The “Camouflage Green” Great Wall still stands in the flood after 23 years
1998 was an important year for Yang Aoxiang, a young man from Anhui. He was born in this year.
Before he was born, a catastrophic flood swept 29 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country, and 223 million people were affected. Yang Aoxiang’s hometown, Yangying Village, Taihe County, was not immune. He has heard from his parents many times. At that time, the heavy rain fell for several days and nights. The flood engulfed all the surrounding crops. There was more than 1 meter of water in the earthen house of the Yang family, which might collapse at any time. At this time, Yang Aoxiang’s mother was five or six months pregnant.
Soon, the local armed police officers and soldiers arrived, and Yang Aoxiang’s mother was transferred to safety after being transferred twice. After the flood that year, the Yang family gave birth to twin brothers-Yang Aofei and Yang Aoxiang. Today, the two brothers are both soldiers of the Xuchang Detachment of the Henan Armed Police Corps. Before they enlisted in the army, his father told them, “Work hard in the army and remember that you were rescued by the people’s soldiers.”
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In the past 23 years, the brothers have grown from being rescued in the flood to search and rescuers in the flood. In July of this year, they rushed to the front line of flood fighting and relief in Henan with the troops.
The people’s soldiers charged forward again and jumped into the water to build a dam of life. Some people remembered the song “For Who”, which was popular in the summer of 1998, and some commented, “The 98 anti-flood troops are back.”
At that moment, at this moment. The flood recedes, but the spirit does not fall; history is rushing, and the anti-flood spirit still stands across time and space.
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The anti-flood spirit is “the group of desperate people”
For thousands of years, the Chinese people have chosen water to live and live with and struggle with water. They are no strangers to floods. However, the huge flood in 1998 still shattered many people’s imagination of the flood.
“It rained continuously, it was like the sky was about to collapse.” Wang Bin, curator of the 1998 China Anti-Flood Memorial Museum in Tailai County, Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province, remembers that the Nenjiang River, which had been docile for more than 10 years, suddenly went “crazy” that year. Bit skyrocketed. One day in August, the levee opened in Daxing Township, Tailai County, and the flood roared, “all the crops were flooded in a few hours.”
Not only the Nenjiang River, but the Songhua River also experienced catastrophic floods that exceeded historical records. The Yangtze River experienced another basin-wide flood since 1954. There were 8 flood peaks. The water level of the river section 360 kilometers below Yichang and the Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake. Exceeding the all-time high for a long time…
In the current disaster situation, under the leadership and command of the Party Central Committee, the whole party, the whole army and the people of the whole country have taken urgent action. The Songhua River and the Pearl River Basin fought a desperate battle with the flood.
With an order, more than 300,000 people’s soldiers across the country rushed for emergency assistance. From defending the Jingjiang embankment to blocking the Jiujiang crevice, from fighting the three towns in Wuhan to defending the Dongting Lake area, from defending the Daqing oilfield to the decisive battle in Harbin, in the most dangerous and difficult tasks. The Great Wall of “camouflage green” has been built.
He Yanguang, a reporter from China Youth Daily who was interviewed on the front line of Jiujiang Flood Fighting, once wrote: “Their palms are bleeding. Their voices are hoarse. Their eyes are red – where the danger is high, there are soldiers’ flesh and blood. Body…Amidst the screaming voices, everyone can really feel that our soldiers are different!”
Among thousands of soldiers, there is a young man named Li Xiangqun.
He was a soldier of the 9th Company of the Tashan Defensive Hero Regiment of the former Guangzhou Military Region. He took the initiative to suspend his vacation and return to the team ahead of schedule. He said: “The country has raised its troops for a thousand days. Now is the time to come in handy!” Tired task. Despite the fever and the dissuasion of his comrades, he insisted on not getting off the embankment until he fainted on the embankment and was sent to the sanitation team.
After waking up, he “escaped” the health team twice, pulled out the needle on his body and rushed to the front line. In the end, he suffered from heart failure due to extreme fatigue. He was only 20 years old at the time of sacrifice, only 20 months into the army, and only 8 days into the party. When his life was dying, he asked, “Has the levee been saved? Is there any task at night…”
Sixteen years later, on the first day of his enlistment, recruit Yang Sai saw a portrait of Li Xiangqun, a hero of the whole army and the anti-flood hero, in the learning room of the recruit company, and heard his story. What is the anti-flood spirit? It is a united mind, united will, not afraid of difficulties, hard work, perseverance, and daring to win. In the eyes of 20-year-old Yang Sai, this spirit has never been an abstract term, but “the group of desperate people, the group of people who stand in front of us when the flood comes.”
During the flood relief in 1998, there were still many such people. They are 16 Communists stationed at the gate of Longwangmiao, Jianghan District, Wuhan, who wrote the “card of life and death” and pledged to live and die with the embankment. They are a commando team formed voluntarily by more than 10 farmers from Yimeng Mountain in Shandong. They are soldiers on the embankment. The owner of the noodle shop and his associates who have made more than 20,000 bowls of free ramen are the people in the flood diversion area who sheltered their homes and protected everyone… As the then General Secretary Jiang Zemin said at the National Flood Rescue Summary and Commendation Conference, “Cong Bai From old people with long hair to children wearing red scarves, from workers, farmers, intellectuals and cadres at all levels, 1.2 billion people are united like one person.”
When I grow up, I become “them”
It is this group of people who lifted the hope of life in the flood.
In Guizhou Bay, Jiayu, Hubei, 6-year-old Xiao Jiangshan, who “dare not relax for a moment” holding a tree in the flood, waited for the “uncle with a five-pointed star hat” and was trapped for 9 hours. An armed police rescued it. “I learned afterwards that just by approaching the tree, they charged 4 times.” Jiang Shan, now 29, said.
Tolihe Township in Tailai County also waited for more than 400 soldiers from the “tiger regiment” who had rushed to the starry night. This group of young people, whose average age is less than 20 years old, faced the 300-meter-long dangerous section of the embankment and continued to contain them for nearly 7 hours. A striking slogan was erected on the levee, “Fighting floods until the water bows, and blocking the mouth until the water does not flow.” “A group of young people with an average age of less than 20 have shown amazing perseverance and courage.” An Jiyou, then deputy head of Tolihe Township, Tailai County, was still impressed by the slogan.
More than 20 years later, this group of people is still young.
In July of this year, during the disaster in Henan, Yang Aoxiang, who was on vacation at home, took the initiative to return to the team ahead of time. When the train was out of service, he changed to two buses. “.
He also rushed to the front line with his brother Yang Aofei and his comrades. Coincidentally, they also transferred a pregnant woman who was about to give birth during a search and rescue operation at the Dazhou Township Health Center, Changge City, Xuchang City. “It was raining and the water flooded my chest.” Yang Aofi remembered that during the transfer, the water was running fast in some places, “The assault boat was about to turn over”, “If you don’t pay attention, you may be washed away.” Fortunately, within an hour, the pregnant woman was moved to safety. Later, the two brothers learned from elsewhere that the pregnant woman gave birth successfully and named her child “Kangkang”, the “Kang” for fighting floods.
Due to continuous fighting, Yang Aoxiang suddenly caught a cold and fever, and had to return to the team for treatment. The next day, when his health improved, he applied to return to the frontline of disaster relief, and wrote in the petition: “I don’t want to be a deserter!” Because in his opinion, “If the flood relief is not over, I will go to the battlefield and be a deserter. ‘”.
Yang Sai was also a soldier. Facing the disaster in Henan, “I don’t think I can stand by and watch.”
So, he followed a convoy from Beijing to the disaster-stricken area in Henan. He told reporters that he was playing a song “When the Motherland Summons” in his earphones at the time. A scene rushing forward”.
After several setbacks, his convoy delivered the supplies to Beiyunmen Town, Huixian City, Henan Province. Then, he moved to Xinxiang to receive and carry relief supplies from all over the country together with local volunteers; Weihe flooded his embankment with him. He started loading sandbags and carrying sandbags again. “Standing in the water, I only have one thought in my mind, which is to repair the waterproof dike to protect the residential area.”
On that day, Yang Sai accidentally saw “two children watching cartoons quietly on the sofa in the home of a local resident, and the flood outside did not seem to bother them.” He thought of himself, “At that time in 1998, Under the protection of others, I probably stayed at home so happily.”
Twenty-three years have passed, as Yang Sai said, “When I grow up, I will become’them’.”
“Become a hero like them.” This is also Jiang Shan’s wish after being rescued from the flood. Later, she was admitted to the Railway Police Academy, and in 2014, she joined the Yingcheng Station Police Station of the Xiangyang Public Security Division of the Wuhan Railway Public Security Bureau.
Zhang Yajing, a post-95 girl born in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, never thought of “being a hero.” She was a student of Yanjing Institute of Technology. She watched the heavy rain paralyze her hometown, “I felt that I must be able to do something. , There must be something to do.” Help local residents in severely affected areas to move and distribute disaster relief supplies, and assist community residents to count the disaster situation… She signed up as a flood prevention and disaster relief volunteer, thinking, “There is always something I can do. The place”.
In her view, “When there is no disaster, the spirit of fighting floods is the alarm bell and the banner. When disasters come, the spirit of fighting floods can give you a force to move forward.” This force has been imperceptibly embedded in the spiritual blood of the Chinese people. “It’s not just fighting floods and fighting the epidemic. The new generation of patriotic youths will go wherever they are in difficulty.”
“Fighting Floods and Rescue” is not only in the disaster areas
When the flood subsided, Yang Aofei and Yang Aoxiang have returned to daily training and learning. There are still many challenges waiting for them in the future. It is their dream to be a soldier. After six years of enlisting in the army, the two have competed against each other, and both have grown into professional and technical pioneers in the team. They want to “continue to temper themselves and do some business” in the army.
Yang Sai, a flood relief volunteer and veteran, moved to an academic “battlefield” and switched back to his other identity-a graduate student of the School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
His mentor once said to him, “As a young student, our’fighting against floods’ is not only in the disaster area, on the levee, but also in academic and academic aspects.” Yang Sai also believed that in addition to standing up before the disaster Do what he can, “I should also do more meaningful things in combination with my own identity and profession.” He hopes that the “fighting against floods” can be continued academically, and the spirit of fighting against floods can be continued in the study and life. Go down.
“After personally experiencing the test of life and death, I can understand the greatness of the flood fighting spirit.” Mou Tianshu, an instructor at Tailai’s 1998 Flood Fighting Memorial Hall, once witnessed the 1998 flood with his own eyes. In her view, promoting the spirit of fighting against floods is not only to promote the Chinese people’s high-quality character that is not afraid of difficulties, tenacious hard work, perseverance, and daring to win, but also to make people never forget their original intentions and remember history. Like the appearance of the ship of our memorial hall, it not only implies that the party leads the people to fight and overcome floods, but also represents that we will ride the wind and waves to a glorious future.”
What Mou Tianshu wants to do in the future is to tell more people about history so that the anti-flood spirit can be passed on from generation to generation.
In Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, many people came to visit the local flood fighting memorial this year. Tan Xiaotian, the person in charge of the memorial and chairman of Jiujiang Wenlv Yuanhe Asset Management Co., Ltd., told reporters that in this summer alone, more than 8,000 primary and middle school students in Jiujiang City visited.
“Although the children have not personally experienced the flood fighting, it does not affect them from being infected and moved.” Tan Xiaotian said that her daughter who is in elementary school signed up to become a “red scarf guide” in the memorial hall, in her opinion “This is probably a kind of inheritance of the anti-flood spirit.”
China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter Sun Qingling, trainee reporter Han Rong Source: China Youth Daily
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