Chapter 684 Do you understand?

“uncle……”

Under the light in the room, Xu Chaoyang looked at him with a dark face, but his attitude remained the most normal and he said, “There’s going to be a war in Shanxi…”

“I’m a little worried about Fuzhen, do you think this will work…”

Li Wanchao first looked up at Xu Chaoyang, and then immediately responded: “Okay, I’ll arrange for someone to go over there right away.”

He heard something from Xu Chaoyang’s speaking speed, but he didn’t dare to believe it.

Xu Chaoyang smiled: “What I mean is…”

“Slaying the mill and killing the donkey?”

Li Wanchao contradicted Xu Chaoyang for the first time, and then he slowly and seriously said the core of his words: “You have to get rid of me!”

“Chaoyang, look at me, I’m your uncle!”

“I even sold out the people of Badashan just to help you stock up on food!”

“Come on, look at me, look at me!”

Xu Chaoyang turned his face away when he spoke, and Li Wanchao no longer had the same respect as before. He walked forward and kept pulling Xu Chaoyang.

After a long while, he finally said with a look of astonishment on his face: “You have to give me a reason, right?”

He didn’t believe that Xu Chaoyang would chase him away just because he had a few words with those young people in the county government. At the same time, he began to understand why some generals would rise up in arms to “clear the court” once they encountered grievances. There must be bad people in the court!
“Is it General Yang?”

Li Wanchao reacted very quickly: “He has been looking at me in a strange way these past two days, as if I had snatched his affection from him. Does he think that I am favored by you and that he has been neglected?”

“Chaoyang, if this is true, as the top leader, you have to be able to balance the relationship, you have to…”

Li Wanchao has trapped himself in a circle and cannot get out. He does not understand what the times and trends are, and is still analyzing everything with the simplest interpersonal relationships…

Xu Chaoyang spoke.

“Why does it have to be related to someone else?”

Li Wanchao waved his hand angrily: “Don’t try that on me!”

“Who else could it be if not Yang Jingyu? I am your brother-in-law and Yuan Fuzhen’s biological uncle. Even if the day comes when you achieve great things and the good bows are put away, it will not be my turn. We are relatives. In ancient times, I was a relative by marriage!”

“Besides, I’m not leading the army yet, so all your doubts are not on me. If one day you start to be afraid of the power in my hands, you will understand in your heart that your uncle is only after fame and fortune. All the emperors in ancient times were in the same group, so how could they not let their subjects seek fame and wealth? That is a means to win people’s hearts!”

He didn’t understand, and he still doesn’t understand it now.

Isn’t it just a quarrel?
Isn’t it just a few words of criticism?
What’s the matter!
“uncle……”

At this time, Xu Chaoyang said, “From what I know about you, you never say empty words. As long as you can say something, there must be facts behind it… Let me ask you, is there anyone who has started gambling in Xin County?”

Li Wanchao nodded, but his eyes were always fixed on Xu Chaoyang.

“take me.”

Li Wanchao sighed and said, “These are all trivial matters…” He felt that the rift between him and his nephew’s husband was the most important. One or two gambling games were not as urgent as the current situation, so…

“take me!”

Xu Chaoyang held his waist, walked out of the house, and shouted: “Qu Yong! Guard battalion assemble!”

Late in the night, all the guards in the battalion who had already gone to bed were awakened by Xu Chaoyang’s shout. There were “cracking” sounds in the barracks, but the soldiers all stood outside the courtyard according to the standards of emergency assembly. Even Shen Guaizi and Qu Yong were in neat uniforms without any signs of procrastination.

These are the soldiers brought by Xu Chaoyang!

“kidnapper!”

“Send someone to rule the county magistrate and the county security team…” At this moment, Xu Chaoyang turned his head and looked at Li Wanchao: “Let’s go?”

Li Wanchao pouted, came out of the house with a choked voice, and walked out of the headquarters compound with his head down.

The streets of Xin County are very quiet, and you can hear snoring coming from the houses after every few steps.

Autumn harvest is tiring. Xu Chaoyang is so tired that his waist can’t even bend. How can others not be tired?

But even so, the guards with mucus in their eyes were still in neat formation. Without even opening their eyes, they followed Xu Chaoyang silently through the streets of Xin County.

There is not even a proper road on that street. The bomb craters on the road surface are filled with soil from the mountains outside the city. The soil is still fresh. There are unfinished houses on both sides of the street. Many people do not have their own homes and still live in temporary “public housing”. This is the current environment in Xin County.

However, there was no smell of gunpowder in Xin County at this time. Occasionally, laughter and joy could be heard in more new houses. Then, these words would fall silent like the night, and snoring would be heard again.

In such an environment, Xu Chaoyang walked slowly with his hands behind his back, feeling relaxed and happy as if he was admiring his own masterpiece.

Judging from his expression, Li Wanchao seemed to no longer be a problem. It was as if he had made some decision in the dark, and there was no emotion in his body.

“Southside.”

The team moving eastward turned to the right. There was a dilapidated house that was not destroyed during the Japanese attack. Later, because Liu Gen’er’s father-in-law had many female relatives and was a local gentry after the land was divided equally, and Liu Gen’er, a war hero, was his son-in-law, this small courtyard was allocated to their family.

There are three rooms in the courtyard, three main rooms and two side rooms on each side. There are cellars and wells in the courtyard. Although it is not as good as the original gentry courtyard, it is much better than other houses in Xin County after the war.

“arrive.”

Li Wanchao stopped at the gate of the courtyard. In this not-so-cold weather, he put his hands in his pockets, chin in his hands, and glanced to the side at Xu Chaoyang.

Xu Chaoyang didn’t even waste words: “Open the door.”

The big guy stood at the foot of the wall without a running start. He reached the top of the wall with a slight jump. He used his arms to pull his flattened body up and directly climbed over the wall. About ten seconds later, the bolt had been removed.

“Enter!”

Qu Yong rushed in and started shouting as soon as he entered the room: “Don’t move!”

“Don’t even move!!!”

“what!!!”

“What’s going on!”

The whole yard was in turmoil because of them, as if a hornet’s nest had been disturbed. The whole yard was filled with the shouts of women, but the strange thing was that Xu Chaoyang didn’t hear any male voice at all.

Qu Yong stepped out of the room embarrassedly and stood in front of Xu Chaoyang with a pout: “Brother, they are all women, and they are all in bed, what should we do?”

Xu Chaoyang turned his head and glanced at Li Wanchao.

Li Wanchao pointed at the cellar.

Qu Yong turned around and rushed to the cellar. As soon as he opened the cellar cover, the dim yellow light of an oil lamp came out.

“Come out! If you keep hiding, I’ll throw a grenade in there!”

“Don’t do that, Master!”

“Don’t!”

one……

two……

……

Xu Chaoyang stood at the gate of the courtyard, checking the common people who kept coming out of the cellar, and counted eleven in a row!
He couldn’t imagine how so many people could have squeezed into a cellar!

After everyone came up, Qu Yong led the soldiers in. After a short while, they moved a small wooden table out from inside. When the soldiers took the wooden table out from the cellar, the border area tickets and notes on the table were all over the table, and they all fell to the ground along the edge of the table.

Xu Chaoyang watched as the table was moved in front of him. There were border area tickets with “Yan’an Guanghua Store Coupons” printed on it in denominations of 2 cents, 50 cents, and 75 cents. There was not even a whole dollar bill on it!
This money was the currency that Xu Chaoyang exchanged with Meizi from Yan’an and was used for currency circulation in Xinzhou. It was first distributed in the form of wages to the workers in thermal power plants, arsenals, clothing factories, and military food production and processing plants. After all, these workers did not farm, they also had to make a living, so they could only receive wages.

But when Xu Chaoyang picked up the papers again, it said ‘due to family difficulties, borrowing 30 kilograms of millet’, and there were handprints on them!
Xu Chaoyang was already getting angry!

Xinzhou has just had a good harvest, and the crops in the fields have not been harvested yet. The farmers are now eating rationed grain, which is the grain that Li Wanchao spent money to stockpile in advance. Now that the harvest has come, the grain has not been distributed yet. Are you all going to lose by writing them into IOUs?

Ah!
Li Wanchao put his hands down in front of his stomach, looked up at the moon, and the smugness on his face…

Xu Chaoyang picked up another piece of paper, on which was a land deed with the seal of “Xin County Government”. This was not Yan Laoxizi’s seal, but the land deed issued by the county government when the land was divided!
One, two, three…six.

Xu Chaoyang picked up six of them from the table, six!
Snapped.

At that time, a Pai Gow card that was pressed on the land deed was pulled down by Xu Chaoyang. The moment he picked it up, he could see clearly in the moonlight that it was a Pai Gow card made of wood. It was not even painted, and the logo on it was just hand-digged holes, and the holes were not round!
Can you play it like this?!
In Northeast China, there is a saying that describes this thing very aptly, “With a small deck of cards, you can bury your life and property.” The word “gambling” has killed so many people from ancient times to the present. How can people have no shame at all?

Xu Chaoyang seemed to feel that there was not enough air. He took a deep breath and threw the card onto the table with a “click”.

He turned back and looked at Li Wanchao: “If it were up to you, how should we deal with it?”

Li Wanchao immediately said: “In troubled times, we need to focus on the key points. These things should all collapse. After they collapse, hang them on the top of the high poles and put the gambling table at their feet to serve as a warning to others!”

He is right…

If Xu Chaoyang had not gone to Yan’an, he would definitely feel the same way.

But this time, Xu Chaoyang didn’t say anything, but walked towards the gamblers in the yard.

He saw it, saw those extremely aggrieved faces, and the terrified expression of Liu Gener’s father-in-law!

“Commander…” Liu Gen’er’s father-in-law had just said two words, but Xu Chaoyang didn’t even listen. He turned around and rushed towards him with his back.

In times of chaos, severe punishments are used. Actually, there is nothing wrong with this situation. But if we follow this theory, the first person to collapse should be Xu Chaoyang!

How much trouble has he gotten into?

The second one must be Wang Jinshan; the next one is Xu Kaiguo!
Qu Yongna should have died a hundred and eighty times!
Otherwise, what do you have to say is fair?
“report!”

At this time, a voice came from outside the door. When Xu Chaoyang looked up, several young people were already standing at the door.

Xu Chaoyang saw that the leader was only about 24 or 25 years old, but he was already the head of Xin County sent from Yan’an…

“County Magistrate Yu, come here.”

Xu Chaoyang smiled and hooked his finger at the young man. When County Magistrate Yu walked up to Xu Chaoyang, he immediately looked embarrassed when he saw the gambling table: “Chief.”

Xu Chaoyang pointed to the Pai Gow, land deeds, and border area tickets on the table and asked, “Tell me, what should we do with it?”

“I… failed in my duty.”

County Magistrate Yu lowered his head first and said seriously: “The county (committee) should start with itself, collectively carry out criticism and self-criticism, and write two self-criticisms, one to be submitted to the higher authorities and one to the military sub-district.”

“From now on, such incidents will never be allowed to happen again…”

Xu Chaoyang didn’t let him finish. He turned his head to look at Li Wanchao and asked, “Do you understand?”

Li Wanchao was stunned!

He spread his hands and said, “No… why? He is the county magistrate, he is here to deal with things. The gambling has not spread on a large scale, nor has he condoned it, nor has it been repeatedly banned. What’s wrong with that?”

Xu Chaoyang put the question aside and turned back to look at County Magistrate Yu: “Tell me more about how to deal with these people.”

There is no need to interrogate him. Just from the terrified expression on the squire’s face, one can tell that it must have been him who set the trap.

“Confiscate the gambling money, and make the person who set up the scheme to make a self-criticism in front of the whole county. At the same time, educate him. If he commits the same offense again…”

“A woman’s kindness!”

“Woman’s kindness!!”

Li Wanchao couldn’t stand it anymore, so he stood up and pointed at County Magistrate Yu and scolded him, “You are indecisive and slow in your work!”

“If you’re afraid of offending people, you might as well not be an official!”

“What kind of education is this? Huh?”

“Educate whom?”

“I know this kind of person very well…” He raised his hand and pointed directly at Liu Gen’er’s father-in-law: “He relies on his little cleverness, knows the weaknesses of human hearts and is good at taking advantage of human nature. He racks his brains all his life to care about petty intrigues!”

“It’s better to shoot him immediately than to educate him!”

This is the confidence behind what the rich man in the movie “1942” said: “In less than ten years, I will still be the boss!” People like them are better at scheming than others.

“Chaoyang, this guy is not suitable to be a county magistrate. In my opinion, he is not even qualified to be a production team leader.”

Li Wanchao was panting with anger. If he had the final say, the first thing he would do would be to kick the county magistrate out of office.

“So, kill these people, remove them to County Magistrate Yu, hang the bodies on the city wall, and put the gambling table under the bodies. That’s how you deal with this matter, right?”

Xu Chaoyang looked at Li Wanchao and asked.

“Yes!” Li Wanchao didn’t feel there was any problem at all.

Xu Chaoyang put his arm around Li Wanchao’s shoulder and walked slowly out of the courtyard. Before leaving, he said to County Magistrate Yu, “You handle your business according to the rules.” After that, he walked out of the courtyard under the moonlight.

At that time, there were stones buried in the soil with their heads sticking out on the dirt roads of Xin County.

At that time, the streets of Xin County still had half of the houses not yet built.

He and Li Wanchao walked back to the headquarters step by step…

Xu Chaoyang finally understood the significance of Yan’an’s existence. At this moment, all the things he had memorized in the army in his previous life were no longer words, but melted into the whole world.

“Uncle, do you know that when these people were still in the Soviet area and were still called ‘red bandits’, the first people to accept them were not smart people like you who were in high positions.”

Xu Chaoyang looked back and saw the county security team taking the gamblers out of the courtyard. He said slowly, “It’s them.”

“These are the untouchables who are so stupid in your eyes that they are hopelessly stupid and no longer need to be educated.”

Li Wanchao didn’t leave. Xu Chaoyang saw clearly his posture of staring hard with eyes wide open as if trying to speak!
But Li Wanchao held back. Even though his emotions were already overwhelmed, he still held back.

Xu Chaoyang then spoke up, “And what were you smart people doing at that time? You were sneering, watching, and criticizing the path we were taking, but you were holding on tightly to the road to heaven in your hands and refused to let go.”

“Then tell me, who should we hug?”

“Is it the people who are more stupid in your eyes but have accepted us, or are you who are wearing long gowns, with your hands behind your back, licking your belly and want to say something, and are still prepared to continue to treat us as ‘little brothers’?”

Li Wanchao finally blurted out what was in his mind: “Isn’t this different? Aren’t you also planning to use them…”

“That’s exactly different!”

For the first time, Xu Chaoyang emphasized his tone and said, “Completely different.”

“We need them, and we care whether they live or die;”

“You are the ones who are using them, even at the cost of their lives to achieve your goals!” Xu Chaoyang didn’t understand this when he was in Inner Mongolia. No, to be more precise, the definitions of ‘understand’ and ‘understand’ are different. He knew this truth at the time, but he didn’t understand the meaning of the existence of this world.

“In the eyes of people like you, the explosion at Huayuankou is just what should happen. In the eyes of people like you, sacrifice should be like this, and should start from the bottom. Who made you weak?”

“We…are not.”

Li Wanchao found that the conversation between the two of them had changed. Before this, he thought that he and Xu Chaoyang were “us”.

“What do you mean by you, us, and theirs?” He was pretending not to understand, the kind of pretending not to understand that refused to accept the reality. Xu Chaoyang could see it.

“You are smart people who already have inherent behavioral patterns under the feudal state. The reason why you are not easy to accept new things is that you want to use your existing thinking framework to distinguish the pros and cons, and choose stability between the unknown and conservative.”

“They are ordinary people with weak thinking ability. The world they live in is probably just the village in front of them. They are easily moved by anyone who treats them well and will become emotional if they are slightly provoked. You don’t even need to play with them at the poker table. They will bet their wives and children with just a few provocative words.”

“We are the ones who picked you guys out and eliminated you when you pushed them to the poker table and could have abandoned them at any time. Then we taught them that they shouldn’t gamble, instead of emptying their pockets of the pitiful money to enrich ourselves!”

“The root of the solution to this problem is to tell them ‘don’t gamble’, even if they haven’t heard it for thousands of years, and it has been wasting the energy of those in power from ancient times to the present, but they still have to do it;”

“Instead of dealing with the people who caused this to happen, they should just do the same as the Qing Dynasty, which banned backgammon as soon as it was discovered. They would arrest and chop off anyone who played it without asking why!”

“Without backgammon, there’s no gambling? With Prohibition in America, there’s no alcohol?”

This is what makes this generation truly great; they dare to face challenges head-on.

Xu Chaoyang knows even more about the greatness of this generation, so great that… they won’t even leave any inheritance after their death, and some don’t even have children. They are not doing this for themselves, but have proved this with their actions.

This is not something that is spoken out, but rather a belief that the older generation has always held on to.

It was not until this moment that Xu Chaoyang could fully empathize with the situation and express his “ideal” in words.

He was not talking about the card game, but the whole world. The common people are willing to follow this group of people. The real purpose is not entirely because someone is good to them, but also because someone has told them what the world is like. After you have understood what the world is like, know how small you are, and how many times you have been abandoned in history, you will be rewarded by this group of people who have never given up on you.

Otherwise, why do you think they shout, “Fire at me for victory!” Can this be exchanged for promotion or wealth?
Otherwise, do you think anyone would sacrifice themselves to block the bullet hole? Is this a promise that can be fulfilled? How could it be possible if these people were not willing?

Otherwise, do you think anyone can remain motionless under a raging fire; anyone can use their body to power telephone lines? Until the era of Xu Chaoyang, did communications soldiers still have to receive education in such extreme environments?
This is what they want to do. What they want to do is not just to distribute the land equally. What they want to do is to distribute the land equally evenly when everyone knows that you are weak. This group of people will still smile at you and not give up on you.

Then turn around and take you to yell at the people who once bullied you!

Can you not risk your life following them?
Li Wanchao’s body shook: “Chaoyang, you are possessed.”

“The things you said can’t possibly exist. Absolutely not!”

“Are you awake?”

“Chaoyang, I’m your uncle… I’m the one who sacrificed my family to help you out, raised an army, and wanted to put you on the throne. This white hat is given to you by me, it’s me!”

“It’s me…”

On the street, Li Wanchao grabbed Xu Chaoyang’s clothes and leaned down. He seemed to see his own doomsday in the other’s eyes… No, he saw the doomsday of their kind in this environment.

That’s why he tried his best to tell Xu Chaoyang what he, Li Wanchao, had done, trying to use family ties to bring this man back to his camp.

Just, how is that possible?

Xu Chaoyang held Li Wanchao’s arms, and at this moment he finally understood the whole era and said, “Uncle, it’s all over.”

The feudal dynasty is over, the warlord era is over, and in Xu Chaoyang’s eyes, even the Jinling National Government is over, and even the misunderstanding of this era in the future is over.

At this moment, he couldn’t be more determined, and he also knew what kind of people were doing the “ideological work”. This was the real “ideological work”, and it was not just about pressuring someone to do something and repeating the same empty promises over and over again.

Xu Chaoyang is no longer a beast. He has the glory that should not belong to a beast. He can feel the warmth emanating from the shining Yan’an under the halo that is comparable to the sun.

Yan’an finally began to shine in Xu Chaoyang’s heart.

(End of this chapter)