The expeditionary force began to dominate Southeast Asia by recruiting defeated soldiers

Chapter 375: The Happy Life of Refugee Jin Shitou (Part 2)

From escaping from his hometown a few months ago with his father on his back and his sister-in-law in to owning his own house and land in Nanhua New Village in central Bago today, Shitou feels that the days have passed by like magic.

He never thought that a poor refugee like him could live such a good life.

When Shitou was sent from the border to the resettlement area of ​​the Anmin Army by military trucks, he thought it was just a place to do hard labor. Unexpectedly, not only was there no one oppressing them, but they were actually treated as "one of their own people".

The administrator of several nearby villages is named Zheng, a Chinese overseas born in Southeast Asia. He is smiling and speaks a not very standard northern Mandarin, but he is very knowledgeable when it comes to arrangements.

"This is a country built for us Chinese! The Anmin Army is our own team of the Nanyang Chinese!"

Shitou still remembered that when Administrator Zheng slammed the thick registration book on the table, he said in a resounding voice: "Here, everyone has land to farm and food to eat, there is a village doctor to see a doctor, children can go to school, and adults have jobs. It all depends on whether you are willing to work and learn!"

He assigned all the people in their group to a new immigrant village called "Daoxiangtun" near a hydropower station and a tributary of the Irrawaddy River.

Each adult in each household was allocated five mu of land, and each minor was allocated two mu of land, regardless of gender. However, the land was not cultivated land, but newly reclaimed land.

At this time, the per capita arable land area of ​​poor peasants in the Republic of China had already dropped to a little over one mu. The three adults in Shitou's family, including himself, his father, and his sister-in-law, plus two nephews and one niece, actually got 21 mu of land, all of which were irrigated land. How could they not be extremely happy?

The land fee is the same as the fee for wiring electric wires in the village, but the money can be paid slowly year by year. In the first three years, you don’t have to pay land fees, only agricultural taxes.

The family was assigned a large newly built wooden house, and they had to make the chairs, pots and pans themselves, but this was not a problem for Shi Tou, as he had learned the craft.

In addition, they were given a few stone of rice and a few kilograms of dried vegetables free of charge, which was considered a welfare benefit to help them get through the first year.

At present, these 20 acres of land are mainly planted with stones.

My sister-in-law Su Yulan has always been a hardworking person at home. On the third day after arriving in Daoxiangtun, she was recruited by a recruitment team from the town to work in the food processing factory in the city, washing vegetables and picking beans.

At the end of the month, Su Yulan earned ten dollars in salary. Because she worked quickly, she was rated as an excellent employee and was given an extra three pounds of oil and two pounds of eggs.

It happened to be a day off at the end of the month, so I rushed back home to help my brother-in-law Shitou weed the fields.

With red eyes, she said with joy: "If my husband were still alive, he would never believe that there is such a good place in the world..."

As for Shi Tou's father, although his tuberculosis had been cured by a miracle doctor (barefoot doctor) dispatched by the Anmin Army with a miracle medicine (isoniazid, an anti-tuberculosis drug synthesized by Nanhua Pharmaceutical), his condition was ultimately damaged after this escape and he could no longer work in the fields. He could only do odd jobs at home, such as gluing cardboard boxes and weaving bamboo baskets, to earn a little money to support his family.

My two nephews and one niece were all taken to the town's school. This was compulsory, and everyone in the town, whether Chinese or native, had to attend elementary school for five years.

As soon as the children started school, they were given school bags, stationery, and clean and tidy uniforms.

There is only one primary school in the town. The principal is from Cantonese and has a strange accent, but he is as kind to these little kids as a real mother.

When Shitou went to the town, he took a look from afar. He saw that the classroom was covered with slogans such as "Make China proud" and "Study hard and make progress every day". His eyes were dazzled and his heart was hot.

In this area controlled by the Anmin Army, children attended school free of charge, and were provided with a meal and a glass of milk at noon. The town government's Education Department had special inspectors who would fine any family that dared not send their children to school. If they continued to do so, they would force the guardian to do hard labor, regardless of whether they were Chinese or indigenous.

However, there is only one Chinese school in the town. Shi Tou heard that the operating funds of these Chinese schools are all donated by the philanthropists of Nanhua Group and Sanbaotang. The government only pays the teachers' salaries and milk money.

Shi Tou couldn't understand why Commander Zhang Chi, who was both a public leader and the boss of the Nanhua Group, was forcibly separated into two.

But he found that if the government did not allocate funds to build new schools, the Chinese groups that controlled the businesses in the private sector would obviously be richer than the natives and would attach more importance to education.

Therefore, most of the primary schools in the surrounding area are Chinese schools that only teach Chinese. The natives can only send their children to Chinese schools to learn Chinese and the various textbooks compiled by Zhang Chi based on the Chinese Nanyang historical perspective.

As for Shitou himself, his main job is farming. The newly reclaimed land is all excellent irrigated land. It was burned during the reclamation process, and the ashes were buried in the ground, so the soil is very fertile.

Shitou knew very well that as long as he was willing to work hard, one acre of land like this could produce at least two or three hundred kilograms of grain.

Later, he was recommended to attend night school - free teaching of literacy and arithmetic, classes started at 7 o'clock every night. The teacher was a retired officer of the Anmin Army. He had lost one leg and sat on the podium with a cane.

This teacher's Mandarin is the most standard among all the people Shitou has ever met, and it is as standard as the announcer's speaking on Administrator Zheng's precious radio.

It just seemed that this retired officer had been on the battlefield for too long, and his voice was so loud that it made Stone's ears hurt.

He talked about how the Japanese burned villages and killed people, how the Johns and the Dutch from Southeast Asia oppressed the local Chinese people before the Japanese came, and how some scums forgot their roots and became accomplices of these bastards. When he got angry, he punched the blackboard, and chalk dust flew all over the sky.

Shitou initially sat in the last row. He could understand the stories the teacher told, and he knew that the sufferings of poor people all over the world were mostly the same.

But learning to read and do arithmetic was difficult. Fortunately, Shitou was studious enough. Later, he took the initiative to sit in the first row. When he encountered something he didn't understand, he asked again and again. Even though the lame teacher had a bad temper and scolded him at every turn, he persisted.

After all, before coming to Pegu, this knowledge was only available to the wealthy people in the village. Now he can learn it for free, so what does it matter if he gets scolded or beaten a few times?

Gradually, he learned to write his own name and could roughly understand the headlines of the South China Morning Post.

A few months later, the town held a meeting and actually invited him to give a speech, telling his story of escaping from famine, carrying his father all the way south, and now taking root in this land.

Among the audience were children, women, elderly farmers, and scholars. Shitou's heartfelt words, "We were so hard up before," and "Now we have land to farm and rice to eat," moved an elderly overseas Chinese in the audience to tears.

After the meeting, Administrator Zheng personally gave him a certificate of merit and an enamel teacup with a picture of Zheng He's treasure ship sailing to the West and the words "Model Immigration Representative" written at the bottom.

That night, Shitou flipped the switch, lit the incandescent lamp, and wrote in his square simplified Chinese characters on his night school textbook:

"My name is Jin Shitou, and I am a Nanyang Chinese."