As Zhu Xianjian, a former foreign special forces soldier, was captured after spending 41 days in the wilderness in Jilin City, the story of Liu Lianren, China's true god of wilderness survival, was recalled.
This is because Liu Lianren's experience is even harsher than that of Onoda Hiroshi, Nakamura Keio and others surviving in the wild on the tropical islands of the South China Sea: he survived alone for 13 years in the wilderness of Hokkaido, Japan, which is close to the latitude of Jilin Province, China! And unlike Onoda and Nakamura, who were Japanese soldiers of World War II who had undergone field survival training, Liu Lianren was only a farmer from Gaomi, Shandong, China, when he escaped from the Meiji coal mine in Hokkaido, and he did not even know where he was.
■ The latitude of Hokkaido in Japan is basically the same as that in Jilin Province, China.
As we said in previous articles, temperature is the most important factor for survival in the wild. The reason is that the ambient temperature range suitable for human survival is very narrow, only 18 ° C ~ 25 ° C, too high and too low will affect the human body's ability to move, damage the body, serious will endanger life.
In response to high temperatures, the human body can automatically adjust through natural physiological mechanisms such as sweating and accelerating heat dissipation, but in the face of low temperatures, the human body itself has almost no ability to conserve heat (who can tell me why the hair on the human body is gone?!). ）。 Therefore, in the cold area to survive on the one hand to reduce the heat they lose as much as possible, on the other hand, they must also rely on external heat sources for heating. Both of these aspects are the biggest difficulties faced by the survival of the wild in cold areas.
Far from it, in the first half of this year's Gansu Baiyin 5.22 hundred kilometers cross-country running activity, 172 competitors were exposed to a lower temperature for a few hours, resulting in 21 deaths and 8 injuries to major safety accidents. The lowest temperature recorded in the event was not below zero, but it dropped to about 4 °C. According to the accident investigation report, the somatosensory temperature at this time is about minus 5 ° C.
■ On May 22, 2021, from 8:00 to 23:00, during the time period of May 22, 2021, the Temperature Change Curve of the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area Mountain Marathon 100 km Cross-country Race in the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area, Baiyin City, Gansu Province.
It can be seen that in cold field conditions, the human body will quickly lose temperature, and in a short period of time, it may cause serious consequences of death. Tropical survival, on the other hand, is largely a risk that does not have to be considered. Therefore, Compared with Hiroshi Onoda and Keio Nakamura, who have insisted on surviving in the wild for 30 years in the Philippines and Indonesia, Liu Lianren's wild living conditions are undoubtedly worse.
Hokkaido has an islandic climate, with winters not as cold as in China's Jilin Province at the same latitude, with minimum temperatures not yet exceeding minus 10°C (recent meteorological data), but snow begins in November and does not melt until April of the following year, and because of the abundance of water at sea, hokkaido's snow is very large, which is an extremely serious threat to Liu Lianren's wild survival.
■Hokkaido's average maximum temperature, average minimum temperature, average precipitation, average sunshine hours, and average humidity in each month.
Liu Lianren's method is to learn from the bear and dig a hole to hibernate. In fact, there is only one way to survive in the wild to withstand hokkaido's six-month-long winter snow closures.
In the first winter, Liu Lianren and Chen Guoqi and Du Guixiang, who ran out together, had no experience, so they found a leeward place on the slope of the ravine to dig a hole and build a shed, and when it snowed, they curled up in the cave and did not come out. Before they could catch a heavy snowfall, the snow on both sides of the ridge was blown into the ravine by the wind, burying their holes deeply.
■ In September 1944, Liu Lianren was taken to the Showa Mining Company of Meiji Mining Company in Numata Town, Yuryu County, Hokkaido, Japan, and worked as a slave laborer.
The three people in the cave found how to sleep in the day is not bright, this is to know that it has been buried by the snow, had to desperately dig up the hole, so that the hole is full of falling snow, and then get the snow out, which can cost the three people the boss's strength. There was thick snow all around, and it was impossible to dig a hole again, so they covered the hole with a straw mat to prevent the snow from falling into the hole again, and from time to time they had to poke the grass mat with a long stick to shake off the snow on it, so they spent their first winter in the wilderness of Hokkaido.
In contrast, the hiding hole dug by Yokoi Shoichi, another commander of the 38th Infantry Regiment of the Japanese Army who had been driven into the jungle by the U.S. Army in Guam for 28 years, was quite professional.
■ Shoichi Shoichi OfaShio, former Imperial Japanese Army Army.
■ A model in Guam's Tarof waterfall holiday park shows the layout of shoichi Yokoi's cave, where he lived for 28 years after World War II.
As shown in the picture, the underground hiding hole dug by Yokoi and two comrades-in-arms is 2.5 meters deep, has an entrance and ventilation hole, and has a dedicated toilet, and the entrance is covered with a straw mat, which can prevent rain and is not easy to find. Of course, Yokoi was a soldier who was familiar with the local situation, and they had the weapons and tools needed to survive in the wild, and these conditions were simply incomparable to that of Liu Lianren, a farmer.
■Photo of the entrance to the Shoichi Yokoi Cave recreated on Guam.
It can also be seen from the photos that compared with Liu Lianren's cold area to survive, the difficulty of surviving in the tropics is indeed reduced a lot, not only do not have to worry about low temperatures, but also the hiding hole is better to dig, and the materials that can help survive are much richer than in the cold zone. Shoichi Yokoi even made a basket of his own to catch eels.
■ Shoichi Yokoi's eel catcher is one of his proud works.
The following year, Liu Lianren's other two friends were also separated while fleeing the Japanese, leaving him alone. This time, before winter came, he learned his lesson, found a small flat between the two hills, and hit a small pit downwards, covered with bamboo and sprinkled with soil, and could not be seen at all outside. A small door was left on the side for entry and exit.
With everything in place, he planned to go into the cave for a second hibernation. But this time, when a fire was burned in the cave, the smoke had no place to go out, and he was smoked into a mess, and he did not dare to make a fire for several days. It was hard to wait until the next year when the snow began to melt, and the snow water flowed into the cave again, soaking up the little food he had saved. The hole was full of water, and there was no way to stay inside, so I had to crawl out and suffer from hunger and frost.
It wasn't until the third winter that Liu Lianren found the trick to dig a hidden hole: he had to pick the high ground on the top of the mountain, not too high. The hole cannot be dug too deeply, too deep and it will be too wet or too shallow, so that it is easy to be found. When spring comes out, the hole is filled with soil and no trace is left. And change places every year, don't live in the old hole, so as not to attract people to find it.
■ Liu Lianren, who later returned to his hometown in Gaomi, Shandong, China.
Another difficulty in surviving in cold areas compared to the tropics is the difficulty of finding food.
During his 13 years in the wild, Liu Lianren basically came by eating potatoes from Japanese farmers' fields and kelp from the seaside.
Gradually, he collected foreign fires and iron pots from the Japanese farmers' sheds where they farmed in the mountains, and he could cook potatoes and eat them. However, he got food from the shed, only a little bit in one place, afraid of getting too much and being discovered, and almost every day he changed places and went where to eat. The iron pot, which had been following him, had become his faithful companion. At that time, he found that the Japanese farmers were also very poor, because there were only potatoes and turnips in the shed, and he had never seen meat.
Later, Liu Lianren also made a stove out of a waste can box, breaking the bamboo and drying it, so that the bamboo would not make a "popping" popping sound when it was burned, and could be left to burn slowly.
By the sixth year, he had found an American military leather coat, which was warm. Later, he also got rubber shoes, umbrellas, collected two bamboo tube needles, large needles and small needles, clothes, umbrellas, rubber shoes can be sewn by themselves. The tools for shaving the head and shaving the face are also slowly getting, and a pair of scissors is also obtained. Later, his guys were more and more involved, and they had to be wrapped up in a large canvas, like a big luggage roll.
By the fall of 1957, he had found a bag of rice and a bottle of fire oil. For the first time in thirteen years, he saw rice. This winter, with rice and oil lamps, it was really good, he thought.
On February 9, 1958, Liu Lianren was caught by Hokkaido police for accidentally discovering the hibernation cave where he lived by a hunter named Kiyoharu Hakata. At first, because Liu Lianren had lived alone in the wild for too long, it was difficult to speak, and he did not know where he was working, the Japanese government did not recognize his labor status, and some people even suspected that he was a spy who had secretly entered the country.
■ At the end of January 1958, Liu Lianren was discovered by hunter Kiyoshi Hakata at a hiding place on Mount Dangbetsu in Dangbetsu-cho, Ishikari-gun, Hokkaido, Japan, and finally returned to his homeland and hometown.
Fortunately, Xi Zhanming and others of the Overseas Chinese Association of Sapporo City, Japan, found in the register of wartime Chinese laborers kept by the Hokkaido branch of the Liberal Democratic Party that "Liu Lianren belonged to the Purple (a mistake of the word "chai") in the seventh district of Zhucheng County, Shandong Province, and was distributed to the Showa Mining Institute of the Meiji Mining Company in Hokkaido in September 1944 as a laborer." In the 20th year of showa (i.e., 1945), he withdrew (i.e., fled) for no reason, and still remains in the interior. At that time, the director of the mining institute was Fumio Kisaki. These records are completely consistent with Liu Lianren's own statement, which confirms Liu Lianren's identity and allows him to return to the motherland on April 15, 1958.
■ Top left: The entrance to the cave where Liu Lianren was hiding was found by Kiyoshi Hakata; Bottom right: Records of Liu Lianren found in the "Register of Chinese Laborers".
On February 14, 1958, Liu Lianren, who was in Sapporo, sent back a long-lost family letter to his father Liu Zhiyuan, but unfortunately his father had died five years ago and could not wait for his son to return home. The letter says:
"Father and mother, two adults:
It has been more than ten years since the separation, and not even a single letter has been sent to you, and I feel very ashamed to think that you must be very worried. Please forgive me! Now I am in Sapporo City, Hokkaido. Under the care of the Chinese compatriots in Sapporo City, everything is very safe and healthy, please rest assured. It's just that there are still some things that haven't been done yet, so I have to live here for a while. After getting things sorted out, I have to go back. Please don't worry about it, and take care of your body. Then I don't know how my woman is. Please say hello to her.
I wish you peace in your family.
Son Liu Lianren Honorific Instrument February 14"
■ On March 27, 1958, Liu Lianren saw a photo of his family on a television fax in Tokyo, from left: Liu Lianren's wife Zhao Yulan, Liu Lianren's son Liu Huanxin, Liu Lianren's fifth brother Liu Liansheng, and Liu Lianren's third brother Liu Lianfu.
On April 10, 1958, Liu Lianren boarded the passenger ship "Hakusan Maru" in Tokyo, Japan and returned to China. When he got on the ship, the Overseas Chinese Association packed up the things that Liu Lianren used to survive in the wilderness into a large package for him to bring, but unfortunately, after returning to China, these things were not exhibited, and we can't see them now. In contrast, we can also see Onoda's belongings when he was fighting guerrillas in the tropical jungles of the Philippines, and we have indeed done a rough job in this regard.
■ Weapons and personal belongings used by Hiroro Onoda to survive in the tropical jungle of Lubang Island in the Philippines for 30 years.
Liu Lianren's survival in the wilderness in the cold mountains of Hokkaido, Japan, is indeed a tragic and painful experience. I hope that in the future, such an experience will never happen to any Chinese again.