Durin's Diary

Chapter 888 Eternal Sorrow

"To be honest, judging from Chang Tang's fleet, I don't think the Western Land Navy's few dilapidated sampans have any way to strengthen your navy. As for weapons, I think I need to go and see for myself." Du Lin said, while having the Mage Hand hand a wine cup to Prime Minister Lin.

Lin Xiangguo looked at the wine in his glass and finally sighed: "I believe you if you say that. The captains of the trading corps have all said that your shipbuilding in the Western Continent is still in the stage of using wooden planks. In order to fight the Puppet Bone, we use ironclad warships. All the old wooden ships have been handed over to civilian use."

"Including battleships with four decks, right?" Dulin asked with a smile.

"Yes, they couldn't withstand the cannons of the puppet bones. The wooden battleships were ultimately just targets, and the navy really couldn't afford to lose any more ships," Lin Xiangguo said.

"That's not right. If the Navy can't afford to die, does that mean the young Marines can just die on the beach? Can the Army's children be buried on the border generation after generation? And what about the young Air Force soldiers who are smashed to pieces, leaving only cenotaphs?"

At this point, Du Lin sighed, "Prime Minister Lin, on this land, no one is too poor to die."

After saying that, Dulin stood up: "Let's go to the naval base together."

The navy of Changtang really has problems. In Du Lin's opinion, no one in this world can't afford to die. The emperor's children can die, the army marshal's children can die, the air force prime minister's children can die, so why can't your navy afford to die?

What a spineless wretch.

………………

"They still left," Chief Ping sighed as he watched the old man approach.

The old man took out a cigarette from his cigarette case and tossed it to Chief Ping: "We all understand Prime Minister Lin's thoughts. Countless families in the navy have gone to sea to feed the fish. It's not wrong for the naval high command to want to leave some offspring, but as my descendant said, no one in this world can't afford to die. How many children of the Luo family died in heaven? How many children of families in the 12 Hutongs and 36 neighborhoods of Shangjing died in the Three Passes and Four Seas? These things are too numerous to count."

"Yes, it's hard to say. Everyone has their own reasons. But you, why were you in such a hurry to kill people back then?"

“So many Marines’ kids were left on the beach. Mrs. Wu, whom everyone had high hopes for, was ruined. Her husband and children died on the beach, as did the commander’s family. So many young men bled to death to protect the wounded…” The old man took a deep drag on his nose and looked at the wine glass on the coffee table in front of him. “If these young men were in Yumen Pass, I would have brought them all back. But they were in Luzon. Because of the Navy’s “We can’t afford to die,” they were all left on the beach. Their parents will never see their children again. All that remains are broken homes, empty gates, and their beloved husbands who will never return.”

The old man sat down silently next to Chief Ping: "Ping, do you know why I never retired? I've been sending off generation after generation of young people at Yumen Pass. Why? It's so that they understand that their sacrifices were meaningful, that the sacrifices on this land, the suffering and resentment they endured were all worthwhile. But the Navy's inability to afford to die has destroyed all of that. They've turned generation after generation of sacrifices into nothingness, a joke."

"Then why did you let that child help them?" Chief Ping asked curiously.

"To prevent any more children from dying in the Three Passes and Four Seas, if possible, let us lead this generation of young people to shed our blood," the old man replied.

He looked at his own hands through the swirling smoke. His hands seemed untouched by anything, but he knew they were stained with the blood of generations of young people.

This land has no need for cowards, so young men became soldiers and came to the border. The lucky ones survived, while the unlucky ones were buried on the land beyond the pass, in mountains full of graves. A wise man said that the green hills everywhere bury loyal bones, but this old man never wanted these green hills to one day be filled with the remains of young men.

However, the only scenery you can see when you take the train from Gansu and Shaanxi provinces into the border region is that the mountains are filled with young people who never grow up.

But who could know that there was an old man who wished he were the one who died, just because those young people should have had the same opportunities to fall in love as the young people of the Western Lands he saw, instead of coming to the border generation after generation like their predecessors, dying for the existence of future generations.

At first, the old man could remember their names, but as he remembered more and more names, and more and more of them were repeated, in the end, he didn't even know which year a particular name had died.

He could only lead the young people into battle time and time again, die time and time again, and send them to the top of the mountains with his own hands.

The endless war annoyed the old man, but he couldn't stop it. His only hope lay in the present: Dulin, the child chosen by Nuwa, and like the nameless one, she believed he would end all this suffering.

As for those thoughts from the past, they are too far removed from our lives, so far removed that they seem to be things that an old man like me shouldn't be thinking about.

"Grandmaster."

The call from Chief Ping startled the old man from his reverie.

He looked at him: "What's wrong?"

"If only all of this could end, I could return to my homeland. My homeland is on the far north coast. I heard my father say that our clan once saw a giant fish spouting water on the surface of the water. It was a wonder that my people had never seen in their lives. And now they have made Changtang their home... If possible, after all this is over, I want to go to the far north coast to take a look."

Chief Ping looked at the old man with a somewhat embarrassed smile and said, "I know all of this is as unrealistic as a dream, but your descendants and Mr. Sun might really be able to accomplish all of this, so I'm saying it now."

He looked at the children in the distance: "I have written a letter of request to fight in this operation. Your descendants are right, no one in this world is too poor to die. If I die, and if you see the end of all this, can you take me to the seaside to see it?"

“Maybe I’ll die too…” The old man chuckled, then nodded after a while: “But I promise you, if I survive and you, you unlucky fellow, die, I’ll definitely take you to your hometown to see where the feng shui is good, and bury you there.”

"Then I'll have to ask you, Master. If possible, let our generation shed our blood for the peace of future generations." Chief Ping said, then stood up. The children were calling to him, and he walked over with a smile.

The old man looked at everything before him and smiled.

Then he lowered his head and vigorously wiped the corners of his eyes.

(End of this chapter)