In April 1950, a long column of stuffy tank trucks drove into the coal city of Hegang located in the north of the Songhua River, and after the car stopped, a group of soldiers came down one after another, although these soldiers were wearing yellow military uniforms, some of them wore the Bayi hat badge and badge, and some did not have any signs. These officers and soldiers are the Liberation League, and they will build the first mechanized farm in New China, the Baoquanling Farm, in the Northern Wilderness at the foot of the Xiaoxing'an Ridge.
The so-called Northern Wilderness refers to the large and small Xing'an Ridge foothills, the Songhua River, Heilongjiang, Ussuri River three rivers alluvial out of the swamp wasteland, where the swamps everywhere are full of fish, even with bare hands can catch the big fish in the shallow water bubbles, the wilderness birds and beasts flocks, pheasants, wild ducks, geese and white cranes are everywhere, the summer of the Great Northern Wilderness Snakes and beasts flocks, wild wolves, leopards, black bears and even tigers, sticks and roe deer scoops, pheasants fly into the rice pot, is the true portrayal of the Northern Wilderness at that time.
My grandfather was one of the officers and men of the reclamation, and after the troops drove to Baoquan Ridge, they set up tents and horse racks at the foot of bunker hill, and at night swarms of wild wolves walked around their camps, and wolves could be heard all night, and the officers and soldiers could not sleep well, and Grandpa said that at night the camp was lit with a campfire, and there would be sentries with guns to guard against wild beasts. At that time, the beasts of Baoquan Ridge had never seen people and were not afraid of people, and Grandpa said that when they opened up the wilderness, many roe deer (a kind of deer) were nearby and looked at them curiously, and if someone suddenly ran towards them, the roe deer would run away, and if you yelled, the roe deer would stop and look back foolishly. Grandpa said that the roe deer runs very fast, and jumps and jumps, it is difficult to hit with a gun when running, and experienced hunters will yell at the roe deer when they hit the roe deer, and shoot it to death when the roe deer stops and looks back.
The roe deer is a personal experience of his grandfather, who said that the northern wilderness dawned early, and at three o'clock the sky gradually lit up, at which time the beasts began to move. One morning before blowing the bed number, Grandpa and a dozen veterans of their class were asleep in the horse frame, a roe deer suddenly broke in (the horse frame has no door, only take a blanket as a curtain to cover the night cold, so the roe deer can come in), the roe deer broke into the horse rack and then confused, the horse frame is short and narrow, the roe deer want to go out but can't find the door, kicking and screaming inside, the veterans are asleep, by this stupid roe deer made a person turn over on the horse, everyone slowly grabbed this stupid uncle, All of them followed the dipping light and beat the tooth sacrifice.
After the Liberation League set up camp in Baoquanling, the two most important tasks were to cultivate land and build houses. The winter in the Northern Wilderness is very cold, tents and horse racks are difficult to survive the winter, we must build dormitories that can accommodate five thousand officers and soldiers, but also to build houses for the families of officers and soldiers in the future, which requires a lot of wood, the wilderness swamp is mostly low shrubs, and the building of houses must be cut down in the mountains.
The officers and men of the Liberation Regiment opened up wasteland in the spring, summer, and autumn to cultivate land and build houses, and in the winter they organized officers and men to go into the mountains to cut wood. At the beginning, there was no road on the mountain, the officers and soldiers dragged the wood cut down to the bottom of the mountain with a climbing plough, and after the ice and snow melted in the spring, they put the logs into the Wutong River, and released the wood to drain the water and transported it to Baoquan Ridge.
At that time, there were many large beasts such as tigers, bears, wild boars, leopards and so on in the Xing'an Mountains, although they were fierce, the veterans were not afraid, and what really made the veterans jealous was the wolves! Grandpa said that the most terrible thing in the Xing'an Mountains is the wolf pack, the wolf pack is as few as a dozen or more than a dozen, and the wolf thing, it surrounds you with a howl, the nearby wolves smell all around, three or five people encounter the wolf pack is difficult to escape, so the officers and soldiers who go up the mountain to cut wood will never act alone.
Grandpa said that when the Liberation Regiment first arrived at Baoquan Ridge, the wolves even attacked the reclamation points and logging points on the mountain. The soldiers of the Liberation Regiment all came down from the battlefield, it was when they were young and strong, when they were still in the formation of the troops, the reclamation points and logging points were equipped with guns, and the wolf packs attacked at night but bit a few soldiers at most, but they would be killed by the veterans' rifle shovels and pickaxes, the wolf meat beat the tooth sacrifice, the wolf skin became a trophy, Grandpa said that the wolf skin was much warmer than the dog skin, and it was very good to make hats and mattresses. The beasts are also remembered, and they suffer too much and eat too much, and gradually they dare not run to places where there are many people.
Grandpa told me many stories of wolves attacking the officers and men of the construction field, and the following is the story of a wolf pack attacking a vehicle carrying wood.
In the 1950s, the farm introduced a lot of Agricultural Tractors made in the Soviet Union, which used diesel engines to be more powerful, and the tires of tractors were more suitable for driving on simple roads, so at that time, the farms used tractors to pull wood from the mountains. At that time, the winter in the Northern Wilderness was very cold, and it was even colder in the Xing'an Mountains, it was very common to have more than forty degrees below zero, the simple road conditions built in the mountains were also very bad, tractors dragging heavy wood down the mountain often broke down, and the driver was attacked by wolves, so the farm assigned a escort to each tractor that pulled wood, and no longer sent a car to transport wood in the afternoon, so as not to cause accidents at night.
Early in the morning the driver Master Liu drove a tractor to a logging point in the mountains to pull wood, after lunch at the logging point Master Liu and the old horse who escorted the car walked back with a cart of wood, the simple highway was driven out of the ravine with a bulldozer, the road was very narrow, the snow in the Xing'an Mountains in winter was so large, the snow exceeded one meter, the snow on the simple road surface became as slippery as the ice surface, although the tires were treated with anti-slip treatment but driving on this road must be particularly careful, and the slightest careless vehicle will slide into the ditch on the side of the road. The tractor dragged a bucket of wood very slowly. About an hour after walking the tractor suddenly malfunctioned, the drivers at that time were half repairers, with some repair tools with the car, Master Liu got out of the car to pack up the machine, drove away for a while and broke down, this time the sky was almost dark Master Liu did not repair the tractor, the old horse that escorted the car was getting more and more nervous. In the winter of the Northern Wilderness, it was all dark at five o'clock in the afternoon, the mountains were darker earlier, and the old horse heard more and more wolves howling nearby, and couldn't help but urge: "Old Liu, you hurry, this day is dark, can the tractor be repaired?" "Oh, I want to be fast too, what a rush!" Old Liu anxiously rubbed his hands. "This wolf howls more and more maddening, old Liu you get some diesel out first, I will light a bunch of bonfires, we are also warm and warm!" The old horse said climbing to the trailer to pull down a few logs, dragging to the side of the tractor's heavy tires, and then using the long-handled axe of the logging to cut off the thick logs at the mouth of the bowl; at that time, the fuel filling of the tractor fuel tank was relatively large, And Lao Liu used a straw to absorb oil from the fuel tank, took the tea jar and then dripped a few tea cylinder diesels on the logs, and the old horse grabbed a few handfuls of artemisia grass from the edge of the forest, drizzled some diesel, and put it under the log to ignite. These logs are wet, the bark contains a lot of moisture, and the tree path is relatively thick, although the diesel is drizzled, but the artemisia grass has burned out the logs and has not risen, but the old horse does not dare to go to the forest to catch artemisia grass. Now that it was completely dark, several wild wolves had gathered around, and in the darkness a pair of green eyes could be seen approaching, and there was a wolf howl near the trailer, and the old horse was now holding a long-handled axe nervously. Suddenly a wild wolf pounced, the old horse wielded a long-handled axe to cut it, the wild wolf flexibly dodged, followed by the second and third wild wolves constantly pounced, the old horse while wielding the long axe while shouting: "Old Liu, hurry up the fire, otherwise we will both be finished!" Old Liu was also anxious now, he gritted his teeth and took off his cotton coat to pour a tea tank of diesel on it and lit it, when suddenly there was the scream of the old horse, and Old Liu hurried to look at it. The old horse was holding an axe in front of him, and now several wild wolves were besieging him at the same time, one of the wild wolves actually bit his left leg, the old horse was almost dragged down, the old Liu hurriedly waved the burning cotton coat and rushed over to disperse the wild wolves that besieged the old horse, blocking in front of him, and the wolves who surrounded him saw the burning flames and retreated. "Old horse, how are you?" Old Liu asked with concern. "Oh, it's good that you came in time, otherwise this old bone would have been fed to the wolf." The old horse said with some trepidation. Old Ma saw that Old Liu put the burning coat under the log to ignite, so he took off his coat and poured diesel to ignite, now there is really nothing to burn, Old Liu constantly drizzled diesel on the log, burning two coat logs were finally ignited.
Although a bunch of roaring bonfires had been raised, Old Liu and Old Ma were still nervous, more and more wolves gathered near the trailer, the whole ravine was full of wolves howling, and there were green eyes all around, and both of them stood up in fright. Wolves were cunning, and with a fire in front of them they didn't dare to get close, so a few wolves came from under the trailer. Old Liu was receiving oil from the fuel tank, a wild wolf suddenly pounced out from the bottom of the car and bit his leg, the old horse heard Old Liu's exclamation and jumped over with an axe to cut it, and the wild wolf screamed bitterly and limped away. The old horse quickly pulled Old Liu to the fire. "Old Liu, how are you?" The old horse asked with concern. "The legs and stomach were ripped, the cotton pants were torn, and the pain died!" Oh, this won't work, we have to divide another pile of bonfires, and we can stand between two piles of fires! Old Liu said as he climbed up the bucket and dropped a few logs, dragged them to the fire and drizzled with diesel, divided into two piles of bonfires, the two stood between the two piles of fire, the old horse held an axe, Old Liu took a burning pine wood as a torch and waved it, although there were more and more wild wolves around, they did not dare to pounce for a while.
Old Liu's tractor has not returned at more than eight o'clock in the evening, and the leader of the field department is also anxious: the tractor came down from the mountain at noon, and it is time to arrive at the field department at five or six o'clock. The field department sent two tractors to pull more than twenty people with guns into the mountain to look for them, and it was more than twelve o'clock in the middle of the night that they were seen in a ravine. When Lao Liu and Lao Ma saw their comrades-in-arms who rescued them, they cried with excitement, and the people also collapsed: they had fought with the wolves for most of the night, cold, hungry and scared, and now that the comrades-in-arms had come, they were finally safe, and they could no longer hold on.