Chapter 55 Four moved to Harbin

On the train to Harbin, only a few younger people were interested in chatting and joking, and were willing to hit the guards with a score, while others rarely spoke, even if they spoke in a low-pitched voice.There was silence in the carriage most of the time.Many people can't sleep at night and can't eat during the day.Although I am not as terrified as when I returned home, I am still more nervous than anyone else.At this time, it was the American army on the Korean battlefield approaching the Yalu River, and the Chinese People's Volunteers went abroad to resist the United States and aid Korea not long ago.One night, I saw that Pu Jie couldn't sleep like me, so I quietly asked him his opinion on the war situation.He replied sullenly: Going abroad to participate in the war is simply burning incense to attract ghosts.It's over!I understood what he meant by saying that it was over: on the one hand, he meant that China was bound to lose the battle, at least the Northeast would be occupied by the American army; to go.It was later learned that this was the common thought of the prisoners at that time.

When I arrived in Harbin and saw the house of the management office, I became even more desperate.The house of the management office was originally a prison left over from the puppet Manchukuo. When I saw it, I felt like treating someone in the same way as someone else.This prison was designed by the Japanese to detain anti-Manchu and anti-Japanese criminals. It has two floors, with a sentry platform in the center, and two fan-shaped cells around the watch platform. The front and rear of the prison cells are iron railings with a diameter of one inch.The huts are separated by cement walls, and each room can accommodate seven or eight people.There are five people living in my room, which is not too crowded, but because it is Japanese-style, I can only sleep on the floor.I lived here for about two years before I heard it was demolished.When I first moved in, I didn’t know that few prisoners who were locked here during the Puppet Manchukuo escaped alive, but just hearing the sound of the iron railing switch was enough for me. Reminds me of torture and shooting.

The treatment we received was still the same as in Fushun, the guards were still as kind, the standard of food had not changed at all, and newspapers, broadcasting, and entertainment activities were all as usual.Seeing this, although my mood has eased, I still can't stabilize it.I remember that one night, the siren was tested in the urban area, and the shrill sound could not disappear in my mind for a long time.Until I believed that the Chinese and North Korean People’s Army had indeed won consecutive victories, I always thought that if I didn’t die by the hands of the Chinese, I would have to die in the bombing of American planes.In short, at that time, I only thought that China must be defeated and I must die, and there was no other result other than this.

I still clearly remember that when we saw the news in the newspaper that the Chinese People’s Volunteers had won the first battle on the Korean front, no one believed it at the time; We still have great doubts that the People's Army has driven the U.S. troops to the vicinity of the 38th parallel.After the new year, one day a cadre from the prison stood on the guard platform and read out to everyone the news that the Chinese and North Korean troops had recovered Seoul, and the prison cells burst into applause.I was still skeptical at the time.In February, the newspaper announced regulations on punishing counter-revolutionaries, which might cause us to panic and stop reading the newspaper. We did not know the inside story, so we concluded that we had lost the battle on the Korean front, and suspected that the previous victory reports were all fake.From this I thought my doom was at hand.

One night in the middle of the night, I was awakened suddenly by the sound of the iron door. I saw many people coming out from the railing, hugging one person out of the next cell.I thought it must be that the American army was approaching Harbin, and the Communist Party finally attacked us, so I couldn't help but tremble all over.After spending the night with great difficulty, after dawn, listening to the people in the same room talking, I realized that this was a big misunderstanding.It turned out that Qu, the former elder of Siping Province, suffered from small intestinal hernia in the middle of the night. After the guard found out, he reported it to the director. The director brought military doctors and nurses to check him up, and finally sent him to the hospital.I was so overwhelmed by fear and association that I only saw the trouser legs of the military uniform, but not the white shirts of the doctors and nurses.

The resolution of this misunderstanding did not bring me much comfort.I am afraid that in addition to the sound of iron doors at night, there are also the sounds of cars during the day.Whenever I heard the sound of a car outside, I suspected that it was to pretend that we were going to a public trial. During the day, I put my energy into listening and observing all the movements outside the iron railings, and at night I was often awakened by nightmares.The situation of the four puppet Manchukuo generals who shared the room with me was not much better than mine.Like me, their appetites are getting smaller and smaller, and their voices are getting lower and lower.I remember those days, whenever there was a noise from the stairs, everyone would turn their heads to peep out the railing. If a strange face appeared on the stairs, all the noises in each cell would automatically stop, as if everyone was facing a doomsday sentence.When everyone was most desperate, a head of the public security organ came to the prison and spoke to us on behalf of the government.Only after listening to this speech did we regain our vitality.

The chief stood in front of the sentry platform and spoke to each cell for more than an hour.On behalf of the government, he clearly told us that the people's government doesn't want us to die, but wants us to learn and reflect and be reformed.He said that the Communist Party and the people's government believe that under the people's regime, most criminals can be transformed into new people.He said that the ideal of communism is to transform the world, that is, to transform society and mankind.After he finished speaking, the Director spoke for a while.Remember what he said:

You only think of death, and everything seems to be arranged for your death.You can think about it, if the people's government intends to execute you, why let you learn? You guys have a lot of weird ideas about the Korean War.Some people may think that the Volunteer Army will definitely not be able to defeat the US Army, and the US Army will definitely invade the Northeast, so they worry that the Communist Party will kill you first; some people may also superstitiously believe in the force of the United States, thinking that the American invaders are invincible.I can tell you clearly: the Chinese and North Korean people will surely defeat U.S. imperialism, and the Chinese Communist Party's policy of reforming criminals will surely win.Communists never talk empty words, facts are facts!

You might say, since you don't want to kill us, why don't you let us out?not good!If you are released without reformation, not only will you still commit crimes, but the people will not agree, and the people will not forgive you when they see you.Therefore, you must study hard and reform. Although I don't fully understand or even fully believe what the head and director said, the statement about the government not wanting to execute us becomes more and more reasonable the more I think about it.Yes, if they wanted to kill us, why expand the prison bathhouse for us in Fushun?Why bother rescuing dying patients in Harbin?And why bother to take care of food for me and the older ones all the time?

As for these living conditions such as medical treatment and bathing, I later learned that it is not unusual in the prisons of New China, but at the time, we really felt very novel and regarded it as special care for us.Therefore, we immediately felt a lot more relieved when we heard the government officials say that they don't want to eliminate us. At that time, none of us paid attention to the study and reform mentioned by the chief and director.In my opinion, we are told to read books and newspapers just to pass the time and keep our thoughts from wandering.It is incredible that reading a few books can change a person's mind.I don't even believe that the US military can defeat it.The four generals in the same room who claimed to know military affairs agreed that the United States might not have the guts to risk the disgrace of the world and dare not take out the atomic bomb, but the United States can dominate the world and be invincible with just conventional weapons; The U.S. military is nothing but empty talk.But later, we gradually felt that the Communists were less like talkers.Not long after, we read the newspaper again, and felt that the news about the Korean battlefield did not seem to be fake.Those generals also said that in the history of fabricating battle reports, the number of casualties on both sides can be falsified, but the gains and losses of the region cannot be lied for a long time, especially the news that the commander-in-chief of the US military expressed his willingness to negotiate cannot be fabricated.The U.S. military is also negotiating an armistice. Can it still be said to be invincible?The general became suspicious. Needless to say, I couldn't explain it.

Soldiers never tire of cheating, a war criminal who once served as a brigade commander said, maybe there is still a problem here!I don't believe America is a paper tiger. But no matter how you don’t believe it, the Korean War is becoming less and less like what we originally thought, and the United States is becoming less and less like a real tiger.The more obvious this unexpected situation is, the more at ease I feel, because I think that if the Communist Party has not been defeated, it will not be in a hurry to eliminate me as a burden. The study at this time is also different from before.In the past, the study was self-flowing, and the institute didn't care about it. Now, the cadres in charge of the institute's study lead us to study in person.He gave us a lecture on what is feudal society, and then we discussed it.Everyone also needs to write study notes. One day, the cadre who gave the lecture said to us: I have already said that to transform one's thinking one must first understand what one's original thinking was.Everyone's thinking is inseparable from his origin and history, so we should study it from our own origin and history.In order to carry out thought remolding, everyone should objectively and unreservedly reflect on their own history and write an autobiography. I thought to myself: Is this transformation?Is this a confession made to lie to me under the pretext of reformation?Seeing that the situation in the war has stabilized, the Communist Party probably wants to deal with me slowly, right? That's what I was thinking at the time.It was under the dominance of this opposing thought that I wrote my first autobiography.