the world is at stake

This is a village that has just been relocated. The wires have been pulled at the entrance of the village, and the village head is bringing a dozen young people to bury the poles.Those who dig pits dig pits, those who carry baskets carry baskets, and a bunch of children hold their rice bowls to watch at the construction site, and they can watch it all day long.

The old shepherd was wearing a dirty jacket and holding a lint whip in his hand. He sat on a dirt slope and pointed at the wires, talking about the changes in the village with a strong accent.

"People in the city don't know the hardships of the countryside at all. They always think that raising pigs will give them meat, raising chickens will give them eggs, and farming will give them food, but they never know what is swine fever and chicken fever, let alone What is no harvest."

The wrinkles on the old shepherd's face were as deep as the ravines on the Loess Plateau, and his hoarse voice seemed to come from afar, telling about the unchanging life of himself and the villagers for thousands of years.

"We are too dry here, so we can only grow broomcorns and sorghum. If God is kind enough to rain more, the villagers will be able to eat more bowls of rice, and the village will have more children in those years.

But if the times are not good, everyone will have to flee famine.The woman was starving and had no milk, and the poor babies were crying, watching them die one by one.

There is not enough food in the field, and weeds grow wildly, competing for water and fertilizer.The poor have to carry a hoe to the ground every day, and have to keep an eye on it all the time, otherwise they will starve to death.

Have city dwellers ever seen a day without rain for several months?Have you ever seen shriveled grain grown out of lack of water and fertilizer?Have you ever seen a good harvest being secretly cut off by a neighboring village in the middle of the night?

Even if everything goes well, if you plant grain and thresh the grain, you have to use a stone mill to remove the husks if you want to eat it.In the past, anyone who could save money to hire a stonemason to carve a stone mill was considered a family heirloom.

People and livestock depend on it to fill their stomachs. Millet and sorghum are ground in circles, and the fine ones are sifted out for people to eat, while the coarse ones are fed to chickens and pigs.

When it comes to separation, everything is easy to divide, but there is no way to divide with a stone mill.In order to grab this treasure, brothers can fight.

To grind the mill, you have to have strength, you have to use a big animal, or you have to push it by yourself.My father was the one who was pushed to death. When he walked, his hands and feet were as thin as hemp sticks, and the bones in his chest protruded outwards. How many can be counted. "

After the old shepherd finished speaking, the village chief yelled a few times, the substation at the entrance of the village closed, and there was a buzzing sound from the nearby mill.Someone picked a load of corn into it, and after a while it turned into a load of cornmeal and came out.

All the people in the village were overjoyed, but the old shepherd didn't come forward, grinning his toothless mouth, and accompanied Zhou Qingfeng with a chuckle, "This steel mill is really good, it grinds quickly and finely. Cornmeal is also better than sorghum and sweet potatoes.

Last year, the government provided electricity to the neighboring village, and the whole village chipped in to buy steel mills and water pumps. They earned back the money they spent that year, and made a fortune, able to marry a new wife and have a new baby.

This electricity is even better.With it, you can do everything quickly and save a lot of trouble.

Our village was looking forward to it at the beginning of the year. Everyone went to open up wasteland by themselves, dug up the barren slopes where no trees grew, plowed and dug ditches, repaired canals and paved roads, and piled grass roots and wood together to burn ashes, and carried manure in baskets to mix ashes compost.

I haven't seen such a thing for many years. Everyone is looking forward to having a water pump to open up a few more acres of land and harvest more grain.The government also exempted the village from taxes, which has done great things for the poor, thank you so much. "

The old shepherd had rough palms, pulling Zhou Qingfeng and talking non-stop.The latter just smiled and nodded in response.

The village in front of me is the merger of seven or eight nearby villages.The government paid for the construction of new houses and new homes, and also built supporting water conservancy and power facilities.There are demonstration villages as role models, and farmers see the benefits of "merging villages and towns", and their resistance is greatly reduced.

The old shepherd cheered a few times, then lowered his voice, pulled Zhou Qingfeng's sleeve and asked, "I heard from the radio that the country is at war with foreigners, and it's quite a big one. What about America and Russia? .”

Zhou Qingfeng nodded with a smile, "Yes, they have been fighting."

"I heard that the beating was terrible." The old shepherd looked worried, "Many people died."

"Yes, including northern Xinjiang, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and other places, the army has suffered more than one million casualties over the years."

How much is a million? Even the old shepherd can't count the number.The village where he lived originally had only 200 households with a population of more than 400.There are only more than 3000 households and less than [-] people in the merged villages.

"So many people died? Are we going to be overwhelmed?" Hearing that there were millions of casualties, the old shepherd was even more worried, and asked again: "What if we can't be beaten?

Back then, the Empress Dowager Cixi was chased from the capital by foreigners and fled to Shaanxi, just like a bereaved dog.This is going to happen again, is it going to change the dynasty again? "

Zhou Qingfeng shook his head, "Impossible, we are the ones beating foreigners now. Foreigners will kneel down and beg for mercy."

"Nonsense." The old shepherd didn't believe it at all, "foreigners are powerful, it would be good if they didn't beat us to the knees and begged for mercy. You can't believe all the words in this electric speaker, most of them are bragging and too unreasonable.

A few years ago, when the village came to recruit soldiers, I stopped the young people in the village from letting them go.I have seen the days of war and chaos, swords and guns have no eyes, and you can't come back when you go.

But now it is not as good as in previous years, and the good times are just beginning, so we can't let foreigners ruin it again.When the village comes to conscript again next year, I will let all the young people in the village go. "

After finishing speaking, the old shepherd patted Zhou Qingfeng on the shoulder, got up and raised the whip in his hand, "Don't worry, we people are sensible, we know who is good and who is bad, and we know who to help and beat whom."

The whip cracked, and the sheep grazing on the hillside bleated and ran towards the old shepherd.

Zhou Qingfeng looked at the villagers who were celebrating the New Year, and at the electric wires erected along the mountains and ravines. He sighed and laughed, feeling happy.

The secretary approached and said in a low voice:

"Chief, the imperial capital called. The US ambassador to China is still lingering and refuses to leave, saying that he wants to see our highest level. The US government hopes to seek the bottom line of our negotiations and wants to end the war."

"It's only been a few days since we fought, and I just want to stop the war." Zhou Qingfeng shook his head with a smile, "Let's talk about it in a few years." He pointed to the village in the valley, "Our problem is internal, in the five or six million Ordinary citizens.

But China is a big country, as long as there is no internal chaos, no one can do anything to us.Let Europe and the United States beat a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood first.Because the future...is in our hands! "

(End of the article)