1942, I lived on hunting

The legend of the Yellow River monster has existed since ancient times and has been passed down by word of mouth among the people living along the Yellow River. However, with the rise of the Internet, the legend of the Yellow River monster has disappeared! Isn't it strange?

We watch TV programs and see legends of water monsters everywhere in the country. Even a reservoir that was built decades ago or a stagnant pool can have water monsters. It's enough for a classic legend-solving program to be filmed for three episodes. But few people care about the story of the Yellow River monster. Why? Doesn't such a super river with a length of more than 5,000 kilometers, a drainage area of ​​800,000 square kilometers, and spanning nine provinces and regions deserve a water monster?

Many people first realized the endless charm of the Yellow River monster after reading the novel "Ghost Blowing the Light". They were even more fascinated by the Iron-Headed Dragon King. There are many different opinions about what the Iron-Headed Dragon King in the Yellow River is. The original text says:

The fat man cursed and said, "Fuck his grandma, I didn't see it clearly, it was black and as big as a truck, like a big turtle."

.........

It was already dark and it was raining heavily. The river was pitch black. With the help of lightning in the dark clouds, I could vaguely see something like a small mountain in the turbid river water. Half of it was above the water and most of it was hidden in the river. Visibility was limited, so I couldn't tell what it was. When I saw that thing, I felt it was like an aquatic animal, but I couldn't tell whether it was a fish or a turtle.

……

In other words, Hu Bayi and Wang Pangzi didn't see clearly what the thing in the water was, they just knew it was big and would hit the boat. Wang Pangzi saw it more clearly than Hu Bayi, saying it looked like a big turtle.

It was not clear whether the old brigade commander was referring to the so-called Iron-Headed Dragon King Li Hao, but he knew that there was indeed something in the Yellow River that could grow to a very large size and would actively collide with ships. However, the size of that thing was quite different from the description in the novel and was not worth mentioning at all.

Li Hao couldn't help but be curious: "Old Brigade Commander, are you still worried about this? Or do you have any explanation?"

The troops are not afraid of any monsters or demons. They just follow orders. No matter if you are the Iron-Headed Dragon King or something else, I will pull up the Italian cannon and fire at you. The old brigade commander is also a stubborn person. He shouldn't call me from the capital just for this matter, right?

The old brigade commander kicked him and pointed at Li Hao's nose and cursed: "Get lost, am I afraid of him? If the water conservancy expert hadn't said that section of the river bank was a bit fragile and needed to be reinforced, I would have used cannons and depth charges to deal with it! It's because you used to like these weird things the most! That's why I asked you to come and see the novelty, but you don't know how to appreciate a good person."

Li Hao smiled smugly and begged for mercy. The old brigade commander was protective of his son, but he also had a hot temper. No matter what Li Hao did, he would come at him without even saying hello in advance.

"Thank you for your concern, old commander. To be honest, if I'm not mistaken, that creature is a very large fish. I've seen it before. To be honest, it's nothing special, but it's not that easy to deal with. Do you want to drive it away? Or do you want to kill it? Or are you just curious and want to see what it is?"

The old brigade commander said "oh" when he heard that, and was curious about how Li Hao had seen that thing when he just arrived: "Where did you see it? Why haven't I heard of it?"

Li Hao told the old brigade commander about his experience of wandering around and passing by the Yellow River during the War of Liberation.

When Li Hao left the Taihang Mountain Revolutionary Base, he didn't know where to go for a while. At that time, he had not made up his mind to find his comrades, so he wandered around the Central Plains.

One day, Li Hao passed by Yuanyang County and got acquainted with an old boatman named Jia. The two of them had a great time talking to each other and treated each other as brothers. Every day, they would sit by the river and chat except for eating. The old boatman was an old widower from Wuzhi County, and he had never married or had children. Li Hao asked him why, and he said that he had not had enough luck in his life, and that birth, aging, illness and death were all beyond his control, so he deserved to eat some side jobs.

When Lao Jia was born, it was still the Qing Dynasty. When he was ten years old, Emperor Xuantong was still in power. That year, the Qin River flooded, and his father got into trouble while fishing, and the family fell into poverty. When he was old enough to get married, the world was in a state of chaos, and the war was endless. At this time, Lao Jia's mother died of illness.

The affairs of the imperial court have too far to do with ordinary people, and are not something that Lao Jia can worry about. He just wants to have enough food and clothing, build a house to live in, and move out of his uncle's house. After all, life under someone else's roof is not easy, so it would be best for him to marry a wife to carry on the family line.

Wishes are simple, but reality is cruel. For an ordinary young man from a small village not far from the confluence of the Yellow River and its tributary Qin River, he needs to consider how to gain a foothold in this world, not to mention building a house, getting married and having children.

A living person cannot be allowed to die from holding his urine. When he was young, Lao Jia decided to learn a skill so that he could live better in this cruel world. However, it is not so easy to learn a skill to make a living these days.

Each trade has its own rules for recruiting apprentices, but they are basically linked to interests. Some trades require apprentices to learn for three years and work for two years before they can become masters, such as carpenters and blacksmiths. Some special requirements are even stricter, and they must be educated, such as studying medicine. Or you can pay to study, after all, you can learn something, but when he was young, Lao Jia had nothing and lived under someone else's roof. He couldn't make much money, so he could only go fishing with people from the same village and do odd jobs on fishing boats to make a living.

In the past, fishing was not easy. Without fishing boats, nets, or good fishing gear, how could one catch fish? Dive in and try to catch fish with bare hands? Even if that was possible, how many fish could one catch?

After working for a while, Lao Jia became disappointed with the fishing business. Those who had fishing boats and fishing nets could only make a small profit after working hard all year round. How could someone like him, who had nothing, ever build a family of his own?

Live by the mountain, eat by the mountain; live by the water, eat by the water. Home is here, there is nothing else to do except fishing, and Lao Jia has no other good solution.

After doing this for a while, he heard from some colleagues that osprey boats can make money, so he asked around and wanted to learn how to fish with ospreys. An acquaintance said that he had seen someone using ospreys to fish when he was sailing on the Wei River, so Lao Jia followed the sailor and wanted to learn how to raise ospreys. After learning for a while, someone sold him a few eggs, saying that he could use a hen to lay eggs and then raise them to fish. However, after he took the eggs back and borrowed a hen to carefully take care of them for a long time, he still couldn't hatch any ospreys. He was cheated.