Chapter 3: The Old General Was Still There That Year

  Chu Si Nan suddenly lifted his head, only to discover that the black gate was actually a large prison. On both sides of a narrow corridor were cages made up of thumb-thick iron bars, and inside those cages were old men wearing worn-out white military uniforms.

  They stared at him with eyes as if they were looking at a monster, and Chu Si Nan felt his hair stand on end. What kind of people are these? Are they really traitors and rebels?

  "Quick march!" The soldier behind him who was responsible for escorting him in gave him a push from the back, causing him to stumble forward.

  Chu Si Nan turned her head back, glared at him fiercely, then shook her head and walked forward by herself.

  "Uggghhh..." The old guys in those cells suddenly let out a strange, mournful cry.

  "This little yellow-skinned kid isn't bad, has some guts, dares to stare down these Bellian dog legs."

  "Uh-huh, I like it."

  ……

  The prison erupted in another round of heated discussion, but this time it was to applaud the glare Chu Si Nan had just given.

  "Clang!" The iron gate closed behind Chu Si Nan, and after several days of fleeing, he had just spent a day in discomfort. Now, he found himself in a new environment - prison.

  In this cage of only a few square meters, Chu Si Nan looked around. It was empty except for an old military bed and a toilet, nothing else. In such a place, he still didn't know how long he would stay.

  "Hey, little guy, what's your name? Why are you locked up in here?" Just as Chu Si Nan was feeling anxious, a voice that was both calm and authoritative came from outside the iron bars, its tone strong and metallic, like the clash of metal.

  "Chu Si Nan," Chu Si Nan replied absent-mindedly, "As for the charges that put me in here, I'm not entirely clear myself, but presumably it's something like espionage or intent to subvert the great Soviet regime."

  "Oh, I'm not asking about those things," the old and powerful voice continued to say. "I suppose anyone who can be locked up here must have such a crime on their back. What I'm asking is who you provoked, so that you were thrown into this place? Hehe, I'm afraid no one who comes in here can walk out alive. But looking at your young age, it doesn't seem like you're the kind of person who could threaten anyone. How strange, how strange."

  "If it's about offending someone, then yes, there is that, but it's just because of some differing military opinions, not to the point of being so vicious, right?" Chu Si Nan slammed his fist on the iron railing beside him as he spoke indignantly.

  "Oh, a military issue? What is it, tell me." The old voice sounded somewhat agitated, clearly the two words "military" had struck a nerve.

  "Yes, yes, come on and talk about it. Being cooped up in this place all day is enough to suffocate a person." A chorus of agreement echoed through the vast prison.

  Chu Si Nan turned around and looked in the direction of the opposite side. He saw two old men in military uniforms, about 50 or 60 years old, standing inside the iron fence on the other side. They were staring at him intently, obviously waiting for his response.

  Chu Si Nan hesitated for a moment, recalling the words Klyuchkov had said to him before he came in, trying to minimize contact with these people. However, he could sense that the two bearded old men opposite him had a strong military aura about them, an aura that couldn't be faked and could only be cultivated through intense combat.

  There is no doubt that Chu Si Nan had a good impression of the real soldiers, whether they were enemies or comrades. As a true soldier, the enemy deserved respect and friends should be cherished even more. So he opened his mouth and told everything that had happened before without reservation. Although he didn't say why he knew so much, he talked about the real situation outside and the dangerous situation, even some strategic methods against the German army that he had figured out himself.

  When Chu Si Nan spoke, the entire originally noisy prison fell silent. Although they couldn't be seen, Chu Si Nan knew that everyone was definitely perked up their ears to listen. They were all extremely concerned about these matters.

  After Chu Si Nan had made everything clear, the large prison was still silent, with no one speaking, not even a faint sound of breathing could be heard.

  After a long time, a loud and powerful voice said: "How can war be fought like this? This is irresponsible, extremely irresponsible. I used to advocate for emphasizing the close combat coordination between armored troops, artillery troops and air force. Now that several years have passed, our army still appears so disorganized when facing such a way of fighting...... Oh, Yaroslav, Uborevich, wasn't our army trained like this in the first place?"

  "Ah, Mikhail, it's not like the old days," another voice sighed in the cell next to Chusov's. "Now people like Khrushchev can talk big about military affairs, where will our army end up? Blyukher, what do you say?"

  No one answered his question; the only response was a deep sigh from an old soldier sitting opposite him.

  What is Chu Si Nan doing at this time? He was unconscious, completely unconscious. He didn't know what kind of place he had been locked up in, but he knew that among the people living with him in the same cell were some figures whose stories would shock the entire Soviet Union if they got out.

  Yaroslav, Uborevich, two former Soviet First-Class Army Commanders, glorious veterans of the Soviet Revolution, as for calling out their names and being affectionately called Mikhail by them, Chu Si Nan could roughly guess that he was probably the military leader who was valued by Lenin, performed outstandingly in the Soviet Civil War, and was one of the earliest to propose perfecting the organizational structure of the army, air force, mechanized troops, and airborne troops working together - Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the founding marshal with unparalleled prestige throughout the Soviet Army. In his time, people like Zhukov, Budyonny, and Chuikov had to step aside.

  There is also Blyukher, who was once known as Galen, and went to China to support the Xinhai Revolution. The old general's name was also familiar to Chu Si-nan. It is remembered that a veteran revolutionary from the country had written a poem during his visit to the Soviet Union after liberation to mourn the old general: "Not seeing Galen for thirty years, east expedition and north expedition cost support. I come to Buryatia with many nostalgia, wanting to go to Honghe to recognize the claw marks."

  But weren't these people killed in the Great Purge? How can they appear here? Is it a mistake of history or a deviation from reality? Whatever it is, Chu Si Nan felt that this was the most memorable moment in his life. He finally saw another group of people who shouldn't have appeared in this space-time, a group of former heroic figures.