In the 1960s, when a large number of orphans appeared in the southern part of the continent, the state finally made the decision to transport 3,000 orphans to Inner Mongolia.
There, they not only survived the most difficult times, but also thrived, and many became pillars.
So what kind of hidden feelings are behind this "three thousand orphans entering Inner Mongolia"? What happened to them as they grew up in Inner Mongolia?
The best choice under difficult circumstances
In the 1960s, due to the weather, a large number of people fell into famine, and some people even went to other places to beg in order to survive.
Vulnerable children are even more difficult to sustain in situations where adults are unable to support them.
Therefore, in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui and other places, there have been a large number of orphans, some of their parents have died, have to be sent to welfare homes, and some parents, although alive, but the family conditions are difficult, they have also been forced to hand over to the government to raise.
However, the local government's finances were soon in crisis, and a large number of orphans could only be transferred to nurseries in Shanghai.
To this end, the Shanghai government has made great sacrifices, preferring to save money and ensure that these children have food, clothing, shelter and transportation.
However, Shanghai, which has always been rich, gradually could not hold on, and finally, Shanghai submitted the situation to the State Council and asked the state to help.
When Premier Zhou learned of this, he was very concerned and said that he would raise these poor children at all costs.
The state has also approved a lot of food, but as the number of people in nurseries continues to surge, these foods are only a drop in the bucket, and a long-term solution must be found to solve this problem.
Later, Premier Zhou considered that the southern part of the country was mainly rice, and natural disasters led to a reduction in grain production, but the people of Inner Mongolia lived by grazing cattle, and the impact was relatively small, and most of them could still be self-sufficient.
Therefore, he immediately contacted his old comrade-in-arms for many years, Ulan fu, chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, hoping that he would help.
Hearing Premier Zhou's request, Ulan Fu attached great importance to it, and he urgently pumped a large amount of meat, eggs and milk, and transported it to Shanghai as quickly as possible, solving the urgent need of the nursery for a period of time.
After detailed research, Comrade Kang Keqing, who was in charge of women's and children's work at the time, and Premier Zhou both believed that it was still unsafe to leave these orphans in Shanghai, and that they could face the threat of starvation at any time.
So Premier Zhou called Ulanf again and came up with a groundbreaking idea.
It is better to transport all these children to Inner Mongolia under the overall arrangement of the state and call on the local "Eji" to come and adopt them.
The so-called Eji, in the Inner Mongolian language is the meaning of mother, every Inner Mongolian child speaks for the first time, the name is Eji.
It was indeed feasible for the mother of Inner Mongolia to let the children of the South adopt the children of the South, so after receiving the order, Ulanf immediately convened a meeting.
At the meeting, he conveyed Premier Zhou's ideas to the leaders at all levels in Inner Mongolia and put forward the slogan of "save one, live one; live one, strengthen one".
Subsequently, under the coordination of the state, Shanghai and Inner Mongolia got in touch, and a large number of children boarded the train to Inner Mongolia.
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In 960, orphans from nursing homes in Shanghai, Changzhou and other places, before and after, almost 3,000 were sent to Inner Mongolia.
Later, this experience was known as the famous "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia" incident.
So, what kind of life do these "children of the country" have in Inner Mongolia?
Care from other places
The first time they entered Inner Mongolia, they were warmly welcomed.
Young Egil, newly married couples, and mothers with multiple children all flocked to the train station to await their arrival.
Inner Mongolia also provides superior conditions for these children.
As we mentioned earlier, Inner Mongolia is less affected by difficult times than in other places, but they have provided a lot of support to all parts of the country, so the lives of local residents are not easy.
But they tightened their trouser belts, provided the children with wide temporary shelters, and provided them with nutritious food according to national standards.
Not only that, before being sent to the herders' homes, the local government also let these children take the lead in recuperating in hospitals, nursery schools and other places.
After all, they are very young, so after a long period of boat and car labor, many people have fallen ill.
In order to rescue them, Inner Mongolia dispatched medical forces from the entire autonomous region and provided timely assistance.
Although a few children still died during this period, most of them recovered their health, and the local adoption channels were soon opened.
And the people who come to adopt are also endless, the door of the nursery is often overcrowded, many herders who have not adopted children are even very anxious, for a while, let these Han children have an Inner Mongolia Eji, has become a local trend.
Although adoption goes through several formalities, the enthusiastic herders do not care, and they have prepared a cozy hut for the child before bringing it back.
After returning home, they are more loving than their own children, and in order to take care of these children from the south, many herders will not hesitate to sacrifice their rations and provide them with the best conditions.
In such a harmonious atmosphere, the children in the south also gradually feel the warmth of the family that has been separated for a long time, they quickly integrate into the local population, and gradually adapt to eating habits and traditional customs.
These originally thin and weak children, one by one, became physically strong and powerful, and compared with their local peers, they were no less than letting go.
In this moving story, the Eji of Inner Mongolia are the most honorable, sharing their great maternal love with children they have never met, taking care of them for decades and giving them the warmth of spring.
It is precisely these Eji, with their most simple labor, that closely connects the hearts of the two nationalities and makes the people of the whole country unprecedentedly united.
Among these Eji, there are government workers and the most simple herders, the most typical of which is Duguima, who raised 28 children.
Duguima: Mother of 28 children
In 1960, when the first children were sent to Inner Mongolia, Duguima, who worked in the nursery, was assigned 28 places.
This year, she was only 19 years old, she had lost her parents since childhood, she had never felt fatherly love and maternal love since childhood, but in the next year or so, she wrote the true meaning of maternal love with simple and unpretentious actions.
Duguima was not yet married at the time, and all of her parenting experience came from the training of the relevant departments, so when she first saw these children, her mood was both nervous and excited.
On the one hand, she worries that she will not be able to raise her children as adults, and on the other hand, she can't wait to contribute to the country.
The first days were hard.
These children, the youngest is only ten months old, and the oldest is just over four years old, and each child needs a lot of meticulous care.
Duguima often had to get up every day before dawn to prepare breakfast for 28 children, and when the children were all up, she had to dress and wash their faces, feed them, and when they were all busy, it was almost noon.
She had to prepare her next meal again, and at this time she didn't even have time to take another sip of water.
In addition to eating and drinking Lasa, the children's sleep is also a problem.
They were all southerners, and for a while they were not accustomed to the climate of Inner Mongolia, so they had insomnia all night long, the children did not sleep, and Guima could not sleep.
She gently shook the children to sleep one by one, sometimes until three or four in the morning to get most of the children to sleep.
After some time, the situation improved, and almost all the children were able to get up on time, but there were still two little boys who were only willing to sleep in Duguima's arms.
Duguima held them without complaint until the baby in her arms fell asleep peacefully.
At that time, the young Duguima had black circles every day, and the people around her asked her half-jokingly,
"Do you regret it"?
But her answer was very firm, "I have never regretted it."
Indeed, every time she saw the baby in her arms calling out to her mother, Guima's happiness came to her.
Treating her 28 children, Guima is hard-working and amiable, but she has also shown a "vicious" side to some guests.
Among the children adopted by Duguima, there was a girl, after a year of tutelage by Duguima, she was exactly five years old, and her body was getting stronger and stronger, and her appearance was getting better and better.
One day, a neighbor came to Duguima's house as a guest, and when he saw the little girl, he joked with her, "This child looks really strong, not like a Shanghai child at all."
It may seem to us that this sentence may not be a big deal, but it infuriated Du Guima, who threw her guests out of the house and warned that Shanghai should never be mentioned.
In fact, Duguima did not do this because she was grumpy, but because she did not want these children to know their identities early, let alone to feel that they were orphans.
Therefore, at the request of DuGuima, the locals rarely mentioned the words "Shanghai" and "orphans", and it was under such protection that the children got a stable childhood.
After a year and a half of parenting, the nursery decided to allocate the place of Duguima to other herders who were willing to adopt.
Duguima knew that taking care of 28 people alone could not provide them with the best life, and it might be better to let them be adopted separately.
Therefore, although she did everything, she finally accepted the organizational arrangement and sent the children to the hands of other Eji one by one.
However, although she no longer raises children, Duguima is obsessed with those children, often looking for opportunities to visit them, and when she meets new parents, she will tirelessly teach them.
Over the years, all the children that Duguima has brought have grown up, and her spirit of selfless dedication has also touched the people of the whole country.
In 2019, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, Duguima was awarded the "People's Model" National Medal of Honor at the Great Hall of the People.
Zhang Fengxian: Eji of six older children
While Du Guima's dedication was praised by everyone on the grassland, Zhang Fengxian's experience also interpreted the image of a mother who volunteered to pay and did not care about returns.
As we mentioned earlier, children from Shanghai were warmly welcomed, however, there were also six children that no parents wanted to adopt.
There is only one reason, they are older, they are both five or six years old, and they can speak the Tao, and they are familiar with their past experiences.
Although such children are easier to care for, as adopters, they prefer that the children be considered their own parents, so these six children are not adopted for the time being.
At that time, Zhang Fengxian was working as a nurse at the Health Center of The Yellow Flag Hayin Halva Commune in Inner Mongolia, and as soon as she saw these little guys, she immediately fell in love with them, and when she saw that no one had adopted them, she decided to raise these children.
However, Zhang Fengxian is newly married to Yan'er, and her husband has not yet given birth, so she is very worried that her husband will not agree, so she finds an opportunity to openly explain the situation of these children.
And said, "I must take them home."
Unexpectedly, the husband not only did not object, but also expressed strong support, and then the two came to the hospital and completed all the adoption procedures.
In the following years, Zhang Fengxian put all her energy into several children, who did not like to eat pasta, so she changed all the noodles in the family to rice.
Seeing the children eating rice fragrantly, her eyes narrowed with a smile.
In the cold winter, the child suddenly fell ill, and she braved the snow to hike more than ten miles and invited the doctor to the house
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Every day, she took care of the lives of these six children in every detail, afraid that anyone did not feel the warmth of affection.
Under such meticulous care, the children are getting healthier and healthier, but Zhang Fengxian's body is deteriorating.
When she died of illness in 1991, she told her children, "You all go to Shanghai to find your own parents."
However, the children said in unison, "The prairie is my home."
Whether it is Du Guima, Zhang Fengxian, or other mothers on the grassland, they are all ordinary characters, but their deeds are enough to shock people's hearts.
It is their selfless dedication that has saved the lives of 3,000 orphans and made great miracles bloom on the grassland.
Now, decades have passed quietly, and these mothers have gradually aged, but their spirits are always shining.
They have proved to the world with practical actions that simple, simple, ordinary and kind Chinese can create indelible miracles, and unity and dedication are the fundamental reasons why the Chinese nation has stood for thousands of years without falling.