50 years ago, 118 comrades-in-arms of the cadets turned into meteors and fell in the waters of Bashan and Han
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It is often said that the older you get, the more nostalgic you love, and the nostalgia complex seems to grow stronger with age.
Half a century ago, in August 1970 and March 1971, more than 25,800 middle school students of the 69th and 70th grades in Xi'an, Xianyang, Baoji, Weinan, Tongchuan and other cities in Shaanxi Province responded to the government's call and rushed to southern Shaanxi to participate in the construction of the third-line Xiang-Chongqing Railway, organized into 141 student companies (also known as student companies) into the management of railway troops, worked side by side with railway troops and militia companies, split mountains and built roads, and dug tunnels and bridges.
In August 1973, the construction of the Xiang-Chongqing Railway came to an end, the tunnels and bridges on the entire line were completed, the laying of railway tracks began, and the student companies gradually withdrew from the field and rushed to new jobs.
Life for decades, three years of Xiangyu war, time is hurried, like a meteor crossing, life is short, like a flash in the pan, when the flowers are reopened, no one is young again.
At that time, the cadets carried extraordinary hardships and hardships with their young bodies, and with sweat, blood, and life cast the Xiang-Chongqing Railway between the Qinba Mountains, adding a strong and colorful stroke to the country's national defense and economic construction, becoming a major iron and steel artery connecting Xiangfan City in Hubei Province to Chongqing Municipality, and playing a vital role in the economic development of Fanyang in Hubei Province, Shaanxi Southern Shaanxi, and Chongqing.
Comrades of the 4th Company of Students of the 11th Squadron of unit 5761 prepared stones at the Ankang Armed Mountain Stone Field
More than 50 years ago, at the construction site of the Xiang-Chongqing Railway in the Qinba Mountains of southern Shaanxi, the living and construction conditions were extremely difficult. When they first arrived at the construction site, the student companies encountered the problem of building barracks and building dormitories to solve the accommodation problem.
Taking my company as an example, we were the 12th Company of students of the Third Squadron of the 5853rd Railway Corps, who set off from Xi'an on March 25, 1971 in a liberation truck with a peng, and stayed at the reception station set up by a primary school in Ningshan County that night. On the afternoon of the 26th, we arrived at Wuli in Ankang, got off the bus and walked more than 30 kilometers to the Shimiaogou Company station, which is located in the middle of the mountain north of the Han River and belongs to the hinterland of Qinba Mountain.
At the end of 1972, in the construction battle carried out in the regiment, our company's performance was outstanding and won the red flag of victory, and the location of this group photo of our company was on the playground of the company, and the background was a simple dormitory barracks, and the photo truly recorded the scene of the harsh living environment and the youthful style of the brothers of the whole company. (Wang Jinyi Collection)
At that time, the counterpart support helped our company's railway troops 14 Company Yishan to temporarily set up several simple bamboo mat huts for us, all of which were large bunks, and because the number of people could not be squeezed, they temporarily lent us a cotton and a single and two tents.
In the first days, more than forty of us in the second row were crowded in these two tents, there were no beds, there were mats on the floor, the bedding was spread out and slept, people were crowded, if they got up at night to go to the toilet, they would not have their own bunks when they came back, and finally they understood what was the place without a cone.
The arrow points to the location of the company that year.
In order to solve the problem of housing, the company immediately organized us to start building houses in platoons, and the first and second platoons used the method of "dry and hard base" to build houses. People of our time knew "dry bastion", which was a simple way to build a wall, filling it with clay in two fixed planks and tamping it down. Four walls were built to support the beams, and the roof was covered with linoleum.
The corner of the company barracks was a dormitory we built ourselves.
The third and fourth rows were the transformation of the bamboo mat sheds that the troops had built for us—expansion, compartments, and the construction of mezzanine walls. After a period of raids, we finally built our own "barracks" of the cadet company. Although the house is relatively simple, after all, it is built by everyone themselves, each class has a room, and each person has his own bunk.
The problem of living was solved, and there was another thing that bothered us, that is, we did not have enough to eat at every meal and were often hungry. Just arrived at the construction site, we mainly to assist the work, in addition to the construction of company barracks, that is, to prepare stone outside the tunnel, loading and unloading wood, cement and construction equipment, etc., the grain ration is 45 kilograms, due to the labor intensity of the large physical consumption, and the side food is insufficient, because the student company is a newly established company, calculated according to 30 days a month, it is a pound and a half of ration per day, but it is also necessary to consider that there are 31 days of months, and the daily ration is less than one and a half pounds. Later, when the tunnel was constructed, the grain ration was increased to 51 catties per month, and I still felt that the ration of each meal was not enough to eat, and I often felt hungry.
Some comrades-in-arms wrote to their families for help, and from time to time they sent some fried noodles, biscuits and other food to alleviate our hunger, but they could not solve the fundamental problem.
Hunger caused a series of problems, once, a few comrades in the company found a red wild fruit on the mountain, tasted slightly sweet, and everyone ate a lot, which was a poisonous wild fruit called "Ma SanJiao" by the locals. Several comrades-in-arms were poisoned after accidental eating, although they were rescued from danger, but this toxin affected the central nervous system of people, and some people still left sequelae, showing that they were somewhat lame when walking.
I remember another thing, the people in the company cooking class heard that every time the 14th company of the army took the leftover okara from the grinding tofu to feed the pigs, they went to discuss with them: give us the okara, you can give it to everyone to fry and eat, in order to alleviate the problem of insufficient food, the troops agreed, I have the impression that the company has eaten fried okara many times.
A friend of the troops joked with us that the tofu residue was even picked up and eaten by your students, the students of the student company were fat, and the pigs in our unit were thin!
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Nowadays, we use EPBs to dig tunnels or build subways in cities, which is efficient, fast and safe and saves people.
50 years ago, the way of tunneling was still very backward, when we used air guns to shoot gun holes, then load explosives for blasting, and then manually transport and clean up the stone slag after blasting. The slag was loaded into the bucket truck, pushed outside the tunnel and dumped, and the labor was repeated by each shift.
Scene of a cart pushing out of the slag
The Total Length of the Xiang-Chongqing Railway is 915 kilometers, with 405 tunnels and 716 bridges on the whole line, and the length of bridges and tunnels accounts for 45% of the total length of the line. The geology along the Xiangyu Line is complex, with many sections leaning on cliffs and deep streams below, and 36 stations have to be built on bridges or extended into tunnels.
Some stations are built on bridges
In the international context of the early 1970s, the construction of the Xiang-Chongqing Railway was mainly based on the consideration of war readiness. The Xiang-Chongqing Railway was a key combat readiness project in the construction of the third line that year.
Carrying out construction work in that environment and conditions is like fighting a battle, facing tunnels and bridges, and the heroic railway troops are leading the militia company and the student company to carry out one arduous battle after another.
Of the 141 student companies participating in the construction of the Xiang-Chongqing Railway, 26 were female cadets, and during the entire construction of the road and bridge construction, a total of 118 cadets (including eight female cadets) were buried in the Qinba Mountains.
Here are a few stories of sacrificed cadets.
1. The 5853 corps of the railway corps studied 12 companies of Zong Zilin
Shimiaogou No. 3 Tunnel
One day in early October 1971, we had been working on the tunnel for more than a month. Comrades in the second row and four shifts carried out slag removal operations in tunnel No. 3. According to the recollection of Zhan Eliang, a comrade-in-arms of the fourth squad, after the artillery was fired to exhaust the smoke, he and his comrade-in-arms Zong Zilin pushed a flatbed truck to the palm of the construction operation, and there was also a deputy company commander and a soldier of the 13th Company of the unit at that time. The comrades in arms behind them walked towards the palm face one after another, and when everyone was preparing to load the car with stone slag, there was a sudden collapse, and the falling stones smashed the wires, and the scene was pitch black, because Zhan Eliang and the deputy company commander of the unit were located and dodged quickly, and they were not hit by falling stones. At this time, the cries for help of the soldiers of the unit were heard, and by the light of the flashlight of the deputy company commander of the unit, they saw that the soldier's legs were deeply buried by the rubble, and Zong Zilin's whole body was almost buried by the stones, and only the exposed head leaned weakly on the left leg of the soldier.
At this time, the rubble above their heads was still falling continuously, and the collapse would occur at any time, Zhan Eliang and the comrades who rushed over could not care about the danger above their heads, and the comrades used the light of the flashlight to desperately open the stones on their bodies with their bare hands. The soldiers of the army were rescued first, and after ripping open the stones on Zong Zilin's body, they found that what was pressed into Zong Zilin's arms was a large stone weighing 100 pounds, and after four or five people worked together to remove the stones from him, everyone lifted Zong Zilin and ran to the mouth of the cave. At that time, Zong Zilin had a wound on his face, and he was still conscious and wanted to drink water.
After the battalion's military doctor examined and handled it, the soldier of the unit was fortunately not in serious trouble, and Zong Zilin needed to be sent to the regimental headquarters health team in Ankang Wuli for treatment.
It takes about two hours to take a temporary road from the mouth of the Shimiaogou No. 3 Tunnel to the regimental health team, and on the bumpy road to the emergency rescue of the regimental health team, Zong Zilin suffered a massive hemorrhage of internal organs caused by a spleen smash, and zong Zilin, a good comrade-in-arms who got along day and night, has lost signs of life, and the young life is forever fixed at the age of 17!
Zong ZiLin
II. Railway Corps 0247 Cadet 82 Company (Female Cadet Company)
On May 6, 1972, Xiao Meiying, who was working on the construction work here, died in a sudden landslide accident during the excavation of the lower tunnel of the Luo Xiangyan Tunnel.
On July 1, 1972, a sudden rainstorm fell in the Xunyang area, and a flash flood broke out in Mozigou, and the ferocious flood uprooted large trees, rolled up boulders, rampaged and ran wildly. What's going on here?
On October 7, 1972, Ankang Daily reported on the deeds of Ding Ping and Ma Hongyan. Chen Jintian, correspondent of the 0247 unit, reported in detail with the title of "Sacrificing Life and Forgetting Death to Save Relatives" that the heroic 82nd Company of cadets recorded the thrilling feats of the hero's 82nd Company in the fight against floods and rescues. The summary is as follows:
"On July 1 this year, heavy rain poured down in the Xunyang area, flash floods broke out, and the ferocious flood uprooted large trees, rolled boulders, rampaged and ran wildly.
...... Comrades Chen Material, Ding Ping, Ma Hongyan and other comrades jumped into the water, tied the bucket cart and wood with ropes, and let the other students pull them to the shore. After a while, they pulled five buckets and some wood ashore.
...... Seeing that the People's Liberation Army of relatives is about to be rushed into the Bay of Guankou! At this critical juncture, Ding Ping, Ma Hongyan, Yu Wen, Chang Chunhua, and others desperately jumped into the water and swam towards Chen Materials together. They only have one wish: to sacrifice themselves and save their relatives in the People's Liberation Army! Ding Ping and Ma Hongyan, who swim in the front...
The majestic mountains and gushing waters are shrouded in mourning. Chen Materials and comrades-in-arms stood by the river in the face of heavy rain and mourned the heroes: "Comrade Ding Ping and Comrade Ma Hongyan, you will always live in our hearts."
The 82nd Company sacrificed three cadets, which was the company with the most female cadets on the Xiangyu Line.
3. Zhao Xiaofu of the 11th Company of the 5851ThRent of the Railway Corps
He was an orphan, and during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, his father was persecuted and died, and soon his mother was angry and angry. As a teenager, he had a sense of hardship in his life. He had to bear the grief of losing his parents, as well as the discrimination and pressure of society. In the third line, he has been working hard, talking less, doing more, and wants to join the youth league through his own practical actions. He wrote seven applications, but the organization was hard not to approve. That night, he tore a piece from the cement bag, cut it neatly, and then wrote down on paper his urgent desire to join the youth league. He pressed the new application under his bed, ready to hand it over to the organization tomorrow, and who knew that tomorrow morning as he was clearing the steps of the Flowing Water Bridge, a squib suddenly exploded. Zhao Xiaofu died at the age of seventeen.
(Excerpt from the book "Xiangyu Ah Xiangyu")
Wu Nan
In the construction of the third line, there is no shortage of heroes who are brave and fearless, and who sacrifice their lives and forget their deaths. On the afternoon of June 17, 1972, the 5851th Unit of the Railway Corps suffered a landslide during the construction of the Maple Pass Tunnel and died to rescue his comrades-in-arms. Posthumously recognized as a martyr.
At the celebration meeting, a few months later, Wu Nan heroically sacrificed himself to rescue his comrades-in-arms.
The rear frame of the tunnel collapsed rescue
Ankang Martyrs Cemetery
The Ankang Municipal Government erected a monument to the third-line students!
Note: (118 soldiers died after verification)
In the days of third-line life, there are also times of homesickness, sitting next to the company's dormitory at night, looking at the night sky, imagining and dancing. Sometimes I wonder if my family is okay at this time. Are you also looking at the night sky and thinking of me? Thinking of the construction progress, thinking of the danger, of course, also thinking of death, the most unacceptable thing is that yesterday there were comrades who laughed and played, because of an accident, people are gone!
If you think about it, once you enter the tunnel to work, even if you still have to consider life and death, you can only do your best to complete the progress of the shift.
(This photo is selected from the network)
The night sky in the southern shaanxi area is beautiful! On a clear night, the sky is clear and deep, full of stars, there is no dust in the air and the interference and pollution of various lights, and meteors can be seen occasionally.
At that time, the future envisioned was very simple, that is, to grit your teeth and insist on building the Xiangzhou Railway, assigning him to the factory as a worker and starting a new life.
Half a century has passed, we are already on the way to Benqi, on the eve of the Qingming Festival, we think of the comrades who died at the Construction Site of the Xiangyu Railway, and we can't help but burst into tears, they are too young, their lives are like shooting stars.
A foreign writer once said that my life should be like the most brilliant shooting star, and may each of his stars bloom with a moving brilliance. I think this is also an interpretation of life, which should be full of light and heat.
Dear 118 comrades-in-arms, 50 years ago, although your life ended, you have left the light and heat of life in the fertile land of southern Shaanxi.
Author: Yang Ruixiang, 12th Company of The 5853ThRent of the Railway Corps
EDIT: Have fun