The hero ascends to the top of the earth

Editor's Note:

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Xinhua News Agency, the xinhua news agency edited and launched the "Selected 90 Excellent Articles of the Xinhua News Agency in 1990", which collects 90 news works collected and written by Xinhua News Agency reporters in various historical periods of China's revolution, construction and reform in the context of time. After the publication and distribution of the book, it has aroused widespread concern in all walks of life, and some of the manuscripts are now compiled and distributed, with "author's epilogues" attached, truly restoring the stories behind the production of these manuscripts.

The hero ascends to the top of the earth

Guo Chaoren

How did China's three mountaineering heroes overcome many natural dangers and climb from the north slope to Mount Everest, the world's first peak, which foreign mountaineering explorers call "birds cannot cross"?

At the base camp of the Chinese mountaineering team that pulled out the sea at 5120 meters under Mount Everest, the reporter visited these three brave mountaineering heroes who had just returned from triumph -- athlete Wang Fuzhou, athlete Qu Yinhua and first-class athlete Kampot, and they enthusiastically recounted to reporters their fierce battle to seize the summit of Mount Everest.

The battle begins

On May 17, the members of the Chinese mountaineering team, led by deputy captain and athlete Xu Jing, set off from the base camp under the mountain and began the fourth march to conquer Mount Everest - the battle to seize the summit.

After seven days of arduous marching, on May 23, Xu Jing and thirteen mountaineers climbed to the 8500 meters of Everest, where they established No. 8 on mount Everest's north slope, the last alpine camp, the "Assault Camp", on a snowy slope here.

At ten o'clock that night, they saw the meteorological forecast signal flare "24 good weather" issued by camp No. 3 at 6400 meters in Bahai. This news increased the confidence of the players to conquer the summit.

At 9:30 a.m. Beijing time in the early morning of May 24, Four people, led by Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua, Kampot and athlete Liu Lianman, carrying alpine backpacks and holding an ice axe, began to march towards the summit of Mount Everest. Vice Captain Xu Jing remained in the "Assault Camp" to direct the battle to capture the summit, and the other members withdrew to the Sixth Mountain Camp at 8100 meters to prepare for the necessary support.

The last obstacle – the second step

The men of the assault summit walked for about two hours before rising about seventy meters. At this time they came to the famous "second step" on the north slope of Mount Everest. The "second step" was like a city wall, blocking their way. This is a steep cliff of overhanging rock, located between 8570 meters and 8600 meters in the sea, the relative height is about 30 meters, the rock wall is steep and smooth, the average slope is about 60 or 70 degrees, and it is almost impossible to find any support points that are easy to climb. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, in 1924, the famous British mountaineers Mallory and Owen lost their lives in this area. The British "expedition" later concluded on the "second step" that it was a great obstacle and that there was no need to waste time climbing it.

Chinese mountaineers who stormed the summit once tried to bypass the "second step" and climb up the northeast ridge, but the ridge was steeper and more difficult to walk. So they circled in a direction parallel to the "second step" and finally found a longitudinal rock crack in the middle of the "second step". Wang Fuzhou, Liu Lianman, Qu Yinhua and Kampot discussed and decided to climb the "second step" along this crack.

Zhi Yong overcomes difficulties

Braving the bitter cold of more than thirty degrees Celsius, they advanced on the steep rock walls, and they wore special alpine boots with steel nails, and it was difficult to keep their feet steady. Qu Yinhua, a sports athlete who walked in front of him to open the way, slipped down several times in a row, but the Communist Party member from the Sichuan forest area workers gritted his teeth and insisted on moving forward.

As it approaches the last three meters at the top of the "Second Step", the rock wall becomes vertical and smooth. Athlete Liu Lianman walked to the front to open the way, he reached into the rock crevice with his hands, tiptoe on the rock surface, and used his full body strength to rise inch by inch, but his body was slightly crooked, and he fell to the original place again. Liu Lianman climbed four times in a row and fell four times, making his whole body sour.

Stop and figure out a way. At this time, Liu Lianman, a firefighter from Harbin, smiled and decided to use the method of taking a "human ladder", crouching under the rock crevices, letting his comrades step on his shoulders as a support point, and then slowly standing up with force and letting them climb upwards. Making any small movement at such a height will bring a serious reaction to the body. Liu Lianman's eyes were full of "golden flowers", his legs were trembling, and his breathing became heavy. But this excellent Communist Party member has always persevered. He first lifted Qu Yinhua up. And then to Kampot. Finally, Qu and Gong pulled Wang Fuzhou and Liu Lianman up on top.

Climbing to the top of the "second step", they realized that due to the weakening of their physical strength, they had spent more than five hours climbing the entire "second step", and it took them three hours to climb the last three meters.

Party group meetings

Because of the slow pace of progress, the sky has begun to fall late. In the evening, the sun was already west, and the cold wind whistled bitterly. The brave climbers are still advancing. However, due to the excessive time and physical exertion spent in the previous stage, the barometer on the oxygen cylinder on their backs indicates that the capacity of oxygen is no longer much, and moving forward may be threatened by lack of oxygen. At this time, Liu Lianman's physical strength was already very weak due to excessive fatigue, and he would unconsciously fall down every step or two, but he slowly stood up and continued to walk forward.

When the four of them reached the height of 8700 meters, there was less oxygen and Liu Lianman's movements were more difficult. At this time, Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua, and Liu Lianman, three members of the Chinese Communist Party, immediately stopped and held a party group meeting on the slope of this mountain, which is called the "death zone" by Western mountaineering circles.

Wang Fuzhou – A graduate of the School of Geology, said excitedly: "Climbing to the top is a task entrusted to us by the party, and we must move forward without oxygen!" ”

Qu Yinhua, who grew up cutting wood in the plateau forest and cultivating a stubborn character, said: "If I retreat now, what face will I, a Communist Party member, have to go back to see the party?" ”

Liu Lianman also firmly said: "You can't walk, you have to climb up!" ”

Considering Liu Lianman's body, and in order to buy time, the party group would decide that Liu Lianman would stay, and the other three would advance to the top as quickly as possible.

The true character of a Communist Party member

When Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua, and Kampot continued to advance toward the summit, Liu Lianman leaned against a large rock sheltered from the wind, already in a semi-comatose state. He subconsciously picked up his oxygen cylinder, saw that there were still dozens of liters of oxygen left, and then put on the mask and inhaled a few sips, a warm current flowed throughout his body, and his mind became clear. At this moment, he remembered the three comrades who were fighting with the summit, and he decided that even if he endured the attack of severe lack of oxygen and fatigue, this last bit of oxygen would be left for the comrades to use when they returned. Therefore, he resolutely turned off the switch of the oxygen cylinder. And wrote a text message in a diary, and then went to sleep. He wrote in the letter: I see that there is still some oxygen in the oxygen tank, so let's use it when the three of you come back, I guess it may work.

At the same time, Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Kampot were struggling to move forward in the vast night.

The final battle

The three of them continued along the snowy slope, getting steeper and more slippery, so they diverted to the rocky slope to the northeast to attack the main peak. After climbing two rocky slopes with a slope of more than sixty degrees, they began to climb a steep slope. Kampot, a member of the Tibetan team, opened the way in front and was too tired to do so in less than a few minutes. So, Qu Yinhua stepped forward to open the way, and it took him a long time to take two or three steps forward, but his legs were soft and he slid back to the original place. In the end, wang Fuzhou came to the front, and he insisted on opening a forward route for everyone.

The night is thick, and the mountains of Mount Everest are wide open, and only the summit of Mount Everest still shows a faint outline. Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Kampot all crouched on the ground in order to avoid accidents in the late night march, relying on the blurred reflection of the snow on the ground to identify the way forward.

It was late at night, and it was pitch black under the mountain in the distance, and a little starlight was shining in the air. The dark shadow of Mount Everest looked more and more low in front of them.

By about 8830 meters, Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Kampot had all run out of oxygen. At that time, the wind was gradually decreasing, which was very beneficial for climbing to the top. They stood on the rocky slope in silence for a moment. Wang Fuzhou was the first to say: "Comrades, the three of us are now shouldering the task of conquering the main peak, there is no oxygen, and although it may be dangerous to continue to move forward, can we retreat?" ”

Qu Yinhua and Kampot replied in unison, "Keep going!" ”

They threw away the empty oxygen cylinders on their backs to lighten the load and began a difficult and dangerous journey that had never been seen in human history.

Now, with each step forward, they have to stop and rest for a long time. Due to severe lack of oxygen in the mountains, they feel headaches, dizziness, wheezing, and weakness. Their movements became more difficult, and it took more than half an hour to climb a one-meter-high rock. They endured all this, helping each other and encouraging each other to move forward.

Persistence is victory

After crossing a rocky slope with a little bit of snow, Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Kampot finally climbed a place where rocks and snow meet. Looking around, in the dark night, the dark shadows of the peaks of the Everest Mountains are crouching at their feet. Now, on the heads of the three of them, there was no longer any mountain rock that could be climbed upwards. They finally reached the summit of Mount Everest, completing the feat of climbing from the North Road to the world's highest peak in human history.

At this time, the pointer of the luminous meter is pointing to 4:20 Beijing time, which is the pre-dawn time on May 25.

Mount Everest is covered with snow to the south and gray rocks to the north, and an oval area at the junction of snow and limestone, which is the peak of Mount Everest, which is mysteriously and yearned for mountaineers around the world.

After nearly nineteen hours of fighting, although the heroic mountaineering heroes Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Kampot were extremely tired, the joy of victory made them so excited and excited.

Unforgettable quarter of an hour

From his backpack, Kampot, a member of the Tibetan team, took out a five-star red flag and a small white plaster statue of Chairman Mao that the mountaineering team had entrusted them to bring to the summit, and placed them on a large rock northwest of the summit, which was then protected by fine stones.

At this time, Wang Fuzhou touched the black, took out a "sports diary" book, and wrote on it with a black automatic pencil:

Wang Fuzhou and three others conquered Mount Everest.

25 May 1960 4:20"

Because it was dark and his hands were frozen in the cold, it took Wang Fuzhou about three minutes to finish the line in a crooked way.

Kampot came over and helped him tear off this memorable note, put it in a glove woven of white wool, and then buried it in the fine stone pile of the fortification.

To commemorate the victory at the summit, they selected nine rock specimens and prepared to return to bring to Chairman Mao.

They stayed at the top of the mountain for about a quarter of an hour. After 4:35 Beijing time, they began to descend the mountain. The use of artificial oxygen at an altitude of 8882 meters is unprecedented in the history of world mountaineering.

Because it was dark, although the three of them carried a movie camera, they could not capture the scene of the summit, and only after dawn did they shoot some shots back at a distance of 8700 meters.

Selfless class fraternity

Liu Lianman, who remained at the eighty-seven-hundred-meter place of Bahai, woke up and found that he had left footprints on the snow slope leading to the summit, and he knew that Wang Fuzhou and the other three had already reached the summit. A burst of strength made him stand up. When he saw Wang Fuzhou and the other three return safely, the first words were to let them suck the last few tens of liters of artificial oxygen he had left at the risk of his life. When he handed the oxygen cylinder to Wang Fuzhou and the other three people to use, they were all moved to tears.

The four brave climbers gathered again and walked happily down the mountain. The news of their victory soon reached the bottom of the mountain, to the base camp, to the whole country, to the whole world. People cheered and jumped, feeling immensely honored and proud of the great achievements of our outstanding mountaineers.

At 13:30 Beijing time on May 30, the four of them, together with all the mountaineers, safely returned to the base camp of the mountaineering team at 5120 meters below the mountain.

From their ascent on May 17 to their arrival at base camp at the foot of the mountain on May 30, they lived on the world's highest peak for two weeks.

(Xinhua News Agency, Everest, June 2, 1960)

【Author's Note】

Interviewing a Chinese mountaineering team to climb Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, was an unforgettable experience in my decades as a journalist. At that time, I was engaged in journalistic work for a short time, and it was the first time to engage in mountaineering reporting, and the objective conditions for interviewing were quite special and arduous, and I would encounter many unexpected difficulties anytime and anywhere. The reporter's permanent mountaineering team is located on a mountain at an altitude of more than 5,100 meters, and some interviews need to be carried out in the ice and snow at an altitude of more than 6,000 meters. Under such conditions, it is difficult not to say that the interview is written, that is, to adhere to the normal diet and living. Due to the severe lack of oxygen in the mountains, he could not sleep for a long time, could not eat, and even swollen his whole body. I remember when I rushed to write the newsletter "Heroes on the Top of the Earth", my eyes were so swollen that I couldn't read and write, and I often needed to use one hand to open my eyelids and write with the other hand. As for the obstacles to mental activities caused by the lack of oxygen in the mountains, it brings great difficulties to the work of journalists, because of the frequent headaches, the difficulty of concentrating thinking, and sometimes even the most commonly used words cannot be remembered. Once, I braved the wind and snow to conduct an interview on an ice slope at an altitude of 6600 meters, and returned to the tent to write a witness at the scene. It took more than four hours, and I hadn't finished writing 200 words, and finally I didn't know how to write the "rock" of the rock. Writing in the cold of more than -30 degrees Celsius, the ink is frozen as soon as the nib reaches, and the pen cannot be used at all; The pencil breaks as soon as it writes the refill. As for the frostbite of different degrees of hands and feet, it is almost inevitable. Recently, I reread these old works and deeply felt that they were technically immature, and some of the passages seemed very delicate, and people could pick out one kind or another. Nevertheless, I still feel that they are fused with my fiery and real feelings, a strong sense of political responsibility, and a strong revolutionary passion. I think this is probably the valuable point of this report!

Guo Chaoren December 1999