Chapter 01: Chapter 1 Chinese Workers

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On the vast sea, the wind rolled up the dark clouds.

Between the dark clouds and the sea, the Victory News cruise ship was sailing hard like a lost cub.

"Hurry up, hurry up, Wilson, tell the Chinese in the cabin to tie themselves to the bed and hold on to all movable objects. If they are hit, we have no ability to treat them. Tell them that we have encountered a storm, which may be level 6, level 7, or even level 8... Forget it, go quickly, even if you tell them, they may not understand." Captain Henry is from Marseille, France. Although he is less than 40 years old, judging from his unkempt beard and wrinkled forehead, he is more suitable to be 50 years old.

The Victory Message is an old ship. It was launched at Manchester Shipyard in the UK 20 years ago. Henry has been serving on the Victory Message since the day it was launched, from an ordinary sailor to the captain. Henry knows very well that if the wind and waves are less than level 8, the Victory Message may survive. If the wind and waves reach level 8, then 40°N and 10°E (near Sardinia) will be the end of the life of the Victory Message.

"Yes, Captain, as you wish, notify immediately." First mate Wilson is from Paris. He is a strong young man who is always energetic and in high spirits.

Soon after, Wilson's warning sounded from the cabin pager of the Victory Message. After repeating it three times, there was no sound.

"Brother Qin, what is this foreigner talking about?" Gao Hongshi, the upper bunk of Qin Zhiyuan in room 106 in the bottom cabin, stared at the small speaker on the top of the cabin with interest, with a curious look on his face.

"The storm is coming... Tie yourself to the bed... Tie it tightly... If you get hurt, no one will save you." Qin Zhiyuan's voice was very low, echoing in the small cabin and seemed a little ethereal. He himself was like his voice, a little dazed and absent-minded from the moment he boarded the ship.

Qin Zhiyuan was confused. The plane he was on had a plane crash. How could his consciousness travel through time and space, and travel for more than a hundred years, and attach to a 20-year-old young man named Qin Zhiyuan in 1916.

Yes, it is 1916, and the First World War has just begun. Qin Zhiyuan, as a Chinese laborer, is on a cruise ship to France.

In his previous life, Qin Zhiyuan was just 26 years old when the accident happened. When Qin Zhiyuan was still in middle school, his parents sacrificed their lives for the country. Qin Zhiyuan was a red third generation. Because of family reasons, Qin Zhiyuan followed his parents' will after graduating from high school and was admitted to the Beijing Institute of International Relations.

During his time at school, Qin Zhiyuan studied very hard and was particularly talented in language and shooting. Qin Zhiyuan can communicate with people fluently in English, French and Spanish, and has no problem with reading and writing. He can be said to be proficient. Qin Zhiyuan can basically communicate with people in German, Portuguese and Dutch, but he has some difficulty in reading and writing.

In terms of shooting, Qin Zhiyuan can skillfully use various long and short firearms, and his shooting performance on the move can be said to be outstanding. He once set an amazing record of 45 shots and 45 hits in 45 close-range shooting on the move (two magazines for assault rifles and pistols).

After graduation, Qin Zhiyuan was assigned to the Operations Department of the American Department because of his excellent grades. In the end, during an operation, due to an accident, the small single-person plane he was riding crashed.

Naked to come, naked to go, Qin Zhiyuan's previous life had a lot of philosophical meaning of returning to nature.

It doesn't matter. Anyway, I don't have any relatives in the original world, so I don't have anything to worry about. I'll just go... Someone will soon fill my place. The world will still turn without anyone. Qin Zhiyuan sighed and looked around the small cabin, taking in the surrounding environment.

This is a narrow cabin about three meters high, one and a half meters wide, and nearly four meters long. There are two three-layer beds in the small cabin, and six big men are squeezed into the six square meters of space.

Qin Zhiyuan sorted out his belongings, a set of uniforms, including outer clothes, pants, belts and underwear, straw hats and shoes and socks. In addition, there is a tool kit with blankets, bedding, water cups and iron tableware, everything is standardized.

While sorting, Qin Zhiyuan suddenly felt someone grabbing him and pressing him to the bed.

"What are you doing?" Qin Zhiyuan shook his shoulders, and with a slight push of his arms, he shook the man's hands away.

"You're going to die, the storm is coming. If you don't tie yourself to the bed, do you think you'll turn into a rolling gourd?" The speaker is Qin Zhisheng, who is five years older than Qin Zhiyuan.

Qin Zhiyuan and Qin Zhisheng are from the same village. If you want to talk about it, Qin Zhiyuan should call Qin Zhisheng his cousin.

"It's okay, I'll do it myself." Qin Zhiyuan can fly a plane, so how could he get seasick?

Qin Zhiyuan doesn't want to tie himself to the bed, because if something happens, he can't run away. As long as he is in a normal state, Qin Zhiyuan can swim for forty or fifty kilometers. After all, Qin Zhiyuan's armed swimming results were excellent when he was in school.

Thinking of this, Qin Zhiyuan suddenly remembered something. It seems that he should confirm the strength of this body, so as to have a preliminary estimate of his own strength.

"Yuan, how can you understand what foreigners say? Can you speak?" Qin Zhisheng is very concerned about this little cousin who is stupid as soon as he gets on the boat.

This kind of concern is habitual. Qin Zhiyuan in this world lost both his parents when he was young, and grew up in Qin Zhisheng's home. He and Qin Zhisheng are almost brothers, if not brothers. Qin Zhisheng is much older than Qin Zhiyuan. According to rural customs, older children are born with the obligation to take care of younger children, so taking care of Qin Zhiyuan has become Qin Zhisheng's habit.

"Isn't there a church at the head of our village? There is a big-nosed pastor there, and I learned from him." Things like language are not easy to explain. Fortunately, there are churches everywhere in Hebei and Shandong at this time, so it is a good idea to push it to foreigners.

"Why haven't I heard you say that when we were in Weihai, if you said you could speak foreign languages, you would definitely be a battalion officer or something, or at least an interpreter, so that we wouldn't have to suffer so much." Qin Zhisheng was still mumbling, perhaps using this method to relieve his tension.

This group of laborers first gathered in Weihai, Shandong, the British concession, supplemented their nutrition for a period of time, and underwent a certain intensity of physical training. Only then did they board the Victory News cruise ship to Europe a month ago.

"There were interpreters at that time, so why did we make such a fuss? Now that we are on the ship, there is no turning back. If we go to Europe, we will be unfamiliar with the place and have to rely on ourselves for everything. We should not hide our abilities." In just a short while, Qin Zhisheng had figured out his situation.

Since the start of the First World War last year, the major European powers have shown signs of fatigue and have fallen into a dilemma of a sharp decline in troops and a shortage of labor. For this reason, Britain and France, the two countries of the Allied Powers, have turned their attention to the distant and poor China. They attempted to use the abundant and cheap labor of this Far Eastern power to engage in various war logistics work, so that more young and middle-aged people in their own country could go to the battlefield and win the final victory of the war.

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At this time, the Beiyang government was hesitating.

Just before that, the Beiyang government had announced that it would be absolutely neutral in this war. If it joined the war at this time, it would leave an international image of not keeping its promises. But if it did not join the war, it would be tantamount to rejecting the demands of Britain and France, which might lead to serious consequences that the Beiyang government could not bear.

No matter how the Beiyang government struggled, Europe was bleeding, and thousands of European youths died every day in despair. The British and French could not let this tragedy continue. So, in the remote coastal areas of Shandong, the Huimin Company controlled by Yuan Shikai's confidant Liang Shiyi quietly began to recruit workers.

It was under this circumstance that the previous silly boy Qin Zhisheng was lured into the labor camp by a daily wage of five francs and signed a five-year labor contract.

In July 1916, the first batch of 530 workers boarded the Victory Message from Weihai and headed for distant Europe, embarking on an unknown journey.

Qin Zhiyuan and his team were already the third batch.

According to statistics, during the First World War, about 140,000 workers arrived in Europe, many of whom received preliminary modern technical education in Britain and France, including building railways, operating machine tools, manufacturing tanks, driving cranes, etc.

During the war, the scope of work of Chinese workers exceeded the contract. They not only had to build trenches under German artillery fire, but also had to transport supplies and ammunition to the front line, and repair machine gun positions in the trenches. In some local areas, Chinese workers even directly participated in the battle.

The number of casualties of Chinese workers is no longer counted. There are about 1,800 people with documented evidence. More than 10,000 Chinese workers stayed in France and became the first Chinese in France. Most of them returned to China after the war and never made any achievements in their lives.

Now, there is an unknown variable Qin Zhiyuan among the Chinese workers going to Europe. So, will the Chinese workers who fought bloody battles in World War I disappear silently in the long river of history as in the original history?

Qin Zhiyuan doesn't want this to happen.