The Spring Festival deep in the mountains lifts the wood - the eighth memory of the distant Zhiqing years

Tang Xiaomin

The place where our farm is located is called "Dongshan Bianzi", which is the junction of the plain and the mountainous area. To the west is the plain, to the east is the mountainous area. There are no mountains. Most of the mountains in Heilongjiang seem to be like this. For example, Daxing'anLing is also a little bit taller, and there is a song called "Walking up the high Xing'anling", which is "walking" up, not "climbing", let alone "climbing". Neither Huangshan nor Mount Hua can "walk" up.

To the east of our farm is the Little Xing'an Ridge. When we say "east," we mean the direction, which is actually far from our farm.

But the year after I went to the countryside, I had the opportunity to go into the mountains to the east. That year, somehow, the region set up the "May Seventh Cadre School" and assigned our farm and another nearby farm to the "May Seventh Cadre School.", and if the "Five Seventh Cadre School" wanted to build, first of all, to build houses, it organized people to go to the xiaoxing'an Ridge in the east to cut down wood. At that time, I was very active and asked to go, and I did not go until I was approved by the field department. This is so because going to the mountains to lift wood is a heavy task and dangerous. Later, I learned that there were more than 300 people who went to the mountains to cut down and raise wood, of which I was the only one who went to the countryside to know the youth.

Life is hard. It's primeval forest and no one lives there. There are no wells. After we went, we used the water to just plan a tightly frozen stream, and we used this to cook, and we ate vegetables, and there were often small pine branches in the dish. The steamed buns are not made here, they were sent from yamashita. We ate steamed buns, half a pound each, and each person was given 4 per meal.

Such water is not much, have to save the use, wash your face every morning, 20 people, only use a basin of water, at that time I was the youngest, embarrassed to argue with people, others washed it, and then when I went to wash, I found that the water was already black, and I didn't want to wash it. In 26 days in the mountains, I only washed my face twice.

The stay was very quirky. We were 20 people in each group, living in a tent, the tent is a single layer of "canvas", the temperature outside, during the day is more than minus 20 degrees, at night is -40 degrees. But we weren't cold at all, because there was a stove made of oil drums in the house, and two people were arranged every day, one during the day and one at night, dedicated to burning the stove. The firewood used, half is birch trees, half pine trees, pine trees often have pine oil, pine oil, called "Mingzi", a piece of "Mingzi" put into the oil barrel, we can watch the black oil barrel color change, from black to dark red, and then into bright red, and then into a very bright yellow, and then little by little dark down. We slept on a plank-up bed, which was so high that we wore only hurdle vests in bed, and under the bed was thick ice, and the steamed buns we ate, placed on top of the bed, were frozen as hard as stones.

Lifting wood is extremely heavy manual labor. In a group of 8 people, the wood was carried to the car, and the wood was freshly cut down and very heavy. Raise the wood, one person shouts the trumpet, and the other 7 people meet it, so that the steps are adjusted together, so that they can lift it up and not be dangerous. No matter what the person shouting the trumpet, the other 7 people must respond, shouting: "幺-hi", "幺" shouted into four voices. Step by step into the car. At this time, it is not allowed to make a mistake, a person to make a mistake, everyone else will fall off the springboard, of course, the wooden head carried by it also falls, and the consequences are unimaginable.

Our group of shouters was a middle-aged man who spoke softly and softly, and soon I knew that he was a "counter-revolutionary." It was the Cultural Revolution, and many people on the farm were labeled "counter-revolutionaries." At that time, "being a counter-revolutionary" also seemed very easy, and to say the wrong thing is "counter-revolution". Fortunately, the farm is in the "east mountain", relatively remote, coupled with too many "counter-revolutionaries", it is unlikely that everyone will be severely punished, or it is not cost-effective. In short, the "counter-revolution" works just like we do. When I first went, I was a little surprised, and then I got used to it.

At that time, the rest of our group took good care of me, and at first did not let me participate in the group that carried the car, which was called "jumping up"; only let me participate in another group of "guiling", which was only responsible for lifting the distant wood to the convenient place of the "jumping" group. But I was determined to have participated in the "up jump" before, and they also agreed. I only worked for a few days, and most of the time I was "jumping up" the group. The weight of the wood is also different, the heaviest is the maple birch, and the white pine is also heavy, the maple birch is mostly very short, but very thick, and the white pine is very long. But they were all very heavy, and sometimes, the sweat of the whole body came out at once when I took a step on the car. It was really gritted teeth and lifted up.

The labor of lifting wood is very heavy, but only 5 cars are carried every day, that is, 5 times a day, and each time is about an hour. There is often a break of about half an hour between the two cars. Moreover, it was winter in Heilongjiang, the days were very short, and it was dark at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We'll be all right and go back to the tent to rest. The night is too long, and I can't go back to sleep, so everyone nags. I would love to nag with the shouting "counter-revolutionaries". He knows a lot about rural affairs, and he is a very calm person, which makes me admire.

It was a primeval forest, and no one lived there, but there were roads, and I don't know when they opened. Because it is a primeval forest, there are wolves, wild boars, bears and so on in the forest. None of us saw it. But someone is met. One morning, there was news coming from outside, everyone was talking, saying that the night before, maybe it was the middle of the night, there was a tractor driver up the hill, walked to the road, suddenly there was a black shadow dangling in front of the car, he was nervous, made the tractor turn off! The tractor was a very small "hot nursery", perhaps afraid of another beast, perhaps thinking of staying in the car and freezing to death, in short, he got out of the car and ran to the lumberyard, ran 15 miles, to the lumberyard, tired and frightened, unable to speak.

The 26 days of lifting wood on the mountain were the most impressive days in the three years I went to the countryside. We went a few days before the Spring Festival, the Spring Festival was spent on the mountain, the fifteenth day of the first month was also spent on the mountain, remember the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, someone in the lumber yard put up a very bold middle empty wood and lit a fire in the middle, the fire burned in the hole, they knocked on the big wood outside, Mars rose from the top of the wood, tens of meters high, it was really spectacular! In the following January, I never saw such a unique scene again. At that time, I still wrote a diary every day, but unfortunately I didn't save it.