Night has enveloped Ryukyu and Naha. The number one port in East Asia has completely fallen into a collective restlessness tonight.
The port has been sealed, and sentries have been posted on the streets entering and exiting the city. Although all entertainment and leisure venues are not closed, there are police guarding the gates. No one knows what they are guarding.
There were militiamen and police patrolling the streets. They rarely abandoned rattan flags and sticks, and were equipped with various rifles that had been retired by the military. The bright bayonets were shining brightly against the gas lights.
Ryukyu is now completely under a semi-curfew. After 6 p.m., people have to return to their respective neighborhoods and only move around in a limited area.
You can go drink and eat, have tea and chat, and no one will care about you when you go to theaters and brothels, but everything must be within the neighborhood where you live, which means your face must be known to the police and militia. If you move across the block and are seen by police who don't know you well, it's more or less a problem.
The half-time curfew order was officially promulgated by Wang Huaiyuan at nine o'clock in the morning. As soon as this order spread in the city, the hearts of the people were already in their throats, and many knowledgeable people whispered to each other.
"A war must have started, a war has definitely started, otherwise the curfew would not have been issued. This is to prevent enemy spies from leaking information..."
"Then why don't we just ban people from taking to the streets? Brother, please tell me!"
"Of course there can't be a direct curfew! There are more than 600,000 people in Naha City, and they are not allowed to eat, drink or defecate? There is a curfew in place. We must not starve to death..."
"And this is also a way to stabilize people's hearts. A full curfew will make the people inexplicably nervous. If this person is nervous, he will easily have random thoughts. Then there may be some rumors spread everywhere. You have forgotten the French sneak attack on Ryukyu. Is it time? We just suffered from the rumors..."
People suddenly realized that when they thought about the scene when the French fleet bombarded Naha, it felt like a lifetime ago.
An elder in the crowd sighed, "Yes! Back then, ten French wooden-hulled warships could block Naha Bay and fire bombardments. At that time, except for the inner fort, which was still a bit dangerous to the enemy, other forts couldn't suppress it at all. A bunch of French people…”
"That man is dead! Why is there a bronze statue of a mother protecting her young son outside Boss Mi's shop in Wuyang Wuyang? That's the mother and son who were trampled to death in the rice-robbing incident when the people in the city panicked. ! What a crime, what a crime!"
The statue of a loving mother protecting her son was cast on the order of Xiao Letian himself. It was cast at the place where the tragedy occurred. At that time, French warships and spies from the Qing Dynasty, instigated by Gong Banlun's vicious plan, committed a heinous crime.
They attacked grain warehouses, released false news of the Prime Minister's death, and spread rumors about the shortage of supplies... All kinds of vicious strategies plunged the newly independent Ryukyu Kingdom into turmoil. At that time, even King Shangtai personally went out to appease the people, but it had no effect. Works well.
Mi Fu, Boss Mi! Now the second largest businessman in the East Asia Grain Trust, at that time he was just an ordinary businessman who dominated Ryukyu.
His grain store was robbed by the people. Of course, there were many spies in the crowd, and the responsibility did not entirely lie on the people. But in the final analysis, the final looting and trampling were sins committed by the people.
In that stampede incident, a mother and her son were trampled alive into a pulp, and countless others were injured.
After the war, Xiao Letian was grieved and indignant. He spent a lot of money to hire an Italian sculptor. Based on this story, he cast this bronze statue on the street outside Mi Fu's shop. It has a twisted and painful expression, an exaggerated torso, and his mother protecting the lower body. 's youngest son.
The frightened child seemed to have seen the god of death waving to him, but the child's eyes were staring at his mother's face, and his little hands subconsciously grabbed his mother's breast, as if he wanted to take a sip of milk before dying.
The sculptor's skills are simply superb. The child's expression and eyes show both fear of death and absolute trust and security in the mother. The child seems to know that danger is approaching, but the child naturally believes that as long as it is in the mother's arms, He is the safest person in the world, and nothing can harm him.
The mother's expression was even more nuanced. She was already in despair. She was surrounded by big feet trampling over her. She already knew that there was no way to escape. He and his son were both going to die here.
But the mother must protect her child before she dies, not only to protect his body, but also to protect his soul. Therefore, the mother must also show a smile. She must use her smile to give her son a sense of security before she dies.
If he is destined to die here, the mother also hopes that her son will leave this world with that sense of security and not be afraid that his mother is there.
After the statue was built, almost everyone who had witnessed the trampling incident cried bitterly, and some even wanted to die to apologize! Who can bear the kind of condemnation that strikes the human soul? The purest human emotion, the love between mother and child, is like a whip whipping into the depths of everyone's soul.
The bottom of the sculpture is engraved with a sentence said by Xiao Letian, "In a snow disaster, every snowflake thinks that he is innocent!"
The elder wiped away his tears. Ever since the topic came up about the statue of a loving mother protecting her child, the topic had become extremely depressing and boring. People felt like there was a big stone stuck in their hearts, unable to spit it out or swallow it.
At this time, a boy wearing a high school uniform suddenly walked up to everyone. He said seriously, "It is precisely because our Chinese race has experienced countless hardships that we are getting stronger and stronger..."
"Think of ten French sailing battleships back then, that kind of old-fashioned wooden-hulled battleships, which could bring our Ryukyus into chaos, resulting in countless casualties and even tragedies in which they hurt themselves..."
"But what about today? The Russian Expeditionary Force has dozens of state-of-the-art iron-clad warships with more than 30,000 troops, but they don't dare to approach our city... They actually avoid us!"
"Why is this? It's because we are stronger and we make the enemy afraid!"
"Instead of being immersed in the sorrow of the past, it is better to think about what we should do! Back then, thousands of French troops forced our entire city to impose martial law. Now, 30,000 Russian warships and dozens of warships only get us a limited curfew. This is another Why?"
"This is because our Chinese people are not only powerful with guns and guns in our hands, but also our Chinese people's hearts! We are no longer the scattered people who only knew selfishness and only knew how to protect the interests of our own family in the past. sand!"
"We are now able to look at issues from the perspective of the interests of the entire ethnic group, which shows that we have condensed the spiritual core of our Chinese ethnic group!"
