In December 1968, Mao Zedong instructed that “it is necessary for the intellectual youth to go to the countryside and receive re-education from the poor peasants”, and the movement to the mountains and to the countryside reached its peak. In fact, it was to give us, the uneducated youth, the title of “intellectual youth” to receive re-education from even more uneducated people.
In fact, nationwide, schools had already been closed after the “516 Notice” in 1966, so that people could care about national affairs and carry out the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the end. I don’t know how many years it would last, but I heard that it would come once every seven or eight years. People were horrified that one time was enough to torment people, and another seven or eight years would come? Then people will be tossed around in the movement for the rest of their lives.
I remember that day published the instructions of intellectual youth to go to the countryside, our school also walked from Beitaipingzhuang to Tiananmen parade to celebrate. Demonstrated the determination of Chairman Mao to wave my hand forward.
In order to put my determination into action, after graduating from junior high school, I ran to the police station and had my Beijing household registration revoked, showing the courage and determination of the “intellectual youth. When I was about to go to the Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps Ulath Front Banner Agricultural Mission with my hairdresser, I received a notice that the children of the 81st Film Studio were not going to the Ulath Front Banner Agricultural Mission, but to the Baotou 13th Industrial Mission. I feel good to be a worker.
At that time, many of the youth of the 81 factory had already gone to Heilongjiang Nongken Farm. My classmates Gao Chuan (son of Gao Baocheng), Yan Ke (son of Yan Yizhou, the director of the movie “White Maiden”), and Yang Xuepei (son of Tian Hua), who were in the same grade, had all gone to Heilongjiang farm. I was left with Guo Bochuan, the daughter of Guo Xuan (the director of a room in the 81st factory).
On August 30, 1969, we boarded the Zhiqing train to Baotou at Platform 1 of Beijing Station. Both my mother and Guo Bochuan’s mother did not go to the station, probably because they were afraid of the pain of separation, and we both embarked on the journey to receive re-education with the feeling of “youth without regret”.
On the train, I met Li Zhiguang, who was in the same carriage and later served as a soldier in the same infantry regiment as me. At that time, his revolutionary enthusiasm was very high. Although he stammered, he was quite talkative. After the train started, he held a red book and said: the same, classmates, we study the quotations of Chairman Mao. When reading, also do not stammer. People were still in the painful longing of leaving home, but hearing the teachings of the great leader, they also lifted their spirits and were ready to be re-educated.
After a day and a night of running, the train finally arrived at the end of the line – Baotou Kundulunzhao railway station. At the station, Officer Bai, who picked us up, assigned us to the companies. Guo Bochuan and I were assigned to the 9th Company of the 13th Regiment. Li Zhiguang was assigned to the valve factory (the first company). Our ninth company was eight miles away from the Kunduren station. The first company was farther away, 50 or 60 miles away from the Kundulunzhao station. During my years in the Corps, I had nothing to do but take the commuter train from Baotou to play at his place.
When I arrived at the company, the company further assigned work types. I was assigned to the grass rolling class, which was not a good type of work, but also belonged to the ranks of the working class. For the sake of good taste, we called the grass ginners “breakers”, that is, to break the grass into sections.
To the paper mill to know, the previous company is also in the former Ulaat Banner agricultural company. Just turned into an industrial company, came to Baotou Wanshuiquan paper mill. At that time, the staff dormitory has not yet been built, male youth crowded in the mechanic workshop. I heard that more than half of the company was still studying at the 65th Army Chai Goubao Paper Mill. The arrival of our group added strength to speed up the construction of the mill.
The task of our “broken work class” was to install the heating of the factory with two gas welding masters. In January 1970, we finished the installation of the heating in the factory. The work of the whole site was being carried out in a hurry. I remember that after the 40-meter chimney was built, Huang Xiaobing, a Beijing youth, asked me to climb it with him. The ladder made of steel was scary to look at. I climbed up with fear and trepidation behind Huang Xiaobing. May be a fear of heights, half of the climb is afraid to climb, down. Huang Xiaobing bold, straight climb to the top, and also in the top of the circle, in order to leave a little souvenir, he also tore off one side of the sleeve, tied to the lightning rod on the pipe. At first the sleeve was white, but later the smoke came out of the pipe and smoked the sleeve into black, but it still fluttered in the wind. According to Hangzhou youths who came to the factory in 1971, the black sleeves were still fluttering.
At that time, the song we youths loved to sing was “200 Foreign Folk Songs”, and we had to sing it secretly because it was said to be a song of bourgeois sentiment. One day, the youth Zhang Hongqing is singing frogs in the river, there is said “leeches in the river”, singing the last sentence: young people …… the second half of the sentence should be: is this no good. The company commander pushed the door in. Zhang Hongqing response is really fast, immediately followed by singing to: is so not afraid of death!
Remember, the dormitory was built by local civilian workers. When laying the foundation, four people carried a wooden ram, because of the body heat in the labor, each person has a small red cloth bib, labor up wearing, very uniform, like work clothes. A person leading shouted the labor call: we a lump of eggs to turn back yo, everyone sang: hum yo, hi yo …… brick house was quickly built up. The glass is double-layered, because the temperature difference between indoor and outdoor in winter, will be single-layered glass freezing crack.
At the end of the year, we lived in a real dormitory, which is the credit of the farmer brother “a lump of eggs turned back”. Each room in the dormitory had a stove that burned reed charcoal, which was easy to light with half a sheet of newspaper, so there was no need to chop wood. When burning, the fire is also very fierce, the walls of the furnace often burn red. But the burning time is short, and it is not easy to seal the fire. At night, the fire will go out without filling the coal. But it did not feel cold.
At that time, I actively demanded progress, and I was really in front of all the work. In addition to working hard to complete the tasks given by the leadership, I also used my spare time to empty the toilet. Especially in Inner Mongolia, the winter was particularly cold, and it froze in late October. The shit and urine in the toilet freeze together. In order to empty the toilet, you have to go down to the cesspool and use a pickaxe to shave a mountain of shit and urine ice. The ice often splashed in my face. Although the ice crumbled all over my body, I still insisted on cleaning the cesspool of the toilet. He was well received by everyone. Probably because of his enthusiasm for work and hard work, he was awarded “five good” in the summary of the five good soldiers at the end of the year.
In those days, saving every grain of rice was a habit we were brought up with. In order to ensure that there was sufficient food supply after the production, the company adopted a way to save food, and each person was given two large Inner Mongolia potatoes for one meal, which was eaten for two months. We think this approach is good, not only to save food and lose weight, health care.
Once, the deputy company commander’s former unit called him and said that one of their company horses had died of a disease, and the company asked him if he wanted it. If not, they would bury it. (It may be anthrax, right?) The deputy company commander pulled the dead horse back, so that the cooking class wrapped into two two a large bun, or pure meat, Henan people called “quasi-meat”. The day of the buns, everyone was happy, because it has been a long time since I smelled meat. This time is open to eat, enough. People relaxed the waistband of their pants and ate as much as they could.
I ate 8 big buns that day. I heard that the head of the cooking team ate the most, 13. She was a youth from Tianjin. Her experience is that after eating a few, jumping on the concrete floor, the stomach of the bun pier porcelain, and then eat. Because there is no space in the stomach, so ate 13 buns. I heard that later the support is really unbearable, the management of the military doctor to ask for a few tablets of laxatives.
The practice of that time is also understandable. A year can not eat a few meals of meat, but also do not care enough. If you don’t eat meat this time, you may be able to eat again after six months. That will be one of the biggest benefits: weight loss.
New Year’s Day 1970 was very memorable, dumplings. That morning, we went to the cooking class to make dumplings with noodles and fillings. We were just lazy and no one could make dumplings. Finally, I suggested that we roll the dough into a sheet and put it into a bucket of boiling water, and when the dough was almost done, we poured the filling in and cooked it. In this way, my class drank a bucket of “dumplings” on New Year’s Day, 1970.
We wore shit green regiment war uniforms, which were called “Daqingshan Gada green” at that time. The winter hats were camel hair hats. Once on Sunday, Baotou City, many wearing camel hair hat head in the city wandering.
That will love to listen to the “Liang Wai cadres of the story”. Xinjiang has a “story of Avanti”, Henan has a “story of Wang Hou”. Inner Mongolia has a “Liang Wai cadres story”. In our class, there was a youth from Baotou city, Zhang Zhishu, who came back from home every Sunday and couldn’t stop laughing, and we knew that he had brought back “the story of the cadres outside Liang” for us to hear.
There were many stories. I only remember a few of them, but I found them quite amusing. Going to the mountains and the countryside also opened our eyes.
The Liang Wai cadre once took a train on a business trip and did not know that there were toilets on the train, so when he arrived at a small station, the train stopped for a minute or two. He got off and went to the station’s toilet to relieve himself. When he was relieving himself, the train left. He hurriedly put on his pants and shouted after: train station live, the amount is outside the Liang cadres. “Daqingshan” is called Liang in the north of Baotou, and the north side is called Liangwai. He was the production captain in the village, the size is an official, the length is a stick, self-proclaimed “Liang Wai cadres”. The train did not stop after all. Liang Wai cadres anxiously shouted: train gripper (steal) …… station attendant came to comfort him and said, do not worry, I will give the next station to make a phone call, take your things down, you take the next train to go. Liang Wai cadres asked: telephone fast or train fast le? The attendant replied, the phone is fast. Liang Wai cadres immediately thought of a good way to say, telephone fast, then the amount of the telephone to go.
Once over the Lantern Festival, before the festival, Liang Wai cadres to the East River District to purchase some New Year’s goods, saw a restaurant in front of people lined up to buy Lantern. He said, his master splashed down (out of the way), buy it a bowl to try. He didn’t know how to chew it and swallow it, but he swallowed the whole thing. When it comes to the stomach, it is hot and hurts him enough. The money spent on it was too much to throw away, so he brought it home to his wife to eat, who said it was delicious. He said, good to eat a even la, I eat into the belly, hot rolling on the pain. Some days later he went to the East River District, saw the restaurant selling dumplings. He did not buy it on the line, had to go over to say a few words, he said, you net gripe people, the last time to buy your “heartburn eggs” hot his master belly rolled up and down the pain, this time let heartburn eggs long ears, long ears I will not eat.
There are many more “stories of Liang Wai cadres”, so I’ll tell them here first. This may be to let us “intellectual youth” to accept the re-education of more uneducated people.
In 1970, the Spring Festival came. The company announced a five-day holiday. I was just a few months out of the house, think the company commander announced a holiday can be free, and did not know to take leave to the Ulat Front Banner to find the courtyard of the hair to play. The distance is not far, there are 200 miles, the train will arrive in two hours. At night about 11 o’clock to the Ulath Front Banner station.
At that time, there are no tall buildings in Ulaat Banner, a very small county, in the words of the time, a bubble of urine to the head. Passing by the 13 Mission 7 Company paper mill, I heard that is a daily output of two tons of small paper mill. Because of the holiday, the yard did not turn on the lights, darkness. Further north not much farther to the top to the head, an east-west road and roadside cottages, probably the northern edge of the Ulaat Front Banner.
I walked east on the road, about two hundred meters, out of the former flag. Because further on, there was no street light. It was dark. Should have walked along the road to the head, and then turn left, only to the hair of the small 11 regiment 6 company road. Because there is no street light, in front of a dark piece, really can not see the road, go east to the end of the road did not turn north, or go east. Hazy to see the surrounding is white saline land, I heard about my company that will be in the former Ulath Banner agricultural company when the mu yield of wheat 100 to Jin.
At this point, see the front seems to be a grave, I do not know what it is, flashing blue light, blue light also does not move shake, may be phosphorescence. That would be called ghost fire. Do not dare to go, which just walked a few hundred meters, do not dare to go. Had to return the same way. Side walk back to see if the blue light is active. If it was active, we were in trouble. I heard that there were wolves in Inner Mongolia, saying that a company of soldiers, with guns, finally ran out of bullets and the whole company was eaten by wolves. Fortunately, back to the head several times, the blue light has not moved, the ghost fire is better.
I ran back to the county with fear and trepidation, and one idea was to stay in a hotel or a big car store. There is really no way to go to the station overnight, dawn and then go.
Into the former flag of Ulat, it was about 12:00 midnight. I saw only one house on the roadside lights, want to inquire where the hotel? I knocked on the door and saw that the two people inside were girls from my college. They were also in the same school and grade. They are in the group department to focus on a study class. After talking, the two of them went to the other room of the study class to squeeze in. The next morning, they brought breakfast. After eating, they sent me out of the front flag and pointed out the way to the 6th company of the 11th regiment. This is the way to see the road clearly. There are still 30 miles to the front flag. If you walk blindly like last night, I do not know where you will go.
Finally, at noon, I walked to the 6th company of the 11th regiment. This Spring Festival, I was with a few hair in Inner Mongolia to spend. At that time, the feelings were quite deep, waiting for the train on the platform, seeing the train to enter the station, several buddies gathered around, bawling, and now I think it is also interesting to think about.
When I returned to the company, I was told to write a check and read it in front of the whole company, saying that I hadn’t taken leave. This was the only check I ever wrote in my life. That time I wrote seven checks and the whole company gathered in front of the company department. In order to pretend to have a good attitude, I sobbed a few times in the process of making the review, and it was only when the women in front of me were muttering: crying, crying, that I gathered myself and knew that I had achieved the effect of the review. Later, Li Zhiguang said not much, he came back because of the fight in the Kun district, wrote a 40-part review, read to the entire company, read everyone fell asleep.
Later, we began the struggle with lice, fleas, bedbugs.
First, the lice were found. Probably the factory in the construction also did not have a bathhouse, a few months are not bathed, one day, suddenly felt a small insect crawling on the body, with a hand, grabbed a small bug, the squad leader said, this time lice. Pinch it at all with your fingers, you have to squeeze it with two nail caps and hear a click before it’s squeezed to death. The most lice are hidden in the folds of the clothes. The most annoying is that the lice also nymphs, specifically in the folds of the pants, but also with a kind of glue to make the nymphs and pants deadly sticky, pick can not pick down. Later, the paper mill put into operation, I put the nymph-stained pants on the valve with steam blowing, the nymphs blew to death. The pants can not throw, then the allowance is five yuan a month, so I think the pants are very expensive, simply can not throw.
Because of the daily close contact with fleas and bedbugs, also have the ability to identify bedbugs and fleas and the skills to catch them. Fleas like to turn around in the waist of the bite people to suck blood. The bites are red and itchy. Fleas are not easy to catch, and they often run away after being caught at first. Later, I learned a good way to see the fleas, with the fingertips with spittle, the flea on the fingertips, and then it will be hard to crush. Catching bedbugs is less laborious, the main thing is to move fast. When you see a bedbug, you quickly shoo it to death on the bedding, and then you have to endure the stench of the “big sister”. In order to destroy one more bedbug, I don’t care if it stinks or not.
We suddenly turned on the lights at night to catch fleas and bedbugs. Although a lot of fleas, bedbugs, but it does not work, the body of the bag less. I think a lot of ways, such as the bed board to get outside in the sun does not work. To 18 regiment pesticide factory to take a big bag of 666 powder, spread on the bed board, but also does not work. They have become our never-ending corps playmate.
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