Top News Dahe News reporter Zhu Changzhen photographer Hong Bo
Zhao Chengxin, a 71-year-old veteran party member in the deep mountainous area of Pingdingshan County, Yuxi Province, built an 86-meter-deep cave with his own strength decades ago, and this year's Spring Festival became a popular punch card. With no water, no electricity, no machinery at the time, how did he use his hands to repair this famous cave? And what impact will this cave have on the travel and draft of the surrounding villagers? How will his own life change because of this? What should be done about post-maintenance and safety?
On February 10, a reporter from Dahe Bao Yu Yu made a special trip to Wuxian County to visit this "one-person cave" on the spot, and used the official Weibo of Dahe Bao, Douyin and other platforms to broadcast live, with tens of millions of fans to listen to the "Foolish Gong" tell the story behind the scenes of his 100-meter tunnel.
At about 11:00 a.m., according to the previous agreement, the reporter rushed to the Dragon King Temple Village at the foot of Ziyun Mountain in Wuxian County, and Zhao Chengxin, who was covered in dirt and carrying an iron pickaxe, stood on the side of the road, not tall, but very energetic, because his ears were a little back, and he needed to shout loudly to communicate with him, and he spoke in a rough and atmospheric voice.
The live broadcast began with Zhao Cheng's new home, and he turned over a box of dozens of various diaries, which were specially made small books bound with old-fashioned calendars, full of memories of 1974 and 1975. According to its introduction, because of the special geographical environment of Longwangmiao Village, the villagers used to have to climb the mountain and take a detour of 2.5 kilometers to enter the farmland labor in the south of the village, and usually rely on shoulders to carry people for production, and the villagers also need to pay the same hardship to pick up the water from the canal in the south of the village.
At that time, the 24-year-old Zhao Chengxin had graduated from school and returned home to participate in labor, and worked as a recorder for the production team, seeing the villagers' difficulties in crossing the mountains in order to draft water and production, Zhao Chengxin volunteered, picked up an iron pickaxe hoe, pulled a rack car, drilled holes in the north slope of this mountain called Jinsuo Mountain, and was determined to open a production road leading to the south of the mountain.
At that time, the members of the production team all thought that it was impossible, the tools were backward, not to mention, Zhao Chengxin's thin body, how difficult it was to open a cave with hard rocks. Everyone thought he was delusional. But the stubborn Zhao Chengxin did not believe in this evil. Every morning he got up at five o'clock, lit a cover lamp and started digging the mountain.
After just 30 meters of digging, he found that the digging was biased, he was afraid that the excavation from the north and south ends would not be able to dig together in the future, after many consultations, he adopted the method of erecting several vertical poles from the top of the mountain and then erecting a straight line on the pole, digging a section out of a stone to hoist a line to compare the straight line on the pole, digging in the middle of the hole to light up the oil lamp, using light comparison to judge the excavation direction.
At that time, the forest on Jinsuo Mountain was dense, the humidity in the mountain was very large, coupled with a long period of hard work, Zhao Chengxin's face often produced yellow blisters, and the blisters were scratched and rotted and then formed scabs. However, none of this could stop Zhao Chengxin's determination to go to the cave. From the winter of 1974 to the spring of the following year, after 110 days of hard work, a production tunnel 86 meters long, 3 meters high and 3 meters wide was opened. Zhao Chengxin calculated during the live broadcast that he had a total of five bad frame cars and twelve pickaxes, and how much suffering he had suffered, he himself could not say clearly.
Since then, the members of Dragon King Temple Village have gone to shannan to cultivate land, and they no longer have to climb over the mountains and mountains. Zhao Chengxin's good deeds were praised by the people and affirmed by the government. Everyone calls him "Fool", which means that The Fool moves the mountain. In the following year, he was also recommended to henan agricultural university in Xuchang at that time, and after graduation, he was assigned a job to work at the commune agricultural machinery station.
The day of the cave was dug on the third day of the third month of the third month of the lunar calendar, and there was a local assembly on that day, and Zhao Chengxin rushed to the meeting. Several villagers working at home came to the cave to watch the liveliness, and when they shouted at both ends of the cave, they could hear the sound of the opposite side, and several villagers accidentally dug it and dug the hole through. After returning, Zhao Chengxin excitedly bought a whip to hang at the mouth of the cave and put it away happily, and the villagers who learned the news came to the cave like a meeting, and since then, this cave has become a necessary way for everyone to pass, and the old road before the reporter went up to the top of the cave live broadcast has long been impassable.
After learning the news of the reporter's live broadcast, the village cadres also rushed to the scene, saying that during the Spring Festival, they had found an excavator to clean up the south entrance, and were ready to strengthen it with stones in the near future, and the next step was to vigorously publicize this cave and Zhao Chengxin's spirit of moving mountains to lay a good foundation for the village's investment promotion.
During the reporter's live broadcast, villagers from near and far came to the cave entrance to take pictures or take videos, which was very lively. At about 2 p.m., when the reporter finished the live broadcast, the number of netizens who came to watch the live broadcast on the same day had exceeded 100,000.
Now has become an Internet celebrity Zhao Chengxin mentality is still the same, the main work of the day is still to work on the mountain, as soon as there is free time, he will return to the cave to repair, this condensed most of his life's work in the cave is still his haunting place, every time a tourist comes to the cave to take pictures, he will always tirelessly tell the story of his digging the cave.
Editors: Wu Bing, Li Yingxuan