Chapter 420 “Mischief”!!!
Next year, after the beginning of spring, it will be the sixth year of...

The spring breeze in the capital city seems not to bring spring but to blow it away violently.

People in the old capital were familiar with the saying: "The wind blows for three days, the wind blows for three days." In winter and spring, the wind would often blow for three days in a row. Strong winds of level 7 or 8 mixed with sand and dust were common.

"Without the flying sand, there would be no Beijing. Just like the feeling of loneliness when one does not feel an earthquake for a long time. If there were no flying sand in the capital, we would definitely feel that it was a little inadequate, lacking an element that makes up this ancient capital, and feeling defective." This is how someone commented on the beginning of spring in the capital.

Moreover, spring in Beijing is very short. The most beautiful April in the world is coming soon. Pear blossoms are blooming in the mountainous areas in the west of Beijing, and the sun is shining and spring is in full swing!
It's already spring in the capital, but far away in the northern Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps' base it's still freezing cold.

Liu Guangtian began his second year of corps life in the Eighth Company of the Third Regiment of the First Division of the Northern Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps on the edge of the Mu Us Desert.

The first batch of educated youth from Beijing and Dongshan who came here had just built four rows of houses. Before that, they lived in an abandoned sheep pen.

Liu Guangtian felt that he was very lucky as he moved into a new house as soon as he arrived, although eight people had to squeeze on a big kang.

Two years ago, Liu Guangtian and his partners including Yan Jiekuang and Ge Xiaohu finally realized their military dreams and put on military uniforms.

However, fate led him to the Eighth Company of a certain division of the Northern Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, where he embarked on a new journey and became an ordinary soldier.

The Eighth Company was on combat duty, and Liu Guangtian was very excited when they received their rifles. However, after one training march, he realized that the rifles were useless because the soldiers usually did not have enough food to eat and had no food for the training march.

Moreover, the main task of their division is to settle and guard the border. First, they have to get food from the desert and grow crops to feed themselves, and then they can defend the border.

When Liu Guangtian arrived here, he was quite disappointed at first, as he had to face the toughness of extremely intense physical labor.

This is much harder than his life in S North, but this is the path he chose.

The Corps had no horses or oxen, so the soldiers pulled the plows and plowed the fields in rows.

Because the sandy land was not suitable for growing crops, the millet planted only grew to about 10 centimeters high. It was impossible to use sickles when harvesting, so the soldiers had to lie on the ground and pull them out. One mu of land was sown with 10 to kilograms of seeds, but less than kilograms were harvested.

In addition to farming, Liu Guangtian and his comrades built family housing, a small auditorium, a kitchen, a regimental headquarters, a canteen, a livestock breeding farm, a hospital, etc. for the Corps.

Farming can’t support people! The Corps applied to the state for a water conservancy project to “divide the Yellow River and transform the desert”, “asking for money and food in disguise”.

Spring is here, but there is no poetry at all!

After the water conservancy project started, the technicians "took the lines and stretched them, making measurements", leaving too many difficult problems for the soldiers.

When the drainage channel passed through a small sand dune, the soldiers used tools to cut it open to both sides.

But the big sand dune was three or four stories high. After they crawled and moved the sand dune and dug a channel, they were buried by quicksand the next day.

Soldiers fought a seesaw battle with quicksand every day. When passing through swamps, soldiers used wheelbarrows to push sand from a distance to fill the swamp.

Every time a cart of sand and soil was pushed onto the dam, none of the soldiers dared to be lazy. If they didn't put in enough effort, the cart would stop moving or even fall back.

Liu Guangtian was so tired that he "always felt that he couldn't go on, really couldn't go on."

Finally, they built a "Great Wall" on the swamp.

The drainage and irrigation channels built by the soldiers with their sweat were basically never used. Shortly after they were accepted, they were buried by quicksand.

Liu Guangtian was in a half-dead state, gasping for breath every day because the labor was extremely intense and, most importantly, he did not have enough to eat every meal.

The Eighth Production Company had almost no side dishes and ate sauerkraut for five or six months a year.

Because they were too poor to buy a vegetable pot, the soldiers dug a hole in the clay ground, put the cabbage in it, sprinkled salt on it, covered it with a layer of soil, then put more cabbage in it, sprinkled salt on it, covered it with soil, and finally covered it with a layer of sand.

In the spring of the following year, the soldiers dug out the pickled cabbage and ate it. “It was so stinky!”

Last year, the soldiers began to grow carrots, turnips and cabbage, and their living conditions improved a little.

The nearby windbreak forest was full of licorice, and digging licorice became the only side job of the Eighth Company.

Once, Liu Guangtian dug up a piece of licorice as thick as a bowl. He was reluctant to hand it over, so he stuck it in the rafters of the house and hid it.

When he came back from visiting his relatives, he looked up as soon as he entered the house, only to find that Licorice was gone.

I don’t know who took it home to honor his parents. He hasn’t even honored his parents yet. This made Liu Guangtian very angry.

It was spring when Ge Xiaohu first joined the army, but the wind in the northern border was still as sharp as a knife.

Unlike Liu Guangtian, he went to the field troops.

When a new soldier joins the army, during the intervals between training, the squad leader talks to him many times: "You must take the first step in the military camp well, and don't be a 'bear soldier'!"

Therefore, Ge Xiaohu not only actively strived for progress in his work, but also often read books in the cafeteria, and used his break time to help in the kitchen and wash clothes for his comrades.

After three months of training, Ge Xiaohu received a commendation from the company.

Ge Xiaohu originally thought that he might be a clerk or a communicator, but when he was assigned to the company as a new recruit, he was assigned to the communications battalion's installation company and to the squad where the squad leader was.

His squad leader was from Shu Province. He was not tall, but had a lot of fat all over his body, so everyone called him "Little Diamond".

On the third day, the squad leader took Ge Xiaohu and his class to participate in national defense construction.

The operation area is located dozens of kilometers west of the northern Xinjiang Province. As far as the eye can see, there is endless desert, overlapping peaks and criss-crossing gullies.

It is sparsely populated there, and apart from the occasional animal feces, there is only windy sand and unbearable loneliness.

In some work areas, trucks cannot enter, and people have to carry the nearly ten-meter-long oil poles on their shoulders.

The oil poles baked by the scorching sun sizzled with oil, which could burn half of your face if you were close to them. Although the work was hard and tiring, Ge Xiaohu and his colleagues felt excited and happy when they saw the poles they had erected and the cables buried underground.

At this time, the squad leader led everyone in their class to sing the "Song of the Signal Soldier": "Silver wires are connected in all directions, radio waves vibrate the sky, iron feet travel thousands of miles, and a red heart is for the revolution. Stick to the battle post day and night, and keep in touch at all times..."

When the construction just started, everyone was excited and worked with great enthusiasm.

But humans are made of flesh and blood after all. After leaving the desert and saline-alkali land, they moved to the mountains and ravines, where every battle was a tough one.

Some people's skin peeled off, and some people had blisters on their hands and feet. Not to mention the wind and sun, just digging a 1.5-meter-deep cable trench in the rocky mountains was enough to bear.

In order to prove that he is not a "bear soldier", Ge Xiaohu has been gritting his teeth and persevering.

When digging the ground, I don’t know if it’s because the pickaxe head doesn’t cooperate or the stone is too hard, but every time I dig the ground with the pickaxe, sparks fly on the ground and stars appear in my eyes.

Looking at the squad leader again, I saw him swinging the pickaxe in both arms, digging between the cracks in the rocks again and again, steadily and quickly.

Then I heard their squad leader say, "Being a good soldier is like digging a cable trench, you can't just use brute force.

First, you need to be steady, which means you need to be patient and persistent, and not be impatient or impatient; second, you need to be accurate, which means you need to choose the right point of force and breakthrough, and then dig after you have made up your mind. "

The squad leader severely criticized Ge Xiaohu for his recklessness, but he was mainly worried about his safety.

Because the Northwest lacks water and cannot retain water. When it rains in the mountains, it is easy to cause floods. Once it happens, the consequences will be disastrous.

They moved to another village and still lived in the homes of ordinary people.

Every day the squad leader led them to sweep the yard clean, fill the water tanks, and help the landlord paint the house.

The landlord had a child who was preparing for the high school entrance examination. When he learned that Ge Xiaohu was a high school graduate, he expressed his desire to ask him for help in tutoring.

The military and the people are one family, and Ge Xiaohu feels that he has an obligation to do so.

But the construction workers had to leave home early and return late every day, and their free time was extremely limited, so the team leader pulled him out of the construction team and temporarily tutored the landlord's children.

In this way, while tutoring his homework, Ge Xiaohu also reviewed the knowledge he had learned.

In addition to mosquito bites and scorching sun exposure, there are also dangers from lightning when working in the mountains in summer. One day, the squad leader was demonstrating the wiring on a power pole when a dark cloud came over and then a bolt of lightning struck the power line. The squad leader instantly lost his balance and fell down. Fortunately, the safety belt caught him.

In an instant, heavy rain poured down. Just as everyone was panicking, a mountain torrent poured down. The squad leader quickly climbed down the electric pole and organized everyone to hide in a nearby earthen cave.

Suddenly, Ge Xiaohu found that the flood was carrying a man and a sheep from upstream. Ge Xiaohu immediately shouted: "Hurry, there is someone in the water!"

Several soldiers rushed out of the cave and were about to jump into the water to save people. At this time, the squad leader shouted: "Danger, don't move!" Then, he flashed and jumped into the rushing flood, and disappeared in an instant...

Ge Xiaohu and his companions ran downstream crying and held hands to form a human wall to block the squad leader who was washed down by the flood and the villagers he wanted to save.

Everyone frantically carried them to the shore, but even though they squeezed out the water in their abdominal cavities and took turns giving them artificial respiration, they couldn't save the lives of the squad leader and the villagers... The squad leader fell asleep deep in the mountains.

Afterwards, Ge Xiaohu found out that the squad leader had originally planned to be demobilized at the end of the year, but had postponed his departure in order to participate in this national defense construction.

At the beginning of this year, Ge Xiaohu successfully passed the military academy entrance exam. Only then did he vaguely realize the good intentions of his squad leader in asking him to tutor the landlord's children.

Before reporting in, Ge Xiaohu stood in front of the squad leader's grave for a long time, rolled a cigarette for the squad leader with tears in his eyes, lit it, and saluted: "Squad leader, I've been admitted to the military academy. I'll come to see you after graduation..."

In the spring of 71, Yan Jiekuang successfully passed the conscription physical examination and political review and gloriously joined the army. He became the first educated youth from Beijing to leave the local area, and his classmates envied him very much.

On the day of leaving the educated youth point, Li Xiaojun, Gao Yufang and two other classmates drove the team's horse-drawn carriage to take Yan Jiekuang to the commune's armed forces department.

That day, the county's propaganda officer happened to come to interview them. The officer took a few photos of them and even took a special photo of Li Xiaojun who was driving the horse-drawn carriage.

Yan Jiekuang stayed in the commune’s armed forces department for one night and left by bus the next day. It was many years later that Yan Jiekuang saw their group photo. This is a story for another time.

The propaganda officer in the county was really trustworthy. A few days later, they received the photos he sent. They developed five copies of the group photo and only one copy of the photo of Li Xiaojun driving a horse-drawn carriage.

The unit that Yan Jiekuang joined was the Independent Second Division of the Nanhe Provincial Military District, formerly the Nanhe Corps of the Public Security Forces. It was responsible for guarding important party and government agencies in Nanhe, and protecting strategic locations such as bridges, culverts, warehouses, and prisons.

In the future, this force will be transformed into an armed police force, and the training camp for new recruits will be located in the Zhengzhou Nongye Road Political and Legal Cadre School.

The ages of Yan Jiekuang's soldiers vary by five or six years. Some are students from schools, some are educated youth from farms, and some are farmers' children from mountain villages. Their cultural levels, comprehension abilities, and reaction speeds vary, making training them quite difficult.

Yan Jiekuang was in the eleventh squad of the third platoon of the recruit company, and his squad leader was a veteran named Jiang.

Since Yan Jiekuang had a high level of education, his political education, learning regulations, housekeeping, strict discipline, and military appearance and discipline were easy to handle.

The most difficult part for him was queue training.

Not only him, but other recruits also have a headache with this training.

Some people stretch the wrong legs when standing at attention or at ease, some cannot tell left from right when turning, some swing their arms and legs smoothly when marching in step, some stick their butts out while marching, some can only swing their arms up and down while running, and some cannot stop while marching. The behavior is so varied and ridiculous that it is really laughable.

The squad leader shouted commands loudly, but those who made mistakes still did the same. They had to be picked out for individual training. Sometimes the whole class would be punished by running in place facing the wall until everyone had two pits under their feet.

But in the end, everyone learned it and acquired the basic qualities of a fighter.

What Yan Jiekuang liked most was that the recruits in the company would sing songs every time they had meals, in platoons. That was not singing at all, it was simply roaring, with their necks straight and their heads held high, breathing out of their dantian and charging straight into the bullfight, in order to gain an advantage in momentum.

After singing, each class took turns to get their meals and squatted together to eat, much like a rural dining hall.
What made the recruits even happier was the collar badges and cap badges. Their uniforms were the Type 65 military uniforms, and the collar badges were two red plates symbolizing the red flag.
After wearing the collar badge and cap badge, he became a real soldier. Yan Jiekuang eagerly waited for Sunday to go out on the street to take pictures, and he took several pictures at a time. He even took a picture with the earmuffs of the cotton hat put down, just like XX...

Shortly after the beginning of spring that year, the educated youth site where Yan Zhaodi worked received three recruitment quotas. Two male educated youth from other production teams were recruited to work in the steel foundry, while Yan Zhaodi, a girl, went to the Provincial Cotton Mill.

Of course, the recruitment quota for the National Cotton Mill was obtained by Liu Zhiye on behalf of Yan Zhaodi...

Ge Xiaohu, Liu Guangtian, Yan Jiekuang and others were able to successfully join the army thanks to Liu Zhiye's help.

Liu Zhiye did not just throw them into the army or the factory and leave them alone, but made deliberate arrangements based on their personalities and specialties.

Moreover, in the past two years, Liu Zhiye’s concerns about their development were not in vain.

On this day, Liu Zhiye walked into his familiar office in an orderly manner as usual.

In the second half of last year, the entire army successfully completed two years of large-scale military training, and everything returned to calm.

Entering the new year, Liu Zhiye's pace of life is very different from the past, less busy and stressful.

This sudden leisure time made him feel uncomfortable at first, as if he had lost some kind of inertial pull.

Suddenly, the black phone on Liu Zhiye's desk rang urgently, with sharp and continuous ringing: "Ding-ling-ling... Ding-ling-ling!!!"

He frowned slightly, quickly picked up the receiver, and responded calmly: "Hello, this is Liu Zhiye."

A familiar and powerful voice came from the other end of the phone: "Comrade Zhiye, it's me, Guo Zicheng."

Hearing the voice of his old leader, Liu Zhiye straightened up involuntarily, and said with a little more respect: "Oh, it's Director Guo, you..."

Director Guo said in a low and powerful voice: "Are you free now? If it is convenient, can you spare some time to come to my place?"

Without saying a word, Liu Zhiye immediately went to the Municipal Bureau to meet Director Guo.

original……

One late night in April, most of the students in a school in HD District of Beijing had gone to bed, with only a few students still studying by lamplight.

It was early summer, the weather was neither too cold nor too hot, and the moon in the sky was exceptionally bright.

Seeing the beautiful moonlight outside the window, two foreign female students decided to go outside for a walk under the moon.

However, when they opened the dormitory door, they suddenly found a "ghost" with red hair, blue eyes, and white spots on his face standing in front of the door with a strange smile on his face.

"Hehehe! I am a ghost... I want to eat people..."

Under the pale moonlight, the "eerie" red hair and green eyes were clearly visible, and coupled with the eerie voice, the two female students were immediately frightened so much that their legs went weak and they screamed!

The screams of the two female foreign students soon attracted other students, but the "ghost" was not afraid of people. Instead, it chased the people with a loud and strange laugh, baring its sharp teeth and saying it wanted to eat people.

The students had never seen such a scene before. They were so frightened that they fled in all directions, and the whole school was in chaos. The school staff rushed out and finally calmed down the panicked students and stabilized the chaotic situation.

When the school leaders were investigating the chaos, they learned from the two female students who were still trembling with fear from the "ghost" that they had to take seriously - these two female students were actually molested by the "ghost"...

These days, no matter how foreign-related matters are, they are important. The school quickly reported the matter.

Eventually, the case reached the ears of Chief Wu. As a staunch materialist, Chief Wu naturally would not believe that this was done by a "ghost", and immediately instructed the Jingcheng Public Security Bureau to set up a special task force to quickly solve the case.

After the task force was established, it immediately launched an investigation into this "ghost".

After checking, I really found the problem.

Through visits, the public security personnel of the task force found that this "ghost" often appeared in public places such as kindergartens and hotels. Its modus operandi was similar. It had red hair, blue eyes, and a white face, and it would chase people away with its fangs bared in the middle of the night.

This "gui" is not only a pervert, but he also steals things every time after scaring people away.

In order to catch this "ghost", the task force dispatched a large number of police officers, not only increasing the intensity of patrols, but also setting up ambushes in places where the probability of crimes occurring was high.

But this "ghost" also showed a strange side: in one night, he could appear in two places at the same time, just like a "clone"! Every time the public security police arrived, they could only see a mess of footprints.

The frequent crimes committed by this "ghost" caused panic in the city and caused serious adverse effects.

The task force was at a loss and as anxious as ants on a hot pan, but they couldn't solve the case in a short period of time.

It was at this time that Director Guo of the Municipal Public Security Bureau recommended Liu Zhiye to the task force, saying that if he were invited, the case would definitely be solved.

(End of this chapter)