A 16-year-old boy in troubled times broke into Kanto, suffering from malaria and had no money to set up his own treatment, and the method was strange and incredible

Shandong people who broke into the eastern part of the country

In the Muping area of Shandong, there is such a proverb: "The poor go to the south of the Yangtze River, the rich go to Beijing, and the death forces Liangshan to go to the Kanto." ”

At the beginning of 1941, Xu Guotong of Xigang Village, Wuji Township, Muping, was 16 years old. Just after the old calendar year, about the third and fourth days of the new year, my grandfather said a lot of sighs to the family on the kang.

Grandpa said: "Our family is the most populous in Xichang Village. The whole family has 18 families, what should I do if I can't eat enough? I can't starve to death. Then he said: "Xu Dezhong went home from Kanto to save his relatives, and he said that he could eat mixed rice there." The third uncle, Xu Yongchang, took his grandfather's words and said, "Yes, maybe you can make a fortune." Xu Guotong was moved and said, "I'll go with the third uncle." Mother disagreed, but Xu Guotong had to follow.

Grandpa pondered for a while and said: "People move to live, trees move to death, you can't stare and wait to starve to death, just ask Changzi (the name of the third uncle) and Chouzi (Xu Guotong's name) to go with Xu Zhongde! Take away the two mouths for eating, spare the food, and others will be better." "Grandpa is the head of the family, and no one dares to speak anymore. At that time, I really couldn't live my life, I didn't eat today and tomorrow, I was worried about the next meal, and my hungry legs and feet were soft and swollen.

The next day, Xu Zhongde came and said that he would leave tomorrow. Grandpa told him to go first and asked Xu Guotong and his third uncle to wait for a few more days. Xu Zhongde explained the route of walking, saying that he would first go to Yantai to take a boat to Dalian, and then take a train from Dalian to Anton, and then get off the train to Dongkanzi Fusheng Stack to find him, and even explained how much the travel fee was.

Grandpa asked them to leave, firstly, because the family was poor, and they had to try to borrow the travel expenses of two people, and secondly, they had to explain a few words to the old man. Ten days later, the uncle and nephew set off. Before leaving, grandpa and grandma repeatedly told them to be careful on the road, to obey the rules no matter what they do, and to say that people have left their names and geese to leave their voices, and not to ruin their reputations......

The uncle and nephew each carried a small quilt on their backs, walked 140 miles for two days to the vicinity of Yantai, and lived in a small inn in Gaoling Village. At night, the two of them were chatting in a low voice: "There is the Eighth Route Army in Kunjia Mountain in the east, be careful." This reminded Xu Guotong of when he was studying, when the Eighth Route Army arrested the Kuomintang district chief, he was in a daze all night, and his mind was full of things about the Eighth Route Army.

When I arrived in Yantai the next night, I also stayed in a small shop, and I still ate corn tortillas brought from home. That night, Guotong had diarrhea and was reluctant to buy medicine to eat. On the third day, the uncle and nephew boarded the boat.

They bought a fifth-class cabin, at the bottom of the ship. The cabin was so crowded that there was no place to lie down. After the boat opened, many people were seasick and vomited, and the smell was very bad, although Xu Guotong and the third uncle were not seasick, they were vomited.

Early in the morning, they arrived in Dalian. Because they were shy and in a hurry, the uncle and nephew did not stay in the hotel and went directly to the train station. The two sat on the ground floor of the waiting room. The third uncle went to buy a train ticket, and came back after a long time, saying that the money he brought was not enough, and he was two cents short, so he couldn't beg for a ticket. What can I do?

The third uncle picked up his luggage and led Xu Guotong, and begged for money with people one by one in the waiting room, saying that he couldn't buy a ticket for a few cents, and he didn't get a penny for more than 20 people. Finally, I met a man wearing a top hat and glasses, and generously gave one yuan (Manchurian currency) to the third uncle, who made a few gestures and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Xu Guotong noticed that he was wearing a badge marked with some school, like a teacher. Because of this incident, Xu Guotong has a good impression of all teachers since then. With this gift, the third uncle bought a train ticket and two flatbreads, and the uncle and nephew ate the flatbread until Anton, and they didn't go hungry in the car.

After walking for about 20 minutes, when they arrived at Dongkanzi Road, they asked about "Fusheng Stack", and the man pointed to a small shop and said, "That's not it." I saw a small bungalow, and a small sign was hung at the door, with the word "Fusheng Stack" written on it, which was not as good as Xu Guotong.

The third uncle knocked on the door, and a middle-aged woman came out to ask, explained the situation, and led them in. After a while, Xu Zhongde came, talked a few words, and led them to a small room, which had a wooden bed, which could lay down two people, and the uncle and nephew stayed. After a while, the shopkeeper came. The shopkeeper's name is Zhang Mengde, who is from their neighboring village Zeshang Village, and Xu Guotong should be called grandpa. The middle-aged woman was his wife.

This inn is a mom-and-pop shop, and the people who live in the inn are poor itinerants, some of whom fled to Andong to find something to do, and some of whom go to the city to do errands. The uncle and nephew stayed for more than ten days, Xu Zhongde and Zhang Mengfu came over, saying that they had found something for the third uncle, and it was a hard job to go to the matchstick company to carry wood and dry matchsticks. The third uncle was very happy to hear it, he had a job to do, and the salary was not small. Xu Zhongde said: "The ugly man works in the Fusheng stack, eats on the counter, and is given ten yuan a year." Xu Guotong is also happy, if he has something to eat, he can take care of this mouth. At that time, ten yuan could only buy two pairs of cloth shoes with pig skin soles.

In this way, they settled in Anton, then "Manchukuo".

Every morning, Xu Guotong cleans all the rooms, a total of seven rooms and a hanging bunk. Three meals a day are made by the shopkeeper, and Xu Guotong chops wood and burns fire. I have to carry eight loads of water every day, and I have to hold the child (there is a two-year-old girl in the shopkeeper), and after dinner until 11 o'clock, I am responsible for picking up guests, arranging beds, and helping to keep accounts.

The inn has very little income, and it can only make ends meet except for paying rent. After settling accounts and finishing his work every day, Xu Guotong lived on a small wooden bed against the wall in the room at the gate, ready to welcome guests at any time. Day to night, cycle after cycle.

He had a lot of work to do, and he was very tired, but he was able to eat. Eat corn tortillas and sorghum flour every day, and occasionally eat a meal of rice. In the puppet Manchuria at that time, it was illegal for ordinary people to eat rice, and they had to eat it secretly.

The hardest part is winter. It was very cold, lying on a wooden bed without a mattress at night, covered with the only narrow and short thin quilt, Xu Guotong tucked the left side and exposed the right side, covered his feet and exposed his shoulders, and covered his shoulders and feet. In the two winters of those two years, he was so cold that his legs and stomach cramped almost every day, the pain was unbearable, and his body shrunk into a ball.

In the summer of 1942, Xu Guotong suffered from an abusive illness and was tortured for three months. The disease is very tormenting and strange, it occurs every other day, starting at about 2 p.m. and ending at about 7 p.m. At the onset of the disease, he was shivering with cold, gritting his teeth, and then had a high fever and burned unconscious.

But the disease does not affect appetite. If you have an appetite to eat, you have to work, and all work must be done correctly except for the time of onset. In this way, Xu Guotong lost weight day by day. A kind lady in the right neighbor asked, "Seeing that you are sick and thin, why do you still carry water?" Xu Guotong did not squeak. What do you eat when you don't work?

Although Zhang Mengfu is a fellow countryman, the identity of the owner is very obvious. A few times when I saw him working slowly, he said, "Are you going to memorize the abacus?" At first, Xu Guotong didn't know what it meant, and a Shandong villager who lived in the hotel told him: "It's just that you have settled the account and fired you!" Xu Guotong was very sad when he learned about it. Once after Xu Guotong woke up with a high fever, a Shandong guest asked, "What, is your mother dead?" Xu Guotong said, "No." "Then why are you crying about your mother?" it turned out that he said such nonsense when he had a high fever.

Seeing how serious his illness was, guests and neighbors told him about many treatments. Someone suggested that he go to Lao Tianxiang Pharmacy to buy a cinchona cream to eat, and Xu Guotong also knew about it, but it cost two cents. Some people say that when they see a sedan chair passing by, they get into the sedan pole and get into the sedan chair, and the illness will be cured. So, Xu Guotong went to drill the sedan pole, but was scolded by the sedan driver and pushed out.

Another person came up with the idea that he should go to the funeral, that is, when the coffin carrying the dead passed, he rushed between the poles. Xu Guotong did what he said and did again, and was kicked out by the husband. Others said that he walked by the river, followed by a person, pushed him into the river to scare him away, and so on, and so on, and he tried all of them, but to no avail.

In the third month, Xu Guotong had been tortured to the point that he couldn't resist it, so he decided to borrow two cents from the shopkeeper and bought a cinchona cream medicine.

Who knew that at the end of the year, the shopkeeper still fired him. Two months earlier, his third uncle had been dismissed from the factory and went to work as a soy sauce vendor in the Gongchangling Mine in Liaoyang City.

After settling accounts with the shopkeeper, Xu Guotong still had a few yuan left, so he bought a ticket to Liaoyang to find the third uncle. The society was very chaotic, he finally arrived at Gongchangling, and the third uncle said: "Go home, you can't stay here, I have earned a few dollars, and there is enough money to spare for the journey." ”

The uncle and nephew decided to go to Anton to go through the procedures for returning to Shandong, because there were fellow villagers such as Xu Zhongde and Zhang Mengfu, and it was easier to compare the procedures.

After arriving in Anton, they still lived in Zhang Mengfu's inn, and the room fee was two cents a day. The third uncle calculated the money on his body, and in addition to the fare for the car and boat and the food on the road, he bought a white cotton cloth and prepared to take it home. How did they know that buying cotton cloth was also an economic crime.

On the night of the cloth being bought, the Japanese puppet gendarmes checked the shop, dragged the white cloth out from under the bed, and asked, "Whose is it?" The third uncle said, "It's mine." "When the gendarmes came up, they slapped the third uncle a few times, and then even took the people with the cloth. Xu Guotong was frightened and stood dumbfounded, just panicking, and there was nothing he could do.

Where was the third uncle taken, and what would happen? He was at a loss for what to do, so he asked Zhang Mengfu to inquire about the news, but he couldn't find out. Seven or eight days have passed, and he still has to eat and live, what should he do? Xu Guotong remembered that he still had eight or nine yuan, and he borrowed a few yuan from his fellow villagers, so he followed someone to buy torn clothes and sell them in the countryside.

After about 20 days, after dinner, Qiu Zhentang, the manager of the neighbor's timber company, went to Fushengzhan to look for him, saying that his uncle had news and was being held in a prison by the Yalu River, and that his relatives could deliver food.

Xu Guotong was overjoyed, and the next day he went to the street to buy two baked cakes, and bought some shrimp paste to sandwich in the cakes. The prison guards checked the rice basket one by one, and when they checked Xu Guotong's rice basket, they found that there was shrimp paste in the cake and kicked it over.

The next day he went to deliver food again, and only the baked cakes were delivered. The jailer called his name, and the third uncle climbed over, grabbed the iron railing and called Xu Guotong. Xu Guotong handed the two baked cakes in, the third uncle grabbed the baked cakes, and looked at Xu Guotong with straight eyes, Xu Guotong couldn't stop being sad, his tears were blurred, and he couldn't say a word. The jailer shouted and pushed Xu Guotong away. He looked at the third uncle intently as he retreated, and the heart-wrenching pain was indescribable.

After that, Xu Guotong went to deliver food to the third uncle every morning, noon and evening, and saw the third uncle's emaciated face and full beard, Xu Guotong was extremely painful, helpless, helpless, hopeless almost to the limit, but there were no tears.

Xu Guotong is seventeen years old, and he has begun to understand some human feelings, and pays Zhang Mengfu two dimes every day, but Zhang Mengfu graciously refused, for which Xu Guotong was very moved, and felt that Zhang Mengfu was a good person and had a good heart after all. Two years later, in October 1945, Xu Guotong marched into the Northeast with the army, and when he came to Andong City again, he also inquired about him, and the insider said that he took a little girl to do a small business with a burden a year ago, and lived a wandering life.

After more than 10 days of food delivery, for some unknown reason, the prison forbade the delivery of food. During this period, Xu Guotong resold his torn clothes again and earned more than ten yuan. When he returned to Fushengzhan from selling clothes in the countryside, Qiu Zhentang held a tape measure in his hand and rushed to find it: "Child, this is good, as long as there is a guarantor, you can bail your third uncle!"

Xu Guotong only later learned that he was both the manager of a small timber company and a shipyard technician, and his hometown was in Wendeng, and he was a fellow countryman. He is more than ten years older than Xu Guotong's third uncle, so Xu Guotong calls him grandpa. Xu Guotong said: "Grandpa, then who should I ask for a guarantee?" Qiu Zhentang said: "You can guarantee it." Xu Guotong was very happy after hearing this, and hurriedly knelt down to thank him. He helped Xu Guotong up and said, "Don't do this. ”

The next day, Qiu Zhentang brought the third uncle back to Fusheng Inn. The uncle and nephew were filled with joy and sorrow when they saw each other, and hugged each other tightly. The third uncle had a full beard, his hair was long and messy, and his clothes were dirty and wrinkled. He said that he had typhoid fever in prison, and he was getting chills all over his body. In the afternoon, they went to the bathhouse to take a bath, bought two coats at the used clothes stall, went to the barber shop to get a haircut, and went to take pictures. In the photo, the uncle and nephew are very energetic, and they don't show that they have just suffered a disaster.

On the third day, the uncle and nephew went to the street to buy two catties of sea rice (dried shrimp) to thank Qiu Zhentang, but Qiu Zhentang said that he would not accept anything. When he returned to the store, the third uncle told Zhang Mengfu to listen, and Zhang Mengfu said that he didn't accept it, probably too little! The third uncle hurriedly went to buy two catties, a total of four catties, and sent it again, and repeatedly asked to accept it, but he really accepted it. As a result, the third uncle came to his senses and sent two catties to Zhang Mengfu, and sure enough, he accepted it.

The third uncle missed Xu Zhongde and decided to visit him. Originally, I thought that he had made a fortune in Kanto, but after arriving in Anton, I learned that he rented two rooms in the countryside of West Jiuli Road in Andong City, and his wife took care of the two children with housework.

The uncle and nephew walked for a day and a half to reach Xu's house. Xu Zhongde and his wife were very enthusiastic, vacated a room for them to live in, and cooked food for them, but at this time, the third uncle was seriously ill with typhoid fever and was bedridden. Xu Zhongde said: "Ugly, does your third uncle still have money?" Xu Guotong said he didn't know. He said that it seemed that the illness was not light, and he went to Dadonggou to ask the doctor to take a look. Xu Guotong still had a few yuan on him, so he hurried to Dadonggou Town, five miles away, to hire a doctor, and hired a carriage for the doctor. After the diagnosis, the doctor said that he would need an injection.

In this way, the doctor ran five times in five days, and on the sixth day, the third uncle suddenly sweated profusely, Xu Zhongde called Xu Guotong outside the door and said: "Child, it seems that your third uncle is not good, hurry up and prepare for the future!" Hearing this, Xu Guotong was frightened, what can I do!

Who knew that the third uncle had been sweating profusely since this day, but his illness slowly recovered. After staying at Xu Zhongde's house for twenty-five days, after the third uncle recovered his strength, he decided to go to Anton to go through the formalities of returning to his hometown in Shandong.

In the process of formalities, Xu Guotong learned that on the day the third uncle was arrested, he handed over more than 100 yuan to Zhang Mengfu for safekeeping. With this money, they completed the formalities and bought a ticket to go back, and there was no extra money.

There are a few sayings that are widely circulated among people who break through the Kanto: "In the first year, I earned a donkey (working hard), in the second year, I earned a wife (I would make up for my clothes if they were torn), and in the third year, I made a fortune and returned home (which means that I can't go on and find a way to go home). "That's pretty much their uncle and nephew.

For more than two years, Xu Guotong and his uncle have tasted the bitterness and bitterness of the world. In their hometowns, they were burned and killed, bombed, swept up by the Japanese invaders, and looted by the Kuomintang, and in the past two years or so, they have suffered the devastation of the Japanese and puppet regimes, and they have also tasted the taste of being servants and subordinates. For Xu Guotong, these are very meaningful, he is still very young, and these experiences allow him to firmly grasp the rudder of his future life.