As the saying goes in the countryside: when the grain leaves ring, the captain changes.
In early November 1968, we went from Xi’an to Long County Chengguan Commune Zhaojiapo brigade when the new captain of the second team had already taken office.
On the evening of the day we entered the village, the whole team, young and old, and we gathered in a broken kiln that served as the team headquarters for a welcome party. The deputy director of the brigade revolutionary committee went to Xi’an to pick us up, we are familiar with each other some now. He announced that he would invite Captain Jinliang to speak. At this time, in the dim kerosene lamp, stood up a tall thin figure, wearing a “handful” of melon skin felt hat. I went up to him and handed him a cigarette, he was extremely skilled to take a cigarette under the nose and smell, on the ears, dry cough a few times, slowly from the coat pocket to feel a “Chairman Mao’s Quotations”, flipped, and closed, and then towards the crowd “hey” a smile, black and yellow high cheekbones face a pair of small eyes shining with excitement, said. “Chairman Mao said, intellectual youth to the countryside to accept the transformation, very good! We poor peasants warmly welcome! That’s it!” Then he led the applause, and a sparse applause rang out in the kiln. At this point, I realized that this middle-aged man named Jinliang, no wonder he was the new captain of the second team, who had been running around to help the youth eat and live as soon as we entered the village.
In the village for a long time, and the young and old deal with more familiar, Captain Jinliang’s life also understand one or two. He is a Gan Province orphan, in his twenties, his parents starved to death in the early 1960s famine, he fled alone to Long County, and then stayed in Zhaojiapo to a pair of childless elderly door as a son. Later, he found a woman in Gan Province, who also fled the famine, as a daughter-in-law, and gave birth to a tiger-headed, tiger-brained son. The family was happy and harmonious, but also happy. A few years ago, two elderly people died one after another, Jinliang wear mourning, and settle the elderly burial, to win a “filial son” praise. He grew up hard-working, hard-working and capable, and is proficient in all agricultural languages, and has a knack for dealing with people, and has a good reputation in the village, so it makes sense that he became a captain.
Just go to the countryside, rural life is not adapted, especially early in the morning do not want to get up, always want to sleep a little longer. At that time, I heard Captain Jinliang yelling all over the village: “Work, work, work! The sun is shining on the tailbone, my son is not up!” After the community members gathered, he neatly assigned work one by one, Zhang San do this, Li Si do that, one by one arrangements, but also always give the youth some light work, said: city doll, take your time, there are hard work time.
At that time, we youth took turns cooking, often just after eating, the pot has not been washed, you can hear Jinliang’s yell “work, work!” When it was my turn to cook, I was washing the pot when I heard him shouting from the doorway: “Lao Yang, Lao Yang, are you still bia on the pot?” He shouted and stepped into the house, joking with me, asking if we had enough food and how much wood was left for burning. One time, a female youth in our group was accidentally kicked by a mule carrying manure, but fortunately she was not seriously hurt and rested in the house for a few days.
After lunch that day, I saw Captain Jinliang holding his baby son in one hand and a small bamboo basket covered with a towel in the other hand, entering the door and pulling out a dozen eggs from the bamboo basket on the counter, “Hey” said with a smile: “You do not eat well, I take a few eggs laid by the chickens in the house to make up for you. “
In those days, eggs were a rare commodity, and farmers could not afford to eat them, saving them up and handing them over to the supply and marketing agency in exchange for some oil and salt money to subsidize the family. Captain Jinliang took so many eggs and gave them to those of us who were not relatives, we were so moved that we didn’t know what to say. The next day, they brought some fruit and sugar and medicine to visit Jinliang’s house. After a while, we became more familiar with Captain Jinliang.
The first time I saw Jinliang’s words was after the summer harvest in 1969, when he gave the youths the bottom score. At that time, rural male laborers were given a maximum of ten points, and only if they were good at farm work; female laborers were given a maximum of seven points. When we youths wanted to set the highest standard, Captain Jinliang said: the highest nine points for male youths and six points for female youths. We were not convinced and approached him to argue, but he still smiled “hey” and said unhurriedly: “Doll, don’t bother! You have to do ten percent of the work to get ten percent of the work, can you do yours?” Yes, we have no farming skills, so we have to give in.
That summer harvest, I was busy in the wheat field all day and had to watch the field at night. After dinner, I went to the wheat field outside the village early in the morning. The sky was dark, a few stars were twinkling in the sky, a cool breeze blew with the smell of earthy wheat, really pleasant!
I was immersed in the tranquility of the summer night, when I suddenly heard a burst of “crickets clattering” from the wheat straw at the edge of the field, and vaguely saw a dark shadow twisting in the straw. I went to the countryside to remove my near-sighted glasses, and it was dark, naturally can not see the scene in front of me, I thought it was a dog, so I picked up a large block of earth from the field to the group of black shadow smashed, and shouted: “Fight! But I did not hear the dog barking, I was surprised to see a black shadow running along the edge of the field to the village, passed me to see: it was a middle-aged widow in the village! I saw the widow running away with her head down and her face red, and wondered: What is she doing here?
At that moment, I heard a familiar voice from behind me: “Lao Yang, have some soup?” So it was Captain Jinliang! In the darkness, I could not see his face, only felt the small eyes in a flash. “I came to see the field, you-” I did not know how to respond. “Then you look good, I’m going back to the house to drink soup.” He said as he walked slowly towards the village. Oh, suddenly I understood everything! The erotic rumors I heard in the countryside were finally verified with my own eyes.
On the 30th anniversary of the visit to the countryside, ten of us from the youth group returned to Zhaojiapo, the female youth of the year pulled Jinliang’s mother-in-law and other women’s homes to ask questions, I only saw one side of Jinliang, he was hunched over and bent to the ground at ninety degrees, his face was still black and yellow, his cheekbones were still high, but the small eyes had dimmed. He took the cigarette I handed over, or skillfully to the ear a clip, “hey” dry smile, mouth mumbled: “Oh —— old Yang —— good?” A sentence did not finish, and hurried home.
Soon, I heard a message from the village, Jinliang a sickness, gone.
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