Chapter 134: The Triangle Cloth

“Why didn’t you use these tactics in Iraq? I hear you spent some time there,” Yu Zhiqian suddenly asked.

“If there wasn’t something called ‘world opinion’; if there wasn’t the so-called ‘political correctness’ formed by the Nuremberg trials; if there wasn’t a bunch of self-righteous, moralizing old Europeans who only know how to talk nonsense; if there wasn’t a swarm of reporters prying into everything…” Xue Ziliang said, “we would have gone all out long ago.”

“But you still did some things, didn’t you?”

“Is being hamstrung the same as being unrestrained?” Xue Ziliang smiled. “I love Lingao, I love the Senate. And I love this time-space.”

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Chen Lianjian, with his lame leg, slowly carried a large rattan basket toward the construction site. The basket contained today’s lunch: “mantou” made from a mixture of sweet potato flour and rice flour, and pickles. His wife carried a pole on her shoulder, with two large, lidded iron buckets hanging from each end.

On a construction site for the Zhonghe Commune, the recently relocated villagers of Zhaopu were working under supervision, digging earth. Men and women alike had their heads shaved, with only straw hats for shade. They wore standard work clothes made from recycled cloth, with a blue triangle sewn onto the chest. The people of Zhonghe Commune didn’t know the meaning of this blue triangle, but in the political order of the Empire, a blue triangle signified “in need of public supervision.”

They were told that they were never to remove this triangle cloth, or they would be treated as collaborators with the bandits. In any era, the fate of a collaborator was terrifying.

Since arriving at the Zhonghe Commune, the villagers, men and women, had been toiling on the construction site every day, their faces and bodies covered in dust. Twelve hours of earth-moving work a day and a daily quota per person made the newly arrived villagers of Zhaopu feel exceptionally miserable—it was even more tiring than the busy farming season.

Within a few days of their arrival, all the young men in the village had been taken away. As soon as they reached the Zhonghe Commune, Australians came to register and select them. All the young men between the ages of 18 and 25, as long as they weren’t missing any limbs, were taken away.

“Don’t be afraid. You’re going to be soldiers for the Australian chiefs. Being a soldier is the most glorious thing. You get food, drink, and military pay, and a pension when you retire.”

An Australian in a neat, front-buttoned short jacket gave a long speech about how good it was, and then the young men were tied together by their arms, one after another, and taken directly to the port and put on a ship.

Many people cried—being taken as a soldier meant they would never come back. Although each family that had someone taken away received a stack of colorful paper: Australian money.

Australian money could indeed buy all sorts of things in the Zhonghe Commune. The families whose sons had been taken as soldiers soon bought various goods from the commune’s cooperative store, from household items to tools and daily necessities. The pain of their sons being taken away eased a little.

However, a greater disaster soon followed. No one expected that the village’s children would be next. All the children between the ages of seven and seventeen, both boys and girls, were taken away without exception.

Heart-wrenching cries echoed everywhere, but the gleaming bayonets swayed before the villagers’ eyes. This was not their original village; they were unfamiliar with the terrain, and the temporary shacks couldn’t hide anyone. All the children were taken away.

The same Australian who had come to take the soldiers came again and offered the following words of comfort to the villagers: “Don’t worry. The children will have food and drink in Lingao, and they’ll even get an education and spending money. Where else can you find such a good life?”

“Master, we humble folk don’t want our children to study. We just want them to stay with us…”

“My child is still young. If he goes to study alone, there will be no one to take care of him.”

…

The Australian’s face darkened, and he scolded, “What are you all crying about? Your children will naturally come back to see you during the New Year. Anyone who talks nonsense again will have their earth-moving quota doubled tomorrow!”

Everyone fell silent as cicadas in winter. They were already working six shichen (12 hours) a day just to barely meet their quota. If it was doubled, how could they survive?

The signal to stop work finally sounded on the construction site. The laborers from Zhaopu Village came down from the site one by one to eat and rest for a short while. The entire break was no more than half an hour.

“They don’t let us farm, they make us dig. What kind of business is this? Are we not going to pay the imperial grain tax anymore?” someone grumbled while eating a mixed-flour mantou.

“At least we’re digging in Danzhou. They didn’t send you to Lingao to dig.”

“The Australians are here. What imperial grain tax are we going to pay!” a man in his forties said, slapping his backside and taking a big bite of a salted radish.

“Do you think the Australians don’t levy grain? I heard they did in Lingao last year.”

“They’ve taken all our land. What are we going to pay the grain tax with?”

“I wonder how my daughter is doing?” someone sighed. “She wasn’t taken by the Australians to be sold, was she? If I had known, I would have arranged her marriage earlier. I could have gotten a betrothal gift.”

“Your daughter was taken in as a concubine by an Australian master.”

“If only! I don’t think we’d have such good luck!”

“It’s one thing to take the girls, but why did they take all the half-grown boys?”

“Don’t you know about ‘contract brothers’? Maybe the Australians have a taste for that.”

…

Chen Lianjian remained silent. After he arrived at the Zhonghe Commune, all three of his daughters had been taken away. He had thought his wife would not be spared either, but the Australians were apparently not interested in married women. Because of his disability, he and his wife were put in charge of cooking for the entire Zhaopu labor team.

The triangle on Chen Lianjian’s and his wife’s clothes was blue with a black border. If he had known what it meant, he would have been terrified—it signified a “potential dangerous element.” In theory, such a person could be shot on sight for the slightest unusual movement.

Although he didn’t know the exact meaning of the triangle cloth, he could guess it was a mark of some kind. There were many people in the Zhonghe Guard Post, including the original military households and immigrants from other places, but most of them did not have a cloth triangle sewn onto their clothes.

At first, he couldn’t tell if this mark was good or bad, until he noticed that not all the sons of the other villagers had been forcibly conscripted. The few who were served in the local “garrison company” or as militia. And the children were not all forced to go to school in Lingao—except for a few orphans and children from large families, most of them attended the national primary school run by the commune itself. Chen Lianjian realized they had been singled out. The reason he wore this distinctive blue triangle was clearly related to his past as a bandit.

Needless to say, at the slightest sign of trouble, he would be the one dragged out to be beheaded. At this thought, Chen Lianjian’s liver and gallbladder trembled. He wanted to flee immediately.

Of course, fleeing was impossible. Not only was he lame, but even if he could escape, how would he survive? Besides, all the houses in Zhaopu Village had been demolished, and the crops in the fields, left untended, had probably been ruined long ago. All that remained on the village’s homesteads were many bamboo poles with rotting corpses hanging from them.

Some people from other villages had secretly tried to return to their original villages, but they were all caught. These people were then also made to wear the blue triangle and joined them in digging earth and hauling timber.

A few days ago, he had met another laborer on the construction site wearing a blue triangle with a black border. The other man was also stunned to see him. When no one was looking, Chen Lianjian exchanged a bandit’s code phrase with him, and they immediately recognized each other.

It turned out that the other man was also a part-time bandit. The work team had rooted him out during a large-scale household registration check in his village.

“It’s terrible. They confiscated everything I had,” the bandit said, looking around nervously.

“Are your wife and children alright?”

“My wife is fine. But all my sons were taken away. They said they were going to ‘study.’ Ai!” the former bandit sighed. “Who knows what they were taken for! They might have been sold to Australia for all we know!”

“Sold to Australia?!” Chen Lianjian shuddered. That was a thought that had never occurred to him.

“Yeah, why else would they take young boys?” he sighed. “I guess this is my retribution for being a bandit!”

Chen Lianjian looked around. “How are the bosses doing now?”

“Li Manzi was killed a few days ago. He and a few trusted men went down the mountain to get grain and salt and were caught. Now his head and the heads of his lieutenants are hanging at the gate of Danzhou city!”

“What about the others?”

“I hear they’re all in hiding. The Australians have been on a killing spree lately…” He shrank his neck and looked around again, then said hurriedly, “The area outside Danzhou city is full of heads. It doesn’t matter if you’re a big boss or a small fry. If you’re caught, you’re beheaded. A lot of people like us have been killed too.”

Chen Lianjian felt a chill run down his spine. He quickly asked, “Why are they killing people?”

“They kill because they want to. Don’t you know? The Australians have gone to all the villages and held ‘settling of accounts’ sessions. If ten villagers point you out as a bandit, you’re dragged out and killed. Damn, they’re all crazy. Anyway, those who are on good terms with people are less likely to get into trouble…”

“They dare to point people out?”

“Not to your face, but behind your back, who wouldn’t dare? The Australians are cunning as ghosts!”

As he was speaking, he saw some infantrymen approaching and quickly blinked and slipped away. Chen Lianjian’s already uneasy heart became even more so. The Australians had suffered a loss in Zhaopu Village, and now they were determined to get their revenge a thousand times over. A small fish like him would inevitably be caught in the net.

That evening, as he and his wife were washing the pots, several “imitation-short-hairs” with blue collars suddenly came to the large kitchen on the construction site.

“Are you Chen Lianjian?”

“Yes—that’s me,” Chen Lianjian said, looking at their murderous faces and the Australian revolvers at their waists. He had a bad feeling, and his legs went weak.

“Come with us immediately.”

“This… why…” Chen Lianjian stammered.