When the human army is charging, it will shout and kill in unison; when the dogs are charging, they will also bark and roar wildly, with great strength and intimidation, to frighten the enemy. But the wolf charge was silent, without a single shout, without a wolf howl. But between heaven and earth, the eyes, hearts, and guts of people and animals are filled with the most primitive, cruel, and prestigious terror in the world: the wolf is coming!
This is a vivid description of the wolf attacking the yellow sheep in "Wolf Totem", obviously only a few lines printed on the book paper, but it makes people feel frightened to read, as if they are in some corner of it, see this amazing scene, do not feel worried about the fate of the yellow sheep, but also for those who are secretly observing from afar.
"Wolf Totem" is a documentary novel, mainly telling the story of Chen Jin, a young man in Beijing, who went to the Mongolian steppe in the 1980s, lived with herders, and gradually integrated into the life of the steppe. Chen Jin saw grassland herders fighting with wolves and fearing wolves at the same time, and these experiences also made Chen Zhen love wolves, raise wolves, and study wolves.
Telescope hunting
When Chen Jin heard the Mongolian herdsman Old Man Bilig say that he wanted to hunt with a telescope, his heart was full of doubts and curiosity.
The two were lying on the snow nest on the top of the mountain, and through the telescope they could see nearly a thousand yellow sheep grazing on the opposite hillside, and a dozen steppe wolves lurking around the yellow sheep.
The adult yellow sheep's body was larger than that of the adult wolf, and its running speed was faster than that of the wolf, and before the wolves attacked the sheep, Chen Zhen couldn't understand how to fight this battle with less victory and more victory.
The wolf began to attack, launching a "charge" from three sides, as fast as a dozen missiles. The yellow sheep were obviously defenseless, some were frightened by the sudden disaster; some barely started but broke their stomachs in the run because they were too full of grass.
People say that "wolf ambition" is really not wrong at all, and the wolves have cleverly bypassed these incapacitated enemies, straight to those experienced sheep, straight to the throat of a deadly bite, never love to fight.
The sheep army lost its combat effectiveness and ran towards the top of the mountain without wolves, but when they reached the top of the mountain, they found that there was no way back, and the ridge at the other end was a large snow nest more than ten meters deep, and they did not want to come out again. This unique geographical advantage is the tactical key to the wolves.
The big sheep in the flock made the final struggle, bowing their heads and charging at the wolves with their horns, but just after rushing out of the gap, the head wolf immediately took the wolves to make up for it, and after a while, the wolves and sheep disappeared into the sky.
At this time, the old man Bilig sat up and lit a cigarette pot and said to Chen Jin, "After smoking this bag of cigarettes, let's go home." ”
Delicious wolf food
The next day, the entire Garthman production team, eight yurt men, dogs, and carts, were dispatched, and eight or nine ox carts loaded with large felts, long ropes, firewood, and wooden poles and iron hooks walked toward yesterday's "battlefield".
People go up to the top of the mountain to see the snow nest behind the ridge, flat like a snow lake, there are countless yellow dots in the snow lake, these are the yellow sheep buried in the snow nest. The whole snow lake was a "refrigerator" given to the wolves by Tengri to provide them with food in the spring famine.
The people of each yurt began to act, first using large felts on the snow, then using wooden poles to hook in the snow pits, and after finding the sheep, they hooked them up and placed them on the felt cloth. Herders are very particular about using iron hooks, only hooking sheep's necks, so as not to hurt the sheepskin, can sell for a good price.
There was a scene of a bumper harvest above the snow lake, and the exclamations of herders could be heard everywhere, and the fat and fleshy yellow sheep were salvaged. The people in the old man's production group respect the grassland, and when they encounter a living lamb, they release it, and the sheep in the snow nest do not exhaust it, leaving plenty of food for the "hunter wolf".
At noon, the people piled together the firewood they had brought, slaughtered two live sheep with broken legs, took out the warm pots, wine jugs, wooden bowls and salt pots filled with milk tea, lit firewood, set up a fire, dressed the fresh lamb with iron and wooden strips, sprinkled salt, and sat by the fire to eat roast meat. For a time, the campfire was cooking smoke, and the aroma of meat, wine, and milk filled the vicinity of this snow lake.
It's time for the wolf to be fierce
The people of the other production teams, seeing the harvest of the Garsmai group, tried to find a way to get the specific location of the yellow sheep, and pulled the remaining yellow sheep, whether good or bad, no matter how big or small, to their own production team. When old man Bilig got the news, he was angry and worried, and said, "The wolf should be fierce!" ”
Batuu's herd of horses were selected by the Corps of superior war horses, with seventy or eighty horses. The day of handing over the horses had arrived, but the white hair on the grasslands had blown and had to be postponed. Horses nibble on grass, and in order not to damage the pastures where cattle and sheep graze, the horses have to graze dozens of miles away from the yurt, which gives the wolves an opportunity.
This time, it was like with the help of Tengger, the wind of the tenth level, the white hair in the sky, the weak night, a group of enemies with green eyes, attacked the horses.
As with attacking yellow sheep, the wolves were going to "devour" the entire herd this time, and they first killed the horses in a rush to frighten the horses, and then drove the horses into the blisters in the distance, as long as the horses entered the water and fell into the mud, they could not move.
Unlike attacking yellow sheep, this time their opponents were the ones who made them afraid. While the horses were galloping according to the wolf's plan, Batuu and the other horses fought desperately with the wolves while stabilizing the head horse to adjust the formation and direction of the horses, so that the horses regained their self-confidence and began to trample the wolves with their hooves, and the direction of the horses' running also made some adjustments.
Just when Batuu thinks there is a glimmer of hope in saving the horses, the next scene makes him completely dead. At this time, the wolves began a suicide attack, they jumped up and grabbed the horse's belly, and when the horse attacked the wolf with its hooves, it would kick the wolf and the stomach together, and the wolves would rather take their lives than achieve their goals.
At dawn, when the people of the production team walked to the blisters, the horses that were alive and well yesterday turned into red ice sculptures.
The old hunter struck
It may be that he cherishes his son Batuu, or it may be that he feels that the wolf is too harmful, and the old man Bilig, who was originally unwilling to fight the wolf, has taken a shot. The whole production brigade had heard that the old man Of Bilig was going to fight the wolf, and they knew the strength of the old hunter.
The old man set out from the early hours of the morning with a large group of men and horses and hunting dogs, and the whole process of the team did not open a glimmer of light, listening by the ear, smelling by the nose, and remembering, and advancing towards the position where the wolves attacked the horses. After arriving at the destination, the old man Biliger gently instructed everyone to disperse, and when a large circle was formed, everyone turned on the dazzling flashlight together and shouted loudly: "Oh... Ho...", and the hounds barked wildly.
The voice shouted closer and closer, the more it shouted, the denser it became, and the aperture became brighter and smaller. As night receded, people saw in the hazy light of the morning that there were about forty or fifty wolves in the encirclement.
At this time, the old man Of Bilig shouted, "Whew! Their own hounds first flew toward the wolves, and the rest of the herders followed suit and released their hounds. More than a hundred hounds began to bite each other with wolves to form the first layer of battle circles, and the men on large horses formed a second layer of encirclement with horse poles in their hands, and the old man, women, children, and Zhiqing were on the outermost layer.
The hound and the wolf mingled, and if a wolf intended to jump up or rush out of the first lap, the second round of the horse pole immediately reached out to trap the wolf, dragged it to the ground, and then let the hound bite. Even the most powerful wolves could not withstand such a huge attack, and a total of more than thirty big wolves were destroyed in a big battle.
Old Man Bilig saw the wolf corpses piled up in a mountain, and began to look up at the sky and said, "Tengri forgive me for my sins!" ”
I want to raise wolves
Every time Chen Jin said to the old man that he wanted to raise wolves, it would make the old man angry, Chen Jin respected the old man and temporarily gave in, but Bi Li Ge did not know that Chen Jin had become a "wolf fan" after hunting with him several times, and the strong idea of raising wolves and studying wolves prompted him to risk taking a litter of wolf cubs.
The beginning of wolf breeding is also the beginning of difficulties, first of all, the opposition of the herders, the old herdsmen like the old man of Bilig are against raising wolves in the herdsmen area, and some herders even sneak up on the little wolves when Chen Jin is not paying attention. The little wolf drinks milk and eats is also a problem, drinking milk can find a female dog to feed, but when the little wolf grows up, where will he find meat to feed it? The most serious problem is that wolves hurt people.
Chen Zhen was like beating wolf blood, and in order to complete the goal of raising the little wolf, he went to ask the old man of Bilig for his consent, saying that raising wolves was to love wolves; when the little wolf had no meat to eat, he gave his share to the little wolf; afraid that it would hurt people, he tied it to a wooden stake with an iron chain.
With the efforts of Chen Jin, the little wolf slowly grew up, and even a short sweet period appeared between people and wolves. The little wolf slowly liked Chen Zhen to tickle him, and was also excited when Chen Jin fed him.
Chen Jin also saw the precious characteristics of wolves, wolves did not want to be disturbed when eating; in order to avoid attacks and the hot sun, the little wolf taught himself to dig holes; when he first learned howling, he actually made a dog barking sound. Chen Jin's relationship with the little wolf became deeper and deeper, and the depth made him forget that it was a wolf that belonged to the grassland.
The wolf's wild nature is difficult to tame, and Chen Zhen, who bitten, used the only vaccine in the nearby hospital, and after discussing with Yang Ke, Chen Jin painfully broke the tip of the wolf's tooth. The herders need to change the pasture regularly, but the little wolf refuses to be led away, and how to drag it is better to die than follow, Chen Jin uses an ox cart to drag the little wolf, causing the wolf's claws to wear out, and the wolf's throat is bloodied by the rope.
Chen Zhen was distressed that the little wolf wanted to be put back into the grassland, and worried that the wolf without the tip of the tooth could not survive in the grassland, watching the little wolf's appetite decrease little by little, completely without the wild nature of the wolf, and was tormented by illness every day, under the advice of the old man Biliger, Chen Zhen cried a lot, ending the wolf's life and retaining the last dignity of the wolf.
Wolf Exterminators on the Prairie
Bao Shungui developed agriculture on the grassland, regardless of the herders' obstruction to reclaim the grassland, turning the grassland into farmland, the old man Bilige had repeatedly advised him that the thin grassland was not suitable for reclamation, which would cause the grassland to desertify, Bao Shungui insisted on going his own way, leading the contractor team to open the land to build houses, playing swans in Swan Lake, even the magical wolves on the grassland were not opponents of humans.
In order to "kill the wolves", they encouraged the removal of wolf cubs, and in order to force out the wolves in the grass, they burned the grassland with fire. The people of the contractor team even used all kinds of methods to "hunt", dig up swan eggs, and use gunpowder to blow up marmot holes. These methods are not cruel enough, the most cruel is to put poison on the lamb to lure the wolf, and put explosives under the food to blow up the wolf.
There are also the "sharpshooters" of the corps, who chase wolves in jeeps and shoot headshots within five hundred meters. In this way, the ecological environment of the grassland was destroyed, the wolves were almost killed, and the wolves would never come again.
Like Chen Jin, the Beijing Zhiqing who loves wolves and loves the grasslands, and the Mongolian herders who live in the grasslands like the old man Of Bilige, who live in the grasslands and take the wolves as gods, face the collision of farming culture and grassland culture, although full of enthusiasm, they also have a cup of water, and all they can do is look up at Tengger with tears on their faces.
Wolves and herders
The first impression of reading the wolf totem is the magic of the wolf. They like to fight in teams, have strong ability to cooperate, in addition to the above-mentioned attacks on sheep and horses with less victory, there is also the legend of the flying wolf, the old herdsmen believe that wolves can fly, flying over high walls to eat sheep, but in fact the wolf stepped on the body of his companions and climbed over the high wall.
Wolves are shrewd and patient, shrewd to take advantage of weather and terrain conditions, to hunt sheep in snow nests after heavy snowfall, and to hunt horses in blisters on wind and snow days. Patience is to wait for the opportunity when hunting the yellow sheep, and to do it when the yellow sheep is full.
The wolf never yields, dogs, sheep, cattle, horses, tigers, elephants, and lions can be domesticated, but the wolf cannot, preferring to wear out its claws and tight necks rather than be led away, and will not be a slave when it dies.
Wolves and herders love and kill each other, wolves affect the lives of herders, herders hate wolves, fear wolves, and at the same time love and respect wolves.
The beastliness of the wolf, attacking people and people's flocks of sheep, cattle, and horses, puts the lives of herders at risk, and makes the hard work of herders go to waste.
Fearing the brutality of wolves, the variability of attacks, the deadly throat locks when attacking and killing, and the immortality is endless.
Love the protection of wolves, although attacking the herds, but also hunting and eating the grassland of the yellow sheep and destroying the grassland of the rats, protecting the herders' grassland, wolves eat scavenger to purify the grassland, where there are wolves, there are grasslands of fertile fields, green grass and lush grass.
The spur of respecting wolves, the grassland has the law of survival of the fittest, the implementation of this law is the wolf, the life of the grassland is threatened by wolves at all times, the horse that can survive the attack of the wolf is a superior steppe horse, the sheep that can survive the continuous hunting of wolves are the superior steppe sheep, and even the Mongolian soldiers who can fight with wolves in ancient times are also brave and good warriors.
Green grass and blue sky
As Leo Tolstoy said, "What a great writer is writing only about his personal one-sidedness." "I don't agree with all of the ideas in the book, but the description of a lot of details in the book makes people want to read it, and strung together the few paragraphs that impress me the most are only the tip of the iceberg compared to the whole book."
The book is more like using words to depict an ideal life of "paradise", in that era, perhaps the life of herders was not as colorful as written in the book, but there must have been a magnificent grassland picture of Swan Lake, peony flowers and wind-blown grass low-sighted cattle and sheep.
The author finally mentions the desertification of the grassland, which makes people deeply regretful, in fact, not only the grassland, the environment around us is not so, our fathers and fathers mostly swim, because when they were young, they could find small rivers near each home. At that time, you may not need to travel a long distance to find tourist attractions, and you will go out to the sea of stars.
I hope that one day the grassland in "Wolf Totem" can come back again, so that we have the opportunity to live in the yurt, eat fresh lamb, drunken milk wine, open the curtain to see the horses and sheep, the blue sky of green grass...
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