Zhang Bing'ai, an ordinary peasant woman living in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of Zigui, Hubei Province.
In 1981, her parents married from the mountains to the relatively wealthy riverside.
Her husband, Xiong Yunjian, is disabled, a pair of children are not yet underage, and the family relies almost entirely on Zhang Bing'ai to cultivate land and plant fruit trees to survive.
She thought she would stay in this homeland for the rest of her life, but the construction of the Three Gorges Dam changed everything.
She felt that the fate of the family was all in her hands, and if she made any careless decision, she would be sorry for the whole family.
Therefore, in making this decision, she was extremely cautious, leading to too much caution and made a very conservative decision, that is:
Faced with the country's generous immigration and resettlement fees, she said this is not a long-term solution;
Faced with the promise of new towns by the state, she did not think so;
In the face of the painstaking persuasion of government workers, she was stubborn.
Zhang Bing'ai's family stayed where they were until their former hometown was submerged, and they walked out of the mountain.
And the years after the whole village was relocated and she did not leave, after looking back again after 19 years, she sighed.
The Three Gorges Dam, the country's heavy weapon, has been followed by generations
In 1992, when people passed through the Three Gorges, they would marvel at the scenery of the Three Gorges landscape, and people like Zhang Bing'ai, who lived here all year round, this mountain and river were the places where they were nurtured.
At that time, the impression of the Three Gorges was always the feeling of fireworks flourishing in the world and a simple and natural feeling.
The fate of the Three Gorges was also changed in this year.
On April 3, 1992, the Fifth Session of the Seventh National People's Congress deliberated and passed a motion on the construction of the Three Gorges Project, and the Three Gorges Project officially started construction.
The idea of building a dam in the Three Gorges originated from Sun Yat-sen.
He believes it is necessary to build dams on the Yangtze River in order to "improve shipping and use water sources".
In the 1930s, two major floods occurred in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, killing nearly 300,000 people.
In 1954, the Yangtze River Basin experienced the largest flooding since the 20th century.
Chairman Mao Zedong later made the decision to make the Three Gorges Project, but the construction of the project was subsequently stranded due to technical and other reasons.
It was not until after the reform and opening up that the Three Gorges Project returned to the public eye.
"Flood control, power generation and shipping" are regarded as the three major functions of the Three Gorges Project.
Building water conservancy projects and preventing floods has always been a major event in governing the country and ensuring national security.
Flood disasters in the Yangtze River Basin are widespread.
Since the Qing Dynasty, water damage has become more frequent.
The middle and lower plains suffered losses and displaced people as a result of multiple floods.
Therefore, whether it is from the perspective of human survival or the perspective of national economic construction and development, it is urgent to govern the Yangtze River.
After precise calculations and studies, experts and government departments have proposed that the water storage level of the Three Gorges Dam should be between 150 meters and 200 meters.
That is, this 175 meters, in the following ten years, buried the past life of the 193-kilometer Three Gorges of the Yangtze River deep under the water of the Yangtze River.
And the precious cultural relics that are about to be submerged by the 175-meter water mark have sunk to the bottom.
However, compared with the protection of the Three Gorges cultural relics, the resettlement of millions of Three Gorges migrants in Hubei and Chongqing is obviously the top priority.
There is a lot of resistance to the Three Gorges migrants, and the party and the government have come up with a brilliant plan
Since 1992, with the formal establishment of the Three Gorges Project at the national level, people living on the waterfront of the Yangtze River have begun to move away.
After school, my son and daughter, the first thing they did when they arrived home was to ask Zhang Bingai: After the Three Gorges Dam is built, will the water really flood us?
Zhang Bing'ai has always been vaguely aware that the state wants to build the Three Gorges, but when the "Resolution on the Construction of the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River" was passed, the people in the village showed great strangeness to the future Three Gorges Project.
Neighbors began to be uneasy, what will happen in the future, no one knows, and some people do not believe that the Three Gorges Project water storage will really submerge to 175 meters.
As his hometown erected a lot of 135-meter and 175-meter water level signs, Zhang Bing'ai realized that his home would really sink to the bottom.
Until the Three Gorges migration officially began, whether to go or stay, the father and fellow villagers have been in a difficult choice.
Zhang Bing'ai chose to move back and lean back on the spot.
Compared with the relocation of plane displacement and relocation elsewhere, they are obviously more willing to accept the resettlement plan of living on the top of the ladder, as if only in this way can they maintain their final friendship with their homeland and rivers on the same vertical axis of space.
Zhang Bing'ai's family is not the most difficult or poorest in the village.
Some families of five or six people, the young are planning to go out to Guangdong, the old man in his 80s will not leave.
Of course, he couldn't walk either: he was seriously ill.
Later he said: Fortunately, I am sick, otherwise I will leave the place where I have lived all my life, who will be able to bear it?
In 1995, the relocation and resettlement of the first phase of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area was fully launched.
On April 10, the first batch of migrants began a large-scale relocation in Zhang Bing'ai's hometown of Zigui County.
On April 24, 434 immigrants from 121 households in the village knelt down in front of the ancestral spirits of the Wang Family Ancestral Hall to bid a final farewell to the ancestors.
Byebi, the migrants and the villagers who came to see them off cried in the rain, then wiped away their tears and got into the car and set off.
Their departure also means that the thousand-year-old town and Qu Yuan's hometown will sink to the bottom of the river.
Relocating the fathers and villagers who have lived here for generations to other places is not a simple matter.
In addition to the traditional emotional factors such as the difficulty of leaving the homeland, the main reason is that the Three Gorges migrants have adapted to the three gorges area that relies on water to draft water and rely on mountains to eat mountains, and the change in production and lifestyle makes it difficult for them to make the decision to move abroad.
Most of the people who have lived all their lives in Zigui County live by growing citrus and rice paddies, and they don't want to move out.
Even when some people moved out to demolish the house, when they were halfway demolished, their spirits were somewhat broken, and they stopped for a few days and then continued to demolish the house after their emotions were stable.
Although their fathers and fellow villagers all want to stay in their hometown and continue to live, they all know that the state wants to build the Three Gorges Project, which is the century-old dream of the Chinese nation.
In the face of the interests of the country and the nation, they have chosen sacrifice and dedication without hesitation.
In the Great Relocation of the Three Gorges Migrants, the most heard is "After your own land is submerged, if you don't move out, what will you live on in the future?" Such plain words.
Although the fathers and fellow villagers were very reluctant to go, they finally left in a duty, some taking a handful of soil when they left their hometown, some taking a bucket of water, some taking away a tree...
With tears in their eyes, the migrants went to other places to rebuild their homes.
The immigrants who remained in the local area struggled to build new homes on the steep slopes.
Zigui is the hometown of China's navel oranges and Zhang Bing'ai's main source of income, and the fathers and villagers here affectionately call the navel orange tree a "dumb son" and a "cash cow".
Before it was about to be submerged, Zhang Bing'ai also relocated these trees one by one to more than 175 meters to rebuild their homes.
The land on the hillside is barren, and the government has carried out the project of "moving soil and cultivating fertilizer" in the reservoir area to encourage the people in the reservoir area to relocate the fertile soil in the submerged area up the mountain and transform the fertile land.
Developing among immigrants, migrating in development.
After the great relocation of migrants, the state invested a great deal of money in the development of industry, service industries and agriculture in the reservoir area.
Under the support of relevant policies, the navel orange industry has developed by leaps and bounds, and the flowers and fruits are fragrant all year round.
In May 1999, the State Council adjusted the original Three Gorges rural migration policy, from the past emphasis on "taking the soil as the foundation and relying on the local area" to "encouraging and guiding more rural migrants to relocate and resettle".
This has led to a gradual rise from a small-scale relocation that was originally on the spot to an unprecedented large-scale migration that has left the homeland due to national projects.
Under the guidance of the immigration policy, the local government has successfully created a resettlement model of "a road on the line, a row of houses along the road, and a garden behind the house".
That is to say, at an altitude of more than 175 meters, a highway is built, allowing local people to build their own houses along the road, and above the water level of 175 meters, more than 1,000 acres of wasteland are developed to plant excellent citrus, becoming a model for immigrants in the reservoir area.
Thousands of achievements, remembered by history.
On February 14, 2003, the people of the whole country watched the "Moving China" program together, and when the host announced that the special award was awarded to the "Three Gorges Migrants" who gave up their small families and everyone, everyone burst into tears.
Nowadays, gaoxia out of Pinghu Lake, looking back at hometown, the homeland is under Pinghu Lake, and nostalgia remains in memory.
In 2009, the Three Gorges Reservoir Area basically completed the task of "moving out" the Three Gorges migrants, centered on the goal of "being stable and gradually getting rich," began to enter the implementation stage of the Three Gorges follow-up plan, and is striving to build the Three Gorges Reservoir Area into a harmonious and stable new reservoir area with an economic prosperity, a beautiful environment, and the people living and working in peace and contentment.
The Three Gorges Project embodies the painstaking efforts and wisdom of several generations of Chinese, and the huge workload carried out in the research and demonstration, the wide range of opinions listened to, and the strong input force are rare in the history of world engineering.
Half a century of research and demonstration has fully embodied the scientific and truth-seeking spirit of the Chinese communists and fully demonstrated that the construction of the Three Gorges Project is a democratic and scientific decision-making.
Ten years of construction practice have proved that the construction of the Three Gorges Project is a wise decision of the three generations of leading collectives of the CPC Central Committee.
The wind and rain shake the little people, and each family tastes the sourness of each family
Zhang Bing'ai went from refusing to move out to leaning back to building a home on the hillside, and finally got the resettlement money and bought a house next to the road.
As the last emigrant in the village, Zhang Bing'ai immigrated 7 years late, and then stood alone in the same place for 6 years by building a house, leaking wind everywhere, living in a shack without water or electricity for 1 year.
The sourness here may only be known to Zhang Bing'ai himself, and whether she is the most difficult and tragic character is definitely not.
The construction of the Yangtze River Dam was followed by the relocation of 1.13 million migrants to their homeland, the relocation of 2 cities, 7 county seats, 94 market towns, and the relocation of 1,400 industrial and mining enterprises.
Being away from your hometown where you have lived for generations will not be an easy task for anyone.
If you just go to a foreign country to fight, you will eventually return to your homeland.
However, the current situation is that the homeland will be submerged under the water, and only the churning river can be seen when returning.
The hometown that cannot be returned has truly become the hometown forever.
There are too many stories in this, the central leadership attaches great importance to it, the profound righteousness of the immigrants in the reservoir area, the self-denial of government personnel for the common good, the hard work of the people of the whole country, the unity of heart, and the patriotic spirit and dedication spirit of taking into account the overall situation, and work together to solve this world problem.
It is possible that her story was drowned in the torrent of history, but a director named Feng Yan, who wanted to make a documentary about the Three Gorges Reservoir, took a fancy to Zhang Bingai's story.
Feng Yan and Zhang Bing'ai spent a total of 8 years from acquaintance to shooting, editing Zhang Bingai's story into a documentary "Bing'ai", which was screened at the 2007 Yamagata Film Festival.
Zhang Bing'ai's story now seems to be that she has some short-sightedness and a poor life and a tragic fate behind her.
But to say that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam destroyed her beliefs and brought her life to the bottom would be an exaggeration or ulterior motive.
Because on the contrary, Zhang Bing'ai's life is currently good.
Although her hindsight delayed her son's studies and missed the golden time to get rich.
But it is precisely because of her last immigrant that the government gave preferential treatment, not only gave the resettlement fee, but also allowed her son who failed the college entrance examination to have a quota to go to Xinjiang to serve as a soldier.
The award of "Bing'ai" at the film festival also made Zhang Bing'ai famous, so much so that she lived in Beijing for a while on the east wind of director Feng Yan.
In 2020, Zhang Bing'ai's son was officially discharged from the army, and a boss watched the "Bing'ai" movie and decided to take him to work at the unit, which was also considered to have a stable job.
This child has always been very contentious, because of Zhang Bing'ai's stubbornness and helplessness, he needed to spend a long time on reading, but even so, he was also a student in the village at that time who was admitted to high school.
Her son has always been zhang Bing'ai's pride, she chose to stay where she was because of the helplessness of reality, sending away one villager after another who moved abroad, for her, her husband is disabled, and a family can only rely on her to make a living, so Zhang Bing'ai does not dare to have a half-point difference pool.
Staying in the village, to the back of the village to ask the village to shovel the slope and move high, are helpless moves, she thought, facing the loess back to the sky life is bitter, but at least there is hard work, there is hope.
Moreover, the villagers who moved abroad have entrusted their land to Zhang Bing'ai, which is wealth in her eyes and can maintain the life of a family, so she cherishes it especially.
However, no matter how stubborn she is, she can't cope with reality.
Later, as the water level continued to rise, she continued to live in a village alone, which was no longer possible, and the government came to the door several times and finally persuaded Zhang Bing'ai to agree to move out.
Considering the economic situation and practical problems of Zhang Bing'ai's family, the government helped arrange a resettlement house on the side of the road, and her son, who failed the college entrance examination.
In order to make a way out for his family and to alleviate the pressure of life of a poor family, he resolutely chose to go to Xinjiang to become a soldier, and after demobilization, he went to work in other places.
Fortunately, because of "Bing'ai", Zhang Bing'ai's son met such a good boss, willing to give children who grew up in suffering a chance to exercise.
Zhang Bing'ai's son also cherished this opportunity extraordinarily, he was the earliest person to go to the unit, and he was also the latest person to return.
For such an early and greedy behavior, many people can't understand, but Zhang Bing'ai's son said: The opportunity is too precious for them, and he must try his best to repay the boss's kindness.
For parents who are far away from home, Zhang Bing'ai's son also has his own filial piety, and he will send part of his salary home every month.
He said that he wanted to tell his mother with his own practical actions that the child had grown up, no longer had the previous concerns, and that it was better for the family to live a good life than anything else.
With his savings and his son's salary, Zhang Bing'ai finally built a new house and owned two pigsty.
In 2021, the daughter fell in love freely and cultivated positive results, marrying a young man who worked in passenger transport.
The life of Zhang Bing'ai's family has gone through many years of twists and turns, and it has finally begun to have a dawn.
Zhang Bing'ai in 2022 will sometimes go to the riverbank, look at the former homeland, say that he hopes he can have love, and once regretted:
If I had agreed to move out with the villagers, would I be better off now?
Thinking of filial piety to her children, Zhang Bing'ai only feels sweet in her heart, and she has her own pain for the stubborn refusal to move out, but everything has become a foregone conclusion, and the future can be expected.
A grain of ash in the times, falling on the head of an individual is a mountain.
Perhaps for Zhang Bing'ai, happy reunion is the greatest achievement of her life.
The Three Gorges migrants have begun to live in new places, and this memory can be preserved forever.
bibliography:
"Looking Back – Documentary Observation Series" – Screening of "Bing Ai", University of Chinese, Hong Kong, 2020-02-07
Director Feng Yan and her documentary "Bing Ai"; CNTV (China Network Television); 2020-02-07
Searching for the Red Mark | Million Three Gorges Migrants A Miracle That Touched the World; National Party Media; 2021-07-08