My father and mother

First, soaked in bitter water and stubbornly grow

(1) Recruitment

On April 8, 1933, his father was born in a poor family in Yuhe, northern Shaanxi. At that time, in northern Shaanxi, there were years of famine and famine, the people's lives were extremely poor, bandits were rampant, and wars were constantly infested. His father was born on the family's road to escape from banditry. In such an era of hunger and war, my grandfather only relied on the few acres of thin mountain land left by his ancestors to survive, and the family was surrounded by walls, hunger and trepidation have always accompanied my father's childhood.

The father's early life was fraught, and the adolescent life was even more difficult. When his father was eight years old, the poor family could not open the pot, in order to fill his stomach and reduce a mouth to eat, his grandfather sent him to a craftsman's house in the village to do child labor. My father once told us that he had learned winch that year, that he was not tall enough to winch, and that the master who taught him was more than half a hundred years old. The master was old, his legs and feet were inconvenient, he sat by the winch and kept twisting, the winch squeaked and kept spinning, he was barefoot all day, dragging a rope bundle back and forth non-stop, so he did a year of hard work, ate a meal at the master's house for a year, and did not see a single change of money all year round. Near the end of the year, the master said: "Child, this year's meal, we can count the two of us mixed, next year I will be difficult to mix rice, you will find a place to eat." In the spring of the following year, his father left the winch shop, and his grandfather sent him to a small family in a neighboring village to herd sheep.

It was an era of famine and war, and famine and war could not feed the miserable people, but it was a good time for wild wolves to breed. The wolves in the mountains are swarmed, especially numerous and ferocious. A weak and thin child herding sheep in the mountains, holding a sheep shovel taller than himself all day long, listening to the miserable howling of wolves in the mountains, no adults in front of the bold, no small partner to accompany, a person can only shiver, tears in the eye sockets, fortunately the master's family has a very fierce big black dog that has never abandoned, following around. Father said that at that time, when he was afraid, he burrowed into the middle of a dozen sheep and let the big black dog protect the sheep, and the big black dog was fierce and loyal. One day, out of greed, he wanted the sheep to eat more tender grass, he herded the sheep on the hill a little farther from home, near dark, he had just gathered the sheep together, and was about to go home, when suddenly three wolves ran from the opposite mountain, the head wolf roared, and the three wolves pounced on the sheep, and the sheep suddenly formed a circle around him in fright, and he was also frightened of his legs trembling, and the six gods were masterless, following the sheep, and the big black dog guarded him and the sheep barked with all their might. Probably because the big black dog was huge and fierce, the three wolves stopped and confronted the black dog. The black dog held the hair on its head upright, arched its waist, and barked wildly at the wolves, and the wolf kept on all fours, ears, and blue eyes staring at the big black dog. After about a bag of cigarettes, the wolf finally let go and ran toward the mountain. With tears in his eyes, he dragged his trembling legs and led the sheep back home step by step. From then on, he did not dare to herd sheep far from the village.