Chapter Five: Model County
As soon as Hu Weidong's words came out, he found that everyone was staring at him with strange eyes, and suddenly realized, "I had forgotten about the blockade, salt is also a contraband, it seems that this point in 'The Shining Red Star' is quite realistic..."
"Hey, big sister, isn't there some salt in the spoils? Why didn't you add it?" Hu Weidong asked Liu Hai's wife.
"There are still many days ahead, and we must be frugal with salt." Liu Hai's wife's words received everyone's unanimous approval, but Hu Weidong disagreed. "Add it in, how can you have the strength to train and fight without eating salt? Once our strength increases, we can naturally capture more salt. Only by rapidly developing and growing stronger, and breaking through the enemy's blockade line as soon as possible, can everyone live a good life! Now if we only focus on saving, everyone will be too weak to fight, and can only watch the enemy do as they please, and everyone will continue to live in hardship..."
"The special envoy has seen the world, we'll listen to you, old lady, add salt to it, everyone's had their fill of foreign goods." Liu Hai took on an air of authority as head of the household, but his wife still only cautiously added half a spoonful to the pot, leaving Hu Weidong in awe. It seems that compared to violent slaughter, Old Chiang's blockade policy may have brought even greater disaster to the people of the base area...
At night, Hu Weidong had originally wanted to start a night school to teach the village's young people, especially the militiamen, some cultural knowledge. However, he was surprised to find that everyone knew some characters, and it turned out that he himself was slightly looked down upon because he wasn't very good at writing traditional Chinese characters. He could only make excuses by saying that he had learned to write simplified Chinese characters after returning to China, so many times he had to use homophonic characters as substitutes. Everyone expressed understanding for this.
According to Liu Hai, several villages in Changgang Township have a higher literacy rate. Young people between the ages of 12 and 18 basically reached 100%, and the 70-80% literacy rate here is already considered low. Hu Weidong only then remembered that Xingguo County was known as the "model county" of the Soviet Area, and this unique title seems not to be just because the people of Xingguo County were the most revolutionary. In terms of culture and education, Xingguo County is the best in the Central Soviet Area. However, if you say it carefully, during the few years when the Jiangxi Soviet Area was most prosperous, except for the marginal counties and guerrilla zones, the enrollment rate of young people in the Soviet Area was quite high, which is something that the trial areas supported by foreign aid in the Nationalist-controlled areas could not achieve. In this regard, Xu Teli, the "People's Educator" who is still on the Long March, made great contributions...
Anyway, it's a good thing that most of the young people in the village are literate. Hu Weidong has high expectations for them and has even started teaching them foreign languages early on (note 1) to prepare them for future wars against Japan. What's more exciting is that Liu Hai told Hu Weidong a secret: when the Red Army left, most of the equipment from the arsenal, including a "heavy artillery piece", was buried by the arsenal staff because they couldn't bear to destroy it and didn't want to waste limited explosives. They told Liu Hai, who stayed behind, about this so that the Red Army could use them again when they returned to the Soviet area.
Although Hu Weidong considered the current shortage of personnel and did not rush to bring out those treasures, however, after learning about this matter, Hu Weidong began to secretly pay attention among the militia, in order to find some military talents worth cultivating. As a top-notch military expert, he was very clear that although the people's army in history mainly obtained weapons and ammunition through capture, the Red Party's military-industrial system was also absolutely indispensable. With its own development and growth, as well as the continuous development of the revolutionary situation, its contributions were becoming increasingly significant. For example, in a large battle like the Three Great Campaigns, where the combined forces of both sides exceeded one million, without the support of ammunition produced by the ordnance factories, it would be impossible to fight solely relying on capture...
The next day, Hu Weidong led some of the militia out of the village to make contact with other villages in the township. They found that only two villages had been destroyed by the White Bandits, which made everyone feel a little relieved. In the face of harsh reality, all the villages agreed to join the defense system advocated by Hu Weidong, and young people enthusiastically signed up for the militia. This made Hu Weidong feel somewhat moved: "A model county is just a model county; it's not necessary to wait until the knife is at your throat before you know how to resist (and some people won't even resist when the knife is at their throat). But still, someone needs to take the lead. Chinese people are braver and more fearless than any other nation in the world as long as someone takes the lead, but once there's no one leading, Chinese people immediately become 'lambs' in the eyes of foreigners. No wonder they've always been promoting the idea of 'mastership consciousness'..."
Considering the enemy might arrive at Liu's village just as the militia is leaving, Hu Weidong made arrangements beforehand. Three signal trees were prepared: if there were fewer than 50 enemies, one tree would be felled; when Hu saw this, he would immediately return to the village for reinforcement. If the enemy was approaching the village, a second tree would be felled, and the militiamen must hasten their pace and rush back to the village. If all three signal trees were felled, it meant that the enemy had many troops or superior weapons; in this case, the villagers would hide in the mountains on their own initiative, and the militia should not return to the village to die. Instead, they would send someone to reconnoiter the situation before deciding what to do next...
Because of this simple and convenient remote communication method, Hu Weidong and his team dared to go all the way out, walking dozens of miles away. As a result, they discovered another village that had been attacked. This time, everyone was late, and the village was already completely destroyed. The villagers who died with their eyes open could be seen everywhere, hundreds of women and children were tied up like livestock in queues tens of meters long, probably to be taken away and sold. Apart from this, there were probably no survivors left in the village. Seeing this tragic scene, the militiamen were all filled with righteous indignation, but Hu Weidong still immediately signaled everyone to calm down, so as not to reveal any weaknesses to the enemy. This bandit gang was much stronger than the last one, not only had they 40 or 50 people, but they also had two light machine guns. If they really clashed, even if the militia team's numbers increased tenfold, they might still not be a match for them.
Note 1: In Japanese, "surrender without killing" is a phrase that everyone can recite fluently, making it convenient to capture prisoners in the future. As for higher levels, as long as you are willing to learn, Hu Weidong will teach you; if not, he won't force you, after all, foreign languages are important, but not everyone needs to be a translator. In addition to Japanese, Hu Weidong also taught English and Russian. Since he was busy with one person, he had to let the militiamen who had learned halfway through teach each other. This learning method, which is particularly suitable for times of teacher shortages, has sprouted from this and matured over time in long-term practice, making outstanding contributions to China's industrialization and modernization.
