Chapter 6 The Story of Potatoes
"I just ate a few of your meals. I'm going to give it back to you now!"
Chen Xiao pulled out the bayonet from his waist and before others could react, he quickly stabbed it into his own thigh.
When the bayonet was pulled out, blood flowed out: "Lao Wang, I, Chen Xiao, am not an ungrateful person. I know that those wounded were injured in the battle with the Japanese, but I really can't give you these 40 kilograms of potatoes.
This cut is to pay back the New Group for the meals. From now on, we will go our separate ways and say goodbye!"
After he finished speaking, he struggled to stand up and was about to walk out. Zhuzi, who had just reacted, rushed over, grabbed him, and helped to press the wound on his thigh, and yelled: "Old Chen, what are you doing? Medical officer..."
That’s right, after knowing that Chen Xiao was 28 years old, he was no longer called Xiucai, but Lao Chen.
Because Chen Xiao was 28 years old, much older than many Eighth Route Army soldiers, but he looked younger than others because of his fair complexion.
The medical staff ran over quickly, followed by Li Yunlong and Zhang Dabiao who had received the report.
They hurried over after hearing the report that the scholar had a conflict with Lao Wang and that the scholar had stabbed himself in the thigh.
Li Yunlong's voice arrived before he arrived: "Xiucai, what's the matter that makes you so angry? Lao Wang, tell me what's going on? If you make a mistake, I'll put you in solitary confinement!"
Li Yunlong was thinking that after arriving at the new base, he would persuade Chen Xiao to join the New 1st Regiment, and then let the headquarters check Chen Xiao's background and act first and report later.
I didn't expect that something strange would happen before we even arrived at the new base.
What happened was so intense that a knife had to be used?
He quickly asked the medical worker who was bandaging Chen Xiao's wound: "How is it? Is it serious?"
The medic replied: "I used too much force when I inserted the needle, and the cut was quite big, but luckily the tendons, bones and blood vessels were not damaged.
After bandaging, if it doesn't get inflamed, it will . If it does get inflamed, you'll have to get some anti-inflammatory medicine."
Li Yunlong is such a cunning person. The reason why he asked about the wound was to judge whether Chen Xiao was pretending or really stabbing him in the thigh.
Then by asking why, he can judge what kind of person he is.
This is why Chen Xiao stabbed his own thigh.
In a word, he did it on purpose.
Several days have passed since the breakout, and he has been paying attention to the food situation in the troops. Although he would collect food from the local area wherever he passed by, it was just a drop in the bucket.
He felt that there would always be someone who would try to steal the 40 kilograms of potatoes he was carrying, so he thought of a countermeasure in advance.
But you can't tell Li Yunlong directly that the 40 kilograms of potatoes he carries can produce more than 3,000 kilograms per mu per season.
After all, this is completely unbelievable to Li Yunlong or to the people in this world and time.
They believe that the highest yield is only 500 to 600 kilograms, which is already the limit. Such seeds are definitely not sacred and inviolable.
But Chen Xiao himself knew that with the 40 kilograms of potato seeds he carried on his back, he could really produce more than 3,000 kilograms per mu per season.
Moreover, this concerns one's own life and one cannot afford to lose it.
But given Li Yunlong's character, he dared to order his soldiers to rob food when he was crossing the grassland during the Long March. So if the wounded soldiers were in desperate need, he would definitely order them to rob the 40 kilograms of potatoes on his back.
After all, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was a tradition of not abandoning one's own soldiers in the Eighth Route Army. It was absolutely possible that Li Yunlong had robbed his 40 kilograms of potatoes for those wounded soldiers. At worst, he could have apologized with a thick face and a smile afterwards.
But if Li Yunlong really agreed with Chen Xiao's statement and recognized that these 40 kilograms of potato seeds could produce a yield of more than 3,000 kilograms per mu in one season, I believe he would also think that even if he had to fight with all the troops in the New 1st Regiment, he must keep these 40 kilograms of seeds.
Moreover, even when he arrived at the base, he would even send people to help protect Chen Xiao's experimental field, or breeding field.
It was for this reason that Chen Xiao stabbed himself, just to make Li Yunlong take it seriously and eventually send people to help him guard.
After all , I have to harvest twenty potatoes a season to complete the task.
But just stabbing yourself is not enough, you also have to tell a story.
"Scholar, are you willing to sacrifice 40 kilograms of potatoes? I don't think you are stingy. What Lao Wang said is right. Let the wounded eat the potatoes first, and I will return you 200 kilograms of seeds later."
After hearing what happened and knowing what was in the sack Chen Xiao was carrying on his back, Li Yunlong's reaction was the same as Lao Wang's.
Of course, Chen Xiao had anticipated his reaction, and he had already come up with a countermeasure. He looked at Li Yunlong deeply and sighed:
"Captain Li, do you know where these 40 kilograms of potatoes came from? Do you know how many patriots died for these 40 kilograms of potatoes? Do you know that these 40 kilograms of potatoes, 20 potatoes, are the only 20 seeds of this variety left in the world?"
At this moment, Chen Xiao's expression was very heavy, and his tone was very serious, which made Li Yunlong take it seriously:
"You talk, I listen!"
Wang Chengzhu helped Chen Xiao sit down: "Sit down and talk, sit down and talk, what's the point of standing!"
Chen Xiao sat down, and after Li Yunlong sat down as well, he asked him, "Captain Li must be a farmer, too. He must have planted millet and wheat before, right?"
Upon hearing this, Li Yunlong said shamelessly: "That's right , before I joined the Red Army, I was an expert at growing crops in the surrounding villages!"
"Okay! Then Captain Li, do you know where wheat and millet come from?" Chen Xiao continued to ask.
"How would I know this? Only you intellectuals know this!" Li Yunlong disagreed.
Chen Xiao nodded and said, “Many people don’t know that the wheat and millet we grow were just dogtail grass on the roadside a long, long time ago.
It was our ancestors who, every time the foxtail grass matured, picked the best-growing, most-grained and fullest ears as seeds to cultivate the next generation.
Then, after generation after generation of cultivation, wheat and millet were produced.
Maybe you can't understand this, just like when we raise chickens, the rooster kept for breeding is definitely the biggest. For example, when we raise horses on the grassland, the one kept for breeding the next generation is definitely the best and fastest horse. Do you understand what I mean?"
Li Yunlong nodded. He was not stupid. He just had not been educated. It did not mean that he did not understand the truth. "What does this mean? What does this have to do with potatoes? You are not saying that this potato was specially cultivated with the highest yield?"
"That's right! Captain Li guessed right. There is a country in Europe called the Netherlands. They have several kinds of potatoes with very high yields, so our scientists who studied in Europe studied and cultivated these high-yield potatoes, and now we have these 20 potatoes in the sack I am carrying.
When we harvested the experimental field in our laboratory, we harvested about 1,000 kilograms of potatoes from about two mu of land.
Unfortunately, our confidentiality work was very poor. This kind of grain, which can be regarded as a strategic weapon for any country, is absolutely not allowed to flow out, even if it is cultivated by those of us studying in Europe.
In order to send these 1,000 kilograms of potatoes back to China, we divided into 25 groups, with each person carrying 40 kilograms.
Unfortunately, the other 24 people returning from Europe may have failed. Anyway, I waited for a long time at the meeting point in Shanghai, but did not see any of them. "
