peace...... Otherwise, these bandits can really burn down Dinghai County!

-- Endless quarrels, rip-offs, shirking of responsibility, exchange of telegrams, attacks and shouts...... It soon wore away a trace of enthusiasm in Colonel Whitney's heart, and made him more and more tired of the messy war in the Far East, and even more unoptimistic about the prospects of this war.

“…… Perhaps, this bad battle will be the same as when they jointly intervened in the Russian Revolution more than ten years ago, everyone has their own careful thoughts, and the officers of various countries have been scolding each other for several months, and Zuihou has returned in vain...... It seems a little difficult to get medals and win honors and promotions in this mess...... Let's think about it a little bit, what kind of Chinese-style souvenirs should I take home! ”

In the sunny tent, Colonel Whitney muttered boredly alone while waiting for the orderly to prepare breakfast for him, while pouring himself a beer, and casually took out a personal note borrowed from an old missionary on the island, and read it page by page for his amusement:

“…… Time is the most ruthless killer, no matter how brilliant it is, it can't stop the weathering and erosion of the long years.

The China of our time has long since lost the gorgeous style of the 'Golden Country' written by Marco Polo, but is like a dying old man. It exudes the smell of decay and decay from its bones...... This old empire, which has experienced too many ups and downs, has begun to crumble from the very foundations of civilization. Until the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, this deplorable country. Always in a strange and numb state of sleep, and in this sweet sleep, deceive yourself with the power and prestige that have long ceased to exist. In fact, all that remains is a large population, a vast territory and heavy burdens, a lifeless culture, dwindling wealth and lost hegemony.

In order to avoid being exposed to the truth, this empire was in for a long time. Like lepers, they try to keep their people out of contact with the outside world, only to make themselves even more ignorant. Arrogance and isolation. The Imperial Government only knows how to rudely put up 'Don't touch me' signs, but it has no ability to defend itself - unfortunately, the Shijie in which we are now located is not a well-ordered, well-mannered, upper-class residential area. Rather, it is a chaotic Colosseum filled with violence, plunder and blood. If you don't have a saber, a dagger and a rifle in your hand. It would be impossible to prevent the forcible entry of robbers and thieves...... In the den of thieves, cowardly good people are bound to be bullied repeatedly.

So, over the past few decades, this ancient country is going through a downright painful tragedy, a process of collapse, decline and degradation on a scale and unprecedented in history, a tragedy that is so slow, so unforgiving, and so complete that it seems all the more painful and cruel - wars, famines, rebellions...... Disasters in all their forms ensued and were endless. Each time it is more powerful than the last. All the glory and splendor of this great kingdom has fallen and dimmed little by little in the eyes of the world. Destroyed and swallowed up by the surging tide of the times......

Napoleon once prophesied not to wake up this sleeping lion of China, otherwise it would make the whole shijie tremble. But reality has proved the bankruptcy of this prophecy - the lion is too old to die slowly in a deep sleep, instead of roaring again......"

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Ningbo, Beilun Port

The battlefield where the smoke of gunfire cleared was desolate everywhere -- burned docks, muddy paths, crisscrossed river forks, and in the gray morning mist, all kinds of ruins and broken walls loomed, and from time to time a cold gun of a "horn" sounded. Abandoned villages, which have escaped from their inhabitants, are as gloomy as graveyards. The sea breeze blowing through the treetops whined and whispered, like a pampered girl muttering terrible nightmares to her boyfriend.

Many people in disheveled clothes were roaming the messy beach, trying to gather everything they thought they could use—the panicked American and Kuomintang troops abandoned many of the supplies they could not take with them before evacuating the Zuihou stronghold on the Zhejiang mainland.

Although the Red Fifth Front Army, which is now "rich and wealthy", does not look very seriously at these "foreign falls", for the local guerrillas and members of the peasant associations in the countryside, who are accustomed to living a hard life, this is a gratifying windfall......

At the same time, on a rocky hill standing majestically by the sea, Xun Huaizhou, the commander of the Red Tenth Army who led his troops into eastern Zhejiang, overlooked the crowded and lively scene on the beach through a telescope, but he couldn't help frowning, and scolded a regiment commander beside him: "...... Why are there so many people who stay on the beach and don't leave? Wasn't the order for tsunami preparedness and emergency evacuation issued two days ago? How do you do this? ”

“…… Commander, you don't need to emphasize this, we have already notified it several times from village to village, but people don't listen! They said that in Ningbo, typhoons come several times a year, and they are used to the seaside people. What are the specific signs before the disaster, and how to deal with them, we are much more familiar than us, and we laymen don't need to point fingers! ”

The head of the regiment said with a bitter face, "...... Moreover, with regard to this forced evacuation, some local comrades have very strong opinions, saying that we are learning from the Manchu Qing Dynasty's 'relocation of borders and forbidding the sea,' not to mention the great cost of labor and money, and they have also abandoned the ordinary people on the island, regardless of their life or death......

“…… Pondering! When did our Red Army say that it was going to abandon the Zhoushan Islands? Well, no matter what strange things people say, I'm here to give you a death order! Even if you use a gun, you have to move the people from the beach before the sun goes down today, or at least hide high in the mountains. If it can't be done, I'll just ask! Xun Huaizhou said sharply, and at the same time found the command message.

“…… In view of the fact that the time limit for the last Zuihou ultimatum has expired, in the name of the supreme cause of the liberation of all mankind, I hereby sign the extermination decree for the northern part of the Japanese island of Kyushu, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been forgotten by the world. This is the first warning to the entire Shijie imperialist countries, so that they will no longer dare to easily ignore the angry roar of all oppressed peoples...... For this reason, it is hoped that the troops, guerrillas, and local cadres in the coastal areas of eastern Zhejiang will earnestly step up their efforts and do a good job in evacuating the coastal residents as soon as possible, so as to prevent injury to our own compatriots......"

“…… From Japan to Ningbo, at least thousands of miles apart! He said suspiciously, "...... Is the power of the future mass killer really that powerful? (To be continued......)

PS: It's not Lao Wang's play, but I really haven't found out whether the 20 million ton equivalent hydrogen bomb detonated in Sasebo can cause a tsunami in the East China Sea - some people say that the East China Sea is too shallow to have a tsunami, but in the local chronicles of Zhejiang, Xiangshan clearly broke out a tsunami in 1956. I really don't know how to write it.