Chapter 25 Chapter 23: Frozen Beyond the Great Wall

The joke that is often heard is: outside the customs, you need to take a stick to urinate, because the urine turns to ice as soon as it is withdrawn, and you can't beat it without a stick. It is exaggerated to bring a stick to urinate, and there is no one who urinates in the cold wind at minus thirty to forty degrees Celsius. up. However, for a person with a height of 165 centimeters, when he spits out phlegm on a severe cold day, the phlegm has been frozen before it lands on the ice, so when it hits the ice, it will disintegrate into ice chips. true experience. The boiling water was poured out, and it turned into ice as it flowed. The shape of the water flow was still there. After I washed the clothes and hung them out, I thought they were dry. When I folded them, they broke into two pieces. It turned out that they were not dry, but the ice was hard. up.

Under such severe cold weather, human activities are naturally reduced to a minimum. The place is at 49 degrees north latitude, and there are 365 days in a year. There are only 98 to 100 days of frost-free periods. The rest, The temperature can drop below zero degrees Celsius! The Mongols naturally lived in yurts. Before a large number of southerners came, a group of houses were built on the farm to take care of the cadres from the south. The houses were well equipped to keep out the cold. There is a coal-burning stove and a kang in the room. You can wear single clothes indoors, which is much better than those in northern Jiangsu!In northern Jiangsu, my feet never got hot all winter. In Inner Mongolia, as long as I don’t go out, or go out for a short time, once I enter the house, it is always warm.

When I first arrived, I naturally refused to be locked in the house, and wanted to go out for a walk. Once I was fully armed, with only my eyes exposed, and my feet were like felt boots, a kind of boots made of wool felt, stuffed with ulagrass or horsehair, which has a high insulation effect. .Old sheepskin coat, fox fur hat, ear protection and mask.One of the most troublesome things is that I can’t wear glasses. If I wear glasses to go out, within a minute, there will be a thick layer of ice on the lens, and I can’t see anything. If the lens does not freeze, then I can’t wear a mask. I'm afraid that even my nose will freeze off, it's really hard to have both!

Although I have worn so many clothes, after being outside for a long time, my body is also cold, and my arms are numb from the cold. After entering the house, I have to stay away from the stove, and I can’t start a fire immediately. I can only recover when the natural temperature warms my body. Activity. Once, in the kitchen, I saw a cook chopping a piece of granite with an ax. I didn’t know what he was doing. When I looked carefully, I saw that it was a piece of tofu, frozen like a stone! That is, the kind of house that is as warm as spring when there is fuel, which caused a big disaster.This kind of house is good when there is fuel, but once there is no fuel, it is almost like an icehouse.Once, the road was blocked by a heavy snowstorm, the coal could not be transported, and the fuel was cut off. In less than 24 hours, thick ice flakes appeared on the warm wall that was pressed against the body, although the kang could barely heat the corn. The pistils are burning, but even if you sit cross-legged on the kang, you still shiver from the cold, and you can't just lie on the kang all the time.

The kang was hot, and the temperature in the room could not be raised. The thermos bottle was poured into it with boiling water and the plug was plugged. The next day, the whole bottle of water was frozen and the cork was pushed out. This thermos bottle could not be used again until summer. used. Under such circumstances, it was too cold to do anything, so we went out to find fuel. Although there was grass, it was useless without burning it.I remembered that there was a small river not far away, and there was a small wooden bridge on the river, which was built very rough. , Turned into a pile of firewood, moved back, burned for three or four days, and the coal was brought in, so the difficulty was overcome.

Originally, I thought it was a trivial matter. At most, the next spring will be warm and the flowers will bloom, and then I will cut down a few trees and build a bridge. He was charged with a crime: disrupting traffic is a counter-revolutionary crime, so the struggle was endless, and in the end, he was isolated in a small room with no people around ten miles away, and food was delivered every two weeks Come, bring back tens of thousands of words of self-criticism. Every time people come, they are surprised to see that they are still alive. During that period of time, because I didn't know what the outcome would be, my heart was extremely burdened. Otherwise, I could have lived a Robinson Crusoe-style life by myself, but I could say it was very carefree.

Although the house is small, it also has a kang. Moreover, it built a stove by itself, cut a lot of hay, and collected branches for fuel. It is not afraid of cold or hunger. The only thing I hate is that every night, I must use a very strong stick to support the door. , Hungry wolves howled around the house, it was frightening. I really don't understand why such a mighty animal like a wolf can bark so shrillly, so eerie that it makes hair stand on end. By the way, I offended the party secretary of the brigade twice because of wolves, so I was made a fuss and convicted of disrupting traffic. These two incidents are very interesting, and it is worth talking about them in detail.

There are a lot of wolves on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. The first time I heard wolves howling at night, I was inexplicably terrified, but where there are many people living together, wolves rarely come in. If there are few people and you are in the wild, you must be careful. Well, if you meet a hungry wolf, you will be at risk. On the snow, the footprints of a full wolf are straight, while the footprints of a hungry wolf are in a zigzag shape. You must be able to distinguish them in order to avoid evil and save your life.