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After the People's Liberation Army ate the rice imported from India, it was swollen all over the body, vomiting and diarrhea, which could not help but make the logistics department wonder, could it be that the rice was poisoned?
Ate Indian rice but got poisoned
The incident happened in 1952, when the 18th Army of the People's Liberation Army first arrived, but it did not expect that the conditions for stationing in Tibet would be so bad, so it soon faced the problem of cutting off food and grass.
At this critical moment, India, which has always been eyeing Tibet next door, unusually showed great mercy and extended a helping hand to the PLA, selling thousands of tons of rice to the PLA at a low price.
You must know that India is the world's largest exporter of rice, and the quality of rice is obvious to all and has been tested by the world market.
As the commander of the 18th Army, Zhang Guohua is naturally indispensable for such a bowl of Indian rice.
But just as Zhang Guohua was about to start, a little soldier hurriedly rushed into the headquarters and shouted:
"The rice is poisonous, don't eat it, Commander!"
When Zhang Guohua heard this, he was immediately frightened and dropped the dishes and chopsticks, even though he was already hungry at this time, and he was so hungry that he couldn't breathe, but it was better to be hungry than to die.
In the next second, Zhang Guohua, who was full of doubts, was pulled out of the door by this little soldier who was sweating profusely, and the scene that came into view directly stunned Zhang Guohua!
I saw that the soldiers, who looked very strong and thin yesterday, are now staggered and weak, swollen and red from head to toe, like over-inflated balloons.
Zhang Guohua hurriedly stepped forward to inquire about the situation, only to learn that more and more soldiers, after eating rice steamed with Indian rice, began to experience symptoms of dizziness, vomiting and diarrhea.
At first, the fighters thought it was altitude sickness or overwork, but after resting, the symptoms not only did not lessen in the slightest, but worsened!
At first glance, it does look like a symptom of collective food poisoning!
This can make Zhang Guohua difficult, although he is a good hand at leading troops to fight, but he is not a doctor who treats diseases, not to mention, the purpose of Zhang Guohua's trip is to liberate Tibet, now Tibet has not been successfully liberated, and his soldiers have fallen ill one by one, so all the hardships and sacrifices they have made in order to enter Tibet have not been in vain?
Therefore, the top priority is to find out the truth about the poisoning of the soldiers! Let them recover their health!
Zhang Guohua first locked his eyes on the batch of Indian rice that he had just bought.
It is said that the weasel gives the chicken a New Year's greeting, and it is uneasy and kind, India has not been less in conflict with us on the Tibetan border, but now it suddenly sent charcoal in the snow, selling rice to our People's Liberation Army, and instead of taking the opportunity to slaughter us, it also sold it to us at a cheaper price than usual, which is really not like India's style!
"Could it be that India has poisoned the rice sold to us!?"
Such speculation quickly surfaced in people's minds, after all, such speculation is indeed reasonable, and India has enough things.
If this were the case, the situation would be much more serious, and it would have escalated into an international dispute.
But if it is really said that India poisoned, then where is the evidence? It is impossible for everyone to convict India with just one mouth!
After all, most of the soldiers of the 18th Army are soldiers who have lived in the south or plains for a long time, and they can't adapt to the high-altitude environment all of a sudden, and it is normal for this reaction to occur.
However, the soldiers of the logistics department insisted that it was absolutely impossible for it to be due to simple altitude sickness, because when they first entered Tibet, many soldiers had symptoms of altitude sickness one after another, and later the soldiers began to adapt to the plateau environment one after another.
What's more, this collective illness only began after eating Indian rice! This Indian rice is definitely to blame!
So, how exactly did these strange Indian rice get to the PLA?
It all started with our decision to liberate Tibet.
The hardships of liberating Tibet
How terrifying and dark was Tibet before its liberation?
Before Tibet was liberated, on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the roof of the world, there was a feudal serfdom that was even more barbaric than that of the European Middle Ages.
At that time, less than 5% of Tibet's population accounted for almost all of Tibet's wealth and resources.
As for the remaining 95 percent of the Tibetan population, they are collectively referred to as "serfs" and are enslaved by slave owners from birth to death.
They worked day and night for the slave owners, and were driven by the slave owners, but they did not get a penny, nor did they have the slightest personal freedom, and they were completely regarded as personal goods by the slave owners, and they were bought and sold, given away, and even tortured and killed by the slave owners for fun.
In the eyes of the slave owners, these serfs were no different from cattle and sheep, and they could peel off the skin of the serfs to make drums, and knock off the skulls of the serfs to be used as containers for wine.
If any serf is disobedient and dares to run away, once he is caught, he will be gouged out and his nose cut off and his hands cramped, it will be commonplace.
The lamas of old Tibet would use a large amount of human bones and human flesh to make ritual weapons, and behind these "raw materials" were countless serfs who were tortured and killed.
This dark and cruel situation lasted for thousands of years, until the appearance of "Jinzhu Mami", which was brought to an end.
In Tibetan, the meaning of "Jinzhu Mami" is "the Bodhisattva soldier who rescues the suffering", and this is the Tibetan compatriots' exclusive name for the People's Liberation Army.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, looking at the whole of Chinese mainland, the only region that has not been liberated is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
This is because the towering terrain of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is naturally isolated from the world and incompatible with the outside world, so there is neither a revolutionary foundation nor a base area, and the people there know nothing about the revolution, the People's Liberation Army, and the Communist Party.
But even so, the PLA still rose to the challenge, because the Tibetan compatriots are also part of the Chinese nation, and the PLA also has the obligation to liberate them from dark oppression!
For this reason, Chairman Mao specially instructed that when the 18th Army goes to Tibet, it must unite the masses, serve the masses, and publicize and implement the party's national policy!
Therefore, before setting out, the 18 th Army carefully studied the customs and religious beliefs of the Tibetan people, and made every effort to ensure that all soldiers must understand and respect the customs and religious beliefs of the Tibetan compatriots, and must "not fight back or scold back" with the local folk customs.
For example, if the Tibetan compatriots respect animals, then after the PLA enters Tibet, no matter how hungry or hungry they are, they will not fight birds and animals everywhere, nor will they catch fish in the river, let alone interfere in the daily lives of Tibetan compatriots, live in the houses of Tibetan compatriots, but resolutely set up tents in the wild.
During this period, the PLA did not forget to take the initiative to do farm work and repair houses for the Tibetan people, and also helped every Tibetan family carry water, ensuring that the water tanks of every Tibetan family they encountered were full.
The military doctors of the 18th Army even helped the Tibetan compatriots to treat their illnesses free of charge, and even set up a special yak transport team to transport free medicine and rations for the Tibetan compatriots.
In order to repay the help of the PLA, some Tibetan compatriots who are familiar with the terrain of the plateau have spontaneously joined this transport team, but the PLA insists on paying these Tibetan compatriots double their wages, which makes the Tibetan compatriots feel even more moved, because in the past, they could not have paid for working for slave owners.
In this way, the misgivings in the hearts of the Tibetan masses were gradually dispelled by the sincerity and enthusiasm of the PLA, and this laid a mass foundation for the eventual peaceful liberation of Tibet.
At the same time, however, the difficulties faced by the PLA in Tibet are much greater than expected.
Zhang Guohua's elite generals, who have explosive combat effectiveness on weekdays, have to pant for breath as soon as they enter Tibet and walk a little faster, and some are even so serious that they squat on the side of the road for a while and can no longer stand up.
In addition, walking in the snow with strong ultraviolet rays for a long time, many soldiers suffered from snow blindness, and their eyes were so red and stimulated that they couldn't open their eyelids, so they could only use strips of cloth to cover their eyes and support each other to identify the road ahead.
So along the way, just entering Tibet, I froze to death with frostbite and fell ill with a large number of PLA soldiers.
What made matters worse for the PLA was the lack of food and the difficulty of logistical supply.
Why is Indian rice poisoned?
The grain brought by the PLA at the beginning was only enough to last for a period of time, and the follow-up grain could only be bought locally or transported from other places. However, as soon as the PLA entered Tibet, they found that all the grain from the local peasants' homes had been handed over to the slave owners, and there was no surplus grain to sell to the PLA.
As for transporting grain from other provinces, it was also restricted by the difficult terrain, and it really couldn't be transported for a while.
Not only that, but even the military rations that the PLA had managed to purchase from the local government in Tibet were eventually snatched up by a gang of bandits.
Seeing that the whole army had shrunk their clothes and dieted and that the military rations had bottomed out, but the new military rations had not been seen for a long time, General Zhang Guohua could not help but feel very anxious.
With no other choice, he had no choice but to send a telegram to Chairman Mao for help.
Chairman Mao also had a headache for this, although he had tried every means to transfer grain from the provinces around Tibet, but this was not a long-term solution after all, and the transportation cost and time cost were also quite high, so he had to find another way.
But just when we were distressed about this, India took the initiative to send a telegram like a roundworm in our stomach, saying that they have 3,000 tons of rice to sell to us, and if necessary, not only does the shipping cost of each catty of rice only need one dollar, but the price of rice itself is also much cheaper than usual!
When Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou heard this, they naturally felt that it was quite cost-effective, after all, it is indeed much easier to enter Tibet from India than to enter Tibet from our northwest, and if rice is imported from India, it will naturally be able to be delivered to the soldiers of the 18th Army faster and more conveniently!
Of course, Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou also thought about the hidden danger of India coveting Tibet, but after comprehensive consideration, they felt that India should not be so insidious, and in addition to the urgent need for military rations in the 18th Army, they did not think much about it, so they directly paid India and quickly delivered the 3,000 tons of rice to the soldiers of the 18th Army.
General Zhang Guohua was naturally very pleased to see so much rice, and immediately called on the whole army to eat it with an open belly with confidence, but he was reluctant to eat more.
Seeing that everyone unanimously believed that there was a problem with Indian rice, General Zhang Guohua had no choice but to send a telegram to the central authorities to report the incident, and the central authorities were quite incredulous about this, and immediately sent experts from the Beijing Medical College to Tibet to investigate the mystery of the soldiers' rice poisoning.
After all, if it is really India poisoning the rice, it is tantamount to India declaring war on the mainland, and the consequences can be imagined.
However, after a study by experts from the medical school, it was concluded that the fighters were not poisoned by rice, but by a chronic lack of vitamin B2!
It turned out that the Chinese rice that the soldiers had eaten before was rich in vitamin B2, but Indian rice, because of its unique variety and growing environment, did not contain vitamin B2.
If under normal circumstances, the fighters ate this Indian rice without vitamin B2, and nothing would have happened.
But at this time, the soldiers have not eaten fresh vegetables and fruits to supplement vitamins for a long time, and the vitamin B2 in the body is already lacking, after eating a large amount of Indian rice, the vitamin B2 in the body is not supplemented, but is consumed in order to digest the calories of rice, which leads to the symptoms of vitamin B2 deficiency among the soldiers, which suddenly aggravated after eating Indian rice.
Knowing that it was not India that poisoned, everyone was naturally relieved, but General Zhang Guohua was still worried, because if you don't eat Indian rice, everyone will have to starve, if you eat it, everyone will be swollen, dizzy and uncomfortable, no matter what, you can't completely solve the problem, how is this good?
At this moment, General Zhang Guohua suddenly learned that there was a battalion that did not have a single edema after eating Indian rice!
When I asked, I learned that it was because they were in order to save rice to eat, and when steaming rice, they mixed in many Tibetan local glutinous rice milled with barley.
Therefore, Zhang Guohua pondered, perhaps it was precisely because of the fact that this barley contained vitamin B2! So he immediately mixed tsampa with Indian rice to eat it and spread it to the whole army, which solved this problem of edema.
Not long after, the Tibetans also heard about the swelling of the PLA, so they took the initiative to send barley and glutinous rice to the PLA to help the PLA tide over the difficulties, because after a long time together, they have long known that the PLA is really for their sake, saving them from fire and water, and this is why Tibet can finally be successfully liberated and the serfs turn over and sing.