Firmament

There is no ambition to be 100 years old.

- Han proverb

On the morning of May 23, 1927, it was just dawning.

Mai Liyan was cooking corn paste for a family in the kitchen, when she suddenly felt the earth tremble violently. With a rumbling sound, there seemed to be thousands of horses galloping on the roof. The stacks of porcelain bowls on the board creaked and creaked.

"Oh no, the ground has moved!" Mai Liyan hurriedly dropped the cooking utensils in her hand, ran quickly to the main house, called out to her sleeping grandchildren, and dragged the disheveled children to the yard.

The Sarta people refer to earthquakes as earth movements.

The little grandchildren rubbed their eyes and asked unhappily, "Grandma, people are sleepy and dead." Amen?".

It turned out that a strong earthquake of magnitude 8 occurred in Gulang, Hexi, 400 miles away from Hezhou. For a moment, the valley cracked, and the daylight dimmed, as if the end of the world had come. Six or seven times out of ten houses collapsed. The death toll is as high as 40,000. The common people were terrified and prayed to God for help. The earthquake affected the whole province of Longyuan and even neighboring provinces and regions such as Xihai and Sanqin.

The following year, all parts of Longyuan suffered from an unprecedented drought. In spring, not a single cloud is visible in the sky, and not a drop of rain has fallen for several months in a row. The fields were dry and smoky, and a few half-dead crops grew in the sparse ground. In the summer, the drought worsened. The seedlings were withered and shriveled and lifeless. There is no grass on the loess slope, and it is scorching like fire. Sparrows, magpies and crows have also been lost.

Niu Ersa and Mai Liyan stood helplessly, looking sadly at the bare fields, not knowing how to feed their families. They want to cry without tears, and they are at a loss. Overnight, my hair was much grayer. The wrinkles on the face have also increased a lot.

They brought water back from the spring at the bottom of the ditch that was about to dry up, and tried to save money. A scoop of water is used to wash the vegetables and then used to wash the face, and then use it to wash the clothes, and then pour the clothes to the fruit trees.

The drought in Hezhou did not ease, and it was suddenly hit by a huge hailstorm. Hailstones the size of eggs slammed mercilessly into the fields, knocking down the last few dying crops and shattering the farmers' hopes for a year's worth of life. In the blink of an eye, the drought turned into a severe flood.

Droughts, frosts, hail and floods have been rampant, and insect plagues have followed. Swarms of locusts obscured the sky and the sun, devouring the leaves of all the green plants in their path, leaving clumps of light scorched with holes.

The locusts were fed and flew away, and the plague began to spread again. Many elderly and children who were in weak health were feverish, red-faced, red-eared, and dying.

More than 50 counties stretching from the southeast of Longyuan to the Hexi Corridor were affected. As many as 2.44 million people were affected, more than one-third of the total population of the province.

Food prices on the market are ridiculously high. A bucket of wheat was sold for 72,000 yuan. Ordinary people simply can't afford it. There was no food, so the victims had to peel the bark of trees to fill their stomachs. The bark was eaten up, and people began to dig up wild vegetables again. Soon, the wild vegetables were also dug up. The victims had no choice but to die. The corpses of the dead lay everywhere in the fields and villages in the countryside. The corpses even blocked the roads in some places. More than 60,000 people died of starvation in Hezhou alone. The government dug two mass graves outside the east and west gates to bury the dead people.

The Niuersa family is a blessing in disguise.

They regularly receive money from Ibrahim and several other sons, so they can go to the market to buy high-priced grain to make ends meet.

Sometimes, when Niu Ersa saw that the old people and children in the village were really pitiful, he asked Mai Liyan to distribute the saved food to them to save their lives.

When the villagers heard that Niu Ersa still had food at home, they rushed into the yard like a pack of hungry wolves, holding up the broken bowls and shining green in their eyes. The gesture seemed to swallow the cow alive.

Niu Ersa was afraid that he would not be able to resist it, so he hurriedly took out a bag of corn stored in the house, and distributed three bowls to each family before sending the villagers away.

Mai Liyan carried the empty pocket and blamed: "It's a lot of things now." A big family, how about eating Amen tomorrow?".

Niu Ersa said confidently: "Old grandma, Ma Damo has it. I hid a silver dollar in a wooden box, and I bought enough food for the whole family to eat for half a year. "

Mai Liyan asked puzzledly, "A wooden box?"

Niu Ersa replied with a smile, "You said that we have a few wooden boxes at home? "

Mai Liyan hurriedly advised: "You have hidden the wooden box." There are heirlooms and life-saving money in it, and you must not let the thief steal it. "

Niu Isa said, "Don't worry. I'll dig a pit in the corner of the wall and bury it underground. No one can find out. "

Mai Liyan anxiously reminded: "Your voice is a little louder. Benkang on the other side of the mountain hears your voice. "

Ordinary people are suffering immensely. The feudal bureaucrats and warlords, however, were unkind, unscrupulous, and brutally oppressed the broad masses of the working people. Their methods of exploitation are numerous. Longyuan Province added more than 40 kinds of taxes. Within five years, the National Army will collect various taxes totaling more than 50 million yuan in Longyuan. The exorbitant taxation has placed an unbearable burden on the people who are already in the midst of the disaster.

At the same time, the Nationalist Army did not care about the lives of the people at all, and continued to arrest Ding Chong in various places. They rapidly expanded from 15,000 men in one division when they entered Longyuan to 200,000 men in nine divisions, not including the local armed militias. At that time, the total population of Longyuan Province was only about 600,000. In order to recruit 200,000 soldiers, the government set up recruitment stations in Ganzhou, Liangzhou, Hezhou, Didao, Qinzhou and other places. At the beginning, the government also picked and chose the fat and thin of the recruits. Later, when they reached the point of starvation, they were forcibly tied up and escorted by arms. The price of soldiers has risen to 200 oceans. Walking into the withered and decaying countryside, there is not a single young and middle-aged laborer, all of them are some old and weak women and children who are hungry and cold.

In the early hours of May 1, the sound of galloping horses' hooves suddenly woke up the sleeping cow Ersa.

He got up from the kang with a bang, grabbed a garment and draped it over his body, and hurried to the gate of the courtyard, looking out over the northern valley where the noise was heard. By the twilight of the morning, he saw the brigade of men and horses galloping towards the north plateau.

Niu Ersa sighed softly and said to himself, "It seems that Commander Ga is preparing to besiege Hezhou City again. I have to hurry up and go to Bafang to buy food. "

Bafang is a prosperous commercial place in the west of Hezhou City.

There are several theories about the origin of the eight workshops. First, the fang was a division unit of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, just like the villages and communities in other places, with about 8,000 people, and second, Hezhou is located in the transition zone between the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Loess Plateau, where the materials produced in the agricultural area and the livestock area meet. Merchants from all over the world gathered here, so they called this place Bafang, and the third said that a long time ago, there lived a Hui man surnamed Ma in this area. He raised 8 sons. When his son grew up, Lao Ma divided his son's family. Each son was given a house and a piece of land. As a result, the Bafang family was formed here. In short, Hachibo is a place with a high concentration of shops, and it has been a commercial market since ancient times, and its reputation has spread far and wide throughout the country.

Bafang is full of small buildings with unique shapes and exquisite shapes. In order to prevent the base of the wooden building from being soaked and rotted by rainwater, the foundation is made of stone strips, which are a large section above the ground.

The frontage of the street is full of large and small shops used for business. Inside the shop, there are a variety of goods. The walls are made of pine planks. The doors and windows of the wooden lattice are carved with elaborate patterns. The beams of the building are also carved and painted with brightly colored flowers. The back room of the shop is a storage place for storing goods.

The second floor is usually used by the store owner to live in or to entertain merchants. The roof of the building is neatly covered with gray tiles. Clusters of grass grow tenaciously in the mud of the tile ditch. The occasional flower or two swayed and sang brilliantly in the breeze.

The roadway is paved with bluestone slabs about one zhang wide. The bluestone slab was polished smooth and shiny, as if it had been covered with a layer of oil wax. The stone street curves forward. The lanes are lined with walls made of blue bricks. The green bricks are carved with pine, bamboo and plum, as well as peonies, lotuses, orchids, chrysanthemums and other flowers and plants.

The residents of Hachibo are all born to be good at trading.

When children reach the age of 5 or 6, adults consciously nurture them to do business. They hung a small basket around the children's necks, and packed the odds and ends of candy, fried broad beans, hemp seeds, tea leaves, and eggs in small baskets, and sent the children to buy them along the road.

These children have been shuttling through the crowd since they were young, and they have developed a small mouth that can speak well. A pair of big eyes cleverly search for the right buyer. If they get tired of walking, they will sit on the stone steps on the side of the street and rest and eat snacks.

By the time they are 13 or 4 years old, they are already able to do household chores, or work as shopkeepers in department stores and silverware shops, or apprentice with craftsmen, and those who have more success will follow their fathers, brothers and relatives to run households, travel north and south to sell skins, and start a big business across regions.

All year round, people in the eight squares shout horses neighing, and the sound of selling is not idle all day long.

The fat and strong cattle and sheep in the Tibetan area, the brightly colored skins, and the whole bundle of medicinal herbs were all transported here by the foot households. With these businesses, the craftsmanship passed down from the ancestors of the people of Bafang has a place to use. The shops on both sides of the alley are more lively than the other, selling miscellaneous noodles and sausages, selling jelly stuffed skins, selling sweet wheat, selling mash, selling beef noodles, and selling Hezhou steamed buns...... Business is so good that one race after another.

The carriage and horse shop was full of merchants from all over the world. There were Jin merchants from the north, silk merchants from the south of the Yangtze River, tea merchants from the southwest, and medicinal herb merchants from the Central Plains ......

The storerooms of every house are piled up with all kinds of goods. The goods in the warehouse were sold, and the silver dollars were put into the cash cabinet. Everyone's faces were filled with smiles. Life is relatively rich.

In such a place of business, small traders and hawkers are oppressed and exploited by the government and warlords, suffering a lot, and the people are struggling to make a living, and their hearts are full of infinite hatred.

Niu Ersa lives in the middle of nowhere, and doesn't know much about the recent situation in the city of Hezhou. When he saw that the food at home was about to run out, and that the war in the city was over temporarily, he dug out a small wooden box from the ground, took a life-saving silver dollar, walked down the mountain beam of Gayindai, and came to Bafang Street to buy food.

As he walked down the shopping street, he found that the shopkeepers were so frightened that they barely wanted to do business. He thought about it, it was all the recent war, and the people were panicked, and they couldn't live a peaceful life.

After the shopkeeper weighed the barley for the cow, he hurriedly closed the stall and closed the shop.

He kindly said to Niu Ersa: "The national army will come to arrest people immediately." Hurry home. "

Niursa asked curiously, "The war is over, and the Amen are going to arrest people again?"

The shopkeeper replied, "The Nationalist Army said that the merchants of Bafang and Commander Ga colluded to rebel. In fact, most of us are obedient to the government. Only a small group of people participated in the rebellion. "

Niu Ersa curiously asked, "Since you did not participate in the rebellion, why should you be afraid of the government?"

The

shopkeeper replied impatiently, "Don't ask, run for your life." I don't have time to go into detail with you. "

Niu Isa thought to himself: Listen to the persuasion of others and eat enough. It seems that this place cannot be stayed for long. He hurriedly picked up the food and hurriedly left Bafang.

As the shopkeeper said, the Nationalist Army was very annoyed by the sympathy and support of the people of Bafang for Commander Ga, and decided to strike at the merchants and make an example. Fearing that they would be given authority, they did not send a regular army, but ordered the local militia to attack the eight squares under the cover of night.

In the evening, thousands of ordinary people in Bafang got the news leaked from the local militia group, and they trembled with fright for a while, and they didn't have time to pick up the things in the shops, pulling the old people and children, and quickly stumbled and fled to Nanlong Mountain outside the city for refuge.

This scene is so similar to the scene when the steppe army attacked Samarkand.

As night fell, a terrifying scene appeared. The crisp sound of gunfire mingled with the skyrocketing fire. The sound of the house collapsing mingled with the cries of women and children. Babo is like a miserable world.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people stood in horror on Nanlong Mountain, watching the smoke and flames of their homes that had been lived for generations rising into the sky. Hard-earned homes, shops and possessions were reduced to ashes in an instant. They are so anxious that they want to break their hearts and intestines. They don't know where they're going to perch tonight, and they don't know how they're going to spend their days ahead. In the face of the calamity that fell from the sky, they had no choice but to hug their heads and cry. The mournful wails of sorrow reached far, far away.

The fire burned for 3 days and 3 nights, burning more than 100 old people, sick people, women and children who had no time to escape, burning 12 centuries-old worship temples, a Buddhist temple and a Taoist temple, burning countless buildings, pavilions and pines and cypresses, burning a large number of precious cultural relics and books, and burning a noisy and prosperous historical town.

Ancient history, culture, and former glory have been evaporated, leaving behind dark ruins, infinite suffering, and anger. The hatred of the feudal government and the warlords deepened.

When Niuersa returned to Gayindai, it was already the first half of the night.

He inadvertently glanced back at Hezhou City, and suddenly found that a light appeared in the sky there, and red flames and black smoke rose up and filled the sky.

"Huh!" Niu Ersa cried out in astonishment. Only then did he understand why the owner of the grain store persuaded him to leave quickly.

"Are you back, 'Isazi?," came Mai Liyan's urgent call from the dark village.