"Probably because of the layer of cold mist, at first we thought the outside space would be very large due to extremely low visibility and we couldn't see the end of the light, so there was such an illusion. Wang Sichuan and I shivered and walked back along the wire board field when I came, and we could no longer see the hatch of the No.2 iron cabin."
"Wang Sichuan's first time out, his attention was attracted by the black shadow frozen in the concrete pool outside. He frequently stopped, wanting to use a flashlight to illuminate what was underneath the thick ice. However, the transparency of the ice was not good, and coupled with the dispersal of the cold mist, it was indeed impossible to see clearly under the ice."
I looked carefully, wondering what the Japanese used this place for. It was so cold, obviously below the temperature of groundwater. There must be a compressor used for refrigeration here. At that time, there was no concept of a refrigerator, and the freezer compressors were only large ones used for cold storage. And here, it looked like a cold storage for aquatic products.
When we arrived at a certain place, Wang Sichuan suggested that we walk along the "longitudinal" field ridges between the upper edge and concrete pool. These long concrete protrusions lead all the way into the misty depths. Although it was more difficult to maintain balance while walking on them, it was more practical than walking on ice.
"I agreed and walked up together, carefully like walking on a tightrope, slowly making our way towards the depths of the mist."
Leaving the regular field trench with the wire mesh made me somewhat nervous because it is like a lifeline. Being away from this line makes one feel very insecure.
It was a long journey, mainly because it was too cold or we were walking too carefully, so we were actually walking quite slowly. We didn't have any idea how long we walked, only feeling that the road was very long. During the journey, it was too cold and foggy all around, so there was nothing to discuss and I didn't speak to Wang Sichuan. Later on, I even felt dizzy.
Finally, Wang Sichuan stopped and called out to me as he was walking behind me. In front of us, in the mist, we saw rows of large shadows, about half a person tall. We quickened our pace and approached. Soon, we realized we had reached the edge of the space, and the shadows were unknown machines mounted on the wall, covered in frost. Many pipes emerged from these machines, inserted into the ice of the concrete pool.
Above these machines, there are many signs. Wang Sichuan knocked off some frost from several of them and found that they were all labeled with numbers. On the machines were words like "cold-03-A" arranged in rows. The pipes had more complicated numbers, which seemed to indicate that they were responsible for the refrigeration of a particular concrete pool.
"I guess these must be the compressors used for refrigeration. We walked along the edge and felt that it was extremely cold here. Soon our teeth began to chatter."
"I walked a few steps and saw a large doorway made of concrete. It was secured by a torque lock and had a thick iron door that was partially open. The door was covered in thick frost and despite kicking it several times, it didn't budge due to its incredible thickness. The door looked familiar but I couldn't figure out where I had seen it before. After Wang Sichuan removed a few pieces of frost from the door, I suddenly realized where I had seen it."
On the door, it is written in large letters: 53, strategy.
"The first section of the secret river where we dug out from under the rocks is almost identical to the large iron gate. There were rumors that it was a place where explosives could be detonated."
In my mind, I'm thinking, "Could this be another place where the bomb will explode?" But I also feel it's very unlikely.
The door was just open enough to accommodate one person. In fact, the entire door had frozen together with the adjacent concrete, and the frost at the wheel was surprisingly hard. It was impossible to open it any further.
"I took a deep breath and followed Wang Sichuan into the place. The temperature inside was a bit higher, resulting in thick mist. However, after a few steps, everything became clearer. We looked carefully and found a metal corridor behind the door, which was high and about five meters wide, used for transporting large objects. As we walked further, the smell of rust became stronger and the ground felt unstable."
The pathway didn't lead to anywhere, and the front was pitch-black. Even with a flashlight, we couldn't see the end. It was a bit scary, and just as I was hesitating whether to go deeper, Wang Sichuan found something. He beckoned me over and pointed to the wall. I turned my head and saw countless rusty iron scales on the wall. Someone had rubbed against it with their hands, leaving a long mark. The rust fell to the ground, and we also saw clear footprints on the ground- two pairs of them.
"These traces are quite new, and I became excited immediately. It seems that I have found clues related to Yuan Xile."
Following these signs, we hastened our pace and ran towards the depths of the tunnel. Meanwhile, we constantly swept the surroundings with the flashlight, afraid of missing anything. After about half an hour of running, we finally made it out of the exit and arrived at a platform.
The platform suddenly opened up both above and below, with a significantly high overhead and steel structural beams appearing. When shining downwards, a surprising scene emerged - it seemed like a huge suspension workshop below, with two large iron tracks wedged in the workshop's floor like two enormous scars, particularly conspicuous.
You can descend down to the workshop below from the wire ladder on the platform edge. Once you're down there, you'll really feel the enormity of the workshop. There are piles of equipment everywhere, covered in old, dusty tarps. Overhead, there are hooks for lifting. Despite being abandoned for over twenty years, there isn't a strong smell of rust, at least not yet.
Later, we discovered that there were also similar ventilation devices located at the base of the walls in the workshop, apparently some of them had been running for the past 20 years, keeping the air here dry and clean all year round.
We were searching inside with flashlights, feeling somewhat lost. Among the buildings left behind by the Japanese in Tohoku, few have been preserved in such good condition. Most were burnt down before they left. The situation here is really strange. Did the Japanese leave too hastily at that time?
Soon, I saw a lot of things pasted on a wall, which at first glance looked like the satellite posters during the Great Leap Forward. Upon closer inspection, I found that they were all Japanese plans and a series of structure diagrams I couldn't understand. These drawings had a little mold on them, and they were already yellow and soft, falling down in pieces at the slightest touch.
"I dare not use my hands too much, always shining the flashlight ahead. Occasionally, there were some war propaganda posters and black and white photos mixed in among them."
"I told Wang Sichuan that this is definitely the place where the Japanese assembled "Shinano" during the war. They probably needed to disassemble it into the smallest parts to transport it here, and then reassemble it which probably took several months. They would have to maintain and oil the parts before assembling them into large components like the engine or landing gear."
Although I am not sure if these architectural diagrams are from deep in the mountains, the size and facilities here basically confirm my assumption.
Wang Sichuan said, "If we transport these things upstairs, there must be a huge elevator. We have to go find it. Maybe that's the way out."
As we walked and looked around, we arrived at a place where something on the wall caught my attention. It was a wooden board hanging on the wall, covered with black and white photos of various sizes - some were group photos, and some were individual ones, all of them were wearing the infamous little Japanese military uniforms from TV, with shameful smiles on their faces. These were probably taken during some festival they celebrated here. I didn't know what this wooden board meant to them, but one particular photo piqued my interest.
In that photo, I saw more than a dozen Chinese laborers who were skinny and dragging something out of the water. The thing they were dragging looked like a dark mass of jellyfish, with half of it still in the water. A Japanese soldier was inspecting it on the side, but the photo was too blurry for me to see what they were looking at.
I was just about to call Wang Sichuan over to have a look together, but I found out he was also calling me. He had already gone far away and was lifting a canvas, looking very inappropriate.
"I hurried over and just as he pulled apart the canvas, I saw beneath it a pale, lifeless hand."
After the canvas was pulled open, I witnessed a scene too gruesome to bear. Inside the canvas were segmented steel bars and cement blocks, with a corpse of an engineer soldier in military uniform wedged between two pairs of steel bars. When we moved him out, we found that the body had completely stiffened, most likely due to the temperature in the area. The entire body was as hard as a rock, indicating that the person had been dead for some time.
Turning it over, it was a stranger's face, showing a look of horror. His eyes were almost popping out of their sockets. It was a young face, but I couldn't tell if he was one of the four teams who came in with us. However, judging from the condition of the body, it was most likely Yuan Xile's team. With this body, we have found three people, two dead and one insane. Where are the others?
Anyway, one more sacrifice. I felt very uncomfortable at the time, mainly because this soldier was too young. I always feel that it is very unfair to let these children who have not really started to enjoy life take risks.
Wang Sichuan is not a sentimental person. The Mongolians are quite open-minded about the passing of life. Although he claims to be a materialist on the surface, I believe he is still a pure Mongolian at heart. He always believes that death is a summons from the heavens, and the deceased return to the grasslands of the wolves and deer.
"This kind of detachment is not necessarily bad, but when I discussed it with him later, I always told him that the more detached a person is towards death, the more ruthless they are towards their enemies. Your Genghis Khan showed no mercy towards his enemies. Perhaps in his heart, he felt he was sending these weaker ones to heaven, but Wang Sichuan immediately countered me, saying that Emperor Qin Shi Huang was not detached towards death, yet this fearful person killed countless people. Your argument is invalid. It's better to be a little detached than to be like that."
There was a large amount of blood coagulated on the corpse, almost half of the body. Wang Sichuan felt something was not right. We opened the stiff clothing of the body and found two thumb-thick bullet holes on its back, with its skin turned over. As a soldier, this type of wound was all too familiar - a gunshot wound.
"He was unexpectedly shot dead."
"Wang Sichuan's black face also turned pale, which is not normal. If it were an accidental death, we could consider it normal. After all, cave exploration and the complex environment here make accidental deaths inevitable, especially for inexperienced new soldiers. This exploration is different from fighting, where experience can make a life-and-death difference."
However, if he was murdered with a gun, the nature of the incident completely changes. If there are bullet holes, there must be a shooter, and therefore a reason for the shooting. But here? Who would shoot and kill their own comrade?
"Japanese? It's really unlikely, but it can't be completely ruled out because at that time, it was only 20 years since they evacuated. If the student soldiers who were newly supplemented into the Kwantung Army at that time were only in their teens, now they would only be in their thirties. However, this doesn't seem like a place where people can live. We haven't seen any traces of human life all the way here."
"Is it true that there are really enemy spies?"
At that moment, we both naturally thought of this thing. And our hearts started to panic.
Wang Sichuan thought to himself and suddenly moved the body back into the steel bars. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that since the enemy had killed someone here, he must have exposed his identity. He wrapped the body in canvas and didn't want anyone else to know of his existence. If he knew we had found the body, he would know that he couldn't hide it anymore and would definitely attack us. He had a gun and we would be dead for sure. So we need to cover the body again, so that he thinks we still don't know his identity and will appear. After all, his chance of survival is much greater if he blends in with us. We can also subdue him when he isn't paying attention.
As soon as I heard this, it made complete sense, so I quickly helped him hide the body again.
"After a long time, we finally put the body back in its place and covered it up. Wang Sichuan said we need to be extra careful now. I nodded, feeling very anxious. This kind of anxiety is different from facing natural obstacles. We both sighed and turned around, ready to continue walking inside."
As soon as I turned around, I suddenly felt something was wrong. When I shone my flashlight, I exclaimed "ah" and sat down in shock.
Behind us, there was someone lying down, and we didn't know when. This person had a pale face like a dead person and stared straight at us.
"I have already scared Yuan Xile once with something like this, but this time I am still not immune. The main reason is that the person pasted it too close to us, almost standing behind us, and we don't know when he pasted it, there was no sound at all. Especially his posture lying on the ground, it was like a creepy animal, the effect was really shocking."
Both Wang Sichuan and I were frightened. I was so scared that I fell on the ground and hit my lumbar spine on the steel bar. The pain almost took my breath away. Wang Sichuan was slower to react and also stepped back in fright.
When I came to my senses and shone the flashlight, I saw that person flash and dodge the beam of light. Suddenly he stood up and ran towards the darkness of the workshop as if he was flying. The movement was completely animalistic.
"Grab!" I immediately awakened and shouted loudly at Wang Sichuan because I couldn't stand up at this time, while Wang Sichuan was standing.
Wang Sichuan did things differently from me. He responded with a call for me to follow him. I quickly used my flashlight to chase after him. He then assessed his own flashlight and shouted, throwing it towards the person.
"I watched as the flashlight drew an amazing arc through the air and smashed heavily onto the knee of the person who was about to disappear into the darkness. The person groaned and fell to the ground, trying to get back up but clearly struck very hard. When he stood up, he fell back down again."
"This is the first time I have seen Wang Sichuan demonstrate his throwing skills with the "blu" technique. As someone who has lived in the border region between China and Mongolia, I have heard tales of the magical skills of Mongolian people when it comes to throwing the blu. But I never imagined that it could be so aesthetically pleasing when used for hunting."
Wang Sichuan later told me that his throwing method was the "Ji Ru Gen Bu Lu" technique. If he wanted to use force, I couldn't see the trajectory of the flashlight at all and could only hear the sound of breaking through the air. However, this way would completely shatter the person's knee. The truly impressive technique was another Bu Lu used for shooting birds. There was a master among Wang Sichuan's disciples who was much better than him.
"When we chased after him, the person had already gotten up and limped into the area where the covered items were piled up. Inside, a large stretch of tarpaulin was folded together, and he disappeared without a trace."
"I and Wang Sichuan also followed in. The ground was covered with ropes and nets made of fixed tarpaulins, which could easily trip people up. Wang Sichuan rushed in and pulled off the tarpaulins of nearby supplies to see if he was hiding underneath."
Those canvas bags contain canned goods and some corrugated panels similar to filters, as well as many fuel tanks. These military materials are stacked by placing supplies on shallow decks, covering them with canvas and tightly wrapping the four corners with hemp rope nets or iron wires. It is obvious that this is a packaging method used for airdrops, with a clear German material chassis.
At that time, China's 15th Army used Soviet-style airborne technology. Many civilian items, for example, some of the airdropped supplies we received on the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia, were based on German designs confiscated from the Japanese. Therefore, I am familiar with them. However, the number of such designs was small, and they were superior to those of the Soviet Union on all fronts. I believe that Mao Zedong must have kept some of them for himself.
We quickly kept going until deep inside, walking into the storage area where everything was piled up. The scenery was filled with identical tarps, making it difficult to move close by and dark as shadows from afar, like a maze. I thought to myself, "This is bad, it will be hard to find our way out." At that moment, Wang Sichuan made a gesture to me indicating to be quiet.
Looking at where he shone his flashlight, I saw a piece of tarpaulin sticking out unnaturally on our left, still shaking uncontrollably.
We tiptoed over and after Wang Sichuan took a deep breath, he suddenly exerted his strength to lift off the tarpaulin, then I looked and rushed towards it.
Unexpectedly, when the tarp was pulled up, a huge layer of dust blew up from underneath. Then a white figure darted out from the tarp and knocked me down, leaving me choking and unable to open my eyes amidst the chaos. All I could hear was Wang Sichuan cursing loudly as if he was chasing after someone.
As I cursed and waved my hand to shake off the dust in front of my eyes, I squinted to see where they had run off to, but found that both of them had disappeared. I shouted, "Wang Sichuan!" and was about to randomly search for a direction.
At this moment, as if by some strange power, I suddenly glanced to the side, and the person stopped abruptly, as if frozen in place.
"I saw something that I was very interested in under the tarp that Wang Sichuan pulled off."
Initially, I wasn't sure, but as I brushed off the dust and walked towards the covered canvas, my heart began to race. Underneath the canvas, I saw a military sand table and a miniature model of a wooden dam that had already been destroyed. Embedded in the sand table was a miniature mountain range, resting on the "water" inside the dam. There were cranes, frames, and a plethora of miniature devices all around.
The so-called sand table, I don't know if you understand this thing or not, here's an explanation: it is a model made of mud, sand table pieces, and other materials based on terrain maps, aerial photographs, or actual terrain, according to a certain proportion relationship.
The sandpit covered by tarpaulin could be used to simulate the hoisting process during the final assembly of the airplane on a dark river. It is impossible to complete the final assembly of such a huge bomber in an underground cave as conveniently as in a factory.
"That sand table can be said to be a perfect combination of refinement and roughness. Speaking of a single model among them, it is incredibly rough, all carved with wood and boards at will, roughly in a certain shape. However, this rough model covers truly amazing content. After so many years, it is impossible for me to recall all of it. The most memorable thing I remember is the damaged dam and the deep mountains on one side."
From the terrain of the entire sandbox, the topography of the underground river can be seen. Due to the huge amount of water impact, the width of the underground river here is amazing. The original geological fissure-like terrain has been transformed into a relatively gentle underground river bed. The Japanese have placed a large amount of reinforced concrete structures in the water and built a huge elevated platform underwater.
Under the platform is a waterway with a filter that can allow water from the underground river to flow through. The platform is equipped with a large amount of equipment, among which the three overhead iron rails caught my eye. They are long and sloping towards the void, like a triple-barreled anti-aircraft gun aimed at a target in the sky. The structure under the iron rails is triangular, resembling an overturned high-voltage tower. "Deep Mountain" is located behind the iron rails, at the end of the three rails, which is also the highest point of the "gun barrel", and is about half the height of the dam.
Next to the high and low command platform, there are functional shelters, cranes, and small tracks. We could clearly see the underwater interception of the dark web and even the entrance to the sinking sandpit where Wang Sichuan was stopped.
Seeing such facilities, I was covered in cold sweat. Although I have always thought this way, at this moment I finally confirmed it: those damn Japanese really want to drive that "Shinzan" into that huge black underground cavern!
During World War II, Japan had considerable experience in launching aircraft from aircraft carriers. Although I did not fully understand it at the time, the complex takeoff facilities built on the sand table indicate that the "Dove" could take off from here, which the Japanese thought was entirely possible.
"I remembered the wreckage of an aircraft in the deep mountains submerged in water. My heart was filled with doubts and I wondered, since the Japanese had done so much here, did that aircraft ever take off? Also, why are there so many buffering bags accumulated under the current? Furthermore, I didn't see those three iron rails."
Thinking, suddenly lightning flashed through my mind, and I instinctively felt a huge chill spreading from my neck to my toes.
"I recalled the appearance of the airplane wreckage, especially its nose. I remember it clearly. The "Shenshan" airplane had its nose facing away from the dam!"
Oh my God!/Wow!
In other words, the wreckage of the "Deep Mountain" submerged in the water is not abandoned here without taking off. It not only took off, but also flew back from the deep abyss!