South to North: A Prison Guard at the Beginning

Chapter 339 Yang Jiaze's Past

They soon arrived at the restaurant and as soon as they entered the private room, they saw Yang Jiaze sitting there. He saw Yuan Mu and his wife and also stood up with a smile.

"Xiao Yuan, Xiao Bai, hello."

"Hello, Secretary Yang!" Yuan Mu and Zhou Xiaobai hurried forward and shook hands with the leader.

"Please sit down!" Yang Jiaze stretched out his hand and said with a smile.

"Okay." He agreed but did not sit down first. After Yang Jiaze sat down first, Yuan Mu took Zhou Xiaobai to sit down.

In fact, Zhou Xiaobai did suffer a lot following him. Her status did not require it, even though he was the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. She could ignore him if she wanted to, but who made Yuan Mu his subordinate now?

At first, Yuan Mu talked to the other party carefully. Although he had some ideas in his mind, he had not confirmed them yet. After chatting for a few sentences, Yang Jiaze took the initiative to mention this matter.

"Xiaobai, is your father okay?"

Zhou Xiaobai was stunned, but then nodded.

"Secretary Yang, my dad is a good guy. Do you know him?"

"I know him, of course I know him. If it weren't for the old leader, I wouldn't be alive today." Yang Jiaze nodded with a wry smile.

Yuan Mu was watching from the side with some confusion. There must be a story behind this. Zhou Xiaobai was also confused. Logically, she should know her father's old subordinates and comrades-in-arms because they would come to see him at home every year, but she didn't know Yang Jiaze.

"Xiaobai, I know what you are thinking. Have you never seen me before?" Yang Jiaze guessed what Zhou Xiaobai was thinking in an instant.

"Secretary Yang, that's indeed the case."

"Hey! Don't call me Secretary Yang. This is a private occasion. Just call me Uncle Yang. Xiao Yuan, you can call me that too." Yang Jiaze waved his hand and said to the two of them.

Yuan Mu and Zhou Xiaobai did not have any hesitation about this title. Looking at Yang Jiaze's behavior, they knew that his relationship with Zhou Zhennan must be complicated.

"Uncle Yang, then you and my dad..." Zhou Xiaobai asked tentatively.

"Oh!" After hearing this, Yang Jiaze sighed and looked at the ceiling with a hint of reminiscence in his eyes.

"I am fifty-one years old this year. Thirty-six years ago, during the Korean Peninsula War, I was fifteen years old and could not have joined the army. I intercepted the old leader at the Chinese-Kong border and begged him to join the army. I became an orderly beside him."

"The old leader was very young at that time, not even 30 years old, but he was already a regiment commander. I followed the old leader into the peninsula."

"I still remember the scene at that time. The Eagle Sauce's shells rained down on our defensive positions. I watched my comrades fall in front of me one after another. After the shells stopped, the Eagle Sauce soldiers rushed up."

"Their weapons were much better than ours. Often, we would fire one bullet and then the other side would fire several more, making it hard for us to raise our heads. I still remember clearly that my first gun was picked up from a comrade on the battlefield."

"I didn't know how to shoot at that time, but I learned it under the pressure of the environment. The battle lasted for three days and three nights. Our position was repeatedly plowed by the enemy more than ten times. Planes and artillery bombarded us vigorously. We had more than 1,600 people in a regiment, but in the end, there was less than a battalion of troops left. It was miserable, it was really miserable!"

"In the early morning of the fourth day, the Eagles launched their last wave of attacks. We were almost out of ammunition and food, and finally engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. In order to protect me, the old leader was stabbed twice and shot once, and he almost died."

"I followed the old commander in the war on the peninsula for two years and nine months. I grew from a 15-year-old kid to an 18-year-old man. I was promoted to a company commander, and the old commander was promoted to acting division commander because of his military exploits."

"After the armistice, we stayed on the peninsula with our old leader to help the local villagers build their homes. We stayed there for two years. In 1955, our division was transferred back to China."

"At the age of 20, I was full of vigor and vitality. I stayed in the Northeast War Zone with the old commander. I made many military achievements and the old commander valued me very much."

"But the good times didn't last long. Soon it was 1966, and the big wind blew. I did something that made me regret for 20 years. The old leader was affected, and so were his subordinates. They were all pulled down by the rebels and sent to farms for reform."

"I was 31 years old at the time. If I was demoted, I felt my life would be ruined. What was the point of my 16 years of hard work? So I chose to leave when the old leader was in the most difficult time."

"But I thought too well. I thought I could save myself by leaving the center. But I didn't expect that I would be demoted in the end. I still remember that farm. I had to get up before dawn every day to work and was humiliated by them."

"I regretted it at that time. How could I be such a good-for-nothing? The old commander was so good to me, why did I leave in a moment of confusion? Thinking about those years, thinking about how the old commander had saved me so many times, the more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt."

"I fell ill with a high fever, but no one cared about me at the time. Finally, a fellow villager saved me and brought me back from the brink of death with a herbal medicine."

"I thought that this was the end of my life, but I didn't expect that in 1976, the sun and the moon changed and the sky changed. The organization was defeated, and many people who were falsely accused were rehabilitated. I watched people on the farm being taken away one after another. My heart sank to the bottom at that time."

"At the time, I was thinking, if I was still with the old leader, maybe I should go out too? After all, the old leader had been his bodyguard for the man who defeated that organization this time, so the old leader must have been rehabilitated."

"But there are not so many ifs. My leaving at that time was equivalent to betraying the old leader. I was too embarrassed to see him again. I thought that I would just end my life like this. It would be considered as atonement for my sins. It would be good to return this life to the old leader."

"But I never expected that on my birthday in 1977, someone would come to pick me up and tell me that I had been rehabilitated and could be released. I was so excited at the time. I knew it was the old leader. He must have helped me."

"After I got out, I wanted to find the old leader, but I wandered outside the compound for many days. I didn't have the courage to see the old leader. I even thought about committing suicide, but then I thought again, since the old leader had rescued me, he definitely wouldn't want me to do that."

"Finally, I wrote a letter and gave it to the guard at the gate of the compound, asking him to give it to the old leader. I, Yang Jiaze, have no face to face him!"