Thirteen prisons

Chapter 24

Zhou Yuan nodded, although he was a little surprised why he needed to start from the beginning when he said he was sick, but he still tried his best to relax himself.Prepare to hear what Yan Yi will say.

Yan Yi's narration is a story with a long time span. According to him, it is a personal experience, and that is the first time he saw the onset of this disease.

It was the autumn of 1969, when Yan Yi was only 19 years old.

The group of people born in the 50s had a complicated and tortuous experience. In that era of violent turmoil, people’s identities and situations were different almost every day. According to normal social laws, the conditions of the two were similar in all aspects. Young people, 30 years later, may be good or bad. There are reasons for this. For example, one is diligent and motivated, or has better luck, and finally becomes a successful person, while the other is obliterated by everyone. You can see the difference slightly. You can accept it once you think about it.

But the people of that era were different. Under the uncontrollable current situation, it was completely resigned to the fate of the individual's fate to be hit by the tide.

Zhou Yuan felt that what Yan Yi said made sense.He could see that although Yan Yi was not young, the calm and graceful temperament in his body must have been maintained in a certain field for a long time, so he could slowly develop it.But he came from that era and said that, it seems that besides his personal ability, good luck should also be a factor for him to have the financial resources he has now.

In short, from the beginning, Zhou Yuan couldn't guess what happened to him when he was young, so he became curious.

Yan Yi's father was a soldier. After liberation, he was demobilized in Sichuan and worked as a factory worker. He died unexpectedly when he was very young and was awarded the title of martyr.This was an unfortunate event, but when the movement started a few years later, it saved Yan Yi from many possible troubles.

Speaking of this, Yan Yi sighed, his eyes became a little dazed, and he said a word in a very soft voice. He didn't know if he said it to Zhou Yuan and the others, or he said to himself: "This is fate."

At the beginning of that well-known movement, Yan Yi was a well-born Red Guard with a high revolutionary passion in his heart. In 66, he went to Beijing by train.After returning, he responded to the call and took the initiative to sign up to go to the mountains and the countryside.Because I was very young at the time, I didn’t go out of the province, but after all, I grew up in the city, and the place where I went to the countryside was very remote, and life in the village was very hard. It's hard.Yan Yi's mother loved him very much, and finally managed to get him back after more than a year.Although Yan Yi only mentioned these things in a few sentences without elaborating, he can still roughly understand from the plain language that this experience brought a certain impact on the young him, which was brought about by the huge contrast between ideals and reality. of.

Not long after he returned to the city, he was lucky enough to meet a recruiter.At that time, it was not like now that you can choose your own career and submit a resume for an interview. All enterprises are state-owned.No one dares to do business on their own, that is the "tail of capitalism", and if caught, they will be knocked down immediately.Therefore, being able to have a stable wage-earning job will be envied by people as "eating from the public".Moreover, it was emphasized at the time that "workers and peasants are the leading class", so the identity of an ordinary worker is worth showing off.

In addition to workers, there are some collective enterprises. If it is a position that can hold some actual power, such as chef, salesperson, etc., it is also considered good.There are many educated youths who have returned from going to the mountains and the countryside. Most of them just stay at home and have nothing to do. It is rare to encounter such an opportunity to recruit workers.

The reason why it is said that they are lucky is that this time they recruited workers, and the number of workers is relatively large. Regardless of whether they can be recruited in the end, this news still makes Yan Yi very excited, at least it is a way out.His father passed away early, and of course he would not be punished in previous campaigns. On the other hand, his contacts in those years were gradually withering, so he didn't dare to have too much hope for being recruited.

The recruitment application process is very complicated, the first is the political review.In that era of unprecedented political sensitivity, no matter what you do, the first thing you care about is identity, which is nothing to say.But what made him feel a little strange was that the review this time was very strict, almost reaching the standard for joining the army, but Yan Yi's only advantage happened to be his innocence, so when the admission notice came out, he and his mother could be at home. Said to be embracing and crying.

Yan Yi, who didn't arrive, packed up his simple luggage and gathered at the station as early as the day stipulated in the notice. He found that there were dozens of young people like him. For them, this is already the best future they can think of.He also found acquaintances in the crowd, but after talking with them, he found that they were the same as themselves, besides the uncontrollable excitement, there was also confusion.Because they only know the name of the factory is Huaguang Machinery Factory, but they don't know what it does or where it is located.

If something like this happened today, the first reaction of the person involved must be: This is a scam.But in those years, it was impossible for Yan Yi and the others to have such an idea, and of course this kind of thing would not happen.When they were full of passionate fantasies that they would soon be able to go to work and contribute to socialist construction, a truck drove over, and a middle-aged man in military uniform got off. He was their interviewer at the time. I knew that he was the army representative in the factory.This shows that the factory is a military factory, so the military will send someone as a plenipotentiary representative in the factory to be responsible for monitoring, coordination and other work, with great power.It's just that Yan Yi and the others didn't know it at the time.

The military representative changed his calm manner during the interview and looked very serious. After the assembly, he didn't explain anything, and directly gave an order: put the package in the truck, and then run forward as a group.Yan Yi and the others couldn't ask why, so they just ran forward with the army representative's trolley. Because there were some girls in the team, they couldn't bear it after running for a long time, and then they just walked all the way.Thinking that it will inevitably be this kind of militarized management in the future, Yan Yi already felt a little regretful in his heart at this time.

What they didn't expect was that this trip lasted a full eleven days.I got up before dawn and didn't arrange accommodation until dark. The more I walked, the more remote I was.That place is located in Daba Mountain in Sichuan, which stretches for hundreds of miles. After they passed the last small county town, they found that the direction to continue going was a deep mountain.The area was obviously uninhabited before, but now has a very rough road.On the third night after walking through that county, they finally arrived at their destination. There were several very large factory-like buildings with slogans such as "I dedicate my youth to the motherland" written on the walls. There are many people around the factory. Tent, it seems that many people have been here before them.

Looking at the construction site in front of him, the surrounding barren hills, passionate slogans, and simple tents, 19-year-old Yan Yi has mixed feelings.All buildings are built from scratch from now on. The young people of their generation are not afraid of hardship, but the question is how long will they stay here?Is it five years, ten years, or a lifetime?This subconscious panic made him a little overwhelmed, but like other companions, Yan Yi didn't think about it carefully. After all, the idea of ​​dedicating everything to the country is an undoubted truth in their minds.At the same time, the future is still too far away for teenagers.

Yan Yi just stayed in this deep mountain ditch.There are more than ten different workshops scattered in a radius of more than 30 kilometers throughout the mountain. After training in various secrecy rules in the early stage, he knows that this is the mysterious third-line construction, and their factory is related to the production of military equipment.From the autumn of 68 to the summer of 69, it took nearly a year for the infrastructure of the entire factory to be completely completed.After part of the engineering soldiers withdrew, various machinery and equipment continued to be brought in, followed by many newly recruited young workers, as well as some skilled technicians to guide them.

During this year, Yan Yi never returned home, but only sent two letters. The letter did not mention the specific location or the real situation here, but said that he had become a fitter, and sent the 200 yuan he had saved with the letter. Money and one hundred catties of food stamps, the mother received the letter and the money, seeing that Yan Yi was doing well, so she was relieved.

Although it is very lonely in the mountains, the salary is really good, and the daily work is very fulfilling, plus there are a few acquaintances, we often eat and chat together, so it is not too lonely.If it continues like this, Yan Yi should be like many retired old men in factories by now, playing chess and fishing every day.But this peaceful life lasted only two years.

At the beginning of the 70s, the movement had reached its climax, and the fighting across the country had also developed to a crazy point.The Huaguang Machinery Factory in the mountains was finally inevitably affected.

Zhou Yuan was listening with gusto, when suddenly Lao Hu interrupted Yan Yi's narration: "Master, I know that old people like to look back on the past, but once you started to hurt Chen's family history, how could I Do you think you can’t stop the car? Tell me something about Zhou Yuan’s illness.”

Although Lao Hu's words sounded a bit impolite, Zhou Yuan secretly praised him.He has no resistance to this kind of old story, and he is fascinated by it.Now that I think about it, maybe the old man deliberately diverted his attention, talking about some things, while thinking about how to fool him.And this kind of thing is not awkward and embarrassing when someone like Lao Hu, who looks reckless on the outside, does it.

Yan Yi didn't respond to this, took a sip of tea, sighed and said: "When people are old, they talk a bit long-winded. But this incident is very unbelievable, so I will start from the beginning, including the general environment at that time, so that you can understand the cause and effect. "

Lao Hu is typical of rough outside and thin inside, so he immediately reacted: "Is the address of Huaguang Machinery Factory near this town?"

Sure enough, Yan Yi nodded: "You guessed right, this town came into existence slowly because of this factory. The young people here probably don't know the history for a long time, because Huaguang Machinery Factory has long since ceased to exist. .”

Zhou Yuan refocused his attention and listened, he had a faint feeling that Yan Yi's story was coming to the point.

(End of this chapter)