The lonely and widowed veteran refused to ask his relatives in the mainland for money, and after cutting off contact, the guest died in a foreign country
There is a saying in "Dream Travel": "There are three kinds of death: one is physiology, the second is funeral, and the third is the bereaved." "Life is like an abbreviation, although it is cruel and rational, but what is even more tragic is that although people are there, love has been broken.
Family affection has always been regarded as the purest emotion, without the slightest impurity, but in fact it is not. There was an old man who had made his country his home all his life, although he finally found that the road had deviated and that it was not his wish to leave his homeland.
What he longs for is his hometown. From the imprisoned treasure island of Taiwan to the inland Xinjiang, this long journey of nearly 3,000 kilometers in a straight line has witnessed the mental journey of this veteran Yao Dachuan.
Yao Dachuan was born in a turbulent year, growing up under the baptism of war and poverty. At that time, many people were uneasy about food and clothing, and Yao Dachuan was born under this circumstance.
He is well aware of the difficulties of life, and also deeply understands the importance of money and food. However, the poverty of his family did not provide him with the opportunity to receive an education, he had no education, no diploma, which made it difficult for him to find a better-paying job.
As a result, he could only do simple tasks that required labor, which could not satisfy his need for food and clothing. In that era, there were not many opportunities to make money, but Yao Dachuan did not give up.
He was always looking for a better job opportunity until he came across an opportunity that would change his life. While wandering the streets, he saw a group of people gathered around, and he didn't know what they were looking at.
But this chance made his life take a turn.
Yao Dachuan's curiosity drove him forward, and he found a Kuomintang conscription notice. The notices clearly listed the salaries of those who joined the army, which immediately caught the attention of Yao Dachuan, who was very hungry for money.
He hurried home to consult with his parents. However, his parents were not very much in agreement. Although this is a time of war and everyone should go to war for the future of their country, parents are still worried about their children.
Despite this, Yao Dachuan was not affected by his parents' worries, and he was attracted by the bright ocean and decided to join the army because he wanted a better life for himself and his family.
However, ideals and reality are often far from the same, and people are not moved by Yao Dachuan's filial piety, and it is indeed a decision driven by the KMT's conscription "conspiracy".
During this special period, the war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party became increasingly fierce. In order to achieve victory, the Kuomintang first adopted conscription measures, conscripting only men, and never leaving human resources for the Communist Party.
They even lowered the age of conscription to 16 years old, which fully demonstrated their determination and determination. The treatment on the notice was an attractive one for the poor people of that period.
The young men, like Yao Dachuan, were desperate to take responsibility for their families, so they did not hesitate to join the Kuomintang army. Yao Dachuan originally planned that after the Kuomintang paid his salary, he would send some of it home, some of it for himself, and some of it for entertainment consumption.
However, this is not the case. During his years in the army, his living conditions were not much different from his previous poor days, the only difference was that he might pay with his life in the war.
Yao's life is full of dramatic reversals. Although he survived the war, he was mercilessly played by fate. After the defeat of the Kuomintang army, he stupidly boarded a ship bound for Taiwan because of the lack of information.
Although he grew older, he gradually saw the truth of the matter, but when he was about to board the ship, he was urged by the Kuomintang soldiers to give up the idea of returning home.
However, when he arrived in Taiwan, he realized that this was a **, and the Kuomintang soldiers guarded them strictly, for fear that they would flee back to the mainland. Despite this, he still stubbornly supported his broken body in order to return home.
Yao Dachuan waited for many years, and finally waited for the news of returning home, which made people overjoyed. In 1987, the two sides of the strait re-established contact, and ships traveled between Taiwan and the mainland every day, but due to the high cost of the boat, Yao Dachuan, who was timid about his hometown, did not set foot on the return journey in the first year.
It wasn't until he had saved enough money to go on the long-awaited trip to visit his family. Why save money? This is because the Kuomintang ruthlessly dismissed these useless soldiers when they were about to restore cross-strait contact, and they paid the price of more than 10 years of youth, and only received a few hundred yuan in travel expenses, and they had almost nothing.
Some people were lucky enough to get electric fans and mosquito nets, but most people could only sigh with only three or four hundred yuan. Yao Dachuan's hometown was originally in Anhui, but after contacting his younger brother, he learned that the family had moved to the far interior of Xinjiang.
The journey of more than 3,000 kilometers is undoubtedly a difficult challenge for a middle-aged person. However, despite the difficulties, Yao Dachuan still embarked on a long road to find his relatives because of his deep longing for his relatives.
On the way, he used up all his money, and when he saw his brother, his pocket was almost blank, as if it had just been washed.
However, for Yao Dachuan, this is not his primary concern. The most important thing for him is that he is reunited with his family again. However, some people don't think so.
Some relatives began to ask Yao Dachuan for money from afar. At first, Yao Dachuan didn't care, after all, relatives are the most important. However, in the next two times, Yao Dachuan tried not to go to his brother's house empty-handed, which laid the groundwork for the later poor ghost relatives to pester Yao Dachuan for money.
Looking at the moon in Xinjiang, Yao Dachuan remembered the moon he saw when he was in Taiwan, and he wanted to settle down in Xinjiang even more. However, his brother's house was not suitable for his life, and although he had been there three times, he felt unwell each time, and his aging body could no longer bear these reactions.
In the end, Yao Dachuan still failed to stay with his relatives and failed to settle down in his hometown.
Although Yao Dachuan lived alone and was miserable, under the eyes of his younger brother, he returned to Taiwan with a weak body. Although he had several opportunities to visit relatives later, he gave up all of them because of his physical condition.
He often stared in the direction of his hometown, thinking about it. However, while he was looking at the moon, a letter came from a distant postman. I thought it was a letter full of concern, but I didn't expect it to be a "debt collection letter".
The letter praised his achievements many times, but in the end it was only for money. This made him deeply feel the coldness of the world, and he couldn't help but feel a trace of desolation in his heart.
When Yao Dachuan was in Xinjiang, those relatives didn't ask for money, so they sent the letter to Taiwan. The letter was full of how much favor Yao Dachuan owed, and it was not too much to borrow some money.
After all, Yao Dachuan joined the army, and those military salaries are definitely not a small amount. Yao Dachuan could only smile bitterly when he saw the letter, because the letter also warned him that if he didn't give money, they would go to his brother's house to make trouble.
In order not to make trouble for his younger brother, Yao Dachuan still sent the only money in his hand to the postman. However, those relatives tasted the sweetness, and they became more and more desperate to ask Yao Dachuan for money, and even used their own brother as a threat.
This made Yao Dachuan feel very troubled, and finally for the sake of his younger brother's family, he decided to cut off contact with his younger brother's family. At that time, the two sides of the strait seemed to be somewhat separated, and Yao Dachuan may have felt that he would never be able to return home, because his arrival would only cause trouble for his younger brother.
He sighed again, as if feeling helpless about his fate.
Yao Dachuan's life was full of ups and downs, loneliness, wandering in a foreign land, and finally dying in a foreign land, and the only remaining savings were ruthlessly eroded. In the last years of his life, he could only spend time in a dilapidated nursing home.
However, the news of his death was forgotten thousands of miles away in Taiwan and Xinjiang, and even his brother and niece did not know that he had passed away. The staff of the nursing home only knew that he was a veteran, so his ashes were placed in the "House of Honor" dedicated to the management of the ashes of veterans, as if his story belonged only to that place, the soldiers of that era.
In the last years of Yao Dachuan's life, he was in a foreign land, lonely, and his desire to return home was buried deep in his heart. However, in the end, he died in a foreign land.
It wasn't until his younger brother's daughter found out that the unclaimed ashes turned out to belong to the former Yao Dachuan. In 2022, Yao Dachuan's younger brother's daughter finally returned to Xinjiang with his ashes to be placed with her father's ashes.
Although the wish could not be fulfilled during life, after death, it was fulfilled. This may be Yao Dachuan's last hope, to see the moon in his hometown again, and to see the people in his hometown again.
Core idea: Although Yao Dachuan passed away in a foreign land, his younger brother's daughter eventually brought his ashes back to Xinjiang and placed them with his father's ashes, fulfilling his last wish and attaining posthumous consummation.
Perhaps the happiest moments in Yao Dachuan's life were when he met his younger brother. It was the reunion scene he had been looking forward to for decades, and it finally came to fruition in his lifetime.
How many decades can there be in life? Not to mention that soldiers have fought for their beliefs all their lives, and although it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between right and wrong, we still have a lot of respect for these veterans.
They shouldn't just end their lives alone.
The story of Taiwanese veteran Zhao Chuan was recorded in the book "Oral History of Taiwanese Veterans", and his soul returned to his hometown after his death, a scene that Yuan Shengli described in detail in "Taisheng" magazine.