In Coco Ciri, look for traces of your fathers

【China Story】

Author: Long Renqing (Vice Chairman of Qinghai Writers Association, winner of the "National Ethnic Minority Literary Creation Horse Award")

Patrol the mountains

Every time he entered Coco Siri, Phu Tso Tse-jen always had a strange feeling: over a mountain, or around a lake, his uncle Jessan Sonandaj and his Abba Chika Zaba Dorje would appear in front of him.

Perhaps it is such an illusion that every time he goes to Coco Xili to tour the mountains, Pucuo Tso Tsering will always take the initiative to ask to join. He became the most visited person in the Coco Siri Administration.

On May 16, 2021, Coco Siri formed a 7-person mountain patrol team to prepare to enter the hinterland of Coco Siri to patrol the mountains. Before leaving, they invited me and the film director Wan Ma Tse-dan and his assistant Toto to join. "The gunfire in Coco Ciri has been gone for more than a decade, but we are still patrolling the mountains. Coco Siri is rich in flora and fauna and mineral resources, and some greedy outlaws are always peeping at the treasure here, and if we relax a little, they may take advantage of the void. Therefore, we still have to shock them in the most traditional and effective way of patrolling the mountains, and let more people know that Coco Siri still needs to be protected by humans, and more people need to join the ranks. That's why we invite you to join us on a mountain patrol. "Before leaving, Ngawang Danba, director of the Coco Siri Forest Public Security Bureau, told us.

Illustration: Guo Hongsong

We met Pucuo Tso Tsering in this mountain patrol. On May 17, in order to adapt to the climate, altitude, etc., I, Wan Ma Tse-dan and Tse-do arrived at the Sonandaj Conservation Station at an altitude of more than 4,600 meters, spent the night here, and the next day met with the patrol team at the intersection of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway to the hinterland of Coco Xili and began a real mountain patrol. Prior to this, Pucuo Tse-jen, who was the captain of the patrol team, had been making preparations: preparing gasoline, spare tires for vehicles, food, water, medicine, etc. for the horses. At the time of departure, after Pucuo Tse-jen and we exchanged veneers according to Tibetan customs, he began to explain the precautions after entering the mountain. His first words were: "All the garbage we generated along the way is left on the car, waiting for the completion of the mountain patrol task, and then deal with it after leaving the mountain!" ”

Perhaps it is because of this sentence that Pucuo Tse-jen left a deep impression on me. On the way to the mountains, I learned that he was the nephew of Jessan Sonandaj, a pioneer of reform and "environmental defender", and the son of Chika Zaba Dorje, who is known as the "wildlife protection god of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau". Sonandaj and Zaba Dorje were the two secretaries of the Western Working Committee of Zhiduo County, Yushu Prefecture, and the leaders of China's first armed anti-poaching organization, the "Wild Yak Team.". Such a special status makes me pay attention to him all the way, and whenever I have a leisure time, I will talk to him. But he was the busiest person in the mountain patrol team, and the daily itinerary accommodation, food and drinking, and mountain patrol tasks were all arranged by him, so the chat between me and him was intermittent.

One of the topics I was most concerned about was, "Uncle and Abba gave their lives to protect Coco Siri, so why are you still doing this work with a very high risk factor?" ”

"Protect Coco Ciri, I'm looking for them too." Pucuo Tso Tsering thought for a moment and then said.

Pucuo Tse-jen still vividly remembers the last night he saw his uncle. On that day, when his uncle came to his house for dinner, Abba and his uncle sat cross-legged on the ground, talking very happily, and from time to time they made hearty laughter. He heard his uncle say to Abba, "If I die, I don't want to be buried in heaven, and I don't want to chant the sutra and chant the Buddha, I'm a communist, I'm going to be cremated, and then I'm going to scatter my ashes into Coco Cili." That's where I'm willing to stay! ”

At the time, 15-year-old Pucuo Tse-jen did not yet know what death meant. Coco Xili is also only a vague concept, this ignorant teenager only knows that it is a wilderness, the altitude is very high, and the uncle has set up a western working committee in order to protect the wildlife and mineral resources there, and Coco Xili is a place where they often have to travel.

The uncle seemed to have a premonition. Shortly after he left that sentence, when he once again entered Coco Siri to patrol the mountains, he remained there forever and never returned.

Pucuo Cairen grew up in Zhiduo County, when he was young, his uncle Sonandaj worked in Soga Township, Zhiduo County, and every Spring Festival, Abba and Aunt would send him to his uncle's house for the New Year in the pastoral area, which became his happiest childhood. In 1988, Pucuo Cairen was 9 years old, and on the eve of the Spring Festival, there was a huge snow disaster in Zhiduo County, and the livestock casualties were serious, but in Pucuo Cairen's memory, it was full of the warmth of family reunion. His uncle asked him to press his cold little feet against his warm chest, and to bake his feet for him, and a warmth rose in his little heart. But such beautiful scenes are always short-lived. His feet warmed up, and before he could say thank you, his uncle put on his military coat and heavy Lei Feng hat and walked into the white snowy field outside the house. His uncle served as the commander-in-chief of the fight against the snow disaster, and the number of times he returned home was getting less and less, and he did not see his uncle until the Spring Festival came.

In Pucuo Tse-jen's later memories, his uncle and Coco Siri were closely linked. After that, his uncle served as deputy secretary of the Zhiduo County CPC Committee, and soon after, the Zhiduo County Western Working Committee was established, and the uncle served as the secretary of the working committee. Pucuo Cairen slowly realized how remarkable his uncle and his Western Working Committee were! The Western Working Committee has formed China's first armed anti-poaching team, and the battlefield where they fight is coco Xili, with an average altitude of nearly 5,000 meters and an area of 45,000 square kilometers!

Choice

On May 18, the patrol team rode in three pickup trucks and officially advanced into the hinterland of Coco Siri. While crossing a river, the pickup truck that Wan Ma Tse-dan and I were riding in sank into a swamp. Wan Ma Tse-dan and I were a little nervous, but the mountain patrol members were calm and calm. Pucuo Tso tsering rolled up his trouser pipes and a few mountain patrols whizzed into the mud, hung up our car, connected it with a wire rope to another pickup truck, and dragged it out without much effort. Later, I understood that trapped cars are a common thing on the way to the mountains, and it can be said that the whole mountain patrol journey is completed in the cycle of exploring the road, trapping the car, towing the car, repairing the car, and starting again.

That evening, we arrived at the Kusai Lake Conservation Station. This is a seasonal conservation station, during the migration and breeding season of Tibetan antelope and other wild animals, the Coco Xili Management Office will send people to guard, when we arrived, there was no one here. Pucuo Tse-jen signaled us not to get out of the car first, and he led a few mountain patrols into the protection station to search and check before letting us in. Later, I learned that because the protection station is unattended and the temperature inside is relatively high, wild animals such as brown bears and snow leopards tend to roost here, and sometimes some illegal crossers and poachers will also spend the night here to rest.

After entering the protection station, the team members divided their work under the arrangement of Pucuo Tso Tsering, cleaning the room and boiling water for cooking. At 11:00 p.m., everyone was getting ready to rest, and with a little leisure, I went to talk to Pucuo Tse-jen and asked a question that may have been cruel to him: Do you remember the moment when the news of your uncle's death came?

"Remember very well!" Pu Tso Cai Ren said after a half-groan.

Beginning in the 1980s, the Tibetan antelope in Coco Siri suffered unprecedented killings. The killing spree began because the fluff of the Tibetan antelope could be made into a luxury shawl called Shashtu. Such a shawl, which costs $40,000, requires the fluff of three or four Tibetan antelopes to weave, while the cost of hunting Tibetan antelopes is very low— only to sneak into Coco Ciri and bring a few killing weapons. As a result, some greedy criminals have embarked on this bloody road. In just a few years, the number of Tibetan antelopes in Coco Xili has dropped from 200,000 to less than 20,000!

The brutal killings staged in the hinterland of Coco Siri made Jessan Sonandaj anxious and unable to sleep.

How to curb such evil? Under the impetus of Jessan Sonandaj, the Zhiduo County Western Working Committee was formally established in July 1992, and China had the first anti-poaching armed team for wildlife protection, and Jaisan Sonandaj was the leader of this team, who called themselves the "Wild Yak Team". In less than two years, Jason Sonandaj led the "wild yak team" to the hinterland of Coco Siri 12 times to drive and arrest poachers, and the sound of righteous gunfire shocked the rampant criminals.

The confrontation between good and evil has only just begun in Coco Ciri.

It was a late winter day in 1994, and Pucuo Tse-jen, who was in high school, came home from school and saw Abba sitting on the couch in silence, and the sound of his aunt crying and crying came from the bedroom.

"Something happened to your uncle..."

That was my uncle's last mountain tour. He led 4 mountain patrolmen, captured 20 poachers, captured 7 cars, more than 1800 Tibetan antelope skins, and when escorting the poachers out of Coco Siri, they were resisted, and his uncle took the mountain patrol members to fight with the poachers to the death, and sacrificed heroically... After his uncle's death, Pucuo Tso Tsering's Abba asked to resign as deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the State People's Congress at the time and be transferred back to Zhiduo County to take charge of the work of the Western Working Committee, "inheriting Sonandaj's legacy and completing his unfinished business."

The heroic sacrifice of his uncle and Abba's resolute decision left a deep impression on this ignorant teenager. He decided that when he graduated from high school, he must apply for the police academy, and in the future, he would be a person like his uncle and Abba, and it would be best to work in Coco Siri, where there were difficulties and dangers, where to fight and contribute!

Abba did not say anything about Pucuo Tso's decision, but His mother strongly opposed: "Your uncle is gone, and your Abba has disregarded this family and asked to work there, is this not enough?" ”

Auntie's attitude is resolute, she feels that Pucuo Cairen has an impatient personality, and is easy to be impulsive when things happen, "To grind your temperament!" "My aunt insisted that he apply for majors such as financial accounting that required patience. At that time, Abba had been transferred back to Zhiduo County and succeeded his uncle as the secretary of the Western Working Committee, and the young Pucuo Cairen was well aware of the sadness and loss of his aunt who had lost his brother and had to worry about his husband, and finally fulfilled his mother's wish and was admitted to the school of finance and economics.

Inheritance

On May 19th, we spent the night at the Kusai Lake Conservation Station, and as soon as the sky was light, the rangers got up, washed up, and began to prepare breakfast. Pucuo Tse-jen instructed everyone to do their own thing, and specially explained that all the mineral water bottles after drinking water were packed up, "Wait until there is fresh water, and then fill them up!" "In order to give priority to drinking water needs, the patrol team members only rinse their mouths, brush their teeth, wash their faces and bathe every day.

On that day, we marched along the narrow Kusai Lake in the direction of Leopard Gorge. Although Lake Kusai is covered with ice and snow, the wind has blown away the ice, and huge ice cubes have accumulated on the shore, revealing the blue water of the lake where the ice and snow melt.

It didn't take long for us to find the carcass of a wild yak.

In recent years, although the poaching of Tibetan antelope has disappeared, occasionally some people have hunted wild yaks and sold them with wild yak beef pretending to be yak. The price of a yak on the market is about 10,000 yuan, and there is almost no cost to hunt wild yaks, so some criminals will take risks. So the patrol team got out of the car to check to see if it was hunted by criminals.

Upon closer inspection, the rangers confirmed that it was a wild yak that had died naturally. The dying wild yak will leave the herd alone and climb upwards, waiting for death to come in the quiet and steep heights. This wild yak, apparently after dying on the mountain, was dragged from the mountain by wolves to here, leaving a drag mark on the grass.

Just as the rangers let their guard down and prepared to set off again, a wolf appeared in front of our eyes!

The wolf was close at hand, just a few steps away running around us. It turned out that the wolf saw us approaching the wild yak, thought we would take its food with it, and ventured closer to us, trying to get us out. The patrol members understood the wolf's thoughts, and everyone tacitly got into the car. "Meeting a wolf, according to our Tibetan saying, is a sign of good fortune, indicating that our trip to the mountains will be very smooth!" Pucuo Cairen said and laughed, which caused everyone to laugh too.

On that day, we saw wild yaks, Tibetan wild donkeys, brown bears, spotted geese, red hemp ducks... When I encountered a large herd of wild yaks, Pucuo Tso Tsering looked at the wild yak herd calmly and said to me, "Every time I enter coco siri and see wild yaks, I have a feeling of awe. I sometimes think that my uncle and father may have turned into a wild yak in Coco Siri. ”

I was impressed by his words, and I wrote them down in a memo on my phone.

According to the plan, we should reach Lake Zornai that day. Due to the wind and snow along the way, and the road conditions are very different from our predictions - related to global warming, the thawing time of the swamps in the hinterland of Coco Siri has been advanced, which has caused us to get stuck on the road to Lake Jonay many times. Halfway through the trip, when it was getting dark, we found a sunny valley in Leopard Gorge, pitched our tents, and camped down. It is more than 5,000 meters above sea level. When night came, it was pitch black all around, and we used the headlights of the car to illuminate it, and the usual dazzling lights, in this dark night of the wilderness, seemed so faint.

That day, in my spare time before going to bed, I asked Pu Tso Tso Tseh-jen a question that had been lingering in my mind for a long time: How did he become a policeman when he went to school in finance and economics?

"This matter is still related to my uncle and Abba."

In the first semester of his admission to the provincial school of finance and economics, Pucuo Cairen wrote an application to join the party. The following year, he was approved as a reserve party member. It was 1998. It was also in that year that his Abba Chika Zaba Dorje continued to adhere to the mountain patrol pioneered by Jessan Sonandaj in order to fulfill Jessan Sonandaj's last wish to establish the Coco Siri Nature Reserve, while also running around and appealing for the protection of Coco Siri. His determination and sincere attitude touched many people. With the help of Liang Qichao's grandson Liang Congjie and other environmentalists, Zaba Dorje made a special trip to Beijing to speak at major colleges and universities and large enterprises, and received support and donations from all walks of life.

Passing through Xining from Beijing, he called his son out of school to have a meal together and talked about the establishment of the Coco Xili Nature Reserve. Pu Tso Tse-jen remembers that Abba was very happy that day and drank a few glasses of wine.

"However, soon after he returned, there was an accident and he died..."

The young Pucuo Tso Tsering once again made up his mind to be a strong-willed and faith-minded person like his uncle and Abba. He decided that after graduating from the finance school, he would apply for the police academy again. Later, he was admitted to the Forest Public Security College, and after graduation, he came to work for the then Coco Siri Administration.

Pu Tso Tse-jen did not remember that he had already made his first mountain tour. Once, on a mountain patrol, they encountered poachers, they were resourceful, and finally succeeded in catching all the poachers, searching the vehicle found that they not only had plenty of diesel fuel, but also filled a 50-pound plastic barrel with bullets, as well as several semi-automatic rifles and small-caliber rifles. During the interrogation, one poacher told the truth: "Our small caliber is reserved for tibetan antelopes, and semi-automatically for you." You have fewer guns, and we can consume you to death with bullets! ”

There are many thrilling stories of such narrow encounters with poachers. "In 2010, we captured a poaching organization of seven or eight people in Yanshiping and confiscated seventy or eighty Tibetan antelope skins, which was also the last time coco Xili sounded gunfire." Pucuo Tse-jen said to us with some pride. We also learned from other mountain patrol members that he was also a famous "tent captain", and whenever it was the season of gold mining, he would take a mountain patrol member to wait at a ditch in Coco Xili at the junction of Xinjiang in Qinghai to set up a tent to prevent illegal gold mining gangs from entering Coco Xili. He was stern and serious, and the inspection of the registration was never sloppy, and the name "tent captain" was first passed on from the mouths of those illegal gold miners. On his waist, there was a deep scar. It was a mountain patrol, the vehicle was in the mud, and as he was about to drag it out of the trap, the wire rope for traction suddenly broke and whipped at his waist like a steel whip, and he fainted. When the team members took him to the hospital in Golmud, they found that the intestines were exposed from the wound. Due to missing the best time for surgery, the postoperative left sequelae, and every time the disease was committed, the pain was unbearable.

On May 20th, we arrived at the Jonay Lake Conservation Station. There are heated rooms, relatively complete kitchen facilities, and are called the "five-star hotel" in Coco Siri by the mountain patrol.

It was already 3am when we arrived and the intense altitude sickness left me up all night. The next morning, I got up and walked out of the protection station, intending to see Zhuo Nai Lake, and saw that Pu Tso Tse-jin had also gotten up. Ask each other for good morning, see his face is ugly, only to know that his sequelae are committed, gastrointestinal discomfort, diarrhea, do not want to eat. I asked him to hurry back to rest, and he pointed to a small mountain bag in the distance and said, "After my uncle died, according to his wishes, his ashes were scattered in Coco Xili, and that small mountain bag, as well as the Sonandaj protection station and the sun lake where he died were all places where his ashes were scattered." He looked affectionately in the direction of the hill bag and fell silent. I looked into his eyes and seemed to sense what he was looking for, what he was seeing.

In the following days, due to heavy snow closures, we were stranded at the Zhuo Nai Lake Conservation Station. On May 24, the snow finally stopped and the sky cleared, but we didn't have enough supplies to move on: there was little gasoline left, and the spare tires of the three cars were all used up. For safety reasons, we retreated to the Sonandaj Conservation Station and regrettably ended the mountain patrol early.

Pu Tso Tsering's condition improved. When we retreated to the Sonandaj protection station, he told me that he had lost 15 pounds on this trip.

Throughout the mountain patrol, he wore the party emblem. Later, I learned that since becoming a public security officer, he has been awarded the second class merit once and the third class merit once, and has been commended and commended by the Forest Public Security Bureau of the State Forestry Administration and the Forest Public Security Bureau of Qinghai Province.

Guangming Daily ( 2022-01-07 14 edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily