Hu Jiazhu, an old party member of Guizhou Qixingguan, repaired the canal and guarded the canal in 64 years without hindrance

Source: People's Daily - Guizhou Channel Original draft

A hoe, a bent sickle, a pair of rubber shoes, back and forth canal patrol for 3 hours, 79-year-old veteran party member Hu Jiazhu left a generation of struggle footprints and years of perseverance on the cliff of the canal.

"The living commune is mountainous, looking at the river in the distance and shouting dry mouth; there are no three bowls of water in the tank, and there is a lack of food and less clothing." This is a song sung by the people of Shengli Town, Qixingguan District, Bijie City, Guizhou Province, in the 1950s and 1960s.

For thousands of years, the people of Shengli Town have been besieged by mountains and valleys, watching the Chishui River trickling down the mountain without water to eat, and the lack of water not only leads to the hardships of the masses, but also blocks the people's steps towards the vast world.

In order to open the canal to divert water, in 1958, the people of Shengli Town used the most primitive methods such as "hanging people from the cliff to the mid-air axe and hammering" and "self-made earth explosives to blow the mountain", and successively built ten large water diversion ditches with a total length of more than 130 kilometers between the high mountains and valleys, and opened up the road of development.

At that time, the oldest canal repairer was 53 years old, and the youngest was Hu Jiazhu, who was only 15 years old.

Hu Jiazhu is a native of Zhenjiang Village, Shengli Town, who participated in the construction of The Great Ditch in Zhenjiang from 1958 to 1966, was an accountant in the canal repair team, and also participated in the construction and preparation of logistics materials. In 1984, Hu Jiazhu joined the Communist Party of China and successively served as the mayor of Zhenjiang Village, Shengli Township, the mayor of Shengli Township, and the mayor and secretary of Liangyan Town in Qixingguan District, and retired in 2004.

"We set up a 'Huang Jiguang Company' of more than 40 people and a 12-member 'Liu Hulan Platoon' youth commando team, during which 5 members of the team sacrificed their precious youth and lives." Unforgettable years, Hu Jiazhu said lightly.

In order to split the mountain and open the canal, the canal repair team held a steel shovel, hung on a cliff hundreds of meters high, hammered and nailed the gravel; there was no protective tool, ten fingers were exposed, and they were full of blisters; in order to save time, they squeezed into the cave, covered the sky as a bed, and fell asleep with the roaring mountain wind; there was no gunpowder, they used the earthen walls of old houses to boil whistles, cut firewood and burn charcoal, made black powder, and blew up the mountain to open the way...

In 1966, the construction of the Zhenjiang Canal was completed, but because the canal was built using lime and yellow mud, the water storage capacity was poor, and the water flowed into the mountains along the stone cracks, and there was little left to flow into the cultivated land, and the mission of irrigation could not be completed. In 1984, Hu Jiazhu, as the village chief of Zhenjiang Village, applied for 170 tons of cement from the county water and electricity bureau to strengthen and repair the Zhenjiang Canal, so that the babbling water flowed down the canal, and 4,000 mu of dry land became fertile land.

The canal is babbling and the moisturizer is silent. The Zhenjiang Canal was completed, and the zhenjiang canal was chained with beads in gaoliu, changyan, zhenjiang, huangdong, luojian and other large canals in the vitality town, irrigating more than 13,700 mu of farmland in the vitality town and moisturizing more than 18,100 local people.

Relying on convenient water conservancy, the people of Zhenjiang have vigorously developed agriculture, planted rice, peaches, plums, and oranges, and the staple food on the villagers' tables has changed from "grain rice" to the coveted "white rice.", and Zhenjiang Village has gradually changed from a poor mountain village that eats "relief grain" every year to a well-known "granary." The villagers have completely bid farewell to the hard days of water shortage and lack of grain, and their days are getting better day by day.

Today's Chishui River, beautiful mountains and rivers, fragrant melons and fruits, green pepper seedlings, golden melons and fruits, lined up new farmhouses, high-standard vegetable greenhouses, showing the ever-changing development speed of Zhenjiang Village, the upsurge of rural revitalization is surging in the fields.

The great improvement of irrigation conditions brought about by the cliffs and canals has made the road for the people of Zhenjiang Village to run to a well-off life no longer far away. Last year, Hu Jiazhu made up this passage and sang with the villagers in the courtyard dam: "If you come to Zhenjiang in February and March, the mountains are full of wild fruits and flowers; in April, when you come to Zhenjiang, the peasants are busy planting seedlings; in August and September, when you come to Zhenjiang, your family rice is full of warehouses; if you come to Zhenjiang in the tenth winter, the mountains are full of oranges." ”

"In the past, it was not easy to build canals, and the conditions were difficult, but keeping and using this canal well can benefit future generations." Hu Jiazhu said that the Cliff Heavenly Canal is the "canal of life" of the people of Shengli Town, and everyone has an unshirkable responsibility to protect this heavenly canal. Although he is older, his legs and feet are not as convenient as when he was young, as long as everyone needs it, he must give full play to his role as an old party member and guard this big canal.

Today, Hu Jiazhu carries a hoe and a sickle every month to clear the canal and sweep obstacles, check whether there are cracks in the ditch, and maintain the smooth flow of the canal. On rainy days, move the stones with everyone and introduce the water into the river to avoid heavy rains from collapsing the canal.

A round trip of 3 hours, from the total corner of the year to the year of the elderly, rain or shine, the original intention does not change.

When he was young, he built the heavenly canal with the spirit of fighting the heavens and the earth, retired for 18 years, and still exerted his residual heat to patrol the canal for the masses. As a party member, Hu Jiazhu continued to write the spirit of heroic vitality with his life. In June 2021, he was awarded the title of "Outstanding Communist Party Member of Guizhou Province".

"Although the times are different, like them, I use traditional means to guard the canal and let the heavenly canal better feed the people." Influenced by Hu Jiazhu, now the villager Cao Guanlou has taken over the baton and become a canal patrol, he said: "Splitting the mountain and opening the canal is the dream of generations, and guarding the Heavenly Canal will be a relay that will never stop." (Li Jinmiao, Wen Jie)