Wang Zhong continued to fulfill his duty, “Don’t be outdone by the girls! Anyone else? Come on, young lads!”
At that moment, a group of people stood up, and to Wang Zhong’s surprise, it turned out to be the Ceres People’s Army, so he quickly invited them to the center of the venue.
“Let’s welcome the illusion of Ceres’s…”
Wang Zhong hesitated, calling them brothers felt too militaristic, and comrades was okay, but it didn’t convey the meaning of “different nationalities, but working together.”
After much deliberation, he felt there was only one word that was most fitting, and he spoke again, “Let’s welcome Ceres’s Davarishes!”
There was no more appropriate word than that, which originally referred to navy comrades, but later came to mean fellow fighters or people with common aspirations.
A shared aspiration to defeat the Prussians and liberate their occupied homeland.
The people from Ceres had intended to start their performance right away, but when they heard Wang Zhong shout “Davarish,” they stopped and looked at him.
Wang Zhong exclaimed, “Keep going, Davarish! Forward, Davarishes!”
The people from Ceres exchanged glances and immediately started their performance. The song they sang was in the Ceres language, but Wang Zhong had heard the tune before and knew it was Ceres’s military song.
With the military song playing in the background, the people from Ceres began their traditional dance, which had a completely different flavor compared to the Ante People’s dance that seemed to have a vendetta against knee joints.
Then, aside from occasionally leading the crowd in raucous cheering and provoking competitive spirits among the various divisions and units, Wang Zhong spent the rest of the time watching everyone showcase their talents.
As it was nearing eleven o’clock, a truck came from the direction of the kitchen, and the sides of the truck bed were let down to become a giant dining table, revealing baskets and large bowls of food.
Aunties with huge spoons appeared, shouting at the girls dancing with the soldiers, “Stop dallying and come get some food!”
Only then did the girls part from the boys and head towards the truck.
Wang Zhong heard an auntie grumbling, “You girls, even wearing pouches as clothes! What will you use to carry your luggage later? The ferocious quartermaster will be scolding you again, and then you’ll come to me one by one, like little birds seeking justice!”
A girl yelled back, “Auntie, General Rocossov said he would issue new pouches to all of us!”
The auntie looked at Wang Zhong with an exasperated face, “General, how can you do this? Don’t you know how precious flour sacks are now? Good sacks are in short supply everywhere, and with your decision, you’ve gifted hundreds of sacks to these young ladies, but those sacks were meant to store flour to feed your soldiers!
“By doing this, you just might lose a battle in the future!”
The atmosphere was lively, and when they heard that General Rocossov’s command art was being questioned by the canteen auntie, they immediately began to tease and jeer.
Besides those who were jeering, there were young people who knew the auntie asking, “Auntie Irina, do you know who he is?”
Auntie Irina, “How could I not know? He’s in the newspapers every day! I can’t read, but I still recognize pictures! That’s General Rocossov!”
The young soldier asked again, “Do you know what he’s done?”
Auntie Irina: “Oh my, he captured a bunch of Prussian generals! What’s so great about that? Give me a pig-hook, and I can catch a large pig weighing dozens of kilos with ease. Could a general weigh more than a pig?”
Wang Zhong understood, she was an uneducated old peasant.
So he asked, “Auntie, how come you’re cooking now?”
“Because my child went to war. The kind-hearted Parish Priest came for the evacuation. I said I’d wait for my child to return, but he pulled out a twenty-pound doctor’s sausage, telling me, ‘Irina, take this sausage, think of the church’s kindness, and off you go.’
“So I left, and that sausage was really high quality! I wanted to take my cow with me, but the Priest said no, just get on the tractor and go, so I left the cow behind. I wonder if the Prussians fed my cow properly!”
The auntie prattled on about everything except why she ended up cooking, much like many old people who go on tangents while talking.
Wang Zhong shifted the topic, “What are we eating today?”
“What else could we eat on the last day of the year?” Aunt Irina lifted the cloth covering the baskets to reveal the dishes organized on plates, “Frozen fish salad, I’ve tried a portion, it’s delicious. Here, General, try some.”
As she spoke, the auntie took up a plate and handed it to one of the girls from the cooking team, who then trotted over to Wang Zhong, giving him a slight smile as she offered the plate.
Wang Zhong focused all his attention on the dish, which looked much like a kind of dim sum called ‘Thousand-Layer Cake’ that he would eat during morning tea back in his hometown.
It really didn’t look like salad at all.
Looking at it from the side, it was divided into many layers. The very top layer was red, followed by a white reminiscent of fish soup, a milk-yellow layer of an unknown substance, and pure yellow at the very bottom.
He leaned in to smell it, catching the scent of herrings.
Although Wang Zhong had already tried many Ante specialty foods, he had never seen this type of salad before.
Therefore, he sliced off a small piece with the edge of his fork and popped it into his mouth.
Despite it being an unfamiliar food, out of characteristic Ceris curiosity, Wang Zhong took a big bite.
He then furrowed his brow – the red layer on top was actually beetroot, the same used to color soup in borscht. The middle layer that looked like fish soup was actually aspic with a generous amount of herring meat. This part tasted quite good. Below that was a layer of mayonnaise and cheese, with potato puree forming the bottommost layer.
The aspic and potato puree tasted good. The flavor of the beetroot was – tolerable, once one got used to it, but combining mayonnaise and cheese in the middle was somewhat baffling.
This dish could only be described as full of exotic charm.
To the Ante People, this was probably the taste of home.
But Wang Zhong, adopting the attitude of having eaten it anyway, took another bite.
It didn’t seem so strange after another taste. Let me try another bite.
And so, Wang Zhong finished off the odd solid salad as he continued trying.
After finishing it, his first words were, “Do we have Chanakhi stew? Get me a portion.”
Belinsky’s favorite Chanakhi stew was also quite to Wang Zhong’s liking, and the walnut sauce-filled pies were not bad either.
Ludmila directly took away the empty aspic salad plate and stuffed the bowl filled with stew into Wang Zhong’s hands, “I knew you’d like it.”
Wang Zhong ate the stew while watching the others enjoy their food.
The night grew darker, heralding the approach of the New Year.
When they had almost finished eating, the cooking crew’s girls appeared, pushing a trolley with alcohol on it, and to keep the barrels warm, there was even a charcoal stove on the cart!
“We don’t have that many champagne flutes,” shouted the girl pushing the trolley, “make do with your canteens for now, the first barrel is sparkling wine, and the second is your favorite vodka!”
The soldiers grew restless at the mention of vodka.
But Wang Zhong saw that they all obediently used their thermos-covered canteens to take some champagne and drink it first, before getting vodka.
It seemed that during New Year’s, you had to drink sparkling wine before vodka.
Otherwise, these booze hounds would definitely go for the vodka first.
The Secular faction of the Church had always promoted sparkling wine—champagne—as part of their propaganda, but even after so many years, champagne production had increased, but couldn’t outsell vodka.
When the trolley reached him, Wang Zhong also took a bit of champagne for himself before getting a bit of vodka.
Just as everyone was full and sipping wine, the trumpets on the Kubinka training ground began to play the sound of bells—it was the arrival of the New Year.
Wang Zhong, holding his thermos-covered canteen, turned to Ludmila, “Happy New Year.”
Liu Da also smiled, “Happy New Year, may you win more battles.”
Wang Zhong nodded, “Of course.”
As the trumpet’s bell sound struck for the last time, music followed, seemingly a variation of the Tsar’s Hymn. Wang Zhong had a premonition that Olga might make a speech.
As expected, Olga’s voice came through, “Citizens of the Empire, this has been a tough year for us. The Prosen Empire slaughtered our brothers and sisters, our friends, even our parents. They brutally murdered prisoners and civilians, leaving a trail of blood debt on this land!
“Fellow countrymen, the past year has been one of sorrow everywhere on Ante’s territory.”
At this point, Wang Zhong wondered if Olga would publicly reveal the truth about the Tsar’s death. But the people of Ye Fort had long known that the Tsar had been executed for his cries of surrender.
After all, on the day he went mad, there were too many people in the Summer Palace, and many came to rescue them, all hearing it.
Finally, Olga mentioned the matter, “The Prussians even fired cannons at the Summer Palace. At that time, my father was on the verge of collapse due to my brother’s martyrdom. The Prussian cannons snapped his last taut string, driving him completely mad!”
So, in the end, the Tsar wasn’t charged with treason; he had gone mad.
Olga continued, “As a result, my father seized the guard’s sidearm, and he ended his life with that gun.”
Well, it reminds you of that time when someone was shot eight times in the back, and they ruled it a suicide.
Eagle, stop looking at others; I’m talking about you!
Olga proclaimed, “Immense grief seized me, but I knew, I had to stand tall, crown myself with this heavy mantle of the empire. I, Olga Nikolayevna Antonovna, pledge to lead you all to victory! No matter how long it takes, we will reclaim our lands, and then invade the homeland of the culprits, eradicating the roots of their atrocities!”
Wang Zhong nodded, “That’s good, concise and forceful, no dissertations, just an emphasis on results.”
For old illiterate peasants like Auntie Ilyinichna, such a speech was perfect.
After all, there were still many old peasants among the older generation of Ante, so they needed to understand it.
After the Tsar’s speech ended, music started again, but this time it was not the Tsar’s Hymn but The Holy War.
The soldiers began to cheer, “Ura!”
Having had some drinks, the shouts of “Ura” came one after another.
Wang Zhong turned to Pavlov and Popov, “Keep an eye out tonight; don’t let anyone drunk stay out on the parade ground, or it’ll be bad if they freeze to death.”
Pavlov patted his chest, “Don’t worry! And Happy New Year!”
Wang Zhong was about to respond when fine snowflakes began to fall from the sky.
It wasn’t the furious blizzard from over a month ago, but rather the snow was as fine as it was antithetical to the style of the country of Ante.
Wang Zhong suddenly remembered an old saying: Heavy snow promises a good harvest.
At that moment, Popov solemnly said to Wang Zhong, “General—no, Davarish, I strongly request that your set of work processes be popularized among all the military chaplains in the army.”
Wang Zhong asked, “You mean the singing? The competitive dance portion where everyone challenges each other?”
Popov replied, “And the singing contest as well. After some thought, in these singing competitions organized by military units, although everyone is just competing on the pitch of their voices and the outcome is nearly just a matter of morale, it does serve to reinforce collective consciousness.”
Nonsense, that’s something the iron army from another time and space figured out after many years.
Popov added, “You should come and teach a class here, Davarish.”
Discover more stories at M-V-L
Wang Zhong protested, “No, no, I already have too many places to teach, just go tell them about it, or have Pavlov sum it up in a booklet, I think Pavlov’s summary of post-war experiences was very good!”
“Me?” Pavlov looked shocked, “You’re ordering me around again!”
Wang Zhong waved his hand dismissively, “That’s settled then!”